Bunch Grass Part 51

He faced them with a derisive smile upon his weather-beaten face.

Obviously, the Court was impressed, but the fact remained that Jake Farge was dead, and that someone must have killed him.

"What d'ye say, boys?"

"I say he's lyin'," observed a squatter, whom Thomas Ransom had discovered ear-marking an unbranded calf.

"Smoky knows that Pap done it," remarked another.

This bolt went home. Smoky's face during the preceding five minutes had been worth studying. He was quite sure that the old man was lying, and upon his ingenuous countenance such knowledge, illuminated by admiration and amazement, was duly inscribed.

"Pap's yarn is too thin," said a gaunt Missourian.

"It's thin as you air," said Ransom contemptuously. "Do you boys think that I'd spring so thin a tale on ye, if it wasn't true?"

At this they wriggled uneasily. The 'Piker,' with some experience of fickle crowds, said peremptorily--

"The old man done it, and the young 'un knows he done it. They're jest two of a kind. Those in favour of hangin' 'em both hold up their hands. One hand apiece will do."

Slowly, inexorably, the hands went up. The judge p.r.o.nounced sentence--

"Ye've five minutes. Say yer prayers, if ye feel like it."

The simple preparations were made swiftly. Two raw-hide lariats were properly adjusted. The prisoners looked on with the stoical indifference of Red Indians. It might have been said of the pair that neither had known how to live, but each knew how to die.

"Ready?" said the 'Piker.'

"Hold on!" replied a high-pitched voice.

The crowd turned to behold Mintie. She had crawled up silently and stealthily. But now she stood upright, her small head thrown back, her eyes glittering in the moonlight.

"Got a rope fer me?" she asked. "I've heard everything."

n.o.body answered. The girl laughed; then she said slowly--

"I shot Jake Farge--with this."

She threw a small revolver at the 'Piker,' who picked it up. "I killed him at five this afternoon. I knew that if I didn't do it Pap would, and that you'd hang him. Jake came after me agen an' agen, an' each time I warned him. To-day he came fer the last time. He was half- crazy, and I had to kill the beast to save myself. I did it, and"-- she looked steadfastly at Smoky Jack--"I ain't ashamed of it, neither.

There's only one man in all the world can make love to me. I never knowed that I keered for him till to-night."

She pointed at Smoky, who remarked deprecatingly--

"I allus allowed you was a daughter o' the Golden West."

"If you ain't goin' to hang me," said Mintie, "don't you think you'd better skip?"

She laughed scornfully, and the men, without a word, skipped. Smoky, his hands loosed, seized Mintie in his arms, as the moon slipped discreetly behind a cloud.

XVIII

ONE WHO DIED

He was a remittance man, who received each month from his father, a Dorset parson, a letter and a cheque. The letter was not a source of pleasure to the son, and does not concern us; the cheque made five pounds payable to the order of Richard Beaumont Carteret, known to many men in San Lorenzo county, and some women, as d.i.c.k. Time was when Mr. Carteret cut what is called a wide swath, when indeed he was kowtowed to as Lord Carteret, who drove tandem, shot pigeons, and played all the games, including poker and faro. But the ten thousand pounds he inherited from his mother lasted only five years, and when the last penny was spent d.i.c.k wrote to his father and demanded an allowance. He knew that the parson was living in straitened circ.u.mstances, with two daughters to provide for, and he knew also that his mother's fortune should in equity have been divided among the family; but, as he pointed out to his dear old governor, a Carteret mustn't be allowed to starve; so the parson, who loved the handsome lad, put down his hack and sent the prodigal a remittance. He had better have sent him a hempen rope, for necessity might have made a man out of Master d.i.c.k; the remittance turned him into a moral idiot.

A Carteret, as you know, cannot do himself justice upon five pounds a month, so d.i.c.k was constrained to play the part of Mentor to sundry youthful compatriots, teaching them a short cut to ruin, and sharing the while their purses and affections. But, very unhappily for d.i.c.k, the supply of fools suddenly failed, and, lo! d.i.c.k's occupation was gone. Finally, in despair, he allied himself to another remittance man, an ex-deacon of the Church of England, and the two drifted slowly out of decent society upon a full tide of Bourbon whisky.

Tidings must have come to the parson of his son's unhappy condition, or possibly he decided that the Misses Carteret were ent.i.tled to the remittance. It is certain that one dreadful day d.i.c.k's letter contained nothing but a sheet of note-paper.

"I can send you no more cheques" (wrote the parson), "not another penny will you receive from me. I pray to G.o.d that He may see fit to turn your heart, for He alone can do it. I have failed ..."

d.i.c.k showed this letter to his last and only friend, the ex-deacon, the Rev. Tudor Crisp, known to many publicans and sinners as the 'Bishop.' The two digested the parson's words in a small cabin situated upon a pitiful patch of ill-cultivated land; land irreclaimably mortgaged to the hilt, which the 'Bishop' spoke of as "my place." d.i.c.k (he had a sense of humour) always called the cabin the rectory. It contained one unplastered, unpapered room, carpetless and curtainless; a bleak and desolate shelter that even a sheep-herder would be loth to describe as home. In the corners were two truckle beds, a stove, and a large demijohn containing some cheap and fiery whisky; in the centre of the floor was a deal table; on the rough redwood walls were shelves displaying many dilapidated pairs of boots and shoes, also some fly-specked sporting prints, and, upon a row of nails, a collection of shabby discoloured garments, ancient "hartogs,"

manifesting even in decay a certain jaunty, dissolute air, at once ludicrous and pathetic. Outside, in front, the 'Bishop' had laid out a garden wherein nothing might be found save weeds and empty beer bottles, dead men denied decent interment. Behind the cabin was the dust-heap, an interesting and historical mound, an epitome, indeed, of the 'Bishop's' gastronomical past, that emphasised his descent from Olympus to Hades; for on the top was a plebeian deposit of tomato and sardine cans, whereas below, if you stirred the heap, might be found a n.o.bler stratum of terrines, once savoury with _foie gras_ and Strasbourg _pate_, of jars still fragrant of fruits embedded in liqueur, of bottles that had contained the soups that a divine loves-- oxtail, turtle, mulligatawny, and the like. Upon rectory, glebe, and garden was legibly inscribed the grim word--ICHABOD.

"He means what he says," growled d.i.c.k. "So far as he's concerned I'm dead."

"You ought to be," said the 'Bishop,' "but you aren't; what are you going to do?"

This question burned its insidious way to d.i.c.k's very vitals. What could he do? Whom could he do? After a significant pause he caught the 'Bishop's' eye, and, holding his pipe as it might be a pistol, put it to his head, and clicked his tongue.

"Don't," said the 'Bishop' feebly.

The two smoked on in silence. The Rev. Tudor Crisp reflected mournfully that one day a maiden aunt might withdraw the pittance that kept his large body and small soul together. This unhappy thought sent him to the demijohn, whence he extracted two stiff drinks.

"No," said d.i.c.k, pushing aside the gla.s.s. "I want to think, to think.

Curse it, there must be a way out of the wood. If I'd capital we could start a saloon. We know the ropes, and could make a living at it, more, too, but now we can't even get one drink on credit. Why don't you say something, you stupid fool?"

He spoke savagely. The past reeled before his eyes, all the cheery happy days of youth. He could see himself at school, in the playing fields, at college, on the river, in London, at the clubs. Other figures were in the picture, but he held the centre of the stage. G.o.d in heaven, what a fool he had been!

The minutes glided by, and the 'Bishop' refilled his gla.s.s, glancing from time to time at d.i.c.k. He was somewhat in awe of Carteret, but the whisky warmed him into speech.

"Look here," he said with a spectral grin, "what's enough for one is enough for two. We'll get along, old man, on my money, till the times mend."

d.i.c.k rose, tall and stalwart; and then he smiled, not unkindly, at the squat, ungainly 'Bishop.'

"You're a good chap," he said quietly. "Shake hands, and-good-bye."

"Why, where are you going?"

"Ah! Who knows? If the fairy tales are true, we may meet again later."

Crisp stared at the speaker in horror. He had reason to know that d.i.c.k was reckless, but this dare-devil despair apalled him. Yet he had wit enough to attempt no remonstrance, so he gulped down his, whisky and waited.

"It's no use craning at a blind fence," continued d.i.c.k. "Sooner or later we all come to the jumping-off place. I've come to it to-night.

You can give me a decent funeral--the governor will stump up for that --and there will be pickings for you. You can read the service, 'Bishop.' Gad! I'd like to see you in a surplice."