conquering knight. She raised her face, and he kissed her - violets!
electricity! caramels! champagne! Here was the attainment of a dream
that brought no disenchantment.
"Oh, Sam," cried Katie, when she could, "I knew you would come to
rescue me. What do you suppose the mean things were going to do with
me?"
"Have your picture taken," said Tansey, wondering at the foolishness
of his remark.
"No, they were going to eat me. I heard them talking about it."
"Eat you!" said Tansey, after pondering a moment. "That can't be;
there's no plates."
But a sudden noise warned him to turn. Down upon him were bearing
the Captain and a monstrous long-bearded dwarf in a spangled cloak
and red trunk-hose. The dwarf leaped twenty feet and clutched them.
The Captain seized Katie and hurled her, shrieking, back into the
carriage, himself followed, and the vehicle dashed away. The dwarf
lifted Tansey high above his head and ran with him into the store.
Holding him with one hand, he raised the lid of an enormous chest
half filled with cakes of ice, flung Tansey inside, and closed down
the cover.
The force of the fall must have been great, for Tansey lost
consciousness. When his faculties revived his first sensation was
one of severe cold along his back and limbs. Opening his eyes, he
found himself to be seated upon the limestone steps still facing the
wall and convent of Santa Mercedes. His first thought was of the
ecstatic kiss from Katie. The outrageous villainy of Captain Peek,
the unnatural mystery of the situation, his preposterous conflict
with the improbable dwarf - these things roused and angered him, but
left no impression of the unreal.
"I'll go back there to-morrow," he grumbled aloud, "and knock the
head off that comic-opera squab. Running out and picking up perfect
strangers, and shoving them into cold storage!"
But the kiss remained uppermost in his mind. "I might have done that
long ago," he mused. "She liked it, too. She called me 'Sam' four
times. I'll not go up that street again. Too much scrapping. Guess
I'll move down the other way. Wonder what she meant by saying they
were going to eat her!"
Tansey began to feel sleepy, but after a while he decided to move
along again. This time he ventured into the street to his left. It
ran level for a distance, and then dipped gently downward, opening
into a vast, dim, barren space - the old Military Plaza. To his left,
some hundred yards distant, he saw a cluster of flickering lights
along the Plaza's border. He knew the locality at once.
Huddled within narrow confines were the remnants of the once-famous
purveyors of the celebrated Mexican national cookery. A few years
before, their nightly encampments upon the historic Alamo Plaza, in
the heart of the city, had been a carnival, a saturnalia that was
renowned throughout the land. Then the caterers numbered hundreds;
the patrons thousands. Drawn by the coquettish _señoritas_, the
music of the weird Spanish minstrels, and the strange piquant
Mexican dishes served at a hundred competing tables, crowds thronged
the Alamo Plaza all night. Travellers, rancheros, family parties,
gay gasconading rounders, sightseers and prowlers of polyglot,
owlish San Antone mingled there at the centre of the city's fun and
frolic. The popping of corks, pistols, and questions; the glitter of
eyes, jewels and daggers; the ring of laughter and coin - these were
the order of the night.
But now no longer. To some half-dozen tents, fires, and tables had
dwindled the picturesque festival, and these had been relegated to
an ancient disused plaza.
Often had Tansey strolled down to these stands at night to partake
of the delectable _chili-con-carne_, a dish evolved by the genius of
Mexico, composed of delicate meats minced with aromatic herbs and
the poignant _chili colorado_ - a compound full of singular flavour
and a fiery zest delightful to the Southron's palate.
The titillating odour of this concoction came now, on the breeze, to
the nostrils of Tansey, awakening in him hunger for it. As he turned
in that direction he saw a carriage dash up to the Mexicans' tents
out of the gloom of the Plaza. Some figures moved back and forward
in the uncertain light of the lanterns, and then the carriage was
driven swiftly away.
Tansey approached, and sat at one of the tables covered with gaudy
oil-cloth. Traffic was dull at the moment. A few half-grown boys
noisily fared at another table; the Mexicans hung listless and
phlegmatic about their wares. And it was still. The night hum of the
city crowded to the wall of dark buildings surrounding the Plaza,
and subsided to an indefinite buzz through which sharply perforated
the crackle of the languid fires and the rattle of fork and spoon.
A sedative wind blew from the southeast. The starless firmament
pressed down upon the earth like a leaden cover.
In all that quiet Tansey turned his head suddenly, and saw, without
disquietude, a troop of spectral horsemen deploy into the Plaza and
charge a luminous line of infantry that advanced to sustain the
shock. He saw the fierce flame of cannon and small arms, but heard
no sound. The careless victuallers lounged vacantly, not deigning to
view the conflict. Tansey mildly wondered to what nations these mute
combatants might belong; turned his back to them and ordered his
chili and coffee from the Mexican woman who advanced to serve him.
This woman was old and careworn; her face was lined like the rind
of a cantaloupe. She fetched the viands from a vessel set by the
smouldering fire, and then retired to a tent, dark within, that
stood near by.
Presently Tansey heard a turmoil in the tent; a wailing,
broken-hearted pleading in the harmonious Spanish tongue, and then
two figures tumbled out into the light of the lanterns. One was the
old woman; the other was a man clothed with a sumptuous and flashing
splendour. The woman seemed to clutch and beseech from him something
against his will. The man broke from her and struck her brutally
back into the tent, where she lay, whimpering and invisible.
Observing Tansey, he walked rapidly to the table where he sat.
Tansey recognized him to be Ramon Torres, a Mexican, the proprietor
of the stand he was patronizing.
Torres was a handsome, nearly full-blooded descendant of the
Spanish, seemingly about thirty years of age, and of a haughty, but
extremely courteous demeanour. To-night he was dressed with signal
magnificence. His costume was that of a triumphant _matador_, made
of purple velvet almost hidden by jeweled embroidery. Diamonds of
enormous size flashed upon his garb and his hands. He reached for a
chair, and, seating himself at the opposite side of the table, began
to roll a finical cigarette.
"Ah, Meester Tansee," he said, with a sultry fire in his silky,
black eyes, "I give myself pleasure to see you this evening. Meester
Tansee, you have many times come to eat at my table. I theenk you a
safe man - a verree good friend. How much would it please you to
leeve forever?"
"Not come back any more?" inquired Tansey.
"No; not leave - _leeve_; the not-to-die."
"I would call that," said Tansey, "a snap."
Torres leaned his elbows upon the table, swallowed a mouthful of
smoke, and spake - each word being projected in a little puff of
gray.
"How old do you theenk I am, Meester Tansee?"
"Oh, twenty-eight or thirty."
"Thees day," said the Mexican, "ees my birthday. I am four hundred
and three years of old to-day."
"Another proof," said Tansey, airily, "of the healthfulness of our
climate."
"Eet is not the air. I am to relate to you a secret of verree fine
value. Listen me, Meester Tansee. At the age of twenty-three I
arrive in Mexico from Spain. When? In the year fifteen hundred
nineteen, with the _soldados_ of Hernando Cortez. I come to thees
country seventeen fifteen. I saw your Alamo reduced. It was like
yesterday to me. Three hundred ninety-six year ago I learn the
secret always to leeve. Look at these clothes I war - at these
_diamantes_. Do you theenk I buy them with the money I make with
selling the _chili-con-carne_, Meester Tansee?"
"I should think not," said Tansey, promptly. Torres laughed loudly.
"_Valgame Dios!_ but I do. But it not the kind you eating now. I
make a deeferent kind, the eating of which makes men to always
leeve. What do you think! One thousand people I supply - _diez pesos_
each one pays me the month. You see! ten thousand _pesos_ everee
month! _Que diable!_ how not I wear the fine _ropa_! You see that
old woman try to hold me back a little while ago? That ees my wife.
When I marry her she is young - seventeen year - _bonita_. Like
the rest she ees become old and - what you say! - tough? I am the
same - young all the time. To-night I resolve to dress myself
and find another wife befitting my age. This old woman try to
scr-r-ratch my face. Ha! ha! Meester Tansee - same way they do
_entre los Americanos_."
"And this health-food you spoke of?" said Tansey.
"Hear me," said Torres, leaning over the table until he lay flat
upon it; "eet is the _chili-con-carne_ made not from the beef or the
chicken, but from the flesh of the _señorita_ - young and tender.
That ees the secret. Everee month you must eat of it, having care to
do so before the moon is full, and you will not die any times. See
how I trust you, friend Tansee! To-night I have bought one young
ladee - verree pretty - so _fina, gorda, blandita!_ To-morrow the
_chili_ will be ready. _Ahora si!_ One thousand dollars I pay for
thees young ladee. From an _Americano_ I have bought - a verree
tip-top man - _el Capitan Peek_ - _que es, Señor?_"
For Tansey had sprung to his feet, upsetting the chair. The words
of Katie reverberated in his ears: "They're going to eat me, Sam."
This, then, was the monstrous fate to which she had been delivered
by her unnatural parent. The carriage he had seen drive up from the
Plaza was Captain Peek's. Where was Katie? Perhaps already -
Before he could decide what to do a loud scream came from the tent.
The old Mexican woman ran out, a flashing knife in her hand. "I have
released her," she cried. "You shall kill no more. They will hang
you - _ingrato_ - _encatador!_"
Torres, with a hissing exclamation, sprang at her.
"Ramoncito!" she shrieked; "once you loved me."
The Mexican's arm raised and descended. "You are old," he cried; and
she fell and lay motionless.
Another scream; the flaps of the tent were flung aside, and there
stood Katie, white with fear, her wrists still bound with a cruel
cord.
"Sam!" she cried, "save me again!"
Tansey rounded the table, and flung himself, with superb nerve, upon
the Mexican. Just then a clangour began; the clocks of the city were
tolling the midnight hour. Tansey clutched at Torres, and, for a
moment, felt in his grasp the crunch of velvet and the cold facets
of the glittering gems. The next instant, the bedecked caballero
turned in his hands to a shrunken, leather-visaged, white-bearded,
old, old, screaming mummy, sandalled, ragged, and four hundred and
three. The Mexican woman was crawling to her feet, and laughing. She
shook her brown hand in the face of the whining _viejo_.
"Go, now," she cried, "and seek your señorita. It was I, Ramoncito,
who brought you to this. Within each moon you eat of the life-giving
_chili_. It was I that kept the wrong time for you. You should have
eaten _yesterday_ instead of _to-morrow_. It is too late. Off with
you, _hombre_! You are too old for me!"
"This," decided Tansey, releasing his hold of the gray-beard, "is a
private family matter concerning age, and no business of mine."
With one of the table knives he hastened to saw asunder the fetters
of the fair captive; and then, for the second time that night he
kissed Katie Peek - tasted again the sweetness, the wonder, the
thrill of it, attained once more the maximum of his incessant
dreams.
The next instant an icy blade was driven deep between his shoulders;
he felt his blood slowly congeal; heard the senile cackle of the
perennial Spaniard; saw the Plaza rise and reel till the zenith
crashed into the horizon - and knew no more.
When Tansey opened his eyes again he was sitting upon those
self-same steps gazing upon the dark bulk of the sleeping convent.
In the middle of his back was still the acute, chilling pain. How
had he been conveyed back there again? He got stiffly to his feet
and stretched his cramped limbs. Supporting himself against the
stonework he revolved in his mind the extravagant adventures that
had befallen him each time he had strayed from the steps that night.
In reviewing them certain features strained his credulity. Had he
really met Captain Peek or Katie or the unparalleled Mexican in
his wanderings - had he really encountered them under commonplace
conditions and his over-stimulated brain had supplied the
incongruities? However that might be, a sudden, elating thought
caused him an intense joy. Nearly all of us have, at some point in
our lives - either to excuse our own stupidity or to placate our
consciences - promulgated some theory of fatalism. We have set up
an intelligent Fate that works by codes and signals. Tansey had
done likewise; and now he read, through the night's incidents, the
finger-prints of destiny. Each excursion that he had made had led
to the one paramount finale - to Katie and that kiss, which survived
and grew strong and intoxicating in his memory. Clearly, Fate was
holding up to him the mirror that night, calling him to observe
what awaited him at the end of whichever road he might take. He
immediately turned, and hurried homeward.
Clothed in an elaborate, pale blue wrapper, cut to fit, Miss Katie
Peek reclined in an armchair before a waning fire in her room. Her
little, bare feet were thrust into house-shoes rimmed with swan's
down. By the light of a small lamp she was attacking the society
news of the latest Sunday paper. Some happy substance, seemingly
indestructible, was being rhythmically crushed between her small
white teeth. Miss Katie read of functions and furbelows, but she
kept a vigilant ear for outside sounds and a frequent eye upon the
clock over the mantel. At every footstep upon the asphalt sidewalk
her smooth, round chin would cease for a moment its regular rise and
fall, and a frown of listening would pucker her pretty brows.
At last she heard the latch of the iron gate click. She sprang
up, tripped softly to the mirror, where she made a few of those
feminine, flickering passes at her front hair and throat which are
warranted to hypnotize the approaching guest.
The door-bell rang. Miss Katie, in her haste, turned the blaze of
the lamp lower instead of higher, and hastened noiselessly down
stairs into the hall. She turned the key, the door opened, and Mr.
Tansey side-stepped in.
"Why, the i-de-a!" exclaimed Miss Katie, "is this you, Mr. Tansey?
It's after midnight. Aren't you ashamed to wake me up at such an
hour to let you in? You're just _awful_!"
"I was late," said Tansey, brilliantly.
"I should think you were! Ma was awfully worried about you. When you
weren't in by ten, that hateful Tom McGill said you were out calling
on another - said you were out calling on some young lady. I just
despise Mr. McGill. Well, I'm not going to scold you any more, Mr.
Tansey, if it _is_ a little late - Oh! I turned it the wrong way!"
Miss Katie gave a little scream. Absent-mindedly she had turned the
blaze of the lamp entirely out instead of higher. It was very dark.
Tansey heard a musical, soft giggle, and breathed an entrancing
odour of heliotrope. A groping light hand touched his arm.
"How awkward I was! Can you find your way - Sam?"
"I - I think I have a match, Miss K-Katie."
A scratching sound; a flame; a glow of light held at arm's length by
the recreant follower of Destiny illuminating a tableau which shall
end the ignominious chronicle - a maid with unkissed, curling,
contemptuous lips slowly lifting the lamp chimney and allowing the
wick to ignite; then waving a scornful and abjuring hand toward the
staircase - the unhappy Tansey, erstwhile champion in the prophetic
lists of fortune, ingloriously ascending to his just and certain
doom, while (let us imagine) half within the wings stands the
imminent figure of Fate jerking wildly at the wrong strings, and
mixing things up in her usual able manner.
XVI
A DEPARTMENTAL CASE
In Texas you may travel a thousand miles in a straight line. If
your course is a crooked one, it is likely that both the distance
and your rate of speed may be vastly increased. Clouds there
sail serenely against the wind. The whip-poor-will delivers its
disconsolate cry with the notes exactly reversed from those of his
Northern brother. Given a drought and a subsequently lively rain,
and lo! from a glazed and stony soil will spring in a single night
blossomed lilies, miraculously fair. Tom Green County was once the
standard of measurement. I have forgotten how many New Jerseys and
Rhode Islands it was that could have been stowed away and lost in
its chaparral. But the legislative axe has slashed Tom Green into
a handful of counties hardly larger than European kingdoms. The
legislature convenes at Austin, near the centre of the state; and,
while the representative from the Rio Grande country is gathering
his palm-leaf fan and his linen duster to set out for the capital,
the Pan-handle solon winds his muffler above his well-buttoned
overcoat and kicks the snow from his well-greased boots ready for
the same journey. All this merely to hint that the big ex-republic
of the Southwest forms a sizable star on the flag, and to prepare
for the corollary that things sometimes happen there uncut to
pattern and unfettered by metes and bounds.
The Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History of the State
of Texas was an official of no very great or very small importance.
The past tense is used, for now he is Commissioner of Insurance
alone. Statistics and history are no longer proper nouns in the
government records.
In the year 188 - , the governor appointed Luke Coonrod Standifer to
be the head of this department. Standifer was then fifty-five years
of age, and a Texan to the core. His father had been one of the
state's earliest settlers and pioneers. Standifer himself had served
the commonwealth as Indian fighter, soldier, ranger, and legislator.
Much learning he did not claim, but he had drank pretty deep of the
spring of experience.
If other grounds were less abundant, Texas should be well up in the
lists of glory as the grateful republic. For both as republic and
state, it has busily heaped honours and solid rewards upon its sons
who rescued it from the wilderness.
Wherefore and therefore, Luke Coonrod Standifer, son of Ezra
Standifer, ex-Terry ranger, simon-pure democrat, and lucky dweller
in an unrepresented portion of the politico-geographical map, was
appointed Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History.
Standifer accepted the honour with some doubt as to the nature of
the office he was to fill and his capacity for filling it - but
he accepted, and by wire. He immediately set out from the little
country town where he maintained (and was scarcely maintained by) a
somnolent and unfruitful office of surveying and map-drawing. Before
departing, he had looked up under the I's, S's and H's in the
"Encyclopædia Britannica" what information and preparation toward
his official duties that those weighty volumes afforded.
A few weeks of incumbency diminished the new commissioner's awe of
the great and important office he had been called upon to conduct.
An increasing familiarity with its workings soon restored him to
his accustomed placid course of life. In his office was an old,
spectacled clerk - a consecrated, informed, able machine, who
held his desk regardless of changes of administrative heads. Old
Kauffman instructed his new chief gradually in the knowledge of the
department without seeming to do so, and kept the wheels revolving
without the slip of a cog.
Indeed, the Department of Insurance, Statistics, and History
carried no great heft of the burden of state. Its main work was
the regulating of the business done in the state by foreign
insurance companies, and the letter of the law was its guide. As
for statistics - well, you wrote letters to county officers, and
scissored other people's reports, and each year you got out a report
of your own about the corn crop and the cotton crop and pecans and
pigs and black and white population, and a great many columns of
figures headed "bushels" and "acres" and "square miles," etc. - and
there you were. History? The branch was purely a receptive one. Old
ladies interested in the science bothered you some with long reports
of proceedings of their historical societies. Some twenty or thirty
people would write you each year that they had secured Sam Houston's
pocket-knife or Santa Ana's whisky-flask or Davy Crockett's
rifle - all absolutely authenticated - and demanded legislative
appropriation to purchase. Most of the work in the history branch
went into pigeon-holes.
One sizzling August afternoon the commissioner reclined in his
office chair, with his feet upon the long, official table covered
with green billiard cloth. The commissioner was smoking a cigar, and
dreamily regarding the quivering landscape framed by the window that
looked upon the treeless capitol grounds. Perhaps he was thinking of
the rough and ready life he had led, of the old days of breathless
adventure and movement, of the comrades who now trod other paths or
had ceased to tread any, of the changes civilization and peace had
brought, and, maybe, complacently, of the snug and comfortable camp
pitched for him under the dome of the capitol of the state that had
not forgotten his services.
The business of the department was lax. Insurance was easy.
Statistics were not in demand. History was dead. Old Kauffman,
the efficient and perpetual clerk, had requested an infrequent
half-holiday, incited to the unusual dissipation by the joy of
having successfully twisted the tail of a Connecticut insurance
company that was trying to do business contrary to the edicts of the
great Lone Star State.
The office was very still. A few subdued noises trickled in through
the open door from the other departments - a dull tinkling crash from
the treasurer's office adjoining, as a clerk tossed a bag of silver
to the floor of the vault - the vague, intermittent clatter of a
dilatory typewriter - a dull tapping from the state geologist's
quarters as if some woodpecker had flown in to bore for his prey in
the cool of the massive building - and then a faint rustle and the
light shuffling of the well-worn shoes along the hall, the sounds
ceasing at the door toward which the commissioner's lethargic back
was presented. Following this, the sound of a gentle voice speaking
words unintelligible to the commissioner's somewhat dormant
comprehension, but giving evidence of bewilderment and hesitation.
The voice was feminine; the commissioner was of the race of
cavaliers who make salaam before the trail of a skirt without
considering the quality of its cloth.
There stood in the door a faded woman, one of the numerous
sisterhood of the unhappy. She was dressed all in black - poverty's
perpetual mourning for lost joys. Her face had the contours of
twenty and the lines of forty. She may have lived that intervening
score of years in a twelve-month. There was about her yet an aurum
of indignant, unappeased, protesting youth that shone faintly
through the premature veil of unearned decline.
"I beg your pardon, ma'am," said the commissioner, gaining his feet
to the accompaniment of a great creaking and sliding of his chair.
"Are you the governor, sir?" asked the vision of melancholy.
The commissioner hesitated at the end of his best bow, with his
hand in the bosom of his double-breasted "frock." Truth at last
conquered.
"Well, no, ma'am. I am not the governor. I have the honour to be
Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History. Is there
anything, ma'am, I can do for you? Won't you have a chair, ma'am?"
The lady subsided into the chair handed her, probably from purely
physical reasons. She wielded a cheap fan - last token of gentility
to be abandoned. Her clothing seemed to indicate a reduction almost
to extreme poverty. She looked at the man who was not the governor,
and saw kindliness and simplicity and a rugged, unadorned
courtliness emanating from a countenance tanned and toughened by
forty years of outdoor life. Also, she saw that his eyes were clear
and strong and blue. Just so they had been when he used them to skim
the horizon for raiding Kiowas and Sioux. His mouth was as set and
firm as it had been on that day when he bearded the old Lion Sam
Houston himself, and defied him during that season when secession
was the theme. Now, in bearing and dress, Luke Coonrod Sandifer
endeavoured to do credit to the important arts and sciences of
Insurance, Statistics, and History. He had abandoned the careless
dress of his country home. Now, his broad-brimmed black slouch hat,
and his long-tailed "frock" made him not the least imposing of the
official family, even if his office was reckoned to stand at the
tail of the list.
"You wanted to see the governor, ma'am?" asked the commissioner,
with a deferential manner he always used toward the fair sex.
"I hardly know," said the lady, hesitatingly. "I suppose so." And
then, suddenly drawn by the sympathetic look of the other, she
poured forth the story of her need.
It was a story so common that the public has come to look at its
monotony instead of its pity. The old tale of an unhappy married
life - made so by a brutal, conscienceless husband, a robber, a
spendthrift, a moral coward and a bully, who failed to provide
even the means of the barest existence. Yes, he had come down
in the scale so low as to strike her. It happened only the day
before - there was the bruise on one temple - she had offended his
highness by asking for a little money to live on. And yet she must
needs, woman-like, append a plea for her tyrant - he was drinking;
he had rarely abused her thus when sober.
"I thought," mourned this pale sister of sorrow, "that maybe the
state might be willing to give me some relief. I've heard of such
things being done for the families of old settlers. I've heard
tell that the state used to give land to the men who fought for it
against Mexico, and settled up the country, and helped drive out the
Indians. My father did all of that, and he never received anything.
He never would take it. I thought the governor would be the one to
see, and that's why I came. If father was entitled to anything, they
might let it come to me."
"It's possible, ma'am," said Standifer, "that such might be the
case. But 'most all the veterans and settlers got their land
certificates issued, and located long ago. Still, we can look that
up in the land office, and be sure. Your father's name, now, was - "
"Amos Colvin, sir."
"Good Lord!" exclaimed Standifer, rising and unbuttoning his tight
coat, excitedly. "Are you Amos Colvin's daughter? Why, ma'am, Amos
Colvin and me were thicker than two hoss thieves for more than ten
years! We fought Kiowas, drove cattle, and rangered side by side
nearly all over Texas. I remember seeing you once before, now. You
were a kid, about seven, a-riding a little yellow pony up and down.
Amos and me stopped at your home for a little grub when we were
trailing that band of Mexican cattle thieves down through Karnes
and Bee. Great tarantulas! and you're Amos Colvin's little girl!
Did you ever hear your father mention Luke Standifer - just kind of
casually - as if he'd met me once or twice?"
A little pale smile flitted across the lady's white face.
"It seems to me," she said, "that I don't remember hearing him talk
about much else. Every day there was some story he had to tell
about what he and you had done. Mighty near the last thing I heard
him tell was about the time when the Indians wounded him, and you
crawled out to him through the grass, with a canteen of water, while
they - "
"Yes, yes - well - oh, that wasn't anything," said Standifer,
"hemming" loudly and buttoning his coat again, briskly. "And now,
ma'am, who was the infernal skunk - I beg your pardon, ma'am - who was
the gentleman you married?"
"Benton Sharp."
The commissioner plumped down again into his chair, with a groan.
This gentle, sad little woman, in the rusty black gown, the daughter
of his oldest friend, the wife of Benton Sharp! Benton Sharp, one of
the most noted "bad" men in that part of the state - a man who had
been a cattle thief, an outlaw, a desperado, and was now a gambler,
a swaggering bully, who plied his trade in the larger frontier
towns, relying upon his record and the quickness of his gun play to
maintain his supremacy. Seldom did any one take the risk of going
"up against" Benton Sharp. Even the law officers were content to let
him make his own terms of peace. Sharp was a ready and an accurate
shot, and as lucky as a brand-new penny at coming clear from his
scrapes. Standifer wondered how this pillaging eagle ever came to be
mated with Amos Colvin's little dove, and expressed his wonder.
Mrs. Sharp sighed.
"You see, Mr. Standifer, we didn't know anything about him, and he
can be very pleasant and kind when he wants to. We lived down in the
little town of Goliad. Benton came riding down that way, and stopped
there a while. I reckon I was some better looking then than I am
now. He was good to me for a whole year after we were married. He
insured his life for me for five thousand dollars. But for the last
six months he has done everything but kill me. I often wish he had
done that, too. He got out of money for a while, and abused me
shamefully for not having anything he could spend. Then father died,
and left me the little home in Goliad. My husband made me sell that,
and turned me out into the world. I've barely been able to live, for
I'm not strong enough to work. Lately, I heard he was making money
in San Antonio, so I went there, and found him, and asked for a
little help. This," touching the livid bruise on her temple, "is
what he gave me. So I came on to Austin to see the governor. I once
heard father say that there was some land, or a pension, coming to
him from the state that he never would ask for."
Luke Standifer rose to his feet, and pushed his chair back. He
looked rather perplexedly around the big office, with its handsome
furniture.
"It's a long trail to follow," he said, slowly, "trying to get back
dues from the government. There's red tape and lawyers and rulings
and evidence and courts to keep you waiting. I'm not certain,"
continued the commissioner, with a profoundly meditative frown,
"whether this department that I'm the boss of has any jurisdiction
or not. It's only Insurance, Statistics, and History, ma'am, and it
don't sound as if it would cover the case. But sometimes a saddle
blanket can be made to stretch. You keep your seat, just for a few
minutes, ma'am, till I step into the next room and see about it."
The state treasurer was seated within his massive, complicated
railings, reading a newspaper. Business for the day was about over.
The clerks lolled at their desks, awaiting the closing hour. The
Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History entered, and
leaned in at the window.
The treasurer, a little, brisk old man, with snow-white moustache
and beard, jumped up youthfully and came forward to greet Standifer.
They were friends of old.
"Uncle Frank," said the commissioner, using the familiar name by
which the historic treasurer was addressed by every Texan, "how much
money have you got on hand?"
The treasurer named the sum of the last balance down to the odd
cents - something more than a million dollars.
The commissioner whistled lowly, and his eyes grew hopefully bright.
"You know, or else you've heard of, Amos Colvin, Uncle Frank?"
"Knew him well," said the treasurer, promptly. "A good man. A
valuable citizen. One of the first settlers in the Southwest."
"His daughter," said Standifer, "is sitting in my office. She's
penniless. She's married to Benton Sharp, a coyote and a murderer.
He's reduced her to want, and broken her heart. Her father helped
build up this state, and it's the state's turn to help his child. A
couple of thousand dollars will buy back her home and let her live
in peace. The State of Texas can't afford to refuse it. Give me the
money, Uncle Frank, and I'll give it to her right away. We'll fix up
the red-tape business afterward."
The treasurer looked a little bewildered.
"Why, Standifer," he said, "you know I can't pay a cent out of the
treasury without a warrant from the comptroller. I can't disburse a
dollar without a voucher to show for it."
The commissioner betrayed a slight impatience.
"I'll give you a voucher," he declared. "What's this job they've
given me for? Am I just a knot on a mesquite stump? Can't my office
stand for it? Charge it up to Insurance and the other two sideshows.
Don't Statistics show that Amos Colvin came to this state when it
was in the hands of Greasers and rattlesnakes and Comanches, and
fought day and night to make a white man's country of it? Don't they
show that Amos Colvin's daughter is brought to ruin by a villain
who's trying to pull down what you and I and old Texans shed our
blood to build up? Don't History show that the Lone Star State never
yet failed to grant relief to the suffering and oppressed children
of the men who made her the grandest commonwealth in the Union? If
Statistics and History don't bear out the claim of Amos Colvin's
child I'll ask the next legislature to abolish my office. Come,
now, Uncle Frank, let her have the money. I'll sign the papers
officially, if you say so; and then if the governor or the
comptroller or the janitor or anybody else makes a kick, by the Lord
I'll refer the matter to the people, and see if they won't endorse
the act."
The treasurer looked sympathetic but shocked. The commissioner's
voice had grown louder as he rounded off the sentences that, however
praiseworthy they might be in sentiment, reflected somewhat upon
the capacity of the head of a more or less important department of
state. The clerks were beginning to listen.
"Now, Standifer," said the treasurer, soothingly, "you know I'd like
to help in this matter, but stop and think a moment, please. Every
cent in the treasury is expended only by appropriation made by the
legislature, and drawn out by checks issued by the comptroller.
I can't control the use of a cent of it. Neither can you. Your
department isn't disbursive - it isn't even administrative - it's
purely clerical. The only way for the lady to obtain relief is to
petition the legislature, and - "
"To the devil with the legislature," said Standifer, turning away.
The treasurer called him back.
"I'd be glad, Standifer, to contribute a hundred dollars personally
toward the immediate expenses of Colvin's daughter." He reached for
his pocketbook.
"Never mind, Uncle Frank," said the commissioner, in a softer tone.
"There's no need of that. She hasn't asked for anything of that sort
yet. Besides, her case is in my hands. I see now what a little,
rag-tag, bob-tail, gotch-eared department I've been put in charge
of. It seems to be about as important as an almanac or a hotel
register. But while I'm running it, it won't turn away any daughters
of Amos Colvin without stretching its jurisdiction to cover, if
possible. You want to keep your eye on the Department of Insurance,
Statistics, and History."
The commissioner returned to his office, looking thoughtful. He
opened and closed an inkstand on his desk many times with extreme
and undue attention. "Why don't you get a divorce?" he asked,
suddenly.
"I haven't the money to pay for it," answered the lady.
"Just at present," announced the commissioner, in a formal
tone, "the powers of my department appear to be considerably
string-halted. Statistics seem to be overdrawn at the bank, and
History isn't good for a square meal. But you've come to the right
place, ma'am. The department will see you through. Where did you say
your husband is, ma'am?"
"He was in San Antonio yesterday. He is living there now."
Suddenly the commissioner abandoned his official air. He took the
faded little woman's hands in his, and spoke in the old voice he
used on the trail and around campfires.
"Your name's Amanda, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir."
"I thought so. I've heard your dad say it often enough. Well,
Amanda, here's your father's best friend, the head of a big office
in the state government, that's going to help you out of your
troubles. And here's the old bushwhacker and cowpuncher that your
father has helped out of scrapes time and time again wants to ask
you a question. Amanda, have you got money enough to run you for the
next two or three days?"
Mrs. Sharp's white face flushed the least bit.
"Plenty, sir - for a few days."
"All right, then, ma'am. Now you go back where you are stopping
here, and you come to the office again the day after to-morrow at
four o'clock in the afternoon. Very likely by that time there will
be something definite to report to you." The commissioner hesitated,
and looked a trifle embarrassed. "You said your husband had insured
his life for $5,000. Do you know whether the premiums have been kept
paid upon it or not?"
"He paid for a whole year in advance about five months ago," said
Mrs. Sharp. "I have the policy and receipts in my trunk."
"Oh, that's all right, then," said Standifer. "It's best to look
after things of that sort. Some day they may come in handy."
Mrs. Sharp departed, and soon afterward Luke Standifer went down
to the little hotel where he boarded and looked up the railroad
time-table in the daily paper. Half an hour later he removed his
coat and vest, and strapped a peculiarly constructed pistol holster
across his shoulders, leaving the receptacle close under his left
armpit. Into the holster he shoved a short-barrelled .44 calibre
revolver. Putting on his clothes again, he strolled to the station
and caught the five-twenty afternoon train for San Antonio.
The San Antonio _Express_ of the following morning contained this
sensational piece of news:
BENTON SHARP MEETS HIS MATCH
THE MOST NOTED DESPERADO IN SOUTHWEST TEXAS SHOT TO
DEATH IN THE GOLD FRONT RESTAURANT - PROMINENT STATE
OFFICIAL SUCCESSFULLY DEFENDS HIMSELF AGAINST THE
NOTED BULLY - MAGNIFICENT EXHIBITION OF QUICK GUN PLAY.
Last night about eleven o'clock Benton Sharp, with two
other men, entered the Gold Front Restaurant and seated
themselves at a table. Sharp had been drinking, and was
loud and boisterous, as he always was when under the
influence of liquor. Five minutes after the party was
seated a tall, well-dressed, elderly gentleman entered
the restaurant. Few present recognized the Honourable
Luke Standifer, the recently appointed Commissioner of
Insurance, Statistics, and History.
Going over to the same side where Sharp was, Mr.
Standifer prepared to take a seat at the next table. In
hanging his hat upon one of the hooks along the wall he
let it fall upon Sharp's head. Sharp turned, being in an