Overland Red Part 12

"Say! Just as if I never knowed a good woman. Say, I could actooly give up smokin' for her, if I had to hire some guy to do it for me. That's what I think of her. When I get me plush rags and the dizzy lid, I'll call around in me private caboose and take you both for a little ride."

For a moment the boy gazed away to where the silver of the Southern Pacific rails glinted in the valley. Overland Red's presence brought back poignantly the long, lazy days of loafing and the wide, starry nights of wayside fire, tobacco, and talk. There was a charm in the free life of the road--that long gray road that never ended--never ended in the quiet shade of a mountain ranch or in the rose-bordered pathway to a valley cottage. The long gray road held out no promise of rest for worn and aged folk. After all, its only freedom was the freedom of eternal wandering ... until one could adventure no longer ... and then? Better to tread the harder path of duty.

The boy's black eyes were lifted pleadingly. "Red," he said hesitatingly. "Red, I got to tell you to camp the other side of that line fence till I come to-morrow."

Overland understood instantly that the lad was but following general instructions. He loved the boy, and so, perversely, worked upon his feelings. "Oh, the _other_ side? Ex-cuse me, chief, for intrudin' on this here resavation. Sorry I'm crowdin' you so."

"Now, Red, wait--"

"Wait? What, for you to insult your ole pal again by tellin' him he might drink all the water in this here spring, mebby, or inflooence the morals of the cattle, or steal the wire off the fence? Huh! I thought I was your _pal_?"

"Oh, Red, quit kiddin'. Don't you see I got orders? I got orders."

"You're gettin' civilized fast, all right. The first thing civilization does is to projooce hobos and b.u.ms. Then she turns up her nose because hobos and b.u.ms ain't civilized. Did you ever see a ma cat get mad because one of her kittens was born with sore eyes? I guess not. Cats has got sense. Now, what if I don't indignify myself to the extent of crawlin' under that line fence?"

"'Course I'll bring you the coin in the mornin'. But if you don't go now, why, I got to quit this job. I got to play square to him."

"So it's orders or me, eh?"

"Yes, Red, and I want to use you right, and be square, too."

Overland Red's beard hid the quiver of his lips as he asked huskily: "And you would be comin' back on the road with your ole pal again? You would give up the job and the chance of a smile from that little Rose-Lady Girl and flew the coop with me again if I said the word?"

"Sure I would. You come first and the job comes second; but--but I want to keep the job."

Overland's keen blue eyes filled with instant emotion. "Oh, you go chase a snake up your sleeve. Do you think I'd bust your chances of makin'

good here? Do you reckon I'd let a line fence stand between me and you, speakin' poetical? Say, I'll go camp in that sheriff gent's front yard if it'll do any good to you, or before I'll see you in bad with the little Rose Girl!"

"Please, Red; I mean it."

"So do I. I'll fade quicker than spit on a hot stove. Don't forget to-morrow mornin'. Some day I'll put you hep to how to ride. You better get to your fence job."

Brand Williams watched the man and the boy as they walked along the line-fence trail together. Collie leading the pony, the man talking and gesticulating earnestly. Finally they shook hands. The tramp crawled under the fence. The boy mounted Baldy and rode away.

Williams, catching up his own horse, spurred quickly across the ridge above the spring that the boy might not see him.

CHAPTER IX

A CELESTIAL ENTERPRISE

Broad avenues of feathery pepper trees, long driveways between shadowy rows of the soldierly eucalyptus, wide lawns and gigantic palms of the southern isles, weaving pampas gra.s.s, gay as the plumes of romance, jasmine, orange-bloom, and roses everywhere. Over all is the eternal sunshine and noon breeze of the sea, graciously cooling. Roundabout is a girdle of far hills.

Some old Spanish padre named it "Nuestra Senora Reina de Los Angeles,"

making melody that still lures with its ancient charm. A city for angels, verily. A city of angels? Verily; some fallen, indeed, for there is much nefarious trafficking in real estate, but all in all the majority of souls in Los Angeles are celestial bound, treading upon sunbeams in their pilgrimage.

The plaza, round which the new town roars from dawn to dusk, is still haunted by a crumbling old adobe, while near it droop dusty pepper trees that seem to whisper to each other endlessly--"Manana! Manana!" Whisper as did those swarthy vaqueros and the young, lithe, low-voiced senoritas who strolled across the plaza in the dusk of by-gone days.

"Manana! Manana!--To-morrow! To-morrow!"

And the to-morrows have come and gone as did those Spanish lovers, riding up through the sunshine on their silver-bitted pinto ponies and riding out at dusk with tinkling spur-chains into that long to-morrow that has shrouded the ancient plaza in listless dreams. Mexicans in black sombreros and blue overalls still prowl from cantina to cantina, but the gay vaquero and his senorita are no more.

Overland Red, a harsh note in the somnolence of the place, stepped buoyantly across the square. And here, if ever, Overland was at home.

A swarthy, fat Mexican shaved him while a lean old rurale of Overland's earlier acquaintance obligingly accepted some pesos with which to drink the senor's health, and other pesos with which to purchase certain clothing for the senor.

The retired rurale drove a relentless bargain with a countryman, returning with certain picturesque garments that Overland donned in the back room of the little circus-blue barber shop.

The tramp had worthily determined to hold wise and remunerative converse with the first Easterner that "looked good to him." He would make half-truths do double duty. He needed money to purchase a burro, packs, canteen, pick, shovel, dynamite, and provisions. He intended to repay the investor by money-order from some desert town as soon as he found the hidden gold. This unusual and worthy intention lent Overland added a.s.surance, and he needed it. Fortune, G.o.ddess evanishing and coy, was with him for once. If he could but dodge the plain-clothes men long enough to outfit and get away....

The "Mojave Bar," on North Main Street of the City of Angels was all but empty. Upon it the la.s.situde of early afternoon lay heavily. The spider-legged music-racks of the Mexican string orchestra, the empty platform chairs, the deserted side-tables along the pictured wall, the huge cactus scrawled over with pin-etched initials,--all the impedimenta of the saloon seemed to slumber.

The white-coated proprietor, with elbows on the bar, gazed listlessly at a Remington night-scene--a desert nocturne with a shadowy adobe against the blue-black night, a glimmer of lamplight through a doorway, and in the golden pathway a pony and rider and the red flash of pistol shots.

Opposite the bartender, at a table against the wall, sat a young man, clad in cool gray. He smoked a cigarette, and occasionally sipped from a tall gla.s.s. He was slender, clean-cut, high-colored, an undeniable patrician. In his mild gray eyes, deep down, gleamed a latent humor, an interior twinkling not apparent to the mult.i.tude.

Sweeney Orcutt, the saloon-keeper, noticed this reserve characteristic now for the first time, as the young man turned toward him. Sweeney was a retired plain-clothes man with a record, and a bank account. It was said that he knew every crook from Los Angeles to New York. Be it added, to his credit, that he kept his own counsel--attending to his own business on both sides of the bar.

"Do they ever do those things now?" queried the young man, nodding toward the picture.

Sweeney Orcutt smiled a thin-lipped smile. "Not much. Sometimes in Texas or Mexico. I seen the day when they did."

The young man lazily crossed his legs. "Nice and cool here," he remarked presently.

"Been in town long?" asked Sweeney.

"No, only a few days."

"I was goin' to say there's a good show over on Spring Street--movin'-pictures of the best ridin' and buckin' and ropin' I seen yet."

"Yes? Is there any one in town who is not working for the movies?"

Again Sweeney Orcutt smiled his thin-lipped smile. "Yes, I guess there is. I might scare up one or two I used to know who is workin' the transients, which ain't exactly workin' _for_ the movies."

"I should like to meet some character who is really doing something in earnest; that is, some cowboy, miner, prospector, teamster,--one of those twenty-mule-team kind, you know,--or any such chap. Why, even the real estate men that have been up to my hotel seem to be acting a part.

One expects every minute to see one of them pull a gun and hold up a fellow. No doubt they mean business."

"Bank on that," said Orcutt dryly.

"You see," continued the young man, "I have too much time on my hands just now. The doctors tell me to rest, and I've been doing nothing else all my life. It's pretty monotonous. I've tried to get interested in some of the chaps on North Main Street, and around the plaza. I've offered to buy them drinks and all that, but they seem to shy off. I suppose they think I'm a detective or something of that kind."

"More like, a newspaper man after a story. h.e.l.lo, there! Now, what's doin'?"

Outside near the curb a crowd had collected. A traffic officer was talking to the driver of an automobile. As Sweeney Orcutt strolled toward the doorway, Overland Red, clean-shaven, clothed in new corduroys and high lace boots, and a sombrero aslant on his stiff red hair, dove into the saloon and called for a "bucket of suds."

"Close--shave--Red--" whispered Orcutt.