Sundown Slim.

by Henry Hubert Knibbs.

Arizona

Across the wide, sun-swept mesas the steel trail of the railroad runs east and west, diminishing at either end to a shimmering blur of silver. South of the railroad these level immensities, rich in their season with ripe bunch-gra.s.s and grama-gra.s.s roll up to the barrier of the far blue hills of spruce and pine. The red, ragged shoulders of b.u.t.tes blot the sky-line here and there; wind-worn and grotesque silhouettes of gigantic fortifications, castles and villages wrought by some volcanic Cyclops who grew tired of his labors, abandoning his unfinished task to the weird ravages of wind and weather.

In the southern hills the swart Apache hunts along historic trails o'er which red cavalcades once swept to the plundering of Sonora's herds.

His sires and their flashing pintos have vanished to other hunting-grounds, and he rides the boundaries of his scant heritage, wrapped in sullen imaginings.

The canons and the hills of this broad land are of heroic mould as are its men. Sons of the open, deep-chested, tall and straight, they ride like conquerors and walk--like bears. Slow to anger and quick to act, they carry their strength and health easily and with a dignity which no worn trappings, faded shirt, or flop-brimmed hat may obscure. Speak to one of them and his level gaze will travel to your feet and back again to your eyes. He may not know what you are, but he a.s.suredly knows what you are not. He will answer you quietly and to the point. If you have been fortunate enough to have ridden range, hunted or camped with him or his kind, ask him, as he stands with thumb in belt and wide Stetson tilted back, the trail to heaven. He will smile and point toward the mesas and the mountains of his home. Ask him the trail to that other place with which he so frequently garnishes his conversation, and he will gravely point to the mesas and the hills again. And there you have Arizona.

SUNDOWN SLIM

CHAPTER I

SUNDOWN IN ANTELOPE

Sundown Slim, who had enjoyed the un-upholstered privacy of a box-car on his journey west from Albuquerque, awakened to realize that his conveyance was no longer an integral part of the local freight which had stopped at the town of Antelope, and which was now rumbling and grumbling across the Arizona mesas. He was mildly irritated by a management that gave its pa.s.sengers such negligent service. He complained to himself as he rolled and corded his blankets. However, he would disembark and leave the car to those base uses for which corporate greed, and a shipper of baled hay, intended it. He was further annoyed to find that the door of the car had been locked since he had taken possession. Hearing voices, he hammered on the door.

After an exchange of compliments with an unseen rescuer, the door was pushed back and he leaped to the ground. He was a bit surprised to find, not the usual bucolic agent of a water-plug station, but a belted and booted rider of the mesas; a cowboy in all the glory of wide Stetson, wing chaps, and Mexican spurs.

"Thought you was the agent. I couldn't see out," apologized the tramp.

The cowboy laughed. "He was scared to open her up, so I took a chanct, seein' as I'm agent for the purvention of crulty to Hoboes."

"Well, you got a fine chance to make a record this evening" said Sundown, estimating with experienced eye the possibilities of Antelope and its environs. "I et at Albuquerque."

"Ain't a bad town to eat in," commented the puncher, gazing at the sky.

"I never seen one that was," the tramp offered, experimentally.

The cowboy grinned. "Well, take a look at this pueblo, then. You can see her all from here. If the station door was open you could see clean through to New Mexico. They got about as much use for a Bo in these parts as they have for raisin' posies. And this ain't no garden."

"Well, I'm raised. I got me full growth," said Sundown, straightening his elongated frame,--he stood six-feet-four in whatever he could get to stand in,--"and I raised meself."

"Good thing you stopped when you did," commented the puncher. "What's your line?"

"Me line? Well, the Santa Fe, jest now. Next comes cookin'. I been cook in everything from a hotel to a gradin'-camp. I cooked for high-collars and swalley-tails, and low-brows and jeans--till it come time to go. Incondescent to that I been poet select to the T.W.U."

"Temperance?"

"Not exactly. T.W.U. is Tie Walkers' Union. I lost me job account of a long-hair b.u.t.tin' in and ramblin' round the country spielin'

high-toned stuff about 'Art for her own sake'--and such. Me pals selected him animus for poet, seein' as how I just writ things nacheral; no high-fluted stuff like him. Why, say, pardner, I believe in writin' from the ground up, so folks can understand. Why, this country is sufferin' full of guys tryin' to pull all the G strings out of a harp to onct--when they ought to be practicin' scales on a mouth-organ. And it's printed ag'in' 'em in the magazines, right along. I read lots of it. But speakin' of eats and _thinkin_' of eats, did you ever listen to 'Them Saddest Words,'--er--one of me own compet.i.tions?"

"Not while I was awake. But come on over to 'The Last Chance' and lubricate your works. I don't mind a little po'try on a full stummick."

"Well, I'm willin', pardner."

The process of lubrication was brief; and "Have another?" queried the tramp. "I ain't all broke--only I ain't payin' dividen's, bein' hard times."

"Keep your two-bits," said the puncher. "This is on me. You're goin'

to furnish the chaser, Go to it and cinch up them there 'saddest.'"

"Bein' just two-bits this side of bein' a socialist, I guess I'll keep me change. I ain't a drinkin' man--regular, but I never was scared of eatin'."

Sundown gazed about the dingy room. Like most poets, he was not averse to an audience, and like most poets he was quite willing that such audience should help defray his incidental expenses--indirectly, of course. Prospects were pretty thin just then. Two Mexican herders loafed at the other end of the bar. They appeared anything but susceptible to the blandishments of Euterpe. Sundown gazed at the ceiling, which was fly-specked and uninspiring,

"Turn her loose!" said the puncher, winking at the bartender.

Sundown folded his long arms and tilted one lean shoulder as though defying the elements to blast him where he stood:--

"Lives there a gent who has not heard, Before he died, the saddest word?

"'What word is that?' the maiden cried; 'I'd like to hear it before I died.'

"'Then come with me,' her father said, As to the stockyards her he led;

"Where layin' on the ground so low She seen a tired and weary Bo.

"But when he seen her standin' 'round, He riz up from the cold, cold ground.

"'Is this a hold-up game?' sez he.

And then her pa laughed wickedly.

"'This ain't no hold-up!' loud he cried, As he stood beside the fair maiden's side.

"'But this here gal of mine ain't heard What you Boes call the saddest word.'

"'The Bo, who onct had been a gent, Took off his lid and low he bent.

"He saw the maiden was fed up good, So her father's wink he understood.

"'The saddest word,' the Bo he spoke, 'Is the dinner-bell, when you are broke.'"

And Sundown paused, gazing ceilingward, that the moral might seep through.

"You're ridin' right to home!" laughed the cow-boy. "You just light down and we'll trail over to Chola Charley's and prospect a tub of frijoles. The dinner-bell when you are broke is plumb correct. Got any more of that po'try broke to ride gentle?"

"Uhuh. Say, how far is it to the next town?"

"Comin' or goin'?"