CHAPTER XI
ALGY STIRS UP TROUBLE
Bostwick arrived in Goldite at three in the afternoon, dressed inprison clothes. He came on a freight wagon, the deliberate locomotionof which had provided ample time for his wrath to accumulate andsimmer. His car was forty miles away, empty of gasolene, stripped ofall useful accessories, and abandoned where the convicts had compelledhim to drive them in their flight.
A blacker face than his appeared, with anger and a stubble of beardupon it, could not have been readily discovered. His story had easilyoutstripped him, and duly amused the camp, so that now, as he rodealong the busy street, in a stream of lesser vehicles, autos, and dustyhorsemen, arriving by two confluent roads, he was angered more and moreby the grins and ribald pleasantries bestowed by the throngs in theroad.
To complicate matters already sufficiently aggravating, Gettysburg,Napoleon C. Blink, and Algy, the Chinese cook, from the Monte Cristomine, now swung into line from the northwest road, riding on horses andburros. They were leading three small pack animals, loaded with alltheir earthly plunder.
The freight team halted and a crowd began to congregate. Bostwick wasdescending just as the pack-train was passing through the narrow wayleft by the crowd. His foot struck one of the loaded burros in theeye. The animal staggered over against the wall of men, trampling onsomebody's feet. Somebody yelled and cursed vehemently, stepping onsomebody else. A small-sized panic and melee ensued forthwith. Moreof the animals took alarm, and Algy was frightened half to death. Hispony, a wall-eyed, half-witted brute, stampeded in the crowd. ThenAlgy was presently in trouble.
There had been no Chinese in Goldite camp, largely on account of raceprejudice engendered and fostered by the working men, who stillmaintained the old Californian hatred against the industriousCelestials. In the mob, unfortunately near the center of confusion,was a half-drunken miner, rancorous as poison. He was somewhat roughlyjostled by the press escaping Algy's pony.
"Ye blank, blank chink--I'll fix ye fer that!" he bawled at the top ofhis voice, and heaving his fellow white men right and left he laidvicious hands on the helpless cook and, dragging him down, went at himin savage brutality.
"Belay there, you son of a shellfish!" yelled Napoleon, dismounting andmadly attempting to push real men away. "I'll smash in yourpilot-house! I'll---- Leave me git in there to Algy!"
Gettysburg, too, was on the ground. He, Bostwick, and a hundred menwere madly crowded in together, where two or three were pushing backthe throng and yelling to Algy to fight.
Algy was fighting. He was also spouting most awful Chinese oaths,sufficient to warp an ordinary spine and wither a common person'slimbs. He kicked and scratched like a badger. But the miner was anengine of destruction. He was aggravated to a mood of gory slaughter.He broke the Chinaman's arm, almost at once, with some viciouslydiabolical maneuver and leaped upon him in fury.
In upon this scene of yelling, cursing, and fighting Van rodeunannounced. He saw the crowd increasing rapidly, as saloons, stores,hay-yard, bank, and places of lodging poured out a curious army, mostlymen, with a few scattered women among them--all surging eagerly forward.
Algy, meantime, in a spasm of pain and activity, struggled to his feetfrom the dust and attempted to make his escape. Van no more thanbeheld him that he leaped from his horse and broke his way into thering.
When he laid his hand on the miner's collar it appeared as if thatindividual would be suddenly jerked apart. Algy went down in collapse.
"Why don't you pick on a man of your color?"
Van demanded, and he flung the miner headlong to the ground.
A hundred lusty citizens shouted their applause.
Little Napoleon broke his way to the center. Gettysburg was justbehind him. Van was about to kneel on the ground and lift hisprostrate cook when someone bawled out a warning.
He wheeled instantly. The angered miner, up, with a gun in hand, waslurching in closer to shoot. He got no chance, even to level theweapon. Van was upon him like a panther. The gun went up and wasfired in the air, and then was hurled down under foot.
Two things happened then together. The sheriff arrived to arrest thedrunken miner, and a woman pushed her way through the press.
"Van!" she cried. "Van--oh, Van!"
He was busy assisting his partners to escort poor Algy away. He notedthe woman as she parted the crowd. He was barely in time to fend heroff from flinging herself in his arms.
"Oh, Van!" she repeated wildly. "I thought you was goin' to git itsure!"
"Don't bother me, Queenie," he answered, annoyed, and adding toGettysburg, "Take him to Charlie's," he turned at once to his broncho,mounted actively, and began to round up the scattered animals broughtinto camp by his partners.
He had barely ridden clear of the crowd when his glance was caught by afigure off to the left.
It was Beth. She was standing on a packing case, where the surgingdisorder had sent her. She had seen it all, the fight, his arrival,and the woman who would have clasped him in her arms.
Her face was flushed. She avoided his gaze and turned to descend tothe walk. Then Bostwick, in his convict suit, stepped actively forwardto meet her.
Van saw the look of surprise in her face, at beholding the man in thisattire. She recoiled, despite herself, then held forth her hand forhis aid. Bostwick took it, assisted her down, and they hastily madetheir escape.
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