bombshell that I invented. Everything I ever took hold of and tried
to run I ran into the ground except when I tried to plough. And
that's why they call me Bad-Luck Kearny. I thought I'd tell you.'
"'Bad luck,' said I, 'or what goes by that name, may now and then
tangle the affairs of any man. But if it persists beyond the
estimate of what we may call the "averages" there must be a cause
for it.'
"'There is,' said Kearny emphatically, 'and when we walk another
square I will show it to you.'
"Surprised, I kept by his side until we came to Canal Street and out
into the middle of its great width.
"Kearny seized me by an arm and pointed a tragic forefinger at a
rather brilliant star that shone steadily about thirty degrees above
the horizon.
"'That's Saturn,' said he, 'the star that presides over bad luck and
evil and disappointment and nothing doing and trouble. I was born
under that star. Every move I make, up bobs Saturn and blocks it.
He's the hoodoo planet of the heavens. They say he's 73,000 miles in
diameter and no solider of body than split-pea soup, and he's got as
many disreputable and malignant rings as Chicago. Now, what kind of
a star is that to be born under?'
"I asked Kearny where he had obtained all this astonishing
knowledge.
"'From Azrath, the great astrologer of Cleveland, Ohio,' said he.
'That man looked at a glass ball and told me my name before I'd
taken a chair. He prophesied the date of my birth and death before
I'd said a word. And then he cast my horoscope, and the sidereal
system socked me in the solar plexus. It was bad luck for Francis
Kearny from A to Izard and for his friends that were implicated with
him. For that I gave up ten dollars. This Azrath was sorry, but he
respected his profession too much to read the heavens wrong for any
man. It was night time, and he took me out on a balcony and gave me
a free view of the sky. And he showed me which Saturn was, and how
to find it in different balconies and longitudes.
"'But Saturn wasn't all. He was only the man higher up. He furnishes
so much bad luck that they allow him a gang of deputy sparklers to
help hand it out. They're circulating and revolving and hanging
around the main supply all the time, each one throwing the hoodoo on
his own particular district.
"'You see that ugly little red star about eight inches above and to
the right of Saturn?' Kearny asked me. 'Well, that's her. That's
Phoebe. She's got me in charge. "By the day of your birth," says
Azrath to me, "your life is subjected to the influence of Saturn. By
the hour and minute of it you must dwell under the sway and direct
authority of Phoebe, the ninth satellite." So said this Azrath.'
Kearny shook his fist violently skyward. 'Curse her, she's done
her work well,' said he. 'Ever since I was astrologized, bad luck
has followed me like my shadow, as I told you. And for many years
before. Now, Captain, I've told you my handicap as a man should. If
you're afraid this evil star of mine might cripple your scheme,
leave me out of it.'
"I reassured Kearny as well as I could. I told him that for the time
we would banish both astrology and astronomy from our heads. The
manifest valour and enthusiasm of the man drew me. 'Let us see what
a little courage and diligence will do against bad luck,' I said.
'We will sail to-morrow for Esperando.'
"Fifty miles down the Mississippi our steamer broke her rudder. We
sent for a tug to tow us back and lost three days. When we struck
the blue waters of the Gulf, all the storm clouds of the Atlantic
seemed to have concentrated above us. We thought surely to sweeten
those leaping waves with our sugar, and to stack our arms and lumber
on the floor of the Mexican Gulf.
"Kearny did not seek to cast off one iota of the burden of our
danger from the shoulders of his fatal horoscope. He weathered every
storm on deck, smoking a black pipe, to keep which alight rain and
sea-water seemed but as oil. And he shook his fist at the black
clouds behind which his baleful star winked its unseen eye. When the
skies cleared one evening, he reviled his malignant guardian with
grim humour.
"'On watch, aren't you, you red-headed vixen? Out making it hot for
little Francis Kearny and his friends, according to Hoyle. Twinkle,
twinkle, little devil! You're a lady, aren't you? - dogging a man
with your bad luck just because he happened to be born while your
boss was floorwalker. Get busy and sink the ship, you one-eyed
banshee. Phoebe! H'm! Sounds as mild as a milkmaid. You can't judge
a woman by her name. Why couldn't I have had a man star? I can't
make the remarks to Phoebe that I could to a man. Oh, Phoebe, you
be - blasted!'
"For eight days gales and squalls and waterspouts beat us from our
course. Five days only should have landed us in Esperando. Our Jonah
swallowed the bad credit of it with appealing frankness; but that
scarcely lessened the hardships our cause was made to suffer.
"At last one afternoon we steamed into the calm estuary of the
little Rio Escondido. Three miles up this we crept, feeling for the
shallow channel between the low banks that were crowded to the edge
with gigantic trees and riotous vegetation. Then our whistle gave a
little toot, and in five minutes we heard a shout, and Carlos - my
brave Carlos Quintana - crashed through the tangled vines waving his
cap madly for joy.
"A hundred yards away was his camp, where three hundred chosen
patriots of Esperando were awaiting our coming. For a month Carlos
had been drilling them there in the tactics of war, and filling them
with the spirit of revolution and liberty.
"'My Captain - _compadre mio!_' shouted Carlos, while yet my boat was
being lowered. 'You should see them in the drill by _companies_ - in
the column wheel - in the march by fours - they are superb! Also in
the manual of arms - but, alas! performed only with sticks of bamboo.
The guns, _capitan_ - say that you have brought the guns!'
"'A thousand Winchesters, Carlos,' I called to him. 'And two
Gatlings.'
"'_Valgame Dios!_' he cried, throwing his cap in the air. 'We shall
sweep the world!'
"At that moment Kearny tumbled from the steamer's side into the
river. He could not swim, so the crew threw him a rope and drew him
back aboard. I caught his eye and his look of pathetic but still
bright and undaunted consciousness of his guilty luck. I told myself
that although he might be a man to shun, he was also one to be
admired.
"I gave orders to the sailing-master that the arms, ammunition, and
provisions were to be landed at once. That was easy in the steamer's
boats, except for the two Gatling guns. For their transportation
ashore we carried a stout flatboat, brought for the purpose in the
steamer's hold.
"In the meantime I walked with Carlos to the camp and made the
soldiers a little speech in Spanish, which they received with
enthusiasm; and then I had some wine and a cigarette in Carlos's
tent. Later we walked back to the river to see how the unloading
was being conducted.
"The small arms and provisions were already ashore, and the petty
officers and squads of men conveying them to camp. One Gatling had
been safely landed; the other was just being hoisted over the side
of the vessel as we arrived. I noticed Kearny darting about on
board, seeming to have the ambition of ten men, and doing the work
of five. I think his zeal bubbled over when he saw Carlos and me. A
rope's end was swinging loose from some part of the tackle. Kearny
leaped impetuously and caught it. There was a crackle and a hiss
and a smoke of scorching hemp, and the Gatling dropped straight as
a plummet through the bottom of the flatboat and buried itself in
twenty feet of water and five feet of river mud.
"I turned my back on the scene. I heard Carlos's loud cries as
if from some extreme grief too poignant for words. I heard the
complaining murmur of the crew and the maledictions of Torres, the
sailing master - I could not bear to look.
"By night some degree of order had been restored in camp. Military
rules were not drawn strictly, and the men were grouped about the
fires of their several messes, playing games of chance, singing
their native songs, or discussing with voluble animation the
contingencies of our march upon the capital.
"To my tent, which had been pitched for me close to that of my chief
lieutenant, came Kearny, indomitable, smiling, bright-eyed, bearing
no traces of the buffets of his evil star. Rather was his aspect
that of a heroic martyr whose tribulations were so high-sourced and
glorious that he even took a splendour and a prestige from them.
"'Well, Captain,' said he, 'I guess you realize that Bad-Luck Kearny
is still on deck. It was a shame, now, about that gun. She only
needed to be slewed two inches to clear the rail; and that's why I
grabbed that rope's end. Who'd have thought that a sailor - even a
Sicilian lubber on a banana coaster - would have fastened a line in a
bow-knot? Don't think I'm trying to dodge the responsibility,
Captain. It's my luck.'
"'There are men, Kearny,' said I gravely, 'who pass through life
blaming upon luck and chance the mistakes that result from their own
faults and incompetency. I do not say that you are such a man. But
if all your mishaps are traceable to that tiny star, the sooner we
endow our colleges with chairs of moral astronomy, the better.'
"'It isn't the size of the star that counts,' said Kearny; 'it's
the quality. Just the way it is with women. That's why they give
the biggest planets masculine names, and the little stars feminine
ones - to even things up when it comes to getting their work in.
Suppose they had called my star Agamemnon or Bill McCarty or
something like that instead of Phoebe. Every time one of those old
boys touched their calamity button and sent me down one of their
wireless pieces of bad luck, I could talk back and tell 'em what I
thought of 'em in suitable terms. But you can't address such remarks
to a Phoebe.'
"'It pleases you to make a joke of it, Kearny,' said I, without
smiling. 'But it is no joke to me to think of my Gatling mired in
the river ooze.'
"'As to that,' said Kearny, abandoning his light mood at once,
'I have already done what I could. I have had some experience in
hoisting stone in quarries. Torres and I have already spliced three
hawsers and stretched them from the steamer's stern to a tree on
shore. We will rig a tackle and have the gun on terra firma before
noon to-morrow.'
"One could not remain long at outs with Bad-Luck Kearny.
"'Once more,' said I to him, 'we will waive this question of luck.
Have you ever had experience in drilling raw troops?'
"'I was first sergeant and drill-master,' said Kearny, 'in the
Chilean army for one year. And captain of artillery for another.'
"'What became of your command?' I asked.
"'Shot down to a man,' said Kearny, 'during the revolutions against
Balmaceda.'
"Somehow the misfortunes of the evil-starred one seemed to turn to
me their comedy side. I lay back upon my goat's-hide cot and laughed
until the woods echoed. Kearny grinned. 'I told you how it was,' he
said.
"'To-morrow,' I said, 'I shall detail one hundred men under your
command for manual-of-arms drill and company evolutions. You will
rank as lieutenant. Now, for God's sake, Kearny,' I urged him, 'try
to combat this superstition if it is one. Bad luck may be like any
other visitor - preferring to stop where it is expected. Get your
mind off stars. Look upon Esperando as your planet of good fortune.'
"'I thank you, Captain,' said Kearny quietly. 'I will try to make it
the best handicap I ever ran.'
"By noon the next day the submerged Gatling was rescued, as
Kearny had promised. Then Carlos and Manuel Ortiz and Kearny (my
lieutenants) distributed Winchesters among the troops and put them
through an incessant rifle drill. We fired no shots, blank or solid,
for of all coasts Esperando is the stillest; and we had no desire to
sound any warnings in the ear of that corrupt government until they
should carry with them the message of Liberty and the downfall of
Oppression.
"In the afternoon came a mule-rider bearing a written message to me
from Don Rafael Valdevia in the capital, Aguas Frias.
"Whenever that man's name comes to my lips, words of tribute to
his greatness, his noble simplicity, and his conspicuous genius
follow irrepressibly. He was a traveller, a student of peoples and
governments, a master of sciences, a poet, an orator, a leader,
a soldier, a critic of the world's campaigns and the idol of the
people in Esperando. I had been honoured by his friendship for
years. It was I who first turned his mind to the thought that he
should leave for his monument a new Esperando - a country freed
from the rule of unscrupulous tyrants, and a people made happy and
prosperous by wise and impartial legislation. When he had consented
he threw himself into the cause with the undivided zeal with which
he endowed all of his acts. The coffers of his great fortune were
opened to those of us to whom were entrusted the secret moves of the
game. His popularity was already so great that he had practically
forced President Cruz to offer him the portfolio of Minister of War.
"The time, Don Rafael said in his letter, was ripe. Success, he
prophesied, was certain. The people were beginning to clamour
publicly against Cruz's misrule. Bands of citizens in the capital
were even going about of nights hurling stones at public buildings
and expressing their dissatisfaction. A bronze statue of President
Cruz in the Botanical Gardens had been lassoed about the neck and
overthrown. It only remained for me to arrive with my force and
my thousand rifles, and for himself to come forward and proclaim
himself the people's saviour, to overthrow Cruz in a single day.
There would be but a half-hearted resistance from the six hundred
government troops stationed in the capital. The country was ours.
He presumed that by this time my steamer had arrived at Quintana's
camp. He proposed the eighteenth of July for the attack. That would
give us six days in which to strike camp and march to Aguas Frias.
In the meantime Don Rafael remained my good friend and _compadre en
la causa de la libertad_.
"On the morning of the 14th we began our march toward the
sea-following range of mountains, over the sixty-mile trail to the
capital. Our small arms and provisions were laden on pack mules.
Twenty men harnessed to each Gatling gun rolled them smoothly along
the flat, alluvial lowlands. Our troops, well-shod and well-fed,
moved with alacrity and heartiness. I and my three lieutenants were
mounted on the tough mountain ponies of the country.
"A mile out of camp one of the pack mules, becoming stubborn, broke
away from the train and plunged from the path into the thicket. The
alert Kearny spurred quickly after it and intercepted its flight.
Rising in his stirrups, he released one foot and bestowed upon the
mutinous animal a hearty kick. The mule tottered and fell with a
crash broadside upon the ground. As we gathered around it, it walled
its great eyes almost humanly towards Kearny and expired. That was
bad; but worse, to our minds, was the concomitant disaster. Part of
the mule's burden had been one hundred pounds of the finest coffee
to be had in the tropics. The bag burst and spilled the priceless
brown mass of the ground berries among the dense vines and weeds
of the swampy land. _Mala suerte!_ When you take away from an
Esperandan his coffee, you abstract his patriotism and 50 per cent.
of his value as a soldier. The men began to rake up the precious
stuff; but I beckoned Kearny back along the trail where they would
not hear. The limit had been reached.
"I took from my pocket a wallet of money and drew out some bills.
"'Mr. Kearny,' said I, 'here are some funds belonging to Don Rafael
Valdevia, which I am expending in his cause. I know of no better
service it can buy for him than this. Here is one hundred dollars.
Luck or no luck, we part company here. Star or no star, calamity
seems to travel by your side. You will return to the steamer. She
touches at Amotapa to discharge her lumber and iron, and then puts
back to New Orleans. Hand this note to the sailing-master, who will
give you passage.' I wrote on a leaf torn from my book, and placed
it and the money in Kearny's hand.
"'Good-bye,' I said, extending my own. 'It is not that I am
displeased with you; but there is no place in this expedition
for - let us say, the Señorita Phoebe.' I said this with a smile,
trying to smooth the thing for him. 'May you have better luck,
_companero_.'
"Kearny took the money and the paper.
"'It was just a little touch,' said he, 'just a little lift with the
toe of my boot - but what's the odds? - that blamed mule would have
died if I had only dusted his ribs with a powder puff. It was my
luck. Well, Captain, I would have liked to be in that little fight
with you over in Aguas Frias. Success to the cause. _Adios!_'
"He turned around and set off down the trail without looking back.
The unfortunate mule's pack-saddle was transferred to Kearny's pony,
and we again took up the march.
"Four days we journeyed over the foot-hills and mountains, fording
icy torrents, winding around the crumbling brows of ragged peaks,
creeping along the rocky flanges that overlooked awful precipices,
crawling breathlessly over tottering bridges that crossed bottomless
chasms.
"On the evening of the seventeenth we camped by a little stream on
the bare hills five miles from Aguas Frias. At daybreak we were to
take up the march again.
"At midnight I was standing outside my tent inhaling the fresh cold
air. The stars were shining bright in the cloudless sky, giving the
heavens their proper aspect of illimitable depth and distance when
viewed from the vague darkness of the blotted earth. Almost at its
zenith was the planet Saturn; and with a half-smile I observed the
sinister red sparkle of his malignant attendant - the demon star of
Kearny's ill luck. And then my thoughts strayed across the hills
to the scene of our coming triumph where the heroic and noble Don
Rafael awaited our coming to set a new and shining star in the
firmament of nations.
"I heard a slight rustling in the deep grass to my right. I turned
and saw Kearny coming toward me. He was ragged and dew-drenched and
limping. His hat and one boot were gone. About one foot he had tied
some makeshift of cloth and grass. But his manner as he approached
was that of a man who knows his own virtues well enough to be
superior to rebuffs.
"'Well, sir,' I said, staring at him coldly, 'if there is anything
in persistence, I see no reason why you should not succeed in
wrecking and ruining us yet.'
"'I kept half a day's journey behind,' said Kearny, fishing out a
stone from the covering of his lame foot, 'so the bad luck wouldn't
touch you. I couldn't help it, Captain; I wanted to be in on this
game. It was a pretty tough trip, especially in the department of
the commissary. In the low grounds there were always bananas and
oranges. Higher up it was worse; but your men left a good deal of
goat meat hanging on the bushes in the camps. Here's your hundred
dollars. You're nearly there now, captain. Let me in on the
scrapping to-morrow.'
"'Not for a hundred times a hundred would I have the tiniest thing
go wrong with my plans now,' I said, 'whether caused by evil planets
or the blunders of mere man. But yonder is Aguas Frias, five miles
away, and a clear road. I am of the mind to defy Saturn and all his
satellites to spoil our success now. At any rate, I will not turn
away to-night as weary a traveller and as good a soldier as you are,
Lieutenant Kearny. Manuel Ortiz's tent is there by the brightest
fire. Rout him out and tell him to supply you with food and blankets
and clothes. We march again at daybreak.'
"Kearny thanked me briefly but feelingly and moved away.
"He had gone scarcely a dozen steps when a sudden flash of bright
light illumined the surrounding hills; a sinister, growing, hissing
sound like escaping steam filled my ears. Then followed a roar as of
distant thunder, which grew louder every instant. This terrifying
noise culminated in a tremendous explosion, which seemed to rock
the hills as an earthquake would; the illumination waxed to a glare
so fierce that I clapped my hands over my eyes to save them. I
thought the end of the world had come. I could think of no natural
phenomenon that would explain it. My wits were staggering. The
deafening explosion trailed off into the rumbling roar that had
preceded it; and through this I heard the frightened shouts of my
troops as they stumbled from their resting-places and rushed wildly
about. Also I heard the harsh tones of Kearny's voice crying:
'They'll blame it on me, of course, and what the devil it is, it's
not Francis Kearny that can give you an answer.'
"I opened my eyes. The hills were still there, dark and solid. It
had not been, then, a volcano or an earthquake. I looked up at the
sky and saw a comet-like trail crossing the zenith and extending
westward - a fiery trail waning fainter and narrower each moment.
"'A meteor!' I called aloud. 'A meteor has fallen. There is no
danger.'
"And then all other sounds were drowned by a great shout from
Kearny's throat. He had raised both hands above his head and was
standing tiptoe.
"'PHOEBE'S GONE!' he cried, with all his lungs. 'She's busted and
gone to hell. Look, Captain, the little red-headed hoodoo has blown
herself to smithereens. She found Kearny too tough to handle, and
she puffed up with spite and meanness till her boiler blew up. It's
be Bad-Luck Kearny no more. Oh, let us be joyful!
"'Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall;
Humpty busted, and that'll be all!'
"I looked up, wondering, and picked out Saturn in his place. But
the small red twinkling luminary in his vicinity, which Kearny
had pointed out to me as his evil star, had vanished. I had seen
it there but half an hour before; there was no doubt that one of
those awful and mysterious spasms of nature had hurled it from the
heavens.
"I clapped Kearny on the shoulder.
"'Little man,' said I, 'let this clear the way for you. It appears
that astrology has failed to subdue you. Your horoscope must be cast
anew with pluck and loyalty for controlling stars. I play you to
win. Now, get to your tent, and sleep. Daybreak is the word.'
"At nine o'clock on the morning of the eighteenth of July I rode
into Aguas Frias with Kearny at my side. In his clean linen suit and
with his military poise and keen eye he was a model of a fighting
adventurer. I had visions of him riding as commander of President
Valdevia's body-guard when the plums of the new republic should
begin to fall.
"Carlos followed with the troops and supplies. He was to halt in a
wood outside the town and remain concealed there until he received
the word to advance.
"Kearny and I rode down the Calle Ancha toward the _residencia_ of
Don Rafael at the other side of the town. As we passed the superb
white buildings of the University of Esperando, I saw at an open
window the gleaming spectacles and bald head of Herr Bergowitz,
professor of the natural sciences and friend of Don Rafael and of
me and of the cause. He waved his hand to me, with his broad, bland
smile.
"There was no excitement apparent in Aguas Frias. The people went
about leisurely as at all times; the market was thronged with
bare-headed women buying fruit and _carne_; we heard the twang and
tinkle of string bands in the patios of the _cantinas_. We could see
that it was a waiting game that Don Rafael was playing.
"His _residencia_ was a large but low building around a great
courtyard in grounds crowed with ornamental trees and tropic shrubs.
At his door an old woman who came informed us that Don Rafael had
not yet arisen.
"'Tell him,' said I, 'that Captain Maloné and a friend wish to see
him at once. Perhaps he has overslept.'
"She came back looking frightened.
"'I have called,' she said, 'and rung his bell many times, but he
does not answer.'
"I knew where his sleeping-room was. Kearny and I pushed by her and
went to it. I put my shoulder against the thin door and forced it
open.
"In an armchair by a great table covered with maps and books sat Don
Rafael with his eyes closed. I touched his hand. He had been dead
many hours. On his head above one ear was a wound caused by a heavy
blow. It had ceased to bleed long before.
"I made the old woman call a _mozo_, and dispatched him in haste to
fetch Herr Bergowitz.
"He came, and we stood about as if we were half stunned by the awful
shock. Thus can the letting of a few drops of blood from one man's
veins drain the life of a nation.
"Presently Herr Bergowitz stooped and picked up a darkish stone the
size of an orange which he saw under the table. He examined it
closely through his great glasses with the eye of science.
"'A fragment,' said he, 'of a detonating meteor. The most remarkable
one in twenty years exploded above this city a little after midnight
this morning.'
"The professor looked quickly up at the ceiling. We saw the blue sky
through a hole the size of an orange nearly above Don Rafael's
chair.
"I heard a familiar sound, and turned. Kearny had thrown himself on
the floor and was babbling his compendium of bitter, blood-freezing
curses against the star of his evil luck.
"Undoubtedly Phoebe had been feminine. Even when hurtling on her way
to fiery dissolution and everlasting doom, the last word had been
hers."
Captain Maloné was not unskilled in narrative. He knew the point
where a story should end. I sat reveling in his effective conclusion
when he aroused me by continuing:
"Of course," said he, "our schemes were at an end. There was no one
to take Don Rafael's place. Our little army melted away like dew
before the sun.
"One day after I had returned to New Orleans I related this story to
a friend who holds a professorship in Tulane University.
"When I had finished he laughed and asked whether I had any
knowledge of Kearny's luck afterward. I told him no, that I had seen
him no more; but that when he left me, he had expressed confidence
that his future would be successful now that his unlucky star had
been overthrown.
"'No doubt,' said the professor, 'he is happier not to know one
fact. If he derives his bad luck from Phoebe, the ninth satellite
of Saturn, that malicious lady is still engaged in overlooking his
career. The star close to Saturn that he imagined to be her was near
that planet simply by the chance of its orbit - probably at different
times he has regarded many other stars that happened to be in
Saturn's neighbourhood as his evil one. The real Phoebe is visible
only through a very good telescope.'
"About a year afterward," continued Captain Maloné, "I was walking
down a street that crossed the Poydras Market. An immensely stout,
pink-faced lacy in black satin crowded me from the narrow sidewalk
with a frown. Behind her trailed a little man laden to the gunwales
with bundles and bags of goods and vegetables.
"It was Kearny - but changed. I stopped and shook one of his hands,
which still clung to a bag of garlic and red peppers.
"'How is the luck, old _companero_?' I asked him. I had not the
heart to tell him the truth about his star.
"'Well,' said he, 'I am married, as you may guess.'
"'Francis!' called the big lady, in deep tones, 'are you going to
stop in the street talking all day?'
"'I am coming, Phoebe dear,' said Kearny, hastening after her."
Captain Maloné ceased again.
"After all, do you believe in luck?" I asked.
"Do you?" answered the captain, with his ambiguous smile shaded by
the brim of his soft straw hat.
VIII
A DOUBLE-DYED DECEIVER
The trouble began in Laredo. It was the Llano Kid's fault, for he
should have confined his habit of manslaughter to Mexicans. But the
Kid was past twenty; and to have only Mexicans to one's credit at
twenty is to blush unseen on the Rio Grande border.
It happened in old Justo Valdos's gambling house. There was a poker
game at which sat players who were not all friends, as happens often
where men ride in from afar to shoot Folly as she gallops. There
was a row over so small a matter as a pair of queens; and when the
smoke had cleared away it was found that the Kid had committed
an indiscretion, and his adversary had been guilty of a blunder.
For, the unfortunate combatant, instead of being a Greaser, was a
high-blooded youth from the cow ranches, of about the Kid's own age
and possessed of friends and champions. His blunder in missing the
Kid's right ear only a sixteenth of an inch when he pulled his gun
did not lessen the indiscretion of the better marksman.
The Kid, not being equipped with a retinue, nor bountifully supplied
with personal admirers and supporters - on account of a rather
umbrageous reputation, even for the border - considered it not
incompatible with his indisputable gameness to perform that
judicious tractional act known as "pulling his freight."
Quickly the avengers gathered and sought him. Three of them overtook
him within a rod of the station. The Kid turned and showed his teeth
in that brilliant but mirthless smile that usually preceded his
deeds of insolence and violence, and his pursuers fell back without
making it necessary for him even to reach for his weapon.
But in this affair the Kid had not felt the grim thirst for
encounter that usually urged him on to battle. It had been a purely
chance row, born of the cards and certain epithets impossible for
a gentleman to brook that had passed between the two. The Kid had
rather liked the slim, haughty, brown-faced young chap whom his
bullet had cut off in the first pride of manhood. And now he wanted
no more blood. He wanted to get away and have a good long sleep
somewhere in the sun on the mesquit grass with his handkerchief over
his face. Even a Mexican might have crossed his path in safety while
he was in this mood.
The Kid openly boarded the north-bound passenger train that departed
five minutes later. But at Webb, a few miles out, where it was
flagged to take on a traveller, he abandoned that manner of escape.
There were telegraph stations ahead; and the Kid looked askance at
electricity and steam. Saddle and spur were his rocks of safety.
The man whom he had shot was a stranger to him. But the Kid knew
that he was of the Coralitos outfit from Hidalgo; and that the
punchers from that ranch were more relentless and vengeful than
Kentucky feudists when wrong or harm was done to one of them. So,
with the wisdom that has characterized many great fighters, the Kid
decided to pile up as many leagues as possible of chaparral and pear
between himself and the retaliation of the Coralitos bunch.
Near the station was a store; and near the store, scattered among
the mesquits and elms, stood the saddled horses of the customers.
Most of them waited, half asleep, with sagging limbs and drooping
heads. But one, a long-legged roan with a curved neck, snorted and
pawed the turf. Him the Kid mounted, gripped with his knees, and
slapped gently with the owner's own quirt.
If the slaying of the temerarious card-player had cast a cloud over
the Kid's standing as a good and true citizen, this last act of his
veiled his figure in the darkest shadows of disrepute. On the Rio
Grande border if you take a man's life you sometimes take trash; but
if you take his horse, you take a thing the loss of which renders
him poor, indeed, and which enriches you not - if you are caught. For
the Kid there was no turning back now.
With the springing roan under him he felt little care or uneasiness.
After a five-mile gallop he drew in to the plainsman's jogging trot,
and rode northeastward toward the Nueces River bottoms. He knew the
country well - its most tortuous and obscure trails through the great
wilderness of brush and pear, and its camps and lonesome ranches
where one might find safe entertainment. Always he bore to the east;
for the Kid had never seen the ocean, and he had a fancy to lay
his hand upon the mane of the great Gulf, the gamesome colt of the
greater waters.
So after three days he stood on the shore at Corpus Christi, and
looked out across the gentle ripples of a quiet sea.
Captain Boone, of the schooner _Flyaway_, stood near his skiff,
which one of his crew was guarding in the surf. When ready to sail
he had discovered that one of the necessaries of life, in the
parallelogrammatic shape of plug tobacco, had been forgotten. A
sailor had been dispatched for the missing cargo. Meanwhile the
captain paced the sands, chewing profanely at his pocket store.
A slim, wiry youth in high-heeled boots came down to the water's
edge. His face was boyish, but with a premature severity that hinted
at a man's experience. His complexion was naturally dark; and the
sun and wind of an outdoor life had burned it to a coffee brown. His
hair was as black and straight as an Indian's; his face had not yet
been upturned to the humiliation of a razor; his eyes were a cold
and steady blue. He carried his left arm somewhat away from his
body, for pearl-handled .45s are frowned upon by town marshals, and
are a little bulky when placed in the left armhole of one's vest.
He looked beyond Captain Boone at the gulf with the impersonal and
expressionless dignity of a Chinese emperor.
"Thinkin' of buyin' that'ar gulf, buddy?" asked the captain, made
sarcastic by his narrow escape from a tobaccoless voyage.
"Why, no," said the Kid gently, "I reckon not. I never saw it
before. I was just looking at it. Not thinking of selling it, are
you?"
"Not this trip," said the captain. "I'll send it to you C.O.D. when
I get back to Buenas Tierras. Here comes that capstanfooted lubber
with the chewin'. I ought to've weighed anchor an hour ago."
"Is that your ship out there?" asked the Kid.
"Why, yes," answered the captain, "if you want to call a schooner
a ship, and I don't mind lyin'. But you better say Miller and
Gonzales, owners, and ordinary plain, Billy-be-damned old Samuel K.
Boone, skipper."
"Where are you going to?" asked the refugee.
"Buenas Tierras, coast of South America - I forgot what they called
the country the last time I was there. Cargo - lumber, corrugated
iron, and machetes."
"What kind of a country is it?" asked the Kid - "hot or cold?"
"Warmish, buddy," said the captain. "But a regular Paradise Lost
for elegance of scenery and be-yooty of geography. Ye're wakened
every morning by the sweet singin' of red birds with seven purple
tails, and the sighin' of breezes in the posies and roses. And the
inhabitants never work, for they can reach out and pick steamer
baskets of the choicest hothouse fruit without gettin' out of bed.
And there's no Sunday and no ice and no rent and no troubles and no
use and no nothin'. It's a great country for a man to go to sleep
with, and wait for somethin' to turn up. The bananys and oranges and
hurricanes and pineapples that ye eat comes from there."
"That sounds to me!" said the Kid, at last betraying interest.
"What'll the expressage be to take me out there with you?"
"Twenty-four dollars," said Captain Boone; "grub and transportation.
Second cabin. I haven't got a first cabin."
"You've got my company," said the Kid, pulling out a buckskin bag.
With three hundred dollars he had gone to Laredo for his regular
"blowout." The duel in Valdos's had cut short his season of
hilarity, but it had left him with nearly $200 for aid in the flight
that it had made necessary.
"All right, buddy," said the captain. "I hope your ma won't blame me
for this little childish escapade of yours." He beckoned to one of
the boat's crew. "Let Sanchez lift you out to the skiff so you won't
get your feet wet."
Thacker, the United States consul at Buenas Tierras, was not yet
drunk. It was only eleven o'clock; and he never arrived at his
desired state of beatitude - a state wherein he sang ancient maudlin
vaudeville songs and pelted his screaming parrot with banana
peels - until the middle of the afternoon. So, when he looked up from
his hammock at the sound of a slight cough, and saw the Kid standing
in the door of the consulate, he was still in a condition to extend
the hospitality and courtesy due from the representative of a great
nation. "Don't disturb yourself," said the Kid, easily. "I just
dropped in. They told me it was customary to light at your camp
before starting in to round up the town. I just came in on a ship
from Texas."
"Glad to see you, Mr. - " said the consul.
The Kid laughed.
"Sprague Dalton," he said. "It sounds funny to me to hear it. I'm
called the Llano Kid in the Rio Grande country."
"I'm Thacker," said the consul. "Take that cane-bottom chair. Now
if you've come to invest, you want somebody to advise you. These
dingies will cheat you out of the gold in your teeth if you don't
understand their ways. Try a cigar?"
"Much obliged," said the Kid, "but if it wasn't for my corn shucks
and the little bag in my back pocket I couldn't live a minute." He
took out his "makings," and rolled a cigarette.
"They speak Spanish here," said the consul. "You'll need an
interpreter. If there's anything I can do, why, I'd be delighted. If
you're buying fruit lands or looking for a concession of any sort,
you'll want somebody who knows the ropes to look out for you."
"I speak Spanish," said the Kid, "about nine times better than I do
English. Everybody speaks it on the range where I come from. And I'm
not in the market for anything."
"You speak Spanish?" said Thacker thoughtfully. He regarded the kid
absorbedly.
"You look like a Spaniard, too," he continued. "And you're from
Texas. And you can't be more than twenty or twenty-one. I wonder if
you've got any nerve."
"You got a deal of some kind to put through?" asked the Texan, with
unexpected shrewdness.
"Are you open to a proposition?" said Thacker.
"What's the use to deny it?" said the Kid. "I got into a little gun
frolic down in Laredo and plugged a white man. There wasn't any
Mexican handy. And I come down to your parrot-and-monkey range just
for to smell the morning-glories and marigolds. Now, do you _sabe_?"
Thacker got up and closed the door.
"Let me see your hand," he said.
He took the Kid's left hand, and examined the back of it closely.
"I can do it," he said excitedly. "Your flesh is as hard as wood and
as healthy as a baby's. It will heal in a week."
"If it's a fist fight you want to back me for," said the Kid, "don't
put your money up yet. Make it gun work, and I'll keep you company.
But no barehanded scrapping, like ladies at a tea-party, for me."
"It's easier than that," said Thacker. "Just step here, will you?"
Through the window he pointed to a two-story white-stuccoed house
with wide galleries rising amid the deep-green tropical foliage on a
wooded hill that sloped gently from the sea.
"In that house," said Thacker, "a fine old Castilian gentleman and
his wife are yearning to gather you into their arms and fill your
pockets with money. Old Santos Urique lives there. He owns half the
gold-mines in the country."
"You haven't been eating loco weed, have you?" asked the Kid.
"Sit down again," said Thacker, "and I'll tell you. Twelve years ago