Part 10

“The day that I remember particularly--and you will see I have reason to--was the day before I was to go out from the mine with the mule train. That afternoon I went in the levels with Senor Bustino, one of the owners, a gentleman, every inch of him--and I tell you, no finer gentleman walks the earth than a high-caste Mexican of Castilian blood.

“I had sold them a few dozen American pickaxes, and one of the convict gangs was to try them that day for the first time. It was the first lot of pickaxes ever used in that mine, and, as the sequel proved, the last. The men were doing with them twice the business they had formerly done with their clumsy heavy hoes. Two soldiers with _escopetas_ were on guard, and two overseers with pistols and heavy canes were directing the work. To get a better and nearer view, Sefior Bustino and I crowded through until we came to the rotten ledge filled with the silver, upon which they worked. The convicts stopped and gazed upon us curiously, some of them pushing back their long black hair out of their eyes and staring with undisguised wonder at me, for I was a _gringo_, a _heretico_, and a strange object to them in those early days, with my paler skin and peculiar dress. Near me was a large black fellow, bare to the waist.. He was short-necked and broad-shouldered, and his cheeks were so high as to partly close his little fierce eyes; his nose was low and flat, while his chin was sharp and prominent, with a deep scowl; in fact, a bundle of animal appetites and passions done up in a hideous form. As we passed he drew from the folds of his drawers--the only clothing he wore--a pinch of tobacco and a com husk, and making a cigarette he stepped to one of the grease-wood torches and lighted it, blowing out a great cloud of pungent, aromatic smoke from his broad nostrils, that filled the space around us with the odor you noticed from my cigarette.

“That was my first experience with that tobacco, and, indeed, my first smell of its peculiar odor, and I have never forgotten it. I dined that evening with the old senor and was introduced to his family; his wife, a Mexican lady prematurely aged--as they all are, two daughters, handsome as angels, and was shown the picture of their son, a young man who was then being educated in Paris. They were delightful people, especially to one who had been trucking for weeks across the dusty plains of Chihuahua, with only _peons_ and mules for company, and we had a fiery Mexican dinner, spiced with the jokes of the village priest, who was an honored guest. At ten, with the hearty wishes of the whole family, and after the elaborate Mexican custom of withdrawal, I left them. As I sauntered out in the moonlight I could not shut out of my mind the brutish face of the convict in the mine. Perhaps the round faces and handsome eyes of the senor's pretty daughters may have emphasized the memory of the convict's ugly head; otherwise I was in a happy mood.

“I turned the corner of the street and entered a short dark lane that led toward the prison stockade. There was an occasional _adobe_ house, but the street was mostly lined with the miserable mud _jacals_ of the poorer Mexicans. I had hardly gotten well into it when I sniffed the same pungent odor that the convict's cigarette had given out. It startled me a trifle, conjuring up, as it did, the hideous mental picture of the man. I had but just realized this association when I heard the clanging of the cathedral bells in that hurried, nervous manner which has alarm in its every note--for the tone of a bell always partakes of the state that its ringer is in. I heard the sound of approaching voices, loud and fierce, mixed with the alarming notes of the bells, and I stepped into the dark doorway of the nearest house. Next, there was the spatting of bare feet on the hard street, and a yelling crowd hurriedly rushed by my hiding-place, leaving a trailing smell of the same tobacco. I noticed the gleam of white handles in the moon-lighted street that I had seen in the yellow light of the mine, and then I knew that the convicts had revolted, and that they were armed with the pick-axes I had sold the mining company.

“The bells continued to clang out their terror, and the distant shouting became blended into the continuous murmur that you hear from a distant crowd of excited people. Once in a while the roar of an _escopeta_ would be heard, and soon I saw a magenta glow in the sky, and I knew the town had been fired. Then followed the rapid snapping of pistols, and soon the bellow of the old brass _escopetas_ denoted that the guards had mustered, and that there was an organized resistance to the revolt. All this occurred quicker than I can tell it. I concluded to get back into the broad street I had just come out of, for if there is to be shooting, I want a clear space and as much light as I can get.

“Just as I turned the corner, on a run, with both of my colts on a shooting level--for, by the way, it is always best to come upon your enemy suddenly and surprise him before he knows you are there--I saw several bodies in the street, and in the distance some dozen men retreating. I stopped near by the first body I came to; and to my horror I saw it was the still warm corpse of Senor Bustino. As I paused and stooped to more closely examine, I thought I could detect the lingering smell of that hellish convict's tobacco. Had the fiends attacked my host's home and dragged him insensate through the streets, or had he been slain whilst hurrying to the post of duty, at the sound of the alarm he knew well the meaning of? If the former, good God! what had been the fate of his wife and lovely daughters? The very thought momentarily unnerved me; and if the convicts had not yet wreaked their vengeance, could I reach them in time to be of effective service? Louder and louder roared the tumult, nearer and nearer came the flashing, glinting lights of torch and pistol, and as I swept round into the street in which Senor Bustino's house stood I could see, pouring down the hill toward it, a demoniac gang led by the bare-breasted convict whose baleful face had haunted me.

“I found the senora and her daughters alone and, thank God! unharmed; but not a moment too soon, for even as I hurried them through into the darkness of the night the convicts, with curses on their tongues, lust in their heart, and red ruin in their hands, swarmed into the house. A momentary check came as their leader and another fell in the narrow door, beneath the fire of my two revolvers, and the flames which leaped up from that erewhile home lent their last protection in the shadow they cast, which enabled us, by availing ourselves of it, to escape. By the time we arrived at my hotel the convicts had flown to the mountains and we heard the story of the revolt. If I had not smelled that tobacco I should not have concealed myself in the doorway, my life would not have been worth a picayune, and you may imagine what would have been the fate of my hostess and her household. Senor Bustino, it appeared, had fallen a victim to the high chivalry which prompted him, hearing the bell and knowing its meaning, to hastily summon his servants, and with five or six armed _peons_ hasten out to overtake me and bid me return to his house until all danger was over. He had met the convicts, who had attacked him and struck him down, while most of his servants fled.”

Dunton paused, made and lighted another cigarette, and continued: “I could not get away for a month, for it was not safe for a small party to leave the town. I brought out some of that tobacco as a curiosity and learned to like it. I send for more every year where it is still prepared, in the prison-pens.”

“It is sometimes said, 'Follow your nose and it will take you out of danger,' and in my case the proverb proved true. Sometimes, when I sit here alone, half sleepily watching the curling smoke wreaths, I can almost see the place again, and the rings of smoke shape themselves into a horde of convict demons killing the poor old noble senor, whose elder daughter I have married. And now you know what I owe to the pungent aroma of a cigarette from Carcinto.”

ANTAEUS, By Frank M. Bicknell

ATE one night, after having been a week out of town, I was returning home by a short cut across fields, when, on coming upon the street again, I found my path barred by a huge, hulking fellow, whose unexpected appearance startled me not a little. This was my introduction to Antaeus, whose better acquaintance I was to make later under rather peculiar circumstances. Antaeus was not a highway robber, but a highway roller, and when he first confronted me he was drawn up beside the road, enjoying an elephantine slumber after his hard day's labor--being, despite his formidable aspect, quiescent and inoffensive.

I am not sure that it is usual to confer upon steam-rollers the dignity of a name, but my friend had one, and I read it on the neat, black-lettered brass plate affixed to the side of his boiler, near the smoke-stack. This, I take it, was the nearest practicable approach to hanging a locket about his neck that could be managed, and I have always felt grateful to his unknown sponsors for their little act of consideration.

I cannot think of Antaeus otherwise than as a creature--not simply as a creation--as a reasoning and responsible being, rather than as a docile, slavish piece of mechanism; but to the unimaginative he seemed to be under the domination of a tolerably clean specimen of humanity whom I shall call the Driver.

It was nearly a fortnight after our first meeting when I next saw Antaeus, for he was occupied in parts of the town remote from that in which I lived. I heard him occasionally, however, as he passed through the neighborhood after dark, _en route_ for another field of labor, or propelling his weary weight toward the shed under which he was lodged for his Sunday's rest. On such occasions, when I heard him lumbering by, I used to fancy he was taking an after-supper promenade and puffing a meditative cigar as he went along.

At length, after he had come several times for pleasure, or his own convenience, he made us a professional call and buckled down to work at repairing a strip of street which had long stood in need! of his services. Antaeus was with us for several weeks and during his stay I became, in a measure, “chummy” with the Driver, from whom I learned various interesting facts about my muscular friend.

Antaeus was a “fifteen-tonner,” and his market price was $4,000; he was about sixteen feet long by seven wide at his widest part; he consumed from three to four hundred pounds of coal per diem; his strength was equal to that of more horses than I can recollect; he came down upon the dust at the rate of two tons weight per foot in width; and, when put to his best, he could settle into what was intended to be its final resting place about two thousand square yards of new road material per day of ten hours. As regarded wheels he was tricycular, that is, he rested upon one roller in front and two behind, the former being also used for steering purposes. He had two small coal-bunkers in the rear, a reasonably commodious space, with a spring seat, for the Driver, and a good-sized awning overhead. He worked under a low pressure of I forget just how many pounds of steam, and when traveling for pleasure could do rather more miles a day than could a crack trotter per hour when put to his best paces.

These particulars I learned during the first week that Antaeus was busied in our neighborhood. It was thus that I took the preliminary steps toward making his acquaintance and came to be on pleasant speaking terms with him, as it were. For the subsequent intimacy between Antaeus and myself, neither he nor I were wholly responsible.

A young lady had appeared at the house across the way. She was pretty, but I noticed her more particularly on account of the seemingly boundless capabilities of her wardrobe. She had a fresh gown for every new day, or at least, in the course of the first fortnight she had displayed a series of fourteen charming costumes, which I could no more hope to describe than could a North Greenland Eskimo to write an intelligent treatise on the flora of the torrid zone. I sat at my window, not too near, every morning when she came out of doors, and admired her through a spy-glass. This may appear like a piece of impertinence--perhaps it was--but I shall urge in my defence the fact that the street between us was nearly a hundred feet wide, and our two houses were set so far back that even by using my comparatively short-sighted little telescope, I could not bring her much nearer than we might actually have been without its aid in a more crowded neighborhood.

One afternoon I stood talking with the Driver, while Antaeus was awaiting the deposit of more material by two tip-carts which were attached to his service, when she passed on the sidewalk, and I imagined she glanced at me with a certain degree of interest, as if she recalled having seen me before--or was it Antaeus who was the more worthy object of' her attention? Had I dared I should have smiled a little--merely a vague, sketchy, tentative smile--but, hardly thinking it prudent, I resisted the temptation and tried, as the photographers put it, to look natural; with the probable result of looking only cross. After having been her neighbor for more than two weeks it seemed as if I ought to have the right to speak, but proper consideration for _les convenances_ forbade. It was vacation season, I was alone in the house, and, there being no womankind to make the necessary advances, I knew not how long it might be ere I could be formally introduced.

While I was meditating upon this state of affairs--peculiarly unfortunate for me--she walked on and disappeared around a corner. A few minutes later the fire-alarm bell sounded the number of a box near by, and presently our beautiful fire-engine, all glittering with gold and silver plate, the just pride of the town, dashed rather noisily by. At sight of this brilliant appearance Antaeus gave vent to a species of snort and started up as if to follow, but naturally his lumbering pace was no match for the swiftness of the other machine, and from the first he was left hopelessly in the rear. I went off to see where the fire was--it proved to be of small account--and forgot Antaeus entirely until that night, when he recalled himself to my mind by figuring in an odd and whimsical dream.

The scene I have just described was reproduced in part, the Driver, however, being eliminated from it. I thought I was standing beside Antaeus when the young lady appeared, only to disappear. As she went I sighed regretfully, whereupon something happened which ought to have surprised me, and would have done so anywhere else than in a dream. As if in sympathy with me, Antaeus heaved a sigh also--a most ponderous one--and thus addressed me:

“I can understand your feelings,” he said, in a low, hoarse voice. “You are longing for what seems the unattainable. Alas! so am I. We might mingle our tears,” he went on, beginning to exude moisture around the gauges; “or better still,” he added, as if struck by an idea, “perhaps we can be of assistance to each other.”

“In what way?” I asked, dubiously.

“I might help you to know _her_ if you would help me to an acquaintance with the charming Electra.”

Intuitively I divined that Electra must be the steam fire-engine. Big, brawny Antaeus was in love! The ludicrousness of the notion did not strike me then as it did afterward. On the contrary, it seemed to be one of the most natural things imaginable.

“Yes,” he said, in response to my thoughts, “I am passionately enamored of her. I desire unutterably to gain her friendship, her esteem, her love--even though she may scorn me. I realize that her station in life is far above mine. I am only a plodder, while she is--Did you see her pass me like a flash of light this afternoon? Was she not entrancing, enthralling, irresistible! Ah, me! when she bestows her love it will be upon one of those fast, dashing railway fellows, I dare say. Yet I should like her to know that I am her friend, that I would risk any danger, that I would go through the torments of--of the repair shop, that I would give my last puff to serve her. I may be ugly and slow-going, and awkward and ungainly--Do you think I am so very ungainly, that is, for one in my walk of life?” he broke off, in rather piteous query.

“Not at all,” I hastened to assure him; “when we consider your great adaptability to your--your vocation, I am sure your form would be considered remarkably symmetrical.”

“Thank you!” he exclaimed, gratefully, “and whether or not such be the case, at least I am honest and straightforward and true-hearted, though I do blow my own whistle in saying it.”

“You certainly are.”

“Then I trust I am not too aspiring in wishing to be numbered among Electra's friends. I hope she would not be ashamed to acknowledge me if she met me in the street.”

“I should hope not, indeed,” I murmured, when he paused for an encouraging word.

“Shall we call it a bargain, then, that I aid you to an introduction to the young lady, your neighbor, and in return you so contrive as to bring about a meeting between Electra and me?”

“A bargain it is, with all my heart,” I assented, grasping and shaking the handle of his throttle-lever, “and the sooner the better for the carrying out of it.”

“Very good; call on me to-morrow, and I will see what can be done for you.”

“Shall--shall I come in business hours?” I asked, hesitatingly, thinking he might possibly prefer to attend to the matter between twelve and one.

“Of course,” he answered, “in business hours, certainly. I mean business, and I hope you do.”

I hastened to set his mind at rest on that point, and, after promising to come on the following afternoon, I shook his handle again, which had the effect of starting him off, and so our interview ended.

When I awoke in the morning, my dream seemed so vividly real that I resolved to risk making myself ridiculous in my own eyes and to keep my appointment with Antaeus. Accordingly, after lunch, I strolled out toward the section of highway where he was at work. Soon I caught sight of a light-complexioned wagon standing on the opposite side of the street. Attached to it were two plump, blonde ponies, garbed in russet harness, and, on the front seat, reins in hand, talking with an acquaintance upon the sidewalk, sat my young lady.

The natty vehicle had one other occupant, a sooty-faced pug, sitting up very straight on the cushion beside his mistress, with quite the air of a personage of distinction. In front of the ponies' noses was a horse of another breed, a four-legged structure of wood, upholding a sign-board, upon which was painted in glaring letters the word, “Danger,” and in smaller ones, “No Passing; Steam Roller Running.”

Upon this scene presently entered an important actor--I might call him the heavy villian--Antaeus, grumbling, groaning, puffing and perspiring in his efforts to consolidate the various ingredients for a durable roadbed that had been laid down in his path. As he drew nearer he gave utterance to a significant “ahem!”--as I thought--by way of calling my attention to what was about to happen. Apparently he was going to keep his part of our agreement. A suspicion of what might be his idea began to dawn upon me. He purposed frightening the ponies, an incipient runaway would ensue, and I should be enabled to play the part of heroic rescuer. There were no very original features in the scheme, but it struck me as being quite practicable nevertheless; consequently I was somewhat surprised and grieved when nothing of the nature of what I had anticipated took place.

But Antaeus was more subtle than I. He wished to avoid the appearance of collusion between us, which might have been given by the execution of the rudimentary strategem I have outlined. (Or perhaps the real explanation of it is that he knew the fat little beasts of ponies were of too phlegmatic a temperament to be disturbed by a bugaboo.) At any rate they only blinked sleepily at Antaeus and then went off into a peaceful doze, entirely unmoved by his nearness. With the black-vis-aged pug, however, it was quite otherwise. He regarded the monster as an interloper, a trespasser, and he began to bark at him angrily. Perceiving that his scoldings had no effect, he lost his temper entirely, and, jumping down from the carriage seat, ran forward toward the advancing engine and continued his barking with redoubled force and fury. His mistress' attention was now aroused, and, seeing how persistently he put himself in the track of the roller, she became uneasy. She called to him persuasively, authoritatively, beseechingly, but he paid her no heed. Apparently he had more faith in himself than had King Canute when he gave his memorable lesson to his courtiers by the seashore.

From his position in the rear the Driver could not see the dog, and I doubt if he clearly understood the situation, for he made no attempt to avert the threatened catastrophe. The ridiculous animal stood his ground and kept up his remonstrances against the invader; the alarmed young lady threw an eloquently imploring look at me; and Antaeus came on, stolid, grim and impassive. Meanwhile, strangely enough--as it seems to me now--I remained inactive until my coadjutor, justly irritated, suddenly growled out what I took to mean:

“Come! come; stupid, now is your time; why don't you bestir yourself?”

Then I awakened to a full sense of my responsibilities and opportunities, and rushing to the fore, seized the rash and obstinate pug by the scruff of the neck and restored him, rescued from the Juggernaut, to the arms of his grateful mistress.

Thus did Antaeus fulfill his share of our agreement.

This little incident broke the ice. In less than a week the young lady and I knew each other almost intimately. It transpired that we were in fact old acquaintances. That is to say, she remembered me when I was at home during one college vacation, and she hoped I had not forgotten the small miss who used to come over and play tea-party with my sister. I replied that I should hope not, indeed, and mentally took myself to task for not being surer about it. The boy of seventeen is less likely to be impressed with the girl of eight than is the young man of twenty-eight with the maiden of nineteen. I was positive that at the end of another eleven years I should have had no trouble in recalling her to mind.

I am not a tennis enthusiast, but I will admit that my white flannel suit had a chance to contrast itself with the velvety green of the lawn across the way rather frequently after that. It was a convenient and plausible excuse for being with her a good deal.

The pleasure of her society was worth some physical discomfort, and I couldn't complain if I did feel for a week or more as if I had been given a sound drubbing. One day, after we had finished a series of games--in which mine was second-best record--who should appear, laboriously rumbling by, but my well-nigh forgotten friend Antaeus.

“What an uncouth piece of mechanism that is!” she exclaimed, turning to look at him--“a sort of caricature of a locomotive, one might say. A veritable snail for traveling, too, isn't it?”

“Yes; his--I mean it's--best speed does not exceed five miles an hour, I am told. A man might walk as fast as that with a little exertion.”

“I wonder if it is a pleasant mode of riding--in a steam-roller?” she said, half musing, her gaze still resting on Antaeus. “At least one would have plenty of leisure for viewing the scenery along the way. I should rather like to try a short ride on it.”