Desert Dust Part 13

"If he was to catch any train, that train has just pulled out."

"And who was in the bath, ten or fifteen minutes ago?"

"My wife, sir; and still there. She has to take her chances like everybody else. No, sir; you've been done. You may find your clothes, but I doubt it. You are next upon the bath list." And he became all business. "The porter will carry up the water and notify you. You are allowed twenty minutes. That is satisfactory?"

A bath, now!

"No, certainly not," I blurted. "I have no time nor inclination for a bath, at present. And," I faltered, ashamed, "I'll have to ask you to refund me the dollar and a half. I haven't a cent."

"Under the circ.u.mstances I can do that, although it is against our rules,"

he replied. "Here it is, sir. We wish to accommodate."

"And will you advance me twenty dollars, say, until I shall have procured funds from the East?" I ventured.

A mask fell over his face. He slightly smiled.

"No, sir; I cannot. We never advance money."

"But I've got to have money, to tide me over, man," I pleaded. "This dollar and a half will barely pay for a meal. I can give you references----"

"From Colonel Sunderson, may I ask?" His voice was poised tentatively.

"No. I never saw the Colonel before. My references are Eastern. My father----"

"As a gentleman the Colonel is O. K.," he smoothly interrupted. "I do not question his integrity, nor your father's. But we never advance money. It is against the policy of the house."

"Has my trunk come up yet?" I queried.

"Yes, sir. If you'd rather have it in your room----"

"In my room!" said I. "No! Else it might walk out the hall window, too.

You have it safe?"

"Perfectly, except in case of burglary or fire. It is out of the weather.

We're not responsible for theft or fire, you understand. Not in Benton."

"Good Lord!" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, weak. "You have my trunk, you say? Very good.

Will you advance me twenty dollars and keep the trunk as security? That, I think, is a sporting proposition."

He eyed me up and down.

"Are you a surveyor? Connected with the road?"

"No."

"What is your business, then?"

"I'm a d.a.m.ned fool," I confessed. "I'm a gudgeon--I'm a come-on. In fact, as I've said before, I'm out here looking for health, where it's high and dry." He smiled. "And high and dry I'm landed in short order. But the trunk's not empty. Will you keep it and lend me twenty dollars? I presume that trunk and contents are worth two hundred."

"I'll speak with the porter," he answered.

By the lapse of time between his departure and his return he and the gnome evidently had hefted the trunk and viewed it at all angles. Now he came back with quick step.

"Yes, sir; we'll advance you twenty dollars on your trunk. Here is the money, sir." He wrote, and pa.s.sed me a slip of paper also. "And your receipt. When you pay the twenty dollars, if within thirty days, you can have your trunk."

"And if not?" I asked uncomfortably.

"We shall be privileged to dispose of it. We are not in the p.a.w.n business, but we have trunks piled to the ceiling in our storeroom, left by gentlemen in embarra.s.sed circ.u.mstances like yours."

I never saw that trunk again, either. However, of this, more anon. At that juncture I was only too glad to get the twenty dollars, pending the time when I should be recouped from home; for I could see that to be stranded "high and dry" in Benton City of Wyoming Territory would be a dire situation. And I could not hope for much from home. It was a bitter dose to have to ask for further help. Three years returned from the war my father had scarcely yet been enabled to gather the loose ends of his former affairs.

"Now if you will direct me to the telegraph office----?" I suggested.

"The telegraph into Benton is the Union Pacific Railroad line," he informed; "and that is open to only Government and official business. If you wish to send a private dispatch you should forward it by post to Cheyenne, one hundred and seventy-five miles, where it will be put on the Overland branch line for the East by way of Denver. The rate to New York is eight dollars, prepaid."

I knew that my face fell. Eight dollars would make a large hole in my slender funds--I had been foolish not to have borrowed fifty dollars on the trunk. So I decided to write instead of telegraph; and with him watching me I endeavored to speak lightly.

"Thank you. Now where will I find the place known as the Big Tent?"

He laughed with peculiar emphasis.

"If you had mentioned the Big Tent sooner you'd have got no twenty dollars from me, sir. Not that I've anything against it, understand. It's all right, everybody goes there; perfectly legitimate. I go there myself. And you may redeem your trunk to-morrow and be buying champagne."

"I am to meet a friend at the Big Tent," I stiffly explained. "Further than that I have no business there. I know nothing whatever about it."

"I beg your pardon, sir. No offense intended. The Big Tent is highly regarded--a great place to spend a pleasant evening. All Benton indulges.

I wish you the best of luck, sir. You are heeled, I see. No one will take you for a pilgrim." Despite the a.s.sertion there was a twinkle in his eye.

"You will find the Big Tent one block and a half down this street. You cannot miss it."

CHAPTER VII

I GO TO RENDEZVOUS

The hotel lamps were being lighted by the gnome porter. When I stepped outside twilight had deepened into dusk, the air was almost frosty, and this main street had been made garish by its nightly illumination.

It was a strange sight, as I paused for a moment upon the plank veranda.

The near vicinity resembled a fair. As if inspired by the freshness and coolness of the new air the people were trooping to and fro more restlessly than ever, and in greater numbers. All up and down the street coal-oil torches or flambeaus, ruddily embossing the heads of the players and onlookers, flared like votive braziers above the open-air gambling games; there were even smoked-chimney lamps, and candles, set on pedestals, signalizing other centers. The walls of the tent store-buildings glowed spectral from the lights to be glimpsed through doorways and windows, and grotesque, gigantic figures flitted in silhouette. While through the interstices between the buildings I might see other structures, ranging from those of tolerable size to simple wall tents and makes.h.i.+ft shacks, eerily shadowed.

The noise had, if anything, redoubled. To the exclamations, the riotous shouts and whoops, the general gay vociferations and the footsteps of a busy people, the harangues of the barkers, the more distant puffing and shrieking of the locomotives at the railroad yards, the hammering where men and boys worked by torchlight, and now and then a revolver shot, there had been added the inciting music of stringed instruments, cymbals, and such--some in dance measures, some solo, while immediately at hand sounded the shuffling stamp of waltz, hoe-down and cotillion.

Night at Benton plainly had begun with a gusto. It stirred one's blood. It called--it summoned with such a promise of variety, of adventure, of flotsam and jetsam and shuttlec.o.c.k of chances, that I, a youth with twenty-one dollars and a half at disposal, all his clothes on his back, a man's weapon at his belt, and an appointment with a lady as his future, forgetful of past and courageous in present, strode confidently, even recklessly down, as eager as one to the manners of the country born.

The mysterious allusions to the Big Tent now piqued me. It was a rendezvous, popular, I deemed, and respectable, as a.s.sured. An amus.e.m.e.nt place, judging by the talk; superior, undoubtedly, to other resorts that I may have noted. I was well equipped to test it out, for I had little to lose, even time was of no moment, and I possessed a friend at court, there, whom I had interested and who very agreeably interested me. This single factor would have glorified with a halo any tent, big or little, in Benton.