The Westerners

by Stewart Edward White

  XXXI

  LAFOND'S FIRST CARD

  Lafond, in the meantime, had left the dispensation of drinks almostentirely to Frosty. He darted here and there in the crowd, a light ofunwonted excitement in his eye.

  "That thar Mike's shore waked up," commented Old Mizzou. "Never seehim so plumb animated. He shore looks nutty. Dance halls is mostlytoo rich fer his blood, I reckon."

  But Tony Houston and Jack Snowie and a dozen others by now knew betterthan to attribute this excitement to dance halls. Lafond possessed inhis pocket a copy of Knapp's dismissal, and he had told them of it.

  He told them of it mysteriously, in half-limits, pointing outtendencies and solutions to what they already knew, leaving them todraw deductions, sowing anxieties that there might spring up a harvestof distrust.

  Through the woof of gayety he rapidly ran a dull thread of angrysuspicion. Men made merry, and forgot all the past and all the future.Other men talked low-voiced in corners, and tried, from the distractionof drink and gayety, to draw clear plan and reflection. And alwaysLafond took other men aside and whispered eager littlehalf-confidences, and went on quickly to the next.

  His spirit was upheld by a great excitement, such as it had neverexperienced before, not even in his early and adventurous days. Heseemed to himself to be mounting higher and higher on the summit of agreat wave of luck, as a swimmer is lifted by the sea. And yet, behindit all, again for the first time in his life, he felt a portent in theair. It was as though the wave were rearing itself, only to curl overand break upon the shore. He laid this to nervousness, and yet itaffected him with a certain superstitious awe.

  So occupied was he, that he quite missed the girl's sudden exit, andwas drawn from his brown study only by the sudden hush that succeededit. In the silence a drunken voice uplifted itself loudly.

  "M' work 'sh done," it vociferated. "I wan' m' pay!"

  Everybody turned, prepared to laugh at this "comic relief!" JackSnowie was addressing Billy Knapp. Billy at once became conscious ofan audience, and the usual desire to appear well seized him. He smiledwith the good-humored tolerance of a drunken man.

  "I suppose you want me to take it right out of my pants pocket, eh,Jack?" he inquired paternally. "Of co'se you wants yo' pay! Comearound in th' mornin' an' get it." He smiled again at the group thatsurrounded him. It appeared to be listening to this colloquy withunusual interest.

  "I wan' m' pay!" reiterated Snowie sullenly, but then apparently lostthe thread of his ideas and lurched away. Billy considered theincident closed. He was mistaken. The group did not dissolve; it camecloser. The men had a strangely unfriendly look about the eyes. Billydid not understand it. He stepped toward one side of the circle abouthim. It closed the tighter to keep him in.

  "What's the joke, boys?" he asked, still smiling.

  The room was breathlessly still. Many of those within it did notunderstand the trouble, but trouble was in the air. Across a waveringline of heat could be dimly discerned the musicians, poised to startthe next dance, but uncertain whether or not to begin. They did notbegin. The silence was startled even by Peter's doggy yawn from thefar corner of the saloon proper.

  "Ain't no joke!" "That's what we want to know!" "Damned poor joke!""You'll find out soon enough!" cried the men angrily, and then pausedand looked at each other because of the jostle of words that meantnothing.

  Billy flushed slowly, and his jaw settled into place.

  "I'm jest as willin' to play 'horse' as anybody," he said, trying tofind calm utterance; "and if this is a joke, I wishes somefellow-citizen to let me in. But, damn it!" he cried in a burst,"don't you get too funny! What the hell does you-all want me to do tocarry out this yere witticism, anyway?"

  The coolest and most determined looking man in the group made two stepsacross the floor, and confronted Billy squarely. At this evidence ofearnestness, Billy lost his excitement and became deadly cool.

  "Oh, it's you, Tony Houston, is it! Do you want your pay too?"

  "Yes, I do," replied the man, "and I'm going to have it."

  "Well," said Billy, "here's a pretty-lookin' outfit! Snowie was drunk,but this gang 's sober enough to know better, anyway. You come aroundto my office in the mornin', and I pays the bunch, every damn skunk,and don't you ever any of you show your faces there again. That's allI got to say."

  "It ain't all _I_ got to say," retorted Houston, standing his grounddoggedly, "not by a long shot! You-all talks well, but has you got th'money?"

  "What the----" cried Billy, choking.

  "Hol' on thar! I repeats it"--and Houston thrust his face at Billyevilly--"has you got th' money? That's a fa'r question in business, Ireckons. Has you got th' money? No, you hasn't. You got just anhundred and fifty-two dollars, and that's every red cent you has got."

  Billy's immediate act of homicide was checked by this astoundingknowledge of the total of his bank account. "Damn you, Tony Houston,"he said slowly, at last, "I believe you're drunk too. You come in themornin' and get paid, an' you'll find yore money comes along all right.This is a hell of a gang," he went on with contempt, "a hell of a gang!I gets you a job that lasts you all winter, and you wants your damnmoney in a dance hall and raises a row because I ain't carryin' a fewthousan' dollars in each pants pocket. Don' think you makes anythin'by it. I lays myself out from now on to see that yore little two byfour prospect holes ain't worth th' powder to blow 'em up, and I reckonI has a little influence as superintendent of this game."

  "Superintendent?" cried Houston, and the men about laughed loudly.

  Billy was plainly even more bewildered than angry. He considered thecrowd all, as he expressed it, "plum' locoed"; but his passions, neverof the most peaceful, were rising. In another moment he would haveknocked Houston down and drawn his gun on the crowd which surroundedhim, but that Michail Lafond shoved his way through the press. Billycaught sight of him with relief. Besides the plain bare fact of a row,the situation was complicated by the presence of so great an audience,before whom Billy naturally wished to conduct the affair correctly.

  "What is the trouble? Here, this won't do!" cried Black Mike, asthough in the capacity of proprietor preserving the respectability ofhis establishment.

  "That's what I wants to know," cried Billy. "This (sulphurous) outfitof ranikaboo ijits has gone plum' locoed, and they stan's around yerehowlin' for tha'r money as though I carries th' Philadelphy mint in myclothes!"

  Lafond did not reply. He motioned the men aside, and, with the utmostgentleness, led the wondering Billy to a far corner of the room.

  "I'm sorry that I have this to do, Billy," said Lafond. "I don't wantto. It's none of my lay-out. But these men of yours sent them to mebecause I am notary public and I must do it."

  Billy did not understand, but he caught the apology in Lafond's tone.

  "That's all right, old man," he assured the latter, moistening his lips.

  Without further preamble, the half-breed drew some papers from hisbreast pocket, and handed them to Billy.

  The first was a review of the work done on the Great Snake group ofclaims, and a detailed analysis of it, carried out with astoundingminuteness of technical knowledge for one so ignorant of mining asStevens. It outlined also the work that should have been done; and itended with a general conclusion of incompetence. The second containedhis formal dismissal as superintendent. The third returned Billy'sshares as his portion in the Company's dissolution, said Company havingdissolved without assets.

  Billy sat very quietly and read the papers over three times, while hisfellow townsmen stood silent and watched him. The first perusalbewildered him, and turned him sick at heart with disappointment andrecognition of the estimate in which men held him. The second broughtto his consciousness that his companions were regarding him; and that,in turn, caused him to realize that his prestige was crumbled, hisintegrity dishonored, his abilities belittled. The third impressed onhim the desperate straits in which he found himself--without money,holdi
ng a doubtful interest in claims whose bad name was by thisestablished so firmly that no Eastern capital would ever take hold ofthem again, the moral if not legal debtor to these men who had workedall winter for him. The iron turned in his soul. Michail Lafond,sitting there in the role of sympathizer, was well satisfied with hishandiwork. For the moment, Billy Knapp was a broken man.

  He arose slowly, and passed out of the door in the dead silence ofthose about him.

  After his exit, the dance was forgotten and an earnest discussionraged. It was no light matter. Eleven men had invested heavily inpowder, fuse, drills, and windlasses for the purpose of fulfillingtheir contract with Knapp; and they, and twenty-two others, had put intheir time for a number of months. Many of them owed for board ormaterials. Others, though out of debt, had spent nearly all theirready cash. They all seemed desperately close to bankruptcy, forLafond said nothing whatever respecting his agreement to pay thecontracts himself. And then again, as has been pointed out, thewell-being of the whole camp had depended intimately on the success ofits big mine, for the success of one enterprise like the Great Snakedraws other capital to the district, rendering possible the sale ofclaims; while its failure always gives a bad name to a whole section.

  So the ensuing discussion had plenty of interest for everybody.Lafond, as the bearer of the tidings, was besieged with questions. Hewas reluctant, but he answered. Besides, the facts were plain, readyfor interpretation. Nobody could help seeing that it was all Billy'sfault. After a time, poor Billy loomed large as a symbol of all thecamp's misfortune. After a little time more, when the bar had morethoroughly done its work, a number became possessed of a desire toabate Billy.

  They seized torches and a rope, ran up the gulch, and beat in the doorof the office, only to encounter Billy enraged to the point of frenzy.That individual rushed them out at the muzzle of a pistol, with such awhirl of impetuous anger that it quite carried them off their feet,after which he planted his back against the building and stood there inthe full light of the torches, reviling them. Why he was not shot Icannot tell. Billy was something of a dominant spirit when roused.That was the reason why, in the old days, he had made such a goodscout. After he had called them all the names he could think of, heslammed the door on them. They went away without knowing why they didso.

  When they got back to town, they gathered again in the Little Nuggetsaloon, drinking, swearing, shouting. The morale of the camp wasbroken. It was a debauch. They cried out against Billy, and theyfeared him for the moment. They made a stable-boy hide in the brushwith a bottle of whisky, to watch the works, to spy on they knew notwhat. Lafond drank with them. He had never done so before. As theybecame more noisy, he fell into a sullen fit, and went to sit overbehind the stove where he crooned away to himself an old _chanson_. Hestopped drinking, but the effects remained. It seemed to his befoggedmind that the wave had broken and that he was falling through the air.Shortly he would be cast up against the beach. "A fool for luck!" hemuttered to himself, trying to rehabilitate his denuded confidence. Hetook out the Company's letter to him, saying that the deeds were atRapid awaiting his action, and read it. Then he put a stick of wood onthe fire. He shivered and rubbed his eyes. Finally he went over tothe hotel, where he washed his head again and again in cold water.After a time, he returned to the Little Nugget, feeling somewhat better.

  It was now daylight, although the sun was not up. The stable-boy camein from the upper gulch to say that Billy Knapp was hitching his horsesto the buckboard. The news sobered them somewhat. Ten minutes later,the stable-boy again returned with the news that Knapp had loaded hisbuckboard, and was on the point of driving through town. A dozen menat once ran out into the street and concealed themselves behind thecorners of buildings.