Part 28 (2/2)
The first day of Mr. Masterson's return was devoted to a renewal of old ties-a bit parched, with ten months of Arizona. The second day, Mr.
Masterson invested in wandering up and down and indulging himself in a tender survey of old landmarks. Here was the sign-post against which he steadied himself when he winged that obstreperous youth from the C-bar-K, who had fired his six-shooter into the Alhambra in disapproval of Mr. Kelly's wares. It was a good shot; for the one resentful of Alhambra whiskey was fully one hundred yards away and on the run. Later, the C-bar-K boy admitted that the Alhambra whiskey was not so bad, and his slam-bang denunciation of it uncalled for. At that, Mr. Masterson, first paying a doctor to dig his lead from the boy's shoulder, gave him his freedom again.
”If Kell's whiskey had been really bad,” said Mr. Masterson, ”I would have been the last to interfere with the resentment of a gentleman who had suffered from it. But I was familiar with the brand, and knew, therefore, how that cowboy unlimbered in merest wantonness. Under such conditions, I could not, and do my duty, permit him to go unrebuked.”
Half a block further, and Mr. Masterson stood in front of the First National Bank. Mr. Masterson recalled this arena of finance as the place wherein he borrowed the shotgun with which he cooled the ardour of Mr.
Bowman when that warrior made the long journey from Trinidad with the gallant purpose, announced widely in advance, of shooting up the town.
Looking into the double muzzle of the 10-gauge, the doughty one from Trinidad saw that which changed his plans. Turning his hardware over to Mr. Masterson, he took a drink in amity with that hard-working officer, and then embarked upon a festival, conducted with a scrupulous regard for the general peace, which lasted four full days.
Across from the bank was the warehouse, the wooden walls of which displayed the furrows ploughed by Mr. Masterson's bullets on the day when he fought the three gentleman from Missouri. They were weather-stained, those furrows, with the rains that had intervened. Mr.
Masterson being a sentimentalist sighed over his trademarks, and thought of those pleasant times when they were fresh. Fifty yards beyond stood the little hotel where the dead were carried. It was a good hotel, and in that hour celebrated for its bar; remembering which, Mr. Masterson repaired thither in the name of thirst.
Mr. Masterson was leaning on the counter, and telling the proprietor that the l.u.s.tre of his whiskey had been in no sort dimmed, when the word-just then delivered by the wires-reached him of that proposed invasion in the cause of prohibition. It was Mr. Wright who bore the tidings, and the face of that merchant prince showed grave.
”Well,” said Mr. Masterson, in tones of relief, ”you see, Bob, that I was right when I resigned. I'd be in a box now if I were Sheriff.”
”What is your idea of a course?” asked Mr. Wright. ”It stands to reason that the camp can't go dry; at the same time I wouldn't want to see it meander into trouble.”
It was thought wise by Mr. Wright, after exhaustively conferring with Mr. Masterson, to call a meeting of the male inhabitants of Dodge. There might be discovered in a mult.i.tude of counsel some pathway that would lead them out of this law-trap, while permitting them to drink.
Mr. Wright presided at the meeting, which was large. There were speeches, some for peace and some for war, but none which opened any gate. Dodge was where it started, hostile, but undecided. Somebody called on Mr. Masterson; what would he suggest? Mr. Masterson, being no orator and fluent only with a gun, tried to escape. However, over-urged by Mr. Wright, he spake as follows:
”Gentlemen,” said Mr. Masterson, ”I was so recently your Sheriff that the habit of upholding law and maintaining order is still strong upon me, and it may be that, thus crippled, I am but ill qualified to judge of the wisdom of ones who have counseled killing and scalping these prohibition people who will favour Dodge to-morrow afternoon. My impression, however, is that such action, while perhaps natural under the circ.u.mstances, would be grossly premature. It would bring down the State upon us, and against such odds even Dodge might not sustain herself. All things considered, my advice is this: Close every saloon an hour before our visitors arrive, and keep them closed while they remain.
Every man-for there would be no sense in enduring hards.h.i.+ps uselessly-should provide himself in advance with say a gallon. The saloons closed, our visitors would be powerless. What a man doesn't see he doesn't know; and those emissaries of a tyrannous prohibition would be unable to make oath. In the near finish, they would leave. Once they had departed, Dodge could again go forward on its liberty-loving way.
Those are my notions, gentlemen; and above all I urge that nothing like violence be indulged in. Let our visitors enter and depart in peace. Do not put it within their power to say that Dodge was not a haven of peace. You must remember that not alone your liberty but your credit is at stake, and play a quiet hand according.”
While Mr. Wright and that conservative contingent which he represented approved the counsel of Mr. Masterson, there were others who condemned it. At the head of these latter was the turbulent Bear Creek Johnson.
After the meeting had adjourned, that riot-urging individual branded the words of Mr. Masterson as pusillanimous. For himself, the least that Bear Creek would consent to was the roping up of the visitors the moment they appeared. They were to be dragged at the hocks of a brace of cow-ponies until such time as they renounced their iniquitous mission, and promised respect to Dodge's appet.i.tes and needs.
”As for that Masterson party,” said the bitter Bear Creek, who being five drinks ahead was pot-valiant, ”what's he got to do with the play?
He got cold feet an' quit ten months ago. Now he allows he'll come b.u.t.tin' in an' tell people what kyards to draw, an' how to fill an' bet their hands. Some gent ought to wallop a gun over his head. An' if some gent don't, I sort o' nacherally reckon I'll about do the trick myse'f.”
Since Bear Creek Johnson reserved these views for souls who were in sympathy therewith, meanwhile concealing the same from such as Mr.
Masterson and Mr. Wright, there arose no one to contradict him. Made bold by silent acquiescence, and exalted of further drinks, Bear Creek drew about him an outcast coterie in the rear room of Mr. Webster's Alamo. It was there, with Bear Creek to take the lead, they laid their heads together for the day to come.
There be men on earth who are ever ready for trouble that, specifically, isn't trouble of their own. They delight in dancing when others pay the fiddler. Numbers of such gathered with the radical Bear Creek; and being gathered, he and they pooled their wicked wits in devising fardels for those expected enemies.
When, next day, our executives of prohibition came into Dodge, they were amazed, while scarcely gratified, to find every rum shop locked up fast and tight. The Dance Hall, the Alhambra, the Long Branch and the Alamo, acting on the hint of Mr. Masterson, had closed their doors, and not a drink of whiskey, not even for rattlesnake-bite, could have been bought from one end of the street to the other. Not that this paucity of rum-selling seemed to bear heavily upon the community. There were never so many gentlemen of Dodge whom one might describe as wholly and successfully drunk. The boardwalks were thronged with their staggering ranks, as the visitors made a tour of the place.
The visitors were pompous, well-fed men of middle age; and while they said they had come to perform a duty, one skilled in man-reading might have told at a glance that their great purpose was rather to tickle vanity, and demonstrate how unsparing would be their spirit when the question became one of moral duty.
When the duo first appeared their faces wore a ruddy, arrogant hue. As they went about upon that tour of inspection they began to pale. There was something in the lowering eye of what fragment of the public looked to the leaders.h.i.+p of Bear Creek Johnson, to whiten them.
Pale as linen three times bleached, following fifteen minutes spent about the streets, the visitors-their strutting pomposity visibly reduced-made a shortest wake to Gallon's, being the hostelry they designed to honour with their custom. Gallon's was a boarding-house distinguished as ”Prohibition,” and the visitors proposed to ill.u.s.trate it and give it fas.h.i.+on in the estimation of sober men, by bestowing upon it their patronage. Two hours later, the proprietor would have paid money to dispense with the advertis.e.m.e.nt.
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