by B. M. Bower
*CHAPTER XIX*
*A LECTURE WASTED*
That evening Tex had a caller in the person of Henry Williams, whoseemed to be carrying quite a load of suspicion and responsibility. Henodded sourly, and nonchalantly seated himself on a chair at the otherside of the door. His troubled mind was not hidden from the marshal,who could read surface indications of a psychological nature as well asany man in the West. No small part of his poker skill was built uponthat ability. Should he lead his visitor by easy and natural stages tounburden himself; make a hearty, blunt opening, or make him blurt outhis thoughts and go on the defensive at once? Having anything butrespect and liking for the vicious nephew, he determined to make him asuncomfortable as possible. So he paid him the courtesy of a glance andresumed his apparently deep cogitations.
Henry waited for a few minutes, studying the ground and the front of hisuncle's store and then coughed impatiently.
'"Tis that," responded Tex abstractedly; "but hot, an' close. I wasthinkin'," he said, definitely.
Henry looked up inquiringly: "Yes?"
"Yes," said the marshal gravely. "I was." His tone repulsed anycomment and he kept on thinking from where he had left off.
Henry shifted on the chair and recrossed his legs, one foot starting toswing gently to and fro. To put himself _en rapport_ with hisforbidding companion, he too, began thinking; or at least he simulated athinker. The swinging foot stopped, jiggled up and down a few times, andbegan swinging more energetically. Soon he began drumming on the chairwith the fingers of one hand. Presently he shifted his position again,recrossed his legs, grunted, and drummed alternately with the fingers ofboth hands. Then they drummed in unison, the nails of one set clickingwith the rolling of the pads of the fingers of the other hand. Then hepuckered his lips and began to whistle.
"Don't do that!" snapped Tex, and returned to his cogitations.
"What? Which?" asked Henry, starting.
"That!" exploded the marshal savagely and lapsed into intenseconcentration.
Henry's lips straightened and he looked down at the drumming fingers,and stopped them. Squirming on the chair, he uncrossed his legs andpushed them out before him, intently regarding the two rounded groves inthe dust made by his high heels. Then he glanced covertly at hisfrowning companion, cleared his throat tentatively, and became quiet asthe frown changed into a scowl.
The marshal thought that his visitor must have something important onhis mind, something needing tact and velvety handling. Otherwise hewould have become discouraged by this time and left. Was it about Jane?That would be the natural supposition, but he slowly abandoned it.Henry never had shown any timidity when speaking about her. It must besomething concerning the riot in the hotel.
"I say it can't be nothin' else!" fiercely muttered the marshal, hischair dropping solidly to all fours as he rammed a fist into an openpalm. "No, sir! It _can't!_" He glared at his companion. "What didyou say?"
"Huh?" demanded Henry, his chair also dropping to all fours because ofthe impetus it had received from his sudden start. "What for?" he askedinanely.
"What for what?" growled Tex accusingly. "Who said: 'What for'?"
"I did: I just wanted to know," hastily explained Henry in frank amity.
"That's what you said!" retorted Tex, leaning tensely toward him; "butwhat did you mean?" he demanded.
"What you talkin' about?" queried Henry, truly and sincerely wondering.
"Don't you try to fool me!" warned Tex. "Don't pretend you don't know!An' let me tell you this. You are wrong, like th' ministers an' all th'rest of th' theologians. That's th' truest hypothesis man everpostulated. It proves itself, I tell you! From th' diffused,homogeneous, gaseous state, whirlin' because of molecular attraction,into a constantly more compact, matter state, constantly becomin' moreheterogeneous as pressure varies an' causes a variable temperature ofth' mass. Integration an' heterogeneity! From th' cold of th' diffusedgases to th' terrific heat generated by their pressure toward th' commoncenter of attraction. Can't you see it, man?"
Henry's mouth remained open and inarticulate.
"You won't answer, like all th' rest!" accused Tex. "An' what heat! Onehuge molten ball, changing th' force of th' planets nearest, shiftingth' universal balance to new adjustments. 'Equilibrium!' demandsNature. An' so th' struggle goes on, ever tryin' to gain it, an' allusmakin' new equilibriums necessary, like a dog chasin' a flea on th' endof his spine. Six days an' a breathin' space!" he jeered. "Sixtrillion years, more likely, an' no time for breathin' spaces! What yougot to say to that, hey? Answer me this: What form of force does th'integration postulate? Centrifugal? Hah!" he cried. "You thought youhad me there, didn't you? No, sir; not centrifugal--centripetal!Integration--centripetal! Gravity proves it. Centrifugal is th'destroyer, th' maker of satellites--not th' builder! Bah!" he grunted."You can't disprove a word of it! Try it--just try it!"
Henry shook his head slowly, drew a deep breath and sought a morecomfortable position. "These here chairs are hard, ain't they?" heremarked, feeling that he had to say something. Surely it was safe tosay that.
Tex leaped to his feet and scowled down at him. "Evadin', are you?" hedemanded. Then his voice changed and he placed a kindly hand on hiscompanion's shoulder. "There ain't no use tryin' to refute it,Hennery," he said. "It can't be done--no, sir--it can't be done. Don'tyou ever argue with me again about this, Hennery--it only leads usnowhere. Was it Archimedes who said he could move th' earth if he onlyhad some place to stand? He wasn't goin' to try to lift himself by hisboot straps, was he, th' old fox? That's th' trouble, Hennery: after allis said we still got to find some place to stand." He glanced overHenry's head to see Doctor Horn smiling at him and he wondered how muchof his heavy lecture the physician had heard. Had he expected aneducated man to be an auditor he would have been more careful. "That wasth' greatest hypothesis of all--the hypothesis of Laplace--it answeredth' supposedly unanswerable. Science was no longer on th' defensive,Hennery," he summed up for the newcomer's benefit.
"Truly said!" beamed the doctor, getting a little excited. "In proof ofits mechanical possibility Doctor Plateau demonstrated, with whirlingwater, that it was not a possibility, but a fact. The nebularhypothesis is more and more accepted as time goes on, by all thinkingmen who have no personal reasons strong enough to make them oppose it."He clapped the stunned Henry on the back. "Trot out your refutationsand the marshal and I will knock them off their pins! Bring on yourtheologians, your special-creation adherents, and we'll pulverize themunder the pestle of cold reason in the mortar of truth! But I neverthought you were interested in such beautiful abstractions, Henry; Inever dreamed that inductive and deductive reasoning, confined to purelyscientific questions appealed to you. What needless loneliness I havesuffered; what opportunities I have missed; what a dearth ofintellectual exercise, and all because I took for granted that no one inthis town was competent to discuss either side of such subjects. Buthe's got you with Laplace, Henry; got you hard and fast, if you hold tothe tenets of special creation. Now that there are two of us againstyou, I'll warrant you a rough passage, my friend. 'Come, let's e'en atit!' We'll give you the floor, Henry--and here's where I really enjoymyself for the first time in three weary, dreary years. We'll rout yourgeneralities with specific facts; we'll refute your ambiguities withprecisions; we'll destroy your mythological conceptions with rationalconceptions; your symbolical conceptions with actual conceptions; yourfoundation of faith by showing the genesis of that faith--couch yourlance, but look to yourself, for you see before your ill-sorted array aRoman legion--short swords and a flexible line. Its centurions aregeology, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, and mathematics.Nothing taken for granted there! No pious hopes, but solid facts,proved and re-proved. Come on, Henry--proceed to your Waterloo!Special creation indeed! Comparative anatomy, single-handed, will proveit false!"
"My G--d!" muttered Henry, forgetting his m
ission entirely. His headwhirled, his feet were slipping so rapidly that he did not know where hewas going. He stared, open-mouthed at Doctor Horn, dumbly at themarshal, got up, sat down, and then slumped back against his chair,helpless, hopeless, fearing the worst. Over his head hurled words hethought to be foreign, as his companions, having annihilated him, wereperforming evolutions and exercises of their verbal arms for the sheerjoy of it. Finally, despairing of the lecture ever ending, he arose toescape, but was pushed back again by the excited, exultant doctor.Daylight faded, twilight passed, and it was not until darkness descendedthat the doctor, finding no opposition, but hearty accord instead, tiredof the sound of his own voice and that of the marshal, and after profuseexpressions of friendship and pleasure, departed, his head high, hisshoulders squared, and his tread firm and militant.
Henry's sigh of relief sounded like the exhaust of an engine and heshifted again on the chair and tried to collect his scattered senses.Before he could get started the marshal sent him off on a new track, andhis unspoken queries remained unspoken for another period.
"Seen Miss Saunders yet?" asked Tex, struggling hard to conceal hislaughter.
Henry shook his head. "No; but I ain't goin' to wait much longer. Idon't see no signs of her weakenin', an' that C Bar puncher is gittin'too cussed common around her house. For a peso I'd toss him in th'discard. I reckon yore way ain't no good with her, Marshal. I got todo somethin'--got to get some action."
"I know about how you feel," sympathized Tex. "I know how hard it is toset quiet an' wait in a thing like this, Hennery, even if action doeslose th' game. Who was it you aimed to have perform th' ceremony?"
"Oh, there's a pilot down to Willow--one of them roamin' preachers thatreckons he's found a place where he can stick. He'll come up here ifth' pay's big enough, an' if I want any preacher. He'll only have tostay over one night to git a train back ag'in. Anyhow, if we has to waita day or two it won't make much difference, as long as we're goin' togit hitched afterward."
Tex closed his eyes and waited to get a good hold on himself beforereplying. "He'll come for Gus, all right," he said. "Think you canhold out a few days more--just to see if my way will work? It'll bebetter, all around, if you do. Where was you aimin' to buy thempresents for her?"
"Kansas City or St. Louie--reckon St. Louie will be better. Gus getsmost of his supplies from there. You still thinkin' stockin's is th'proper idea?"
Tex cogitated a moment. "No; they're a little embarrassin': better trygloves. I'll find out th' size from her brother. Nice, long whitegloves for th' weddin'--an' mebby a nice shawl to go with 'em--Cashmere,with a long fringe. They're better than stockin's. You send for 'eman' wait till they come before you go around. You shouldn't goempty-handed on a visit like that. An' you want th' minister with youwhen you go after her--you can leave him outside till he's needed.Folks'll talk, an' make trouble for you later. There's tight rules forweddin's; very tight rules. You don't want nobody pokin' their fingersat yore wife, Hennery. It'll shore mean a killin', some day."
"I ain't so cussed anxious to git married," growled Henry. "It's hardto git loose ag'in--but I reckon mebby I better go through with it."
"I--reckon--you--had," whispered Tex, his vision clouding for a moment.He grew strangely quiet, as though he had been mesmerized.
"A man can allus light out if he gits tired of it," reflected Henrycomplacently.
The marshal arose and paced up and down, thankful for the darkness,which hid the look of murder graven on his face. "Yes," he acquiesced;"a man--allus--can--do--that." This conversation was torturing him.Anything would be a relief, and he threw away the results of all hisformer talking. "What was on yore mind when you come down to see metoday?"
"Oh!" exclaimed his companion a little nervously. "I plumb forgot allabout it. You see," he hesitated, shifting again on the chair, "well,it's like this. Us boys admires th' way you handled things in th' hotelthis afternoon, but somebody might 'a' been killed. 'Tain't fair to leta passel of Irish run this town--an' they started th' fight, anyhow.Th' big Mick kicked Jordan's gun out of his hand an' jumped on him. Thenth' others piled in, an' th' show begun. We sort of been thinkin' thatth' marshal ought to back up his town ag'in' them foreigners. Gus ismad about it--an' he's bad when he gits his back up. He thinks we oughtto go down to th' railroad an' run them Micks out of town on some sharprails, beatin' 'em up first so they won't come back. Th' boys kindacotton to that idea. They're gettin' restless an' hard to hold. Ithought I'd find out what side yo're on."
Tex stopped his pacing, alert as a panther. "I ain't on no side but lawan' order," he slowly replied. "I told that section-gang to stay on th'right-of-way. They're leavin' town early tomorrow mornin', an' may notcome back. A mob's a bad thing, Hennery: there's no tellin' where it'llstop. Most of 'em will be full of likker, an' a drunken mob likesbright fires. Let 'em fire one shack an' th' whole town will go: hotel,Mecca, an' all. It's yore best play to hold 'em down, or you an' yoreuncle will shore lose a lot of money. Th' right-of-way is th' deadline: I'll hold it ag'in' either side as long as I can pull a trigger.You hold 'em back, Hennery; an' if you can't, don't you get out in th'front line--stay well behind!"
"Mob's do get excited," conceded Henry, thoughtfully. "Reckon I'll gosee what Gus thinks about it. See you later."
Tex watched him walk away, silhouetted against the faintly illuminatedstore windows, and as the door slammed behind him the marshal shiftedhis heavy belts and went slowly up the street and into the hotel, wherehe received a cold welcome. Seeing that the room was fairly wellcrowded, accounting for most of the men in town and all of the afternooncrowd, he sat in a corner from where he could see both doors andeverything going on.
In a few minutes Gus Williams and Henry entered and began mixing withthe crowd, which steadily grew more quiet, but more sullen, like somewild beast held back from its prey. Henry sat at one table, surroundedby his closest friends, while his uncle held court at another. Thenephew was drinking steadily and his glances at the quiet marshal becamemore and more suspicious. Around midnight, the temper of the crowdsuiting him, Tex arose and went down the street toward his office,passed around it and circled back over the uneven plain, silentlyreaching the railroad near the box car.
Murphy quietly crept out of his bunk, gun in hand, and slipped to thedoor, pressing his ear against it. Again the drumming of the fingerssounded, but after what had occurred earlier in the day he wanted morethan a tapping before he opened the door or betrayed his presence in thecar. Soon he heard his name softly called and recognized the voice. Asquietly as he could, he slid back the door and peered into the caller'sface from behind a leveled gun.
"Don't let that go off," chuckled Tex, stepping inside. "Close th'door, Tim."
Murphy obeyed and felt his way to his visitor and they held aconversation which lasted for an hour. Tex's plans of action in certaincontingencies were more than acceptable to the section-boss and he wentover them until he was letter-perfect. To every question he gave ananswer pleasing to the marshal and when the latter left to go up andguard the toolshed and its inmates he felt more genuine relief than hehad known since he had become actively engaged in the town's activities.Things were rapidly approaching a crisis and the knowledge had filledhim with dread; now let it come--he was ready to meet it.
Silently he chose a position against the railroad embankment close tothe toolshed and here he remained until dawn. Murphy and Costiganpassed him in the darkness on a nearly silent hand car, going west, butdid not see him; and he did not know that they had returned until thesky paled. For some time he had heard a bustling in the building, andjust as he was ready to leave he saw the section-gang roll out their ownhand car and go rumbling up the line toward Scrub Oak.