Copper Streak Trail Part 23

"I am thinkin' that you are one who has had his own way of it overmuch,"

said McClintock. His little red eyes shot sparks beneath the beetling brows; he had long since discovered that he had the power to badger Mr.

Johnson; and divined that, as a usual thing, Johnson was a man not easily ruffled. The old man enjoyed the situation mightily and made the most of it. "When ye are come to your growth, you will be more patient of sma'

crossings. Here is no case for argle-bargle. You have taken yon twa brisk lads into composition with you"--he nodded toward the brisk lads--"the compact being that they were to provide fodder for yonder mine-beastie, so far as in them lies, and, when they should grow short of siller, to seek more for you. Weel, they need seek no farther, then. I have told them that I will be their backer at need; I made the deal wi' them direct and ye have nowt to do with it. You are ill to please, young man! You come here with a very singular story, and nowt to back it but a glib tongue and your smooth, innocent-like young face--and you go back hame with a heaped gowpen of gold, and mair in the kist ahint of that. I think ye do very weel for yoursel'."

"Don't mind him, Mr. Johnson," said Mary Selden. "He is only teasing you."

Old McClintock covered her hand with his own and continued: "Listen to her now! Was ne'er a la.s.sie yet could bear to think ill of a bonny face!"

He drew down his brows at Pete, who writhed visibly.

Ferdie Sedgwick rose and presented a slip of pasteboard to McClintock, with a bow.

"I have to-day heard with astonishment--ahem!--and with indignation, a great many unseemly and disrespectful remarks concerning money, and more particularly concerning money that runs to millions," he said, opposing a grave and wooden countenance to the battery of eyes. "Allow me to present you my card, Mr. McClintock, and to a.s.sure you that I harbor no such sentiments. I can always be reached at the address given; and I beg you to remember, sir, that I shall be most happy to serve you in the event that--"

A rising gale of laughter drowned his further remarks, but he continued in dumb show, with fervid gesticulations, and a mouth that moved rapidly but produced no sound, concluding with a humble bow; and stalked back to his chair with stately dignity, unmarred by even the semblance of a smile. Young Peter Johnson howled with the rest, his sulks forgotten; and even the withered serving-man relaxed to a smile--a portent hitherto unknown.

"Come; we grow giddy," chided McClintock at last, wiping his own eyes as he spoke. "We have done with talk of yonder ghost-bogle mine. But I must trouble you yet with a word of my own, which is partly to justify me before you. This it is--that, even at the time of Stanley's flitting, I set it down in black and white that he was to halve my gear wi' Oscar, share and share alike. I aye likit the boy weel. From this day all is changit; Oscar shall hae neither plack nor bawbee of mine; all goes to my wife's nephew, Stanley Mitch.e.l.l, as is set down in due form in the bit testament that is waiting without; bating only some few sma' bequests for old kindness. It is but loath I am to poison our mirth with the name of the man Oscar; the deil will hae him to be brandered; he is fast grippit, except he be cast out as an orra-piece, like the smith in the Norroway tale. When ye are come to your own land, Mr. Johnson, ye will find that brockle-faced stot there afore you; and I trust ye will comb him weel.

Heckle him finely, and spare not; but ere ye have done wi' him, for my sake drop a word in his lug to come nae mair to Vesper. When all's said, the man is of my wife's blood and bears her name; I would not have that name publicly disgracit. They were a kindly folk, the Mitch.e.l.ls. I thought puirly of theem for a wastrel crew when I was young. But now I am old, I doubt their way was as near right as mine. You will tell him for me, Mr. Johnson, to name one who shall put a value on his gear, and I shall name another; and what they agree upon I shall pay over to his doer, and then may I never hear of him more--unless it be of ony glisk of good yet in him, the which I shall be most blithe to hear. And so let that be my last word of Oscar. Cornelius, bring in the lawyer body, and let us be ower wi' it; for I think it verra needfu' that the two lads should even pack their mails and take train this day for the West. You'll have an eye on this young spark, Mr. Boland? And gie him a bit word of counsel from time to time, should ye see him tempt.i.t to whilly-whas and follies? I fear me he is p.r.o.ne to insubordination."

"I'll watch over him, sir," laughed Boland.

"I'll keep him in order. And if Miss Selden should have a message--or anything--to send, perhaps--"

Miss Selden blushed and laughed.

"No, thank you!" she said. "I'll--I'll send it by Mr. Johnson."

The will was brought in. McClintock affixed his signature in a firm round hand; the others signed as witnesses.

"Man Johnson, will ye bide behind for a word?" said McClintock as the farewells were said. When the others were gone, he made a sign to Van Lear, who left the room.

"I'm asking you to have Stanley back soon--though he'll be coming for the la.s.sie's sake, ony gate. But I am wearyin' for a sight of the lad's face the once yet," said the old man. "And yoursel', Mr. Johnson; if you visit to York State again, I should be blithe to have a crack with you. But it must be early days, for I'll be flittin' soon. I'll tell you this, that I am real pleased to have met with you. Man, I'll tell ye a dead secret. Ye ken the auld man ahint my chair--him that the silly folk ca' Rameses Second in their sport? What think ye the auld body whispert to me but now? That he likit ye weel--no less! Man, that sets ye up! Cornelius has not said so much for ony man these twenty year--so my jest is true enough, for all 'twas said in fleerin'; ye bear your years well and the credentials of them in your face. Ye'll not be minding for an old man's daffin'?"

"Sure not! I'm a great hand at the joke-play myself," said Pete. "And it's good for me to do the squirmin' myself, for once."

"I thought so much. I likit ye mysel', and I'll be thinkin' of you, nights, and your wild life out beyont. I'll tell you somethin' now, and belike you'll laugh at me." He lowered his voice and spoke wistfully.

"Man, I have ne'er fought wi' my hands in a' my life--not since I was a wean; nor yet felt the pinch of ony pressin' danger to be facit, that I might know how jeopardy sorts wi' my stomach. I became man-grown as a halflin' boy, or e'er you were born yet--a starvelin' boy, workin' for bare bread; and hard beset I was for't. So my thoughts turned all money-wise, till it became fixture and habit with me; and I took nae time for pleasures. But when I heard of your fight yestreen, and how you begawked him that we are to mention no more, and of your skirmishes and by-falls with these gentry of your own land, my silly auld blood leapit in my briskit. And when I was a limber lad like yourself, I do think truly that once I might hae likit weel to hae been lot and part of siclike stir and hazard, and to see the bale-fires burn.

"Bear with me a moment yet, and I'll have done. There is a hard question I would spier of you. I thought but ill of my kind in my younger days.

Now, being old, I see, with a thankful heart, how many verra fine people inhabit here. 'Tis a rale bonny world. And, lookin' back, I see too often where I have made harsh judgings of my fellows. There are more excuses for ill-doings to my old eyes. Was't so with you?"

"Yes," said Pete. "We're not such a poor lot after all--not when we stop to think or when we're forced to see. In fire or flood, or sickness, we're all eager to bear a hand--for we see, then. Our purses and our hearts are open to any great disaster. Why, take two cases--the telephone girls and the elevator boys. Don't sound heroic much, do they? But, by G.o.d, when the floods come, the telephone girls die at their desks, still sendin' out warnings! And when a big fire comes, and there are lives to save, them triflin' cigarette-smoking, sa.s.sy, no-account boys run the elevators through h.e.l.l and back as long as the cables hold! Every time!"

The old man's eye kindled. "Look ye there, now! Man, and have ye noticed that too?" he cried triumphantly. "Ye have e'en the secret of it. We're good in emairgencies, the now; when the time comes when we get a glimmer that all life is emairgency and tremblin' peril, that every turn may be the wrong turn--when we can see that our petty system of suns and all is n.o.bbut a wee darkling c.o.c.kle-boat, driftin' and tossed abune the waves in the outmost seas of an onrus.h.i.+ng universe--hap-chance we'll no loom so grandlike in our own een; and we'll tak' hands for comfort in the dark.

'Tis good theology, yon wise saying of the silly street: 'We are all in the same boat. Don't rock the boat!'"

When Peter had gone, McClintock's feeble hands, on the wheel-rims, pushed his chair to the wall and took from a locked cabinet an old and faded daguerreotype of a woman with smiling eyes. He looked at it long and silently, and fell asleep there, the time-stained locket in his hands.

When Van Lear returned, McClintock woke barely in time to hide the locket under a cunning hand--and spoke harshly to that aged servitor.

CHAPTER XVI

Before the two adventurers left Vesper, Johnson wired to Jose Benavides the date of his arrival at Tucson; and from El Paso he wired Jackson Carr to leave Mohawk the next day but one, with the last load of water.

Johnson and Boland arrived in Tucson at seven-twenty-six in the morning.

Benavides met them at the station--a slender, wiry, hawk-faced man, with a grizzled beard.

"So this is Francis Charles?" said Stanley.

"Frank by brevet, now. Pete has promoted me. He says that Francis Charles is too heavy for the mild climate, and unwieldy in emergencies."

"You ought to see Frankie in his new khaki suit! He's just too sweet for anything," said Pete. "You know Benavides, Stan?"

"Joe and I are lifelong friends of a week's standing. _Compadres_--eh, Joe? He came to console my captivity on your account, at first, and found me so charming that he came back on his own."

"_Ah, que hombre!_ Do not beliefing heem, Don Hooaleece. He ees begging me efery day to come again back--that leetle one," cried Joe indignantly.

"I come here not wis plessir--not so. He is ver' _triste_, thees boy--ver' dull. I am to take sorry for heem--_sin verguenza!_ Also, perhaps a leetle I am coming for that he ordaire always from the _Posada_ the bes' dinners, lak now."

"Such a care-free life!" sighed Francis-Frank. "Decidedly I must reform my ways. One finds so much gayety and happiness among the criminal cla.s.ses, as I observed when I first met Mr. Johnson--in Vesper Jail."

"Oh, has Pete been in jail? That's good. Tell us about it, Pete."

That was a morning which flashed by quickly. The gleeful history of events in Vesper was told once and again, with Pete's estimate and critical a.n.a.lysis of the Vesperian world. Stanley's new fortunes were announced, and Pete spoke privately with him concerning McClintock.

The coming campaign was planned in detail, over another imported meal.

Stanley was to be released that afternoon, Benavides becoming security for him; but, through the courtesy of the sheriff, he was to keep his cell until late bedtime. It was wished to make the start without courting observation. For the same reason, when the sheriff escorted Stanley and Benavides to the courthouse for the formalities attendant to the bail-giving, Pete did not go along. Instead, he took Frank-Francis for a sight-seeing stroll about the town.

It was past two when, in an unquiet street, Boland's eye fell upon a signboard which drew his eye:

THE PALMILLA

THE ONLY SECOND-CLa.s.s SALOON IN THE CITY

Boland called attention to this surprising proclamation.

"Yes," said Pete; "that's Rhiny Archer's place. Little old Irishman--sharp as a steel trap. You'll like him. Let's go in."

They marched in. The barroom was deserted; Tucson was hardly awakened from siesta as yet. From the open door of a side room came a murmur of voices.

"Where's Rhiny?" demanded Pete of the bartender.

"Rhiny don't own the place now. Sold out and gone."

"Shucks!" said Pete. "That's too bad. Where'd he go?"

"Don't know. You might ask the boss." He raised his voice: "Hey, Dewing!