The Law-Breakers
Helen laughed joyously. “I’m real glad he’s not silly,” she cried. “Let’s see. He’s big. He’s got blue eyes. He’s good looking. He’s – he’s like a whirlwind. He’s got lots of money.” She counted the attractions off on her fingers. “Guess I’ll sure have to marry him,” she finished up with a little nod of finality.
Kate turned a flushed face in her direction.
“For goodness sake, Helen!” she cried in horror.
Helen’s gray eyes opened to their fullest extent.
“Why, whatever’s the matter, Kate?” she exclaimed. “Of course, I’ll have to marry Big Brother Bill. Why, his very name appeals to me. May I, Charlie?” she went on, turning to the smiling man. “Would you like me for – a – a sister? I’m not a bad sort, am I, Kate?” she appealed mischievously. “I can sew, and cook, and – and darn. No, I don’t mean curse words. I leave that to Kate’s hired men. They’re just dreadful. Really, I wasn’t thinking of anything worse than Big Brother Bill’s socks. When’ll he be getting around? Oh, dear, I hope it won’t be long. ’Specially if he’s a – whirlwind.”
Charlie was scanning the open pages of his letter.
“No. Guess he won’t be long,” he said, amusedly. “He says he’ll be right along here the 16th. That’s the day after to-morrow.”
Helen ran to her sister’s side, and shook her by the arm.
“Say, Kate,” she cried, her eyes sparkling with pretended excitement. “Isn’t that just great? Big Brother Bill’s coming along day after to-morrow. Isn’t it lucky I’ve just got my new suits? They’ll last me three months, and by the time I have to get my fall suits he’ll have to marry me.” Then the dancing light in her eyes sobered. “Now, where shall we live?” she went on, with a pretense of deep consideration. “Shall we go east, or – or shall we live at Charlie’s ranch? Oh, dear. It’s so important not to make any mistake. And yet – you see, Charlie’s ranch wants some one capable to look after it, doesn’t it? It’s kind of mousy. Big Brother Bill is sure to be particular – coming from the east.”
Her audience were smiling broadly. Kate understood now that her irresponsible sister was simply letting her bubbling spirits overflow. Charlie had no other feelings than frank amusement at the girl’s gaiety.
“Oh, he’s most particular,” he said readily. “You see, he’s accustomed to Broadway restaurants.”
Helen pulled a long face.
“I’m afraid your shack wouldn’t make much of a Broadway restaurant.” She shook her head with quaint solemnity. “Guess I never could get you right. Here you run a ranch, and make quite big with it, yet you never eat off a china plate, or spread your table with anything better than a newspaper. True, Charlie, you’ve got me beaten to death. Why, how you manage to run a ranch and make it pay is a riddle that ’ud put the poor old Sphinx’s nose plump out of joint. I – ”
Kate suddenly turned a pair of darkly frowning eyes upon her sister.
“You’re talking a whole heap of nonsense,” she declared severely. “What has the care of a home to do with making a ranch pay?”
Helen’s eyes opened wide with mischief.
“Say, Kate,” she cried with a great air of patronage, “you have a whole heap to learn. Big Brother Bill’s coming right along from Broadway, with money and – notions. He’s just bursting with them. Charlie’s a prosperous rancher. What does B. B. B. expect? Why, he’ll get around with fancy clothes and suitcases and trunks. He’ll dream of rides over the boundless plains, of cow-punchers with guns and things. He’ll have visions of big shoots, and any old sport, of a well-appointed ranch house, with proper fixings, and baths, and swell dinners and servants. But they’re all visions. He’ll blow in to Rocky Springs – he’s a whirlwind, mind – and he’ll find a prosperous rancher living in a tumbled-down shanty that hasn’t been swept this side of five years, a blanket-covered bunk, and a table made of packing cases with the remains of last week’s meals on it. That’s what he’ll find. Prosperous rancher, indeed. Say, Charlie,” she finished up with fine scorn, “you know as much about living as Kate’s two hired men, and dear knows they only exist.” Suddenly she broke out into a rippling laugh. “And this is what my future husband is coming to. It’s – it’s an insult to me.”
The girl paused, looking from one to the other with dancing eyes. But the more sober-minded Kate slipped her arm about her waist and began to move down the hill.
“Come along, dear,” she said. “I must get right on down to the Meeting House. I – have work to do. You would chatter on all day if I let you.”
In a moment Helen was all indignant protest.
“I like that. Say, did you hear, Charlie? She’s accusing me, and all the time it’s you doing the talking. But there, I’m always misjudged – always. She’ll accuse me of trying to trap your brother – next. Anyway, I’ve got work to do, too. I’ve got to be at Mrs. John’s for the new church meeting. So Kate isn’t everybody. Come along.”
Helen’s laughter was good to hear as she dashed off in an attempt to drag her elder sister down the hill at a run. The man looked on happily as he kept pace with them. Helen was always privileged. Her sister adored her, and the whole village of Rocky Springs yielded her a measure of popularity which made her its greatest favorite. Even the women had nothing but smiles for her merry irresponsibility, and, as for the men, there was not one who would not willingly have sacrificed even his crooked ways for her smile.
Halfway down to the village Charlie again reverted to his news.
“Helen put the rest of it out of my head,” he said, and his manner of speaking had lost the enjoyment of his earlier announcement. “It’s about the police. They’re going to set a station here. A corporal and two men. Fyles is coming, too. Inspector Fyles.” His eyes were studying Kate’s face as he made the announcement. Helen, too, was looking at her with quizzical eyes. “It’s over that whisky-running a week ago. They’re going to clean the place up. Fyles has sworn to do it. O’Brien told me this morning.”
For some moments after his announcement neither of the women spoke. Kate was thinking deeply. Nor, from her expression, would it have been possible to have guessed the trend of her thoughts.
Helen, watching her, was far more expressive. She was thinking of her sister’s admiration for the officer. She was speculating as to what might happen with Fyles stationed here in Rocky Springs. Would her beautiful sister finally yield to his very evident admiration, or would she still keep that barrier of aloofness against him? She wondered. And, wondering, there came the memory of what Fyles’s coming would mean to Charlie Bryant.
To her mind there was no doubt but that the law would quickly direct its energies against him. But she was also wondering what would happen to him should time, and a man’s persistence, finally succeed in breaking down the barrier Kate had set up against the officer. Quite suddenly this belated news assumed proportions far more significant than the coming of Big Brother Bill.
Her tongue could not remain silent for long, however. Something of her doubt had to find an outlet.
“I knew it would come sooner or later,” she declared hopelessly.
She glanced quickly at Charlie, across her sister, beside whom he was walking. The man was staring out down at the village with gloomy eyes. She read into his expression a great dread of this officer’s coming to Rocky Springs. She knew she was witnessing the outward signs of a guilty conscience. Suddenly she made up her mind.
“What – ever is to be done?” she cried, half eagerly, half fearfully. “Say, I just can’t bear to think of it. All these men, men we’ve known, men we’ve got accustomed to, even – men we like, to be herded to the penitentiary. It’s awful. There’s some I shouldn’t be sorry to see put away. They’re scallywags, anyway. They aren’t clean, and they chew tobacco, and – and curse like railroaders. But they aren’t all like – that – are they, Kate?” She paused. Then, in a desperate appeal, “Kate, I’d fire your two boys, Nick and Pete. They’re mixed up in whisky-running, I know. When Stanley Fyles gets around they’ll be corralled, sure, and I’d hate him to think we employed such men. Don’t you think that, Charlie?” she demanded, turning sharply and looking into the man’s serious face.
Then, quite suddenly, she changed her tone and relapsed into her less responsible manner, and laughed as though something humorous had presented itself to her cheerful fancy.
“Guess I’d have to laugh seeing those two boys doing the chores around a penitentiary for – five years. They’d be cleaner then. Guess they get bathed once a week. Then the funny striped clothes they wear. Can’t you see Nick, with his long black hair all cut short, and his vulture neck sticking out of the top end of his clothes, like – like a thread of sewing cotton in a darning needle? Wouldn’t he look queer? And the work, too! Say, it would just break his heart. My, but they get most killed by the warders. And then for drink. Five years without tasting a drop of liquor. No – they’d go mad. Anybody would. And all for the sake of making a few odd dollars against the law. I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it, not if I’d got to starve – else.”
The man made no answer. His eyes remained upon the village below, and their expression had become lost to the anxious Helen. She was talking at him. But she was thinking not of him so much as her sister. She knew how much it would mean to Kate if Charlie Bryant were brought into direct conflict with the police. So she was offering her warning.
Kate turned to her quietly. She ignored the reference to her hired men. She knew at whom her sister’s remarks were directed. She shook her head.
“Why worry about things, Sis?” she said, in her deliberate fashion. “Lawbreakers need to be cleverer folks than those who live within the law. I guess there won’t be much whisky run into Rocky Springs with Fyles around, and the police can do nothing unless they catch the boys at it. You’re too nervous about things.” She laughed quietly. “Why, the sight of a red coat scares you worse than getting chased by a mouse.”
The sound of Kate’s voice seemed to rouse Charlie from his gloomy contemplation of the village. He turned his eyes on the woman at his side – and encountered the half-satirical smile of hers – which were as dark as his own.
“Maybe Helen’s right, though,” he said. “Maybe you’d do well to fire your boys.” He spoke deliberately, but with a shade of anxiety in his voice. “They’re known whisky-runners.”
Kate drew Helen to her side as though for moral support. “And what of the other folks who are known – or believed – to be whisky-runners – with whom we associate. Are they to be turned down, too? No, Charlie,” she went on determinedly, “I stand by my boys. I’ll stand by my friends, too. Maybe they’ll need all the help I can give them. Then it’s up to me to give it them. Fyles must do his duty as he sees it. Our duty is by our friends here, in Rocky Springs. Whatever happens in the crusade against this place, I am against Fyles. I’m only a woman, and, maybe, women don’t count much with the police,” she said, with a confident smile, “but such as I am, I am loyal to all those who have helped me in my life here in Rocky Springs, and to my – friends.”
The man drew a deep breath. Nor was it easy to fathom its meaning.
Helen, eyeing her well-loved sister, could have thrown her young arms about her neck in enthusiasm. This was the bold sister whom she had so willingly followed to the western wilds. This was the spirit she had deplored the waning of. All her apprehensions for Charlie Bryant vanished, merged in a newly awakened confidence, since her brave sister was ready to help and defend him.
She felt that Fyles’s coming to Rocky Springs was no longer to be feared. Only was it a source of excitement and interest. She felt that though, perhaps, he might never have met his match during the long years of his duties as a police officer, he had yet to pit himself against Rocky Springs – with her wonderful sister living in the village.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SOUL-SAVERS
Helen parted from her sister at the little old Meeting House. But first she characteristically admonished her for offering herself a sacrifice on the altar of the moral welfare of a village which reveled in every form of iniquity within its reach. Furthermore, she threw in a brief homily on the subject of the outrageous absurdity of turning herself into a sort of “hired woman” in the interests of a sepulcher whose whitewash was so obviously besmirched.
With the departure of the easy-going Kate, Charlie Bryant suddenly awoke to the claims of the work at his ranch. He must return at once, or disaster would surely follow.
Helen smiled at his sudden access of zeal, and welcomed his going without protest. Truth to tell, she never failed to experience a measure of relief at the avoidance of being alone with him.
Left to herself she moved on down toward the village without haste. Her enthusiasm for the new church meeting at the house of Mrs. John Day, who was the leading woman in the village, and, incidentally, the wife of its chief citizen, who also owned a small lumber yard, was of a lukewarm character. She had much more interest in the building itself, and the motley collection of individuals in whose hands its practical construction lay.
She possessed none of her sister’s interest in Rocky Springs. Her humor denied her serious contemplation of anything in it but the opposite sex. And even here it frequently trapped her into pitfalls which demanded the utmost exercise of her ready wit to extricate her from. No, serious contemplation of her surroundings would have certainly bored her, had it been possible to shadow her sunny nature. Fortunately, the latter was beyond the reach of the sordid life in the midst of which she found herself, and she never failed to laugh her merry way to those plains of delight belonging to an essentially happy disposition.
As she walked down the narrow trail, with the depths of green woods lining it upon either hand, she remembered how beautiful the valley really was. Of course, it was beautiful. She knew it. Was she not always being told it? She was never allowed to forget it. Sometimes she wished she could.
Down the trail a perfect vista of riotous foliage opened out before her eyes. There, too, in the distance, peeping through the trees, were scattered profiles of oddly designed houses, possessing a wonderful picturesqueness to which they had no real claims. They borrowed their beauty from the wealth of the valley, she told herself. Like the people who lived in them, they had no claims to anything bordering on the refinements or virtues of life. No, they were mockeries, just as was the pretense of virtue which inspired the building of the new church by a gathering of men and women, who, if they had their deserts, would be attending divine service within the four walls of the penitentiary.
She laughed. Really it was absurdly laughable. Life in this wonderful valley was something in the nature of a tragic farce. The worst thing was that the farce of it all could only be detected by the looker-on. There was no real farce in these people, only tragedy – a very painful and hideous tragedy.
On her way down she passed the great pine which for years had served as a beacon marking the village. It was higher up on the slope of the valley, but its vast trunk and towering crest would not be denied.
Helen gazed up at it, wondering, as many times she had gazed and wondered before. It was a marvelous survival of primæval life. It was so vast, so forbidding. Its torn crown, so sparse and weary looking, its barren trunk, too, dark and forbidding against the dwarfed surroundings of green, were they not a fit beacon for the village below? It suggested to her imagination a giant, mouldering skeleton of some dreadfully evil creature. How could virtue maintain in its vicinity?
She laughed again as she thought. She knew there was some weird old legend associated with it, some old Indian folklore. But that left no impression of awe upon her laughter-loving nature.
Farther on the new church came into view. It was in the course of construction, and at once her attention became absorbed. Here was a scene which thoroughly appealed to her. Here was movement, and – life. Here was food for her most appreciative observation.
It was a Church. Not a Meeting House. Not even a Chapel. She felt quite sure, had the villagers had their way, it would have been called a Cathedral. There was nothing half-hearted about these people. They recognized the necessity of giving their souls a lift up, with a view to an after life, and they meant to do it thoroughly.
They had no intention of mending their ways. They had no thought of abandoning any of their pursuits or pleasures, be they never so deplorable. But they felt that something had better be done toward assurance of their futures. A Meeting House suggested something too inadequate to meet their special case. It was right enough as far as it went, but it didn’t go far enough. They realized the journey might be very long and the ultimate destination uncertain. A Chapel had its claims in their minds, but Church seemed much stronger, bigger, more powerful to help them in those realms of darkness to which they must all eventually descend. Of course, Cathedral would have been the thing. With a cathedral in Rocky Springs they would have felt certain of their hereafter. But the difficulties of laying hands on a bishop, and claiming him for their own, seemed too overwhelming. So they accepted Church as being the best they could do under the circumstances.
Quite a number of men were standing idly around the structure, watching others at work. It was a weakness of the citizens of Rocky Springs to watch others work. They had no desire to help. They rarely were beset with any desire to help anybody. They simply clustered together in small groups, chewing tobacco, or smoking, and, to a man, their hands were indolently thrust into the tops of their trousers, which, in every case, were girdled with a well-laden ammunition belt, from which was suspended at least one considerable revolver.
There was no doubt in Helen’s mind but that these weapons were loaded in every chamber, and the thought set her merry eyes dancing again.
These men wanted a church, and were there to see they had it. Woe betide – but, was there ever such a gathering of unclean, unholy humanity? She thought not.
Helen knew that every man and woman in the village had had some voice in the erection of the new church. There was not a citizen – they all possessed the courtesy title of “citizens” – in Rocky Springs, who had not contributed something toward it. Those who had wherewithal to give in money or kind, had given. Those who had nothing else to give gave their labor. She guessed the present onlookers had already done their share of giving, and were now there to see that their less fortunate brethren did not attempt to shirk their responsibilities.
For a moment, as the girl drew near, she abandoned her study of the men for a rapid survey of the building itself, and, in a way, it held her flattering attention. As yet there was no roof on it, but the walls were up, and the picturesqueness of the design of the building was fully apparent. Then she remembered that Charlie Bryant had designed the building, and somehow the thought lessened her interest.
The whole thing was constructed of lateral, raw pine logs, carefully dovetailed, with the ends protruding at the angles. There was no great originality of design, merely the delightful picturesqueness which unstripped logs never fail to yield. She knew that every detail of the building was to be carried out in the same way. The roof, the spire, the porches, even the fence which was ultimately to enclose the churchyard.
Then the inside was to be lined throughout with polished red pine. There was not a brick or stone to be used in the whole construction, except in the granite foundations, which did not appear above ground. The lumber was hewn in the valley and milled in John Day’s yard. The entire labor of hauling and building was to be done by the citizens of Rocky Springs. The draperies, necessary for the interior, would be made by the busy needles of the women of the village, and the materials would be supplied by Billy Unguin, the dry goods storekeeper. As for the stipend of the officiating parson, that would be scrambled together in cash and kind from similar sources.
The church was to be a monument, a tribute to a holy zeal, which the methods of life in Rocky Springs denied. Its erection was an attempt to steal absolution for the sins of its citizens. It was the pouring of a flood of oil upon the turbulent waters of an after life which Rocky Springs knew was waiting to engulf its little craft laden with tattered souls. It was a practical bribe to the Deity its people had so long outraged, were still outraging, and had every intention of continuing to outrage.
Helen’s merry eyes glanced from group to group of the men, until they finally came to rest upon an individual standing apart from the rest.
She walked on toward him.
He was a forbidding-looking creature, with a hard face, divided in its expression between evil thoughts and a malicious humor. His general appearance was much that of the rest of the men, with the exception that he made no display of offensive weapons. It was not this, however, that drew Helen in his direction, for she well enough knew that, in fact, he was a perfect gunpark of concealed firearms. She liked him because he never failed to amuse her.
“Good morning, Dirty,” she greeted him cheerfully, as she came up, smiling into his bearded face.
Dirty O’Brien turned. In a moment his wicked eyes were smiling. With an adept twist of the tongue his chew of tobacco ceased to bulge one cheek, and promptly distended the other.
“Howdy,” he retorted, with as much amiability as it was possible for him to display.
The girl nodded in the direction of the other onlookers.
“It’s wonderful the interest you all take in the building of this church.”
“Int’rest?” The man’s eyes opened wide. Then a gleam of scorn replaced the surprise in them. “Guess you’d be mighty int’rested if you was sittin’ on a roof with the house afire under you, an’ you just got a peek of a ladder wagon comin’ along, an’ was guessin’ if it ’ud get around in time.”
Helen’s eyes twinkled.
“I s’pose I should,” she admitted.
“S’pose nuthin’.” The saloonkeeper laughed a short, hard laugh. “It’s dead sure. But most of them boys are feelin’ mighty good. You see, the ladders mostly fixed for ’em. I’d say they reckon that fire’s as good as out.”
The interest of the onlookers was purely passive. They displayed none of the enthusiasm one might have expected in men who considered that the safety of their souls was assured. Helen remarked upon the fact.
“Their enthusiasm’s wonderful,” she declared, with a satirical laugh. “Do you think they’ll ever be able to use swear words again?”
Dirty O’Brien grinned till his discolored teeth parted the hair upon his face.
“Say, I don’t reckon to set myself up as a prophet at most things,” he replied, “but I’d like to say right here, the fixin’ of that all-fired chu’ch is jest about the limit fer the morals of this doggone city. Standin’ right here I seem to sort o’ see a vision o’ things comin’ on like a pernicious fever. I seem to see all them boys – good boys, mind you, as far as they go – only they don’t travel more’n ’bout an inch – lyin’, an’ slanderin’, an’ thievin’, an’ shootin’, an’ – an’ committin’ every blamed sin ever invented since Pharo’s daughter got busy makin’ up fairy yarns ’bout them bulrushes – ”
“I don’t think you ought to talk like that,” Helen protested hastily. “There’s no necessity to make – ”
But Dirty O’Brien was not to be denied. He promptly cut her short without the least scruple.
“No necessity?” he cried, with a sarcasm that left the girl speechless. “How in hell would you have me talk standin’ around a swell chu’ch like that? I tell you what, Miss Helen, you ain’t got this thing right. Within a month this durned city’ll all be that mussed up with itself an’ religion, the folks’ll grow a crop o’ wings enough to stock a chicken farm, an’ the boys’ll get scratchin’ around for worms, same as any other feathered fowl. They’ll get that out o’ hand with their own glory, they’ll get shootin’ up creation in the name of religion by way o’ pastime, and robbin’ the stages an’ smugglin’ liquor fer the fun o’ gettin’ around this blamed church an’ braggin’ of it to the parson. Say, if I know anything o’ the boys, in a week they’ll be shootin’ craps with the parson fer his wages, an’, in a month, they’ll set up tables around in the body o’ the chu’ch so they ken play ‘draw’ while the old man argues the shortest cut to everlastin’ glory. You ain’t got the boys in this city right, miss. Indeed, you ain’t. Chu’ch? Why they got as much notion how to act around a chu’ch as an unborn babe has of shellin’ peanuts. Folks needs eddicatin’ to a chu’ch like that. Eddicatin’? An’ that’s a word as ain’t a cuss word, and as the boys of this yer city ain’t wise to.”