Chapter 7

With this Parthian shot my brother left me to some sorry reflections. I cordially liked and respected Laban Swiggart and his family. He had married a Skenk. No name in our county smelled sweeter than Skenk: a synonym, indeed, for piety, deportment, shell-work, and the preserving of fruits. The Widow Skenk lived in San Lorenzo, hard by the Congregational Church; and it was generally conceded that the hand of one of her daughters in marriage was a certificate of character to the groom. No Skenk had been known to wed a drunkard, a blasphemer, or an evil liver. Moreover, Laban had been the first to welcome us--two raw Englishmen--to a country where inexperience is a sin. He had helped us over many a stile; he had saved us many dollars. And he had an honest face. Broad, benignant brows surmounted a pair of keen and kindly eyes; his nose proclaimed a sense of humour; his mouth and chin were concealed by a beard almost apostolic in its silky beauty. Could such a man be a thief?

The very next day Laban rode down his steep slopes and asked us to help him and his to eat a Christmas turkey. He said something, too, about a fine ham, and a "proposition," a money-making scheme, to be submitted to us after the banquet.

"Hard times are making you rich," said Ajax.

"My God!" he exclaimed passionately, "have I not been poor long enough? Have I not seen my wife and children suffering for want of proper food and clothing? If prosperity is coming my way, boys, I've paid the price for it, and don't you forget it."

His eyes were suffused with tears, and Ajax took note of it. My brother told me later that so tender a husband and father was assuredly no cattle-thief.

Upon Christmas Day we sat at meat for nearly two hours. Mrs. Doctor Tapper, the wife of the stout dentist of San Miguelito, was present. Of the three Misses Skenk she had made the best match--from a worldly point of view. She wore diamonds; she kept two hired girls; she entertained on a handsome scale, and never failed to invite her less fortunate sisters to her large and select parties--she was, in a word, a most superior person, and a devout church-member. To this lady Ajax made himself mightily agreeable.

"Now really," said she, "I do wish the doctor was here. He does so dearly love badinage. That, and bridgework, is his forte."

"And why isn't he here?" demanded my brother.

"He's hunting our bay mare. It broke out of the barn this morning. I told him that I wouldn't disappoint Alviry for an ark full of bay mares. I knew she would count on me to help her entertain you gentlemen."

"I hope your husband will find his mare," said Ajax. "We lost fifteen fat steers once, but we never found them."

"That's so," observed Mr. Swiggart. "And I wore myself out a-hunting 'em. They was stolen--sure."

"The wickedness of some folk passes my understanding," remarked Mrs. Tapper. "Well, we're told that the triumphing of the wicked is short, but--good Land!--Job never lived in this State."

"He'd been more to home in New England," said Laban slily. The Skenks were from Massachusetts, the Swiggarts from Illinois.

"There's a pit digged for such," continued Mrs. Tapper, ignoring the interruption, "a pit full o' brimstone and fire. Yes, sister, I will take one more slice of the ham. I never ate sweeter meat. Eastern, I presume, my dear?"

"No, sister. Laban cured that ham. Pork-packing was his trade back east."

Laban added: "Boys, I hope ye like that ham. I've a reason for asking."

We assured our host that the ham was superlatively good. Mince and pumpkin pies followed, coffee, then grace. As we rose from the table, Laban said pleasantly, "Boys, here are some imported cigars. We'll smoke outside."

Having, so to speak, soaped the ways, Mr. Swiggart launched his "proposition." He wished to pack bacon. Hogs, he pointed out, were selling at two cents a pound; bacon and hams at twelve and fifteen cents. We had some two hundred and fifty hogs ready for market. These Laban wanted to buy on credit. He proposed to turn them into lard, hams, and bacon, to sell the same to local merchants (thereby saving cost of transportation), and to divide the profits with us after the original price of the hogs was paid. This seemed a one-sided bargain. He was to do all the work; we should, in any case, get the market price for the hogs, while the profits were to be divided. However, our host explained that we took all the risk. If the bacon spoiled he would not agree to pay us a cent. With the taste of that famous ham in our mouths, this contingency seemed sufficiently remote; and we said as much.

"Well, I could rob ye right and left. Ye've got to trust me, and there's a saying: 'To trust is to bust.'"

He was so candid in explaining the many ways by which an unscrupulous man might take advantage of two ignorant Britons, that Ajax, not relishing the personal flavour of the talk, rose and strolled across to the branding-corral. When he returned he was unusually silent, and, riding home, he said thoughtfully: "I saw Laban's brand this afternoon. It is 81, and the 8 is the same size as our S. His ear-mark is a crop, which obliterates our swallow-fork. Queer--eh?"

"Not at all," I replied indignantly. "It's a social crime to eat, as you did to-day, three large helpings of turkey, and then----"

"Bosh!" he interrupted. "If Laban is an honest man, no harm has been done. If he stole our steers--and, mind you, I don't say he did--three slices off the breast of a turkey will hardly offset my interest in five tons of beef. As for this packing scheme, it sounds promising; but we lack figures. To-morrow we will drive into San Lorenzo, and talk to the Children of Israel. If Ikey Rosenbaum says that bacon is likely to rise or stay where it is, we will accept Laban's proposition."

The following morning we started early. The short cut to San Lorenzo lay through the Swiggart claim, and the road passed within a few yards of the house. We saw Mrs. Swiggart on the verandah, and offered to execute any commissions that she cared to entrust to two bachelors. In reply she said that she hated to ask favours, but--if we were going to town in a two-seater, would we be so very kind as to bring back her mother, Mrs. Skenk, who was ailing, and in need of a change. "Gran'ma's hard on the springs," observed Euphemia, Mrs. Swiggart's youngest girl, "but she'll tell you more stories than you can shake a stick at; not 'bout fairies, Mr. Ajax, but reel folks." We assured Mrs. Swiggart that we should esteem it a pleasure to give her mother a lift. Ajax had met the old lady at a church social some six months before, and, finding her a bonanza of gossip, had extracted some rich and curious ore.

In San Lorenzo we duly found Isaac Rosenbaum, who proved an optimist on the subject of bacon. Indeed, he chattered so glibly of rising prices and better times that the packing scheme was immediately referred to his mature judgment; and he not only recommended it heartily, but offered to handle our "stuff" on commission, or to buy it outright if it proved marketable. According to Ikey the conjunction "if" could not be ignored. Packing bacon beneath the sunny skies of Southern California was a speculation, he said. Swiggart, he added, ought to know what good hams were, for he bought the very best Eastern brand.

"What!" we cried simultaneously, "does Mr. Swiggart _buy_ hams?"

Yes; it seemed that only a few days previously Laban had carefully selected the choicest ham in the store.

Ajax clutched my arm, and we fled.

"We have convicted the wretch," he said presently.

"The _wretches_," I amended.

The use of the plural smote him in the face.

"This is awful," he groaned. "Why, when you were away last summer, and I broke my leg, she nursed me like a mother."

"Women throw such sops to a barking conscience."

I was positive now that Laban had stolen the steers, and that his wife was privy to the theft. The lie about the ham had been doubtless concocted for purposes of plunder. The kindness and hospitality of our neighbours had been, after all, but a snare for tenderfeet.

* * * * *

We found Mrs. Skenk--whom we had seen on arrival--sitting on her front porch, satchel in hand, patiently awaiting us. Ajax helped her to mount--no light task, for she was a very heavy and enfeebled woman. I drove. As we trotted down the long straggling street our passenger spoke with feeling of the changes that had taken place in the old mission town.

"I've lived here thirty years. Twenty mighty hard ones as a married woman; and ten tol'able easy ones as a widder. Mr. Skenk was a saintly man, but tryin' to live with on account o' deefness and the azmy. I never see a chicken took with the gapes but I think o' Abram Skenk. Yes, Mr. Ajax, my daughters was all born here, 'ceptin' Alviry. She was born in Massachusetts. It did make a difference to the child. As a little girl she kep' herself to herself. And though I'd rather cut out my tongue than say a single word against Laban Swiggart, I do feel that he'd no business to pick the best in the basket. Favourite? No, sir; but I've said, many a time, that if Alviry went to her long home, I could not tarry here. Most women feel that way about the first-born. I've told Alviry to her face as she'd ought to have said 'No' to Laban Swiggart. Oh, the suffering that dear child has endured! It did seem till lately as if horse-tradin', cattle-raisin', and the butcher business was industries against which the Lord had set his face. Sairy married an undertaker; Samanthy _couldn't_ refuse Doctor Tapper. And, rain or shine, folks must have teeth if they want to eat the steaks they sell in Californy, and likewise they must have caskets when their time comes. Yes, Alviry does take after me, Mr. Ajax. You're reel clever to say so. She ain't a talker, but brainy. You've seen her wax flowers? Yes; and the shell table with 'Bless our Home' on it, in pink cowries? Mercy sakes! There's a big storm a'comin' up."

The rain began to fall as she spoke; at first lightly, then more heavily as we began to cross the mountains. Long before we came to the Salinas River it was pouring down in torrents--an inch of water to the hour.

"It's a cloud-burst," said Mrs. Skenk, from beneath a prehistoric umbrella. "This'll flush the creeks good."

I whipped up the horses, thinking of the Salinas and its treacherous waters. In California, when the ground is well sodden, a very small storm will create a very big freshet. At such times most rivers are dangerous to ford on account of quicksands.

"I'll guess we'll make it," observed the old lady. "I've crossed when it was bilin' from bank to bank. I mind me when Jim Tarburt was drowned: No 'count, Jim. He'd no more sense than a yaller dog. 'Twas a big streak o' luck for his wife and babies, for Susannah Tarburt married old man Hopping, and when he died the very next year she was left rich. Then there was that pore thin school-marm, Ireen Bunker. She--"

And Mrs. Skenk continued with a catalogue, long as that of the ships in the _Iliad_, of travellers who, in fording the Salinas, had crossed that other grim river which flows for ever between time and eternity. We had reached the banks before she had drained her memory of those who had perished.

"'Tis bilin'," she muttered, as she peered up and down the yellow, foam-speckled torrent that roared defiance at us; "but, good Land! we can't go around now. Keep the horses' noses upstream, young man, and use your whip."

We plunged in.

What followed took place quickly. In mid-stream the near horse floundered into a quicksand and fell, swinging round the pole, and with it the off horse. I lashed the poor struggling beasts unmercifully, but the wagon settled slowly down--inch by inch. Death grinned us in the teeth. Then I heard Mrs. Skenk say, quite collectedly: "'Tis my fault, and my weight." Then Ajax roared out: "For God's sake, sit down, ma'am, sit down. SIT DOWN!" he screamed, his voice shrill above the bellowing, booming waters. A crash behind told me that he had flung her back into her seat. At the same moment the near horse found a footing; there was a mighty pull from both the terrified animals, the harness held, and the danger was over. When we reached the bank I looked round. Mrs. Skenk was smiling; Ajax was white as chalk.

"She w-w-would have s-s-sacrificed her l-l-life," he stammered. "If I hadn't grabbed her, she would be dead this minute."

"I reckon that's so," assented our passenger. "I took a notion to jump. My weight and fool advice was like to cost three lives. Better one, thinks I, than three. You saved my life, Mr. Ajax. Yes, you did. Alviry, I reckon, will thank you."

The rest of the journey was accomplished in silence. We drove up to the Swiggarts' house, and both Laban and his wife expressed great surprise at seeing us.

"You're wet through, mother," said Mrs. Swiggart, "and all of a tremble."

"Yes, Alviry, I've had a close call. This young man saved my life."

"Nonsense," said Ajax gruffly. "I did nothing of the sort, Mrs. Skenk."

"Yes, you did," she insisted, grimly obstinate.

"Any ways," said Mrs. Swiggart, "you'll lose what has been saved, mother, if you stand there in the rain."

For five days it rained steadily. Our creek, which for eleven months in the year bleated sweetly at the foot of the garden, bellowed loudly as any bull of Bashan, and kept us prisoners in the house, where we had leisure to talk and reflect. We had been robbed and humbugged, injured in pride and pocket, but the lagging hours anointed our wounds. Philosophy touched us with healing finger.

"If we prosecute we advertise our own greenness," said Ajax. "After all, if Laban did fleece us, he kept at bay other ravening wolves. And there is Mrs. Skenk. That plucky old soul must never hear the story. It would kill her."

So we decided to charge profit and loss with five hundred dollars, and to keep our eyes peeled for the future. By this time the skies had cleared, and the cataract was a creek again. The next day Mrs. Swiggart drove up to the barn, tied her horse to the hitching-post, and walked with impressive dignity up the garden path. We had time to note that something was amiss. Her dark eyes, beneath darker brows, intensified a curious pallor--that sickly hue which is seen upon the faces of those who have suffered grievously in mind or body. Ajax opened the door, and offered her a chair, but not his hand. She did not seem to notice the discourtesy. We asked if her mother had suffered from the effects of her wetting.

"Mother has been very sick," she replied, in a lifeless voice. "She's been at death's door. For five days I've prayed to Almighty God, and I swore that if He'd see fit to spare mother, I'd come down here, and on my bended knees"--she sank on the floor--"ask for your forgiveness as well as His. Don't come near me," she entreated; "let me say what must be said in my own way. When I married Laban Swiggart I was an honest woman, though full o' pride and conceit. And he was an honest man. To- day we're thieves and liars."

"Mrs. Swiggart," said Ajax, springing forward and raising her to her feet. "You must not kneel to us. There--sit down and say no more. We know all about it, and it's blotted out so far as we're concerned."

Her sobs--the vehement, heart-breaking sobs of a man rather than of a woman--gradually ceased. She continued in a softer voice: "It began 'way back, when I was a little girl. Mother set me on a pedestal; p'r'aps I'd ought to say I set myself there. It's like me to be blaming mother. Anyways, I just thought myself a little mite cleverer and handsomer and better than the rest o' the family. I aimed to beat Sarah and Samanthy at whatever they undertook, and Satan let me do it. Well, I did one good thing. I married a poor man because I loved him. I said to myself, 'He has brains, and so have I. The dollars will come.' But they didn't come. The children came.

"Then Sarah and Samanthy married. They married men o' means, and the gall and wormwood entered into my soul, and ate it away. Laban was awful good. He laughed and worked, but we couldn't make it. Times was too hard. I'd see Samanthy trailin' silks and satins in the dust, and --and my underskirts was made o' flour sacks. Yes--flour sacks! And me a Skenk!"

She paused. Neither Ajax nor I spoke. Comedy lies lightly upon all things, like foam upon the dark waters. Beneath are tragedy and the tears of time.

"Then you gentlemen came and bought land. They said you was lords, with money to burn. I told Laban to help you in the buyin' o' horses, and cattle, and barb-wire, and groceries. He got big commissions, but he kept off the other blood-suckers. We paid some of our debts, and Laban bought me a black silk gown. I couldn't rest till Samanthy had felt of it. She'd none better. If we'd only been satisfied with that!

"Well, that black silk made everything else look dreadful mean. 'Twas then you spoke to Laban about choosin' a brand. Satan put it into my head to say--S. It scart Laban. He was butcherin' then, and he surmised what I was after; I persuaded him 'twas for the children's sake. The first steer paid for Emanuel's baby clothes and cradle. They was finer than what Sarah bought for her child. Then we killed the others--one by one. Laban let 'em through the fence and then clapped our brand a-top o' yours. They paid for the tank and windmill. After that we robbed you when and where we could. We put up that bacon scheme meanin' to ship the stuff to the city and to tell you that it had spoiled on us. We robbed none else, only you. And we actually justified ourselves. We surmised 'twas fittin' that Britishers should pay for the support o' good Americans."

"I've read some of your histories," said Ajax drily, "and can understand that point of view."

"Satan fools them as fool themselves, Mr. Ajax. But the truth struck me and Laban when we watched by mother. She was not scared o' death. And she praised me to Laban, and said that I'd chosen the better part in marryin' a poor man for love, and that money hadn't made Christian women of Sarah and Samanthy. She blamed herself, dear soul, for settin' store overly much on dollars and cents. And she said she could die easier thinking that what was good in her had passed to me, and not what was evil. And, Mr. Ajax, that talk just drove me and Laban crazy. Well, mother ain't going to die, and we ain't neither--till we've paid back the last cent, we stole from you. Laban has figgered it out, principal and interest, and he's drawn a note for fifteen hundred dollars, which we've both signed. Here it is."

She tendered us a paper. Ajax stuck his hands into his pockets, and I did the same.

She misinterpreted the action. "You ain't going to prosecute?" she faltered.

Ajax nodded to me. Upon formal occasions he expects me, being the elder, to speak. If I say more or less than he approves I am severely taken to task.

"Mrs. Swiggart," I began, lamely enough, "I am sure that your husband can cure hams----"

Ajax looked at me indignantly. With the best of motives I had given a sore heart a grievous twist.

"We bought that ham," she said sadly, "a-purpose."

"No matter. We have decided to go into this packing business with your husband. When--er--experience goes into partnership with ignorance, ignorance expects to pay a premium. We have paid our premium."

She rose, and we held out our hands.

"No, gentlemen; I won't take your hands till that debt is cancelled. The piano and the team will go some ways towards it. Good-bye, and-- thank you."

VIII

AN EXPERIMENT

My brother and I had just ridden off the range, when Uncle Jake told us that a tramp was hanging about the corrals and wished to speak with us.

"He looks like hell," concluded Uncle Jake.

We found him, a minute later, curled up on a heap of straw on the shady side of our big barn. He got up as we approached, and stared at us with a curious derisive intentness of glance, slightly disconcerting.

"You are Englishmen," he said quietly.

The man's voice was charming, with that unmistakable quality which challenges attention even in Mayfair, and enthrals it in the wilderness. We nodded, and he continued easily: "It is late, and some twenty-six miles, so I hear, to the nearest town. May I spend the night in your barn. I don't smoke--in barns."

While he was speaking, we had time to examine him. His appearance was inexpressibly shocking. Dirty, with a ragged six weeks' growth of dark hair upon his face, out at heel and elbows, shirtless and shiftless, he seemed to have reached the nadir of misery and poverty. Obviously one of the "broken brigade," he had seemingly lost everything except his manners. His amazing absence of self-consciousness made a clown of me. I blurted out a gruff "All right," and turned on my heel, unable to face the derisive smile upon the thin, pale lips. As I walked towards the house, I heard Ajax following me, but he did not speak till we had reached our comfortable sitting-room. Then, as gruffly as I, he said, "Humpty Dumpty--after the fall!"

We lit our pipes in silence, sensible of an extraordinary depression in the moral atmosphere. Five minutes before we had been much elated. The spring round-up of cattle was over; we had sold our bunch of steers at the top price; the money lay in our small safe; we had been talking of a modest celebration as we rode home over the foothills. Now, to use the metaphor of a cow county, we had been brought up with a sharp turn! Our prosperity, measured by the ill-fortune of a fellow- countryman, dwindled. Ajax summed up the situation: "He made me feel cheap."

"Why?" I asked, conscious of a similar feeling. Ajax smoked and reflected.

"It's like this," he answered presently. "That chap has been to the bottom of the pit, but he bobs up with a smile. Did you notice his smile?"

I rang the bell for Quong, our Chinese servant. When he came in I told him to prepare a hot bath. Ajax whistled; but as Quong went away, looking rather cross, my brother added, "Our clothes will fit him."

The bath-house was outside. Quong carried in a couple of pails full of boiling water; we laid out shaving tackle, an old suit of grey flannel, a pair of brown shoes, and the necessary under-linen. A blue bird's-eye tie, I remember, was the last touch. Then Ajax shrugged his shoulders and said significantly, "You know what this means?"

"Rehabilitation."

"Exactly. It may be fun for us to rig out this poor devil, but we must do more than feed and clothe him. Have you thought of that?"

I had not, and said so.

"This is an experiment. First and last, we're going to try to raise a man from the dead. If we get him on to his pins, we'll have to supply some crutches. Are you prepared to do that?"

"If you are."

"Right! Of course, he may refuse our help. It wouldn't surprise me a little bit if he did refuse."

When our preparations were complete, we returned to the barn. In a few words Ajax told the stranger of what had been done.

"After supper," he concluded, "we'll talk things over. Times are rather good just now, and something can be arranged."

"You're very kind," replied the tramp; "but I think you had better leave me in the barn."

"We can't," said my brother. "It's too beastly to think of you like this."

Nevertheless, we had to argue the matter, and I ought to add that although we prevailed in the end, both Ajax and I were aware that the man's acceptance of what we offered imposed an obligation upon us rather than upon him. As he was about to enter the bath-house, he turned with the derisive smile on his lips--

"If it amuses you," he murmured, "I shall have earned my bath and supper."