On the Cowboy's Trail: Western Boxed-Set. Coolidge Dane

a sigh of Christian resignation he reached over and picked up the pie. "Dam' shame to go and waste it," he muttered, "an' it's all right, too."

      The prisoners watched him eat his way through the crust and down through the middle until finally he licked his finger-tips and smiled.

      "Him good pie, Wo," he observed, rising to his feet, "make me hip stlong." He shoved Pecos back into the corner, took his place before him, and balanced the strap for battle. "All right, deputy," he said, "turn them tarriers loose, and if I don't tan their hides with this strap they ain't no hell no mo'!"

      The cell doors clanged and flew open, the balked cohorts of the enemy stepped forth and gathered about him, and as Angy paced back and forth before his friend he opened wide the flood-gates of his wrath.

      "See the skulkin' curs and cowards," he cried, lashing out at them with his strap, "see them cringe before the whip like the servile slaves they are. What has this man done that you should fall upon him? Broke up your court, hey? Well, what was the court to you? Didn't it punish you whether you were right or wrong? Didn't it tyrannize over you and force you to do its will? Ah, despicable dogs, that would lick the hand that strikes you—come out here, any one of you, and I swear I'll beat you to death. Hah! You are afraid! You are afraid to face an honest man and fight him hand to hand! Or is it something else?" The defiant tone left his voice of a sudden and he looked eagerly into their tense faces. "Or is it something else?" he cried. "Friends, you have been shut up here for months by that great crime they call the law. You know that law—how it protects the rich and crushes down the poor! What then—do you still worship its outworn forms so that you must suffer them even in jail? Must you still have a sheriff to harass you, a judge to condemn you, a district attorney to talk you blind? Must you still be tyrannized over by a false and illegal court, even in the shadow of the jail? God forbid! But what then? Ah, yes; what then! Friends, I bring you the Gospel of Equality; I stand before you to proclaim as our forebears proclaimed before us, that all men are born free and equal; I call upon you, even in this prison, to cast aside the superstition of government and proclaim the revolution! To hell with the Kangaroo Court! My friend here has beaten up its officers—let us abolish it forever! What? Is it a go? Then here's to the revolution!"

      He waved his hand above his head, smiling upward at that fair Goddess of Liberty whom he discerned among the rods; and the gaping prisoners, carried away by his eloquence, let out a mighty yell of joy. Worn and jaded by the dull monotony of their life they seized upon the new religion with undiscriminating zest, passing up the big words and the moonshine and rejoicing in their noble freedom from restraint. As the first symptoms of a jail-riot began to develop Boone Morgan and his deputies rushed out to quell the disturbance, but the revolution gave no promise of a rough-house. As was to be expected, the prostrate form of Pecos Dalhart was draped across the foreground—and served him right, for trying to get too gay—but the other figures were not in good support. Angevine Thorne stood above the body of his friend, waving the alcalde's strap, but the Roman mob was sadly out of part. It was dancing around the room singing "Kansas."

      "I'll tell you what they do—in Kansas,"

      they howled.

      "I'll tell you what they do—in Kansas,"

      and at the end of each refrain Angy lifted up his vibrant tenor and added yet another chapter to the shameless tale. It was a bacchanalia of song, perhaps; or a saturnalia of inter-State revilings; but none of the onlookers recognized in the progressive dirtiness of the words a spirit of protest against the law. The revolution had come, but like many another promising child it was too young to be clearly differentiated from its twin brothers, License and Liberty.

      CHAPTER XVI

       BACK TO NATURE

       Table of Contents

      As to what the revolution is or is to be there are no two authorities who agree. It is not a thing, to be measured and defined; nay, it is a dream which, like our ideas of heaven, varies with individuals. To the philosopher it is an earthly realization of all our heavenly aspirations; to the low-browed man-of-hands something less, since his aspirations are less, but still good to cure all social ills. When Pecos Dalhart entered the Geronimo County jail he turned it into his own idea of the revolution—a fighting man's paradise, like the Valhalla of the ancients, where the heroes fought all day and were made good as new over night; but when he woke up from his long sleep, behold, Angy had established a philosophical revolution in its stead! At first he was so glad to wake up at all that he did not inspect the new social structure too closely—it had saved him from a terrible beating, that was sure—but as the day wore on and a gang of yeggs began to ramp about he shook his head and frowned.

      "Say, Angy," he said, "what did you tell them fellers last night to make 'em take on like this?"

      "Told 'em the same old story, Cumrad—how the monopolistic classes has combined with the hell hounds of the law to grind us pore men down. Ain't it glorious how the glad news has touched their hearts? Even within the walls of our prison they are happy!"

      "Umph!" grunted Pecos, and scowled up at a tall Mexican who had ventured to call him compadre. "What's all this compañero talk that's goin' on amongst the Mexicans—are they in on the deal, too?"

      "Surest thing!" responded Angy warmly.

      "Huh!" said Pecos, "I hope they don't try no buen' amigo racket on me—I was raised to regard Mexicans like horny toads."

      "All men is brothers—that's my motto. And they's good Mexicans, too, remember that. Just think of Joe Garcia!"

      "Yes!" rejoined Pecos, with heat, "think of 'im! If it wasn't for that saddle-colored dastard I'd be free, 'stead of rottin' in this hole. I says to the judge: 'I bought that cow and calf off of Joe Garcia—there he is, standin' over there—I summon him for a witness.' 'Is that your calf?' says the judge. 'Kin savvy,' he says, humpin' up his back. 'Did you sell him to this man?' 'Yo no se!' says Joe, and he kept it up with his 'No savvys' and his 'I don't knows' until the dam' judge throwed me into jail. Sure! I'm stuck on Mexicans! I'll brother 'em, all right, if they come around me—I'll brother 'em over the head with a club!"

      "Jest the same, it was Mexicans that saved your bacon last night," retorted Angy, with spirit. "Some of these white men that you had beat up were for pushin' your face in while you was asleep, but when I made a little talk in Spanish, touchin' on your friendly relations with the Garcia family, the Mexicans came over in a body and took your part. That was pretty good, hey?"

      "Um," responded Pecos, but he assented without enthusiasm. Barring the one exception which went to prove the rule, he had never had much use for Mexicans—and Marcelina was a happy accident, not to be looked for elsewhere in the Spanish-American world. Still, a man had to have some friends; and a Mex was better than a yegg, anyhow. He looked around until he found the tall man who had called him compadre and beckoned him with an imperious jerk of the head. The Mexican came over doubtfully.

      "You speak English?" inquired Pecos. "That's good—I want to tell you something. My friend here says you and your compadres stood up for me last night when I was down and out—hey? Well, that's all right—I'm a Texano and I ain't got much use for Mexicanos in general, but any time you boys git into trouble with them yeggs, jest call on me! Savvy?"

      The tall man savvied and though Pecos still regarded them with disfavor the Mexican contingency persisted in doing him homage—only now they referred to him as El Patrón. Patrón he was, and Boss, though he never raised a hand. Interpreting aright his censorious glances the sons of Mexico confined their celebration of the Dawn of Freedom to a carnival of neglect, lying in their bunks and smoking cigarritos while the filth accumulated in the slop cans. Under the iron rule of Pete Monat they had been required to do all the cleaning up—for in Arizona a Mexican gets the dirty end of everything—but no sooner had Babe sung his clarion call for freedom than they joined him, heart and hand. If the Society of the Revolution was at all related to the Sons of Rest they wanted to go down as charter members—and