The Greatest Works of Melville Davisson Post: 40+ Titles in One Edition. Melville Davisson Post

      I

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      There was something on the Governor's mind, and when this condition obtained, interesting events had usually followed in the far Southwest. This highly mystic mental status had preceded the efforts of a Federal Court to compel him to act under a mandamus, and the result was history. It had preceded a memorable conflict between the legislature at large and His Excellency, the Governor, also at large, and immediately thereafter a certain statute had sprung into existence prohibiting the massing of State troops within one hundred miles of the Capitol during the sitting of the Solons of the Commonwealth; but it was a law after the fact. It had preceded also the mercurial efforts of the so-called patriotic orders to impeach the Executive for malfeasance, misfeasance, and nonfeasance,—an effort that had brought to its instigators only a lurid and inglorious rout.

      The Governor was standing at the eastern window of his private office looking out at the monotonous brown tablelands stretching away to the foothills of the blue mountains that marked the outer limits of his jurisdiction. He was a young man, this Governor, with the firm, straight figure of a soldier and the gracious bearing of important ancestry. His eyes were brown, and his hair and Van Dyke beard were brown also—all indicative, say the sages, of precisely what the Governor was not. He was perfectly groomed. Every morning when he walked down to the State-house he was the marvel and the fastidious spotless idol of the far Southwest.

      One would have imagined that this handsome fellow had just stepped out from a smart New York club, could he have forgotten that such an institution was almost a continent to eastward. The Governor had maintained that it was quite possible to live as a gentleman should wherever Providence had provided Chinamen and water, and that the matter was not entirely hopeless if the Chinamen were not to be had, so the water remained.

      It was true indeed that the Executive had maintained his customs with no little pain against the divers protests of gods and men, ofttimes wrought in silence, but not infrequently urged fiercely in the open. But the Governor was not one with whom meddling folk could trifle and preserve the peace. This fact certain bad men had learned to their hurt west of the Gila, and divers evil-disposed persons regretted and were buried, and regretted and remembered south of the Pecos. So that in time this matter came to be regarded as a peculiarity, and passed into common respect as is the way with the peculiarities of those expeditious spirits who shoot first and explain afterwards.

      The Governor was aroused from his reverie by his private secretary who came in at this moment from the outer office.

      "Governor," said the young man, "there is a strike at the Big Injin."

      "Well," replied the Executive, "telegraph the sheriff."

      "But," said the Secretary, "the sheriff has just telegraphed us."

      "Then," continued the Executive, "send a courier to Colonel Shiraf."

      "But Colonel Shiraf is out on the Ten Mile."

      "In that case," said the Governor, "you must go up to the mines, and if the dignity of the Commonwealth needs to be maintained, you will maintain it, Dave. You should find some troops at the post, some herders at the cattle ranch, and a very large proportion of the State Guards, by this time quite drunk, at a horse fair in Garfield County. If they are required, notify me."

      As the secretary turned to leave the room, the Governor called him back. "Dave, my boy," he said, "peace in this Commonwealth is a sacred thing—a superlatively sacred thing, so sacred that we are going to have it if thereby the word 'census' becomes a meaningless term; and remember, my boy, that the State is very expeditious."

      The secretary went out and closed the door behind him, while His Excellency, Alfred Capland Randal, forgetting the report, turned back to the window. The air from the great brown plain came up dry and hot; above the blue mountains the sun looked like a splotch of bloody red, and over it all brooded the monotonous—the almost hopeless silence of the far Southwest.

      The something on the Governor's mind was a something of grave import, for which he could evidently find no solution, and presently he began to pace the length of his private office with long strides, and with his hands thrust deep into his pockets.

      Suddenly the door opened and a Chinaman entered with a telegram. The Governor looked up sharply, and taking the envelope tore it open with evident unconcern. When his eyes ran over the message he drew in a deep breath, and, seating himself at a table, spread out the paper before him. This was the advent of the unexpected, for which Mr. Randal was not quite