The Texican

"But what is this 'cumrad' talk and them yells for the revolution?" he soliloquized, as Angy and Pecos returned to their religion. "Is it a G. A. R. reunion or has Joe worked in a Mexican revolution on us? Yes, holler, you crazy fools; it'll be Old Crit's turn, when you come to pay the bills."

The first gray light of dawn was striking through the door when Crittenden tip-toed cautiously into the store and gazed about at the wreckage and the sprawling hulks of the revellers. Pecos lay on his face with his huge silver mounted spurs tangled in the potato sack that had thrown him; and Babe, his round moon-face and bald crown still red from his unrestrained potations, was draped along the bar like a shop kitten. Old Crit shook him roughly and, receiving no response, turned his attention to Pecos Dalhart. His first care was to snap the cartridges out of his six-shooter and jamb the action with a generous handful of dirt; then he felt his pockets over carefully, looking for his roll, for Pecos had undoubtedly consumed a great deal of liquor and ought not to be deprived of the cowboy's privilege of waking up broke. But as luck would have it he was lying upon his treasure and could not pay his reckoning. The only article of interest which the search produced was a grimy section of a newspaper, stored away in his vest pocket, and Crit seized upon it eagerly. It was a not uncommon failing of Texas bad men, as he knew them, to carry newspaper accounts of their past misdeeds upon their persons and he unfolded the sheet with the full expectation of finding a sheriff's offer of reward.

"It's a crime to be Poor!!!" was the heading, "And the penalty is hard labor for life!" it added, briefly. There is something in that, too; but philosophy did not appeal to Crittenden at the moment – he was looking for Pecos Dalhart's name and the record of his crime. "The grinding tyranny of the capitalistic classes – " he read, and then his eye ran down the page until he encountered the words: "Yours for the Revolution!" and "Subscribe for the Voice of Reason!" Then a great light came over him and he gnashed his teeth in a fury.

"Well, the dam', yaller, two-bit-a-year sheet!" he raved, snatching a fresh copy of the Voice of Reason from the sacred United States mail and hastily scanning its headlines, "and if these crazy fools hain't gone and took it serious!" He tore it in two and jumped on it. "Two-bits a year!" he raged, "and for four-bits I could've got the Fireside Companion!" He rummaged around in the box and gathered up every copy, determined to hurl them into the fireplace, but on the way the yellow wrapper with the United States stamp arrested his eye, and he paused. After all, they were United States mail – penalty for destroying $1,000 – and would have to go back into the box.

"Well," he grumbled, dumping them sullenly back, "mebby it was that new bar'l of whiskey – I s'pose they've got to holler about something when they're drunk, the dam' eejits!" He strode up and down the floor, scowling at the unconscious forms of the roisterers who had beaten him the night before – then he turned back and laid violent hands upon Angy.

"Git off'n there, you low-down, lazy hound!" he yelled, dragging him roughly to the floor. "You will start a revolution and try to kill your boss, will you? You're fired!" he shouted when, after a liberal drenching, he had brought Babe back to the world.

"Well, gimme my pay, then," returned Angy, holding out his hand and blinking.

"You don't git no pay!" declared Crit, with decision. "Who's goin' to pay for all that liquor that was drunk last night? Look at them empty bottles, will you? You go and bring in all your friends and open up the town and the next mornin' I look in the till and they ain't a dam' cent!"

"Well, I want my pay," reiterated Babe, drunkenly. "I been workin' a long time, now – I'm goin' to draw my money an' go home! 'My mother's heart is breakin', breakin' f'r me, an' that's all– '" he crooned, and, rocking to and fro on the floor, he sang himself back to sleep.

Old Crit watched him a moment, sneering; then with vindictive exultation he turned his attention to Pecos. "Git up," he snarled, kicking the upturned soles of his feet, "this ain't no bunk-house! Git out'r here, now; you been pesterin' around these parts too long!" He seized the prostrate cowboy by his broad shoulders and snaked him summarily out the door, where he lay sprawling in the dirt, like a turtle on its back, a mock of his strong, young manhood. To the case-hardened Babe the venom of Old Crit's whiskey was no worse than a death-potion of morphine to an opium fiend, but Pecos was completely paralyzed by the poison. He responded neither to kicks and man-handling nor to frequent dashes of water and at last Crittenden dragged him out behind the corral and left him there, a sight for gods and men. The Garcia dogs crept up furtively and sniffed at him and the Señora pointed him out to her children as an awful example of Texano depravity, and also as the bad man who had corrupted their papa. Even Marcelina wavered in her secret devotion, but after he had finally clambered up on his horse and ridden blindly off toward Lost Dog Cañon the thought of those blue silk handkerchiefs, branded M, rose up in her mind and comforted her.

CHAPTER VIII

THE DAY AFTER

IN a land where the desert is king the prolonged absence of even so undesirable a citizen as Pecos Dalhart is sure, after a while, to occasion comment. For Pecos had ridden out on the Carrizo trail without water, and the barren mesa had already claimed its dead from thirst. He was also hardly in his right mind, and though his horse knew the way home he might easily have arrived there without his master. José Garcia was the first to mention the matter to Old Crit, and received a hearty cursing for his pains. Another week passed by, making three, and still the cowboy did not come in for his mail. The bunch of dissipated punchers who lingered around the bunk-house under pretence of riding the range finally worked up quite a hectic interest in the affair, but none of them volunteered to make a search. The chances were that Mr. Dalhart, if still alive, was in an ugly mood – perhaps locoed by Crit's well-known brand of whiskey – and it would be dangerous for an IC man to ride in on him. As for Crit, his asperity wore down a little as the days of absence lengthened away; he retracted several statements which he had made to the effect that he hoped the blankety-blank was dead, and when one of Boone Morgan's deputies finally rode in to investigate the rumor he told him he was afraid the poor fellow had wandered out across the desert and perished of hunger and thirst.

Bill Todhunter was Boone Morgan's regular mountain deputy – sent out to look into all such affairs as this, and incidentally to get evidence which would come handy in the big tax-collecting that was being planned for the fall. He asked a few questions, whistled through his teeth and pondered the matter for a while, meanwhile scrutinizing the hard countenance of his informant with the speculative cynicism of his profession. This was not the first sad case that he had looked into where a man who was not really needed in the community had mysteriously disappeared, and in one desert tragedy which he had in mind the corpse had assayed more than a trace of lead.

"Did this man Dalhart ever fill out that assessor's blank I left for 'im?" he inquired, after a long pause, meanwhile squatting down and drawing cattle brands in the dirt.

"Don't know," replied Crit, shortly.

"Let's see, his brand was a Wine-glass, wasn't it?"

"Nope – Monkey-wrench."

"Oh, yes! Sure! I knew they was two new irons in there, but I got 'em mixed. The Wine-glass is yourn, ain't it?"

Crittenden nodded sullenly. It was the particular phase of his relations with Pecos Dalhart which he would rather not discuss with an officer. As for the deputy, he spun the wheel in his spur, whistled "Paloma," and looked out toward the east.

"Has he got any mail here waitin' for 'im?" he asked, rising slowly from his heels. "Well, you better give it to me, then – and a little grub. I've always wanted to take a look at that Lost Dog country, anyway."

It was a long trail and the tracks were a month old, but Pecos's had been the last shod horse to travel it and what few cattle there were in the country had not been able to obscure the shoe-marks. Following those ancient signs Bill Todhunter worked his way gradually into what had been up to that time, No Man's Land, not forgetting to count the Wine-glass cattle as he passed the water holes. Not so many years before the Apaches had held full sway over all the Tonto and Verde country and when the first settlers came in they had naturally located along the rivers, leaving the barren mountains to the last. It was a long way from nowhere, that mysterious little Lost Dog Cañon, and when the deputy rode into it looking for a man whose trail was a month old he felt the sobering influence of its funereal cliffs. Black and forbidding, they bent bodingly over the tiny valley with its grove of cottonwoods and wild walnuts, and upon the western rim a squalid group of buzzards dozed as if they had made a feast. At the edge of the stream Todhunter reined in his horse, but though his flanks were gaunted the animal would not drink. Instead he raised his head and snuffed the air, curiously. It looked ominous, for they were at the end of the trail and the tracks still pointed in. The deputy spurred nervously across the stream, still with his eye out for signs, and fetched up with a jerk. There, fresh and clean in the moist sand, were the imprints of a man's boots, coming down to the water – and not once or twice, but a dozen times.

"Ahem," coughed Todhunter, turning into the path, "stan' up hyar, bronc – what's the matter with you!" He jerked his unoffending horse out of the trail and clattered him over the rocks, for your true officer does not crowd in with drawn pistol on a man he cannot see. The deputy was strictly a man of peace – and he tried to look the part. His badge was pinned carefully to the inside flap of his vest and if he had a gun anywhere it did not show. He swung his quirt in one hand, idly slapping it against his chaps, and then, having offered every sign that he came openly and as a friend, he rode cautiously up to the camp.

There was a fire smouldering upon a stone-walled mound at the entrance to the cave and beside it, reclining in a rustic chair, sat Pecos Dalhart – watchful, silent, alert. In one hand he held a cigarette and the other supported a grimy newspaper which he had been reading. Behind him on tall poles were boxes filled with food, protected by tin cans, mushroomed out around the posts to keep the rats from climbing. His saddle was hung up carefully on a rack and his carbine leaned against the chair where he was sitting, but though he had seen no one for a month Pecos barely glanced up from his paper as the stranger drew near.

"How'd do," observed the deputy, sitting at ease in his saddle.

"Howdy," Pecos grunted, and languidly touching his dead cigarette to a coal he proceeded with his reading. Todhunter looked his camp over critically, took note of the amount of food stored in the rat-proof boxes and of the ingenious workmanship on the rustic chair; then his eyes wandered back and fixed themselves on Pecos. Instead of the roistering boy he had expected he beheld a full-grown man with a month's growth of curly beard and his jaw set like a steel-trap, as if, after all, he was not unprepared for trouble. His hat, however, was shoved back carelessly on his bushy head, his legs crossed, and his pose was that of elegant and luxurious ease. To the left arm of his chair he had attached a horse's hoof, bottom up, in the frog of which he laid his cigarettes; to the right was fastened a little box filled with tobacco and brown papers, and the fire, smouldering upon its altar, was just close enough to provide a light. Evidently the lone inhabitant of the cañon had made every endeavor to be comfortable and was not above doing a little play-acting to convey the idea of unconcern, but the deputy sheriff did not fail to notice the carbine, close at hand, and the pistol by his side. It seemed to him also that while his man was apparently deeply immersed in his month-old paper, his eyes, staring and intent, looked past it and watched his every move. The conversation having ceased, then, and his curiosity having been satisfied, Bill Todhunter leaned slowly back to his saddle bags and began to untie a package.

"Are you Mr. Dalhart?" he inquired, as the cowboy met his eye.

"That's my name," replied Pecos, stiffly.

"Well, I've got s'm' papers for you," observed the deputy, enigmatically, and if he had been in two minds as to the way Pecos would take this statement his doubts were instantly set at rest. At the word "papers" – the same being used for "warrants" by most officers of the law – the cowboy rose up in his chair and laid one hand on the butt of his revolver.

"Not for me!" he said, a cold, steely-blue look comin' into his eyes. "It'll take a better man than you to serve 'em!"

"These are newspapers," corrected the deputy, quietly. "Yore friends down on the Verde, not havin' seen you for some time, asked me to take out yore mail and see if you was all right."

"Oh!" grunted Pecos, suspiciously.

"And, bein' as you seem to be all O. K.," continued Todhunter, pacifically, "I'll jest turn 'em over to you and be on my way." He threw the bundle at his feet, wheeled his horse and without another word rode soberly down the trail.

"Hey!" shouted Pecos, as the stranger plunged through the creek, but if Todhunter heard him he made no sign. There are some people who never know when to go, but Bill Todhunter was not that kind.

"No, you bet that feller ain't dead," he observed, when Crittenden and the chance residents of Verde Crossing gathered about him to hear the news. "He's sure up an' comin', and on the prod bigger 'n a wolf. I wouldn't like to say whether he's quite right in the head or not but I reckon it'll pay to humor 'im a little. He'll be down here for grub in about another week, too."

The week passed, but not without its happenings to Verde Crossing. The first event was the return of Angevine Thorne from Geronimo, after a prolonged stay in the city Bastile. Crit sent the bail money down by Todhunter immediately upon hearing the news that Pecos Dalhart was alive and on the prod. The only man on the Verde who had any influence with Pecos was his old "cumrad," Babe, and Crittenden was anxious to get that genial soul back before Pecos came in for supplies. But the same buckboard that brought the Champion of Arizona back to his old haunts took his little friend Marcelina away, and the only reason the Señora would give was that her daughter was going to school. In vain Babe palavered her in Spanish and cross-questioned the stolid José. The fear of her lawless wooer was upon them – for were they not in debt to Crit – and not even by indirection would the fiery Señora give vent to the rage which burned in her heart.

"This is not a good place for my daughter," she said, her eyes carefully fixed upon the ground. "It is better that she should go to the Sisters' school and learn her catechism." So Marcelina was sent away from the evil men of Verde, for she was already a woman; but in the haste of packing she managed to snatch just one of the forbidden blue handkerchiefs, branded M.

It was a sombre welcome which awaited the lone rustler of Lost Dog Cañon when, driven perforce to town, he led his pack-horse up to the store. For a minute he sat in his saddle, silent and watchful; then, throwing his bridle-reins on the ground, he stalked defiantly through the door. A couple of IC cowboys were sitting at the card-table in the corner, playing a three-handed game of poker with Angy, and at sight of him they measured the distance to the door with their eyes.

"W'y, hello there, Pecos!" cried Angy, kicking over the table in his haste to grasp him by the hand. "Where you been all the time – we thought for a time here you was dead!"

"Might as well 'a been," said Pecos, gruffly, "for all anybody give a dam'!"

"Why? What was the matter? Did you git lost?"

"I lay out on the mesa for two days," answered the cowboy, briefly, "and about a month afterwards a feller come out to my camp to see if I was dead. This is a hell of an outfit," he observed, glancing malevolently at the IC cowboys, "and by the way," he added, "where was you all the time, Angy?"

Angevine Thorne's lips trembled at this veiled accusation and he stretched out his hands pleadingly. "I swear, Pardner," he protested, "I never heard a word about it until last Saturday! I was in the Geronimo jail."

"Oh!" said Pecos, and without more words he gave him his own right hand. The cowboys, who had been uneasy witnesses of the scene, seized upon this as a favorable opportunity to make their escape, leaving the two of them to talk it out together.

"What in the world happened to us, Angy?" demanded Pecos in a hushed voice, when the effusion of reconciliation had passed, "did Crit put gun-powder in our whiskey or was it a case of stuffed club? I was plumb paralyzed, locoed, and cross-eyed for a week – and my head ain't been right since!" He brushed his hand past his face and made a motion as of catching little devils out of the air, but Angy stayed his arm.

"Nothin' like that, Pecos," he pleaded, hoarsely, "I'm on the ragged edge of the jim-jams myself, and if I get to thinkin' of crawly things I'll sure get 'em! No, it was jest that accursed liquor! I don't know what happened – I remember Crit takin' me down to Geronimo and givin' me five dollars and then it was all a dream until I found myself in the jag-cell. But it's the liquor that does it, Pecos – that and the capitalistic classes and the officers of the law. They's no hope for the common people as long as they keep on drinkin' – there's always some feller like Crit to skin 'em, and the constables to run 'em in. It's a conspiracy, I tell you; they're banded together to drug and rob us – but, Pardner, there is one man who is going to balk the cowardly curs. Never, never, never, will I let another drop of liquor pass my lips!" He raised his hand to heaven as he swore the familiar oath, hoping and yet not hoping that some power would come down to him to help him fight his fate. "Will you join me, Cumrad?" he asked, laying hold of Pecos's shoulder. "You will? Well, let's shake on it – here's to the revolution!"

They shook, and turned instinctively toward the bar, but such a pledge cannot be cemented in the usual manner, so Angy led the way outside and sought a seat in the shade.

"Where's my little friend Marcelina?" inquired Pecos, after a long look at the white adobe with the brush ramada which housed the Garcia family, "hidin' behind a straw somewhere?"

"Gone!" said Angy, solemnly. "Gone, I know not where."

"What – you don't mean to say – " cried Pecos, starting up.