Читать книгу The Gambler - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 7

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They were gathered about one large oak tree, a formidable crew. Some sat about the comfortable bulk of the trunk. Some sat in the low-looking boughs which shot out close to the ground. Some stood idly, or conversing in whispers. And an air of thought pervaded the whole assembly.

There were at least thirty boys in that congregation, Corcoran estimated, and they were of all colors. There were proud-featured, olive-skinned Spanish boys, holding themselves close, apart from the rest, conscious even at that age of their pure Castillian blood. There were young Mexican lads with deep brown complexions rubbed gray at the elbows and the palms of the hands and burned to rose in the plump center of the cheek. There were one or two Negro children with white, flashing smiles. And the smallest quarter of all was composed of the true and inimitable American boy.

These last could be known by something wicked in the eye and reckless in the posture. Their faces were already marked with thought and deep-revolving schemes of deviltry had stamped them with a premature wisdom.

One and all—saving for the Spanish boys whose parents were probably ancient and rich landlords and kings of the range—this motley group was dressed in ragged trousers which sagged beneath the knees, bare brown legs and feet, and a shirt, usually cast off by some member of the family, perhaps a faded blue of which the sleeves were chopped off just below the armpit, the neckband hanging loosely around the withered little throats.

Corcoran brought his stallion to a halt and surveyed them calmly. It was a full five minutes before the clamor which he roused subsided. These had not seen the exploit at the expense of big Jeff Toomey through which he had introduced himself to the respect and to the good graces of the whole town of San Pablo. While their elders beheld that spectacle, these young Tartars were roving abroad in search of a treasure richer than gold, to wit: mischief! There was nothing to hold them in awe as they stared at the stranger, and in fact, they broke into a crowing chorus of laughter.

It broke like a wave. In an instant all hands were pointing, all voices were jeering. His hat, his coat, his saddle, his boots—there was nothing about him which did not seem to them worthy of mockery, and as they jeered at him, they danced to points of vantage, under the low-scooping limbs of the tree, ready to swing up among the branches in a trice if he attempted to ride them down.

But Corcoran merely waved his riding crop at them. Then he took forth a cigarette case, long, thin, made of purest yellow gold and covered with exquisite chasings. This he opened, selected a smoke with care, and lighted it amid a fresh chorus of hootings.

For these young bandits already “rolled their own.” A tailor-made cigarette was to them a sign, somehow, of ridiculous weakness. And they yelled at Corcoran from the tops of their shrill voices. He regarded them with the same quiet smile and finally he waved to them again, and smiled.

They became silent. They had expected, according to their up-bringing to be charged and to be lashed with the whip. They would have expected to be noosed in the lariat and dragged down from the tree. This mild surrender was a staggering blow to them. So, after looking from one to the other, the laughter began to die away a little. And, seeing that the stranger neither cursed them nor threatened them, and seeing that he gave them back their taunts with nothing more than a smile, their attitude began to change.

There is nothing that a boy loves so much as a novelty, unless it be something to which he can look up with all his soul. To the dignity of Corcoran these wild youngsters could look up. There was nothing like it in San Pablo. It was new in their lives and wonderful also. For here was a man whom even clothes and a strange saddle and tailor-made cigarette could not make ridiculous.

Here Corcoran spoke for the first time. “I wonder,” he said, “if one of you could give me a little information?”

“He talks like a dog-gone schoolteacher,” said one.

“Shut up,” said another. “Ain’t he polite enough to please you?”

“Sure mister,” said a third. “Let’s hear what you want to know.”

“I am looking for a boy whom I understand is in San Pablo.”

Their silence grew tense.

“I have good news for him,” went on Corcoran. “If you can help me to find him, I’ll be a thousand times obliged.”

“What’s his name?”

“Willie Kern.”

A groan rolled through the ranks of the boys. One who was older than the majority of his companions now stepped forward. He was a large-limbed youth who now thrust a thumb under the transverse strap which crossed his shoulders and supported his trousers.

“Stranger,” he said with dignity, “might be that you’re kiddin’ us along a little bit?”

“I don’t know what you’re driving at, my young friend,” declared Corcoran frankly. “I ask for Willie Kern and you ask if I’m joking. Of course not. I really must find him.”

“Look here,” said the spokesman. “I ain’t rich, but I’d pay a pocket knife that’s got one good blade in it and a sling shot that’s a beauty—I’d pay that much to the gent that’d tell me where Willie Kern is—that—” The rest of his remarks were drowned by a shrill murmuring among his confederates.

“You’re hunting for him, too?” asked Corcoran.

“Am I? Dog-gone his hide, if I meet up with him alone, I’ll skin him and leave him raw. That’s about all.”

“And the rest of you?”

They gave voice like a shrill pack of hounds. They all wanted to be blooded, it seemed, on the frame of Willie Kern.

“How long have you been hunting for him?” asked Corcoran.

“How long? Why, along about a year and a half, take it all together.”

“A year and a half! But haven’t you a chance to catch him at school?”

“Ain’t we tried, mister? Ain’t we tried everything? If we lay for him in the morning, he’s the last one in and the teacher don’t do nothin’ to him because she says she knows why he has to come in late.”

“What’s your name?”

“Ralph Cromarty.”

“My name is Corcoran. I’m glad to know you, Ralph.”

“Might glad to know you, too, Mr. Corcoran.”

“It seems that the teacher is on the side of Willie Kern, then?”

“I dunno how it is,” observed Ralph Cromarty, taking off his cap and shaking his tousled head. “But pa, he says that women folks is always sure to take up for a gent that ain’t got no good in him.”

“Why, God bless them, I suppose that’s true. But do you mean to tell me that you can’t get at Willie during recesses?”

“He don’t come out to play. He stays inside and talks sweet to Miss Murran.”

“That’s the teacher, of course?”

“Of course. He don’t do nothin’ but sit there and tell her lies. Which pa says that every woman is more interested in lies than in hearin’ the truth.”

“Your father seems to be a philosopher, Ralph. But after school—can’t you catch him then?”

“You see, Mr. Corcoran, he’s always the first away. He skins out the door or even pops out through the window. Miss Murran, she lets him do pretty nigh anything. She don’t care about him, but she makes the rest of us toe the line and march out mighty slow and regular.”

“But what about catching him after you’re finally outside the school?”

Ralph Cromarty stared helplessly around him to find an object which would fit in with the picture which occupied his mind.

“Look yonder, Mr. Corcoran.”

“I see a speck in the sky.”

“That’s a hawk, sir.”

“What about it?”

“Could you catch that hawk?”

“Of course not.”

“No more would you catch Willie Kern. My pa, he says that every sneak is a fast runner. Me, I don’t aim to run much. I don’t aim to have to run!”

“That’s a very worthy idea,” said Corcoran soberly. “But what has Willie Kern done to make you all hate him so?”

It was too much for Ralph Cromarty. Thrice he essayed speech and thrice the words tumbled up his throat so fast that they choked him and thrice his mind was flooded with his swift ideas. Finally he turned and threw out his arms to his companions, appealing to them for assistance.

“Fellows,” he said, “this here gent wants to know what Willie has done to us!”

There was a deep and general shout of indignation.

“Come here, Tommy!” called Ralph Cromarty.

“Look here,” he added, as a boy slightly smaller than himself came slowly forward, one eye contused and swollen and surrounded with purple paint. “Look here what he done to my kid brother!”

“Ah?” said Corcoran. “How did he do that?”

“Caught him alone and hit him when he wasn’t lookin’. That’s the way always that Willie Kern fights. He ain’t got no manhood in him, dog-gone him!”

“I should think that the sheriff would take a hand,” said Corcoran.

“My pa, he went to the sheriff. The sheriff he said: ‘Tell ’em to go and get Willie for theirselves.’ So that’s what we started out to do. We’d been huntin’ for him for about a year and a half, but when the sheriff he said that, my pa he said for us to all get together and start huntin’ for him whenever we had a chance. We been doin’ that for about the last month. But we ain’t had no luck.”

“You see,” said Corcoran, “that you ought to scatter out more. How many would it take to lick Willie?”

“If he’d stand and make a fair fight of it, maybe any one of us could lick him, dog-gone him! But the way he works, there ain’t hardly anybody here that ain’t been hit by Willie. Except me,” he added proudly. “I guess that he ain’t quite up to tacklin’ me even from behind!”

“Suppose, for the sake of safety, that you split the boys up into fives. That would make about six groups of you. Think how many more places you could search! And when you caught him, six would be as good as thirty. Am I right?”

“You are!” cried Ralph.

It was apparent that he was general over his army. He gathered the boys around him with a whoop and in another instant he was making his division of the forces. Among boys, every degree of talent is known. Mature men may have their doubts of themselves and their fellows. The banker may despise too much the blacksmith or he may too greatly respect him for unknown potentialities. But among boys there are no mysteries. One is fleet of foot, one is agile of brain, each has a definitely rated pugilistic prowess, and here and there stand forth a few colossi such as Ralph Cromarty, who was equally prodigious of both hand and brain.

Accordingly, he could name his lieutenants instantly, and with such skill that not a one of them could be questioned. Each was a worthy and a valiant leader. Each was worthy of obedience and received it. The general in chief assigned them various places for investigation. He himself would remain at a central post of observation, ready to receive their reports from time to time. And there was no better place than the broad, old oak where Corcoran had first found them.

“I’ll give five dollars to the boy who spots him first,” called Corcoran. “And five more to the gang that brings him in.”

That princely offer was greeted with a cheer, and in a trice they had fled out of view.