And then Judge Tyrrel came slowly across the room, saying: “You’re Jingo, I suppose? We’ve been expecting you. But did you rise up out of the floor or just materialize out of the empty air?”
He was not laughing. A smile twisted a bit at his lips, that was all. But he shook hands with Jingo.
The unexpected guest was answering: “I just dropped down into your place, but I landed in the next barn, and not in your house. So I put a rope bridge across and came over that way. I hate crowds, and there were a lot of people walking around on the ground below.”
The judge chuckled. After that first long, straight look, he did not examine Jingo with so much criticism in his eyes. Suddenly he seemed to accept the intruder.
“You’ll have supper with us,” he said. “Eugenia, see that another place is laid. I think you’ve met Wheeler Bent before?”
Wheeler Bent had managed to steady himself a little. He made no effort to approach but acknowledged the introduction from a distance. He was white about the lips as though the effort of smiling had numbed his face.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “We’ve met before.” He began to frown a little and kept narrowing his eyes.
Jingo understood. He was looking to Wheeler Bent rather smaller than that gentleman’s expectation.
“A rope bridge from the next barn,” the judge was saying. “And you flew down to the barn with a pair of wings or you rose out of the ground, Jingo?”
“I’d like to tell you,” said Jingo. “It’s really very simple. But magicians are bound to one another not to tell how they do their little tricks.”
“Little tricks?” exclaimed Wheeler Bent. “A man could easily rob a bank with a trick no better than this.”
The big cowpuncher who had come through the doorway to announce the discovery of the rope between barn and house had remained motionless all this time. There was only a slight twitching of his body, from time to time, as new ideas struck him like bullets.
Now he said—“Well, doggone my hide.”—and turned on his heel and departed with his glance trailing over his shoulders toward Jingo. It was plain that Tom Farrell was not satisfied with life or the world, this evening. Perhaps the judge would have something to say, later on, about the efficiency with which his place had been guarded against intrusion.
The girl had gone off to give directions about the alteration in seating at the table.
Wheeler Bent moved like a stunned man toward the open door, from which he stared at the sky that was still faintly stained near the horizon with the twilight green.
And the judge took Jingo nearer to the fire.
“Now, young man,” said Judge Tyrrel, “I’d like to hear from you.”
Jingo looked into the dark hollows under the great brow of Tyrrel and saw the steady glimmering of the eyes.
“Do you want to know why I came?” he asked.
“I want to know anything you care to tell me about yourself,” answered Tyrrel. “Including your name.”
“My name,” said Jingo, “comes from the African ...”
“Oh,” said the judge, “my girl has told me already about J. I. Ngo. I thought you might have another name, by this time.”
“I hate to throw away gifts,” said the young man, “and Jingo is a name that was given to me. If you want to know why I came ... it’s simply because I told your daughter that I’d call on her. But as for the name ... why, when you travel, you don’t take your whole wardrobe with you, I suppose? And Jingo is a good, light traveling name.”
The judge smiled his faint smile again.
“Please go on,” he said. “You came partly because you wanted to see my daughter and partly because it would be a hard thing to do.”
“It’s better to do things at a stroke, I always think,” answered Jingo. “I’d rather ride than walk. And think of all the walking I’d have to do to get a proper introduction to Judge Tyrrel. However, by just sending word that I’m coming, in this way, the whole place is organized to meet me. Every cowpuncher on the ranch, since he heard that I was coming, has been polishing up ... his guns. And even Judge Tyrrel is kind enough to pay attention to me. I’d have to be worth two or three millions, at least, to get this much attention from you in any other way.”
“Jingo,” said Tyrrel, “how long do you intend to ride horses through life?”
“I hope,” Jingo said, “that I’ll always be in the saddle.”
“And work?” asked the judge.
“No work,” replied Jingo. “I agree with you about that. I hate work almost as much as you do, Judge Tyrrel.”
“Hate it as much as I do? Do I hate work?” repeated the judge, half offended and half curious. “My dear young friend, how much time do you think I have to myself?”
“Nearly every minute,” Jingo responded. “You’ve been daydreaming all your life, I suppose. You have the dream, and then you step into it. So do I. That’s where we’re different from most people.”
“And similar to one another?” Tyrrel asked, his air more watchful than ever.
“Well,” Jingo said, “you’ve kept yourself young, having a good time. I’m doing the same. My good times have horses and guns and poker games in them. Your good times have other things, like cutting down forests and spilling the logs into rivers and sending the big trees through sawmills to make shingles of ’em. You go into a directors’ meeting, and I go into a saloon, and the people look on us in about the same way. I break up a meeting, now and then, and so do you. We both look for excitement. You get yours out of raising beef. I get mine out of shooting venison.”
“From that angle,” Tyrrel said ironically, “we’re very much alike.”
“I think so,” Jingo agreed, laughing easily.
“In that case,” said the judge, “we ought to make a combination.”
“That’s what I think,” said Jingo. “That’s why I came here.”
“If we combine resources,” said the judge, his mouth twitching to the side, “what has each of us to offer?”
“Money, of course, doesn’t count,” Jingo said. “Anyone can make enough of that.”
“What does count?” asked the judge.
“Reputation,” Jingo answered. “You have reputation and a daughter. I have a reputation and need a wife. You can draw the easy deduction, from that.”
“There are different kinds of reputation,” the judge said.
“Yes,” said Jingo, “I was afraid that you’d bring that up.”
“And you’ve known my daughter for about twenty-four hours?” suggested the judge.
“I’ve spent years planning her,” Jingo assured him. “You ought to take that into consideration.”
“Young man,” said the judge, “I don’t know why I’m not more offended.”
“Well,” said Jingo, “I counted on a sense of humor, sir.”
Eugenia came up to them, and the judge said to her with a sudden and almost brutal brusqueness: “Gene, this is a romantic evening. I’d like to know how dizzy you are about Jingo at this moment. Say it out loud.”
There was more than the glow of the fire in her face.
“I am a little dizzy,” she said.
“Very well,” said the judge. “You two sit down and have your talk. Whatever you decide on, now or in the future, I’m not the sort of an old fool who’d disinherit you because of your choices in life. Wheeler, we’ll go watch the stars come out.”
He turned abruptly away from the two and, picking up a reluctant Wheeler Bent on the way, moved out through the open door and disappeared.
The girl sat by the fire with her chin in her hand and watched the leap and fall of the flames.
Jingo stood opposite her. “My head is full of things I want to say to you,” he said. “They’ve been running in my brain like wild horses.”
“Well,” said the girl, “you ha
ve a right to talk ... tonight.”
“Your father has caught all the wild horses and haltered ’em and put ’em on a lead,” said Jingo. “I can’t say a word to you now.”
“What has he done?” she asked.
“Put me on my silly sense of honor,” said Jingo.
She looked up at him suddenly.
“Have you come all this way to be tongue-tied?” she said. “Aren’t you going to tell me how you managed to get here, even?”
“I was just delivered in a load of hay,” Jingo said.
She began to laugh, more with her eyes than her voice. After all, a great many important things can be said without using the tongue.
Chapter Nineteen
As Wheeler Bent and the judge went through the doorway, the judge was saying: “Now, Wheeler, I’m growing old and perhaps pretty much of a fogy. I’d like to know what a young man ... a man of his own generation ... frankly thinks about a fellow like Jingo.”
Wheeler Bent hastily caressed his little golden mustache. He was so pleased by this invitation to speak that he could hardly see the dim glory of the scene before him, or the lift of the dark mountains against the stars.
He said: “To a fellow of Jingo’s own generation, Judge Tyrrel, it seems that he’s just a cheap rascal.”
“Ah,” the judge said. “A cheap rascal, Wheeler?”
He kept his voice low and caressing. He turned his head a little and seemed to be considering, profoundly, what the young man was saying.
Wheeler Bent was inspired to continue as they paced up and down under the stars.
“A gambler, a notorious gunman, a vagabond. And it shocks me, Judge Tyrrel, to see a man like that received with such great familiarity in your home.”
“Ah, does it, Wheeler?” asked the gentle voice of the judge.
“A creature,” exclaimed Bent, “capable of taking every advantage! No one knows what rot he’s pouring into the ears of Eugenia, just now. A young girl ... romantic ... passionate ... almost unbalanced in her desire to extract from the world the perfume of its pleasures ...”
“My dear Wheeler,” the judge said, “you talk like a poet.”
“When I think of Eugenia ... of what she is ... of how she could be wasted if she were allowed to follow the bent of every desire ... why, it would make anyone poetic, sir.”
“Humph!” Judge Tyrrel said, still thoughtful.
“But to have a creature like Jingo in the house!” Bent exclaimed.
“After all,” the judge said, “he must be a young man with a good many friends.”
“Of course ... the world is always the same,” Wheeler Bent admitted, “and there are bound to be many people who are amused by people who are burning up themselves to make a little, cheap light.”
“And yet,” said the judge, “he seems to be a fellow of adroitness, good-looking, upstanding, with a good deal of courage.”
Wheeler Bent laughed. It was a hollow sound.
“Rogues, gunmen, thieves, blackguards ... they all have what appears to be courage,” Wheeler Bent said. “But the steady moral courage of a good man ... that’s what they lack.”
“Well, well, well,” said the judge. “What a thoughtful fellow you seem to be, Wheeler.”
“Thank you, sir,” Wheeler Bent said.
And just then, as they passed a bush, he was aware of something that rose behind it, a dark silhouette that seemed to wave toward him. And the guilty blood ran cold through his veins.
He was glad, a moment later, when the judge said: “Well, I’ll turn back inside the house and see how the pair of them is getting on.”
“I’ll stay out for another moment,” Wheeler Bent said. “I ... er ... I never saw a more beautiful evening.”
“Humph,” the judge muttered, and went rapidly back inside the house.
As he came through the big, open doors again, he saw the adventurer, Jingo, rolling a cigarette in the midst of a silence that seemed to have lasted for some moments, at least.
The judge was usually as direct as the attack of a bull terrier. He walked straight up to the pair.
“Well, Gene,” he said, “what’s the silence all about?”
“Jingo came here full of talk, and you choked it out of him,” said the girl gloomily.
“Come, come,” Judge Tyrrel said. “Here’s the fiery young gallant, the Don Quixote, jousting at windmills or the moon, and do you mean to tell me that he hasn’t said a word to you? Hasn’t he done a thing to make his trip worthwhile?”
“No,” said the girl. “He seems to think that just because you’ve gone out of the room, he has to act like a stump of wood.”
The judge whistled softly.
“Jingo,” he demanded, “are you one of the boys who are never bad except when the teacher is in the room to watch?”
And then the judge began to laugh heartily. “Sit down, Jingo, and we’ll have a talk all together.”
* * * * *
Wheeler Bent, in the meantime, had turned back toward the big shrub from behind which the stranger had appeared. As he came near, the form stepped out again.
The voice of Jake Rankin said: “Hello, partner. I just dropped by to report. We got one half of the procession, but the band had already gone by when we arrived.”
“Rankin,” Wheeler Bent hissed, “are you out of your mind to show yourself so close to the house of Judge Tyrrel? Suppose that someone saw the two of us together, what would be thought?”
“Maybe they’d think that you’d groomed up and started talking to real men,” Jake Rankin suggested sourly.
“This way ... let’s get back farther into the brush,” whispered Wheeler Bent as he took several steps back. “Here ... this is better. No one can see us now. Quick, man, tell me what’s happened.”
Rankin drawled: “Well, we come up with ...”
“Not so loud,” Wheeler Bent pleaded. “Go on.”
“We come up with the big walloper they call the Parson, and we snagged him. We’ve got him tied hand and foot, out yonder. One of my partners has a set of irons in his saddlebag, but we saved them up for Jingo. Understand? Only we don’t know where he is.”
“He’s there ... he’s there!” exclaimed Wheeler Bent. “He’s right there inside the house! You’ve missed him, and let him come through. Heaven knows what will happen now.”
“What are you in such a stew about?” Jake Rankin asked.
“I tell you,” Wheeler Bent said, “that Jingo is in there. He broke through. In spite of all the men of Judge Tyrrel ... in spite of you. I’ve thrown away the money I paid you ... and Jingo’s inside the house. He’ll probably run away with the girl now.”
“What girl?” asked Jake Rankin.
“What girl? Judge Tyrrel’s daughter! That’s the girl! What do you think ...?”
Wheeler Bent checked himself, for he found his tongue running away. But Jake Rankin seemed to have looked a bit into the future.
He said: “Poaching on you, is he? Doggone his young hide, that’s what he’d do, too. There ain’t anything that he’d overlook in the way of a bet. If he’s got a fair chance to talk to that girl, you’d better cash in your checks and get out of the game. About the Parson, yonder ... you don’t want him?”
“Of course not,” Wheeler Bent hissed. “What do I care about him?”
“That’s what he kind of wondered,” Rankin said.
“He wondered? Great heavens, did you mention my name to him?” demanded Wheeler Bent.
“Well, and why not? If you was out after those two hombres, we thought that they’d know that you was after them,” explained Rankin.
“And you used my name?” groaned Wheeler Bent.
He beat his hands together above his head.
“What of it?” Rankin asked, growling out the words.
“What of it? S
imply that his tongue has to be stopped then. Suppose that he ever got to Judge Tyrrel and talked about me? I’d be ruined.”
“When you talk about his tongue being stopped,” said Rankin, “just what do you mean by that, partner?”
“Stopped? He’s got to be kept from speaking!” exclaimed Bent.
“Ah, hum,” muttered Rankin. “That’s it, is it? Murder is the thing you want, eh?”
“Murder? Who used that word?”
“I did. There ain’t any other way of stopping a gent from talking and you know it.”
“What do I care how you stop him?” Wheeler Bent said desperately. “I only know that you’ve balled everything up and confused everything and missed the man I wanted to get ... and revealed my name ...”
He began to groan, making wordless sounds.
“All right,” Jake Rankin said. “I’m kind of sorry about it, because he acts and he talks like a real man. But I’m your hired man, just now, and what you say has to go for me. I’ll go back and tap the Parson over the head, if you want. I’ll bash in his skull for him, and then likely he’s going to be silent enough to please even you.”
“Bash in his head?” gasped Wheeler Bent.
“If you know a better way, talk it up big and loud,” suggested Rankin. “I’m ready enough to listen to it. It ain’t what I want to do ... butcher a man like a beef. It’s up to you to talk right out and say what you want.”
“I have to leave it in your hands,” Wheeler Bent muttered. “I only know that ... that he mustn’t be allowed to talk.”
“Yeah, and you could cut his tongue out,” Rankin said. “But he’d still have his hands to write with. If you know a better way, you tell me about it.”
Wheeler Bent was silent. But the noise of his rapid breathing could be heard.
After a moment Rankin went on: “Now, I’m willing to go ahead and try to do the other half of the job. There’s Jingo ... and you want him, don’t you?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” gasped Bent.
“Well, if he’s inside the house, you show me the way to him. He’s the meat for me, partner. I gotta get at him sometime or other, and why not tonight?”
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