Chapter I: WAS too much upset to go to sleep very early that night, even though (4)

The stage wallowed into Breed City about nightfall. It had tipped over twice on the way, its wheels sinking into “honey-pots” of mud, rolling over slowly like a tired cow lying down to rest. We swearing passengers had been compelled to pry it up with poles borrowed from a rancher. During these waits and during the meal at a sort of half-way house, Judge Kingsley, mud-spattered, scared into conniptions when he thought of what would be coming behind us from Royal City, miserable as a wet cat, and seeing nothing ahead for consolation, muttered to me constantly his familiar taunt that he was being teamed about the country by a lunatic.

I didn’t know exactly what to say, and made him still angrier by confessing that he was undoubtedly correct.

We left the coach in front of the hotel that the driver had recommended, and we stepped from the board sidewalk like passengers disembarking from a boat; the mud in the street was fairly a river of mire.

“Even if you don’t like the ‘Prairie Pride’ very well,” my new friend had said, “you’ll have a lot of fun watching the White Ghost operate. There’s only one of his kind in these parts, or anywhere else in the world, so fur’s I know. Folks come from a long ways off and stand around the windows and doors of the ‘Prairie Pride’ hotel and see the White Ghost perform. Oh no, I don’t mean that the house is haunted. The White Ghost is the waiter. He’s the only waiter they have in the dining-room. He won’t have anybody else there. He prides himself on doing it all alone. Says he is the only waiter in the world who can handle fifty guests and four Chinese cooks single-handed and keep everybody happy and busy eating. He’s a little cracked in the head, but he’s sure a wonder on his feet. A streak of white lightning would have to whistle for him to turn around and come back and meet it.”

Now this bit of information, when I listened to it, stirred in me merely a half-determination to go to another hotel, where the waiter did not give a show along with his services.

How often does man slight some odd tools that Fate lays in his way, especially when Fate doesn’t draw his attention to them!

The “Prairie Pride” hotel deserved its name in some measure. It had smooth floors, real doors, and walls of plaster. Its big office thronged with guests, whose character was plain enough. There were slick drummers and bearded and booted miners fresh from the hills, down for a bit of a spring whirl, and there were mining engineers and such like.

We were given a room and at the same time we were given a hint that we’d better hurry to supper before the hungry mob cleaned up all the best dishes. Again my clothes coaxed this courtesy!

“Cross the big dining-room and go into the alcove,” directed the clerk, after a glance at my hat. “The alcove is for gents. We herd the others in the big room.”

I crossed this main hall a few steps in advance of Judge Kingsley. Men were crowded at the tables gobbling food. No fancy feeding! Men jabbed knives into their mouths and grabbed stuff off plates and smacked their lips and snuffled and grunted. I stopped in the alleyway between these tables to look about. I heard a yell of warning and dodged just in time to escape.

Double swinging doors with spring hinges were burst open by the impact of a foot that must have been swung waist high for the kick. Out into the dining-room shot the individual who had kicked.

It was an apparition!

He was more than six feet tall and as slim as a beanpole. He wore a white cap, a white jacket, a white apron shrouded him to his heels, and he wore white shoes. He had a white, peaked face and his hair was tow-colored. On a huge tray that he held well above his head dishes were heaped high. He went past me and down the alleyway on the dead run, and wisps of steam from his load followed after, trailing on the air.

“You want to keep out of the road in this dining-room when the White Ghost is on the rampage,” advised a guest at the table in the alcove where we took seats. “He’s going to get somebody some day fine and plenty. A few months ago he got old Babb Coan, who was down here on crutches, nursing a broken leg, and couldn’t get out of the way in season. But the White Ghost was loaded with empty dishes--just empties. Some day he’s going to connect when he’s loaded with about seventeen hot dinners.”

The next moment a white streak came into the alcove, took half a dozen orders and darted back into the kitchen with a tray-load of empty dishes.

“It advertises the hotel,” explained the talkative guest. “Men come here from far and near to see the White Ghost razoo up and down the stretch, but for me I’d rather have more waiters and less slamming. It keeps me nervous, and when I’m nervous I can’t do justice to my vittles. I’m all the time expecting to see that man that’s doomed to get _his_ get it. It’ll be a mighty mushy affair.”

By this time the White Ghost was back and was scaling loaded dishes about the table with a deftness that a quick dealer shows in a poker game.

And I, still blind to what Fate was preparing for my side of the case, was merely irritated by this tophet-te-larrup!

When supper was over we seized an opportunity when the White Ghost was on an outward trip and escaped.

I advised the judge that he’d better take the key and go to our room and get into bed, and the old man accepted that advice with a sigh of thankfulness. He looked bent, weary, and broken as he climbed the stairs; homesick hopelessness showed in every line of his face and in every motion of his body. I did pity him then!

“Poor old father of the girl with the two bright eyes,” I said, not realizing that I had spoken aloud.

A man sidled up and prodded me with his thumb.

“I heard what you said to the old gent just now! Where did you get your tip, pard?” he whispered.

I had already forgotten just what the driver had said.

“You needn’t let it out if you don’t want to. But there’s a little inside guessing in these parts and when you hear a man let drop anything about the ‘Two Bright Eyes,’ it’s reckoned he has had a hunch of some kind.”

“I wasn’t thinking about that mine!”

The man grinned.

“That’s right--keep it sly! But see here, pard, I’m going to test you out a little on this thing. I’ve got a few thousand shares of the old stock. Took it over in a poker game a long time ago--we gamble mining stocks out this way when we’re busted. I’m busted now--and they won’t take mining stock at the roulette wheel. I’ll sell you five hundred shares of ‘Bright Eyes’ at fifty cents a share.”

He peered anxiously into my face as he made the offer. He was plainly trying to get a hint from my expression, but he didn’t, of course. I knew nothing about mining stock.

‘I don’t want it.”.

“Twenty-five cents a share, then. I want to chase the wheel.”

“You’re on a wrong lead, my friend.”

Just then a man bumped against me as if by accident and promptly apologized. It was the stage-driver.

The owner of the stock scowled and backed into the crowd in the office.

“I was trying to jolt a little hoss sense into you,” explained the driver. “Why didn’t you buy that stock? I passed the hunch to you to-day.”

“I haven’t any money for wildcatting in gold-mines,” I said.

The man came close to me and spoke low.

“Don’t you remember what I said?”

“Yes, but grabbing gold-mine stock from the first comer--say, my friend, do I look as green as that?”

“Hish! Don’t rear up, sir! Please don’t! But I know that fellow who just tried to sell. He’s fresh in from the hills. He doesn’t know what’s going on--and only a few do know. But I carry men on my stage who talk and don’t know I’m overhearing. I say no more! But I hope you’ll take the hint. If I could rake and scrape another dollar I’d buy that stock myself. That fellow has some kind of a hunch--but he has been too far away in the hills to know anything special. I guess he just smells it in the air. There isn’t much stock in ‘Bright Eyes’ left loose these days. I have smelt around; I know! That tells a long story, sir. If that fellow hadn’t been off in the hills they’d have got his away from him!”

He was urgent and appealing. I couldn’t understand this special interest in me and I told him so plainly.

“I don’t exactly know, either,” he said, unabashed. “I’m thinking it over and I’ll tell you when I get it thought out. Maybe it’s your style. I have always hoped to be able to wear a suit of clothes like that.”

He surveyed me with candid admiration.

My tartness didn’t bother him a bit. He beamed on me--and plainly had taken a few drinks. I asked the driver to tell me how I could reach the mayor’s store. My friend offered to conduct me. I had resolved to throw up my Breed City earthworks!

“When I take a liking to a gent I don’t do nothing by halves,” declared my guide when we were on our way. “You come unwrapped enough to-day so that I could see that you’ve got real whalebone in your stock and silk in your snapper--and that’s the kind of a whip for my hand! You come along with me and I’ll introduce you to the mayor. Him and me are chums. He ain’t none of your stuck-up dudes. I’ll tell him you’re a special friend of mine. There’s nothing like getting in right.”

He left me in the back office of a dry-goods store, sitting knees to knees in the tiny room with a fat and placid man who smiled amiably and seemed to be impressed by my dress and demeanor.

He launched out at me in a way that was surely astonishing.

“You are the kind we like to see coming into our new and growing city. We are anxious for a touch of the dignity and refinement of the East here in our midst. We hope we can offer you inducements which will wean you from that East which, though its traditions are glorious and its civilization is sublime, is nevertheless a bit--I may say, without offense, I trust--effete” By the way in which Mayor David Ware smacked his lips over that sentence I was pretty sure that he was quoting from his inaugural address.

“I’m very glad to have you feel that way toward me, coming here a stranger, Mr. Mayor.”

“But strangers are certified to a man of insight by the masonry of breeding.”

I thanked him again and proceeded to a matter of business connected with my earthworks.

I told him of the plans of one Dragg, as I had gleaned them from accidental association with that individual. I said that Dragg had now attached to himself two blacklegs and undoubtedly would soon arrive in Breed City for the purpose of taking advantage of technicalities in the land law, jumping claims, holding up enterprises, giving Breed City a black eye outside as a municipality where titles were not assured.

“I am not a spy, a tattletale, or a meddler,” I said. “But this matter was forced on my attention when I was on my way here, and I did not want to see a hustling mayor and city set back by the schemes of blacklegs. I had heard of your city and of you, and I said to myself, ‘If warning will enable such a city to head off a plot and put the plotters where they belong I’ll hurry to headquarters with my information.’ Those men are now in Royal City and are on their way here.”

The mayor’s mild eyes bulged and his face showed his dismay.

“It’s plain you are a friend who wouldn’t take advantage of our situation, sir. That’s shown because you are not trying to operate on the tip this crook gave you. So I’m going to be frank with you, as a friend. We were so anxious to get things moving here that we took a lot for granted in the matter of land titles Those men can make trouble--or at least they could have made trouble if we had not been warned in season by you. You will find that this city can be grateful, Mr. Mann.”

I was sticking to my assumed name.

“Will you allow me to make a suggestion?”

“I certainly will. I’ll be glad to have your advice.”

“Don’t undertake to jump on them, officially, the moment they strike town. In order to have your proof you must wait until they try to operate. Have them watched sharply. If you’ll give me permission to take a hand in the matter, on the side, I may be able to bluff them out entirely. I reckon it’s for the interests of your city to close the thing up without the public knowing there’s any doubt about land titles. Of course I don’t need to suggest to you that you make a flying start now and straighten out your law and titles so that no other shysters can come along making trouble after we get rid of these gentlemen.”

“Watch me in that line,” declared the mayor, thumping his breast. “You’re right about handling them with gloves, Mr. Mann. I tell you if you can do anything to help us you will stand mighty high with me and with Breed City.”

“In handling them I may be able to make it seem like a personal quarrel between them and myself,” I suggested. My horizon was growing wider all the time. “They are dangerous men, but I’m not afraid of them.”

“But I don’t want you to be a martyr.”

“I’m not afraid of them, I say. If trouble does happen here and it seems like a personal quarrel, you will understand it all, Mr. Mayor!”

“Certainly, sir!”

“It may seem strange to have a stranger come along like this and offer to meddle in matters where he has no personal interest. Those men are nothing to me, one way or the other. But I’m for fair play always!”

His Honor warmed to this modest candor.

“The city is behind you in whatever you may do in this thing, sir. As mayor I say it. You’ll be backed to the limit. And if you get hurt while you are trying to do a bit of a trick for us I’ll be scissored if I don’t toss law and order up for a little while and organize a lynching party and head it in person.”

“If I thought it would come to that I wouldn’t meddle in the affair! The only reason I am offering my services is because I hope to be able to keep Breed City from suffering a setback.”

“Hand ’em any jolt that’s coming to ’em in the name of Breed City and its mayor.” His Honor clapped his hand on my shoulder.

I trudged back to the hotel in a fairly comfortable frame of mind. It’s a lucky general who can choose his own battle-field, get to it well ahead of the enemy, throw up earthworks and set a big gun or two in position. So, I said to myself, “Let ’em come!”

XXI--THE SKIRMISH-LINE