McGraw

“ He was kind. Harley P. Hennage was right. Bob McGraw was a Desert Rat. But a Desert Rat lives close to the great heart of Mother Nature, and his own heart is clean.
The dawn-light came filtering across the desert and lit up the room where she sat. She turned to the bed and saw that Bob McGraw was watching her again, and on his face was that little, cheerful, mocking, inscrutable smile.
Again Donna found herself powerless to resist the appeal in the man's eyes. ”

“ The man with courage enough to turn outlaw and rob a stage had courage enough to kill his man, and Bob McGraw would have fought it out in the open, He would never have taken to the shelter of a sand-dune and fired from ambush. Bob McGraw, having brains, would have killed the messenger and gone back for his hat! He was too cunning a frontiersman to leave a trail like that behind him and it was no part of his nature to do a half-way job. Still, the man who had robbed that stage had had no hobbles on his courage. ”

“ McGraw, the issue would have been different had you been in Hennage's boots.”
“Possibly. But I didn't come here to gossip with you, Carey. I don't like you well enough for that. I want to finish my business and get back to San Pasqual to-night.”
“Certainly, certainly. But you're such an extraordinary young man, McGraw, that in spite of our former differences I must own to a desire to know more about you. I could use a man with your brains and ability, McGraw. You're the kind of a fellow I've been looking for—for a great many years, in fact. ”

“ I knew old Tom McGraw well. He died only last winter, in the secluded quiet of a little house he’d bought in the Bronx. A queer old fellow, very secretive, but in his last years, when the friendship was established and old age had limbered the rigidity of temperament and training, he grew more expansive. What he told me, as first-hand witness, and what he had sensed as one who knew Blatch’s character and history, furnished the main facts of the story. ”

“ Come up into Owens valley three years from now and I'll prove it to you. Good-day.”
“One moment, McGraw. Don't go for a minute or two. I—I'd like to believe that what you say is true, but the trouble is—you see, McGraw, I have never encountered your point of view heretofore. Tell me, McGraw—don't lie to me—do you feel the slightest desire to see me suffer, or is this—er—brotherly-love talk of yours plain buncombe?”
Bob McGraw advanced toward the man he had beaten. He held out his hand. “I try to be a man” he said—“to be too big to hate and put myself on a level with a brute. ”

“ I said. “It might be a chance, but the odds are it would prove a fake. Go home, and go to bed, and make up your mind that if you can find something for McGraw, he'll do better by you than lead you off on a wild-goose chase.” ”

“ Come with me and be a Pagan, my friend, and when you have finished the job I'll guarantee to plant you up on the slope of Kearsarge, where your soul, as it mounts to the God of a Square Deal, can look down on the valley that you have prepared for a happy people, and say: 'That is mine. I helped create it, and I did it for love. I finished what the Almighty commenced, and the job was worth while.' Will you play the game with me, T. Morgan Carey, and get some joy out of life?”
The land-grabber—the parasite who had lived only to destroy—looked up at Bob McGraw. ”

“ Early in the forenoon of the day following Bob McGraw's spectacular advent into San Pasqual, the nurse for whom Doc Taylor had telephoned to Bakersfield arrived at the Hat Ranch. She proved to be a kind middle-aged woman, devoted to her profession and thoroughly competent to do everything for Bob McGraw that could be done. Her arrival released Donna from the care of watching the wounded man, and she rested at last. ”

“ Bob McGraw walked to the main entrance of the State House and back again to the door of the land office. Still nobody came. He was approaching the main entrance to the State House a second time when he heard an automobile chugging through the capitol grounds and pause outside the main entrance. Half a minute later a man appeared at the head of the corridor and approached rapidly. As he came nearer Bob saw that he was about fifty years old. He wore a carefully trimmed imperial and a gold pince-nez and seemed to exude a general air of pomposity and power. ”

“ He has had bitter disappointments, but they have never beaten him down. Had Stephen McGraw left his money and not his name to the university, the doctor's task would have been easier, for it is not the way of men to beautify another's monument. Once, I remember, a Western capitalist was persuaded to make a great gift to McGraw. He made it with conditions, and for a while our hopes blazed high and with exceeding fury. The collegiate Gothic quadrangles were within our reach, as near to us as the grapes to Tantalus. A half-million dollars was promised us if we raised a like sum within a year. ”

“ What would you think of detailing Paddy McGraw to give the young men a fast ride—they have heard of him. I talked yesterday with one of them. He wanted to see a train robber and I introduced him to Conductor O'Brien, but he never saw the joke, and you know how depressing explanations are. Don't, my dear Bucks, put me on a private car with these people for four weeks—my brother died of paresis——"
"Oh!" He turned. The stenographer's cheeks were burning; she was astonishingly pretty. "I'm going too fast, I'm afraid," said Glover. ”

“ A Mexican with a knife was solely responsible. Yet, worse than all of these disappointments is the fact that his name was not Gerald Van Alstyne. No, indeed. The Leading Man owned to the plain, homely, unromantic patronymic of Bob McGraw. The only thing romantic and—er—literary about Bob McGraw was his Roman-nosed mustang, Friar Tuck—so called because he had been foaled and raised on a wooded range near Sherwood in Mendocino county. ”

“ But I tell you this McGraw man's a Desert Rat. The desert's got him. Generally it don't get 'em so young, but once in a while it does, An' of all the Desert Rats that ever sucked a niggerhead cactus, the feller that goes huntin' lost mines is the worst. They never get over it.”
Donna permitted herself a very small smile.
“Sometimes they do” she reminded him.
“I wouldn't be surprised. But not until they've found what they're lookin' for. However, we'll wait an' see if Bob McGraw—like that name, Miss Donna?” ”

“ Old Man McGraw was dancing around trying to get another whack at me with his bent poker without hitting Bill which was hammering me over the head with a chair, but Mister Wilkinson warn't taking no part in the fray. He was backed up agen a wall with a wild look on his face. I reckon he warn't used to Bear Creek squabbles. ”

“ Weel, I waited a wee, then I crawled oot masel,
And the big stuff wis gorin' and roarin' around,
And I seemed tae be under the oxter o' hell,
And Creation wis crackin' tae bits by the sound.
And I says in ma mind: "Gang ye back, ye auld fule!"
When I thrilled tae a note that wis saucy and sma';
And there in a crater, collected and cool,
Wi' his wee penny whistle wis Sandy McGraw.
Ay, there he wis playin' as gleg as could be,
And listenin' hard wis a spectacled Boche;
Then Sandy turned roon' and he noddit tae me,
And he says: "Dinna blab on me, Sergeant McTosh. ”

“ Go through them," answered Glover, slamming shut the furnace door.
McGraw laid his bar over, and, like one putting his house in order, looked at his gauges and tried his valves.
"What is it?" whispered Gertrude, at Glover's side.
He turned. "We've struck a bunch of sheep."
"Sheep?"
"In a storm they drift to keep from freezing out in the open. These sheep have bunched in a little cut out of the wind," he explained, as the fireman sprinkled the roaring furnace. "You had better get up on your seat, Miss Brock." ”

“ There's your little old bag with your applications still untouched, although I will admit that I was mean enough to help you file some of those instruments of abandonment from your dummy entrymen. I must hurry along now. Thank you so much—”
The janitor entered. In his hand he held Mr. McGraw's suspenders.
“You might need these” he interrupted, “more particular if you're goin' to do any runnin', an' I'll bet you are.”
“Thank you” murmured Mr. McGraw. “You're very thoughtful,” and quite calmly he proceeded to remove his coat and vest and replace the suspenders. ”

“ He smote his thigh, “Well I'll be ding-swizzled and everlastingly flabbergasted. Lit out to get married an' never said a word to nobody. Pulls out o' town, dressed in her best suit o' clothes, like old man McGinty, an' heads north. Uh-huh! Bob McGraw's at the bottom o' this. He started south the day before, an' he ain't arrived in San Pasqual yet.”
He sat down at Donna's kitchen table and drew a letter and a telegram from his pocket.
“Huh! Huh—hum—m—m! Writes me on Monday from Sacramento that he's busted, an' to send him a money order to San Francisco, General Delivery. ”

“ Sandy McGrab pulled himself together.
“I'm not,” he said. “I'm a Highlander.”
She laughed.
“A Highland actor!” she said gayly. “Isn't that a possible combination?”
“Play actors are the children of the devil,” he declared, and the spirit of the late McGrab shone in his scornful eyes. ”

“ The Reverend John Andrews slipped into his host's vacant chair, and leaned forward eagerly.
“Sandy McGrab,” he said, in a hurried undertone, “are ye here as a wolf in sheep's clothing?”
“I dinna ken what ye mean,” McGrab retorted sullenly.
“Ye ken weel eno'. These puir, honest folk—do they ken what ye are—a play actor—a mon on thebroad road that leadeth——”
“They'll ken in guid time,” McGrab interrupted.
“A mon who is to marry a play actress——”
“It's no true—I mean——” He broke off, aghast at the horrible significance of his own words. “I mean I'm no engaged to any woman——” he stammered. ”

“ Anthony in a wilderness of wickedness could not have felt more desolate than did Sandy McGrab in Regent Street.
He wandered on listlessly and objectlessly, until all at once the crowd seemed to thin. He found himself in a quiet thoroughfare with big, pompous-looking houses on either hand, and immediately in front of him was the girl who had stood beside him in the theater. He hesitated an instant, and she seemed to hesitate, too. Her face was turned to one of the houses. Sandy fancied that she was gazing up at one of the windows almost on a level with the street. ”

“ Sandy McGrab went into his ancestral dwelling and slammed the door.
II.
THE LAIRD ENTERTAINS.
“Well, I shall make one more attempt at a reconciliation,” said Sir John pompously and stretched out an unbooted foot in the direction of his valet. “The man's a fool, of course, going about with his nose in the air because his grandfather was a smarter sheep stealer than the others; but it's my duty as landowner to do the neighborly, and I shall ask him up to meet Donna Eleonora next week. The car at ten-thirty sharp, James.” ”

“ Nothing moved save the sunlight, flying like a beaten army to a last fastness on the distant hilltops. Not a stag—not so much as a rabbit—showed itself. Sandy McGrab sniffed the air luxuriously. There was a keenness in it that told of long, hard nights to come and the scent of the moldering leaves that shone red gold against the somber background of faded gorse and heather. A long way off something dead white glittered amidst the crimson clouds—the first finger streak of winter. A mighty sigh of relief heaved up Sandy McGrab's big shoulders. ”

“ There were three clothiers in Kirk Humphries, but the firm of McGrab & Son had done more in the line of gulling the credulous upstart English than the other two put together, and consequently was the most noted for its strict integrity. Not that the McGrabs were dishonest. Far from it. But they were Scotch, and their customers were English—and further explanation is superfluous.
Sandy McGrab was selling a warranted heather mixture to Sir John Hodge. Sir John Hodge—of Hodge's Patent Baby Food fame—had bought Glen Every, the McPhersons' estate on the other side of the loch, and wore kilts. ”

“ The curate smiled infinite wisdom into the twilight.
“Ye dinna ken woman as I do,” he said. “If the lady I marry is English, she is yet as gentle and pure and good as the flowers. There's nothing modern about her. She is like the women our mothers were, Mr. McGrab—an angel who, living in the very midst of a sinful world, knows nothing but what is good.” ”

“ From where they stood, they could see the lights of the big thoroughfare, and the rumble of the motor busses had lost every poetic resemblance. Sandy McGrab set his tam-o'-shanter firmly on his head. He swayed a little, but the set of his jaw was grim.
“It's a very big place,” he said, half to himself and with a faint wistfulness; “a big place. It will be no so easy to find a lady without a name, I'm thinking.”
“You never will,” said John Andrews solemnly. “I pray you never will. Go back to Kirkhumphries, mon. Go back before your faith in womanhood is broken forever. ”

“ He glanced back at the portrait. “But not one as sweet as you!” he added loyally. Then he, too, dropped into the ever-moving stream and was lost to the angry manager's sight.
It is a long call from Kirkhumphries to London, and most of the way Sandy McGrab had walked on “nothing a mile.” He had not tasted food for forty-eight hours, and this was his first night in the great metropolis. The many lights danced before his eyes; at times the pavement showed an inclination to rise up and hit him on the head. The hundreds of changing faces added to his confusion. ”