CHAPTER II
THE MEAT HUNTER
There was one tree in the city of Ascalon, the catalpa in front of JudgeThayer's office. This blazing noonday it threw a shadow as big as anumbrella, or big enough that the judge, standing close by the trunk andholding himself up soldierly, was all in the shade but the gentle swellof his abdomen, over which his unbuttoned vest gaped to invite thebreeze.
Judge Thayer was far too big for the tree, as he was too big forAscalon, but, scholar and gentleman that he was, he made the most ofboth of them and accepted what they had to offer with grateful heart.Now he stood, his bearded face streaming sweat, his alpaca coat acrosshis arm, his straw hat in his hand, his bald head red from theparboiling of that intense summer day, watching a band of Texas droverswho had just arrived with three or four thousand cattle over the longtrail from the south.
These lank, wide-horned creatures were crowding and lowing around thewater troughs in the loading pens, the herdsmen shouting theirmonotonous, melancholy urgings as they crowded more famished beasts intothe enclosures. Judge Thayer regarded the dusty scene with troubledface.
"And so pitch hot!" said he, shaking his head in the manner of a man whosees complications ahead of him. He stood fanning himself with his hat,his brows drawn in concentration. "Twenty wild devils from the Nueces,four months on the trail, and this little patch of Hades at the end!"
The judge entered his office with that uneasy reflection, leaving thedoor standing open behind him, ran up his window shades, for the sun hadturned from the front of his building, took off his collar, and settleddown to work. One could see him from the station platform, substantial,rather aristocratic, sitting at his desk, his gray beard trimmed to anicety, one polished shoe visible in line with the door.
Judge Thayer's office was a bit removed from the activities of Ascalon,which were mainly profane activities, to be sure, and not fit companyfor a gentleman even in the daylight hours. It was a snubby littlebuilding with square front like a store, "Real Estate" painted its widthabove the door. On one window, in crude black lettering:
WILLIAM THAYER ATTORNEY
NOTARY
On the other:
MAYOR'S OFFICE
The office stood not above two hundred feet from the railroad station,at the end of Main Street, where the buildings blended out into theprairie, unfenced, unprofaned by spade or plow. Beyond Judge Thayer'soffice were a coal yard and a livery barn; behind him the lots which hehad charted off for sale, their bounds marked by white stakes.
Ascalon, in those early days of its history, was not very large ineither the territory covered or the inhabitants numbered, but it was atown of national notoriety in spite of its size. People who did not livethere believed it to be an exceedingly wicked place, and the farther onetraveled from Ascalon, in any direction whatever, the faster this illfame increased. It was said, no farther off than Kansas City, thatAscalon was the wickedest place in the United States. So, one can imagewhat character the town had in St. Louis, and guess at the extent of itsnotoriety in Pittsburg and Buffalo.
Porters on trains had a holy fear of Ascalon. They announced the train'sapproach to it with suppressed breath, with eyes rolling white in fearthat some citizen of the proscribed town might overhear and defend thereputation of his abiding-place in the one swift and incontrovertibleargument then in vogue in that part of the earth. Passengers ofadventurous nature flocked to the station platform during the briefpause the train made at Ascalon, prickling with admiration of their owntemerity, so they might return home and tell of having set foot in thewickedest town in the world.
And that was the fame of Ascalon, new and raw, for the greater part ofit, as it lay beside the railroad on that hot afternoon when JudgeThayer stood in the shade of his little catalpa tree watching the Texansdrive their cattle into the loading pens.
Before the railroad reached out across the Great Plains, Ascalon wasthere as a fort, under another name. The railroad brought newconsequence, new activities, and made it the most important loadingplace for Texas cattle, driven over the long route on their slow way tomarket.
It was a cattle town, living and fattening on the herds which grazed thevast prairie lands surrounding it, and on the countless thousands whichcame northward to its portal over the Chisholm Trail. As will have beengathered from the scene already passed, agriculture had tried and failedin that land. Ascalon was believed to be, in truth, far beyond the limitof that gentle art, which was despised and contemned by the men whoroamed their herds over the free grass lands, and the gamesters whoflourished at their expense.
Not that all in Ascalon were vicious and beyond the statutory and morallaws. There was a submerged desire for respectability in the grain ofeven the worst of them which came to the front at times, as in defenseof the town's reputation, and on election day, when they put in such aman as Judge Thayer for mayor. With a man like Judge Thayer at the headof affairs, all charges of the town's utter abandonment to the powers ofevil seemed to fall and fade. But the judge, in reality, was only apillar set up for dignity and show. They elected him mayor, and went onrunning the town to suit themselves, for the city marshal was also anelective officer, and in his hands the scroll of the law reposed.
Now, in these summer days, there was a vacancy in this most importantoffice, three months, only, after election. The term had almost twoyears to run, the appointment of a man to the vacancy being in themayor's hands. As a consequence there was being exerted a great deal ofsecret and open pressure on the mayor in favor of certain favorites. Itwas from a conference with several of the town's financial powers thatthe mayor had returned to his office when you first beheld him under hiscatalpa tree. The sweat on his face was due as much to internalperplexity as outward heat, for Judge Thayer was a man who wanted toplease his friends, and everybody that counted in Ascalon was hisfriend, although they were not all friends among themselves.
No later than the night before the vacancy in the marshalship hadfallen; it would not do to allow the town to go unbridled for evenanother night. A strong man must be appointed to the place, and no fewerthan three candidates were being urged by as many factions, each ofwhich wanted its peculiar interests especially favored and protected. SoJudge Thayer was in a sweat with good reason. He wished in his honestsoul that he could reach out and pick up a disinterested man somewhere,set him into the office without the strings of fear or favor on him, andtell him to keep everybody within the deadline, regardless of whosebusiness prospered most.
But there were not men raining down every day around Ascalon competentto fill the office of city marshal. Out of the material offered therewas not the making of one side of a man. Two of them were creatures ofthe opposing gambling factions, the other a weak-kneed fellow with thepale eyes of a coward, put forward by the conservative business men whodeplored much shooting in the name of the law.
How they were to get on without much shooting, Judge Thayer did notunderstand. Not a bit of it. What he wanted was a man who would do moreshooting than ever had been done before, a man who would clean the placeof the too-ready gun-slingers who had gathered there, making the town'snotoriety their capital, invading even the respectable districts intheir nightly debaucheries to such insolent boldness that a man's wifeor daughter dared not show her ear on the street after nightfall.
Judge Thayer put the town's troubles from him with a sigh and leaned tohis work. He was preparing a defense for a cattle thief whom he knew tobe guilty, but whose case he had undertaken on account of his wife andseveral small children living in a tent behind the principalgambling-house. Because it seemed a hopeless case from the jump, JudgeThayer had set his beard firmer in the direction of the fight. Hopelesscases were the kind that had come most frequently his way all the daysof his life. He had been fronting for the under pup so long that his ownchances had dwindled down to a distant point in his gray-headed years.But there was lots of satisfaction behind him to contemplate even thoughthere might not be a great deal of prosperity ahead. That helpe
d a manwonderfully when it came to casting up accounts. So he was bent to thecattle thief's case when a man appeared in his door.
This was a tall, bony man with the dust of the long trail on him; asour-faced man of thin visage, with long and melancholy nose, a loweringfrown in his unfriendly, small red eyes. A large red mustache droopedover his mouth, the brim of his sombrero was pressed back against thecrown as if he had arrived devil-come-headlong against a heavy wind.
Judge Thayer took him for a cattleman seeking legal counsel, and invitedhim in. The visitor shifted the chafed gear that bore his weapon, as ifto ease it around his gaunt waist, and entered, removing his hat. Hestood a little while looking down at Judge Thayer, a disturbance in hisweathered face that might have been read for a smile, a half-mocking,half-humorous expression that twitched his big mustache with a catlikesneer.
"You're the mayor of this man's town, are you, Judge?" he asked.
As the visitor spoke, Judge Thayer's face cleared of the perplexity thathad clouded it. He got up, beaming welcome, offering his hand.
"Seth Craddock, as sure as little apples! I knew you, and I didn't knowyou, you old scoundrel! Where have you been all these years?"
Seth Craddock only expanded his facial twitching at this friendlyassault until it became a definite grin. It was a grin that needed noapology, for all evidence was in its favor that it was so seldom seen bythe eyes of men that it could be forgiven without a plea.
"I've been ridin' the long trail," said Seth.
"With that bunch that just arrived?"
"Yeh. Drove up from the Nueces. I'm quittin'."
"The last time I saw you, Seth, you were butchering two tons of buffaloa day for the railroaders. I often wondered where you went after youfinished your meat contract."
"I scouted a while for the gover'ment, but we run out of Indians. Then Iwent to Texas and rode with the rangers a year or two."
"I guess you kept your gun-barrel hot down in that country, Seth?"
"Yeh. Once in a while it was lively. Dyin' out down there now, quiet asa school."
"So you turned back to Kansas lookin' for high life. Heard of this burg,I guess?"
"I kind of thought something might be happenin' off up here, Judge."
"And I was sitting here frying out my soul for the sight of a full-sizedman when you stepped in the door! Sit down; let's you and me have atalk."
Seth drew a dusty chair from against the wall and arranged himself inthe draft between the front and back doors of the little house. Heleaned his storm-beaten sombrero against the leg of his chair near hisheel, as carefully as if making preparations for quick action in ahostile country, shook his head when the judge offered a cigar, shiftedhis worn cartridge belt a bit with a movement that appeared to be asunconscious as unnecessary.
"What's restin' so heavy on your mind, Judge?" he inquired.
"Our city marshal stepped in the way of a fool feller's bullet lastnight, and all the valuable property in this town is lying open andunguarded today."
"Don't nobody want the job?"
"Many are called, or seem to feel themselves nominated, but none isappointed. The appointment is in my hands; the job's yours if you'll doan old friend a favor and take it. It pays a hundred dollars a month."
Seth's heavy black hair lay in disorder on his high, sharp forehead,sweated in little ropes, more than half concealing his immense ears. Hesmoothed it back now with slow hand, holding a thoughtful silence;shifted his feet, crossed his legs, looked out through the open doorinto the dusty street.
"How does the land lay?" he asked at length.
"You know the name of the town, everybody knows the name of the town.Well, Seth, it's worse than its name. It's a job; it's a double man'sjob. If it was any less, I wouldn't lay it down before you."
"Crooks run things, heh?"
"I'm only a knot on a log. The marshal we had wasn't worth the powderthat killed him. Oh-h, he did kill off a few of 'em, but what we needhere is a man that can see both sides of the street and behind him atthe same time."
"How many folks have you got in this man's town by now, Judge?"
"Between six and seven hundred. And we could double it in three monthsif we could clean things up and make it safe."
"How would you do it, Judge? marry everybody?"
"I mean we'd bring settlers in here and put 'em on the land. Therailroad company could shoot farmers in here by the hundreds every monthif it wasn't for the hard name this town's got all over the country. Agood many chance it and come as it is. We could make this town thesupply point for a big territory, we could build up a business that'dmake us as respectable as we're open and notorious now. For I tell you,Seth, this country around here is God Almighty's granary--it's the wheatbelt of the world."
Seth made no reply. He slewed himself a little to sweep the country overbeyond the railroad station with his sullen red eyes. The heat waswavering up from the treeless, shrubless expanse; the white sun was overit as hot as a furnace blast. From the cattle pens the dusty, hoarsecries of the cowboys sounded, "Ho, ho, ho!" in what seemed derision ofthe judge's fervent claims.
"A lot of us have staked our all on the outcome here in Ascalon, wefellows who were here before the town turned out to be the sink-hole ofperdition that it is today. We built our homes here, and brought ourfamilies out, and we can't afford to abandon it to these crooks andgamblers and gun-slingers from the four corners of the earth. I let themput me in for mayor, but I haven't got any more power than a stray dog.This chance to put in a marshal is the first one I've had to land them akick in the gizzards, and by Jeems River, Seth, I want to double 'emup!"
"It looks like your trick, Judge."
"Yes, if I had the marshal with me the two of us could run this town theway it ought to be run. And we'd keep the county seat here as sure assundown."
"Considerin' a change?"
"The folks over in Glenmore are--the question will come to a vote thisfall. The county seat belongs here, not away off there at Glenmore,seven miles from the railroad."
"What's your chance?"
"Not very heavy right now. We can out-vote them in town, but thecountry's with Glenmore, all on account of our notorious name. Folkshate to come in here to court, it's got so bad. But we could do a lot ofcleaning up between now and November, Seth."
Seth considered it in silence, his red eyes on the dusty activities ofhis late comrades at the cattle pens. He shifted his dusty feet as ifdancing to his slow thoughts, scraping his boot soles grittily on thefloor.
"Yes, I reckon we could, Judge."
"Half the people in Glenmore want to come over to the railroad. They'dvote with us if they could be made to feel this was a town to bringtheir families to."
Seth seemed to take this information like a pill under his tongue anddissolve it in his reflective way. Judge Thayer left him to hisruminations, apparently knowing his habits. After a little Seth reacheddown for his hat in the manner of a man about to depart.
"All right, Judge; we'll clean up the town and part its hair down themiddle," he said.
Judge Thayer did not give vent to his elation on Seth Craddock'sacceptance of the office of city marshal, although his satisfactiongleamed from his eyes and radiated from his kindly face. He merely shookhands with his new officer in the way of men sealing a bargain, sworehim in, and gave him the large shield which had been worn by the manypredecessors of the meat hunter in that uncomfortable office, three ofwhom had gone out of the world with lead enough in them to keep themfrom tossing in their graves.
This ceremony ended, Seth put his hat firmly on his small, reptilianhead, adding greatly to the ferociousness of his thirsty countenance byhis way of pulling the sombrero down upon his ears.
"Want to walk around with me and introduce me and show me off?" heasked.
"It'll be the biggest satisfaction in ten years!" Judge Thayerdeclared.