Complete Works of William Hope Hodgson

by Hodgson, William Hope

  “I paid for three fifteen-cent drinks, ain’t I?” demanded the man on the other side of the bar, in an aggressive voice.

  He had been stuffing himself with cheese, ham, fish-rissoles, backed sausages, salmon cutlets and the like, from the Free Lunch Counter, which method of obtaining a meal was quite in order; but D.C.O. Cargunka had just caught him shoving a great hunk of cheese into his pocket, which action was very much out of order, running contra to the unwritten law of the Free Lunch Counter, which says:— “Eat what you like and as much as you like, provided you keep right on drinking; but what your stomach don’t want, leave right there on the Free Lunch Counter.”

  It’s a clear and simple and easily learnt law, this Law of the Free Lunch Counter; and the owners of drinking saloons uphold it grimly, and even lustily, if need be; for if they did not, considerable human derelicts would arrive, each with a sack and ten cents. The ten cents would go into a drink, and the contents of the Free Lunch Counter would go into the sack; and, in brief, that would be the end of the Free Lunch institution, which flourishes mightily in certain places, and most vigorously in little old San Francisco.

  “You had three fifteen-cent drinks sure, my lad,” said Cargunka; “but that don’t entitle you to hump the Free Counter away on your back. You lug that cheese hunk out of your pocket, my son, or I’ll come round and do it for you.”

  “You’ll do what!” said the man, who was a great, husky, red-faced miner, just in from the North. “Ye — . Sure now will ye say that again, so I kin get yoor meanin’, ye little dot-an’-carry galoot!”

  It was quite evident that the man was a stranger to that part of the Water Front, or he might have been more careful in his choice of words.

  “You got a good opinion of yourself, my lad, ain’t you?” said D.C.O. Cargunka, his eyes shining a little. “You got a mighty good notion of yourself, ain’t you?”

  “I reck’n, ye little fool, I’ll jest box yoor tabs for ye, if ye say another word,” said the big man. “If ye was bigger, I’d shut my fist to ye; but I’m feelin’ good, I am, an’ I might spoil ye worse’n God spoilt ye, ye blame little cripple—”

  It was the word “cripple” that did it. D.C.O. Cargunka jumped the bar, without even putting his hands on it, and the blow he hit the big man on the jaw was heard outside in the street.

  The big man sat down violently, on the weighing machine, which happened to be directly behind him; but he was on his feet in a moment, and charged the short figure of Dot-and-Carry-One Cargunka, with a tremendous bellow of rage.

  “I’ll pull ye out to a man’s size, like a putty figger, ye crippled toad!” he yelled, as he sprang at Cargunka, and made a huge, lunging swing at his head.

  Cargunka circled to the side, on his dot-and-carry leg. His movements were astonishingly quick; and the difference in the length of his legs seemed to have no effect of slowing his speed. His foot-work was perfect, almost marvelous; for, without once guarding a blow with his arms, he sidestepped, and slid under, and slipped a dozen or more vicious punches from the big, furious miner. And all the time, as he sidestepped, slipped and evaded the man’s great punches, he was never once driven outside of an imaginary four-yard circle, around which the men in the bar had packed themselves in a breathless, shouting ring of mad excitement.

  Suddenly, Cargunka stepped right in close to the big man, and drove in a one — two — three, bat! bat! bat! along the line of the short ribs. The big man let out a gasping yell of pain, as his head came forward. In the same instant, D.C.O. Cargunka loosed his right fist from somewhere about the vicinity of his hip, and the upper-cut he sped home to the point of the big man’s jaw was a truly terribly punch. The man’s chin shot up, and his elbows and knees splayed in an absurd and helpless fashion; and down he came in his tracks with a crash, like the sound of a falling bullock.

  As he fell, the double swing-doors of the saloon were thrown open, and a man jumped in through, with a drawn gun in his fist.

  “Put that away, my lad, ‘fore you get into trouble,” said Cargunka, looking over his shoulder.

  “Has big Buck Kessel come in here?” demanded the man, hoarsely. “Quick now; for I’m out for bad trouble! Has big Buck Kessel come in here? They told me, up the Front, as he was boozin’ in here.”

  “Put your gun away, my lad,” said D.C.O. Cargunka again, turning towards him. “This is ‘Frisco, not Denver City!”

  “Stow your dam gab!” snarled the man, looking at him fixedly for the first time…. “Say!” he continued, “ain’t you D.C.O.?”

  “That’s me, my lad,” replied Cargunka. “Put the popper away, an’ I’ll hear what’s troublin’ you.”

  The man lowered his gun, and began to explain, in an excited voice: —

  “Say, D.C.O.,” he said, “I’ve heard of you, up the coast. You’re reckoned to be a guy as is always for a square deal. Well, you hark to me, an’ then I guess if you’re hiding yon brasted Buck Kessel, you’ll hand the white-livered swine out for me to perforate.

  “You hark to me, Sir! I just come down from up the coast. I been prospectin’, an’ I hit gold while I was up there. Yes, Sir! You bet I hit it big — big enough to mean no more work for yours truly.

  “I pegged out my claim. It was on a bit of a creek, an’ then I thought I’d just put in a bit of time, washing, up an’ down the creek, before I come down here to register, an’ let the news go loose, that’d fill that bit of a creek up with gold-hogs as full as a squaw is of hair-bugs.

  “Like the brasted fool I was, I stretched my luck too far. When I got back to my claim, that afternoon, middlin’ late, there was a crowd of hard-cases, maybe a dozen of ‘em, down in the creek, up to their knees, washin’ my pay dirt for their bloomin’ lives. Yes, Sir! An’ they’d jumped my claim, an’ they’d staked out the whole of the two sides of the creek, as far up an’ down as made it no use to me. What you got to say to that?”

  There was a growl of sympathy from the men in the Dot-And-Carry-One Saloon, and Cargunka nodded.

  “Go on, my lad,” he said.

  “Well,” continued the man, “I was that mad, I’d have tried to buck Satan if he’d come along, an’ I just lugged out my gun, an’ told them there’d be blue murder if they didn’t vamoose my claim, right then!

  “Well, the next thing I knew, someone come up behind me and I got a bash on the head. An’ while I was down an’ out, they took my gun and a hundred and thirty ounces of dust and small nuggets, as I’d collected up an’ down the creek. What you got to say to that?

  “I did my damndest. I offered to toss ‘em, or fight the biggest one of ’em — Anything for fair play; but they wasn’t that kind. No, Sir! They wasn’t!

  “They shoved me in the creek, an’ held me down, till I near drowneded; an’ then did gun practice stunts all round me, till I reckoned I’d do well to get away with a whole skin.

  “But, one of them, this here Buck Kessel that I’m gunning for, told ’em to tie me up. He said he’d get down here and file their claims. And afterwards they could let me go, and be damned to me or anything I could try to put over on ‘em.

  “Yes, Sir, they tied my up like a damn shote. An’ that Buck swine let off for the South. But, Lord! they didn’t know me! I rolled over to where there was a bit of rough quartz stickin’ up, and I just frayed out the lashing they’d put on my arms. And then I got the stuff off me legs.

  “They was all that busy, washing out my pay-dirt, they never thought to bother about me. And I crept in, up at the back of their tent, and sneaked a brace of guns (this here’s one of ‘em!). And then I lit out for where my horse was hobbled, in a little valley, about a half mile away.

  “Well, I let out, hell for leather, to see if I couldn’t come up on that Buck Kessel hog, an’ do him in. But he’d got clean away from me. And when I got to the offices, they told me he’d just taken out the papers; and I was too late to do anything, ‘cept lodge a complaint — A fat lot of use that, hey! Me on the one side, tellin’ my yarn, an’ a do
zen of them on the other, tellin’ theirs! An’ them with the claims and their papers! An’ every hour that passes, they’m liftin’ my dust! Yes, Sir! My dust. Jehu sufferin’ Jehoshaphat! My Dust! Now then, will you turn over that Buck Kessel swine to me, so I can perforate him so his own mother won’t know him? The… the… the…”

  “Come here, my lad,” said D.C.O. Cargunka, beckoning to him.

  The man came forward, a big. rough, powerful chap he was, with a big honest-looking face.

  “Now then, my lad,” said Cargunka, as the man came up alongside of him. “Do you recognise the sleepin’ beauty on the floor there?”

  The man Cargunka had knocked out, lay quiet enough to be dead. He had not been visible from the doorway of the saloon, because the weighing machine (that frequent adjunct of the bar) had stood between.

  But now, as the newcomer set eyes on the insensible man, he let out a mad oath.

  “That’s the—” he yelled, and without more ado he thrust his revolver down at the silent figure, crying out:— “To blazes with ye, ye rotten-hearted thief!”

  The Dot-And-Carry-One Saloon boomed and echoed with the explosion of the heavy weapon, and there were shouts of horror and fright from the men in the bar.

  But the man on the floor lay unharmed; for at the moment of the shot, Cargunka had struck the gunman’s hand, so that the bullet had buried itself in the floor to the left of the insensible man. And now Cargunka was in the midst of a violent wrestling match, one abnormally long, enormously muscular arm being wound round the man’s waist; while, with his right hand, he fought to wrench the gun away from the insanely angry prospector.

  He succeeded at last in getting the revolver, and pitched it to one side. Then he bent the whole power of his short but amazingly muscular body to the conquering of this murder-mad newcomer.

  Abruptly, the man weakened, curiously and unexpectedly; and before Cargunka knew what was happening, he had slid through his arms, into a quiet heap on the floor of the saloon.

  “My Oath!” said Cargunka, breathlessly. “My Oath! What’s that mean?”

  He stared down suspiciously at the man, wondering vaguely whether it might not be some trick to catch him off his guard. Then, suddenly, he knelt on the floor, beside him, and felt his heart.

  “My Oath!” he said, at last. “I b’lieve the poor devil’s done out. He’s starved or something, I’m thinkin’. Pass me over that whisky bottle, Bob” (this to the barman), “and I’ll see what we can do wiv him….

  “When did you grub last, my lad?” were the first words Cargunka said, when the man came around.

  “Blest if I know,” he answered, getting somewhat giddily to his feet. “I been too busy to shunt grub. I guess I’m needin’ it; but I’m goin’ to fill that hog up first; so you stan’ clear!”

  With the word, he stooped suddenly, and twitched a second gun out of the leg of his right boot.

  But Cargunka was too quick for him. He nailed his wrist with one quick grip, and tore the gun out of his fist.

  “You’re sure lookin’ for trouble, my lad,” he said. “You darn fool. My Oath! What’s the use of pluggin’ him! That ain’t the way to do anythin’, ‘cept a trip the ‘lectric chair…. Now you calm down, my lad, or you’ll get rough-handled!”

  This last was in reply to the clumsy blow which the man had aimed at him, following an attempt to grab back the revolver, which Cargunka had just taken from him.

  “You’re mighty fresh, ain’t you, damn you!” said the man, and aimed a second completely ineffectual blow at Cargunka’s head.

  “Here, Bob, and you, Andrews, hold this fool,” said Cargunka. “I don’t want to get hot an’ hit him.”

  At this moment, there were several cries of:— “He’s comin’ to!” “The guy’s opening up.” “Look out for his gun, D.C.O.”

  Cargunka looked round, and saw that Buck Kessel was trying to sit up.

  “Sittin’ up an’ takin’ nourishment, are you!” said Cargunka. “Well, I guess you’ll try some other saloon, my lad, unless you want me to let this gent loose on you wiv a gun!”

  He jerked his elbow towards where the robbed prospector stood, tugging away from the two barmen, Bob and Andrews. And Kessel had no sooner seen him, that it was plain he was very willing indeed to get the other side of the swing doors.

  “It’s plain he’s labelled you, my lad, the same kind of rat-poison you are!” said Cargunka, staring at him, grimly. “My Oath! Get out! ‘fore I lamn you. You make me sick. Get out!”

  And the man went out, staggering; but with very considerable haste.

  Cargunka turned: —

  “Now, my lad, what’s your name?” he asked the prospector.

  “George Monkton,” said the man.

  “Well, Monkton, you an’ me’s goin’ to have a little talk,” said Cargunka. “Let him go, you two. Come along in here, George, my lad, and we’ll get together on this business.”

  Chapter II

  Cargunka was walking up and down his “office,” as he called the room at the back of the bar.

  As he walked, he limped, owing to his dot-and-carry-one leg, from which he had received his title of D.C.O.

  George Monkton was sitting at the table, eating what Cargunka described as a scramble feed, which he had cooked for the man himself, on the oil stove which filled half of the end of the narrow room.

  As Monkton ate, he talked between, and even during, mouthfuls.

  “Say, D.C.O.,” he was saying, “who’s the guy in the wall-pic’cher? He sort of favours you. Say, it ain’t you now, in fancy rig — eh?”

  D.C.O. Cargunka beamed, literally; and his dot-and-carry limp became more pronounced, as he walked over to the picture and looked up at it.

  “No, my lad,” he said, ruffling his hair back from his shaven temples, “that ain’t me; but most people as comes in here, gets thinkin’ it is. That’s Lord Byron, the poet. A fine-lookin’ man he was, my lad, don’t ye think so?”

  “Sure, I’d say he was some high-brow,” agreed the man, Monkton.

  “He’d a short leg an’ a long one, same as me,” continued Cargunka, looking self-conscious. “D’you ever read poetry, my lad?”

  “G’ Lor! Not me!” said Monkton, with his mouth full. “Guess I ain’t much on readin’-gadgets.”

  “Well you miss a great deal,” said Cargunka, solemnly; “a great deal, my lad. Now, if you’ve filled up proper, we’ll light up, an’ I’ll make you a proposition. First of all, just where is this creek?”

  “About seventy miles up the coast, an’ about three inland,” said Monkton. “The nearest place to it, is Alf Nebrech’s, an’ that’s about fifteen miles to the West, I reck’n.”

  “Is there free water for a boat up to the pay-dirt?” asked Cargunka.

  “Sure,” replied Monkton.

  “Then I reck’n I got a plan,” said Cargunka. “One of my brigs, the Happy Return, is going up the coast next week, an’ I reck’n we’ll drop in on those jumpers, an’ give ’em a look-in!”

  “You’ll sure need a mighty big posse with you,” warned Monkton. “I tell you, D.C.O., they’re bad men. They’re gunmen that’d shoot up twice their crowd of plain diggers. You can’t do nothin’, b’lieve me!”

  “Leave that to me, my lad,” said Cargunka. “Are you game to back up my try, an’ hold your mouth tight shut for evermore afterwards?”

  “Sure!” said Monkton. “You show me a lead, an’ I guess I’ll follow. You can bet your boots on that. I’ll follow you into hell an’ out again, to get level with that crowd. You just show me a lead, D.C.O. That’s all I asks.”

  “Well,” said Cargunka, “I guess we’ll fix the divvy right now. If I show you how to pull this thing, an’ give you a hand, I’ll halve up wiv you on what we get. How’s that look to you, my lad?”

  “It looks good enough, I reck’n,” said Monkton. “I’m on!”

  “Well then, I’ll sign you on as A.B.,” Cargunka told him. “That’ll look natural enough; an’ I d
on’t reck’n never to carry no idlers in my ship. No, my lad! I works myself, an’ I expects others to work too.”

  Chapter III

  The result of Monkton’s faith in D.C.O. Cargunka was well justified; for ten days later, the Happy Return arrived off the place where the creek came down to the shore.

  Cargunka was seated in his galley, peeling potatoes, when Monkton identified the mouth of the creek; and his Captain came forrard, to ask whether he should heave the brig to.

  “I reck’n, Cap’n Gell,” said Cargunka, “you should know my rules by this, seein’ the times we’ve sailed together. When I’m cook, I’m plain cook, an’ you’re Cap’n; an’ cook I am till the end of the first dog-watch. What you got to do, you know blame well, seein’ we talked it all out last night.”

  “Very good, Sir,” said Captain Gell to his distinctly unorthodox Owner, and immediately gave orders to heave-to, whilst Cargunka continued meditatively to peel spuds; and, between whiles, he read lines from his small pocket volume of Byron’s Poems, which, as usual, was propped up on the low dresser before him.

  It is difficult to analyse with exactness just why Cargunka, who, as I have remarked before, was a man of very considerable wealth, persisted in signing-on in his own vessel as cook.

  Possibly, the reasons were varied. He had, as we know, an extraordinary mania for cooking, just as some men have an invincible desire to carpenter, or to tinker with clocks, or to garden, and the situation afforded him every excuse to satisfy his natural tastes in this line. He certainly enjoyed cooking, as only the born chef can enjoy that troublesome art.

  Also, it is possible that he liked the somewhat bizarre situation of occupying the position of cook, whilst he was, at the same time, Owner of the vessel. Futher, he saved the wages of a cook by doing the work himself. For, as he told Monkton, he carried no idlers in his ships; and was known to be as close in the matter of wages as any ship Owner of them all. But, to make up for this, he certainly fed his crews magnificently; so well, in fact, that when it was known that he intended to make a trip, he could have his pick of sailormen for the voyage. This speaks for itself.