Plain Mary Smith Part 8

"Sure!" I replied. "Come--some of the boys may be badly hurt."

We pulled through that uproar surprisingly good. Of course, every man-jack of us had lumps and welts and cuts, and there were some bones broken. Saxton was slapped down with such force that the flat of his hand was one big blister where it hit the deck, and the whole line of his forearm was a bruise--but that saved his face. One pa.s.senger drew a bad ankle, jammed in the wreckage. The worst hurt was Jimmy Hixley, a sailor; a block hit him in the ribs--probably when the mainmast went--and caved him for six inches.

The actual twister had only hit one third of us, from where the mainmast stood, aft. That stick was pulled out by the roots--clean. Standing rigging and all. Good new stuff at that. Some of the stays came out at the eyes and some of 'em snapped. One sailor picked a nasty hurt out of it. The stays were steel cable, and when one parted it curled back quick, the sharp ends of the broken wires clawing his leg.

n.o.body knows the force of the wind in that part of the boat. Had there been a man there, no rope could hold him from being blown overboard; but, luckily, we were all forward.

The rails were cut clean as an ax stroke. Nothing was left but the wheel, and the deck was lifted in places as if there'd been an explosion below.

However, we weren't in the humor to kick over trifles. We shook hands all around and took a man's-sized swig of whisky apiece, then started to put things s.h.i.+pshape.

Jesse had an extra spar and a bit of sail that we rigged as a jigger, and though the _Matilda_ didn't foot it as pretty as before, we had a fair wind nearly all the rest of the trip, making Panama in two weeks, without another accident.

VIII

ARCHIE OUT OF ASPINWALL

The thing I recall clearest, when we dropped anchor at Aspinwall, was a small boat putting off to us, and a curly yellow head suddenly popping up over the rail, followed by the rest of a six-foot whole man. That was Jimmy Holton, my future boss.

Him and Jesse swore how glad they was to see each other, and pump-handled and pounded each other on the back, whilst I sized the newcomer up. He was my first specimen of real West-Missouri-country man; I liked the breed from that minute. He was a cuss, that Jimmy. When he looked at you with the twinkle in them blue eyes of his, you couldn't help but laugh. And if there wasn't a twinkle in those eyes, and you laughed, you made a mistake. Thunder! but he was a sight to take your eye--the reckless, handsome, long-legged scamp! With his yellow silk handkerchief around his neck, and his curls of yellow hair--pretty as a woman's--and his sombrero canted back--he looked as if he was made of mountain-top fresh air.

"Well, Jesse!" says he; "well, Jess, you durned old porpoise! You look as hearty as usual, and still wearing your legs cut short, I see; but what the devil have you been doing to your boat?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Still wearing your legs cut short, I see'"]

So then Jesse told him about the tornado.

Jimmy's eyes were taking the whole place in, although he listened with care.

"Well, what brings you aboard, Jim!" says Jesse.

"I'm looking for a man," says Jimmy. "I want a white man; a good, kind, orderly sort of white man that'll do what he's told without a word, and'll bust my head for me if I dast curse him the way I do the pups working for me now."

"H'm!" says Jesse, sliding me a kind of underneath-the-table glance.

"What's the line of work?"

"Why, the main job is to be around and look and act white. I got too durned much to see to--there's the ranch and the mine and the store--that drunken ex-college professor I hired did me to the tune of fifteen hundred cold yellow disks and skipped. You see, I want somebody to tell, 'Here, you look after this,' and he won't tell me that ain't in the lesson. Ain't you got a young feller that'll grow to my ways? I'll pay him according to his size."

"H'm!" says Jesse again, jerking a thumb toward me. "There's a boy you might do business with."

Jim's head come around with the quickness that marked him. Looking into that blue eye of his was like looking into a mirror--you guessed all there was to you appeared in it. He had me estimated in three fifths of a second.

"Howdy, boy!" says he, coming toward me with his hand out. "My name's Jim Holton. You heard the talk--what do you think?"

I looked at him for a minute, embarra.s.sed. "I don't seem to be able to think," says I. "Lay it out again, will you? I reckon the answer is yes."

"It sure is," says he. "It's got to be. What's your name?" He showed he liked me--he wasn't afraid to show anybody that he liked 'em--or didn't.

"Bill," says I--"Bill Saunders."

"Now Heaven is kind!" says he. "I hadn't raised my hopes above a Sam or a Tommy, but to think of a strapping, blue-eyed, brick-topped, bully-boy Bill! Bill!" he says, "can you guess Old Man Noah's feelings when the little bird flew up to him with the tree in his teeth? Well, he'll seem sad alongside of me when I catch sight of that sunrise head of yours above my gang of mud-colored greasers and Chinamen. You owe it to charity to give me that pleasure. By the way, William, if you should see a greaser flatten his ears back and lay a hand on his knife, what would you do--read him a chapter of the Bible, or kick him in the belt?"

I thought this over. "I don't know," says I. "I never saw anybody do that."

"Bill," says he, "I'm getting more and more contented with you. I thought at first you might be quarrelsome. You don't fight, do you?"

"Well," I says, fl.u.s.tered, "not to any great extent--not unless I get mad, or the other feller does something, or I feel I ought to, or--"

"'Nough said," says he. "There's reasons enough to keep the peace of Europe. I have observed, Bill, in this and many other countries, that dove-winged peace builds her little nest when I hit first and hardest. I tell you, on the square, I'll use you right as long as you seem to appreciate it. That's my line of action, and I can prove it by Jesse--I can prove anything by Jesse. No; but, honest, boy, if you come with me, there's little chance for us to bunk as long as you do your share. And,"

he says, sizing me up, "if an accident should happen, when you've got more meat on that frame of yours, be durned if I don't believe it would be worth the trouble."

"Explain to him," says Jesse; "the boy's just away from his ma--he don't know nothing about working out."

Jim turned to me, perfectly serious--he was like Sax--joke as long as it was joking-time, then drop it and talk as straight as a rifle-barrel.

"I want a right-hand man of my own country," he says. "You'll have to watch gangs of men to see they work up; keep an eye on what goes out from the stores; beat the head off the first beggar you see abusing a horse; and do what I tell you, generally. For that, I'll put one hundred United States dollars in your jeans each and every month we're together, unless you prove to be worth more--or nothing. I won't pay less, for the man in the job that ain't worth a hundred ain't worth a cent--how's it hit you!"

A hundred dollars a month! It hit me so hard my teeth rattled.

"Well," I stammers, "a hundred dollars is an awful lot of money--you ain't going to find the worth of it in my hide--I don't know about bossing men and things like that--why, I don't know _anything_--"

He put his hand on my shoulder and smiled at me. He had a smile as sweet as a woman's. He was as nice as a woman, on his good side--and you'd better keep that side toward you. Him and Sax was of a breed there, too.

I understood him better from knowing Sax.

"Billy boy," he says, "that's my funeral. I've dealt with men some years. I don't ask you for experience: I ask you for intentions. I get sick, living with a lot of men that don't care any more about me than I do about them--that _ain't_ living. You can clear your mind. I like your looks. If I've made a mistake, why, it's a mistake, and we'll part still good friends. If I haven't made a mistake, it won't take you long to learn what I want you to know, and I'll get the worth of my time training a good pup--is it a go, son?"

I was so delighted I took right hold of his hand. "I begin to hope you and me will never come to words," said he as he straightened his fingers out.

I blundered out an apology. He reached up and rubbed my hair around.

"There was heart in that grip, son," he said. "You needn't excuse that."

Just then Mary came on deck and he saw her. He whistled under his breath. "That the kind of cargo you carry now, Jess?" he asked. "I'll take all you got off your hands at your own price."

"Like to know her?" says Jesse. "She's going to teach in one of them mission schools at Panama. You'll see her again, likely."

"I suppose she ought to be consulted," says Jim; "but I'll waive ceremony with you, Jesse."

So they went aft to where Mary stood, a little look of expectancy on her face. She'd been about to join Sax, but seeing the two come, didn't like to move, as it was evident they had something to say to her.

Jesse and Jim made a curious team. Jesse flew along on his little trotters, whilst Jim swung in a long, easy cat-stride, three foot and a half to the pace. Jesse always looked kind of tied together loose. Jim was trim as a race-horse--yet not finicky. His spurs rattled on the deck. Take him from boots to scalp-lock, he was a pretty picture of a man.

"Miss Smith," says Jesse, with a bob, "this feller's Jim Holton."

"And very glad that he is, for once in his life," says Jim, sweeping the deck with his hat, and looking compliments.