Books: The Long Chance
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Peter B. Kyne >> The Long Chance
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"Well, Mr. Hennage. This _is_ a delightful surprise. I'm _so_
glad to see you back in San Pasqual. Where have you been these past
three years?"
Harley P. scrambled down from his high stool, took her cool hand and
blushed.
"I wouldn't like to tell you," he said, "but I've been in some mighty-
y-y funn-y-y places, where I didn't meet no beautiful young ladies like
you, Miss Donnie. I ain't much of a man at handin' out compliments--I
never was one o' the presumin' kind--but you sure do put San Pasqual on
the map. Miss Donnie, you do, for a fact."
Donna smiled her appreciation of Harley P.'s gallantry. "You left
without saying good-by" she reminded him. "If I had needed you I
couldn't have found you. Do you remember? You said if I ever needed a
friend--"
The big gambler grinned. "You never needed me, Miss Donnie. You never
would need a man like me, but you might have needed money. If you'd a-
needed money, now, why, Dan Pennycook he'd a-seen you through."
Mr. Hennage did not judge it necessary to tell Donna that he had left
the worthy yardmaster in charge of her destinies, with a thousand
dollars on deposit in a bank in Bakersfield, in Dan's name, for Donna's
use in case of emergency. Mr. Hennage lived in an atmosphere of money,
where everybody fought to get his money away from him and where he
fought to get theirs; hence finances were ever his first thought. As
for Donna, she did not think it necessary that she should express a
contrary opinion regarding Dan Pennycook. She said:
"Why didn't you come to the counter at once and say hello?"
He shook his head, "I wanted to all right, but I hated to appear
presumin', an' with my rep in this village you know how people are
liable to talk. World treatin' you well, Miss Donnie?"
"I think I get more fun out of San Pasqual than most of the people in
it."
"Well, then, you must spend a lot o' time lookin' into a mirror"
replied Harley P., and blushed at his effrontery. "That's the only way
the San Pasqual folks can get any fun--a-lookin' at your face."
"Mr. Hennage, I fear you're getting to be one of the presuming kind. I
declare I haven't had such pretty speeches made me this year. By the
way, how's the kitty?"
Harley P.'s russet countenance swelled like the wattles on a
Thanksgiving turkey. He leaned over the counter and gazed under it; his
glance swept the room; he even, peered under his stool. Finally he
looked up at Donna with his three gold teeth flashing through his
trustful, childish smile.
"I dunno" he answered. "I guess she's around the house somewheres. I
ain't seen her in quite a spell."
"I thought so," she answered gravely, "or you wouldn't have returned to
San Pasqual. Small game for a small pocketbook, eh, Mr. Hennage?" She
came closer to him. "I don't mind telling you--just between friends,
you understand--that I have a couple of hundred to stake you to if
you're hard up, but for goodness sake don't tell Mrs. Pennycook. She
talks."
"Good Lord" gasped the gambler, and choked on a crouton. "D'ye mean it,
Miss Donna?"
"Certainly."
"You're a dead game sport and I'd take you up, because I understand
that it's between pals, but you ain't got no notion o' tryin' to square
me for--you know!"
"I might--if I didn't understand all about that--you know? As it is I
want to show you that I'm grateful, and my experienced eye informs me
that you arrived in a box car. An empty furniture car, I should say,
judging by that scrap of excelsior in your back hair, although the car
might have been loaded with crockery."
Mr. Hennage removed the evidence and gazed at it reflectively.
"I suppose, now, if that'd been a feather, you'd a-swore I flew in."
"Possibly. You've been a high flyer in your day, haven't you?"
Mr. Hennage grinned. "I've flew some, but I've come home to roost now.
How's the old savage down at the Hat Ranch?"
"Sam Singer is unchanged. Nothing ever changes in this country, Mr.
Hennage."
"Nothin' but money," he corrected, as he fished a bill out of his vest
pocket, "an' money sure changes hands, more particular when I'm
around."
"Are you going back to the Silver Dollar saloon?"
"Yes, I suppose so."
"Faro, roulette, black jack, coon can or craps?"
"The old game--faro."
"I'll bank you up to five hundred."
"That's not the right thing for a young lady to do, is it?" queried the
gambler. "Havin' truck wit' my kind o' people. Me--I'll do anything,
but a young lady, now--"
"Please do not compare me with Mrs. Pennycook" Donna pleaded. "I am not
the guardian of San Pasqual's morals. I'll stake you because I like you
and I don't care who knows it--if you don't."
"You're a brick" the gambler declared. "I don't need your money, you
blessed woman. I'm 'fat'" and he waved a thousand-dollar bill at her.
"I did ride into San Pasqual on a freight, but I did it from choice,
an' not necessity. The brakie was an old friend o' mine an' asked me to
ride in wit' him. But all the same it's grand to think that there's
women like you in this tough old world. It helps out a heap. You're
just like your poor mother--a real lady an' no mistake."
Donna blushed. She was embarrassed, despite the earnest praise of
Harley P. She gave him her hand. He took it with inward trembling, lest
she might be seen shaking hands with him and dishonored. She said good-
night.
"Walkin' home alone?" Harley P. was much concerned. "Not that I'm
fishin' for an invitation to see you safe to the Hat Ranch, because
that'd start talk, an' anyhow I ain't one o' the presumin' kind an' you
know it; but it's dark an' the zephyr's blowin' like sixty, an' if
there was one hobo on that freight I come in on there was a dozen."
"Why, I didn't realize it was so late," Donna answered. "I'll have to
wait until the moon comes up. But I never walk home when I'm kept late.
The division superintendent lends me the track-walker's velocipede and
I whiz home like the limited. There isn't any danger, and if there was
I could outrun it. Do you wish to register before I go, Mr. Hennage? I
suppose you'll want your old room?"
The gambler nodded and Donna returned to the cashier's counter. After
assigning Mr. Hennage to his quarters she telephoned to the baggage
room next door where the track-walker for that division stored his
velocipede, and asked to have the machine brought out and placed on
the tracks.
For perhaps half an hour she conversed with Harley P., much to that
careless soul's discomfort, for he was terribly afraid of affording the
San Pasqualians grounds for "talk." And as she waited the moon arose,
lighting up the half mile of track that led past the Hat Ranch; and
Fate, under whose direction all the dramas of life are staged, gave the
cue to the Leading Man.
He entered San Pasqual, riding down through the desert from Owens river
valley. But he was not in the least such a Leading Man as Donna had
pictured in her dreams. He was tall enough but his hair was not crisp
and curly and golden. Most people would have called it red. Not, praise
be, a carroty red, a dull negative, scrubby red, but a nicer red than
that--dark auburn, in fact. And he had an Irish nose and an Irish jaw
and Irish eyes of bonny brown. In but one particular did he resemble
the dream man. He did have a cleft in his chin. But even that was none
of nature's doing. A Mexican with a knife was solely responsible. Yet,
worse than all of these disappointments is the fact that his name was
_not_ Gerald Van Alstyne. No, indeed. The Leading Man owned to the
plain, homely, unromantic patronymic of Bob McGraw. The only thing
romantic and--er--literary about Bob McGraw was his Roman-nosed
mustang, Friar Tuck--so called because he had been foaled and raised on
a wooded range near Sherwood in Mendocino county. As a product of
Sherwood forest, Mr. McGraw had very properly christened him Friar
Tuck, and as Friar Tuck's colthood home lay five hundred miles to the
north, it will be seen that Mr. McGraw was a wanderer. Hence, if the
reader is at all imaginative or inclined to the science of deduction,
he will at one mental bound, so to speak, arrive at the conclusion that
Bob McGraw, if not actually an adventurous person, was at least fond of
adventure--which amounts to the same thing in the long run. Most people
who read Robin Hood are, as witness Mr. Tom Sawyer.
The moon was coming up just as the red-headed young man from Owens
river valley rode into San Pasqual. As he approached the railroad hotel
and eating-house he saw a girl emerge, and pause for a moment before
walking out to climb aboard a track-walker's velocipede. In the light
that streamed through the open door he saw her face, framed in a tangle
of black wind-blown wisps of hair; so he reined in Friar Tuck and
stared, for he--well! Most people looked twice at Donna Corblay, and
the red-headed man was young.
So he sat his horse in the dribbling moonlight and watched her seize
the handles of the lever and glide silently off into the night. He had
been standing in the stirrups, leaning forward to look at her hands as
they grasped the lever, and now he sat back in his saddle, much
relieved.
"No wedding ring in sight" he mused. "My lady of the velocipede, I'll
marry you, or my name's not Bob McGraw."
Just then Mr. Harley P. Hennage appeared in the doorway. He saw Bob
McGraw, recognized him, and immediately dodged back and went out
another door. He wanted to rush out and shake hands with Mr. McGraw, of
whom he was very fond, but we regret to state that Mr. McGraw owed
Harley P. Hennage the sum of fifty dollars and had owed it for three
years, and Mr. Hennage hesitated to seek Mr. McGraw out for purposes of
friendship, fearing that Mr. McGraw might construe his advances as a
roundabout dun. Ergo, Mr. Hennage fled.
Bob McGraw watched Donna Corblay, and when she was about three hundred
yards distant and beyond the town limits, he saw that a switch had been
left open, for the velocipede suddenly left the outside track, cut
obliquely across several parallel rows of tracks before she could
control it, and shot in behind a string of box cars. As the girl
disappeared, three dark figures sprang after her and a scream came very
faintly against the wind.
Bob McGraw laughed and drew a gun from under his left armpit.
"I'd ride to hell for you" he muttered joyously, and sank the rowels
home in Friar Tuck.
CHAPTER V
As has been intimated elsewhere in this story, San Pasqual has the
reputation of being a "tough" town. This is due in a large measure to
the fact that it is a division terminal, and at all division terminals
train crews must reckon with that element in our leisure class which
declines to pay railroad fare and elects to travel on brake-beams
rather than in Pullman sleepers. Having been unceremoniously plucked
from his precarious perch, the dispossessed hobo, finding himself
stranded in a desert town where the streets are not electrically
lighted, follows the dumb dictates of his stomach and the trend of his
abnormal ambition, and promptly "turns a trick." Occasionally there is
an objection on the part of the "trickee" and somebody gets killed.
Naturally enough, it follows that the sound of pistol shots is
frequently heard in the land, and since it happens nine times out of
ten that the argument is between transients, the permanent resident is
not nearly so interested in the outcome as one might imagine--
particularly when the shooting takes place at night and beyond the town
limits.
Harley P. Hennage had crossed from the eating-house, and had just
reached the porch of the Silver Dollar saloon, when above the whistling
of the "zephyr" he heard the muffled reports of three pistol shots. One
"Borax" O'Rourke, a "mule-skinner" from up Keeler way, who had just
arrived in San Pasqual to spend his pay-day after the fashion of the
country, heard them also.
"Down the tracks," O'Rourke elucidated. "Tramps fightin' with a
railroad policeman, I guess. Let's go down."
"What's the use?" objected Mr. Hennage. "A yegg never does any damage
unless he's right on top of his man. They all carry little short
bulldog guns, an' I never did see one o' them little bar pistols that
would score a hit at twenty yards after sundown. They carry high."
At that instant the sound of another shot was heard, but faintly.
"That's the hobo" announced Mr. Hennage with conviction. "Them first
three shots came from a life-size gun."
Half a minute passed; then came the report of six shots, following so
quickly upon each other that they sounded almost like a volley.
"Nine shots" commented "Borax" O'Rourke. "That's an automatic."
"That's what it is!" Mr. Hennage walked to the end of the porch. He was
just a little excited. "It's all off with the hobo" he continued. "I
know the man that's using that automatic, and he can shoot your eye out
at a hundred yards. I saw him ridin' in just as I left the eatin'
house."
"He must have been movin' to get down there in such a hurry. What's a
man on horseback doin' chasin' hobos across a web of railroad tracks,
an' if he was headed south, seems to me he'd have laid over for
supper--"
But Harley P. had a flash of inspiration now. "Come on, O'Rourke" he
shouted, and made a flying leap off the saloon porch. Borax followed,
and the two raced down the street at top speed--which, in the case of
Mr. Hennage, owing to his weight and his bow-legs, was not remarkable.
Borax easily outdistanced him.
Meanwhile, a rather spectacular panorama had been unfolding itself back
of the string of box-cars. Guided by Donna's screams, Bob McGraw sent
his horse away at a tearing gallop, lifting him in great leaps across
the maze of railroad tracks, and in a shower of flying cinders brought
him up, almost sitting, in the little foot-path between two lines of
track. Almost under Friar Tuck's front feet, Donna was struggling in
the grasp of three ruffians, one of whom was endeavoring to tie a
handkerchief across her mouth. The velocipede had been derailed by
means of a car-stake placed across the track.
Bob McGraw's long gun rose and fell three times, and at each deadly
drop a streak of flame punctured the moon-light. The three assailants
went down, shot through their respective legs--which remarkable
coincidence was not a coincidence at all, but merely a touch of kindly
consideration on the part of Bob McGraw, who didn't believe in killing
his man when wounding him would serve the same purpose.
As the three brutes dropped away from her the man from Owens river
valley lowered his weapon, and Donna, pale, terrorized and disheveled,
reeled toward him. He swung his horse a little, leaned outward and
downward, and with a sweep of his strong left arm he lifted her off the
ground and set her in front of him on Friar Tuck's neck, just as one of
the wounded thugs straightened up, cut loose with his bulldog gun and
shot Bob McGraw through the right breast.
Donna heard a half-suppressed "Oh!" from her deliverer, and felt him
sway forward a little. Then, seeming to summon every atom of grit and
strength he possessed, he whirled his horse, scuttled away around the
rear of the box-car, out of danger, and set Donna on the ground.
"Wait here" he commanded, through teeth clenched to keep back the blood
that welled from within him. "I was too kind--to those hounds."
He rode back and finished his night's work. War-mad, he sat his horse,
reeling in the saddle, and emptied his gun into the squirming wretches
as they sought to crawl under the car for protection.
Donna was terribly frightened, but she was the last woman in the world
to go into hysterics. She realized that she was saved, and accordingly
commenced to cry, while waiting for the horseman to reappear. A minute
passed and still he did not come, and suddenly, without quite realizing
what she was doing or why she did it, the girl went back to the scene
of the battle to look for him. She was not so badly frightened now, but
rather awed by the silence, Donna was desert-bred, and in all her life
she had never fainted. For a girl she was remarkably free from
"nerves," and she had lived too long in San Pasqual to faint now at
sight of the three still figures huddled between the ties, even had she
seen them; which, she had not. All that Donna saw was a roan range
pony, standing quietly with drooping head, while his master sprawled in
the saddle with his arms around his horse's neck. Donna went quickly to
him, and when the moon came out from behind a hurrying cloud she was
enabled, with the aid of the ghastly green glare from a switch lantern
which shone on his face, to observe that he was quite conscious and
looking at her with untroubled boyish eyes.
His hat was lying on the ground, securely anchored by the pony's left
fore foot. With rather unnatural calmness and following, subconsciously
perhaps, her acquired instinct for salving hats for the men of her
little world, Donna stooped, slapped the pony's leg to make him release
the hat and picked it up. She stood for a few seconds, with the hat in
her hand, looking at him pityingly. The man's brown eyes blazed with
admiration.
"What a woman!" he wheezed. "You're brave--like a man. You came back.
I'd like--to live--to serve you further--"
He gurgled, a red stain appeared at the corners of his mouth, and he
closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again his soul was
shining through and he smiled a little. He did not again attempt to
speak, yet, for all that, Donna heard the man-call to the woman that
belonged to him, the mate for whom he had been destined when the world
was first created. There are in this world personalities so finely
attuned to each other that mere words are unnecessary to express the
feelings of each for the other when first they meet. Between certain
rare souls the gulf of convention may be bridged by a glance; the
divine miracle of a pure and holy love, leaping to life in an instant,
can suffer no defilement by a spontaneous and human impulse to grasp
the precious gift ere life departs.
Some women love at first sight, but the vast majority, lacking the
imagination to perceive, at a glance, the attributes that go toward the
making of a Man, only think they love and delay a conventional period
before yielding. But Donna Corblay had lived so long in sordid,
unimaginative, unromantic San Pasqual that, from much inhibition and
introspection, she was different from most women. She had grown to rely
on herself, to trust her own judgment and to bank on first impressions.
As she faced Bob McGraw now, her first impression was that he was
telling her with his eyes that he loved her, that he had ridden in
behind this string of box-cars to purchase her honor at the price of
his life, because he loved her. And inasmuch as there appeared to be
nothing unusual or unconventional in his telling her this--with his
eyes, Donna was sensible of but one feeling and one desire; a feeling
of gratitude to him for the priceless gift of his love and her honor, a
desire to--
She dropped his hat, wiped the blood from his lips and kissed him.
Bob McGraw smiled wistfully.
"It's worth it," he whispered, "and few women are--worth--dying for."
"You must not die," the girl cried passionately. "You're my Dream Man
and I've waited so long for you and dreamed of your coming! I'll pray
for you, I'll ask God to give you to me--"
An almost fanatical joy beamed in her wonderful eyes, the color had
returned to her cheeks; and to Bob McGraw, faltering there on the edge
of eternity, her radiant regal presence brought a wondrous peace. For a
moment he saw the moonlight reflecting the light in her eyes; a strand
of her hair blew across his face--he smelled its perfume; the
intoxication of her glorious personality caused him to marvel and doubt
his own waning sense of the reality of things. He leaned toward her
hungrily and lapsed into unconsciousness, while his big limp body
commenced to slide slowly out of the slippery saddle. She caught him in
her strong arms, eased him to the ground and knelt there with his red
head in her lap, showering his face with her kisses and her tears. It
was thus that "Borax" O'Rourke, badly blown after his three-hundred-
yard dash, found them.
"Great snakes, young lady, what's happened?" gasped Mr. O'Rourke.
"Three brutes and a man have been killed" she replied.
"What the--who--who's that feller? Are you--"
"Don't ask questions, Borax. I am not hurt, but I have no time to
answer questions. Please remove that car-stake and replace the
velocipede on the tracks."
Her cool demeanor, despite her tears, her terse commands, indicating a
plan for prompt action of some kind, flabbergasted Borax to such an
extent that he commenced to swear very fluently, without for a moment
realizing that there was a lady present. And just at this juncture
Harley P. Hennage arrived.
As might be expected, Harley P. wasted no time catering to the call of
curiosity.
"Let me have him, Miss Donna," he ordered. "We'll put him on the
velocipede and rush him up to the hotel. I'll--"
"No, Mr. Hennage. He belongs to me. Place him on the velocipede and
help me take him home."
"To the Hat Ranch?"
"Yes, of course, I can care for him there, if he lives."
"Why, Miss Donna--"
"Do it, please" she commanded. "I know best. Set him on the little
platform and tie his legs to the reach. Then stand behind him to work
the lever, and let him rest against your knees. I'll follow with the
horse."
"Remarkable! Very remarkable!" soliloquized the big gambler. Without
further ado he proceeded to carry out Donna's orders.
"Borax," Donna continued, "you run up to the drug store and tell Doc
Taylor what's happened. I'll send Sam Singer back with the velocipede
for him."
She gathered the reins in her left hand and swung aboard Friar Tuck.
Harley P., having disposed of his gory burden on the limited
accommodations of the track velocipede, seized the levers and trundled
away, followed by Donna on Friar Tuck, cautiously picking his way
between the ties.
Borax O'Rourke stood for a moment, gazing after them.
"She acts like a mother cat with a kitten" he muttered. "Damned if she
wasn't kissin' the feller--an' him a stranger in town!"
He walked rapidly back to San Pasqual, and such was his perturbation
that he sought to have "Doc" Taylor unravel the puzzle for him.
"Hysterics" was the doctor's explanation.
"Rats" retorted O'Rourke.
"All right, then. It's rats." The doctor grabbed his emergency grip and
departed on the run for the Hat Ranch. Sam Singer met him half-way with
the velocipede.
O'Rourke returned to the Silver Dollar saloon where, since he was a
vulgarian and a numbskull, he retailed his story to the loungers there
assembled.
"I'll never git over the sight o' that girl a-kissing that young
feller" he concluded. "Why, I'd down a hobo every mornin' before
breakfast if I knowed for certain she'd treat _me_ that-a-way for
doin' it."
The situation was canvassed at considerable length, and only the
entrance of the constable with a request, for volunteers to help him
remove the "remainders" that were littering up the right of way below
town, served to turn the conversation into other channels.
Upon their arrival at the Hat Ranch a shout from Harley P. Hennage
brought Sam Singer and Soft Wind to the front gate. Donna dismounted,
tying Friar Tuck to the "zephyr" by the simple process of dropping the
reins over his head, and hurried into the house to prepare her mother's
old room for the reception of the wounded man. Bob McGraw was very limp
and white as Harley P. and the Indian carried him in. The gambler
undressed him while Sam Singer sprang aboard the velocipede and sped
back toward town to meet the doctor.
When the doctor arrived, he and Harley P. Hennage went into the
bedroom, closing the door after them. Donna remained in the kitchen.
She had already ordered Soft Wind to light a fire in the range and heat
some water, and when presently the gambler came out to the kitchen he
nodded his appreciation of her forethought ere he disappeared again
with the hot water and a basin.
In about an hour Doctor Taylor emerged, grip in hand.
"I've done all I can for him, Miss Corblay" he told her. "I'm going up
town to close the drug store and get a few things I may need, but I'll
be back within an hour and spend the balance of the night with him."
"Will he live?"
Donna's voice was calm, her tones hinting of nothing more than a
friendly interest and sympathy; yet Harley P., watching her over the
doctor's shoulder, guessed the stress of emotion under which she
strove, for he, too, had seen her kiss Bob McGraw as he lay unconscious
in her arms.
"I fear he will not. The bullet ranged upward, perforating the top of
his right lung, and went on clean through. I've seen men recover from
wounds in more vital parts, but a .45-caliber bullet did the trick to
our young friend, and a .45 tears quite a hole. He's big and strong and
has a fighting chance, but I'm afraid--very much afraid--of internal
hemorrhage, and traumatic pneumonia is bound to set in."
"He will not die!" said Donna.
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