For a moment his auditors were too surprised to voice
a single emotion; but presently one murmured, soulfully:
“Pipe de swag!” He of the frock coat,
golf cap, and
years waved a conciliatory hand. He tried to
look at the
boy’s face; but for the life of him he couldn’t
raise his
eyes above the dazzling wealth clutched in the fingers
of those two small, slim hands. From one dangled
a
pearl necklace which alone might have ransomed, if
not a king, at least a lesser member of a royal family,
while diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds scintil-
lated in the flaring light of the fire. Nor
was the fistful of
currency in the other hand to be sneezed at.
There were
greenbacks, it is true; but there were also yellowbacks
with the reddish gold of large denominations.
The Sky
Pilot sighed a sigh that was more than half gasp.
“Can’t yuh take a kid?” he inquired.
“I knew youse
all along. Yuh can’t fool an old bird
like The Sky Pilot
—eh, boys?” and he turned to his
comrades for confirma-
tion.
“He’s The Oskaloosa Kid,” exclaimed
one of the com-
pany. “I’d know ’im anywheres.”
“Pull up and set down,” invited another.
The boy stuffed his loot back into his pockets and
came closer to the fire. Its warmth felt most
comfort-
able, for the Spring night was growing chill.
He looked
about him at the motley company, some half-spruce
in
clothing that suggested a Kuppenmarx label and a not
too far association with a tailor’s goose, others
in rags,
all but one unshaven and all more or less dirty—for
the open road is close to Nature, which is principally
dirt.
“Shake hands with Dopey Charlie,” said
The Sky Pi-
lot, whose age and corpulency appeared to stamp him
with the hall mark of authority. The youth did
as he
was bid, smiling into the sullen, chalk-white face
and
taking the clammy hand extended toward him.
Was it a
shudder that passed through the lithe, young figure
or
was it merely a subconscious recognition of the final
pass-
ing of the bodily cold before the glowing warmth of
the
blaze? “And Soup Face,” continued
The Sky Pilot. A
battered wreck half rose and extended a pudgy hand.
Red whiskers, matted in little tangled wisps which
sug-
gested the dried ingredients of an infinite procession
of semi-liquid refreshments, rioted promiscuously
over a
scarlet countenance.
“Pleased to meetcha,” sprayed Soup Face.
It was a
strained smile which twisted the rather too perfect
mouth of The Oskaloosa Kid, an appellation which we
must, perforce, accept since the youth did not deny
it.
Columbus Blackie, The General, and Dirty Eddie
were formally presented. As Dirty Eddie was,
physi-
cally, the cleanest member of the band the youth won-
dered how he had come by his sobriquet—that
is, he
wondered until he heard Dirty Eddie speak, after which
he was no longer in doubt. The Oskaloosa Kid,
self-con-
fessed ‘tramp’ and burglar, flushed at
the lurid obscenity
of Dirty Eddie’s remarks.
“Sit down, bo,” invited Soup Face.
“I guess you’re a
regular all right. Here, have a snifter?”
and he pulled
a flask from his side pocket, holding it toward The
Os-
kaloosa Kid.
“Thank you, but;—er—I’m
on the wagon, you know,”
declined the youth.
“Have a smoke?” suggested Columbus Blackie.
“Here’s
the makin’s.”
The change in the attitude of the men toward him
pleased The Oskaloosa Kid immensely. They were
treat-
ing him as one of them, and after the lonely walk
through
the dark and desolate farm lands human companionship
of any kind was to him as the proverbial straw to
the
man who rocked the boat once too often.
Dopey Charlie and The General, alone of all the
company, waxed not enthusiastic over the advent of
The Oskaloosa Kid and his priceless loot. These
two sat
scowling and whispering in the back-ground.
“Dat’s a
wrong guy,” muttered the former to the latter.
“He’s a
stool pigeon or one of dese amatoor mugs.”
“It’s the pullin’ of that punk graft
that got my goat,”
replied The General. “I never seen a punk
yet that didn’t
try to make you think he was a wise guy an’
dis stiff
don’t belong enough even to pull a spiel that
would fool
a old ladies’ sewin’ circle. I don’t
see wot The Sky Pi-
lot’s cozyin’ up to him fer.”
“You don’t?” scoffed Dopey Charlie.
“Didn’t you lamp
de oyster harness? To say nothin’ of de
mitful of rocks
and kale.”
“That ’ud be all right, too,” replied
the other, “if we
could put the guy to sleep; but The Sky Pilot won’t
never stand for croakin’ nobody. He’s
too scared of his
neck. We’ll look like a bunch o’
wise ones, won’t we?
lettin’ a stranger sit in now—after
last night. Hell!” he
suddenly exploded. “Don’t you know
that you an’ me
stand to swing if any of de bunch gets gabby in front
of dis phoney punk?”
The two sat silent for a while, The General puffing
on
a short briar, Dopey Charlie inhaling deep draughts
from a cigarette, and both glaring through narrowed
lids
at the boy warming himself beside the fire where the
others were attempting to draw him out the while they
strove desperately but unavailingly to keep their
eyes
from the two bulging sidepockets of their guest’s
coat.
Soup Face, who had been assiduously communing
with a pint flask, leaned close to Columbus Blackie,
plac-
ing his whiskers within an inch or so of the other’s
nose
as was his habit when addressing another, and whis-
pered, relative to the pearl necklace: “Not
a cent less
’n fifty thou, bo!”
“Fertheluvomike!” ejaculated Blackie,
drawing back
and wiping a palm quickly across his lips. “Get
a
plumber first if you want to kiss me—you
leak.”
“He thinks you need a shower bath,” said
Dirty Ed-
die, laughing.
“The trouble with Soup Face,” explained
The Sky Pi-
lot, “is that he’s got a idea he’s
a human atomizer an’
that the rest of us has colds.”
“Well, I don’t want no atomizer loaded
with rot-gut
and garlic shot in my mug,” growled Blackie.
“What
Soup Face needs is to be learned ettyket, an’
if he
comes that on me again I’m goin’ to push
his mush
through the back of his bean.”
An ugly light came into the blear eyes of Soup Face.
Once again he leaned close to Columbus Blackie.
“Not a cent less ’n fifty thou, you
tinhorn!” he bellowed,
belligerent and sprayful.
Blackie leaped to his feet, with an oath—a
frightful,
hideous oath—and as he rose he swung a
heavy fist to
Soup Face’s purple nose. The latter rolled
over back-
ward; but was upon his feet again much quicker than
one
would have expected in so gross a bulk, and as he
came
to his feet a knife flashed in his hand. With
a sound that
was more bestial than human he ran toward Blackie;
but there was another there who had anticipated his
in-
tentions. As the blow was struck The Sky Pilot
had
risen; and now he sprang forward, for all his age
and
bulk as nimble as a cat, and seized Soup Face by the
wrist. A quick wrench brought a howl of pain
to the
would-be assassin, and the knife fell to the floor.
“You gotta cut that if you travel with this
bunch,”
said The Sky Pilot in a voice that was new to The
Oskaloosa Kid; “and you, too, Blackie,”
he continued.
“The rough stuff don’t go with me, see?”
He hurled Soup
Face to the floor and resumed his seat by the fire.
The youth was astonished at the physical strength
of
this old man, seemingly so softened by dissipation;
but it
showed him the source of The Sky Pilot’s authority
and
its scope, for Columbus Blackie and Soup Face quitted
their quarrel immediately.
Dirty Eddie rose, yawned and stretched. “Me
fer
the hay,” he announced, and lay down again with
his
feet toward the fire. Some of the others followed
his
example. “You’ll find some hay in
the loft there,” said
The Sky Pilot to The Oskaloosa Kid. “Bring
it down an’
make your bed here by me, there’s plenty room.”
A half hour later all were stretched out upon the
hard
dirt floor upon improvised beds of rotted hay; but
not
all slept. The Oskaloosa Kid, though tired,
found him-
self wider awake than he ever before had been.
Appar-
ently sleep could never again come to those heavy
eyes.
There passed before his mental vision a panorama
of
the events of the night. He smiled as he inaudibly
voiced
the name they had given him, the right to which he
had
not seen fit to deny. “The Oskaloosa Kid.”
The boy
smiled again as he felt the ‘swag’ hard
and lumpy in
his pockets. It had given him prestige here
that he could
not have gained by any other means; but he mistook
the nature of the interest which his display of stolen
wealth had aroused. He thought that the men
now
looked upon him as a fellow criminal to be accepted
into
the fraternity through achievement; whereas they suf-
fered him to remain solely in the hope of transferring
his loot to their own pockets.
It is true that he puzzled them. Even The Sky
Pilot,
the most astute and intelligent of them all, was at
a loss
to fathom The Oskaloosa Kid. Innocence and unsophisti-
cation flaunted their banners in almost every act
and
speech of The Oskaloosa Kid. The youth reminded
him
in some ways of members of a Sunday school which had
flourished in the dim vistas of his past when, as
an or-
dained minister of the Gospel, he had earned the so-
briquet which now identified him. But the concrete
evidence of the valuable loot comported not with The
Sky Pilot’s idea of a Sunday school boy’s
lark. The young
fellow was, unquestionably, a thief; but that he had
ever
before consorted with thieves his speech and manners
belied.
“He’s got me,” murmured The Sky
Pilot; “but he’s got
the stuff on him, too; and all I want is to get it
off of
him without a painful operation. Tomorrow’ll
do,” and
he shifted his position and fell asleep.
Dopey Charlie and The General did not, however,
follow the example of their chief. They remained
very
wide awake, a little apart from the others, where
their
low whispers could not be overheard.
“You better do it,” urged The General,
in a soft, in-
sinuating voice. “You’re pretty
slick with the toad stab-
ber, an’ any way one more or less won’t
count.”
“We can go to Sout’ America on dat stuff
an’ live
like gents,” muttered Dopey Charlie. “I’m
goin’ to cut
out de Hop an’ buy a farm an’ a ottymobeel
and—”
“Come out of it,” admonished The General.
“If we’re
lucky we’ll get as far as Cincinnati, get a
stew on and
get pinched. Den one of us’ll hang an’
de other get stir
fer life.”
The General was a weasel faced person of almost
any age between thirty-five and sixty. Sometimes
he
could have passed for a hundred and ten. He
had won
his military title as a boy in the famous march of
Coxey’s
army on Washington, or, rather, the title had been
con-
ferred upon him in later years as a merited reward
of
service. The General, profiting by the precepts
of his
erstwhile companions in arms, had never soiled his
mil-
itary escutcheon by labor, nor had he ever risen to
the
higher planes of criminality. Rather as a mediocre
pick-
pocket and a timorous confidence man had he eked out
a meager existence, amply punctuated by seasons
of straight bumming and intervals spent as the guest
of
various inhospitably hospitable states. Now,
for the first
time in his life, The General faced the possibility
of a
serious charge; and his terror made him what he never
before had been, a dangerous criminal.
“You’re a cheerful guy,” commented
Dopey Charlie;
“but you may be right at dat. Dey can’t
hang a guy any
higher fer two ‘an they can fer one an’
dat’s no pipe;
so wots de use. Wait till I take a shot—it’ll
be easier,”
and he drew a small, worn case from an inside pocket,
bared his arm to the elbow and injected enough mor-
phine to have killed a dozen normal men.
From a pile of mouldy hay across the barn the youth,
heavy eyed but sleepless, watched the two through
half
closed lids. A qualm of disgust sent a sudden
shudder
through his slight frame. For the first time
he almost re-
gretted having embarked upon a life of crime.
He had
seen that the two men were conversing together earn-
estly, though he could over-hear nothing they said,
and
that he had been the subject of their nocturnal colloquy,
for several times a glance or a nod in his direction
as-
sured him of this. And so he lay watching them—not
that he was afraid, he kept reassuring himself, but
through curiosity. Why should he be afraid?
Was it not
a well known truth that there was honor among thieves?
But the longer he watched the heavier grew his lids.
Several times they closed to be dragged open again
only
by painful effort. Finally came a time that
they remained
closed and the young chest rose and fell in the regular
breathing of slumber.
The two ragged, rat-hearted creatures rose silently
and picked their way, half-crouched, among the sleepers
sprawled between them and The Oskaloosa Kid.
In the
hand of Dopey Charlie gleamed a bit of shiny steel
and
in his heart were fear and greed. The fear was
engend-
ered by the belief that the youth might be an amateur
detective. Dopey Charlie had had one experience
of
such and he knew that it was easily possible for them
to
blunder upon evidence which the most experienced of
operatives might pass over unnoticed, and the loot
bulg-
ing pockets furnished a sufficient greed motive in
them-
selves.
Beside the boy kneeled the man with the knife.
He
did not raise his hand and strike a sudden, haphazard
blow. Instead he placed the point carefully,
though
lightly, above the victim’s heart, and then,
suddenly, bore
his weight upon the blade.
Abigail Prim always had been a thorn in the flesh
of her
stepmother—a well-meaning, unimaginative,
ambitious,
and rather common woman. Coming into the Prim
home
as house-keeper shortly after the death of Abigail’s
mother, the second Mrs. Prim had from the first looked
upon Abigail principally as an obstacle to be overcome.
She had tried to ‘do right by her’;
but she had never
given the child what a child most needs and most
craves—love and understanding. Not
loving Abigail, the
house-keeper could, naturally, not give her love;
and as
for understanding her one might as reasonably have
ex-
pected an adding machine to understand higher mathe-
matics.
Jonas Prim loved his daughter. There was nothing,
within reason, that money could buy which he would
not have given her for the asking; but Jonas Prim’s
love,
as his life, was expressed in dollar signs, while
the love
which Abigail craved is better expressed by any other
means at the command of man.
Being misunderstood and, to all outward appearances
of sentiment and affection, unloved had not in any
way
embittered Abigail’s remarkably joyous temperament.
made up for it in some measure by getting all the
fun
and excitement out of life which she could discover
therein, or invent through the medium of her own re-
sourceful imagination.
