Curly Part 32

"That settles it," said McCalmont. "Now you, Jim, you go back and tell these boys to join the herders in front, and I'll be with you presently.

It ain't decent, my boy, for you to behold what's going to happen in the way of costume. So you jest tell Curly good-bye, and we'll proceed with disguisin' her as a womern."

"When shall I see Curly again?" asks Jim in a fright.

"At such time when he's fit to ride. Now tell yo' good-bye."

So Jim and Curly had a minute together while I helped McCalmont to get out the trunk of clothes. Then Jim rode off for the sake of decency, and I turned my back. There was arguments between McCalmont and Curly about how the female costume should be fixed, the parent wanting one side to the front, and the dutiful child insisting otherwise. When I was told to look, there was Curly grinning in surroundings of yellow wig, the same being bunched up behind like a clump of p.r.i.c.kly pear. McCalmont rigged himself out in his preacher clothes, cinched up his sorrel horse at the tail of the buckboard, and tied his cowboy gear to the strings of the saddle. He turned to watch Jim and the robbers file past on their way to the front, then gave me his lantern.

"My friend," says he, "when you go to the home of them ladies, drive straight acrost the open range to the back door, be thar befo' midnight, and if you love yo' life, don't stray out on the waggon road between the Jim Crow Mine and Grave City. If you do you'll get killed for sure."

"What shall I do with the buckboard?"

"Lose it somewheres whar it ain't apt to be found. Turn them team hawsses loose and let them break for their home, as they sh.o.r.ely will."

"And when Curly is well of this wound?"

"Then Jim will join you, and you'll take them children to some safe country, so that they get mar'ied and forget this life. We planned all that befo'."

"You trust me still?"

"It looks that way, my friend, and I don't trust by halves."

He gripped my hand, and went loping away into the night.

CHAPTER XXII

ROBBERY-UNDER-ARMS

In those days of our little unpleasantness in Arizona there was another discussion proceeding along in South Africa. The Boers had their tail up, and the British Army was indulging itself in "regrettable incidents"

about once a week. Which I allude to here because the word "regrettable incident" is good; it's soothing, and it ill.u.s.trates exactly what happened on the night when I delivered Curly, damaged but cheerful, among my cousins, the Misses Jameson.

Just to the east of the home inhabited by these ladies occurs the Jim Crow Mine, the same being the very place where the robbers once had breakfast with old man Ryan, making him pay the bill, as aforesaid, which was seventy-five thousand dollars, and annoying.

On this further occasion which I now unfold, there were only four men working the Jim Crow claim. It seems they were in the bunk house playing poker until eleven p. m., when their foreman uprose with regrets to surrender his hat, boots, and pants to an avaricious person holding three aces and a pair of jacks. The foreman's warm communications on the subject of cheating were then cut off short by a masked robber standing in the doorway with guns. This robber proposed that all gentlemen present should throw up their hands, and allowed they had a fervent invitation to die unless they stepped out pretty soon to the head of the Jim Crow shaft. Accordingly the sad procession trailed away to the shaft, and one by one the mourners went down in a bucket to a total depth of one hundred and four feet. Then the robber hauled up the bucket to keep them from straying out, and promised faithful that if he heard any noise he would just drop in a few sticks of dynamite. There was not much noise.

Meanwhile other earnest young robbers were collecting every citizen who pa.s.sed the mine, and inviting him to join their surprise-party down at the foot of the shaft. The citizens all accepted, and when some candles, a deck of cards, and a few bottles of nose paint were sent to a.s.sist, the levee underground began to get quite a success.

Mixed in with these proceedings, and other hold-ups various and swift, was the Chinese cook with a robber holding his tail while he fixed supper for twenty-five men. Afterwards he likewise was handed down the shaft. I should also mention a preacher in a black suit, and a white tie up under his ear, projecting around among the store shed for cases of dynamite.

At 12:30 a bunch of cowboys numbering eighteen head, with a cavvyard of ponies, trailed in off the range. After each man had roped and saddled a fresh horse, and fed corn to the same, their reverend pastor put out a relief of sentries, and told the crowd to line up in the rampasture for supper.

Naturally these people had to get the provisions off their minds before there was any talk, but then the preacher reared up to address the meeting.

"Brethren----" says he.

"Look a-here," the new segundo, Black Stanley, started in obstreperous, backed by a dozen men, all seething. "I represents this outfit in starting to buck right now!"

"Turn yo'self loose."

"We-all has come to an understanding that we ain't agoin' to fool around here any more. These is mean pastures, and we breaks for home."

"That's what's the matter!" A lot of robbers began to come to a crisis.

"Misteh Stanley, seh," says McCalmont, "you air a judge of rye whisky, and a natural bawn leader of men."

The boys began to laugh.

"Now," says McCalmont, "all you boys who yearns to get quit of me, and have this judge of rye and natural bawn leader of men to be they'r chief, will arise and join his herd. Yo' hawsses are at the door, so trail yo' spurs along the floor and go!"

Not a man moved.

"You, Black Stanley, take yo'self and yo' followers, and get absent quick from this camp, 'cause the rest of us has business."

Stanley, getting to feel a whole lot lonesome, just dropped his tail, and submitted. "Chief," says he, "I take it all back."

"I made you my segundo, Stanley, and you've proved yo'self mighty sudden. I reduce you to the ranks. You, Bowlaigs, act as second in command. And now to business.

"First, I want to instil into yo' dim and clouded intellecks that when a member of the gang is captured he has to be rescued. The captured man was my son, and seventeen skunks of you hung fire when I asked for his rescue. These seventeen said skunks is fined half theyr shares of plunder in the next raiding, the same to be paid to those who do most work. Second, the man who rescued my son is Jim du Chesnay here." The Captain laid his hand upon Jim's shoulder. "He is my guest, and as he's not a member of this or'nary low-flung herd, you don't want to tell him awdehs, or oppress him, or stuff his haid with any of yo' dreams. I've a mind to muzzle a few pet liars right now. The speshul liars I see grinning is the ones I allude to particular.

"Now you-all is a mighty sight wide of bein' perfect thieves; you has weaknesses, some for bad liquor, some for small mean thefts, most for showin' yo'selves off 'sif you was buck-devils, which you sh.o.r.ely ain't.

To-night I propose you fast from such-like vanities, and attend strictly to business. Moreover, as some of you ain't got no more sense than a poached cat, I now explains this warpath, lest you get wandering around after the wrong scalp. The objec' of this virtuous night is to steal a millionaire which goes by the name of Michael Ryan, and holes up in a palace cyar on the railroad sidings. If you get him in reasonable preservation, we realise lots of wealth for his ransom; but any blamed fool who spoils him with loose ammunition is robbing his partners of theyr lawful dues."

And so, having tamed his wolves, McCalmont gave the orders for the night.

Right here I bubble over with remarks on the art of being a villain.

Now this Captain McCalmont wasn't a good man exactly, it being his humble vocation to steal everything in sight, and shoot any party who happened to get in the way. He was a sure enough scoundrel, and yet Curly just loved him frantic. Jim trusted him body and soul. I was mighty proud of having his friends.h.i.+p. All his wolves were tame as little children when he led them; every cowboy on the range would have shared his last drop of water with old McCalmont, and even the victims he robbed would speak of him mostly as a perfect gentleman. When he laid a trap that same deadfall looked a whole lot attractive and comforting. "'Scuse me," says McCalmont, springing the steel jaws on his victim. I hope yo're not feeling hurt?"

Now if McCalmont had looked like one of them villains I see at the theatre, scowling, threatening, lurid, mean-eyed scareheads, he wouldn't have seen the victim's tail for dust. No, he wasn't like a villain, he was like a man--a white man at that--and when he gave a show it was worth any man's money to see. Just watch his play.

Grave City was a plenty big city to attack; it could turn out three hundred riders, anyway, and that mighty sudden, too, in case of robbers.

McCalmont had to attack with twenty-four outlaws, and get them away without any holes through their hides.

Along towards one in the morning the stable-man at Ryan's livery met with an accident, being clubbed. Then a couple of men walked round the stalls, loosed all the horses, and drove the whole outfit away through the back gate. The same proceedings occurred at the Spur livery, and in all the large stables, until two hundred head of good stock were gathered and run off to the northward.

In Main Street, hitched to the snubbing posts, stood a score of saddled horses, a waiting patient to take their drunkards home. These poor creatures were cared for tender by a young man who went along casual, feeding them each a bunch of dry herbs, the same being _loco_ weed, and a heaps powerful medicine. Now we turn to the railroad station, where the main game was being played.

At one a. m. the night operator in the depot remembered all of a sudden that the lady clerk, Miss Brumble, at Contention, had wired him to send on a parcel of stockings by Number 4. The night freight train was pulling out at the time, so he ran across the platform and pitched the parcel into the caboose as the cars went rolling past him. "Miss Brumble's socks!" says he.

"All correct!" says the conductor; and the train went rumbling off into the desert. Then the night operator--which his name was Bowles--turned round to point back for his office, and suddenly trod on a preacher.

"Pardon me," says the reverend stranger.

"Oh, don't mention it," says the clerk, some sarcastic.