Books: The Long Chance
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Peter B. Kyne >> The Long Chance
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"Doc Taylor's in Bakersfield" he said.
Mr. Hennage grinned. "I knew it--no luck to-day" he said. "Just wipe
the--sand out--o' my eyes, Bob--an' let me kick the bucket--without
disturbin' nobody. Dan'l, good-by. As the feller says--we shall meet--
on that beautiful--shore."
Pennycook wet a towel in the wash-bowl and wiped Mr. Hennage's eyes.
Then he wiped his own, squeezed his friend's hand and departed. He had
taken Mr. Hennage's gentle hint to leave him alone with Bob McGraw.
For nearly half an hour Bob and Mr. Hennage talked, and when the
gambler had learned all he wished to know he closed his eyes and was
silent until another knock came on the door. Again Bob opened it. Donna
stood on the threshold.
"Oh, sweetheart!" she cried, and her arms went around his neck, while
Sam Singer softly closed the door and stood guard outside. At the sound
of her voice Mr. Hennage opened his eyes, but since he was not one of
the presuming kind he quickly closed them again and feigned
unconsciousness until he felt Donna's soft hand resting on his cold
forehead.
"You oughtn't to a-come here, Donnie" he said, making a brave show to
speak easily despite his terrible wounds. "There ain't--no fun in this
--visit--for nobody--but me--"
He turned wearily to hide his face from her, and looked thoughtfully
out the window, across the level reaches of the Mojave desert, to where
the sun hung low over the Tehachapis. In the fading light the little
dust-devils were beginning to caper and obscure the landscape, much as
the dark shadows were already trooping athwart the horizon of Mr.
Hennage's wasted life. The night--the eternal night--was coming on
apace, and it came to Mr. Hennage that he, too, would depart with the
sunset, and he had no regrets.
"Don't cry" he said gently. "I ain't worth it. Just hold--my hand. I
want you--near--when I can't see you--no more--an' it's gettin' dark--
already. You're so much--like your mother--an' she--she trusted me. I
was born with--a hard--face--an' nobody ever--trusted me--but you an'
--your mother--an' I--wanted to be trusted--all my worthless life--I
wanted it--"
He sighed and held out his hands to them. Thereafter for an hour he did
not speak. He was thinking of many things now, and the time was short.
Presently he opened his eyes and looked out the window again.
"It's--dark" he whispered. "The sun ain't set, has it?"
"It's just setting" Donna answered him. He nodded slightly, and a flush
of embarrassment lit up his pale features. For the first and last time
in life, Harley P. Hennage was going to appear presumptuous.
"If it's--a boy" he whispered, "would you--you wouldn't mind--would
you--callin' him--Harley? Just--his middle name, Donnie--an' he could
--sign it--Robert H.--McGraw."
Donna's hot tears fell fast on his face as she leaned over and kissed
the death-damp from his brow.
"Oh-thank you" he gasped. "Bob--take off my--shoes--I don't--want--to
--die--with--my boots--on. New--gaiters--too--give 'em--to Sam--Singer.
Good--Injun--that."
The sun had set behind the Tehachapis now, and twilight was stealing
over San Pasqual. It was time for Mr. Hennage to be on his way. He
clung to the hands of his friends convulsively, and whatever thoughts
came to him in that supreme moment were for the first time reflected in
his face. Indeed, one tiny hint of the desolation in his big heart--the
agony of a lifetime of misunderstanding and repression, trickled across
his hard face; then something seemed to strike him very funny, for the
infrequent, trustful, childish smile flickered across his face, the
three gold teeth flashed for an instant ere the worst man in San
Pasqual slipped off into the shadows.
And whatever the joke was, he took it with him.
In his unassuming way Harley P. Hennage had been sufficient of a
personage, and the manner of his death sufficiently spectacular, to
entitle him to one hundred and fifty words of posthumous publicity.
Within an hour after the street duel the local representative of the
Associated Press had his story on the wire, and at eight-thirty next
morning T. Morgan Carey, in his club at Los Angeles, read the glad
tidings. By nine o'clock a cipher telegram from Carey was being clicked
off to his tool in the General Land Office at Washington, instructing
him to expedite the listing of the applications of Bob McGraw's clients
for lieu land in Owens Valley.
To T. Morgan Carey's way of thinking that inconspicuous paragraph in
the morning paper meant as much to him as the receipt of a certified
check for a million dollars. Under his instructions, the applications
of McGraw's clients had, with the judicious aid of the deputy in the
State Land Office, been approved by the surveyor-general and forwarded
to Washington for the approval of the Commissioner of the General Land
Office. Here, Carey's long arm, reaching out, had stayed their progress
until now. Within a week after Mr. Hennage's death the lands would be
passed to patent, under the interested attentions of Carey's man in the
General Land Office, the State Land Office would notify Bob McGraw at
his address furnished them that the lands were ready for him, and to
call and pay the balance due. It would then be incumbent upon McGraw to
visit the State Land Office, pay the balance of thirty-nine thousand
dollars due on the lands and close the transaction.
The way had been nicely smoothed for Carey by the death of Mr. Hennage,
who had warned him so earnestly to "keep off the grass." Of course,
McGraw, being to Carey's way of thinking an outlaw from justice, would
not dare to appear to claim the lands, and if he did, T. Morgan Carey
planned to have a hale and hearty gentleman in a blue uniform with
brass buttons, waiting at the Land Office to receive him _before he
paid for the lands._ With the providential removal of McGraw's queer
partner, Carey saw very clearly that, after waiting a reasonable period
after due notice of the approval of the applications had been mailed to
McGraw, the filings would eventually lapse, the state would claim the
forfeit of the preliminary payment of one thousand dollars and the
lands would be reopened for entry--whereupon Carey would step in with
his own dummy entrymen. He could then proceed with his own system of
irrigation, in the meanwhile keeping a watchful eye on McGraw's water
right, ready to grab it when the title should lapse through McGraw's
failure to develop it.
Harley P. Hennage died on the fifth day of March. On the seventh there
were two funerals in San Pasqual. The coroner and two Mexican laborers
tucked Borax O'Rourke away in the potter's field in the morning. In the
afternoon every business establishment in San Pasqual closed, every
male citizen in San Pasqual arrayed himself in his "other" clothes and
attended the funeral of Harley P. Hennage, testifying, by his presence
at least, his masculine appreciation of a dead-game sport.
That was a historic day in San Pasqual. Harley P. lay in state in the
long gambling hall of the Silver Dollar which, for so many years, he
had ruled by the mystic power of his terrible eyes. Dan Pennycook had
made all of the funeral arrangements, and when the crowd had passed
slowly around the casket, viewing Harley P.'s placid face for the last
time, a strange young man, clad in the garb of a prospector, mounted
the little dais, so long occupied by the lookout for Harley P.'s faro
game, and delivered a funeral oration. It was not a panegyric of hope,
and it dwelt not with the promise of a haven for the gambler's soul in
one of his Father's many mansions. He told them merely the story of one
who had dwelt amongst them--the story of a man they had never known--
and he told it in such simple, eloquent words that the men of San
Pasqual wondered what dark tragedy underlay his own life, that he must
needs descend to mingle with such as they. And wondering, they wept.
They asked each other who this red stranger might be, but none could
answer. But when Harley P. Hennage was finally consigned to the desert
they watched the stranger and saw him walk down the tracks to the Hat
Ranch. Then they understood, and the word was passed that the man was
Bob McGraw, the father of Donna Corblay's unborn child.
Strange to relate, nobody considered it worth while to telephone the
sheriff of Kern county. Even Miss Pickett, who since the shooting had
been strangely subdued, was not attracted by the recollection of the
offer of a reward of five hundred dollars for Bob McGraw, dead or
alive; and ten days after the funeral, when a registered letter came to
Robert McGraw, she sent for Dan Pennycook, gave him the letter and the
registry receipt and asked him to take it down to the Hat Ranch.
Pennycook leaned his greasy elbows on the delivery window and gazed
long and sternly at Miss Pickett.
"Miss Pickett" he said presently, "we found a 'nononymous letter on
Borax O'Rourke after he was killed. There's folks in San Pasqual that
says the letter's in your handwritin'."
"'Tain't so!" shrilled the spinster.
"Well, this man McGraw says it is so, an' he's goin' to get an expert
to prove it. He says it's a felony to send a 'nonymous letter through
the United States mails. I'm just a-tellin' you to give you fair
warnin'."
Miss Pickett, although greatly agitated, pursed her mouth
contemptuously and closed the delivery window. Mr. Pennycook left for
the Hat Ranch.
"Donna," said Bob McGraw, when Dan Pennycook had departed, after
delivering the letter from the State Land Office, "the applications of
my clients are approved and ready to be passed to patent. I have been
called upon to pay the balance of thirty-nine thousand dollars due on
the land, and if there are thirty-nine cents real money in this world,
I do act possess them. Will you loan me a hundred dollars, dear, from
that thousand Harley P. gave you? I must go to San Francisco on
business."
He smiled his old bantering smile. "I'm always broke, sweetheart. I'm
an unfortunate cuss, am I not? Those claims of mine didn't yield wages
and I was forced to sell my outfit at Danby to get railroad fare back
to San Pasqual. And if the train hadn't been ten minutes late--if I
hadn't gone into the eating-house looking for you--I would, have
arrived in time to have saved poor Hennage. It was my fight, after all,
and poor Harley wasn't used to firearms."
They were sitting together in the patio. Donna leaned her head on his
broad shoulder. She had suffered much of late. She had fought the good
fight for his sake, for the sake of his great dream of Donnaville, and
she had fought alone. She was weary of it all and she longed to leave
San Pasqual as quickly as possible.
"Are you going to ask Mr. Dunstan for the thirty-nine thousand dollars
he promised to loan you, when the lands were ready for you?" she asked
dully.
"No" he answered. "It's no use. I need more money, and Dunstan's check
wouldn't even get me started. If I'm whipped, there is no sense in
dragging my friends down with me. I'm going to Los Angeles and
compromise with Carey."
She drew his rough cheek down to hers and patted his brown hands. She
knew then the bitterness of his defeat, and she made no comment. She
was tired of the fight. A compromise with Carey or a sale of the water
right was their only hope, and when Bob spoke of compromise she was too
listless to dissuade him. Since that eventful night when he had first
ridden into San Pasqual she had been more or less of a stormy petrel;
woe and death and suffering had followed his coming, and if Donnaville
was to be purchased at such a price, the land was dear, indeed.
She gave him gladly of her slender hoard and that night Bob McGraw went
up to San Francisco. Two days later he returned, stopping off at
Bakersfield, and the following morning he returned to San Pasqual.
He went at once to the post-office, and after receiving permission from
Miss Pickett, screwed into the wall of the post-office lobby what
appeared to Miss Pickett to be two pictures, framed. When he had left,
she came out of her sanctum and discovered that one of the frames
contained a certified copy of a marriage license issued to Robert
McGraw and Donna Corblay on October 17th,----, together with a neat
typewritten statement of the reasons why interested parties had not
been able to discover the record of the issuance of the license at the
county seat. It appeared that the minister who had performed the
ceremony, after forwarding the license to the State Board of Health for
registration, had neglected to return it thereafter to the two most
interested parties, which, coupled with Mrs. McGraw's ignorance of the
procedure to be followed under the circumstances, had resulted in more
or less embarrassment.
The other frame contained a typewritten invitation to the public to
earn five hundred dollars by convicting the undersigned of stage
robbery. The "undersigned" was Robert McGraw, who would remain in San
Pasqual all day long and would be delighted to answer questions.
From the post-office Bob went to the public telephone station and
called up T. Morgan Carey in Los Angeles. He requested an interview at
ten o'clock the following morning for the purpose of adjusting a
compromise with him.
Needless to state, Mr. T. Morgan Carey granted the request with
cheerful alacrity.
"I'm coming to do business" Bob warned him. "No third parties around--
understand!"
"Certainly, certainly" responded Carey. "And in order to save time, Mr.
McGraw, I'll have the assignment of your water right made out, ready
for your signature. I'll have a notary within hailing distance."
Bob could hear him chuckling as he hung up, for to Carey the thought of
his revenge on the man who had cuffed him in the State Land Office was
very sweet, indeed. His amiable smile had not yet worn off when his
office boy ushered Bob McGraw into his private office at ten o'clock
next morning. He waved Bob to a chair and looked him over curiously.
"Been too busy lately to dress up, eh?" he queried, as he noted Bob's
corduroy trousers tucked into his miner's boots.
"Pretty busy" assented Bob, and smiled.
"Rather spectacular removal--that of our friend Hennage" Carey
continued. "From what I learn he was a little slow on the draw."
"O'Rourke beat him to it."
"If I may judge by the single exhibition of your proficiency with a gun
which I was privileged to observe, Mr. McGraw, the issue would have
been different had you been in Hennage's boots."
"Possibly. But I didn't come here to gossip with you, Carey. I don't
like you well enough for that. I want to finish my business and get
back to San Pasqual to-night."
"Certainly, certainly. But you're such an extraordinary young man,
McGraw, that in spite of our former differences I must own to a desire
to know more about you. I could use a man with your brains and ability,
McGraw. You're the kind of a fellow I've been looking for--for a great
many years, in fact. If you think you could manage to divorce yourself
from your ambitions to supersede me in the State Land Office, I could
afford to pay you a fat salary to attend to my land matters. I would
have to be the boss, however. It has been a rule of my life, McGraw, to
gather about me men with more brains than I possess myself. That is the
secret of my--er--rather modest success."
Bob smiled. "No use" he answered. "I couldn't wear your collar, Carey.
I Ve been a white man all my life and I'm too old to change."
"It's a pity" Carey replied with genuine sincerity. "I can see
remarkable possibilities in you, McGraw. I can, indeed. It's a shame to
see you waste your opportunities."
"Play ball" commanded Bob sharply.
"Very well, since you desire it. In the matter of those applications
for fifty sections of Owens Valley: you have received a notification
from the Registrar of the State Land Office, advising you to call and
pay thirty-nine thousand dollars. You cannot pay it; neither can your
clients. What are you going to do about it?"
Bob shrugged. "_Quien sabe?_" he said.
"Well, Mr. McGraw, I'll tell you. Your applications are going to lapse
through non-payment, and I'm going to get the land. So enough of that.
You own a valuable water right. I'm going to get that also. Do you wish
me to explain why?"
"No, it is not necessary. I think I follow your line of reasoning."
"I am not disappointed in my estimate of your common sense" Carey
retorted, and favored his visitor with a cold, quizzical smile. "Here
is the assignment of that water right to me. In return I will give you
--let me see. I will give you just fifteen hundred dollars for that
water right, McGraw, and I am surprised at myself for exhibiting such
generosity. And inasmuch as you collected that sum in advance last
autumn at Garlock, your signature to the assignment, before a notary
who is waiting in the next room, is all that we require to terminate
this interview."
"But I told you I came here to compromise."
"I understand fully. Those are my terms. Your water right on Cottonwood
lake in return for your freedom. Stage-robbers cannot be choosers, Mr.
McGraw. I recognized you that day at Garlock and I am prepared to so
testify."
The land-grabber rose from his swivel chair. His polished suave manner
had disappeared now and his cold eyes flashed with anger and hatred.
"I haven't forgotten that day in the State Land Office, McGraw. A
slight pressure on this button"--he placed his manicured finger on an
ivory push button--"and two plain-clothes men in my outer office will
attend to your case, McGraw."
"So those are your final terms, Carey?"
"Absolutely."
Bob crossed his right leg over his left knee, pulled out a five-cent
cigar and thoughtfully bit off the end.
"Press the button, old man" he murmured presently. "Confound this
cigar, I've busted the blamed wrapper. Got another cigar handy, Carey?
Thanks. By George, that's a two-bitter, isn't it? Well, it's none too
good for the last of the McGraw family. I'll be in the two-bit class;
myself in half an hour. But proceed, Carey. Press the button and call
in your plain-clothes men."
He pulled back the lapel of his coat, and the land-grabber saw the butt
of a gun nestling under his left arm. From his inner coat pocket Bob
drew a cylindrical roll of paper about eight inches long.
Carey eyed him scornfully. "This is the city of Los Angeles, my friend,
not the open desert at Garlock. A gunplay would be most ill-advised, I
assure you."
"Oh, that's just part of my wardrobe" Bob retorted. "I wouldn't think
of using that on a man unless he was real dangerous--and men like you
are beneath my notice. Come now, Carey. Which is it to be? Compromise
or the penitentiary?"
"Certainly not compromise--on any terms but mine."
"Well, press the button and call them in--_Boston!_"
Carey whirled in his chair, jerked open a drawer in his desk and
reached his hand inside. Before he could withdraw it Bob McGraw's big
automatic was covering him.
"Take your hand out of that drawer--_Boston._ Out, you dog, or
I'll drill you!"
Carey's hand came out of the drawer slowly, very slowly, grasping a
small pearl-handled revolver.
"This is the city of Los Angeles, my friend, and not the open desert. A
gun-play would be most ill-advised, I assure you" Bob mocked the land-
grabber. "You'd better let me have that pop-gun."
He gently removed the little weapon from Carey's trembling hand.
"Now, go over in that corner and sit down--no, not on the floor. Take a
chair with you. I'll occupy the arsenal. You might have all kinds of
push buttons, burglar alarms and deadly weapons around this desk."
He ran his hands lightly over Carey's person in search of weapons,
shoved him into the corner indicated, then turned and snapped the
spring lock on the door leading out to the general office; after which
he laid his gun on Carey's desk, sat down in Carey's swivel chair,
tilted himself back and lifted his hob-nailed miner's boots to the top
of Carey's rosewood table close by. And as he gazed, almost
sorrowfully, at the land-grabber, he puffed enjoyably at Carey's cigar.
Evidently he foresaw a lengthy argument and meant to make himself
comfortable before proceeding.
"Well, now, Boston, since we have definitely located you as the
murderer of Oliver Corblay in the Colorado desert on the night of May
17th, 188-, I'll give you five minutes to get your nerve back and then
we'll get down to business. You will recall that I came here to
compromise."
He reached over and placed a brown calloused finger on the push button,
and waited.
"Well" he said presently, "what's the answer!"
"Compromise" Carey managed to articulate. Bob removed his finger.
"The court will now listen to any new testimony that may be adduced in
the case of The People versus Carey. Fire away, Boston."
"What are you?" panted Carey. "A man or a devil?"
"Just a plain human being, so flat busted, Boston, that I rattle when I
walk. What would you suggest to cure me of that horrible ailment?"
"Silence--on both sides--and a hundred thousand for your water right."
"Well, from your point of view, that offer is truly generous. It is now
my turn to be surprised at your generosity. But you're shy on
imagination, Boston--and I'm--a greedy rascal. You'll have to raise the
ante."
"Two hundred thousand."
"Still too low. The power rights alone are worth a million."
"A million, then--you to leave the United States and not return during
my lifetime."
Bob laughed. "You don't understand, Boston. Why should I sell you my
water right? You must have water on the brain."
"Then, why have you called to see me? Is it blackmail? Why, this
interview is degenerating into a ease of the pot calling the kettle
black! I'm a fool, McGraw. I shall offer you nothing at all. You can be
convicted of stage robbery and you haven't a dollar in the world to
make your defense--while I--it takes _evidence_ to convict a man
like me"
"Yes, I know your kind. You think you're above the law. I notice,
however, that you fear it a little. I sprung a good one on you that
time, didn't I, Boston? Imagine the self-possessed T. Morgan Carey
practically confessing to a murder on a mere accusation."
He wagged his head at Carey sorrowfully, and continued. "You said a
minute ago, Carey, that I had brains. You did not underestimate me. I
have. I would not have come to you this morning if I did not have the
goods on you. Not much. I don't hold you that cheap, Boston--"
"Don't call me that name" snarled Carey.
"All right, Boston, I won't, since you object. Sit quiet, now, and I'll
tell you a very wonderful story--profusely illustrated, as the book
agents say. It's rather a long story, so please do not interrupt me."
He unrolled the paper which he had taken from his pocket and held it up
before his cringing victim. It was an enlargement from a kodak picture
of a desert scene. In the foreground lay two human skeletons. Bob
picked a pencil off Carey's desk and lightly indicated one of these
skeletons.
"That bundle of bones was once Oliver Corblay. Notice those footprints
over to the right! See how plainly they loom up in the picture? And
over there--see that little message, Bos--I mean, Mr. Carey. It says:
'Friend, look in my canteen and see that I get justice.'
"Behold the friend who looked in the canteen, and who is now here for
justice for that skeleton. He's waited twenty years for it, Carey, but
he's going to get it to-day. Don't squirm so. You distract my mind from
my story.
"Two months ago I was heading up from the Colorado river toward
Chuckwalla Tanks. Passing the mouth of a box canyon I observed the
footprints of a man in some old rotten lava formation. I could tell
that the man who made those footprints was dying of thirst when he made
them. He was traveling in circles, every twenty yards, and they always
do that toward the finish.
"Well, I hustled up that box canyon with my canteen, hoping I'd arrive
in time. Judge of my surprise when I found this heap of bones. I
investigated and discovered that owing to the peculiar formation in the
box canyon the footprints were practically imperishable. A detailed
explanation of the reason why they loom up so white would be
interesting, but technical--so let it pass. Suffice the fact that
Oliver Corblay made the same discovery when he drifted into that box
canyon twenty years ago, and it gave him an idea. He had a message to
leave to posterity and he left it in his empty canteen. However, unless
attention could be called to the canteen, the man who found the
skeleton would merely bury it and never think of looking in the
canteen. So Oliver Corblay wrote that message in the lava; really the
most ingenious piece of inlaid work I have ever seen.
"I was the first man to travel that way in twenty years. I read the
message in the lava and I looked in the canteen. Here is a copy of the
story I found there. The original is in a safe deposit box in San
Francisco. It is a diary of a trip which you made with Oliver Corblay
and his _mozo_ when you first came out to this country from--well,
never mind the name. It seems to annoy you. This diary tells all about
the discovery of the Baby Mine, your attack upon him with a stone and
your flight with the gold--in fact, a condensed history of that trip
right down to the very day he died in that box canyon.
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