Can Such Things Be [33]
thumb and forefinger forked out a wad like a small haycock. Holding this reinforcement within supporting dis- tance he fired away with renewed confidence. 'They're a flight of devouring locusts, and they're going for everything green in this God blest land, if you want to know.' Here he pushed his reserve into the breach and when his gabble-gear was again disengaged re- sumed his uplifting discourse. 'I had one of them on this ranch five years ago, and I'll tell you about it, so that you can see the nub of this whole question. I didn't pan out par- ticularly well those days--drank more whisky than was prescribed for me and didn't seem to care for my duty as a patriotic American citizen; so I took that pagan in, as a kind of cook. But when I got religion over at the Hill and they talked of running me for the Legislature it was given to me to see the light. But what was I to do? If I gave him the go somebody else would take him, and mightn't treat him white. What was I to do? What would any good Christian do, especially one new to the trade and full to the neck with the brotherhood of Man and the father- hood of God?' Jo. paused for a reply, with an expression of un- stable satisfaction, as of one who has solved a prob- lem by a distrusted method. Presently he rose and swallowed a glass of whisky from a full bottle on the counter, then resumed his story. 'Besides, he didn't count for much--didn't know anything and gave himself airs. They all do that. I said him nay, but he muled it through on that line while he lasted; but after turning the other cheek seventy and seven times I doctored the dice so that he didn't last for ever. And I'm almighty glad I had the sand to do it.' Jo.'s gladness, which somehow did not impress me, was duly and ostentatiously celebrated at the bottle. 'About five years ago I started in to stick up a shack. That was before this one was built, and I put it in another place. I set Ah Wee and a little cuss named Gopher to cutting the timber. Of course I didn't expect Ah Wee to help much, for he had a face like a day in June and big black eyes--I guess maybe they were the damn'dest eyes in this neck o' woods.' While delivering this trenchant thrust at common sense Mr. Dunfer absently regarded a knot-hole in the thin board partition separating the bar from the living-room, as if that were one of the eyes whose size and colour had incapacitated his servant for good service. 'Now you Eastern galoots won't believe anything against the yellow devils,' he suddenly flamed out with an appearance of earnestness not altogether convincing,' but I tell you that Chink was the per- versest scoundrel outside San Francisco. The miser- able pig-tail Mongolian went to hewing away at the saplings all round the stems, like a worm o' the dust gnawing a radish. I pointed out his error as pa- tiently as I knew how, and showed him how to cut them on two sides, so as to make them fall right; but no sooner would I turn my back on him, like this'--and he turned it on me, amplifying the il- lustration by taking some more liquor--'than he was at it again. It was just this way: while I looked at him so'--regarding me rather unsteadily and with evident complexity of vision--' he was all right; but when I looked away, so'--taking a long pull at the bottle--' he defied me. Then I'd gaze at him reproachfully, so, and butter wouldn't have melted in his mouth.' Doubtless Mr. Dunfer honestly intended the look that he fixed upon me to be merely reproachful, but it was singularly fit to arouse the gravest apprehen- sion in any unarmed person incurring it; and as I had lost all interest in his pointless and interminable nar- rative, I rose to go. Before I had fairly risen, he had again turned to the counter, and with a barely audible 'so,' had emptied the bottle at a gulp. Heavens! what a yell! It was like a Titan in his last, strong agony. Jo. staggered back after emitting it, as a cannon recoils from its own thunder, and then dropped into his chair, as if he had been 'knocked in the head' like a beef--his eyes drawn sidewise