“And is this the quickest way there?’
“Most certainly.”
With this the stranger lapsed into moody silence again.
Lem looked from the window of the limousine and saw that the cars and trucks were growing less in number. Soon they disappeared from the streets altogether. The people also became fewer till no more than an occasional pedestrian was to be observed and then only of the lowest type.
As the car approached an extremely disreputable neighborhood, the bearded stranger drew the shade of one of its two windows.
“Why did you do that?” demanded Lem.
“Because the sun hurts my eyes,” he said as he deliberately drew the other shade, throwing the interior into complete darkness.
These acts made Lem think that all was not quite as it should be.
“I must have one or both of these shades up,” he said, reaching for the nearest one to raise it.
“And I say that they must both remain down,” returned the man in a low harsh voice.
“What do you mean, sir?”
A strong hand suddenly fastened in a grip of iron on Lem’s throat, and these words reached his ears:
“I mean, Lemuel Pitkin, that you are in the power of the Third International.”
23
Although thus suddenly attacked, Lem grappled with his assailant, determined to sell his life as dearly as possible.
The lad had been one of the best athletes in the Ottsville High School, and when aroused he was no mean adversary, as the bearded man soon discovered. He tore at the hand which was strangling him and succeeded in removing it from his throat, but when he tried to cry out for help, he discovered that the terrible pressure had robbed him of his vocal powers.
Even if he had been able to cry out it would have been useless for him to do so because the chauffeur was in the plot. Without once looking behind, he stepped on his accelerator and turned sharply into a noisome, dark alley.
Lem struck out savagely and landed a stiff blow in his opponent’s face. That worthy uttered a fierce imprecation but did not strike back. He was fumbling for something in his pocket.
Lem struck again, and this time his hand caught in the beard. It proved to be false and came away readily.
Although it was dark in the car, if you had been sitting in it, dear reader, you would have recognized our hero’s assailant to be none other than the fat man in the Chesterfield overcoat. Lem, however, did not recognize him because he had never seen him before.
Suddenly, as he battled with the stranger, he felt something cold and hard against his forehead. It was a pistol.
“Now, you fascist whelp, I have you! If you so much as move a finger, I’ll blow you to hell!”
These words were not spoken; they were snarled.
“What do you want of me?” Lem managed to gasp. “You were going to dig gold with Mr. Whipple. Where is the mine located?”
“I don’t know,” said Lem, speaking the truth, for Shagpoke had kept secret their final destination.
“You do know, you damned bourgeois. Tell me or…” He was interrupted by the wild scream of a siren. The car swerved and bucked wildly, then there was a terrific crash. Lem felt as though he were being whirled rapidly through a dark tunnel full of clanging bells. Everything went black, and the last thing he was conscious of was a sharp, stabbing pain in his left hand.
When the poor lad recovered consciousness, he found himself stretched out upon a sort of a cot and he realized that he was still being carried somewhere. Near his head sat a man in a white suit, who was calmly smoking a cigar. Lem knew he was no longer in the limousine, for he saw that the rear end of the conveyance was wide open and admitted a great deal of light and air.
“What happened?” he asked naturally enough.
“So you are coming around, eh?” said the man in the white suit. “Well, I guess you will get well all right.” “But what happened?”
“You were in a bad smash-up.”
“A smash-up?…Where are you taking me?”
“Don’t get excited and I’ll answer your questions. The limousine in which you were riding was struck by a fire engine and demolished. The driver must have run off, for you were the only one we found at the wreck. This is the ambulance of the Lake Shore Hospital and you are being taken there.”
Lem now understood what he had been through, and thanked God that he was still alive.
“I hope you are not a violinist,” the interne added mysteriously.
“No, I don’t play, but why?”
“Because your left hand was badly mangled and I had to remove a part of it. The thumb, to be explicit.”
Lem sighed deeply, but being a brave lad he forced himself to think of other things.
“What hospital is this ambulance from did you say?” “The Lake Shore.”
“Do you know how a patient called Nathan Whipple is getting on? He was run over on the fair grounds by a sightseeing bus.”
“We have no patient by that name.”
“Are you certain?”
“Absolutely. I know every accident case in the hospital.” Of a sudden everything became clear to Lem. “Then he tricked me with a lie!” he cried.
“Who did?” asked the interne.
Lem ignored his question. “What time is it?” he demanded.
“One o’clock.”
“I have still fifteen minutes to make the train. Stop and let me off, please.”
The ambulance doctor stared at our hero and wondered if the lad had gone crazy.
“I must get off,” repeated Lem frantically.
“As a private citizen you of course can do as you like, but I advise you to go to the hospital.”
“No,” said Lem, “please, I must get to the depot at once. I have to catch a train.”
“Well, I certainly admire your pluck. By George, I have half a mind to help you.”
“Do,” begged Lem.
Without further argument, the interne told his driver to head for the depot at top speed and to ignore all traffic laws. After an exciting ride through the city, they arrived at their destination just as “The Chief” was about to pull out.
24
As Lem had suspected, Mr. Whipple and his other friends were safe on the train. When they saw his bandaged hand, they demanded an explanation and the poor lad told the story of his adventure with the agent of the Third International. They were astounded and angered, as well they might be.
“One day,” Mr. Whipple said ominously, “heads will roll in the sand, bearded and unbearded alike.”
The rest of the trip proved uneventful. There happened to be an excellent doctor on board and he had our hero’s hand in fair shape by the time the train reached southern California.
After several days of travel on horseback, the little party arrived at the Yuba River in the high Sierra Mountains. It was on one of the tributaries of this river that Jake Raven’s gold mine was located.
Next to the diggings was a log cabin, which the men of the party soon had in a livable condition. Mr. Whipple and Betty occupied it, while Lem and the redskin made their bed under the stars.
One evening, after a hard day’s work at the mine, the four friends were sitting around a fire drinking coffee when a man appeared who might have sat for the photograph of a Western bad man without any alteration in his countenance or apparel.
He wore a red flannel shirt, pants of leather with the hair still on them and a Mexican sombrero. He had a bowie knife in his boot and displayed two pearl-handled revolvers very ostentatiously.
When he was about two rods away from the group, he hailed it.
“How are you, strangers?” he asked.
“Pretty comfortable,” said Shagpoke. “How fare you?”
“You’re a Yank, ain’t you?” he asked as he dismounted from his horse.
“Yes, from Vermont. Where might your home be?”
“I’m from Pike County, Missouri,” was the answer. “You’ve heard of Pike, hain’
t you?”
“I’ve heard of Missouri,” said Mr. Whipple with a smile, “but I can’t say as I ever heard of your particular county.” The man with the leather pants frowned.
“You must have been born in the woods not to have heard of Pike County,” he said. “The smartest fighters come from there. I kin whip my weight in wildcats, am a match for a dozen Injuns to oncet, and can tackle a lion without flinchin’.”
“Won’t you stop and rest with us?” said Mr. Whipple politely.
“I don’t care if I do,” was the uncouth Missourian’s rejoinder. “You don’t happen to have a bottle of whisky with you, strangers?” he asked.
“No,” said Lem.
The newcomer looked disappointed.
“I wish you had,” he said. “I feel dry as a salt herring. What are you doing here?”
“Mining,” said Mr. Whipple.
“Grubbin’ in the ground,” said the stranger with disgust. “That’s no job for a gentleman.”
This last was uttered in such a magnificent tone of disdain that everyone smiled. In his red shirt, coarse leather breeches and brown, not overclean skin, he certainly didn’t look much like a gentleman in the conventional sense of the term.
“It’s well enough to be a gentleman, if you’ve got money to fall back on,” remarked Lem sensibly but not offensively.
“Is that personal?” demanded the Pike County man, scowling and half rising from the ground.
“It’s personal to me,” said Lem quietly.
“I accept the apology,” said the Missourian fiercely. “But you’d better not rile me, stranger, for I’m powerful bad. You don’t know me, you don’t. I’m a rip-tail roarer and a ring-tail squealer, I am. I always kills the man what riles me.”
After this last bloodthirsty declaration, the man from Pike County temporarily subsided. He partook quietly of the coffee and cake which Betty served him. Suddenly he flared up again.
“Hain’t that an Injun?” he shouted, pointing at Jake Raven and reaching for his gun.
Lem stepped hastily in front of the redskin, while Shagpoke grabbed the ruffian’s wrist.
“He’s a good friend of ours,” said Betty.
“I don’t give a darn,” said the ring-tail squealer. “Turn me loose and I’ll massacree the Banged aboriginee.”
Jake Raven, however, could take care of himself. He pulled his own revolver and pointing it at the bad man said, “Rascal shut up or me kill um pronto quick.”
At the sight of the Indian’s drawn gun, the ruffian calmed down.
“All right,” he said, “but it’s my policy always to shoot an Injun on sight. The only good Injun is a dead one, is what I alluz say.”
Mr. Whipple sent Jake Raven away from the fire and there was a long silence, during which everyone stared at the cheery flames. Finally the man from Pike County again broke into speech, this time addressing Lem.
“How about a game of cards, sport?” he asked. With these words he drew a greasy pack out of his pocket and shuffled them with great skill.
“I have never played cards in my life,” said our hero. “Where was you raised?” demanded the Missourian contemptuously.
“Ottsville, State of Vermont,” said Lem. “I don’t know one card from another, and don’t want to know.”
In no way abashed, the Pike man said, “I’ll larn you. How about a game of poker?”
Mr. Whipple spoke up. “We do not permit gambling in this camp,” he said firmly.
“That’s durn foolishness,” said the stranger, whose object it was to victimize his new friends, being an expert gambler.
“Perhaps it is,” said Mr. Whipple. “But that’s our business.”
“Look here, hombre,” blustered the bully. “I reckon you don’t realize who you’re a-talking to. ‘Tarnal death and massacreeation, I’m the rip-tail roarer, I am.”
“You told us that before,” said Mr. Whipple quietly.
“Blood and massacreeation, if I don’t mean it, too,” exclaimed the Missourian with a fierce scowl. “Do you know how I treated a man last week?”
“No,” said Mr. Whipple, truthfully.
“We was ridin’ together over in Almeda County. We’d, met permiscuous, like we’ve met tonight. I was tellin’ him how four b’ars attacked me to oncet, and how I fit ‘em all single-handed, when he laughed and said he reckoned I’d been drinkin’ and seed double. If he’d a-know’d me better he wouldn’t have done it.”
“What did you do?” asked Betty in horror.
“What did I do, madam?” echoed the Pike County man ferociously. “I told him he didn’t realize who he’d insulted. I told him I was a ring-tail squealer and a rip-tail roarer. I told him that he had to fight, and asked him how it would be. Foot and fist, or tooth and nail, or claw and mudscraper, or knife, gun and tommyhawk.”
“Did he fight?” asked Lem.
“He had to.”
“How did it come out?”
“I shot him through the heart,” said the Missourian coldly. “His bones are bleachin’ in the canyon where he fell.”
25
The next day, the Pike County man lay on his blankets until about eleven o’clock in the morning. He only got up when Lem, Jake and Shagpoke returned from their work on the creek to eat lunch. They were surprised to see him still in camp, but said nothing out of politeness.
Although they did not know it, the Missourian had not been sleeping. He had been lying under a tree, thinking dirty thoughts as he watched Betty go about her household chores.
“I’m hungry,” he announced with great truculence. “When do we eat?”
“Won’t you share our lunch?” asked Mr. Whipple with a sarcastic smile that was completely lost on the uncouth’ fellow.
“Thank ye, stranger, I don’t mind if I do,” the Pike County man said. “My fodder give out just before I made your camp, and I hain’t found a place to stock up.” He displayed such an appetite that Mr. Whipple regarded him with anxiety. The camp was short of provisions, and if the stranger kept eating like that he would have to take a trip into town that very afternoon for more food.
“You have a healthy appetite, my friend,” Mr. Whipple said.
“I generally have,” said the Pike man. “You’d orter keep some whisky to wash these vittles down with.”
“We prefer coffee,” said Lem.
“Coffee is for children, whisky for strong men,” was the ring-tail squealer’s rejoinder.
“I still prefer coffee,” Lem said firmly.
“Bah!” said the other, disdainfully; “I’d as soon drink skim milk. Good whisky or cawn for me.”
“The only thing I miss in this camp,” said Mr. Whipple, “is baked beans and brown bread. Ever eat ‘em, stranger?” “No,” said the Pike man, “none of your Yankee truck for me.”
“What’s your favorite food?” asked Lem with a smile.
“Sow teats and hominy, hoe cakes and forty-rod.”
“Well,” said Lem, “it depends on how you’ve been brought up. I like baked beans and brown bread and pumpkin pie. Ever eat pumpkin pie?”
“Yes.”
“Like it?”
“I don’t lay much on it.”
Throughout this dialogue, the stranger ate enormous quantities of food and drank six or seven cups of coffee. Mr. Whipple realized that the damage was done and that he would have to go into the town of Yuba for a fresh supply of provisions.
Having finished three cans of pineapple, the Pike man became social over one of Mr. Whipple’s cigars, which he had taken without so much as a “by-your-leave.”
“Strangers,” he said, “did you ever hear of the affair I had with Jack Scott?”
“No,” said Mr. Whipple.
“Jack and me used to be a heap together. We went huntin’ together, camped out for weeks together, and was like two brothers. One day we was a-ridin’ out, when a deer started up about fifty yards ahead of us. We both raised our guns and shot at him. There was only one bullet into him,
and I knowed it was mine.”
“How did you know it?” asked Lem.
“Don’t you get curious, stranger. I knowed it, and that was enough. But Jack said it was his. ‘It’s my deer,’ he says, ‘for you missed your shot.’ ‘Looka here, Jack,’ says I, ‘you’re mistaken. You missed it. Don’t you think I know my own bullet?’ ‘No, I don’t,’ says he. ‘Jack,’ says I calmly, ‘don’t talk that way. It’s dangerous.’ `Do you think I’m afraid of you?’ he says turnin’ on me. ‘Jack,’ says I, `don’t provoke me. I kin whip my weight in wildcats.’ ‘You can’t whip me,’ he says. That was too much for me to stand. I’m the rip-tail roarer from Pike County, Missouri, and no man can insult me and live. ‘Jack,’ says I, ‘we’ve been friends, but you’ve insulted me and you must pay with your life.’ Then I up with my iron and shot him through the head.”
“My, how cruel!” exclaimed Betty.
“I was sorry to do it, beautiful gal, for he was my best friend, but he disputed my word, and the man that does that has to make his will if he’s got property.”
No one said anything, so the Pike man continued to talk.
“You see,” he said with a friendly smile. “I was brought up on fightin’. When I was a boy I could whip every boy in the school.”
“That’s why they call you a rip-tail roarer,” said Mr. Whipple jokingly.
“You’re right, pardner,” said the Pike man complacently. “What did you do when the teacher gave you a licking?” asked Mr. Whipple.
“What did I do?” yelled the Missourian with a demoniac laugh.
“Yes, what?” asked Mr. Whipple.
“Why, I shot him dead,” said the Pike man briefly. “My,” said Mr. Whipple with a smile. “How many teachers did you shoot when you were a boy?”
“Only one. The rest heard of it and never dared touch me.”
After this last statement, the desperado lay down under a tree to finish in comfort the cigar he tad snatched from Mr. Whipple.
Seeing that he did not intend to move just yet, the others proceeded to go about their business. Lem and Jake Raven went to the mine, which was about a mile from the cabin. Shagpoke saddled his horse for the ride into town after a fresh stock of provisions. Betty occupied herself over the washtub.