Read Ebook: The S.S. Glory by Niven Frederick Holmes Fred Illustrator

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Ebook has 739 lines and 40948 words, and 15 pages

It might have been the Devil that prompted Scholar at that moment. Perhaps he was feeling a little gay after his bout with the steers; perhaps he thought how funny it would be if Mike led the way ashore for refreshment after having so recently proclaimed that no man would go ashore for that purpose until the bedding-down was over. Perhaps he thought to make some sign to these men that he appreciated the fact that they had not all cold-shouldered him as an outsider, and could think of only one way to do it that would seem expressive to them.

"Well," he said, "let me stand the treat anyhow."

Mike turned upon him.

"Do you mane it?" he asked.

Scholar nodded.

"Come along, boys," cried Mike.

It now appeared that many of them had already vacated the deck. Jack and Jack's partner and several others were gone. The cowboy was nowhere to be seen; the man of the long coat and spectacles was all alone, making some knots more sure upon the ropes, tying fresh ones on those that had been knotted so near the end as to suggest to a watchful eye that a few vigorous pulls of a steer's head would make them give.

"We'll lave him," said Mike, and those few who remained hurried to depart, clustering round Mike and Scholar. A bo'sun at the gangway said: "There's some more cattle coming up, you fellows."

"Let them come," replied Mike. "Everything's ready for them."

One of the "Push" told the bo'sun that there was a parson along there, with spectacles on, who would tie them up, and down the gangway went the crowd. Scholar perhaps need not have been so greatly vexed afterwards for having carried these men away. As they went down the gangway they woke to the fact that they were the only cattlemen left. The others, who had come aboard with them under Candlass's eye, had been more alert to note when the Mad Boss turned his back, and had already hastened off to amuse themselves before sailing. Great sizzling lights were by now lit above the wharf. Back in the shadows of the shed could be seen many tossing horns. Neither Candlass nor the Mad Boss interrupted them. Smithers was not about; perhaps he had gone home to supper. Outside the lath partition was a little new mob of dead-beats, and some of those going out recognized friends there and hailed them. There was a smell of docks, and of cattle, and of grain; there was much noise of iron gangways being run to and fro, cling-clang of locomotive bells, hiss of the new-lit lights. Things were all in just uncertain enough light for a man here and there to stub a toe on a stretched hawser. Overhead an exquisite pale blue, and fading pink, showed the aftermath of the day, high, far-off, serene.

Lamplight and daylight blent in the waterfront streets, and as the little crowd of men left the more open wharf front, where there was also some reflected last daylight from the docks and the river, a looker-on might have been touched deeply, seeing the quick-going day, the gathering shadows in the gulches of the streets, the lighting up of the saloons, and that knot of men, more homeless than sparrows, drifting across the twilight. And they were not of the bottom rung, at least not in their own estimation. A man in the uniform of the Salvation Army passed by, and that member of the "Push" who looked like a squat Mike, and whose name, it transpired, was Michael, turned to Scholar and commented: "I suppose the Salvation Army does some good in its own way--among the lowest classes." And again a few paces on, when one of the men in the rear broke out: "Here, where are you fellows going? What's the matter with this?" Michael looked over his shoulder and shook his head in dissent; and a little further still, as the man behind was still wanting to know what was the matter with the saloon in question: "We don't want to go in there," Michael said. "There ain't enough of us. That's a bad, low-down joint."

"Scared, are you?" jeered the other.

"There's a bad push goes in there," said Michael, "and you don't stand a show if you're not in the swing."

"Go on! What could they do?"

It would appear that Michael felt his powers of explaining inadequate.

"Mike," he said, "here's a fellow wants to know what they would do with him back there."

"What they would do to him, is it?" asked Mike. "It all depinds whether he feels in his pockuts and fetches out the nate money as if it was his last nickel."

The man behind seemed interested.

"Supposing I put down fifty cents?" he said.

Mike looked at him witheringly.

"You'd have to spind the change on thim," he said.

"Oh!"

"But if ye want to see the whole thing for yoursilf, my device to you, me lad, is to plant down a dollar--if ye have it. If ye hadn't plenty of fighting friends with ye, ye might just as well hand it to them. If it's a rough house ye're wantin', we might all go in and oblige ye, but spakin' for mesilf, I'm wantin' a quiet drink."

"That's right," Michael commented quietly, with a nod to Scholar, by whose side he marched. "Partner of mine once went in there. I think meself that some fellow slipt up and drugged his beer, for when he comes near the tail of the glass he feels kind of funny, ye know, and he came outside. He was for walking out into the main streets, and then he thinks some bull would arrest him for drunk and incapable, for he could hardly stand; so he turns the other way and two fellows came up to him and began talking to him, and asks him what's the matter, and he tumbles to it and tries to walk back the other way again. One of them fellows comes the one side of him and the other the other side, and they says: 'You come along with us, where the bulls won't get you.' And while he's puzzling out which is better, the bulls or them, ye see--well, he doesn't know any more, ye see. And the next he does know, he's wondering where he is anyhow, for the things he's after seeing. It's the backs of the wharfs all upside down, ye see. He's lying there with nothing on him but his pants. The hat on his head, his shirt and his coat, with his discharge papers in it, they've skinned off him; and his boots; and him after having a dollar stowed away in each boot."

"Here you are, Scholar, then," said Mike, in advance, and swung into a saloon, a ramshackle sawdusted place, where, behind a short counter, a lean, sharp-faced man in shirt sleeves looked at them in a way reminiscent of a weasel. All entered with a swagger, each man with whatever change of face was his change of face before possible trouble. Mike jerked up his right shoulder, jerked up his left, hitched his belt, seemed to heave his chest up, and broaden his whole torso. Cockney curved his back, curved also his arms, making the swing of them, instead of by his side, left and right, in front of him, and thrust his face forward, craning his neck. Michael put one hand in his pocket, half-closed his eyes, and slowly, and without expression, his guarded gaze roved from occupant to occupant of the place. The man with the dangerously mad eyes, who it appeared was called Harry, but was referred to simply as Queer, merely sneered slightly, an unpleasant sneer, a one-sided sneer that showed a tooth. The Inquisitive One danced into the place; his name had not yet transpired, but it seemed to be "him," with an indicatory jerk of the thumb, at which he did not take open umbrage, only now and then giving his roving glance from foot to head of whoever thus referred to him. But if he danced in gaily he was none the less alert.

Somebody spoke, and Mike interrupted with: "Where's your manners? Can't you let the man that's going to stand treat ask you what you're going to be after having, without shouting your order like that?" And they lined up against the bar, on which the barman put the palms of his hands, standing before them.

"Well, what will you have, Mike?" asked Scholar. It was the first time he had given him his name, and Mike acknowledged it with a nod. He turned to the bar-keeper.

"I'll have a schooner of beer," he said.

Michael, catching Scholar's eye, nodded to him, and then to the bar-keeper. "The same for me," he said.

The barman looked along the row and received a series of nods. He glanced at Scholar, elevating his brows, and Scholar inclined his head, and the monster nominal glasses, but really glass jugs with handles, came swift almost as conjuring, one after the other, on to the counter.

"Well, here's looking at ye," said Mike, "and good luck."

"Well, here's good luck," said Michael.

The phrase passed along, and the great jugs were held up and the quaffing began. Mike drank a quarter of his, and then turned his back to the bar, and surveyed the room. Over in a corner a faint disturbance arose, sounds of altercation, somebody telling someone else that he would push his face in. Mike looked into the corner, impassive. He leant forward and dragged a high stool over to the counter.

"Come and sit here beside me, Scholar," he said.

The narrow swing doors opened; a slight draught of air, cooler than the air within, caused them to glance round. A furtive and evil face showed for a moment in the middle of the strip of dark, blue night, and then was withdrawn. Michael looked at Mike to see if he had noticed that observer who came and went. Scholar sat up on the high stool.

"I don't know if you're fond of entering into scraps," said Mike quietly. "But don't you do it. It's a way some of these fellows have. Hearken to 'em now!"

"Order!" cried the bar-keeper, shoving his chin at those in the noisy corner. "Order, please!"

"Order, sir!" he said again, looking once more at the man who had stood up and forth to demand war.

Mike drained his glass; his eyes were very bright. He turned, and leaning against the counter, looked at the belligerent one, met his eye, cleared his throat oddly, and heaved up his chest. It struck Scholar that the beer acted quickly upon Mike.

Mike took a fierce step forward--he who had but a moment ago advised Scholar to keep out of such trouble. The eyes of the bar-keeper and of the man behind the newspaper again met. Down went the newspaper, up came the man. He walked over to the blusterer and addressed a knothole in the planks before his feet.

"I'll have to ask you to get out," he said, speaking to the knot-hole, and then glanced at the man.

"I don't have to!"

The actions were then as quick as when two cats, the preamble over, decide to come to grips. A whirl of arms and legs went down the middle of the saloon, the swing doors swept left and right and closed again, and the big man was alone now, his eye upon the doors as they wavered to a standstill.

"There you are!" said Michael to Scholar. "That's what I told you--this is a good class house."

"Drink up! Drink up!" ordered Mike, "and we'll have some more."

But four rational glasses of beer in one seemed sufficient for Scholar.

"We'd better get back I think," he said. "The rest of the cattle will be coming on board."

"Oh, but indade I must stand treat now!" answered Mike.

"Can't you get a glass of beer here?" asked Scholar, accentuating the "glass."

"Them is the glasses of beer here," said Mike. "Come along boys, drink up!" he repeated; and he glanced at the door with a kind of hilarity in his eye.

"When will she sail, do you think?" said the Inquisitive One.

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