On the Cowboy's Trail: Western Boxed-Set. Coolidge Dane
time may come when cleanliness will be an inherited instinct but at present most of the cleaning up in the world is done under compulsion. Parents compel their children to wash and change their clothes; employers compel their wage-slaves to scrub and clean and empty; cities compel their householders to dispose of sewage and garbage; but not even among members of the capitalistic classes is there shown any clean-cut desire to do the work themselves. The Arizona Indians escape their obligations by moving camp at intervals, and God's sunshine helps out the settlers; but in the Geronimo jail there was no sunshine, nor could any Indian break camp. They were shut in, and there they had to lie, three deep, until the judge should decide their fate. For two days they had luxuriated in anarchy, philosophical and real, but neither kind emptied any garbage. The jail was the dwelling place of Freedom, but it smelled bad. That was a fact. Even the Mexicans noticed it, but they did not take it to heart. It was only when Boone Morgan came down for a batch of prisoners that the community got its orders to clean up.
These were busy days with Boone—opening court, arraigning prisoners, summoning witnesses, roping in jurymen, speaking a good word for some poor devil in the tanks—and it kept him on the run from sun-up to dark. He knew that Pecos Dalhart had broken up his Kangaroo Court and that Angevine Thorne had pulled off some kind of a tin-horn revolution on him, but he didn't mind a little thing like that. Jail life had its ups and downs, but so long as the cage was tight the birds could do as they pleased—short of raising a riot. At least, that was Boone Morgan's theory, based on the general proposition that he could stand it as long as they could—but when at the end of the second day he caught a whiff of the sublimated jail-smell that rose from the abiding place of liberty he let out a "whoosh" like a bear.
"Holy Moses, Bill," he cried, "make these rascals clean up! M-mmm! That would drive a dog out of a tan-yard! What's the matter—is somebody dead?"
"Not yet," responded Bill Todhunter, "but they will be, if we don't git some trusty in there. Them fellers won't do nuthin'—an' I can't go in there and make 'em! You better appoint another alcalde."
"What's the matter with Pete?"
"His head is too sore—he won't be able to put up a fight for a month."
"Umm, and Mike is fixed worse yet—where's that crazy cowman, Pecos Dalhart?"
They found Pecos comfortably bestowed in the bunk of the end cell, philosophically smoking jail tobacco as a deodorizer.
"Say," said the sheriff, brusquely addressing him through the bars, "things are gittin' pretty rotten around here—somebody ought to make them Mexicans clean up. You put my Kangaroo Court out of business—how'd you like the job yourself?"
Pecos grunted contemptuously.
"Don't want it, hey? Well, you don't have to have it—I can get that big sheep-man down from the upper tanks."
A cold glint came into Pecos Dalhart's eyes, but he made no remarks—a big sheep-man would just about fall in with his mood.
"I got to have some kind of a trusty," observed Morgan, but as Pecos did not rise to the bait, he passed down the run-around grumbling.
"He's a sulky brute," said Bill Todhunter, as they retreated from the stench, "better leave him alone a while and see if we can't stink him out."
"Well, you order them Mexicans to clean up," rumbled the sheriff, "and if this here Pecos Dalhart makes any more trouble I'll see that he gits roped and hog-tied. And say, throw old Babe out of there as soon as he gits his supper. Them two fellers are side-kickers in this business and we got to bust 'em up. It's a good thing the grand jury ain't in session now—I'd git hell for the condition of that jail."
There never was a jail so clean it didn't smell bad, but that night the Geronimo jail broke into the same class with the Black Hole of Calcutta, yet the inmates seemed to enjoy it. The yegg gang in particular—a choice assortment of Chi Kids, Denver Slims, and Philly Blacks who had fled from the Eastern winter—were having the time of their lives, rampaging up and down the corridor, upsetting cuspidors, throwing water from the wash-room, and making themselves strictly at home. When the sturdy form of Pecos Dalhart appeared in the door of Cell One they slackened their pace a little, but now that the moral restraint of Babe was gone they felt free as the prairie wind. Only in their avoidance of Mexicans did they show a certain consciousness of authority, for the word had passed that Pecos was buen' amigo with the umbres and no one was looking for a rough-house. As for Pecos, he put in his time thinking, standing aloof from friends and enemies alike—and his thoughts were of the revolution. When he had been off by himself reading the Voice of Reason he had been astounded at the blank stupidity of the common people, which alone was holding mankind back from its obvious destiny. "Think, Slave, think!" it used to say; and thinking was so easy for him. But the blind and brutish wage slaves who were dragged at the chariot wheels of capitalism—well, perhaps they had not yet learned how. Anyway, he had seen how inevitable was the revolution, and whichever way he turned he saw new evidences of that base conspiracy between wealth and government which keeps the poor man down. Nay, he had not only seen it—he had suffered at its hand. Yet there was one thing which he had never realized before, though the Voice of Reason was full of it—the low and churlish spirit of the masses which incapacitated them for freedom. Take those yeggs, now. They had been freed from the hard and oppressive hand of tyranny and yet as soon as the Kangaroo Court was abolished they began to raise particular hell. It was discouraging. There was only one way to beat sense into some people, and that was with a club. A cuspidor came the length of the corridor and Pecos rose slowly from his couch. What was the use of trying the revolution on a gang of narrow-headed yeggs!
"Hey," he challenged, "you yaps want to key down a little or I'll rattle your heads together. Go on into your cells now, and shut up." He fixed the yegg-men sternly with his eye, but the blood had gone to their heads from gambolling about and they still had their dreams of heaven.
"Aw, gwan," said Philly Black, "we ain't doin' nawthin'—give a feller a show, can't ye?"
"W'y, sure, I'll give you a show!" thundered Pecos wrathfully. "You yeggs think because I licked Pete Monat I give you license to prize up hell. You got this jail like a hog-waller already in two days. Now, clean up, you dastards, and the first man that opens his face to me will go to the doctor!"
There was no easy answer to an argument like that and the gang slouched sullenly to their task, making all the motions of a superficial cleaning up but leaving the jail dirtier than ever. With his strap poised Pecos stood over them, reading well the insubordination in their black hearts and waiting only for some one to start the fray. At every move the yeggs became viler and more slipshod in their methods, spilling half the contents of every can upon the floor, and still Pecos Dalhart eyed them grimly, while the awe-stricken Mexicans huddled together in their cells waiting for the catastrophe. At last Philly Black, emboldened by his immunity, was moved to take a chance. Seizing recklessly upon the nearest can he made a rush for the wash-room, slopping filth and corruption as he went. As he passed Pecos his hold slipped, accidentally, of course, and the can fell to the floor with a final overflowing of uncleanness.
"Clean that up," Pecos said, as Philly Black came to a crouch, but Philly only looked over his shoulder. "Clean that up!" commanded Pecos, drawing nearer. "Clean—" but Philly was cleaning up. His gang had not rallied to his aid. Slowly and slovenly, and making ugly faces, he bent to his unwilling task, scowling beneath his black mop of hair at Denver and Chi and the gang.
"I said clean up!" rumbled Pecos, as Philly grabbed his can to go. "Clean up! You don't call that clean, do you?"
"Aw, go t'hell!" bellowed Philly Black, hurling his slop-can once more upon the floor. "Let the dam' Mexicans clean up!"
He dodged the swift swing of the strap and leapt in, calling on his fellows for aid. For a moment they wrestled furiously, and as the yeggs rushed in to help, the Mexicans swarmed out to meet them; but before either side could lend a hand Philly Black slipped on his own dirty floor and went down with a deadly thud. Pecos rode him to the floor, clutching fiercely at his throat; for an instant he waited for him to fight back, then he sprang up and waded into the yeggs. Philly was where he would make