Dan Anderson

“ If he and she had had to go inspecting at Hodinuggur, or even if she had to meet Dalel Beg and his wife--did I tell you I saw her at the vice-regal squash yesterday, a perfect child in the most awful get-up?--why, then, it would revive the old affair. And if, by chance'--he paused a moment--'One never knows what mayn't crop up, and Dan is a queer chap in some ways. He works by instincts, as it were, and hitherto they have led him right. If they didn't, and he found it out, I don't know what mightn't happen. He is not what I call a very safe man unless he is successful. ”

“ I told him this feller was a chauffeur in the same garage as me, and trailing me now on a bet, but that the license on his machine was phony. We'll be there and back before he gets through explaining at the station-house."
Once across the bridge, Dan led the big car far out to a sparsely built-up section of Flatbush and there at last his object was achieved. A loud report echoed behind them and glancing over her shoulder Willa saw the big car swerve and come to an abrupt halt in the ditch.
"Tire burst!" she announced. "Luck is with us, Dan!" ”

“ The person addressed as Dan was a splendid specimen of a "frontiersman," having all the characteristics of a frank, free American, with the physical advantages of a stalwart "Englisher." Among the miners he was variously known as "English Dan" and "Dead-Shot Dan." How he got the latter nickname always seemed a puzzle to his comrades, for he was one of the best, gentlest, and kindest fellows on "the lode." His manners and appearance indicated anything but a wicked nature, and he was always ready to do a comrade a good turn, or act as peacemaker in the ever-recurring rows of the miners. ”

“ The eyes of houses faintly touch him as he passes them. Soft girl-eyes, they set him singing. Girl-eyes within him widen upward to promised faces. Floating away, they dally wistfully over the dusk body of the street. Come on, Dan Moore, come on. Dan sings. His voice is a little hoarse. It cracks. He strains to produce tones in keeping with the houses’ loveliness. Cant be done. He whistles. His notes are shrill. They hurt him. Negroes open gates, and go indoors, perfectly. Dan thinks of the house he’s going to. ”

“ When his majesty the steelhead takes the fly and decides to run, it can be learned after a time that the one thing that may be done is to let out all the line and with prayer and humbleness try to keep up with him.
Dan fished for lake trout in the lakes of the plateau; he shot waterfowl in the tule marshes; he hunted all manner of living things with his camera. But most of all he simply studied, as his frontiersmen ancestors had done before him. He found unceasing delight in the sagacity of the bear, the grace of the felines, the beauty of the deer. ”

“ At dinner time they built a little fire to make their coffee and broil a generous portion of their catch. Then lying at ease on the bank of the great spring, they talked as only those can talk who get close enough to the great heart of Mother Nature to feel strongly their common kinship with her and with their fellows.
After one of those long silences that come so easily at such a time, Dan tossed a pebble far out into the big pool and watched it sink down, down, down, until he lost it in the unknown depths. ”

“ Cranston was not in sight; either he was absent from camp or asleep in his lean-to. The latter seemed the more likely.
Dan made a wide detour, coming in about thirty yards behind the construction. Still he moved with incredible caution. Never in his life had he possessed a greater mastery over his own nerves. His heart leaped somewhat fast in his breast; but this was the only wasted motion. It is n't easy to advance through such thickets without ever a misstep, without the rustle of a branch or the crack of a twig. Certain of the wild creatures find it easy ”

“ Except for the constant play of his muscles, his almost unconscious effort to free himself that kept one of Cranston's arms busy holding him down, that fight on the mountain path might have come to a sudden end. Human bodies can stand a terrific punishment; but Dan's was weakened from the ravages of his disease. ”

“ Every one can bring his things, and have a place for them; and Dan is to be the head man, because he knows most about such matters, and it will be quiet, pleasant work for him now that he can't knock about much."
"Won't that be jolly?" cried Nat, while Dan smiled all over his face and had not a word to say, but hugged his book, and looked at Mr. Laurie as if he thought him one of the greatest public benefactors that ever blessed the world. ”

“ For a moment Dan took it, as Mr. Gabriel had expected him to do, as a joke, and went to trim the boat for racing, not meaning they should reach town first. But I—I saw It all.
"Dan!" I sung out, "save her! She's not coming back! They'll make for the schooner at Black Rocks! Oh, Dan, he's taken her off!"
Now one whose intelligence has never been trained, who shells his five wits and gets rid of the pods as best he can, mayn't be so quick as another, but, like an animal, he feels long before he sees; and a vague sense of this had been upon Dan all day. ”

“ Instead of reproving him as she had done before, instead of snatching away her hands, she swayed, and at the sight of her weakness his eyes cleared, and the film lifted like a curtain. She was not fainting, but, as her face turned toward his, he saw it transformed, and Dan caught her in her dark dress, the flowers in her bodice, to his heart. He held her as if he had snatched her from a wreck and in a safe embrace lifted her high to the shore of a coral strand. He kissed her, first timidly, wonderingly, with the sacrament of first love on his lips. ”

“ On the victim's opposite side sat a large-framed bony fellow, with a thin, unhealthy face that seemed to belong to some other body, and dress that proclaimed him long-shore ruffian. The woman called him Dan, and nods and winks passed between the two, over the drooping head between them. Next Dan was an ugly rascal with a broken nose; singular in that place, as bearing in his dress none of the marks of waterside habits, crimpery and the Highway, but seeming rather the commonplace town rat of Shoreditch or Whitechapel. ”

“ In a few minutes Dan returned and confronted his sire. His face wore a fierce frown, and he looked mad enough for almost anything. He began operations by jumping up and knocking his heels together, coming down with a jar and with his feet spread out as if he were bracing himself for a shock of some kind. This is an indispensable prelude to all games of fisticuffs in the South and West. No backwoods pugilist ever thinks of going into a fight without thus preparing himself for it. Sometimes a few Indian yells, given with all the power of the lungs, help matters wonderfully. ”

“ That old gazabo had something heavy on his conscience—and knowing the fellow he had reference to, I sure believe he lied a whole lot when he said Dan pulled out with all the stuff they'd got together, and went down river. Maybe he went down river, all right—but if he did, it was most likely to be face-down. Dan was as honest a boy as there is in the country, and he had money on him that he got mining down in the little Rockies last summer. I know, because he showed me the stuff last fall when I met him in Benton, and he was fixing to winter with this fellow that just left. ”

“ Sometimes Dan used to forget to talk at all—he would be asleep—and Dad would wonder if he was unwell. Once he advised him to go up to the house and have a good camp. Dan went. He stretched himself on the sofa, and smoked and spat on the floor and played the concertina—an old one he won in a raffle.
Dan did n't go near the plough any more. He stayed inside every day, and drank the yeast, and provided music for the women. Sometimes he would leave the sofa, and go to the back-door and look out, and watch Dad tearing up and
Dan Preferred the Shade. ”

“ But I'll tell you straight that I could never feel towards Dan as if he were a human being, but a wolf in the hide of a man. He turned my blood cold; he always has.”
Buck Daniels groaned aloud as thoughts poured back on him.
“Of all the pals that ever a man had,” he said sadly, “there never was a partner like Whistlin' Dan. There was never another gent that would go through hell for you jest because you'd eaten meat with him. The first time I met him I tried to double-cross him, because I had my orders from Silent. And Dan played clean with me—by God, he shook hands with me when he left.” ”

“ We do not wish to inquire how far the one great blow to his happiness—the disappointment of his early life—contributed to his success by concentrating his ambition on his career. Certain is it, no man achieved a higher or more rapid elevation, and old Dan lived to receive at his board the Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench in the person of his own son. ”

“ There is no sense of pain in his waking, but rather a pleasant novelty, which renews itself with every stage of the journey. Your cosmopolitan is the most adaptable of creatures.
Dan was one of these enviable beings, and woke in the early morning with a due knowledge of his position. He rubbed his eyes and yawned and stretched himself, moved about briskly to restore the circulation of his blood, and made up the fire. A few embers were still red-hot, so he had no difficulty in fanning them into a blaze under an armful of dry sticks. ”

“ The girl flung herself impatiently in the chair as she emphatically replied: “Of course he’ll be terrible! A big, rawboned creature who will speak with a dreadful dialect, or whatever you call it; and he will be so embarrassed at meeting people from the city, that he will stutter more than likely.”
Dan laughed at the description. “Maybe you are right, sister of mine, but we’ll be home to prepare the meal for our guest, long before the hour he is to arrive. Goodbye! Fire off the gun if you are frightened at anything.” ”

“ Up in the offices again, Dan was on the phone immediately. He knew politics, and people—like the jungle cat knows the whimpering creatures he stalks. He knew that it was the first impact, the first jolting blow that would win for them, or lose for them. ”

“ Like fame, "it acquires strength by time;" and it was suspected that Dan Paterson, a reckless and a dissipated man, had done the deed. In confirmation of this supposition, Dan was nowhere to be found, and it was strongly suspected that his wife and his son, who returned at midnight with the boat, had set Dan on shore somewhere on the coast, and that he had effected his escape. ”

“ His relatives promised him that his wish in this respect should be gratified, and he seemed much pleased.
Peace, referring again to his execution, said he did hope he should have strength to walk to the scaffold, but he was afraid he should not be able to do so—​he was so very weak.
Dan replied: Yes; I should like thee to be able to walk. Stand it like a man!
Peace answered with much show of feeling—​Dan, thee knows I shall do that if I can.
Dan afterwards asked him why he jumped out of the train when coming from London to Sheffield ”

“ He rightly belonged to the girls of eighteen or twenty. But after I was in bed, and I could not sleep readily, I thought of the kind of son father needed. A man in store business 221 or a mechanic of any kind would be of little service to him. Dan was buying and selling property and stock, went round to the near-by settlements, was considered a good judge of many things, and had friends on every hand, though he was masterful and at times high tempered. He was a gay young "buck" as they termed it then, but marriage was supposed to settle a man. ”

“ So, as Dan was an ardent fisherman, he used to spend days away from camp fishing and swimming. He was fond of the Camp Fire girls, especially of Marta Clark and of Sally Ashton, but he could not endure too large a diet of exclusively feminine society. Moreover, Dan was too accomplished an athlete and too fine a fellow all round not to make friends wherever he went among men. ”

“ Isn't Martha one of the elect? I reckon everybody in the whole town but you knew it before noon of the day after the meeting."
Dan muttered something about being a blind fool and the old Doctor answered, "Humph! The fools are they who see too much, boy. Such blindness as yours is a gift of the gods; for Heaven's sake don't let any quack fit you out with glasses!"
Dan threw himself wearily into a chair and there was a spirit of recklessness in his reply, as though he were letting go of himself again. "How is a blind man to recognize a quack? ”

“ Slowly, as the steadfast drop wears away the rock, the patient kindness of this man won Dan's confidence, and led by him he began to climb out of the Valley of Humiliation towards the mountains, whence, through the clouds, one can catch glimpses of the Celestial City whither all true pilgrims sooner or later turn their wistful eyes and stumbling feet. There were many back-slidings, many struggles with Giant Despair and fiery Apollyon, many heavy hours when life did not seem worth living and Mason's escape the only hope. ”

“ Could it be possible after all Asa Gardner was guilty of taking the things that had disappeared?
“Why, when you stop to think of it, Dan,” he told his informant, “while a boy given to pilfering might carry off a watch if sorely tempted, what earthly use would he have for Peg’s new aluminum frying-pan?”
This seemed to be a poser, and Dan shrugged his shoulders and made a whimsical face. A new idea came to him, however, and almost immediately he spoke up again.
“Well it’s just this way, Dick. My mother always said that taking things as some people do becomes a disease with them. ”