The Texican. Coolidge Dane

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      CHAPTER VI

       "THE VOICE OF REASON"

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      The fierce heat of summer fell suddenly upon Lost Dog Cañon and all the Verde country—the prolonged heat which hatches flies by the million and puts an end to ear-marking and branding. Until the cool weather of October laid them and made it possible to heal a wound there was nothing for Pecos to do but doctor a few sore ears and read the Voice of Reason. Although he had spent most of his life in the saddle the school-teacher back on the Pecos had managed to corral him long enough to beat the three R's into him and, being still young, he had not yet had time to forget them. Only twenty summers had passed over his head, so far, and he was a man only in stature and the hard experience of his craft. He was a good Texan—born a Democrat and taught to love whiskey and hate Mexicans—but so far his mind was guiltless of social theory. That there was something in the world that kept a poor man down he knew, vaguely; but never, until the Voice of Reason brought it to his attention, had he heard of the conspiracy of wealth or the crime of government. Not until, sprawling at the door of his cave, he mumbled over the full-mouthed invective of that periodical had he realized what a poor, puny creature a wage-slave really was, and when he read of the legalized robbery which went on under the name of law his young blood boiled in revolt. The suppression of strikes by Pinkertons, the calling out of the State Militia to shoot down citizens, the blacklisting of miners, and the general oppression of workingmen was all far away and academic to him—the thing that gripped and held him was an article on the fee system, under which officers of the law arrest all transient citizens who are unfortunate enough to be poor, and judges condemn them in order to gain a fee.

      "Think, Slave, Think!" it began. "You may be the next innocent man to be thrown into some vile and vermin-infested county-jail to swell the income of the bloated minions who fatten upon the misery of the poor!"

      Pecos had no difficulty in thinking. Like many another man of wandering habits he had already tasted the bitterness of "ten dollars or ten days." The hyenas of the law had gathered him in while he was innocently walking down the railroad track and a low-browed justice of the peace without asking any useless questions had sentenced him to jail for vagrancy. Ten days of brooding and hard fare had not sweetened his disposition any and he had stepped free with the firm determination to wreak a notable revenge, but as the sheriff thoughtfully kept his six-shooter Pecos had been compelled to postpone that exposition of popular justice. Nevertheless the details of his wrongs were still fresh in his mind, and when he learned from the Voice of Reason that the constable and judge had made him all that trouble for an aggregate fee of six dollars Pecos was ready to oppose all law, in whatsoever form it might appear, with summary violence. And as for the capitalistic classes—well, Pecos determined to collect his last month's pay from Old Crit if he had to take it out of his hide.

      When next he rode into Verde Crossing the hang-dog look which had possessed Pecos Dalhart since he turned rustler was displaced by a purposeful frown. He rolled truculently in the saddle as he came down the middle of the road, and wasted no time with preliminaries.

      "Where's that blankety-blank Old Crit?" he demanded, racking into the store with his hand on his hip.

      "Gone down to Geronimo to git the mail," replied Babe, promptly.

      "Well, you tell him I want my pay!" thundered Pecos, pacing up and down.

      "He'll be back to-night, better stay and tell him yourself," suggested Babe, mildly.

      "I'll do that," responded Pecos, nodding ominously. "And more'n that—I'll collect it. What's doin'?"

      "Oh, nothin'," replied Babe. "There was a deputy assessor up here the other day and he left this blank for you to fill out. It gives the number of your cattle."

      "Well, you tell that deputy to go to hell, will you?"

      "Nope," said Babe, "he might take me with him. It happens he's a deputy sheriff, too!"

      "Deputy,—huh!" grumbled Pecos, morosely. "They all look the same to me. Did Crit fill out his blank?"

      "Sure did. Reported a hundred head of Wine-glasses. Now what d'ye think of that?"

      Pecos paused and meditated on the matter for an instant. It was doubtful if Crittenden could gather more than a hundred head of Wine-glasses, all told. Some of them had drifted back to their old range and the rest were scattered in a rough country. "Looks like that deputy threw a scare into him," he observed, СКАЧАТЬ