Raymond S. Spears

“ Cruvan, dashed, put his hands into his pocket and found, all told, two nickles and five pennies. A terrible, erect young lady in black dress as if she was mourning something, and white collar and cuffs for ornament, came to glare at him.
“Lady,” Cruvan sighed, spreading the coins from his palm and finger tips on that polished surface. “Lady, bring the best, the most grub yo' got for these here seven coins of the realms.”
“Our cheapest dish,” she snipped, “is twenty cents. Sixty cents for regular dinner.” ”

“ The fat girl behind the cash register crinkled her cheeks, her eyes bright blue and complacent.
Cruvan's joints creaked as he lifted himself out of the chair, turning to the door. Had one rancher, one fellow rider, a gambler or a desert rat been among the spectators, the man would have been yelled at as an old friend or at least the friend of somebody known to this more fortunate person. As it was they allowed Cruvan to take his departure. ”

“ The fifteen-cent soup on bid of a nickel and two pennies came just the same, and the slim young woman behind the cash register would push back the two cents as change. She even did that one day for Packy himself, when he found he didn't have his pocketbook in the clothes he was wearing.
Notice, though, the cash register girl was slim. Cruvan could stand a lot, for he came of an enduring school, only he could never forget that lumpy, dumpling girl who had laughed at him at Curtain those years before. He tried not to have too thin waitresses, either. They never were dressed in mourning. ”

“ Apparently ignored for the time, the man stood twisting his old hat in his stubby, fretted hands, his gaze following the course of the dugway from the far-away cañon foot, curving around points and turning back into the ravines, always climbing against the enormous slope until around the head of the cañon it crept up past the camp where he stood, his steel blue eyes squinting. ”

“ Highways came meandering down out of the mountains to this common center. A railroad led straight through, out of the due east into the due west, its telegraph poles standing black, somehow, against the skyline as one approached from north or south, since it followed a kind of natural fill.
Libra Cruvan entered Red Desert. He had a bag with some duffle in it. He wore a hat which had been rolled up more than ten years. He was in clothes difficult to classify. He followed Sage Brush Street up from the railroad to the corner of Concrete Boulevard and cut across to the big bank on the corner. ”

“ Debeau's automobile. Cruvan grinned. He wasn't much for looks, his face was hard, but only hunger had made him desperate, hunger and fifteen cents.
He picked out and bought a pair of pants, then a nice shirt with the collar hitched to it, and, in the quiet of the American Hotel, changed into reasonable clothes. He shifted into his pockets and two horse-hide money belts, the cash he had acquired. He took a train from those parts, and in Los Angeles settled down to the opportunities there to be had. ”

“ He had laid his pick or shovel into every foot of that miles on miles of terrific stone. That was his road because one day, some ten years before, he had fifteen cents.
Exactly that. In those days he was Libra Cruvan, and quite a man in his way. He could ride anything from a bicycle to a wild, blue roan. It just happened that he walked into Cloudburst Valley, carrying his saddle and other equipment. He was footsore, for his horse had died under him, suffering from thirst, hunger and over-exercise. ”

“ A beautiful place to a free man's eye. Some scores of business places, houses, cabins, shacks and bungalows rested in a saucer-like basin with ridges and ranges fretworking the horizon on every side. Corrals for beef and sheep, horses and auto mobile tourists were there. ”

“ That was foolish, of course; but every human has a foolish streak in him. The saddler put his mark on the leather and even on the tree and stirrups. That mark was famous, naturally. After the capture of the saddled horse it was only a question of time when they would pick up Libra Cruvan, asking explanations.
So they took Cruvan back, and confronted him with the bank teller, the fat girl from behind the café cash register, the thin, spindly waitress, two of the mine company stenographers and lots of others. ”