Still Jim Part 49

Uncle Denny pulled a chair out for Murphy and looked at him thoughtfully.

"Do you know this jackal, Fleckenstein?"

"I do. The Boss showed me that letter. I suppose you know how a man like Mr. Manning would take to a fellow like Fleckenstein?"

"Know!" snorted Uncle Denny. "Why, young fellow, I'd know Jim's disembodied soul if I met it in an uninhabited desert."

Murphy raised his eyebrows. "You're Irish, I take it."

"You take it right."

"I was born in Dublin myself."

The two men shook hands and Murphy went on. "I told the Boss to forget that letter. I know Fleckenstein. I know all his secrets just as I do about every other man's in the valley. I know their shames and their business grafts. In fact I know everything but the best side of 'em.

I've been in the saloon business in this valley for twenty years, Mr.

Dennis."

"Ah!" said Uncle Denny. "I understand now!"

"All I've got to do," said Murphy, "is to drop in on Fleckenstein and mention this letter and suggest that my own information is what you might call detailed. 'Twill be enough."

"Of course, it might not be Fleckenstein," said Dennis.

"Never mind! My warning will reach the proper party, if I go to Fleckenstein," said Murphy. He smacked his lips over the cup of coffee Mrs. Flynn set before him.

"And how came you to be helping the Boss instead of distributing booze?"

asked Uncle Denny.

"I was about ready to quit, anyhow," said Murphy. "A man gets sick of crooked deals if you give him time. And time was when a man could keep a saloon in this section and still be the leading citizen and his wife could hold up her head with the banker's wife. That time's gone. I've been thinking for a long time of marrying and settling down. Then the Boss cleaned me out." Murphy chuckled.

"How was that?" asked Dennis. Mrs. Flynn began to clear the table very slowly.

"Well, this is the way of it," and Murphy told the story of his first meeting with Jim. "I've seen him in action, you see," he concluded, "and I'd be sorry for Fleckenstein if he crosses the Boss's path."

"Jim'll never trouble himself to kick the jackal!" said Uncle Denny.

"Huh! You don't know that boy. There was a look in his eye this morning--G.o.d help Fleckenstein if he meets the Big Boss--but he'll avoid the Boss like poison."

Uncle Denny shook his head. "What kind is Fleckenstein?"

"What kind of a man would be countenancing a letter like that?" Then Murphy laughed. "The first time I ever saw Fleckenstein he was riding in the stage that ran west from Cabillo. Bill Evans was driving and Fleckenstein got to knocking this country and telling about the real folks back East. Bill stood it for an hour, then he turned round and said: 'Why, d.a.m.n your soul, we make better men than you in this country out of binding wire! What do you say to that?' And Fleckenstein shut up."

Uncle Denny chuckled. "Have a cigar? Is Jim making any headway in this 'silent campaign' I'm hearing about?"

"Thanks," said Murphy. "Well, he is and he ain't. He's got a great personality and everybody who gets his number will eat sand for him. He made a great speech at Cabillo, time of the Hearing. He said the dam was his thumb-print--kind of like the mounds the Injuns left, I guess.

People are kind of coupling that speech up now with him when they meet him and they are beginning to have their doubts about his dishonesty.

But I don't believe he can get his other idea across on the farmers and rough-necks in time to lick Fleckenstein."

"And what is his other idea?" asked Dennis.

Murphy smoked and stared into s.p.a.ce for a time before he answered. "I can best tell you that by giving you an incident. I went with Ames and the Boss while he called on a farmer named Marshall. Marshall is a bright man and no drinker. He has been loud in his howls about the Boss being incompetent and kicking about the farmer having to pay the building charges. Marshall was cleaning his buckboard and the Boss, sort of easy like, picks up a brush and starts to brush the cushion.

"'My father used to make me sweep the chicken coop,' says the Boss. 'We were too poor to keep a horse. If I couldn't build a dam better than I used to sweep that coop, I'd deserve all you folks say about me.'

"He says this so sort of sad like that Marshall can't help laughing, and he starts in telling how he used to sojer when he was a kid. And once started, with the Boss looking like his heart would melt out of his eyes, Marshall kept it up till the whole of his life lay before the Boss like an ill.u.s.trated Sunday Supplement.

"'You've had great experiences,' says the Boss. 'I've not had much experience in dealing with men as you have. I'm wondering if you would help me get this idea across with the folks round here. I want them to see this; that America has never made a more magnificent experiment to see if us folks can handle our own big business and pay a debt contracted by ourselves. I'd like to see this done, Marshall,' he says sad like, 'as a sort of last legacy of the New England spirit, for we old New Englanders are going, Marshall, same as the buffalo and the Indian.'

"Something about the way he said it sort of made your eyes sting and Marshall says, rough-like, 'I'll think it over and I'd just as soon tell what you said to the neighbors,' Then, while the Boss went up to the house to get a drink of water, Marshall says to us, 'He's got a good shaped head. I wouldn't a made so many fool cracks about him if I'd known he could be so sort of friendly and decent.'"

During this recital, Mrs. Flynn had drawn near and now with eyes on Murphy she was absently polishing the teaspoons with the dustcloth.

"Why don't you send some of those folks to me?" she cried. "I'd tell 'em a thing or two about the Big Boss. There's a letter over there now on the desk from the German government, asking him questions and offering him a job. Incompetent!"

"How do you know what's in the letter, Mrs. Flynn?" asked Uncle Denny, with a wink at Murphy.

"Because I read it," returned Mrs. Flynn, with shameless candor.

"Somebody's got to keep track of the respects that's paid that poor boy or n.o.body'd ever know it. G.o.d knows I hate the Dutch, but they know a good man when they hear of one better than the Americans. And I wish you two'd get out of here while I set the table for dinner."

The two men laughed and got their hats. "I'll meet you at the office shortly," said Uncle Denny. "I've a call to make."

Pen was sitting on the doorstep when Uncle Denny came up. She was looking very tired and her cheeks were flushed. She rose and led him away from the tent.

"Sara is very sick, Uncle Denny. I've given him some morphine, but he'll be coming out of it soon. Will you telephone from the office for the doctor?"

"Is it the same old pain?" asked Dennis.

"Yes, only worse. I--I am to blame, in a way. He has been growing worse lately and any excitement is dreadful for him. And then, I struck him, Uncle Denny! I shall never forgive myself for that. And yet, this morning he laughed at it. He said he never had thought so much of me as he had for that slap."

Uncle Denny nodded. "He's deserved it a hundred times, Penny! That never made him worse. But this is no place for him. When I go back to New York, you and he must go with me."

"Yes, I have felt the same way, about the excitement here. We'll go when you say, Uncle Denny."

"Is the doctor here a good one?"

"Splendid! A Johns Hopkins man here for his health."

"What else can I do?" asked Uncle Denny. "Shall I come in and sit with him?"

"No; ask Mrs. Flynn to come over after dinner. You go out and see the dam and be proud of your boy."

"And of me girl," said Uncle Denny. He had been standing with his hat in his hand and now he bent and kissed Pen's cheek.

"Erin go bragh!" said Pen. "Uncle Denny, I'm tired! I feel as if I were running on one cylinder and three punctured tires. I have to talk that way after my close a.s.sociation with Bill Evans!"

Uncle Denny had a delightful trip over the Project with Murphy. He dined with the upper mess so that Mrs. Flynn could devote herself to Pen.

After eating, he started down the great road to the tower foot to meet Murphy.

Before he came to the tower, however, he came on a group of men hovering over the canyon edge. Uncle Denny gave an exclamation of pity. A mule with a pack on its back had slipped off the road and hung far below by the rope halter that had caught around a projecting rock. The hombre who had been driving the mule had gone for ropes.