Big Jim

“ Day by day he went to the restaurant, because he could not deny himself this one chance of seeing the trim woman with the brown eyes, although no words passed between them other than those of necessity. And he found many ways of assisting her without her knowledge. Once a pack-driver from up the river made a coarse remark regarding her. Big Jim deliberately arose from his table, walked around to where the man sat, caught him by the throat, and fairly threw him through the cabin door. The man arose from the snow gasping and rubbing his throat, while the gambler stood above him. ”

“ Finally, when Jim was beginning to feel that he must move, or go mad, a final signal came from the doorway. He heard Baylis say “Thank God!” under his breath, as they slipped out of bed in the darkness and felt their way downstairs. They were the last to come. The others were all crouched in the cupboard, waiting for them, as they reached its door; and just as they did so, the outer doorway swung open, with a blaze of light, and the big Feldwebel strode in.
“Shut the door!” Jim whispered. He launched himself at the German as he spoke, with a spring like a panther’s. ”

“ Big Jim told the halfbreed. "I can't ride a hoss yet, an' I don't care about bein' here on crutches alone."
He managed to get down, and get the crutches under his arms. Then he started for the porch. A sudden shout of gladness and welcome made him turn toward the bunkhouse. A long-legged, broad-shouldered man in overalls that were tattered and patched, came running. With difficulty Big Jim recognized the half-starved, runty youth he had left here with Sam Hardy only five months earlier.
"Boss! Big Jim!" cried Rosebud Joe. His benefactor and hero had come home. ”

“ Big Jim talked in a very low and unusually kind voice. “You’re nothing but a boy,” he said, “and a big fool. I’m going to tell you something. It’s off suckers like you that gamblers live. Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking that you can beat a game, because you can’t. It was my business to make my living by winning. It’s professional skill, by men who know all about it, against the fellow who doesn’t understand what he’s up against. ”

“ Big Jim took it and slipped it into his pocket.
“I ain’t going to say nothing to anybody, Slippers,” he remarked, “because you’re in the wrong country. They hang men like you here, so I don’t reckon it’s a healthy place for you. Besides hanging there’s fevers and other things to take a man off. ”

“ He wanted time to think.
“We kin all make mistakes,” he announced sententiously. “Come here, Jim. Seek ’im, boy, seek ’im.” And he waved his hand at large.
Jim bounced off with a joyous yelp, and began quartering the ground, hither and thither, all about the tree. Big Andy, at a complete loss for words, stood staring from one to another with eyes of indignant and incredulous reproach.
Suddenly a yelp of triumph was heard in the bushes, a little way down towards the lake, and Jim came racing back with a dark magenta article in his mouth. ”

“ Stay aboard the boat till she gets you to some place where you’ve got friends.”
The door slammed behind him, and in a minute the gangplank shook beneath his feet as he retraced his steps to where he had left the forlorn chekako; but the latter was gone. Big Jim found him in the restaurant where held forth the woman.
“Hello,” he said by way of greeting, and the woman, who had been listening to the tale of woe, ended her attempt at condolence. The gambler nodded to her, looked around the place until satisfied that no one else was present, and then threw the poke down on the counter. ”

“ In the morning Cornelius made no allusion to the events of the night. "I suppose you will come back to my poor house," he muttered, surlily, slinking up just as Jim was entering the canoe to go over to Doramin's campong. Jim only nodded, without looking at him. "You find it good fun, no doubt," muttered the other in a sour tone. Jim spent the day with the old nakhoda, preaching the necessity of vigorous action to the principal men of the Bugis community, who had been summoned for a big talk. ”

“ Since Big Jim was the leader of our gang, Little Jim handed the billfold to him and right away Big Jim said, “It probably belongs to the turtledove that was here a little while ago looking for her high-heeled shoes. We’d better get dressed quick and take out after her and her bobwhite husband or brother, and see if we can find her and give the billfold back to her.”
“What’s her name?” Little Tom Till wanted to know, crowding in between Little Jim and me and turning his face sidewise so as soon as Big Jim would open it, he could read the name on the identification card in one of the windows. ”

“ He forgot, now and then, to groan.
"Sinkin', is he?" queried Big Jim Butts.
"Seems like," the watchman answered. "No matter. What th' devil do we care? We're doin' our jooty anyhow, ain't we?"
He clucked to the mare, and urged her to a lumbering trot.
Another mile passed. The road took a curve, and plunged into Babbett's Woods, on the other side of which lay Hampton.
"Dark in here, ain't it?" commented Jim, flicking his whip at an overbending spruce bough. ”

“ They were on horseback by the banks of the Willandra Billabong, up to the horses' withers in a cane-brake.
Jim was a long, thin, wire-built man, with a big hand, and he reached it out and clawed Harry by the shoulder-blade and clavicle. The youngster felt his bones crack, but he said nothing. Jim's mind was spread out over the plain, he was thinking at large in millions, and he never knew what a vice he set to work on the shoulder next him. ”

“ But I seen ouah sogers when they comes out of them places wifout they’s laigs, or they’s arms, or they’s eyes, an’ I says, ‘Big Jim, Ol’ Miss gwine for you somethin’ turrible, if you on’y brings back chunks of Lil’ Marse,’ so I done brung him (all o’ him, mind) , right here and didn’t go near no horspital, where like as not they’d done ampitate his haid like they do arms and laigs. Now you-all fix him up jes’ to suit yourselves.”
That was Big Jim’s story, and from then on the entire household revolved about the sick-room and even the news of battles became of secondary importance. ”

“ Poetry had answered for Big Jim by saying, “It’s a doubled-up fist, shaking itself under somebody else’s nose—daring him to hit you first!”
Big Jim ignored Poetry’s supposed-to-be-funny answer and said, “Bob is on probation, you know, and he has to behave, or the sentence that is hanging over him will go into effect and he’ll have to spend a year in the reformatory. We wouldn’t want that. We have got to help him prove that he can behave himself. If he thinks we are mad at him, he will be tempted to do things to get even with us. ”

“ There was one big red beast, in particular, that would not go quietly; she had half a dozen gallops after him in her dream with Bosun under her swinging and turning with every movement of the bullocks, and finally heading him, wheeling him, and galloping him back to the mob. Then another broke away, and Jim shouted to her, across the paddock.
“Norah! Norah!”
She woke with a start. A voice was calling her name, hoarsely; she groped for her dressing-gown and slippers, and ran to Geoffrey’s room. The nurse, also in her dressing-gown, was bending over the bed. ”

“ The' ain't nobody that can whip him, everybody says. He whipped a whole loggin' outfit oncet—sup'rintendent and all. My name is 'Little Jim' Braden."
"Little Jim Braden!" exploded big Jim Braden. "What—how—how come it Lot named ye that, son?"
"Dunno 'zackly. But I think he used to have a friend named Jim Braden, mebbe. What's yore name, mister?"
"Me?"
Fiddlin' Jim was again staring at a picture in the glowing coals. He saw the slender, barefooted young woman in calico; he saw himself; he saw Lot Hupple, his friend; and he saw Dana, the young woman, turn from Hupple and go with him. ”

“ Tiny was so scared that she quickly jumped on the pony and was going to ride away, when a window of the fire-house opened and a man called out:
“Don’t be afraid, little girl, that’s Big Jim, the fire dog. He helps with all the fires. He won’t bite you. Lie down, Jim.”
Jim spread himself down at the pony’s side, wagged his tail, and looked up at Tiny with big brown eyes which seemed to say he was sorry he frightened her. ”

“ Is he better? Is he . . .” “Upon my word of honour,” I broke in, “I believe he is.” We subdued our tones to a mysterious pitch. Amongst the huts of Jim’s workmen (they were mostly liberated slaves from the Sherif’s stockade) somebody started a shrill, drawling song. Across the river a big fire (at Doramin’s, I think) made a glowing ball, completely isolated in the night. “Is he more true?” she murmured. “Yes,” I said. “More true than any other man,” she repeated in lingering accents. ”

“ On his return to London he seriously reflected upon the advisability of going back to Medicine Bow. Man is a gregarious animal, and Jim was feeling the need of friends. What envy was his when he perceived little groups of friends, gathered together around some table, laughing 33 and making merry! He had found the big London clubs astonishingly exclusive. A man had to be proposed and seconded, and what not, by existing members, who had to vouch for his moral or social standing. Jim felt an outsider; an alien among strange people, whose ways were not his ways. ”

“ If a man has a big ear he may have only a little corn. With Jim it was about the same. He chased short-weight fellows all day and when it came night he piled on all the weight he could just to lift himself out of the under-weight rut of the day's work. Fat kept Jim sociable—I don't mean that he was portly, but he was filled out well over the angles of youth. This was desirable, because a lean bachelor can't live with another lean one. ”

“ Then all the rough and awkward big fellows soberly shook the pretty little pilgrim's hand in its mitten, and said good-bye to the tiny chap, who was clinging, as always, to his doll.
"What you goin' to do with Tinterretter?" inquired the teamster as he looked at the pup, while Jim, with an active swing, mounted to the saddle.
"Take him along," said Jim. "I'll put him in the sack I've got, and tie him on behind the saddle when he gits too much of runnin' on foot. He wouldn't like it to be left behind and Skeezucks gone."
"Guess that's kerrect," agreed the teamster. "He's a bully pup, you bet." ”

“ And while a doctor worked over Jim in the dance-hall, Baldy gazed solemnly through the open door, and no one disturbed him.
It was a good many months before Jim took to the trail again, and when he made his first trip he was pretty white and wan. He came to camp where the trees were thick and where he had so often stopped before, and, like many other times, a little girl huddled down between his knees and a big solemn head was at his shoulder.
“Annie,” he said, “you're goin' to be rich some time, because some men have agreed to pay you for every gallon of water that runs over their dam ”

“ I ask myself whether his rush had really carried him out of that mist in which he loomed interesting if not very big, with floating outlines—a straggler yearning inconsolably for his humble place in the ranks. And besides, the last word is not said,—probably shall never be said. Are not our lives too short for that full utterance which through all our stammerings is of course our only and abiding intention? ”

“ Crawling through the rocks and brush, Jim White approached the spot from which the bats seemed literally to boil. The incredulous young range-rider made a feeble guess about the number of bats—could think no further than millions—but realized that any hole with capacity for that many bats must be a whale of a big affair. Creeping still closer, Jim finally lay on the brink of the chasm and looked down ... into awesome, impenetrable blackness. ”

“ During the last day, I was over in one corner of what we later called ‘The Big Room’, crawling along a ledge of rock. I sat down to rest and just looked around as I sat there. Over on the other side of the ledge, what do you suppose I saw? Staring right back at me was the skull of a man! Fast as I could I brought my torch about, and there was the whole skeleton intact. If I thought some giant could have been living in this cave along with the giant formations, right there seemed to be my proof! ”

“ Collins nodded to himself. Of course, Colonel Smith-Boerke had been waiting for him. And Doc Candle had driven him right to him. It was inescapable. He had been intended to escape and turn up right here all along.
"What do you want with me?"
Smith-Boerke's flushed face brightened. "You want to become a hero? A hero so big that all these trumped-up charges against you will be dropped? It'll be romantic. Back to Lindbergh-to-Paris. Tell me, Collins, how would you like to be the first man to travel faster than light?" ”

“ Much larger than its baby brother the Wildcat, the Hellcat was powered with an eighteen-cylinder Pratt & Whitney radial engine. The big radial developed over 2,000 horsepower and put the Hellcat in the 400-mile-an-hour class. It proved to be one of the most maneuverable fighters in the world and could climb like a skyrocket. The cockpit housed atop the big fuselage at its highest point gave pilots excellent visibility to train the Hellcat’s six .50-caliber guns on the enemy.
{91}
The Hellcat has plenty of protective armor for its pilot. ”