The Son of his Father

by Ridgwell Cullum

"I tell you fellows," he cried, at a group of wondering-eyed boarders in his establishment, "I ha'f suspected he was a blamed crook from the first moment I got my eyeballs onto him. The feller that 'll bilk his board bill is come mighty low, sirs. So mighty low you wouldn't find a well deep enough for him. He had the best rooms in the house at four an' a ha'f dollars a day all in, an' I ain't see a fi' cent piece of his money, cep' you ken count the land deposit he paid me. I just been right through his rooms, an' he ain't left a thing, not a valise, nor a grip. Not even a soot of pyjamas, or a soap tablet. He's sure cleared right out fer good, and we ain't goin' to see him round again," he finished up gloomily.

Then his fire broke out again.

"But that ain't what I'm grievin' most, I guess. Ther's allus skunks around till a place gets civilized up, an' their bokay ain't pleasant. But he's a hoss thief, too. There's my team. You know that team of mine, Mr. Davison," he went on, turning to the drug storekeeper who had dropped in to hear his friend's news. "You've drove behind 'em many a time. They got a three-minute gait between 'em which 'ud show dust to any team around these parts. That team was worth two thousand dollars, sirs, and was matched to an inch, and a shade of color. Say, if I get across his tracks, an' Sheriff Richardson is out after him with a posse, I'm goin' to get a shot in before the United States Authorities waste public money feeding him in penitentiary. I'm feelin' that mad I can't eat, an' I don't guess I'd know how to hand a decent answer to a Methodist minister if he came along. If I don't get news of that team I'm just going to start and break something. I don't figure if he'd burned this shack right over my head I'd have felt as mad as I do losin' that dandy team."

When questioned as to how the man had got away his answer came sharply.

"How? Why, what was there to stop him, sir? I tell you right here we ain't been accustomed to deal with his kind in Snake's. The folk around this layout, till this coal boom started, has all been decent citizens." He glared with hot eyes upon the men about him, who were nearly all speculators attracted by that very coal boom. "There's that darned fire-escape out back, right down from his room, an' what man has ever locked his barn in these parts? Psha!" he cried, in violent disgust. "I've had that team three years, and I've never so much as had a lock put to the barn."

So it went on all the morning. Peter's fury was one of the sights of the township for that day. He was never without an audience which flowed and ebbed like a tide, stimulated by curiosity, self-interest, and the natural satisfaction of witnessing another's troubles which is so much an instinct of human nature.

And beneath every other emotion which the agent's sudden defection aroused was a wave of almost pitiful meanness. The dreams of the last week and more had received a set back. In many minds the boom city was tottering. The crowding hopes of avarice and self-interest had suddenly received a douche of cold water. What, these speculators asked themselves, and each other, did the incident portend, what had the future in store?

So keen was the interest worked up about Peter McSwain's house that every other consideration for the time being was forgotten. Party after party visited Slosson's late quarters with a feeling of conviction that some trifling clew had been overlooked, and, by some happy chance, the luck and glory of having discovered it might fall to their lot. But it was all of no avail. The room was absolutely empty of all trace of its recent occupant, as only an hotel room can become.

With the excitement the daily west-bound passenger train was forgotten, and by the time it was signaled in, the little depot was almost deserted. There were one or two rigs backed up to it on the town side, and perhaps a dozen townspeople were present. But the usual gathering was nowhere about.

Amongst the few present were Hazel Mallinsbee and Gordon. They had driven up in a democrat wagon with a particularly fine team, and having backed the vehicle up to the boarded platform, they stood talking earnestly and quite unnoticed. Hazel was dressed in an ordinary suit that possessed nothing startling in its atmosphere of smartness. Her skirt was of some rather hard material, evidently for hard wear, and the upper part of her costume was a white lawn shirtwaist under a short jacket which matched her skirt. Her head was adorned by her customary prairie hat, which, in Gordon's eyes, became her so admirably.