The Grain Ship Part 16

"'Not this night,' he said, grimly. 'Get out! But I don't want you to gabble about where you found me sleeping.'

"I left him, deeply grieved by his meanness, which I ascribed to an old jealousy of the years gone by, when he had been attentive to the unmarried Mrs. Milner, and had found me in his way. I had not thought he would have cherished this spite through the years, but, resolved never to ask a favor again, I left him, and went out into the street.

Finally, unable to think of another resource, I sought the nearest square, and put in a cold and miserable night on a bench, with vagrants, beggars, and outcasts for company.

"At daylight, I rose and wandered slowly back toward the studio building, to await the down-coming of my charge.

"At the door I met a disheveled, weary, and bleary-eyed wreck, who eyed me sourly, and broke forth.

"'You're a nice sort of duffer, you are,' he said. 'You knew I was drunk. You knew I didn't know what key I gave you. Why didn't you make sure? I couldn't get into my boarding-house. I walked the street all night.'

"'You did!' I responded. 'You walked the street all night, did you? Oh, I'm so glad! I'm _so_ glad, Bunker! You walked the street, did you?

Well, I slept in the square--thanks to your condition, you unholy inebriate!'

"'Where's my key?' he demanded, angrily, 'my boarding-house key? I want to get in before breakfast-time.'

"'Up in my studio,' I answered, fully as tartly. 'Go up there and trade keys; and don't bring any more of your friends around to me.'

"I went to a restaurant, spent my twenty-five cents for breakfast, and then climbed to the studio. The door was unlocked, but the bird had flown.

"I spent a miserable day, doing no work at all, but worrying greatly over the fate of Mrs. Milner.

"But, at nightfall, having replenished my pockets from the bank, as I was about to leave the building, to take the train for home, I met her, bag and baggage in a cab at the door.

"Did you ever get a thorough scolding from an angry woman, or, as in this case, from a good-natured woman pretending to be angry? But, alas!

I did not know that she was pretending, and I suffered horribly--on the ride to the station and on the train. I was an unfaithful, treacherous scoundrel, leaving a trusting and loving wife alone for a whole week, and giving the use of 'my office'--in which there was a couch and an ice-box and a gas-stove and a bath-tub and a clothes-closet (_for hiding purposes_)--to a shameless person with a black-and-blue eye, who had stared at her most insolently when she had come to the door.

"'I mean to tell your wife,' Mrs. Milner said, before we had reached the Grand Central Station; and she repeated the threat a dozen times, before we arrived at my house. Then, on the walk home, I, who had maintained a moody silence all the way, plucked up heart, in the effort to compose myself for the meeting with my wife, and asked her how she had managed herself.

"'I,' she answered, with feminine scorn, 'I was turned away from three hotels, before I finally understood your generous metropolitan hotel rules, which doom traveling women to the police-stations for lodging. I should have walked the streets, if I had not met a friend who generously took me home with her.'

"'I hope you slept well,' I ventured, miserably.

"'I did not! Her apartments were 'way up at the top of a big, high building; and, just as I got to sleep, there was a frightful banging at the door, and a man--a drunken man, evidently--shouted to be let in.

"Tom," he howled, "Tom, get up! Let me in! I want to see you; it's important. Let me in!" Now, of course, there was no "Tom" there, so I just lay quiet, frightened to death, however; and, at last, the drunken brute went away. But I did not sleep a wink, thanks to you and your indifference toward my safety, and your devotion to creatures who get black eyes. Oh, I'll tell your wife! I'll let her know!'

"We were under a street-lamp, and I pulled her to a stop, turning her around, so that the light shone squarely on her face.

"'Maud,' I said, and I shook my forefinger at her, 'you will not tell my wife. You will be a good and humble young woman during your stay with us; yes, you will. You will be very discreet and very forgiving.

If you are not, I shall tell your husband that you spent last night in the apartments of my friend Tom, your old lover.'

"And did you ever see a woman blush, my boy?--not the blush she puts on at will, but a blush that is genuinely in earnest--a blush she cannot help. I had my revenge as I watched her blush. She blushed in seven colors--every color in the spectrum. Then she turned loose on Tom--an honorable fellow, poor devil, sleeping in that cold garret for her sake--and scourged him for telling me.

"But I stopped her with the information that I was the drunken brute who had banged on the door, to which I added the fiction that I had seen her go in.

"Well, we patched up a truce before we reached home, and we are good friends to-day. Tom married her, after her husband died; and, to this day, he is somewhat embarra.s.sed in my presence, feeling, no doubt, that I do not forgive his heartlessness to me on that night. I cannot explain, and, somehow, his wife will not. I don't know why, unless it is because she has a generous streak in her makeup, and thinks that it will involve revelations concerning the person with the black eye."

"And could you not convince Mrs. Milner of the truth of the affair?" I asked.

"Tried to--tried hard--but she did not believe me; or, at least, said she did not."

"And did you ever see the interesting widow again?"

"Many times--but she never saw me!"

We smoked, silently--he, straight-faced and reminiscent, I, smiling over the story he had told.

"May I tell this experience to the girl over yonder?" I asked.

"Well, yes; but, as I never told my wife, put the girl on her honor not to repeat it. It may help you in your adjustment of your married life; it may convince her that a man can be trusted out of his home."

THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE

Two men walked side by side down the steps of the Criminal Court Building. They were dressed in "store clothes"; and, while they were alike in type, yet they were unlike: one could not be mistaken for the other. But they had the same facial angle; they were of about the same age, thirty-five; each was tall, square-shouldered, and erect, and each had the same curious gait that betokens long experience in the saddle.

The man to the right had gray eyes; the one to the left black. The one to the right was jubilant of face; the other downcast and chagrined. As they reached the sidewalk a man hurried out of the crowd and confronted them. His face was perspiring, and he breathed hard.

"I've got you, Bill!" he said, laying his hand on the shoulder of the downcast man to the left. "You're my prisoner!"

"Not much, he isn't!" answered the man to the right. "He's mine. Here's proof." He half turned, disclosing the b.u.t.t of a large pistol under his coat.

"Oh, I've got that kind of proof, too," rejoined the newcomer, stepping back and eying them with anger and disgust in his face. It was a face that must have been unused to such emotional expressions; it was smooth shaved, pink, and healthy, with keen blue eyes, the face of a man not yet grown up, or of a boy matured before his time. He was of about the same age, size, and build as the other two, and with the same horseman's gait.

"Who are you," he asked, "and what have you got that man for?"

"I'm Jack Quincy, Deputy Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona; and I've got this man, Bill Rogers, for stage robbery. Who are you?"

"I'm Walter Benson, of the Northwest Mounted Police, and I want this man for murder. I've just come from Was.h.i.+ngton with extradition papers, and I don't see how you can hold him."

"Possession is nine points of the law in this country, Mr. Benson, and, while I only went to Albany for extradition papers, they're good. Left 'em inside with the Judge."

"I'll contest this case. I've come down from Manitoba for this man. My chief put the New York police onto him, and he's our meat. Why, man, we want him for murder, a capital offense!"

"But I've got him for robbing the Wickenburg stage, a capital offense, too."

While this confab was going on the prisoner had been keenly and furtively looking about, and had caught the eye of a nearby policeman, then had significantly reached his hand behind him and patted his hip pocket while nodding almost imperceptibly toward the disputants. The officer summoned another policeman by the same sign language, and at this juncture they approached.

"What you two chewin' the rag about?" demanded one, pa.s.sing his hands rapidly up and down and around the rear clothing of Quincy, while the other as quickly "frisked" Benson. "Got a gun, I see! Got a license?"

"Here's another gun man," said the second policeman, his hand on Benson's collar. "Got a license?"

"Yes, where's yer license?" repeated the first officer, reaching for Quincy's collar.

And now a surprising thing happened. First, Bill Rogers, wanted for stage robbery and murder, took to his heels and sped down the street.

Then Benson wriggled under the policeman's grasp, and by some lightning-like trick of jiu jitsu, sent him sprawling on his back, his limbs waving in the air like the legs of a turtle similarly upset. Then Benson started after Rogers. Quincy tried no jiu jitsu: instead he whipped out his gun, a long, heavy Colt's forty-five, and jammed it into the policeman's face before the hand had reached his collar.

Involuntarily the officer started back, away from that murderous blue tube, and before he could recover from his surprise Quincy had started after Benson. Then the policeman followed Quincy, and his fallen compatriot, picking himself up, followed after; but neither for long; they were fat, and these men of the West could run as well as ride.