On the Cowboy's Trail: Western Boxed-Set. Coolidge Dane
IN FACT
Outside of the kangarooing of Rubes, the coming and going of prisoners, and such exceptional entertainment as that put up by Pecos Dalhart upon his initiation into the brotherhood, there were only two events a day in the Geronimo jail—breakfast and dinner. Breakfast, as with the French, was served late, and dinner at the hour of four. On account of the caterer being otherwise engaged in the early morning the café-au-lait in bed was dispensed with and déjeuner served promptly at nine. It was a hard-looking aggregation of citizens that crept out of their cells at the clanging of the interlocking gates and there was not a man among them who dared look Pecos in the eye as they slunk down the corridor to wash. Battered in body and cowed in spirit they glanced up at him deprecatingly as he stood with the strap in his hand, and there was no mercy written in the cattle-rustler's scowling visage. These were the men who would have put their heels in his face if he had gone down before their rush—they were cowards and ran in packs, like wolves. They were grafters, too; the slinking, servile slaves of jail alcaldes, yegg sheriffs, and Boone Morgan's swaggering deputies. More than that, they would mob him if he gave them half a chance. So he stood silent, watching them, man after man, and there was not one who could look him in the face.
It was Bill Todhunter who opened the gates that morning—the same keen-eyed, silent deputy who had fetched Pecos down from the mountains—and as his former prisoner, now transformed into the stern master of Geronimo jail, came near, he looked him over gravely.
"Feelin' any better?" he inquired.
"Nope," scowled Pecos, and there the matter dropped. After the affair of the night before he had expected to be put in irons, at least, or thrown into the dungeon, but nobody seemed to be worrying about him, and the prison routine went on as usual. The drunks in the jag-cell woke up and began to wrangle; the long-termers in the deck above scuffled sullenly around over the resounding boiler plate; and from the outer office they could hear the cheerful voices of old-timers and politicians discussing affairs of state. A long-term trusty came clattering down the iron stairs and passed out through the two barred doors to work up an appetite for breakfast by mowing the court-house lawn. As for Pecos, he was used to having his breakfast early and his Trojan exertions of the night before had left him gaunted, though he carried off his stoic part bravely. Nevertheless he showed a more than human interest in the steel front gate, and when at last, just as the clock tolled nine, it swung open, admitting the Chinese restaurateur who contracted for their meals, there was a general chorus of approval. Hung Wo was the name of this caterer to the incarcerated, and he looked it; but though his face was not designed for a laughing picture his shoulders were freighted with two enormous cans which more than made up for that. Without a word to any one he lowered the cans to the floor, jerked off the covers, and began to dish up on the prison plates. To every man he gave exactly the same—a big spoonful of beans, a potato, a hunk of meat, half a loaf of bread, and a piece of pie—served with the rapidity of an automaton.
Without waiting for orders the prisoners retreated noisily into their cells and waited, the more fastidious shoving sheets of newspaper through the small openings at the bottom of their doors to keep their plates off the floor. But here again there was trouble. The incessant hammering of pint coffee cups emphasized the starved impatience of the inmates; the food grew cold on the plates; only one thing lay in the way of the belated breakfast—Pecos refused to go into a cell. Before the fall of the kangaroo court it had been the privilege and prerogative of Mike Slattery to remain in the corridor and assist in the distribution of the food, but Mike was in the bridal chamber now with his jowls swathed in cotton, sucking a little nourishment through a tube. Pete Monat was there also, his head bandaged to the limit of the physician's art, and mourning the fate which had left him such a hard-looking mug on the eve of a jury trial. The verdict would be guilty, that was a cinch. But at least Pete was able to eat his breakfast, whereas there were about forty avid kangaroos in the tanks who were raising their combined voices in one agonizing appeal for food. It was a desperate situation, but Pecos, as usual, was obdurate.
"Let the Chink come in—I won't hurt 'im!" he said; but Bill Todhunter shook his head.
"The Chink won't come," he said.
"Whassa malla Mike?" inquired Hung Wo nervously. "He go Yuma?"
"No, Charley," returned Todhunter, "last night he have one hell of a big fight—this man break his jaw."
"Whassa malla Pete?"
"This man break his head with chair."
"Ooo!" breathed Hung Wo, peering through the bars, "me no go in."
"Well, now, you see what you git for your cussedness," observed the deputy coldly. "The Chink won't come in and the chances are you'll starve to death; that is, providin' them other fellers don't beat you to death first, for makin' 'em lose their breakfast. Feelin' pretty cagey, ain't they?"
They were, and Pecos realized that if he didn't square himself with Hung Wo right away and get him to feed the animals, he would have a bread riot on his hands later—and besides, he was hungry himself. So he spoke quickly and to the point.
"What's the matter, Charley?" he expostulated, "you 'fraid of me?"
"Me no likee!" said the Chinaman impersonally.
"No, of course not; but here—lemme tell you! You savvy Pete Monat—all same alcalde, eh? You savvy Mike—all same boss, hey? Well, last night me lick Pete and Mike. You see this strap? All right; me boss now—you give me big pie every day, you come in!"
"Me no got big pie to-day," protested Hung Wo anxiously.
"Oh, that's all right—me takum other feller's pie, this time—you come in!"
"Allite!" agreed the simple-minded Oriental, and when the iron doors rolled apart he entered without a quiver. Back where he came from a bargain is a bargain and it is a poor boss indeed who does not demand his rake-off. The day was won and, throwing back his head imperiously, Pecos stalked down the line of cells until he came to the one where the inmates were making the most noise.
"Here!" he said, and when they looked up he remarked: "You fellers are too gay to suit me—I'll jest dock you your pieces of pie!" And when the Chinaman arrived Pecos carefully lifted the pie from each plate and piled all up on his own. "This'll teach you to keep your mouths shut!" he observed, and retiring to the iron gates he squatted down on his heels and ate greedily.
"Well, the son-of-a-gun," murmured Bill Todhunter, as he took notice of this final triumph, and the men in the cells became as quiet as a cage of whip-broke beasts when the lion tamer stands in their midst. As Pecos Dalhart drank his second cup of coffee and finished up the last slab of pie a realizing sense of his mastery came over him and he smiled grimly at the watchful faces that peered out through the cell gratings, blinking and mowing like monkeys in a zoo. They were beaten, that was plain, but somehow as he looked them over he was conscious of a primordial cunning written on every savage visage—they bowed before him; but like the leopards before their tamer, they crouched, too. That was it—they crouched and bided their time, and when the time came they would hurl themselves at his throat. But what was it for which they were waiting? All the morning he pondered on it as he paced to and fro or sat with his back to the bars, watching. Then, as the day warmed up and his head sank momentarily against his breast he woke with a start to behold a prison-bleached hand reaching, reaching for his strap. Instantly he rose up from his place and dealt out a just retribution, laying on his strap with the accuracy of a horse-wrangler, but even with the howling of his victim in his ears he was afraid, for he read the hidden meaning of that act. With the nerveless patience of the beast they were waiting for him to go to sleep!
Once before, on the open range, Pecos Dalhart had arrayed himself against society, and lost, even as he was losing now. Sooner or later, by day or by night, these skulking hyenas of the jail-pack would catch him asleep, and he shuddered to think how they might mangle him. He saw it clearly now, the fate of the man who stands alone, without a friend to watch over him or a government to protect his life. Not in two hurly-burly days and