Somewhere in Red Gap Read online

  III

  THE REAL PERUVIAN DOUGHNUTS

  The affairs of Arrowhead Ranch are administered by its owner, Mrs.Lysander John Pettengill, through a score or so of hired experts. As atrout-fishing guest of the castle I found the retainers of thisexcellent feudalism interesting enough and generally explicable. Butstanding out among them, both as a spectacle and by reason of hispeculiar activities, is a shrunken little man whom I would hearaddressed as Jimmie Time. He alone piqued as well as interested. Therewas a tang to all the surmises he prompted in me.

  I have said he is a man; but wait! The years have had him, have scouredand rasped and withered him; yet his face is curiously but the face of aboy, his eyes but the fresh, inquiring, hurt eyes of a boy who has beenmisused for years threescore. Time has basely done all but age him. Somuch for the wastrel as Nature has left him. But Art has furthered thepiquant values of him as a spectacle.

  In dress, speech, and demeanour Jimmie seems to be of the West,Western--of the old, bad West of informal vendetta, when a man'sincrease of years might lie squarely on his quickness in the "draw";when he went abundantly armed by day and slept lightly atnight--trigger fingers instinctively crooked. Of course such days havevery definitely passed; wherefore the engaging puzzle of certainsurvivals in Jimmie Time--for I found him still a two-gun man. He worethem rather consciously sagging from his lean hips--almost pompously, itseemed. Nor did he appear properly unconscious of his remainingattire--of the broad-brimmed hat, its band of rattlesnake skin; of thefringed buckskin shirt, opening gallantly across his pinched throat; ofhis corduroy trousers, fitting bedraggled; of his beautiful beadedmoccasins.

  He was perfect in detail--and yet he at once struck me as being tooacutely aware of himself. Could this suspicion ensue, I wondered, fromthe circumstance that the light duties he discharged in and about theArrowhead Ranch house were of a semidomestic character; from a markedincongruity in the sight of him, full panoplied for homicide, bearingarmfuls of wood to the house; or, with his wicked hat pulled desperatelyover a scowling brow, and still with his flaunt of weapons, engaging asinkful of soiled dishes in the kitchen under the eyes of a mere unarmedChinaman who sat by and smoked an easy cigarette at him, scornful offirearms?

  There were times, to be sure, when Jimmie's behaviour was in nice accordwith his dreadful appearance--as when I chanced to observe him late thesecond afternoon of my arrival. Solitary in front of the bunk house, herapidly drew and snapped his side arms at an imaginary foe some pacesin front of him. They would be simultaneously withdrawn from theirholsters, fired from the hip and replaced, the performer snarlingviciously the while. The weapons were unloaded, but I inferred that thefoe crumpled each time.

  Then the old man varied the drama, vastly increasing the advantage ofthe foe and the peril of his own emergency by turning a careless back onthe scene. The carelessness was only seeming. Swiftly he wheeled, andeven as he did so twin volleys came from the hip. It was spirited--theweapons seemed to smoke; the smile of the marksman was evil andmasterly. Beyond all question the foe had crumpled again, despite histremendous advantage of approach.

  I drew gently near before the arms were again holstered and permittedthe full exposure of my admiration for this readiness of retort underdifficulties. The puissant one looked up at me with suspicion, hostileyet embarrassed. I stood admiring ingenuously, stubborn in myfascination. Slowly I won him. The coldness in his bright little eyeswarmed to awkward but friendly apology.

  "A gun fighter lets hisself git stiff," he winningly began; "then, firstthing he knows, some fine day--crack! Like that! All his own fault, too,'cause he ain't kep' in trim." He jauntily twirled one of the heavyrevolvers on a forefinger. "Not me, though, pard! Keep m'self up andcomin', you bet! Ketch me not ready to fan the old forty-four! I guessnot! Some has thought they could. Oh, yes; plenty has thought theycould. Crack! Like that!" He wheeled, this time fatally intercepting thefoe as he treacherously crept round a corner of the bunk house. "Buryin'ground for you, mister! That's all--bury-in' ground!"

  The desperado replaced one of the weapons and patted the other withgrisly affection. In the excess of my admiration I made bold to reachfor it. He relinquished it to me with a mother's yearning. And all toolegible in the polished butt of the thing were notches! Nine sinisternotches I counted--not fresh notches, but emphatic, eloquent, chilling.I thrust the bloody record back on its gladdened owner.

  "Never think it to look at me?" said he as our eyes hung above that grimbit of bookkeeping.

  "Never!" I warmly admitted.

  "Me--I always been one of them quiet, mild-mannered ones that youwouldn't think butter would melt in their mouth--jest up to a certainpoint. Lots of 'em fooled that way about me--jest up to a certain point,mind you--then, crack! Buryin' ground--that's all! Never go huntin'trouble--understand? But when it's put on me--say!"

  He lovingly replaced the weapon--with its mortuary statistics--doffedthe broad-brimmed hat with its snake-skin garniture, and placed aforefinger athwart an area of his shining scalp which is said by acertain pseudoscience to shield several of man's more spiritualattributes. The finger traced an ancient but still evil looking scar.

  "One creased me there," he confessed--"a depity marshal--that time theyhad a reward out for me, dead or alive."

  I was for details.

  "What did you do?"

  Jimmie Time stayed laconic.

  "Left him there--that's all!"

  It was arid, yet somehow informing. It conveyed to me that a marshal hadbeen cleverly put to needing a new deputy.

  "Burying ground?" I guessed.

  "That's all!" He laughed venomously--a short, dry, restrained laugh."They give me a nickname," said he. "They called me Little Sure Shot. Nowonder they did! Ho! I should think they would of called me somethinglike that." He lifted his voice. "Hey! Boogles!"

  I had been conscious of a stooping figure in the adjacent vegetablegarden. It now became erect, a figure of no distinction--short, rounded,decked in carelessly worn garments of no elegance. It slouchedinquiringly toward us between rows of sprouted corn. Then I saw that thehead surmounting it was a noble head. It was uncovered, burnished to ahalf circle of grayish fringe; but it was shaped in the grand manner andwell borne, and the full face of it was beautified by features of a veryRoman perfection. It was the face of a judge of the Supreme Court orthe face of an ideal senator. His large grave eyes bathed us in afriendly regard; his full lips of an orator parted with leisurely andpromising unction. I awaited courtly phrases, richly rounded periods.

  "A regular hell-cat--what he is!"

  Thus vocalized the able lips. Jimmie Time glowed modestly.

  "Show him how I can shoot," said he.

  The amazing Boogies waddled--yet with dignity--to a point ten pacesdistant, drew a coin from the pocket of his dingy overalls, and spun itto the blue of heaven. Ere it fell the deadly weapon bore swiftly on itand snapped.

  "Crack!" said the marksman grimly.

  His assistant recovered the coin, scrutinized it closely, rubbed a fatthumb over its supposedly dented surface, and again spun it. Thedesperado had turned his back. He drew as he wheeled, and again I wasgiven to understand that his aim had been faultless.

  "Good Little Sure Shot!" declaimed Boogies fulsomely.

  "Hold it in your hand oncet," directed Little Sure Shot. The intrepidassistant gallantly extended the half dollar at arm's length betweenthumb and finger and averted his statesman's face with practicedapprehension. "Crack!" said Little Sure Shot, and the coin seemed to bestruck from the unscathed hand. "Only nicked the aidge of it," said he,genially deprecating. "I don't like to take no chancet with the lad'smitt."

  It had indeed been a pretty display of sharpshooting--and noiseless.

  "Had me nervous, you bet, first time he tried that," called Boogles."Didn't know his work then. Thought sure he'd wing me."

  Jimmie Time loftily ejected imaginary shells from his trusty firearm andseemed to expel smoke from its delicate interior. Boogies waddled hisappro
ach.

  "Any time they back Little Sure Shot up against the wall they want toduck," said he warmly. "He has 'em hard to find in about a minute. Tellhim about that fresh depity marshal, Jimmie."

  "I already did," said Jimmie.

  "Ain't he the hell-cat?" demanded Boogles, mopping a brow that DanielWebster would have observed with instant and perhaps envious respect.

  "I been a holy terror in my time, all right, all right!" admitted thehero. "Never think it to look at me though. One o' the deceivin' kindtill I'm put upon; then--good-night!"

  "Jest like that!" murmured Boogles.

  "Buryin' ground--that's all." The lips of the bad man shut grimly onthis.

  "Say," demanded Boogles, "on the level, ain't he the real Peruviandoughnuts? Don't he jest make 'em all hunt their--" The tribute wasunfinished.

  "You ol' Jim! You ol' Jim Time!" Shrilly this came from Lew Wee, Chinesecook of the Arrowhead framed in the kitchen doorway of the ranch house.He brandished a scornful and commanding dish towel at the bad man, whoinstantly and almost cravenly cowered under the distant assault. Thegarment of his old bad past fell from him, leaving him as one exposed inthe market-place to the scornful towels of Chinamen. "You run, ol' JimTime! How you think catch 'um din' not have wood?"

  "Now I was jest goin' to," mumbled Jimmie Time; and he amazingly slunkfrom the scene of his late triumphs toward the open front of awoodhouse.

  His insulter turned back to the kitchen with a final affronting flourishof the towel. The whisper of Boogles came hoarsely to me: "Some of thesedays Little Sure Shot'll put a dose o' cold lead through that Chink'sheart."

  "Is he really dangerous?" I demanded.

  "Dangerous!" Boogles choked warmly on this. "Let me tell you, that oldboy is the real Peruvian doughnuts, and no mistake! Some day there won'tbe so many Chinks round this dump. No, sir-ee! That little cutthroat'llhave another notch in his gun."

  The situation did indeed seem to brim with the cheerfullest promise; yetsomething told me that Little Sure Shot was too good, too perfect.Something warned me that he suffered delusions of grandeur--that hefell, in fact, somewhat short of being the real doughnuts, either of aPeruvian or any other valued sort.

  Nor had many hours passed ere it befell emphatically even so. There hadbeen the evening meal, followed by an hour or so of the always pleasingand often instructive talk of my hostess, Mrs. Lysander John Pettengill,who has largely known life for sixty years and found it entertaining andgood. And we had parted at an early nine, both tired from the work andthe play that had respectively engaged us the day long.

  My candle had just been extinguished when three closely fired shotscracked the vast stillness of the night. Ensued vocal explosions of acurdling shrillness from the back of the house. One instantly knew themto be indignant and Chinese. Caucasian ears gathered this much. I lookedfrom an open window as the impassioned cries came nearer. The lucentmoon of the mountains flooded that side of the house, and starkly intoits light from round the nearest corner struggled Lew Wee, the Chinaman.He shone refulgent, being yet in the white or full-dress uniform of hiscalling.

  In one hand he held the best gun of Jimmie Time; in the other--thereseemed to be a well-gripped connection with the slack of a buckskinshirt--writhed the alleged real doughnuts of a possibly Peruviancharacter. The captor looked aloft and remained vocal, waving the gun,waving Jimmie Time, playing them together as cymbals, never looseningthem. It was fine. It filled the eye and appeased the deepest longingsof the ear.

  Then from a neighbouring window projected the heroic head and shouldersof my hostess, and there boomed into the already vivacious libretto apassionate barytone, or thereabout, of sterling timbre.

  "What in the name of--"

  I leave it there. To do so is not only kind but necessary. The mostindulgent censor that ever guarded the columns of a print intended foryoung and old about the evening lamp would swiftly delete from thisinvocation, if not the name of Deity itself, at least the greater numberof the attributes with which she endowed it. A few were conventionalenough, but they served only to accentuate others that were too hastilyselected in the heat of this crisis. Enough to say that the ladyoverbore by sheer mass of tone production the strident soprano of LewWee, controlling it at length to a lucid disclosure of his grievance.

  From the doorway of his kitchen, inoffensively proffering a finalcigarette to the radiant night, he had been the target of three shotswith intent to kill. He submitted the weapon. He submitted the writhingassassin.

  "I catch 'um!" he said effectively, and rested his case.

  "Now--I aimed over his head." It was Jimmie Time alias Little Sure Shot,and he whimpered the words. "I jest went to play a sell on him."

  The voice of the judge boomed wrathfully on this:

  "You darned pestering mischief, you! Ain't I forbid you time and againever to load them guns? Where'd you get the ca'tridges?"

  "Now--I found 'em," pleaded the bad man. "I did so; I found 'em."

  "Cooned 'em, you mean!" thundered the judge. "You cooned 'em from Buckor Sandy. Don't tell me, you young reprobate!"

  "He all like bad man," submitted the prosecution. "I tell 'um catchstlovewood; he tell 'um me: 'You go to haitch!' I tell 'um: 'You ownselfgo to haitch! He say: 'I flan you my gun plitty soon!' He do."

  "I aimed over the coward's head," protested the defendant.

  "Can happen!" sanely objected the prosecution.

  "Ain't I told you what I'd do if you loaded them guns?" roared thejudge. "Gentle, limping, baldheaded--" [Deleted by censor.] "How manymore times I got to tell you? Now you know what you'll get. You'll getyour needings--that's what you'll get! All day to-morrow! You hear me?You'll wear 'em all day to-morrow! Put 'em on first thing in the morningand wear 'em till sundown. No hiding out, neither! Wear 'em where folkscan see what a bad boy you are. And swearing, too! I got to be 'shamedof you! Yes, sir! Everybody'll know how 'shamed I am to have a tough kidlike you on the place. I won't be able to hold my head up. You wear'em!"

  "I--I--I aimed above--" Jimmie Time broke down. He was weeping bitterly.His captor released him with a final shake, and he brought a forearm tohis streaming eyes.

  "You'll wear 'em all day to-morrow!" again thundered the judge as theculprit sobbed a stumbling way into obscurity.

  "You'self go to haitch!" the unrelenting complainant called after him.

  The judge effected a rumbling withdrawal. The night was again calm. ThenI slept on the problem of the Arrowhead's two-gun bad man. It seemed nowpretty certain that the fatuous Boogles had grossly overpraised him. Imust question his being the real doughnuts of any sort--even themildest--much less the real Peruvian. But what was "'em" that indegrading punishment and to the public shame of the Arrowhead he mustwear on the morrow? What, indeed, could "'em" be?

  I woke, still pondering the mystery. Nor could I be enlightened duringmy breakfast, for this was solitary, my hostess being long abroad to farplaces of the Arrowhead, and the stolid mask of Lew Wee inviting noquestions.

  Breakfast over, I stationed myself in the bracing sunlight that warmedthe east porch and aimlessly overhauled a book of flies. To three thathad proved most popular in the neighbouring stream I did small bits ofmending, ever with a questing eye on adjacent outbuildings, where LittleSure Shot--_nee_ Time--might be expected to show himself, wearing "'em."

  A blank hour elapsed. I no longer affected occupation with the flies.Jimmie Time was irritating me. Had he not been specifically warned to"wear 'em" full shamefully in the public eye? Was not the public eyepresent, avid? Boogles I saw intermittently among beanpoles in thegarden. He appeared to putter, to have no care or system in his labour.And at moments I noticed he was dropping all pretense of this to standmotionless, staring intently at the shut door of the stable.

  Could his fallen idol be there, I wondered? Purposefully I also watchedthe door of the stable. Presently it opened slightly; then, with evidentinfinite caution, it was pushed outward until it hung half yawning. Apalpitant moment we gazed, Boogles
and I. Then shot from the stablegloom an astounding figure in headlong flight. Its goal appeared to bethe bunk house fifty yards distant; but its course was devious, laidclearly with a view to securing such incidental brief shelter as wouldbe afforded by the corral wall, by a meagre clump of buck-brush, by awagon, by a stack of hay. Good time was made, however. The fugitivevanished into the bunk house and the door of that structure was slammedto. But now the small puzzle I had thought to solve had grown to be, inthat brief space--easily under eight seconds--a mystery of enormous, ofsheerly inhuman dimensions. For the swift and winged one had been alltoo plainly a correctly uniformed messenger boy of the Western UnionTelegraph Company--that blue uniform with metal buttons, with thecorded red at the trouser sides, the flat cap fronted by a badge ofnickel--unthinkable, yet there. And the speedy bearer of this scenicinvestiture had been the desperate, blood-letting, two-gun bad man ofthe Arrowhead.

  It was a complication not to be borne with any restraint. I hastened tostand before the shut door of the sanctuary. It slept in an unpromisingstillness. Invincibly reticent it seemed, even when the anguished faceof Jimmie Time, under that incredible cap with its nickeled badge,wavered an instant back of the grimy window--wavered and vanished withan effect of very stubborn finality. I would risk no defeat there. Ipassed resolutely on to Boogles, who now most diligently trained uptender young bean vines in the way they should go.

  "Why does he hide in there?" I demanded in a loud, indignant voice. Iwas to have no nonsense about it.

  Boogles turned on me the slow, lofty, considering regard of a UnitedStates senator submitting to photography for publication in a press thathas no respect for private rights. He lacked but a few clothes and theportico of a capitol. Speech became immanent in him. One should not havebeen surprised to hear him utter decorative words meant for therejoicing and incitement of voters. Yet he only said--or started to say:

  "Little Sure Shot'll get that Chink yet! I tell you, now, that old boyis sure the real Peruvian--"

  This was absurdly too much. I then and there opened on Boogles, openedflooding gates of wrath and scorn on him--for him and for his idol ofclay who, I flatly told him, could not be the real doughnuts of anysort. As for his being the real Peruvian--Faugh!

  Often I had wished to test in speech the widely alleged merits of thisvocable. I found it do all that has been claimed for it. Its effect onBoogles was so withering that I used it repeatedly in the next threeminutes. I even faughed him twice in succession, which is very insultingand beneficial indeed, and has a pleasant feel on the lips.

  "And now then," I said, "if you don't give me the truth of this matterhere and now, one of us two is going to be mighty sorry for it."

  In the early moments of my violence Boogles had protested weakly; thenhe began to quiver perilously. On this I soothed him, and at theprecisely right moment I cajoled. I lured him to the bench by the corralgate, and there I conferred costly cigarettes on him as man to man.Discreetly then I sounded for the origins of a certain bad man who had away--even though they might crease him--of leaving deputy marshals wherehe found them. Boogles smoked one of the cigarettes before he succumbed;but first:

  "Let me git my work," said he, and was off to the bunk house.

  I observed his part in an extended parley before the door was opened tohim. He came to me on the bench a moment later, bearing a ball ofscarlet yarn, a large crochet hook of bone, and something begun in thezephyr but as yet without form.

  "I'm making the madam a red one for her birthday," he confided.

  He bent his statesman's head above the task and wrought with nimblefingers the while he talked. It was difficult, this talk of his,scattered, fragmentary; and his mind would go from it, his voice expireuntimely. He must be prompted, recalled, questioned. His hands workedwith a very certain skill, but in his narrative he dropped stitches.Made to pick these up, the result was still a droning monotony burdenedwith many irrelevancies. I am loath to transcribe his speech. It werebetter reported with an eye strictly to salience.

  You may see, then--and I hope with less difficulty than I had inseeing--Jimmie Time and Boogles on night duty at the front of the littleWestern Union Office off Park Row in the far city of New York. The lawof that city is tender to the human young. Night messenger boys must beadults. It is one of the preliminary shocks to the visitor--to ring forthe messenger boy of tradition and behold in his uniform a venerablegentleman with perhaps a flowing white beard. I still think Jimmie Timeand Boogles were beating the law--on a technicality. Of course Jimmiewas far descended into the vale of years, and even Boogles wasforty--but adults!

  It is three o'clock of a warm spring morning. The two legal adultsconverse in whispers, like bad boys kept after school. They whisper soas not to waken the manager, a blase, mature youth of twenty who sleepsexpertly in the big chair back of the railing. They whisper of theterrific hazards and the precarious rewards of their adventurouscalling. The hazards are nearly all provided by the youngsters who comeon the day watch--hardy ruffians of sixteen or so who not only "pick on"these two but, with sportive affectations, often rob them, when theychange from uniform to civilian attire, of any spoil the night may havebrought them. They are powerless against these aggressions. They can butwhisper their indignation.

  Boogles eyed the sleeping manager.

  "I struck it fine to-night, Jimmie!" he whispered. Jimmie mutelyquestioned. "Got a whole case note. You know that guy over to thenewspaper office--the one that's such a tank drama--he had to send anote up to a girl in a show that he couldn't be there."

  "That tank drama? Sure, I know him. He kids me every time he's stewed."

  "He kids me, too, something fierce; and he give me the case note."

  "Them strong arms'll cop it on you when they get here," warned Jimmie.

  "Took my collar off and hid her on the inside of it. Oh, I know tricks!"

  "Chee! You're all to the Wall Street!"

  "I got to look out for my stepmother, too. She'd crown me with a chairif she thought I held out on her. Beans me about every day just fornothing anyway."

  "Don't you stand for it!"

  "Yah! All right for you to talk. You're the lucky guy. You're an orphan.S'pose you had a stepmother! I wish I was an orphan."

  Jimmie swelled with the pride of orphanship.

  "Yes; I'd hate to have any parents knocking me round," he said. "But ifit ain't a stepmother then it's somebody else that beans you. A guy inthis burg is always getting knocked round by somebody."

  "Read some more of the novel," pleaded Boogles, to change thedistressing topic.

  Jimmie drew a tattered paper romance from the pocket of his faded coatand pushed the cap back from his seamed old forehead. It went backeasily, having been built for a larger head than his. He found the placehe had marked at the end of his previous half-hour with literature.Boogles leaned eagerly toward him. He loved being read to. Doing ithimself was too slow and painful:

  "'No,' said our hero in a clear, ringing voice; 'all your tainted goldwould not keep me here in the foul, crowded city. I must have the free,wild life of the plains, the canter after the Texas steers, and thefierce battles with my peers. For me the boundless, the glorious West!'"

  "Chee! It must be something grand--that wild life!" interruptedBoogles. "That's the real stuff--the cowboy and trapper on themperaries, hunting bufflers and Injuns. I seen a film--"

  Jimmie Time frowned at this. He did not like interruptions. He firmlyresumed the tale:

  "With a gesture of disdain our hero waved aside the proffered gold ofthe scoundrelly millionaire and dashed down the stairway of the proudmansion to where his gallant steed, Midnight, was champing at thehitching post. At that moment--"

  Romance was snatched from the hands of Jimmie Time. The manager toweredabove him.

  "Ain't I told you guys not to be taking up the company's time with themnovels?" he demanded. He sternly returned to his big chair behind therailing, where he no less sternly took up his own perusal of theconfiscated tale.
/>   "The big stiff!" muttered Jimmie. "That's the third one he's copped onme this week. A kid in this choint ain't got no rights! I got a goodnotion to throw 'em down cold and go with the Postal people."

  "Never mind! I'll blow you to an ice cream after work," consoledBoogles.

  "Ice cream!" Jimmie Time was contemptuous. "I want the free, wild lifeof the boundless peraries. I want b'ar steaks br'iled on the glowingcoals of the camp fire. I want to be Little Sure Shot, trapper, scout,and guide--"

  "Next out!" yelled the manager. "Hustle now!"

  Jimmie Time was next out. He hustled sullenly.

  Boogles, alone, slept fitfully on his bench until the young thugs of theday watch straggled in. Then he achieved the change of his uniform tocivilian garments, with only the accustomed minor maltreatment at thehands of these tormentors. True, with sportive affectations--yet withdeadly intentness--they searched him for possible loot; but only hispockets. His dollar bill, folded inside his collar, went unfound. Withassumed jauntiness he strolled from the outlaws' den and safely reachedthe street.

  The gilding on the castellated towers of the tallest building in theworld dazzled his blinking, foolish eyes. That was a glorious summitwhich sang to the new sun, but no higher than his own elation at themoment. Had he not come off with his dollar? He found balm and a tenderstimulus in the morning air--an air for dreams and revolt. Boogles feltthis as thousands of others must have felt it who were yet tamelyissuing from subway caverns and the Brooklyn Bridge to be wage slaves.

  A block away from the office he encountered Jimmie Time, who seemed toawait him importantly. He seethed with excitement.

  "I got one, too!" he called. "That tank drama he sent another noteuptown to a restaurant where a party was, and he give me a case note,too."

  He revealed it; and when Boogles withdrew his own treasure the two werelovingly compared and admired. Nothing in all the world can be so foulto the touch as the dollar bill that circulates in New York, but thesetwo were intrepidly fondled.

  "I ain't going back to change," said Jimmie Time. "Them other kids wouldcop it on me."

  "Have some cigarettes," urged Boogies, and royally bought them--withgilded tips, in a beautiful casket.

  "I had about enough of their helling," declared Jimmie, still glowingwith a fine desperation.

  They sought the William Street Tunnel under the Brooklyn Bridge. It wascool and dark there. One might smoke and take his ease. And plan! Theysprawled on the stone pavement and smoked largely.

  "Chee! If we could get out West and do all them fine things!" musedBoogies.

  "Let's!" said Jimmie Time.

  "Huh!" Boogies gasped blankly at this.

  "Let's beat it!"

  "Chee!" said Boogies. He stared at this bolder spirit with startledadmiration.

  "Me--I'm going," declared Jimmie Time stoutly, and waited.

  Boogies wavered a tremulous moment.

  "I'm going with you," he managed at last.

  He blurted the words. They had to rush out to beat down his nativecaution with quick blows.

  "Listen!" said Jimmie Time impressively. "We got money enough to start.Then we just strike out for the peraries."

  "Like the guy in the story!" Boogies glowed at the adept who before hisvery eyes was turning a beautiful dream into stark reality. He waspraying that his own courage to face it would endure.

  "You hurry home," commanded Jimmie, "and cop an axe and all the grub youcan lay your hands on."

  Boogies fell from the heights as he had feared he would.

  "Aw, chee!" he said sanely. "And s'pose me stepmother gets her lamps onme! Wouldn't she bean me? Sure she would!"

  "Bind her and gag her," said Jimmie promptly. "What's one weak woman?"

  "Yah! She's a hellion and you know it."

  "Listen!" said Jimmie sternly. "If you're going into the wild andlawless life of the peraries with me you got to learn to get things.Jesse James or Morgan's men could get me that axe and that grub, and notmake one-two-three of it."

  "Them guys had practice--and likely they never had to go against theirstepmothers."

  "Do I go alone, then?"

  "Well, now--"

  "Will you or won't you?"

  Boogies drew a fateful breath.

  "I'll take a chance. You wait here. If I ain't back in one hour you'llknow I been murdered."

  "Good, my man!" said Jimmie Time with the air of an outlaw chief. "Beoff at once."

  Boogies was off. And Boogies was back in less than the hour with adelectable bulging meal sack. He was trembling but radiant.

  "She seen me gitting away and she yelled her head off," he gasped; "butyou bet I never stopped. I just thought of Jesse James and GeneralGrant, and run like hell!"

  "Good, my man!" said Jimmie Time; and then, with a sudden gleam of thepractical, he inventoried the commissary and quartermaster supplies inthe sack. He found them to be: One hatchet; one well-used boiledhambone; six greasy sugared crullers; four dill pickles; a bottle ofcatchup; two tomatoes all but obliterated in transit; two loaves ofbread; a flatiron.

  Jimmie cast the last item from him.

  "Wh'd you bring that for?" he demanded.

  "I don't know," confessed Boogies. "I just put it in. Mebbe I was afraidshe'd throw it at me when I was making my getaway. It'll be good forcracking nuts if we find any on the peraries. I bet they have nuts!"

  "All right, then. You can carry it if you want to, pard."

  Jimmie thrust the bundle into Boogies' arms and valiantly led adesperate way to the North River. Boogies panted under his burden asthey dodged impatient taxicabs. So they came into the maze of docktraffic by way of Desbrosses Street. The eyes of both were lit byadventure. Jimmie pushed through the crowd on the wharf to a ticketoffice. A glimpse through a door of the huge shed had given himinspiration. No common ferryboats for them! He had seen the statelyriver steamer, _Robert Fulton_, gay with flags and bunting, awaiting thethrong of excursionists. He recklessly bought tickets. So far, so good.A momentous start had been made.

  At this very interesting point in his discourse to me, however, Boogiesbegan to miss explosions too frequently. From the disorderly jumble ofhis narrative to this moment I believe I have brought something like thetruth; I have caused the widely scattered parts to cohere. After this Icould make little of his maunderings.

  They were on the crowded boat and the boat steamed up the Hudson River;and they disembarked at a thriving Western town--which, I gather, wasYonkers--because Boogies feared his stepmother might trace him to thisboat, and because Jimmie Time became convinced that detectives were onhis track, wanting him for the embezzlement of a worn but stillpracticable uniform of the Western Union Telegraph Company. So it wasagreed that they should take to the trackless forest, where there areways of throwing one's pursuers off the scent; where they would travelby night, guided by the stars, and lay up by day, subsisting on springwater and a little pemmican--source undisclosed. They were not going tobe taken alive--that was understood.

  They hurried through the streets of this thriving Western town,ultimately boarding an electric car--with a shrewd eye out for thehellhounds of the law; and the car took them to the beginning of thefrontier, where they found the trackless forest. They reached the depthsof this forest after climbing a stone wall; and Jimmie Time said theWest looked good to him and that he could already smell the "b'ar steaksbr'iling."

  Plain enough still, perhaps; but immediately it seemed that a princesshad for some time been sharing this great adventure. She was a beautifulgolden-haired princess, though quite small, and had flowers in her hairand put some in the cap of Jimmie Time--behind the nickel badge--andsaid she would make him her court dwarf or jester or knight, orsomething; only the scout who was with her said this was rather sillyand that they had better be getting home or they knew very well whatwould happen to them. But when they got lost Jimmie Time looked at thisscout's rifle and said it was a first-class rifle, and would knock anIndian or a wild animal silly.

  And the
scout smoked a cigarette and got sick by it, and cried somethingfierce; so they made a fire, and the princess didn't get sick when shesmoked hers, but told them a couple of bully stories, like reading in abook, and ate every one of the greasy sugared crullers, because she wasa genuine princess, and Boogies thought at this time that maybe theboundless West wasn't what it was cracked up to be; so, after they metthe madam, the madam said, well, if they was wanting to go out West theymight as well come along here; and they said all right--as long as theywas wanting to go out West anyway, why, they might as well come alongwith her as with anybody else.

  And that Chink would mighty soon find out if Little Sure Shot wasn't thereal Peruvian doughnuts, because that old murderer would sure have himhard to find, come sundown; still, he was glad he had come along withthe madam, because back there it wasn't any job for you, account ofgetting too fat for the uniform, with every one giving you the laughthat way--and they wouldn't get you a bigger one--.

  I left Boogies then, though he seemed not to know it. His needle workedswiftly on the red one he was making for the madam, and his aimless,random phrases seemed to flow as before; but I knew now where to applyfor the details that had been too many for his slender gift ofnarrative.

  At four that afternoon Mrs. Lysander John Pettengill, accompanied by oneBuck Devine, a valued retainer, rode into the yard and dismounted. Sheat once looked searchingly about her. Then she raised her voice, whichis a carrying voice even when not raised: "You, Jimmie Time!"

  Once was enough. The door of the bunk house swung slowly open and thedisgraced one appeared in all his shameful panoply. The cap was pulledwell down over a face hopelessly embittered. The shrunken little figuredrooped.

  "None of that hiding out!" admonished his judge. "You keep standinground out here where decent folks can look at you and see what a badboy you are."

  With a glance she identified me as one of the decent she would haveedified. Jimmie Time muttered evilly in undertones and slouched forward,head down.

  "Ain't he the hostile wretch?" called Buck Devine, who stood with thehorses. He spoke with a florid but false admiration.

  Jimmie Time, snarling, turned on him: "You go to--."

  I perceived that Lew Wee the night before had delicately indicated by amere initial letter a bad word that could fall trippingly from the lipsof Jimmie.

  "Sure!" agreed Buck Devine cordially. "And say, take this here telegramup to the corner of Broadway and Harlem; and move lively now--don't youstop to read any of them nickel liberries."

  I saw what a gentleman should do. I turned my back on the piteous figureof Jimmie Time. I moved idly off, as if the spectacle of his ignominyhad never even briefly engaged me.

  "Shoot up a good cook, will you?" said the lady grimly. "I'll give youyour needings." She followed me to the house.

  On the west porch, when she had exchanged the laced boots, khaki ridingbreeches, and army shirt for a most absurdly feminine house gown, we hadtea. Her nose was powdered, and her slippers were bronzed leather andmonstrous small. She mingled Scotch whiskey with the tea and drank herfirst cupful from a capacious saucer.

  "That fresh bunch of campers!" she began. "What you reckon they did lastnight? Cut my wire fence in two places over on the west flat--yes,sir!--had a pair of wire clippers in the whip socket. What I didn't give'em! Say, ain't it a downright wonder I still retain my girlishlaughter?"

  But then, after she had refused my made cigarette for one of her owndeft handiwork, she spoke as I wished her to:

  "Yes; three years ago. Me visiting a week at the home of Mrs. W.B.Hemingway and her husband, just outside of Yonkers, back in York State.A very nice swell home, with a nice front yard and everything. And alsoMrs. W.B.'s sister and her little boy, visiting her from Albany, thesister's name being Mrs. L.H. Cummins, and the boy being nine years oldand named Rupert Cummins, Junior; and very junior he was for his age,too--I will say that. He was a perfectly handsome little boy; but youmight call him a blubberhead if you wanted to, him always being scaredsilly and pestered and rough-housed out of his senses by his little girlcousin, Margery Hemingway--Mrs. W.B.'s little girl, you understand--andher only seven, or two years younger than Junior, but leading him roundinto all kinds of musses till his own mother was that demoralized aftera couple of days she said if that Margery child was hers she'd have herput away in some good institution.

  "Of course she only told that to me, not to Margery's mother. I don'tknow--mebbe she would of put her away, she was that frightened littleMargery would get Junior killed off in some horrible manner, like thetime she got him to see how high he dast jump out of the apple treefrom, or like the time she told him, one ironing day, that if he drank awhole bowlful of starch it would make him have whiskers like his pa infifteen minutes. Things like that--not fatal, mebbe, but wearing.

  "Well, this day come a telegram about nine A.M. for Mrs. W.B., that heraunt, with money, is very sick in New Jersey, which is near Yonkers; soshe and Mrs. L.H. Cummins, her sister, must go to see about thisaunt--and would I stay and look after the two kids and not let them getpoisoned or killed or anything serious? And they might have to stayovernight, because the aunt was eccentric and often thought she wassick; but this time she might be right. She was worth all the way fromthree to four hundred thousand dollars.

  "So I said I'd love to stay and look after the little ones. I wanted tostay. Shopping in New York City the day before, two bargain sales--onebeing hand-embroidered Swiss waists from two-ninety-eight upward--I feltas if a stampede of longhorns had caught me. Darned near bedfast I was!Say, talk about the pale, weak, nervous city woman with exhaustedvitality! See 'em in action first, say I. There was a corn-fed hussy ina plush bonnet with forget-me-nots, two hundred and thirty or forty onthe hoof, that exhausted my vitality all right--no holds barred, an armlike first-growth hick'ry across my windpipe, and me up against a solidpillar of structural ironwork! Once I was wrastled by a cinnamon bearthat had lately become a mother; but the poor old thing would have losther life with this dame after the hand-embroidereds. Gee! I was lame inplaces I'd lived fifty-eight years and never knew I had.

  "So off went these ladies, with Mrs. L.H. Cummins giving me special andprivate warning to be sure and keep Junior well out of it in case littlemischievous Margery started anything that would be likely to kill her.And I looked forward to a quiet day on the lounge, where I could ache inpeace and read the 'Famous Crimes of History,' which the W.B.'s had intwelve volumes--you wouldn't have thought there was that many, wouldyou? I dressed soft, out of respect to my corpse, and picked out acorking volume of these here Crimes and lay on the big lounge by an openwindow where the breeze could soothe me and where I could keep tabs onthe little ones at their sports; and everything went as right as if Ihad been in some A-Number-One hospital where I had ought to of been.

  "Lunchtime come before I knew it; and I had mine brought to my bed ofpain by the Swede on a tray, while the kids et theirs in an orderly anduproarious manner in the dining-room. Rupert, Junior, was dressed likeone of these boy scouts and had his air gun at the table with him, andlittle Margery was telling him there was, too, fairy princes all roundin different places; and she bet she could find one any day she wantedto. They seemed to be all safe enough, so I took up my Crimes again.Really, ain't history the limit?--the things they done in it and gotaway with--never even being arrested or fined or anything!

  "Pretty soon I could hear the merry prattle of the little ones again outin the side yard. Ain't it funny how they get the gambling spirit soyoung? I'd hear little Margery say: 'I bet you can't!' And Rupert,Junior, would say:' I bet I can, too!' And off they'd go ninety miles ona straight track: 'I bet you'd be afraid to!'--'I bet I wouldn'tbe!'--'I bet you'd run as fast!'--'I bet I never would!' Ever see suchnatural-born gamblers? And it's all about what Rupert, Junior, would doif he seen a big tiger in some woods--Rupert betting he'd shoot it dead,right between the eyes, and Margery taking the other end. She has by farthe best end of it, I think, it being at least a forty-to-one shot th
atRupert, the boy scout, is talking high and wide. And I drop into theCrimes again at a good, murderous place with stilettos.

  "I can't tell even now how it happened. All I know is that it was twoo'clock, and all at once it was five-thirty P.M. by a fussy gold clockover on the mantel with a gold young lady, wearing a spear, standing ontop of it. I woke up without ever suspicioning that I'd been asleep.Anyway, I think I'm feeling better, and I stretch, though careful,account of the dame in the plush bonnet with forget-me-nots; and I liethere thinking mebbe I'll enter the ring again to-morrow for some othertruck I was needing, and thinking how quiet and peaceful it is--howawful quiet! I got it then, all right. That quiet! If you'd known littleMargery better you'd know how sick that quiet made me all at once. Mygizzard or something turned clean over.

  "I let out a yell for them kids right where I lay. Then I bounded to myfeet and run through the rooms downstairs yelling. No sign of 'em! Andout into the kitchen--and here was Tillie, the maid, and Yetta, thecook, both saying it's queer, but they ain't heard a sound of 'emeither, for near an hour. So I yelled out back to an old hick of agardener that's deef, and he comes running; but he don't know a thing onearth about the kids or anything else. Then I am sick! I send Tillie oneway along the street and the gardener the other way to find out if anyneighbours had seen 'em. Then in a minute this here Yetta, the cook,says: 'Why, now, Miss Margery was saying she'd go downtown to buy somecandy,' and Yetta says: 'You know, Miss Margery, your mother never 'etsyou have candy.' And Margery says: 'Well, she might change her mind anyminute--you can't tell; and it's best to have some on hand in case shedoes.' And she'd got some poker chips out of the box to buy the candywith--five blue chips she had, knowing they was nearly money anyway.

  "And when Yetta seen it was only poker chips she knew the kid couldn'tbuy candy with 'em--not even in Yonkers; so she didn't think any moreabout it until it come over her--just like that--how quiet everythingwas. Oh, that Yetta would certainly be found bone clear to the centre ifher skull was ever drilled--the same stuff they slaughter the poorelephants for over in Africa--going so far away, with Yetta right thereto their hands, as you might say. And I'm getting sicker and sicker! I'dhave retained my calm mind, mind you, if they had been my own kids--butkids of others I'd been sacredly trusted with!

  "And then down the back stairs comes this here sandy-complected,horse-faced plumber that had been frittering away his time all day up ina bathroom over one little leak, and looking as sad and mournful as ifhe hadn't just won eight dollars, or whatever it was. He must have beenborn that way--not even being a plumber had cheered him up.

  "'Blackhanders!'" he says right off, kind of brightening a little bit.

  "I like to fainted for fair! He says they had lured the kids off withcandy and popcorn, and would hold 'em in a tenement house for tenthousand dollars, to be left on a certain spot at twelve P.M. He seemedto know a lot about their ways.

  "'They got the Honourable Simon T. Griffenbaugh's youngest that way,'he says, 'only a month ago. Likely the same gang got these two.'

  "'How do you know?' I asks him.

  "'Well,' he says, 'they's a gang of over two hundred of these I-talianBlackhanders working right now on a sewer job something about two milesup the road. That's how I know,' he says. 'That's plain enough, ain'tit? It's as plain as the back of my hand. What chance would them twodefenceless little children have with a gang of two hundredBlackhanders?'

  "But that looked foolish, even to me. 'Shucks!' I says. 'That don'tstand to reason.' But then I got another scare. 'How about water?' Isays. 'Any places round here they could fall into and get drownded?'

  "He'd looked glum again when I said two hundred Blackhanders didn'tsound reasonable; but he cheers up at this and says: 'Oh, yes; lots ofplaces they could drownd--cricks and rivers and lakes and ponds andtanks--any number of places they could fall into and never come upagain.' Say, he made that whole neighbourhood sound like Venice, Italy.You wondered how folks ever got round without gondolas or something.'One of Dr. George F. Maybury's two kids was nearly drownded lastTuesday--only the older one saved him; a wonder it was they didn't haveto drag the river and find 'em on the bottom locked in each other'sarms! And a boy by the name of Clifford Something, only the other day,playing down by the railroad tracks--'

  "I shut him off, you bet! I told him to get out quick and go to his homeif he had one.

  "'I certainly hope I won't have to read anything horrible in to-morrow'spaper!' he says as he goes down the back stoop. 'Only last week they wasa nigger caught--'

  "I shut the door on him. Rattled good and plenty I was by then. Backcomes this silly old gardener--he'd gone with his hoe and was stillgripping it. The neighbours down that way hadn't seen the kids. Backcomes Tillie. One neighbour where she'd been had seen 'em climb on to astreet car--only it wasn't going downtown but into the country; and thisneighbour had said to herself that the boy would be likely to let someone have it in the eye with his gun, the careless way he was lugging it.

  "Thank the Lord, that was a trace! I telephoned to the police and told'em all about it. And I telephoned for a motor car for me and got intosome clothes. Good and scared--yes! I caught sight of my face in thelooking-glass, and, my! but it was pasty--it looked like one of thesecheap apple pies you see in the window of a two-bit lunch place! Andwhile I'm waiting for this motor car, what should come but a telegramfrom Mr. W.B. himself saying that the aunt was worse and he would go toNew Jersey himself for the night! Some said this aunt was worth a gooddeal more than she was supposed to be. And I not knowing the name ofthis town in Jersey where they would all be!--it was East Something orWest Something, and hard to remember, and I'd forgot it.

  "I called the police again and they said descriptions was being sentout, and that probably I'd better not worry, because they often hadcases like this. And I offered to bet them they hadn't a case sinceYonkers was first thought of that had meant so much spot cash to 'em asthis one would mean the minute I got a good grip on them kids. So thiscop said mebbe they had better worry a little, after all, and they'dsend out two cars of their own and scour the country, and try to findthe conductor of this street car that the neighbour woman had seen thekids get on to.

  "I r'ared round that house till the auto come that I'd ordered. It waslate coming, naturally, and nearly dark when it got there; but wecovered a lot of miles while the daylight lasted, with the man lookingsharp out along the road, too, because he had three kids of his own thatwould do any living thing sometimes, though safe at home and asleep atthat minute, thank God!

  "It was moisting when we started, and pretty soon it clouded up and thedark came on, and I felt beat. We got fair locoed. We'd go down one roadand then back the same way. We stopped to ask everybody. Then we foundthe two autos sent out by the police. I told the cops again what wouldhappen to 'em from me the minute the kids was found--the kids or theirbodies. I was so despairing--what with that damned plumber andeverything! I'll bet he's the merry chatterbox in his own home. Thepolice said cheer up--nothing like that, with the country as safe as achurch. But we went over to this Blackhanders' construction camp, justthe same, to make sure, and none of the men was missing, the boss said,and no children had been seen; and anyway his men was ordinary decentwops and not Blackhanders--and blamed if about fifty of 'em didn't turnout to help look! Yes, sir, there they was--foreigners to the last manexcept the boss, who was Irish--and acting just like human beings.

  "It was near ten o'clock now; so we went to a country saloon totelephone police headquarters, and they had found the car conductor, heremembering because he had threatened to put the boy scout off the carif he didn't quit pointing his gun straight at an old man with goldspectacles setting across the aisle. And finally they had got offthemselves about three miles down the road; he'd watched 'em climb overa stone wall and start up a hill into some woods that was there. And hewas Conductor Number Twenty-seven, if we wanted to know that.

  "We beat it to that spot after I'd powdered my nose and we'd had a quickround of drinks.
The policemen knew where it was. It wasn't moisting anymore--it was raining for fair; and we done some ground-and-loftyskidding before we got there. We found the stone wall all right and theslope leading up to the woods; but, my Lord, there was a good half mileof it! We strung out--four cops and my driver and me--hundreds of yardsapart and all yelling, so maybe the poor lost things would hear us.

  "We made up to the woods without raising a sign; and, my lands, wasn'tit dark inside the woods! I worked forward, trying to keep straight fromtree to tree; but I stumbled and tore my clothes and sprained my wrist,and blacked one eye the prettiest you'd want to see--mighty near being ablubberhead myself, I was--it not being my kids, you understand. Oh, Ikept to it though! I'd have gone straight up the grand old state of NewYork into Lake Erie if something hadn't stopped me.

  "It was a light off through the pine and oak trees, and down in a kindof little draw--not a lamplight but a fire blazing up. I yelled to bothsides toward the others. I can yell good when I'm put to it. Then Istarted for the light. I could make out figures round the fire. Mebbeit's a Blackhanders' camp, I think; so I didn't yell any more. Icat-footed. And in a minute I was up close and seen 'em--there in thedripping rain.

  "Rupert, Junior, was asleep, leaned setting up against a tree, with amessenger boy's cap on. And Margery was asleep on a pile of leaves, withher cheek on one hand and something over her. And a fat man was asleepon his back, with his mouth open, making an awful fuss about it. And theonly one that wasn't asleep was a funny little old man setting againstanother tree. He had on the scout's campaign hat and he held the gunacross his chest in the crook of his arm. He hadn't any coat on. Then Isee his coat was what was over Margery; and I looked closer and it was amessenger boy's coat.

  "I was more floored than ever when I took that in. I made a little move,and this funny old man must have heard me--he looked like one of themsilly little critters that play hob with Rip Van Winkle out on themountain before he goes to sleep. And he cocks his ears this way andthat; then he jumped to his feet, and I come forward where he could seeme. And darned if he didn't up with this here air gun of Rupert's, likea flash, and plunk me with a buckshot it carried--right on my sprainedwrist, too!

  "Say, I let out a yell, and I had him by the neck of his shirt in onegrab. I was still shaking him when the others come to. The fat man setup and rubbed his eyes and blinked. That's all he done. Rupert woke upthe same minute and begun to cry like a baby; and Margery woke up, butshe didn't cry. She took a good look at me and she says: 'You let himalone! He's my knight--he slays all the dragons. He's a good knight!'

  "There I was, still shaking the little old man--I'd forgot all abouthim. So I dropped him on the ground and reached for Margery; and I wasso afraid I was going to blubber like Rupert, the scout, that I let outsome words to keep from it. Yes, sir; I admit it.

  "'Oh! Oh! Oh! Swearing!' says Rupert. I shall tell mother and Aunt Hildajust what you said!'

  "Mebby you can get Rupert's number from that. I did anyway. I stood upfrom Margery and cuffed him. He went on sobbing, but not without reason.

  "'Margery Hemingway,' I says, 'how dare you!' And she looks up all cooland cunning, and says: 'Ho! I bet I know worse words than what you said!See if I don't.' So then I shut her off mighty quick. But still shedidn't cry. 'I s'pose I must go back home,' she says. 'And perhaps it isall for the best. I have a very beautiful home. Perhaps I should staythere oftener.'

  "I turned on the Blackhanders.

  "'Did these brutes entice you away with candy?' I demanded. 'Was theyholding you here for ransom?'

  "'Huh! I should think not!' she says. 'They are a couple of 'fraid-cats.They were afraid as anything when we all got lost in these woods andwanted to keep on finding our way out. And I said I bet they were awfulcowards, and the fat one said of course he was; but this old one becamevery, very indignant and said he bet he wasn't any more of a coward thanI am, but we simply ought to go where there were more houses. And so Iconsented and we got lost worse than ever--about a hundred miles, Ithink--in this dense forest and we couldn't return to our beautifulhomes. And this one said he was a trapper, scout, and guide; so he builtthis lovely fire and I ate a lot of crullers the silly things hadbrought with them. And then this old one flung his robe over me becauseI was a princess, and it made me invisible to prowling wolves; andanyway he sat up to shoot them with his deadly rifle that he took awayfrom Cousin Rupert. And Cousin Rupert became very tearful indeed; so wetook his hat away, too, because it's a truly scout hat.'

  "'And she smoked a cigarette,' says Rupert, still sobbing.

  "'He smoked one, too, and I mean to tell his mother,' says Margery.'It's something I think she ought to know.'

  "'It made me sick,' says Rupert. 'It was a poison cigarette; I nearlydied.'

  "'Mine never made me sick,' says Margery--'only it was kind of sting-yto the tongue and I swallowed smoke through my nose repeatedly. Andfirst, this old one wouldn't give us the cigarettes at all, until Ithreatened to cast a spell on him and turn him into a toad forever. Inever did that to any one, but I bet I could. And the fat one cried likeanything and begged me not to turn the old one into a toad, and the oldone said he didn't think I could in a thousand years, but he wouldn'ttake any chances in the Far West; so he gave us the cigarettes, andRupert only smoked half of his and then he acted in a very common way, Imust say. And this old one said we would have br'iled b'ar steaks forbreakfast. What is a br'iled b'ar steak? I'm hungry.'

  "Such was little angel-faced Margery. Does she promise to make lifeinteresting for those who love her, or does she not?

  "Well, that's all. Of course these cops when they come up said the twomen was desperate crooks wanted in every state in the Union; but I sworeI knew them both well and they was harmless; and I made it right with'em about the reward as soon as I got back to a check book. After thatthey'd have believed anything I said. And I sent something over to theBlackhanders that had turned out to help look, and something toConductor Number Twenty-seven. And the next day I squared myself withMrs. W.B. Hemingway and her husband, and Mrs. L.H. Cummins, when theycome back, the aunt not having been sick but only eccentric again.

  "And them two poor homeless boys--they kind of got me, I admit, afterI'd questioned 'em awhile. So I coaxed 'em out here where they couldlead the wild, free life. Kind of sad and pathetic, almost, they was.The fat one I found was just a kind of natural-born one--a feeb youunderstand--and the old one had a scar that the doctor said explainedhim all right--you must have noticed it up over his temple. It's wherehis old man laid him out once, when he was a kid, with a stovelifter. Itseemed to stop his works.

  "Yes; they're pretty good boys. Boogies was never bad but once, accountof two custard pies off the kitchen window sill. I threatened him withhis stepmother and he hid under the house for twenty-four hours. Theother one is pretty good, too. This is only the second time I had topunish him for fooling with live ca'tridges. There! It's sundown andhe's got on his Wild Wests again."

  Jimmie Time swaggered from the bunk house in his fearsome regalia. Underthe awed observation of Boogles he wheeled, drew, and shot from the hipone who had cravenly sought to attack him from the rear.

  "My, but he's hostile!" murmured my hostess. "Ain't he just the hostilelittle wretch?"