I
Calmar Bye was a writer. That is to say, writing was his vocation and his recreation as well.
As yet, unfortunately, he had been unable to find publishers; but for that deficiency no reasonable person could hold him responsible. He had tried them all––and repeatedly. A certain expressman now smiled when he saw the long, slim figure approaching with a package under his arm, which from frequent reappearances had become easily recognizable; but as a person becomes accustomed to a physical deformity, Calmar Bye had ceased to notice banter.
Of but one thing in his life he was positively certain; and that was if Nature had fashioned him for any purpose in particular, it was to do the very thing he was doing now. The reason for 62 this certainty was that he could do nothing else with even moderate satisfaction. He had tried, frequently, to break away, and had even succeeded for a month at a time in an endeavor to avoid writing a word; but inevitably there came a relapse and a more desperate debauch in literature. Try as he might he could not avoid the temptation. An incident, a trifle out of the ordinary in his commonplace life, a sudden thrill at the reading of another man’s story, a night of insomnia, and resolution was in tatters, and shortly thereafter Calmar Bye’s pencil would be coursing with redoubled vigor over a sheet of virgin paper.
To be sure, Calmar did other things besides write. Being a normal man with a normal appetite, he could not successfully evade the demands of animal existence, and when his finances became unbearably low, he would proceed to their improvement by whatever means came first to hand. Book-keeping, clerical work, stenography––anything was grist for his mill at such times, and for a period he would work without rest. No better assistant could be found anywhere––until he had satisfied his 63 few creditors and established a small surplus of his own. Then, presto, change!––and on the surface reappeared Bye, the long, slender, blue-eyed, dreaming, dawdling, irresponsible writer.
Being what he was, the tenor of Calmar’s life was markedly uneven. At times the lust to write, the spirit of inspiration, as he would have explained to himself in the privacy of his own study, would come upon him strong, and for hours or days life would be a joyous thing, his fellow-men dear brothers of a happy family, the obvious unhappiness and injustice about him not reality, but mere comedy being enacted for his particular delectation.
Then at last, his work finished, would come inevitable reaction. The product of his hand and brain, completed, seemed inadequate and commonplace. He would smile grimly as with dogged persistence he started this latest child of his fancy out along the trail so thickly bestrewn with the skeletons of elder offspring. In measure, as badinage had previously passed him harmlessly by, it now cut deeply. No one in the entire town thought him a more complete 64 failure than he considered himself. Skies, from being sunny, grew suddenly sodden; not a tenement or alley but thrust obtrusively forward its tale of misery.
“Think of me,” he confided to his friend Bob Wilson one evening as during his transit through a particularly dismal slough of despond they in company were busily engaged in blazing the trail with empty bottles; “One such as I, a man of thirty and of good health, without a dollar or the prospect of a dollar, an income or the prospect of an income, a home or the prospect of a home, following a cold scent like the one I am now on!” He snapped his finger against the rim of his thin drinking glass until it rang merrily.
“The idea, again, of a man such as I, untravelled, penniless, self-educated, thinking to compete with others who journey the world over to secure material, and who have spent a fortune in preparation for this particular work.” He excitedly drained the contents of the glass.
“It’s preposterous, childlike!”––he brought the frail trifle down to the table with an emphasis 65 which was all but its destruction––“imbecile! I tell you I’m going to quit.
“Quit for good,” he repeated at the expression on the other’s face.
Bob Wilson scrutinized his companion with a critical eye.
“Waiter,” he said, speaking over his shoulder, “waiter, kindly tax our credit further to the extent of a couple of Havanas.”
“Yes, sah,” acknowledged the waiter.
Silence fell; but Bob’s observation of his friend continued.
“So you are going to quit the fight?” he commented at last.
“I am,”––decidedly.
Wilson lit his cigar.
“You have completed that latest––production on which you were engaged, I suppose?”
The writer scratched a match.
“This afternoon.”
“And sent it on?”
A nod. “Yes, on to the furnace room.”
A smile which approached a grin formed over Bob’s big face.
“You have hope of its acceptance, I trust?” 66
Calmar Bye blew a cloud of smoke far toward the ceiling, and the smile, a shade grim, was reflected.
“More than hope,” laconically. “I have certainty at last.”
Another pause followed and slowly the smile vanished from the faces of both.
“Bob,” and the long Calmar straightened in his chair, “I’ve been an ass. It’s all apparent, too apparent, now. I’ve tried to compete with the entire world, and I’m too small. It’s enough for me to work against local competition.” He meditatively flicked the ash from his cigar with his little finger.
“I realize that a lot of my friends––women friends particularly––will say they always knew I had no determination, wouldn’t stay in the game until I won. They’re all alike in this one particular, Bob; all sticklers for the big lower jaw.
“But I don’t care. I’ve been shooting into a covey of publishers for twelve years and never have touched a feather. Perseverance is a good quality, but there is such a thing as insanity.” 67 He stared unconsciously at the portieres of the booth.
“Once and for all, I tell you I’m through,” he repeated.
“What are you going at?” queried Bob, sympathetically, a shade quizzically.
The long Calmar reached into his pocket with deliberation.
“Read that.” He tossed a letter across the tiny table.
Bob poised the epistle in his hand gingerly.
“South Dakota,” he commented, as he observed the postmark. “Humph, I can’t make out the town.”
“It’s not a town at all, only a postoffice. Immaterial anyway,” explained Calmar, irritably.
The round-faced man unfolded the letter slowly and read aloud:––
“My Dear Sir:––
“Your request, coming from a stranger, is rather unusual; but if you really mean business, I will say this: Provided you’re willing to take hold and stay right with me, I’ll take 68 you in and at the end of a half-year pay $75.00 per month. You can then put into the common fund whatever part of your savings you wish and have a proportionate interest in the herd. Permit me to observe, however, that you will find your surroundings somewhat different from those amid which you are living at present, and I should advise you to consider carefully before you make the change.
“Very truly yours,
“E. J. Douglass.”
Bob slowly folded the sheet, and tossed it back.
“In what particular portion of that desert, if I may ask, does your new employer reside?” There was uncertainty in the speaker’s voice, as of one who spoke of India or the islands of the Pacific. “Likewise––pardon my ignorance––is that herd he mentions––buffalo?”
Calmar imperturbably returned the letter to his pocket.
“I’m serious, Robert. Douglass is a cattle man west of the river.”
“The river!” apostrophized Bob. “The 69 man juggles with mysteries. What river, pray?”
“The Missouri, of course. Didn’t you ever study geography?”
“I beg your pardon,” in humble apology. “Is that,” vaguely, “what they call the Bad Lands?”
Bye looked across at his friend, of a mind to be indignant; then his good-nature triumphed.
“No, it’s not so bad as that,” with a feeble attempt at a pun. He paused to light a cigar, and absent-minded as usual, continued in digression.
“I’ve dangled long enough, old man; too long. I’m going to do something now. I start to-morrow.”
Bob Wilson the skeptic, looked at his friend again critically. Resolutions of reconstruction he had heard before––and later watched their downfall; but this time somehow there was a new element introduced. Perhaps, after all––
“Waiter,” he called, “we’ll trifle with another quart of extra-dry, if you please.”
“To your success,” he added to his companion 70 across the table, when the waiter had returned from his mission.