The Mascot Of Sweet Briar Gulch Part 2

"All aboard!" cried the conductor, and with a few mighty breaths the iron giant whisked its load out in the open again.

"Stay where you are, son, till I see whether that fellow is playing a trick," said Jim, and not until he had looked under the platform, up and down the track, and in the waiting rooms, did he give the command, "Come down!"

II

The pa.s.senger agent saw the performance with astonishment. "So you had the boy tucked away all the time?" said he. "Just what kind of a game is this?"

"Dunno," returned Jim. "Let the boy speak for himself. Now, young man, what's the matter?"

The urchin stood before them, taking them in thoroughly with his sharp little eyes. More big men strolled up. As a particularly fine foil to the boy's diminutive form, Benny, the baggage smasher, whose overhanging shoulders testified whence came the power that had reduced many a proud Saratoga to elemental conditions, and "Happy Jack," the mammoth, soot-black, loose-jointed negro porter, placed themselves on either side of him. They made the boy look more like an insect than ever.

"Wot's de matter?" he cried in a voice at once hoa.r.s.e and shrill, with a cursing note in it, and accompanying the words with an extravagant, dramatic gesture of his skinny claw. "I'll tell yer wot's der matter--dey beat me--dey beat me bad. I don't ast youse to take me word fur it--look at me back--dat's all I ast yer--jes' look at dat!"

He ripped the shirt from his shoulders. An angry growl went up from all those big-bearded men when they saw the horrible stripes and welts--raw, blue and swollen--on the poor little back.

Happy Jack threw up both his gorilla arms. "Lord Jesus! Who done you like dat, boy?" he cried. "'F I got m' hookers on him, cuss me 'f I wudden'

put b.u.mps on him bigger'n yer hull body."

"Now yer talkin'," shrieked the boy. He raised himself to the tips of his toes, bared his teeth to the gum, and with clutching talons, gripping at the air, yelled: "Aggh! If I had me growth! I'd bite his heart out! I'd tear his neck for 'im!"

The men looked astounded on this mighty fury, pent in so small and miserable a cage. The voice had a peculiar alarming call to it, like the note of a fire-gong.

Suddenly the boy's head dropped on the crook of his arm. "Treated me wuss'n a dog," he sobbed out. "Done me so it makes even dat n.i.g.g.e.r holler when he sees it."

Happy Jack was taken aback. The other men smoothed down their faces forcibly.

"Say, lil' boy, you think dat's a p'lite way to talk to people?" inquired Jack.

The boy wiped his eyes on his sleeve and went over to him. "Say, don't yer holt nothin' ag'in me fur der word," said he. "Dey've got me looney--dat's wot--yer've used me liker fren'; and if it hoits yer, yer can kick me pants fur me, and I won't say nuthin'."

"Well, there's two-pound-and-a-half of dead game sport for you, all right!" cried Benny. "Good eye, kid!"

Happy Jack smiled a mollified smile eight inches wide. "You is all right, beau," said he. "An' as fur as my bein' a n.i.g.g.e.r's concerned, I'll admit my kerplection ain't light." He slapped his ham and brought down a foot on the platform. "Hyah, hyah!" he roared, "you bet dere ain't no dam'

blond 'bout me!"

The infectious darky laugh started the others off, and brought matters to a common-sense footing.

The pa.s.senger agent took up the interrogation. Was the man the boy's real father? Answer: "How'd I know? Dat's der song he guv me." Were there any relatives? Friends? Answer: "Naw!" Well, what did the boy propose to do?

Answer, digging his toes into the boards: "Didn't know--anyt'ing!" What was his name? "Jim." Jim what? "Didn't know. Sometimes der gun callt himself 'Darragh,' an' sometimes 'Mullen,' an' sometimes 'Smit.' Aggh! He callt himself the foist t'ing dat come to his tongue--he didn't have no real name."

The agent talked to him a bit more, winding up by saying kindly: "You've had a pretty rough time of it, Jimmy, and we'd all like to give you a lift--now, just say what you'd like to do, and maybe we can fix it."

"I'd like to go along wid dat feller, 'f he'll take me," replied the boy, tossing a thumb toward Jim Felton. There was a becoming access of shyness in his manner; moreover, Felton had an increased interest in him when he knew they bore the same name--a sort of kinship, as it were.

"Well, it's up to you, Mister--" said the pa.s.senger agent, with a smile.

"Felton," said Jim. "I'm in. I'll take the boy. Hard rustling down my way, but I guess we can make out somehow. Sure you want to go, kid?"

"Yessir!" very heartily.

"Done, then!"

Happy Jack s.n.a.t.c.hed off his uniform cap, spat on a bill, and flapped it into the bottom thereof.

"Good-by, fren'!" said he. He shook the cap in front of the others.

"Here's fur the lil' rooster; step up to the capen's office an' settle, gents!" he called. "'Member what de Bible says, 'Fool an' his money soon parted.' Come up! Come up!"

They came up generously.

"Stick a five in there for me, Bill," said Benny to the pa.s.senger agent, "I'm strapped."

"How much you got, boy?" asked the agent, as Happy counted the money.

"Fo'ty dollars, even money, Misto' Breckenridge." The agent was a bachelor with a fat salary. "Here, that makes it fifty," said he. He turned to Felton. "Now, what do you say if we go across the street and--er--discuss this matter a little further?"

"Go you," replied Felton.

"Now, Jimmy, you sit here for a moment. We're going on some business."

The boy glanced at them sharply. "Youse fellers is goin' to get a drink,"

said he.

Those big men put their hands on their sides and roared.

"You'll find that kid worse than a wife, Felton!" said the agent.

"No use of our being hypocrites to the little chap. I reckon he's seen worse things than the inside of a saloon. Come along, laddybuck."

They lined up and partook. The agent told the story of the waif. "And we started him off with fifty, Mac," he said to the saloon-keeper. "Suppose you break away from some of your ill-gotten gains in the good cause."

The saloon-keeper opened his cash drawer without words and slid over a five-dollar bill. He seemed very glad to part with it.

"Confound it! Now we're upsticks again," said the agent. "Tell you what let's do. Here's ten of us. Each man put up a two, and we'll shake the dice to see who gives it to the kid--winner to set 'em up. That'll make seventy-five--a very respectable figure."

They played a new interesting dice-game, in which the figure of a pig drawn in chalk upon the bar furnished the "lay-out." It is a game which increases in interest to the last throw. They stuck the saloon-keeper, and were gleeful.

"We ought to name the boy," said Felton, under the inspiration of the second refreshment. "My name's Jim, and I want something else to call him by. I'll make him a present of my last name."

"Gad, that's so!" replied the agent.

"Call him Chescheela Jim," put in a cow-man. "That's Injun for 'little Jim.' 'Ches' ain't a bad nickname."

"Mac, hand over one of those toy sample bottles of California fizz," said the agent. "We'll put this craft down the ways in shape."

Felton broke the neck off the bottle with a tack-hammer and poured the wine on the boy's head. "I christen thee Chescheela James Felton--may you become a good seaworthy craft, and not fill your skin with this stuff when you grow up," said he dramatically.