CHAPTER VII

WHY THE WEEKLY PLANET DIED

The Weekly Planet, founded and edited during its brief existence by Higginson Peabody, and issued every Sat.u.r.day to the hebdomadal joy of Dodge, might have flourished unto this day if it hadn't been for Jack.

It was a circulation scheme proposed by Jack, and adopted by Higginson Peabody, which undid the destinies of the _Weekly Planet_ to such a degree that, in the quicksands of a bottomless trouble into which they were thereby betrayed, a trouble, as Higginson Peabody averred, "so vast, that against it no human ingenuity could prevail," they bogged down and disappeared.

Not but what Jack was wholly true to the _Weekly Planet_ and its fortunes. Indeed it was Jack, in his intense loyalty to the paper and those that gave it the aid and comfort of their countenance, and despite the fact that Mr. Masterson's recommendation had originally paved his way into journalism, who misled that officer as to the flight-direction taken by Rattlesnake Sanders on the occasion of his winging Mr. Kelly.

Perhaps, in defence of Jack, that episode should be briefly told.

Rattlesnake Sanders played a cold hand, being four kings and an ace, against a quartette of queens, the then armament of Mr. Kelly. Mr. Kelly pointed out the frigid character of those four kings, and thereupon Rattlesnake, in a feeling of chagrin natural to one who finds himself detected in a wrong, shot Mr. Kelly in the arm. Following this ebuillition of temper, Rattlesnake mounted his pony and spurred away into the dark.

The office of the _Weekly Planet_ was on the northern fringe of Dodge.

It was ten o'clock of the night when Rattlesnake expressed his dissatisfaction with Mr. Kelly in manner and form set forth. The editorial and mechanical forces of the _Weekly Planet_, made up of Higginson Peabody, Jack, and a trio of printers, were hard at work at the time and knew nothing of Rattlesnake and his exploits. Indeed, the earliest word which they received of Rattlesnake was when that impulsive cowboy pulled up at their door.

The cause of Rattlesnake's pulling up was simple. When he and Mr. Kelly sat down to that friendly game, which in its finale was so disappointing, Rattlesnake, the evening being warm, had cast aside his coat and hat. Being more or less preoccupied when ready to leave, he forgot to rea.s.sume those garments. His halt at the _Weekly Planet_ was with a purpose of repairs.

Bare of head and coatless, Rattlesnake called from the saddle to Higginson Peabody. The latter, with Jack at his elbow, appeared in the door.

"Got a hat and coat you don't want?" asked Rattlesnake.

There were two six-shooters in the belt of Rattlesnake and a Winchester in its saddle-scabbard under his left leg, and it may have been this stock of ironware that awoke the generosity of Higginson Peabody.

Whatever it was to move his benevolence, the truth remains that he took his own hat and coat from their peg and conferred them on Rattlesnake.

As he picked up the bridle reins to ride away Rattlesnake ran his hand into his pocket.

"What's the damage?" he queried.

"Nothing," returned Higginson Peabody; "they are freely yours."

"What's the subscription to this rag?" asked Rattlesnake, pointing up at the sign above the door. "How much does she cost for a year?"

"Two dollars," broke in Jack, who was the circulating agency of the _Weekly Planet_.

"Thar's a saw-buck," quoth Rattlesnake, bringing up a ten-dollar goldpiece and tossing it to Jack. "Put down Rattlesnake Sanders for five years." Then, as he buried a spur in his pony's flank and fled like an arrow: "I'll send th' address as soon as I settle down."

When Rattlesnake Sanders injured Mr. Kelly's arm Mr. Masterson was at the other end of town. It was ten minutes before he heard of the gay doings of Rattlesnake. When word reached him he threw a saddle onto a pony and started in pursuit. Mr. Masterson also halted at the open door of the _Weekly Planet_, only he was after information, not apparel.

"Did you see a cowboy without coat or hat go by?" asked Mr. Masterson, on the bare chance that the phenomenon had caught the eye of Higginson Peabody.

"I just gave one my coat and hat," replied Higginson Peabody.

"It was Rattlesnake Sanders," said Mr. Masterson, settling himself in his stirrups for a run. "He's creased Kelly. Which way did he go?"

Before Higginson Peabody could answer, Jack took reply from his mouth.

"I'll show you, Mr. Masterson," observed the eager Jack, pointing westward towards the Cimarron Crossing. "He lined out in that direction.

An' say, he was simply hittin' the high places!"

Now, be it known that Rattlesnake had fled away to the north and east, as though heading for Hays-a course the reverse of that given by Jack.

The intervention, and the brisk falsehoods so cheerfully fulminated, took away the breath of Higginson Peabody. Before he regained it Mr.

Masterson was a mile on his way to the Cimarron Crossing.

"How could you lie like that?" demanded Higginson Peabody, regarding Jack with wondering horror; "how could you lie like that, and you but fourteen! That Rattlesnake man went east, not west; and Mr. Masterson is an officer of the law!"

"What of it?" retorted Jack, indignantly; "d'you think I'd throw down a subscriber?" Then, as he reached for his cap: "I reckon I'd better go over to the Alhambra an' see how hard old Kell got plugged. It ought to be good for a column. Say!" and Jack beamed on Higginson Peabody, "if he'd only beefed old Kell, wouldn't it have been hot stuff?"

Higginson Peabody, when he graduated from Harvard, had been invited into the counting-room of his father's State Street bank. But the old migratory instinct of his puritan ancestry was rife within him, and he hungered to go abroad into the land. The expanding West invited him; also, he distasted a bank and liked the notion of a paper.

"Well," said the elder Peabody, "I don't blame you. Ma.s.sachusetts and Boston aren't what they were. New England to-day is out in Kansas and Nebraska."

Higginson Peabody resolved to start a paper. Dodge occurred to him; a friend returning had told him that newsy things were p.r.o.ne to happen in Dodge. The soil, by the friend's word, was kindly; Higginson Peabody thought it would nourish and upbuild a paper. Wherefore, one bright autumnal morning, he dropped off at Dodge. Going over to the hotel he took a room by the month and confided to Mr. Wright that he would found the _Weekly Planet_.

Mr. Wright squeezed the hand of Higginson Peabody until it hung limp as a rag.

"It was an inspiration when you decided to come to Dodge," said Mr.

Wright.

"Do you think," asked Higginson Peabody, painfully separating each finger from its fellows, "do you think your city ready for the birth of a great paper?"

"Ready? Dodge'll sit up nights to rock its cradle and warm its milk!"

quoth Mr. Wright.

Mr. Wright went down to the Long Branch and told Mr. Short. As information radiated from the Long Branch the extremest corner of Dodge was filled with the news in an hour.

When Mr. Wright withdrew to the Long Branch he left Higginson Peabody sitting on the hotel porch. The costume of Higginson Peabody culminated in a silk hat that would have looked well on Boston Common. The tall, shiny hat excited the primitive interest of Cimarron Bill, who lightly shot it from the head of its owner. Then, with bullet following bullet, he rolled it along the sidewalk. Several gentlemen joined Cimarron Bill in this sprightly pastime of the hat. Full twenty took part, and Higginson Peabody's headgear, to quote Cimarron Bill as he reported the episode later to Mr. Masterson, was:

"A heap shot up."

"He's an editor," warned Mr. Masterson, "and going to start a paper.

Mind, you mustn't hurt him!"

"Hurt him!" retorted Cimarron Bill. "If I do I hope to go afoot the balance of my life-I do, sh.o.r.e!"

Mr. Wright returned from the Long Branch, bringing Mr. Short. Higginson Peabody mentioned the adventures of his hat.

"It's my fault," said Mr. Wright; "I'd ought to have told you. That breed of war-bonnet is ag'inst the rules of our set."

"That's right," coincided Mr. Short; "only sooicides wear 'em in Dodge."

"We'll fix it," observed Mr. Wright, who noticed that Higginson Peabody looked cast down. "What's the size of your head?"

"Seven and an eighth," returned Higginson Peabody, doubtfully.

"Seven and an eighth!" repeated Mr. Wright: "It'll grow in Dodge. See if it ain't two sizes larger in a month."