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Bransford Of Rainbow Range

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<h3>CHAPTER XVII</h3> <h2>TWENTIETH CENTURY</h2> <div class="centerbox2 bbox2">“And there that hulking Prejudice Sat all across the road. </div> <hr class="tiny" /> <div class="centerbox10 bbox2">“I took my hat, I took my coat, My load I settled fair, I approached that awful incubus With an absent-minded air— And I walked directly through him As if he wasn’t there!” —An Obstacle: Charlotte Perkins Stetson. </div> Johnny Dines rode with a pleasant jingle down the shady street of Los Baños de Santa Eulalia del Norte. His saddle was new, carven, wrought with silver; his bridle shone as the sun, his spurs as bright stars; he shed music from his feet. Jeff saw him turn to Casa Escobar: apple blossoms made a fragrant lane for him. He paused at Jeff’s tree. “Alto alli!” said Johnny. The words, as sharp command, can be managed in two brisk syllables. The sound is then: “Altwai!” It is a crisp and startling sound, and the sense of it in our idiom is: “Hands up!” [Pg 216] Jeff had been taking a late breakfast al fresco; he made glad room on his bench. “Light, stranger, and look at your saddle! Pretty slick saddle, too. Guess your playmates must ’a’ went home talking to themselves last night.” “They’re going to kill a maverick for you at Arcadia and give a barbecue,” said Johnny. The cult of nil admirari reaches its highest pitch of prosperity in the cow-countries, and Johnny knew that it was for him to broach tidings unasked. “Oh, that reminds me—how’s old Lars Porsena?” said Jeff, now free to question. “Him? He’s all right,” said Johnny casually. “Goin’ to marry one or more of the nurses. They’re holdin’ elimination contests now.” “Say, Johnny, when you go back, I wish you’d tell him I didn’t do it. Cross my heart and hope to die if I did!” “Oh, he knows it wasn’t you!” said Johnny. Jeff shook his head doubtfully. “Evidence was pretty strong—pretty strong! Who was it then?” “Why, Lake himself—the old hog!” “If Lake keeps on like this he’s going to have people down on him,” said Jeff. “Who did the holmesing—John Wesley?” “Oh, John Wesley! John Wesley!” said Dines scornfully. “You think the sun rises and sets in old John Wesley Pringle. Naw; he didn’t [Pg 217]get back till it was all over. I cannot tell a lie. I did it with my little hatchet!” “Must have had it sharpened up!” said Jeff. “Tell it to me!” “Why, there isn’t much to tell,” said Dines, suddenly modest. “Come to think of it, I had right considerable help. There was a young college chap—he first put it into my head that it wasn’t you.” “That would be the devil?” said Jeff, ignoring the insult. “Just so. Name’s White—and so’s he: Billy White, S. M. and G. P.” “I don’t just remember them degrees,” said Jeff. “Aw, keep still and you’ll hear more. They stand for Some Man and Good People. Well, as I was a-saying, Billy he seemed to think it wasn’t you. He stuck to it that Buttinski—that’s what he calls you—was in a garden just when the bank was robbed.” Johnny contemplated the apple tree over his head. It was a wandering and sober glance, but a muscle twitched in his cheek, and he made no further explanation about the garden. “And then I remembered about Nigger Babe throwin’ you off, and I began to think maybe you didn’t crack the safe after all. And there was some other things—little things—that made Billy and Jimmy Phillips—he was takin’ cards in the [Pg 218]game too—made ’em think maybe it was Lake; but it wasn’t no proof—not to say proof. And there’s where I come in.” “Well?” said Jeff, as Johnny paused. “Simple enough, once you knowed how,” said Johnny modestly. “I’d been reading lots of them detective books—Sherlock Holmes and all them fellows. I got Billy to have his folks toll Lake’s sister away for the night, so she wouldn’t be scared. Then me and Billy and Jimmy Phillips and Monte, we broke in and blowed up Lake’s private safe. No trouble at all. Since the bank-robbin’ every one had been tellin’ round just how it ought to be done—crackin’ safes. Funny how a fellow picks up little scraps of useful knowledge like that—things you’d think he’d remember might come in handy most any time—and then forgets all about ’em. I wrote it down this time. Won’t forget it again.” “Well?” said Jeff again. “Oh, yes. And there was the nice money—all the notes and all of the gold he could tote.” Jeff’s eye wandered to the new saddle. “I kept some of the yellow stuff as a souvenir—half a quart, or maybe a pint,” said Johnny. “I don’t want no reward for doin’ a good deed.... And that’s all.” “Lake is a long, ugly word,” said Jeff thoughtfully. [Pg 219] “Well, what do you say?” prompted Johnny. “Oh, thank you, thank you!” said Jeff. “You showed marvelous penetration—marvelous! But say, Johnny, if the money hadn’t been there wouldn’t that have been awkward?” “Oh, Billy was pretty sure Lake was the man. And we figured he hadn’t bothered to move it—you being the goat that way. What made you be a goat, Jeff? That whole performance was the most idiotic break I ever knew a grown-up man to get off. I knew you were not strictly accountable, but why didn’t you say, ‘Judge, your Honor, sir, at the time the bank was being robbed I was in a garden with a young lady, talking about the hereafter, the here and the heretofore?’” “On the contrary, what made your Billy think it was Lake?” Johnny told him, in detail. “Pretty good article of plain thinking, wasn’t it?” he concluded. “Yet he mightn’t have got started on the right track at all if he hadn’t had the straight tip about your bein’ in a garden.” Johnny’s eye reverted to the apple tree. “Lake found your noseguard, you know, where you left it. I reckon maybe he saw you leave it there.—Say, Jeff! Lake’s grandfather must have been a white man. Anyhow, he’s got one decent drop of blood in him, from somewhere. For when we arrested him, he didn’t say a word about the [Pg 220]garden. That was rather a good stunt, I think. Bully for Lake, just once!” “Right you are! And, Mr. J. Dines, I’ve been thinking——” Jeff began. Johnny glanced at him anxiously. “——and I’ve about come to the conclusion that we’re some narrow contracted and bigoted on Rainbow. We don’t know it all. We ain’t the only pebble. From what I’ve seen of these Arcadia men they seem to be pretty good stuff—and like as not it’s just the same way all along the beach. There’s your Mr. White, and Griffith, and Gibson—did I tell you about Gibson?” Johnny flashed a brilliant smile. His smiles always looked larger than they really were, because Johnny was a very small man. “I saw Griffith and he gave me his version—several times. He’s real upset, Griffith.... Last time he told me, he leaned up against my neck and wept because there was only ten commandments!” “Didn’t see Gibson, did you? You know him?” “Nope. Pappy picked him up—or he picked Pappy up, rather. Hasn’t been seen since. I guess Gibby, old boy, has gone to the wild bunch. He wouldn’t suspect you of bein’ innocent, and he dreamed he dwelt in marble walls, makin’ shoes for the state. So he gets cold feet and he just naturally evaporates—good night!” [Pg 221] “Yes—he said he was going to hike out, or something to that effect,” responded Jeff absently—the fact being that he was not thinking of Gibson, at all, but was pondering deeply upon Miss Ellinor Hoffman. Had she gone to New York according to the original plan? It did not seem probable. Her face stood out before him—bright, vivid, sparkling, as he had seen her last, in the court room of Arcadia. Good heavens! Was that only a week ago? Seven days? It seemed seven years!—No—she had not gone—at least, certainly not until she was sure that he, Jeff, had made good his escape. Then, perhaps, she might have gone. Perhaps her mother had made her go. Oh, well!—New York wasn’t far, as he had told her that first wonderful day on Rainbow Rim. What a marvelous day that was! Jeff was suddenly struck with the thought that he had never seen Ellinor’s mother. Great Scott! She had a father, too! How annoying! He meditated upon this unpleasant theme for a space. Then, as if groping in a dark room, he had suddenly turned on the light, his thought changed to—What a girl! Ah, what a wonderful girl! Where is she? Looking up, Jeff became once more aware of Johnny Dines, leg curled around the horn of the new saddle, elbow on knee, cheek on hand, contemplating his poor friend with benevolent pity. [Pg 222]And then Jeff knew that he could make no queries of Johnny Dines. Johnny spake soothingly. “You are in North America. This is the Twentieth Century. Your name is Bransford. That round bright object is the sun. This direction is East. This way is called ‘up.’ This is a stream of water that you see. It is called the Rio River Grand Big. We are advertised by our loving friends. I cannot sing the old songs. There’s a reason. Two of a kind flock together. Never trump your pardner’s ace. It’s a wise child that dreads the fire. Wake up! Come out of it! Change cars!” “I ought to kill you,” said Jeff. “Now giggle, you idiot, and make everybody hate you!—Wait till I say Adios to my old compadre and the rest of the Escobar gente and I’ll side you to El Paso.” “Not I. Little Johnny, he’ll make San Elizario ferry by noon and Helm’s by dark. Thought maybe so you’d be going along.” “Why, no,” said Jeff uneasily. “I guess maybe I’ll go up to El Paso and june around a spell.” “Oh, well—just as you say! Such bein’ the case, I’ll be jogging.” “Better wait till after dinner—I’ll square it with Don Francisco if ... anything’s missing.” “No—that makes too long a jaunt for this afternoon. Me for San Elizario. So long!” [Pg 223] But beyond the first acequia he turned and rode back. “Funny thing, Jeff! Remember me telling you about a girl I saw on Mayhill, the day Nigger Babe throwed you off? Now, what was that girl’s name?—I’ve forgotten again. Oh, yes!—Hoffman—Miss Ellinor Hoffman. Well—she’s at Arcadia still. The mother lady was all for going back to New York—but, no, sir! Girl says she’s twenty-one, likes Arcadia, and she’s going to stay a spell. Leastwise, so I hear.” “I will kill you!” said Jeff. “Here, wait till I saddle my nag and say good-by.” <hr class="medium" /> Beyond San Elizario, as they climbed the Pass of All the Winds, the two friends halted to breathe their horses. “Jeff,” said Johnny, rather soberly, “you can kick me after I say my little piece—I’ll think poorly of you if you don’t—but ain’t you making maybe a mistake? That girl, now—nice girl, and all that—but that girl’s got money, Jeff.” “I hate a fool worse than a knave, any day in the week,” said Jeff: “and the man that would let money keep him from the only girl—why, Johnny, he’s so much more of a fool than the other fellow is a scoundrel——” “I get you!” said Johnny. “You mean that a submarine boat is better built for roping steers than a mogul engine is skilful at painting steeples, [Pg 224]and you wonder if you can’t get a fresh horse somewhere and go on through to Arcadia to-night?” “Something like that,” admitted Jeff. “Besides,” he added lightly, “while I’d like that girl just as well if I didn’t have a cent—why, as it happens, I’m pretty well fixed, myself. I’ve got money to throw at the little dicky-birds—all kinds of money. Got a fifty-one-per-cent interest in a copper mine over in Harqua Hala that’s been payin’ me all the way from ten to five thousand clear per each and every year for the last seven years, besides what I pay a lad for lookout to keep anybody but himself from stealing any of it. He’s been buyin’ real estate for me in Los Angeles lately.” Johnny’s jaw dropped in unaffected amazement. “All this while? Before you and Leo hit Rainbow?” “Sure!” said Jeff. “And you workin’ for forty a month and stealin’ your own beef?—then saving up and buying your little old brand along with Beebe and Leo and old Wes’, joggin’ along, workin’ like a yaller dog with fleas?” “Why not? Wasn’t I having a heap of fun? Where can I see any better time than I had here, or find better friends? Money’s no good by itself. I haven’t drawn a dollar from Arizona since I left. It was fun to make the mine go round [Pg 225]at first; but when it got so it’d work I looked for something else more amusing.” “I should think you’d want to travel, anyhow.” “Travel?” echoed Jeff. “Travel? Why, you damn fool, I’m here now!” “Will you stay here, if you marry her, Jeff?” “So you’ve no objection to make, if I’ve got a few dollars? That squares everything all right, does it? Not a yeep of protest from you now? See here, you everlasting fool! I’m just the same man I was fifteen minutes ago when you thought I didn’t have any money. If I’m fit for her now, I was then. If I wasn’t good enough then, I’m not good enough now.” “But I wasn’t thinking of her—I was thinking of—how it would look.” “Look? Who cares how it looks? Just a silly prejudice! ‘They say—what say they—let them say!’ Johnny, maybe I was just stringin’ you. If I was lying about the money—how about it then? Changed your mind again?” “You wasn’t lyin’, was you?” “Shan’t tell you! It doesn’t really make any difference, anyhow.” <hr class="large" />[Pg 226] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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