The Blue Goose

Cañon City was the State hostelry. Occasionally the law selected unwilling guests. It was not over-large, nor was it overcrowded. Had it sheltered all deserving objects, the free population of the State would have been visibly diminished.

Pierre only shrugged his shoulders. He followed Luna up the stairs to the outer door, and watched the big mill foreman as he walked down the trail to the mill. Then, as was his custom when perturbed in mind, Pierre crossed the dusty waggon trail and seated himself on a boulder, leaning his back against a scrubby spruce. He let his eyes rest contentedly on a big, square-faced building. Rough stone steps led up to a broad veranda, from which rose, in barbaric splendour, great sheets of shining plate-glass, that gave an unimpeded view of a long mahogany bar backed by tiers of glasses and bottles, doubled by reflection from polished mirrors that reached to the matched-pine ceiling.

Across the room from the bar, roulette and faro tables, bright with varnish and gaudy with nickel trimmings, were waiting with invitations to feverish excitement. The room was a modern presentation of Scylla and Charybdis. Scylla, the bar, stimulated to the daring of Charybdis across the way, and Charybdis, the roulette, sent its winners to celebrate success, or its victims to deaden the pain of loss.

At the far end of the room a glass-covered arcade stood in advance of doors to private club-rooms. At the arcade an obliging attendant passed out gold and silver coins, for a consideration, in exchange for crumpled time-checks and greasy drafts.

Pierre grinned and rubbed his hands. Above the plate glass on the outside a gorgeous rainbow arched high on the painted front. Inscribed within, in iridescent letters, was: "The Blue Goose. Pierre La Martine." Beneath the spring of the rainbow, for the benefit of those who could not read, was a huge blue goose floating aimlessly in a sheet of bluer water.

This was all of the Blue Goose that was visible to the eyes of the uninitiated; of the initiated there were not many.

Beneath the floor was a large cellar, wherein was a fierce-looking furnace, which on occasion grew very red with its labours. There were pungent jars and ghostly vessels and a litter of sacks, and much sparkling dust on the earthen floor. All this Pierre knew, and a few others, though even these had not seen it.

Beneath the shadow of the wings of the Blue Goose dwelt a very plain woman, who looked chronically frightened, and a very beautiful girl who did not. The scared woman was Madame La Martine; the unscared girl passed for their daughter, but about the daughter no one asked questions of Pierre. About the Blue Goose, its bar, and its gaming-tables Pierre was eloquent, even with strangers. About his daughter and other things his acquaintances had learned to keep silence; as for strangers, they soon learned.

Obviously the mission of the Blue Goose was to entertain; with the multitude this mission passed current at its face value, but there were a few who challenged it. Now and then a grocer or a butcher made gloomy comments as he watched a growing accumulation of books that would not prove attractive to the most confirmed bibliophile. Men went to the Blue Goose with much money, but came out with none, for the bar and roulette required cash settlements. Their wives went in to grocers and butchers with no money but persuasive tongues, and came forth laden with spoils.

Pandora could raise no taxes for schools, so there were none. Preachers came and offered their wares without money and without price, but there were no churches. For the wares of the preachers flushed no faces and burned no throats, nor were there rattles even in contribution boxes, and there was no whirr of painted wheels. Even the hundred rumbling stamps of the Rainbow mill might as well have pounded empty air or clashed their hard steel shoes on their hard steel dies for all the profit that came to the far-away stockholders of the great Rainbow mine and mill.

So it came to pass that many apparently unrelated facts were gathered together by the diligent but unprosperous, and, being thus gathered, pointed to a very inevitable conclusion. Nothing and no one was prosperous, save Pierre and his gorgeous Blue Goose. For Pierre was a power in the land. He feared neither God nor the devil. The devil was the bogie-man of the priest. As for God, who ever saw him? But of some men Pierre had much fear, and among the same was "the hol' man" at the mill.

CHAPTER II

The Old Man

After leaving the Blue Goose Luna went straight to the superintendent's office. He was nettled rather than worried by Pierre's cautions. Worry implied doubt of his own wisdom, as well as fear of the old man. Superintendents had come to, and departed from, the Rainbow. Defiant fanfares had heralded their coming, confusion had reigned during their sojourn, their departure had been duly celebrated at the Blue Goose. This had been the invariable sequence. Through all these changes Pierre was complacently confident, but he never lost his head. The bottles of the Blue Goose bar were regularly drained, alike for welcoming and for speeding the departing incumbent at the Rainbow.

The roulette whirred cheerfully, gold and silver coins clinked merrily, the underground furnace reddened and dulled at regular periods, and much lawful money passed back and forth between the Blue Goose and its patrons. Not that the passing back and forth was equal; Pierre attended to that. His even teeth gleamed between smiling lips, his swarthy cheeks glowed, and day by day his black hair seemed to grow more sleek and oily, and his hands smoother with much polishing.

Pierre read printed words with ease. That which was neither printed nor spoken was spelled out, sometimes with wrinkling of brows and narrowing of eyes, but with unmistakable correctness in the end. From the faces and actions of men he gathered wisdom, and this wisdom was a lamp to his feet, and in dark places gave much light to his eyes. Thus it happened that with the coming of Richard Firmstone came also great caution to Pierre.

The present superintendent blew no fanfares on his new trumpet, he expressed no opinion of his predecessors, and gave no hint of his future policy.

Mr. Morrison, who oiled his hair and wore large diamonds in a much-starched, collarless shirt while at the bar of the Blue Goose, donned overalls and jumpers while doing "substitute" at the mill, and between times kept alive the spirit of rebellion in the bosoms of down-trodden, capitalist-ridden labour. Morrison freely voiced the opinion that the Rainbow crowd had experienced religion, and had sent out a Sunday-school superintendent to reform the workmen and to count the dollars that dropped from beneath the stamps of the big mill. In this opinion Luna, the mill foreman, concurred. He even raised the ante, solemnly averring that the old man opened the mill with prayer, sang hallelujahs at change of shift, and invoked divine blessing before chewing his grub. Whereat the down-trodden serfs of soulless corporations cheered long and loud, and called for fresh oblations at the bar of the Blue Goose.

All these things Luna pondered in his mind, and his indignation waxed hot at Pierre.

"The damned old frog-eater's losing his nerve; that's what! I ain't going to be held up by no frog-spawn."

He opened the office door and clumped up to the railing.

The superintendent looked up.

"What is it, Luna?"

"Long, on number ten battery, is sick and off shift. Shall we hang up ten, or put on Morrison?"

The superintendent smiled.

"Is it Morrison, or hang up?" he asked.

The question was disconcerting. The foreman shifted his footing.

"Morrison is all right," he said, doggedly. "He's a good battery man. Things ain't pushing at the Blue Goose, and he can come as well as not."

"What's the matter with Morrison?" The superintendent's smile broadened.

The foreman looked puzzled.

"I've just been telling you – he's all right."

"That's so. Only, back east, when a horse jockey gets frothy about the good points of his horse, we look sharp."

The foreman grew impatient.

"You haven't told me whether to hang up ten or not."

"I'm not going to. You are foreman of the mill. Put on anyone you want; fire anyone you want. It's nothing to me; only," he looked hard, "you know what we're running this outfit for."

The foreman appeared defiant. Guilty thoughts were spurring him to unwise defence.

"If the ore ain't pay I can't get it out."

"I'll attend to the ore, that's my business. Get out what there is in it, that's yours." He leaned forward to his papers.

The foreman shifted uneasily. His defence was not complete. He was not sure that he had been attacked. He knew Morrison of the Blue Goose. He knew the workings of the mill. He had thought he knew the old man. He was not so sure now. He was not even sure how much or how little he had let out. Perhaps Pierre's words had rattled him. He shifted from foot to foot, twirling his hat on his fingers. He half expected, half hoped, and half waited for another opening. None came. Through the muffled roar of the stamps he was conscious of the sharp scratch of the superintendent's pen. Then came the boom of the big whistle. It was change of shift. The jar of the office door closing behind him was not heard. At the mill he found Morrison.

"You go on ten, in Long's place," he said, gruffly, as he entered the mill.

Morrison stared at the retreating foreman.

"What in hell," he began; then, putting things together in his mind, he shook his head, and followed the foreman into the mill.

The superintendent was again interrupted by the rasping of hobnailed shoes on the office floor and the startled creak of the office railing as a large, loose-jointed man leaned heavily against it. His trousers, tucked into a pair of high-laced, large-eyed shoes, were belted at the waist in a conspicuous roll. A faded gray shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, disclosed a red undershirt and muscular arms. A well-shaped head with grey streaked hair, and a smooth, imperturbable face was shaded by a battered sombrero that was thrust back and turned squarely up in front.

The superintendent's smile had nothing puzzling now.

"Hello, Zephyr. Got another Camp Bird?"

"Flying higher'n a Camp Bird this time."

"How's that?"

"Right up to the golden gates this time, sure. It's straight goods. St. Peter ain't going to take no post-prandial siestas from now on. I'm timbering my shots to keep from breaking the sky. Tell you what, I'm jarring them mansions in heaven wuss'n a New York subway contractor them Fifth Avenue palaces." Zephyr paused and glanced languidly at the superintendent.

Firmstone chuckled.

"Go on," he said.