Eugene Manlove Rhodes

“ If you had killed Tillotson outright I might, to save my life, keep silence and let you go unpunished. But I can’t do this.”
“You mean you won’t,” said the Judge acidly.
[78] “I mean that I can’t,” said Jeff. “I would if I could, but I can’t.”
“By Heavens, I believe you will stick to it!” said the Judge, greatly disappointed. “Had you couched your refusal in some swelling phrase—and I can think of a dozen sonorous platitudes to fit the case—I might yet have hopes of you. I believe, sir, that you are a stubborn fellow. The man is nothing to you!”
“The man is much to me,” returned Jeff. ”

“ Is everybody happy? No! Mr. Bennett is not happy. Mr. Bennett is a very able man, as we all know—exemplar to the young—a rich man, merchant prince, and all that. And yet we can quite understand that he may be temporarily embarrassed for actual cash. I, for one, am willing to allow him a reasonable time. He cannot hide his real estate; so we shall be taking no risks. Doubtless we can stand [271] off young Drake for the price of his cattle by giving him good security.”
The silent Scanlon leaped up and snarled in unimaginable ferocity. ”

“ Dear Scanlon: I am leaving you nine dollars to send me a postcard.
He snapped out the flashlight, stuck it in his pocket, and tiptoed to the front door, laughing softly.
Man is the slave of habit. Outside Beck turned to lock the door—a most illogical thing to do. He placed the bag between his feet, fumbled for the keyhole and inserted the key. Then he stiffened. He felt the cold muzzle of a gun against his temple, and a gentle voice said:
“Let me carry your bag.”
Frozen with horror, the gambler felt a hand remove his own gun and the flashlight. ”

“ BILLY took up his quarters at the leading hotel and permeated both El Paso and Juarez with much abandon. He wired Cleveland, Ohio, for funds, and Cleveland responded generously, sending him, without delay or demur, a noble wad for the emergency.
George frequented the real-estate section on legitimate, if trivial, pretexts connected with Hibler’s business; demanding vacation from that legal luminary on his arrival. Pringle waxed talkative with visiting and resident cowmen, among whom exists a curious freemasonry, informal but highly effective. ”

“ I’m not the kind to be evened with a tinhorn gambler. So I take that suit case with me. I value it highly. It is a keepsake.”
“Pardon me; but I really do not see where you are in any position to dictate terms.”
“It is a remarkable fact,” said Neighbor Jones with great composure, “that, in spite of all the brag about the Southwest as a health resort, the death rate here is precisely the same as that of the crowded East Side of the city of New York—namely, one per capita. Such being the case, since I can die but once and must die that once—I should worry!—as we say in dear old Harvard. ”

“ There were no other passengers. The little jerkwater train halted for a bare moment to let them on and then chugged stolidly on her way. They stood on the platform of the rear car; the greenwood closed in beside the right of way, so that the last Ducky saw of Saragossa was the receding triangle made by the station, the old Almandares Warehouse, and a black doll waving from a toy car. Ducky sighed.
“No hard feelings, kid?”
“Of course not,” said Ducky stoutly. “You’re not to blame. Besides, I don’t believe we should ever have recovered that money. That crowd got it, all right—I know that anyway. ”

“ Yet of all the words in the play, these two are precisely the two that least need quoting to bring them to remembrance. No one who has read Antony’s speech will ever forget them. Jeff had no need to reiterate here; Antony has done it for him. They were the very heart and blood of it; the master of magic freighted those two words, in their successive differing expression, with praise, uncertainty, doubt, suspicion, invective, certainty, hate, fury, denunciation and revenge. ‘Honorable men!’ And Thorpe, too, is an honorable man! ”

“ Don’t be in such a hurry—be calm!”
“I want you to know I can be as calm as anybody when there’s anything to be calm about,” retorted Ducky with some acerbity. “It isn’t so much the money—not but what I could use that to buy food with—but those fellows are not doing me right.”
“There’s our one best chance,” said Neighbor, more seriously than was his wont. “They’re doing wrong. Doing right is as easy as sticking a needle in the eye of a camel; but to do wrong takes a steady, dead lift. ”

“ AT last, on a happy day, there came to the Judge’s office, demanding and receiving brief audience, a fat man with an indictable face; a man disreputable, vast and unkempt, with a sloven’s shoebrush for beard. Him, so propitiously ill-favored, Aughinbaugh dogged to Leo’s satrapy. There Leo took cognizance of him and, after a window-breaking progress, companied him to Juarez. ”

“ This,” said the Judge, picking his words leisurely and contemplating his fine fingers with unreserved approval, “is the crux of the very interesting situation. Rigid moralists, scrutinizing the varied actions of my life, might find passages not altogether blameless. But I have always held and maintained that a man should keep faith where it is expressly pledged. This is the bedrock upon which is based all relations of man with man, and to no class is it so needful as to those who are at variance with society. ”

“ By heavens, it’s a filter to keep the dust out of your lungs, and not an ornament! It’s usually silk—not because silk is booful but because it’s better to breathe through.”
“Really, I never dreamed——” began Aughinbaugh. But Jeff waved him down.
[11] “Don’t speak to the man at the wheel, my son. And everything a cowboy uses, at work, from hat to boots, from saddle to bed, has just as good a reason for being exactly what it is as that handkerchief. ”

“ One day I remember I lay in camp with nothing to do and read every line of an old El Paso paper, ads and all.
Leo, you’re getting to be a big boy now. [97] I want you to get into something better than punching cows. When you get time you ought to go down to your Uncle Sim’s and make a start on learning to use a typewriter. I’ve been trying it myself, but it’s hard for an old dog to learn new tricks.
You and Wesley must both help your mother, and help George. Do what George tells you—he knows more about things than you do. Be good kids. I’ll be home just as soon as I can. ”

“ Neighbor leaned on the bar. The partners were ill matched. Beck was tall, portly and, except for a conscientious, professional smile, of a severe countenance, blond, florid and flaxen. Scanlon was a slender wisp of a blue-eyed Irishman, dried up, wizened and silent.
“Well, boys,” said Neighbor jovially, “I got to go back to the hills and grow a new fleece. Till then, you’ve lost my game. Sorry.”
Beck frowned.
“I hate to see a good fellow go bust. If boys like you had plenty of money I wouldn’t never have to work. ”

“ Be well guided. Leave Saragossa to-day and never come back. The money for your cattle will be forthcoming when you send a deed; get [306] some lawyer or a bank to attend to the details of exchange.”
“Oh! By the way, how about that mortgage of mine?” inquired Neighbor.
“Pray accept my apologies, Mr. Jones. I charged you with insolence: you are merely impudent. You grow wearisome. Your caliber is about twenty-two short, Jones!” said Baca, tapping a monitory finger with a pencil. “I am no man to get gay with. When you measured your brains against mine you flattered yourself considerably. ”

“ Here are two possible motives for a conspiracy: hatred and jealousy. Of the two dead men, Broderick was a led captain, a bravo, a proven tool for any man who had a handle to him; the other man was unknown.”
“The cab driver told the same story,” said Pringle. “Was he an enemy of Tillotson?”
“He did,” agreed George. “He also ran away. When he came back, the next day, he accounted for himself by saying that he was scared. That sounds queer to me. Timid people may drive cabs, but timid people do not drive cabs in El Paso. The life is too hilarious. ”

“ And you two have Drake’s money already—heaven knows how much!”
“Heaven don’t,” said Beck.
“But do I get any of that?” shouted the outraged banker.
“You do not,” returned Beck. “In the first place, the men are different. You stepped out of your class when you started to mingle with the likes of us. Why should you bother to rob a perfect stranger anyhow? And you with money corded up! I don’t understand it.”
“Bennett!” cried the ranchman, “if I stood in your shoes, before I’d allow any man to use me like we’re using you, I’d go to Drake and give that money up. ”

“ Drake and Mr. Jones lolled at ease in the modest hostelry favored by the latter gentleman, and looked out on a freshened and sparkling world. As the last echo died away Mr. Drake resumed the conversation:
“I gotta hand it to you, Mr. Weisenheimer. That’s a great bean of yours! You’ve made your case. Uncle had money; it’s gone; somebody’s got it; x is eager to give too much for my brand; y offers an exorbitant [299] price for my scalp; z is willing to pay you to keep quiet. How long will it take two men to dig two graves if the age of the first man is twice that of the second one? ”

“ Bennett, provide twenty-four thousand dollars to satisfy the other equities, here held in the Drake estate.”
Scanlon held up a finger.
“Cash, you moind! No checks or drafts, to be headed off. Coin or greenbacks! I will not be chipracked by this slippery ould man. He is the human greased pig.”
By a prodigious effort Bennett pulled himself together; his face was very pale.
“To provide that much cash, without warning, is impossible. I should have nothing left to do the bank’s business with; in fact, I have not half that amount of actual cash in the safe.” ”

“ I have been so charmed that I have overstayed my time. Think this matter over carefully, my dear fellow. There is much to gain or to lose. You shall have ample time for consideration. Mac and Borrowman will get you anything you want, within the bounds of reason—clothes, books, tobacco, such knickknacks. And, by the way, here are yesterday’s papers. You may care to read the Tillotson case. The editorials, both those that condemn him and those that defend, are particularly amusing.”
“Mac and Borrowman are to be my jailers?” said Jeff. ”

“ Have you, by any chance, read the evidence in the Tillotson case?”
“Every word of it,” said Billy. “We read the full account of the trial at Escondido yesterday, while we were waiting for the train.”
“Good! Good! That simplifies matters. Think closely—keep in your minds the evidence given at that trial—while I follow Jeff up after he left my door. He must have gone somewhere, you know—and he said he was going home. He usually took the car, but I have already told you that he didn’t that night. ”

“ Young Drake sat up with a sudden alertness and stared hard at his visitor. “It’s Uncle Ducky’s money—that’s why—I’ll bet a cooky!”
“Not with me, you won’t,” said Neighbor; “for if your Uncle Ducky left any worldly goods the gentleman that offers a bounty for you is the very man to covet those goods. [215] Just how getting you killed would bring him in anything I don’t almost see.”
“That’s just it!” cried Roger Drake. “He’s got the money now—or somebody has; I haven’t. ”

“ Krouse had made a wanton attack upon him, without warning; he had returned the fire. Simultaneously Broderick had been killed by some fourth man, a stranger, whom Tillotson did not know, and who had mysteriously [56] disappeared when the people of the neighborhood arrived. It looks very black for Captain Tillotson,” purred the Judge, shaking his hands and head sorrowfully. “Even those who uphold him do not credit this wildly-improbable tale. It is universally thought that his wealth and position will not save him from the noose. El Paso is reforming; El Paso is weary of two-gun men. ”

“ It is the premise on which all wars are based. Mark, now, how human nature speaks from its elemental depths in the calm, complacent, but entirely sincere assumption that all good men and true will be unconditionally with the party! ”

“ His voice was a mild and regretful drawl. “Never had much use for Beck; but I did think old Scanlon was a square old sport!”
“Square sport! Why, you poor simp, you never had a look in!” sneered the sharper. Then he wrinkled his brows in some perplexity. “What I don’t see is why they didn’t skin the Eastern chap too. They could ’a’ had that gink’s wad—that Drake; but they let him down easy. Oh, well, we should worry! It will leave all the more for us.”
“For us?” echoed Neighbor, puzzled.
“Sure, Mike! You get hold of a good piece of money and we’ll do a brother act. ”

“ Of course Mark Antony’s wonderful speech at the funeral was fine business. Gee! how he skinned the “Honorable men!” Some of the things he said after that will stand reading, too.
But Yond Cassius, he was the man for my money. He was a regular go-getter. If Brutus had only hearkened to Cassius once in a while they’d have made a different play of it. I didn’t like Brutus near so well. He was a four-flusher. Said he wouldn’t kill himself and sure enough he did. He was set [95] up and heady and touchy. I shouldn’t wonder if he was better than Cassius, just morally. ”