Jim Watson

“ He staggered and bumped into an anvil, striking his knee against the metal. He swore again and, in his mounting anger, he seized the anvil in his great hands, lifted it bodily from its stand and heaved it into a corner––a feat which four strong men, at any time, would have experienced difficulty in performing.
“Great Cæsar!” whispered Phil in awe.
“After a booze, he’s as strong as a railway engine,” returned Jim, “and he goes plumb daffy. Murder or anything else doesn’t matter a hill of beans to him at a time like this.” ”

“ On glancing casually along the surface of the ice, then away toward their ranch, Phil noticed a vehicle drawn up at the front door.
“Jim,––there’s a rig of some kind at our door. Looks as if we had visitors!”
“Now who the Dickens can it be?” queried Jim, scratching his head as he knelt beside the carcass of the coyote. “It’s a sleigh. Christmas Day and nobody to welcome them! Phil, you beat it back. I’ll finish this job and follow after you with the dog. He won’t be able to go fast and it is no use both of us waiting.” ”

“ He drew his forearm across his brow. "I am not myself, George. You'll forgive me for what I did, won't you?"
"Man, Jim,—there is nothing done that requires forgiving;—only, you have the devil's own grip. I don't suppose I shall be able to swallow decently for a week.
"But you are in trouble: what is it, Jim? Tell me; maybe I can help."
"Ay,—it's trouble enough,—God forbid. It's Peggy, George,—my dear little sister, Peggy, that has neither mother nor father to guide her;—only me, and I'm a blind fool. ”

“ I wish I could preach that from the hill-tops. Wage slaving for somebody else is the curse of the times.”
“Hush!––you rascally little socialist; do you wish to ruin all the millionaires and trust companies by giving away their trade secrets in this way?” dryly commented Jim.
Eileen laughed.
“Well,––good-bye, Jim! Good-bye, Phil! And jolly good luck!”
With a whirl and a jump she turned and made off. But the cheery sunshine of her presence and her hearty greeting kept radiating over the two, leaving a warmth and a cheerfulness around them, where a few moments before had been cold and grumpiness. ”

“ Jim laughed in a woe-begone way.
“Ay!––Dalton put one over on me that time, all right. But it’s the very last. Can’t stand for this happening again. It hurts, right on my professional dignity. Won’t he have the haw-haw on me?
“Ah, well! What’s done can’t be undone. ‘My deed’s upon my head.’”
“Gosh, but he’s a rotter,” growled Phil. “Put a thing like that over on a drunken man!”
“Hush! Not drunk, Phil;––call it indisposed! You know I am an æsthete on these matters.
“But wasn’t it some bait though, Phil?”
“Oh, great stuff all right! The ranch must be worth six or seven thousand dollars. ”

“ Phil held out his hand to him.
“All right, Jim! I’m sorry. Good-bye! Good-bye for good!”
Almost a haunted look came into the bloodshot eyes of the big fellow.
“Phil,––Phil,––ye don’t mean that? Ye wouldna throw me doon?”
“But I do mean it. I thought you and I were going to make a good partnership some day.”
“And aren’t we?”
“Not this way! Good heavens, Jim!––what’s the matter with you, anyway? Haven’t you got the courage to stand a little disappointment now and again without flying to this? You can’t go on being a fool all your life. ”

“ Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to be a slave at home where his family was, as long as he'd got to be a slave, and so I'd better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him to tell Miss Watson where he was. But I soon give up that notion, for two things: she'd be mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulness for leaving her, and so she'd sell him straight down the river again; and if she didn't, everybody naturally despises an ungrateful nigger, and they'd make Jim feel it all the time, and so he'd feel ornery and disgraced. ”

“ I hardly think so, Jim. He is not the man to ache much over this kind of thing. You don’t suppose anything serious could have happened?” she asked with a show of anxiety.
“I don’t. But I’m sure only something serious would keep him away. However,––what’s the good of worrying!––Phil can look out for himself pretty good.”
“Yes,––I daresay!” she said absently, staring at the dancers as they glided round in the next room.
Jim put his hand on her arm and moved her round to him.
“Eileen,––what is it that is troubling you? You are not so terribly interested in Phil as all that,––are you?” ”

“ I followed him slowly and silently out of the smithy, down the lane and across the road to his little, rose-covered cottage. We went round to the back of the house. Jim held up his hand for caution, as he peeped in at the kitchen window. He turned to me again, and beckoned, his big eyes blind with tears.
"Look in there," he gulped. "That's my little sister, my little Peggy; she who never has had a sorrow since mother left us. She's been like that for four hours and she gets worse when I try to comfort her." ”

“ The moment Jim set eyes on Phil, he put spurs to his mare, vaulted the fence right on to the highway, and set off full tear for Vernock, leaving his live winnings behind him without a thought.
This foolish act was characteristic of Jim, and it suited the Indians splendidly. The losers at once started out to claim their horses. But Phil got there first, strung 226 the animals together, pushed his way boldly through the protesting crowd and trotted nine horses back with him to town. He stabled the lot in Mrs. Clunie’s spacious barn, then set out on foot to search for Jim once more. ”

“ Jim stopped.
“That’s about all,” he said. “Brenchfield’s warehouse is above us. The Pioneer Traders’ is at the end that way. The O.K. Supply Company’s is at the other end.
“See! There is a trap door in each, like this up here, that drops inward and acts as a chute for sliding down the stuff right onto the track. Simplest thing on earth, and it has been going on for years with devil a body the wiser.”
“Well!––of all the elaborate thieving schemes!” exclaimed Phil, dumbfounded. ”

“ Suddenly Sing stopped and laid down his fiddle. He rose, opened the oven door and brought out two beautifully roasted chickens, laid the pan down on top of the stove and rubbed his hands in pleasant anticipation.
“Well I’ll be darned!” whispered Jim.
“And we blamed it on the coyotes,” answered Phil. “Let us go in and scare the daylights out of him.”
For a moment Jim seemed inclined to follow Phil’s suggestion, but he relented.
“Och!––what’s the good? The poor deevil hasna a body to make frien’s o’, nor a thing to do to keep himsel’ out o’ mischief. Besides it is Christmas Eve. ”

“ They 272 would wait till the moon sailed up over the hills in all her enchantment, then slowly on the heels of their boots, they would beat out the dying embers from the bowls of their pipes, take a glance down the end of the orchard to Ah Sing’s shack––where a dim light, suggestive of nothing else but Orientalism, seemed ever to be burning––nod to each other and smile, then turn in without a word and go to bed.
It was in these silences that Phil got to know Jim for the true gentleman he was. ”

“ He was bubbling over with excitement and perspiring freely. He clapped Phil on the back, then sat down with a show of collapse.
“Come on! Tell me all about it, you clam.”
“Great Scot!” said Jim, “and they say that it is a ‘lotus eater’s’ job selling real-estate. I’ve shown that hard-headed old son-of-a-gun nine ranches this afternoon. I’ve talked climate, position, irrigation, soil, seed and production for six solid hours. I would rather write a ‘dime novel’ every day in my life, than this.” He mopped his brow. “It is a great life if you stay with it!” ”

“ He held out a dirty, crumpled piece of paper.
Phil took it from him and looked it over casually.
“It was twisted up, almost to the size of a marble.”
Suddenly Phil’s face took on an ashy hue and he gasped.
“Great God; I––I–––”
He jumped up, then caught at the bed-post for support as he tried to gather his wits and to quiet his wildly thumping heart.
“You––you–––It is all right, Jim,” he stammered. “It is of no importance.”
Jim rose and placed his arm round his chum.
“Phil, old chap,––it isn’t any good to pretend. I’m an interfering lout, I know, and I shouldn’t have done it. ”

“ God save me for indulging in such a fantasy!––but, if I did have, I’d go after him if he were in hell itself. Think o’ it, Phil! Your own flesh and blood, of the woman you have loved well enough to make your wife––the combination transfused––to grow, and develop, and work out to prove before God and his fellow-man the wisdom or folly of the choice the father and mother of him made when they took each other for better or worse.”
“Yes,––when you put it that way, Jim, it makes a man think hard of the tremendous seriousness of the step.” ”

“ Jim thought he was going to make it, when a lariat flew out like a long snake, poised for a second over Red’s head and, in a second more, stretched him on the roadway, half-choked.
McLean held the rope taut, while Jim and Phil ran in and secured their prisoner.
“What’n the hell’s the matter with you bunch,” gasped Red. “Can’t a man go to Vernock when he damned-well wants to?” ”

“ The table was set in the kitchen and the pots were steaming on the stove top, all ready for the evening meal.
Jim was in the adjoining room, apparently absorbed over some of his alleged literary work. He raised his head as Phil greeted him, but his face remained solemn. He kept at the table while Phil washed and dried his face and hands. Phil went in to him at last and sat down on the bed watching Jim intently.
“Come on, old cock!” he cried, “wake up. These dime ‘bloods’ are getting your goat. Cut loose from them––it’s Christmas Eve, and, glory be! we are not in the workhouse. ”

“ Jim’s pure gold right through,” Phil answered with enthusiasm.
“Mr. Ralston, I think you are the only man he has ever been known really to chum with. And he doesn’t dance,” she added.
“So he tells me.”
“Sometimes I fancy he can dance, but refuses to admit it for some particular reason of his own. He looks like a dancer.”
“Quite possible!” Phil returned. “I never thought of it in that light.”
“He does not seem to hanker after a lady’s company very much. He is most at home with the men folks.” ”

“ Jim slapped Sol on the back.
“Too bad! Take your medicine, though, old man! Be a sport! You’re distinctly up against it.”
Phil was metaphorically in knots by the furnace fire.
Sol rushed for his coat.
“No dam-fear!” he cried. “I go to coop first. She ain’t been going to run any bluff on Sol Hanson,––see! You tell her, and her carrots-hair, and her one eye, and her three dam-kids, to go plumb toboggan to hell. ”

“ Jim looked at his watch and got up to fulfil a business engagement.
“Well, old man!––I never had a little sister. If I had had, I fancy I wouldn’t be here to-day. So that’s how it goes. But we have a good year ahead of us to buy and sell and loan for a fare-you-well; to make a stake as big as all the others have made together in the last three or four years. And we are going to do it, too. I feel it in the air.
“I don’t know what will happen after that––some of the big fellows, Royce Pederstone, Brenchfield and Arbuthnot are overloaded now, but they keep on mortgaging and buying more. ”

“ He waved his hand in dismissal of the subject.
“‘On with the dance––let joy be unconfined.’”
“Phil,” said Jim seriously, half an hour afterwards, “Royce Pederstone is going to come a terrible cropper over this business. He is mortgaged up to the neck and, singly or with some of the political gang, he is in almost every realty proposition we hear of.”
“I know it. I’ve tried my best to make him see it, but he says if he doesn’t have faith in the Valley, who will.”
“But this isn’t a question of faith;––it is a shortage of money and a tightening up of foreign capital chiefly.” ”

“ Jim quoted sarcastically.
Phil felt the thrust. He went over to the bed, tilted up Jim’s chin with his forefinger and looked straight into his mischievous eyes.
“Seeing you know so much, Jim Langford,––tell me more. What side is Brenchfield on in this affair?”
Jim grew serious all of a sudden.
“Now you’re talking!” he exclaimed, his eyes snapping angrily and his voice throwing fire. “I’ve had no darned use for that son-of-a-gun for some considerable time. He has his nose in everything. He pretty nearly bosses the whole Valley. He’s political boss, Mayor, 186 rancher, and God knows what else. ”

“ Gee!” he continued in disgust, “I wish some son-of-a-gun would cut the big, fat, over-confident bluffer out.”
“Why don’t you have a try, Jim?” laughed his companion.
“Me? I never had a lass in my life. I’m––I’m not a lady’s man. They are all very nice to me, and all that; but I never feel completely comfortable unless it happens to be a woman who could be my great-grandmother.”
“You’re begging the question, Jim. Why don’t you go over and claim a dance or two from Miss Pederstone, seeing you are so anxious over her and Brenchfield?” ”

“ Phil had hardly hung up the receiver, when Jim rushed in, his rugged face full of excitement.
“Read that!” he shouted, thrusting a cablegram under Phil’s nose. “By gad!––but we’ve been lucky; every client of ours has had a chance to sell. If he wouldn’t do it, he has only himself to blame now.”
The message was in code, with the interpretation scrawled underneath by Jim. It was from Jim’s father’s firm, Langford & Macdonald of Edinburgh.
“Extend no more loans in behalf this firm meantime. Informed Canadian Banks about to cease practice of extending credit on security of realty purchases. ”