Under His Shirt/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
THE PLAYFUL GIANT.
YES, it was Red Stanton, sunk at last to the level of a tramp. Indeed he had long been headed in that direction by a love of drink and a detestation for work. He was newly come into the world-old order of vagrants, however, as his cow-puncher attire testified. In another month this would be exchanged for a more comfortable outfit.
The big man looked about him, made sure of his people one by one, and finally rested his steel-blue eyes upon Pete Burnside. He strode straight across the circle. He stood above Pete and, looking down at him, laughed. It was long and loud laughter, and the gorge of Pete rose. Then he dropped his head and submitted. What was the use of resistance? Once before, when he was closer to being a man, he had been beaten by this huge monster of a man. How could he hope to stand before Red, now that he, Pete, had sunk so far into degradation. But the shame which took hold on Pete was less hot and stinging than he had felt a thousand times before. It was at least some mitigation of his misery that those who witnessed his humiliation should be fallen men, though they had not fallen quite as low as he.
Not fallen quite as low as he? He looked around upon those wretched derelicts. He saw their scornful, sneering faces turned toward him. Yes, the worst of these was a better man than he. The worst of these would have made some feeble resistance of words at least, before he would submit to be laughed at.
Red Stanton turned away and stood at the side of the steaming washboiler.
"I was thinking that I wasn't to eat to-night," he said, "but I see where I'm wrong. You boys got this all fixed up just in time for me. Gimme something to eat with, Burnside. What are you sitting there for? Ain't you been stuffing your stomach all this time while I been starving? Ain't you got the manners to lemme have a spoon?"
So saying, he leaned and snatched from the hand of Pete the spoon with which he had been eating. He dashed this through a pot of water which was steaming close by. He seized upon the side of the boiler.
"Well, boys," he said, "looks to me like there ain't any more than one man-sized meal here."
He flashed his glance of defiance around the circle. And Pete Burnside returned that glance with a curious interest. He was seeing in imagination what he would have done in the old days. This loud-mouthed ruffian he would have silenced with a word, and if a word were not sufficient, there would have been the sure speed and accuracy of his gun play to fall back upon. But his gun had been rarely needed in the days of his glory. There had been in his bearing an unconquerable air which imposed upon the most daring. In his eye there had been a straight look which went through and through the heart of a bully and warned him that battle and destruction lay just ahead.
But that day was long since past. His very soul had shriveled in him since the day when he had seen his bullet strike home in the body of Joe Daly—when he could have sworn that he saw Joe stagger in his tracks—and yet Daly had failed to fall! How could a man be sure of anything in such circumstances? The world was in confusion, and the strength of Pete Burnside was sapped at the root.
So Red Stanton reached into the deeps of the pot and brought forth a spoonful of the stew. But at the sight of their food gone to waste on this tyrannical giant, there was a stir of angry feeling in the six tramps. Not a man among those hoboes but had been in his prime a gallant fighter. Many an heroic tale could have been told of their prowess. Now, to be sure, time and hard weather and harder usage had unstrung their muscles and stiffened their joints, but the spirits within them were not altered. They were as keen-edged as ever. They could not attack him in hand-to-hand battle; that was obviously foolish. Their united valor and physical power banded together would not have made enough opposition to give him meager exercise. In those burly hands of his was power enough to have crushed skulls.
Instead of fists they fell back on other weapons; A gray-haired man, stiff, straight—his face red with weather and anger—stood up from the relics of his meal.
"Look here, you double-stomached bull, you can't bust down the fences and get in at our feed like that. Lay off, you!"
Red Stanton looked around at the speaker from behind another heaping spoonful. He grinned, then stowed the contents of the spoon behind a bulging cheek.
"Very good," he said. "That's a good joke! Are you meaning to argufy with me, son?"
"Don't it sound that way?"
"It sounds that way, but you look too plumb sensible to be talking fool talk."
"Boys," said the other, "it looks to me like we got to get rid of this baby. Are you going to gimme a hand?"
His doubts were soon set at rest. Each in turn rose and shook himself. Upon their hard features appeared smiles of joy, as when some stiff-legged war horse hears far off the whining of the battle horns and lifts his head from the rocks of his pasture. So they stood up, and each man reached for the weapon which was most to his choice. One man as he got up took a large, ragged stone in either hand and advanced with these formidable weapons. Another pushed himself to his feet by means of a cudgel with a knotted end, a section, of a small sapling which had been burned off in the fire. The others caught up sticks and stones, or else produced from their pockets long-bladed knives, quite capable of inviting forth the soul of the strongest man from between his ribs.
As they came on, Red Stanton hurriedly stowed another spoonful of the stew in his cheek and then blundered to his feet. Pete Burnside watched him sharply. Even a veritable hero would have been apt to flee from that assortment of rocks and stones and knives. He had a revolver, to be sure, but the first shot, which might drop one man, would be answered with a volley from which he could hardly hope to escape.
Yet Stanton threw out his arms and laughed thunderously in their faces.
"Come on, gents," he said. "I ain't had no exercise but breaking up a couple of shacks to bits to-day. I don't get no pleasure out of food unless I can work for it. Come on, old sons!"
His confidence abashed even their iron hearts, and they paused an instant to permit their only ally to join them. But though Pete dropped his head under their accusing glances, he did not rise from his place. He dared not.
"No good waiting for him, boys," said the giant. "He ain't going to look for no more trouble with me. He knows me, eh?"
Stanton's laugh rolled and boomed across the clearing. It was the last blow. Surely now the fallen spirit of Pete would rise in him. He felt the first hot pricking of anger stir in him. He waited with joy and thankfulness for that wrath to increase to a hot fury, but the cold wave of fear returned and drowned the last embers of his courage. He could only sit there with his head down like a whipped cur and watch the fight in the distance.
There was a snarl of disgust and rage from the six hoboes. Their glances promised annihilation to Pete, should they have leisure to deal with him a little later. Then they swept suddenly forward to the attack, as though they dared not delay, lest the shame which they had just looked upon might unnerve them.
Forward they plunged, and three ragged rocks shot at Red Stanton. Suddenly he began to move with a celerity which amazed Pete. He was amazed for two reasons: the first being that Red apparently had no desire to use his revolver; and the second reason was that the big man was able to weave about as deftly as a football player or a dodging boxer and so avoid the missiles. Another volley could not be entirely avoided. One rock just grazed his head, and he staggered drunkenly. Before he could straighten, and his brain clear, another big rock knocked him back, gasping for breath.
The six saw their advantage and with a wild whoop rushed in to pull down their victim. But Red Stanton, though badly hurt, still had fight in him. He had staggered back until his shoulders struck against the upper rail of an old fence which extended through the trees down to the edge of the water below. Red, with a roar of satisfaction, caught hold on the board which had arrested his fall. He tore it away from the two posts to which it was nailed. He swung the big timber around his head with as much ease as, in another age, a stout English yeoman might have twirled his quarter staff on thumb and finger.
Into the circle of that swaying engine the six hoboes would not have been eager to run, but they had started forward so fast that they could not stop themselves. And the blow crashed upon them, just as they strove to stop. The result was ruin. One went down headlong under the blow, his knife spinning in a bright arc from his hand. Another stumbled, staggered, and fell flat. Two more dropped to their knees, and only one of the six was left standing.
This worthy jumped forward with a yell which was more fright than battle courage. He was met in mid-air, as he sprang in with his knife poised and murder, in his eyes, not by a shooting fist, but by a most unromantic weapon. The great boot of Red Stanton swung out and up. His toe and heel landed at the same moment into the breast and stomach of the veteran. There was a gurgling cry from that fellow, and he shot back, struck the earth with, a soft thump, and lay flat, as though with a great weight crushing him down.
In the meantime, however, there remained four men ready and unhurt, capable of getting to close quarters with the. big man. As for the fence rail, that cumbersome weapon had been knocked into splinters at the first blow, for it was more than half rotten. Red Stanton was now empty-handed.
Even in this crisis, however, he did not draw his revolver. Moreover he refused to give ground, and with a roar like the bellow of a wounded bull he plunged forward at the vagrants.
Stanton was too much for them. They had tasted the strength of his hand, and it was more than enough for them. They turned their backs and fled at the top of their speed. Yet all their speed was not enough. Three of them were allowed to get away, but the most rearward laggard, limping as he ran, was caught from behind, and, while his shriek rang through the air, he was whirled and then sent hurtling down the slope toward the water.
It seemed to horrify Pete Burnside that the old man was surely no better than dead. He toppled down the slope, hit the water with a crash, and finally dragged himself slowly out on the farther shore. Red laughed until he staggered and amused himself by heaving stones at the battered fugitive.
Luckily none of them hit him, and, under cover of this distraction, the man who had been knocked senseless by the blow of the fence rail, now dragged himself to his feet and crawled away. He had disappeared in the shadows of the distant brush before Red Stanton ceased his laughter and turned back from stoning the last fugitive.