_ CHAPTER IX. A CELESTIAL ENTERPRISE
Broad avenues of feathery pepper trees, long driveways between shadowy rows of the soldierly eucalyptus, wide lawns and gigantic palms of the southern isles, weaving pampas grass, gay as the plumes of romance, jasmine, orange-bloom, and roses everywhere. Over all is the eternal sunshine and noon breeze of the sea, graciously cooling. Roundabout is a girdle of far hills.
Some old Spanish padre named it "Nuestra Senora Reina de Los Angeles," making melody that still lures with its ancient charm. A city for angels, verily. A city of angels? Verily; some fallen, indeed, for there is much nefarious trafficking in real estate, but all in all the majority of souls in Los Angeles are celestial bound, treading upon sunbeams in their pilgrimage.
The plaza, round which the new town roars from dawn to dusk, is still haunted by a crumbling old adobe, while near it droop dusty pepper trees that seem to whisper to each other endlessly--"Manana! Manana!" Whisper as did those swarthy vaqueros and the young, lithe, low-voiced senoritas who strolled across the plaza in the dusk of by-gone days. "Manana! Manana!--To-morrow! To-morrow!"
And the to-morrows have come and gone as did those Spanish lovers, riding up through the sunshine on their silver-bitted pinto ponies and riding out at dusk with tinkling spur-chains into that long to-morrow that has shrouded the ancient plaza in listless dreams. Mexicans in black sombreros and blue overalls still prowl from cantina to cantina, but the gay vaquero and his senorita are no more.
Overland Red, a harsh note in the somnolence of the place, stepped buoyantly across the square. And here, if ever, Overland was at home.
A swarthy, fat Mexican shaved him while a lean old rurale of Overland's earlier acquaintance obligingly accepted some pesos with which to drink the senor's health, and other pesos with which to purchase certain clothing for the senor.
The retired rurale drove a relentless bargain with a countryman, returning with certain picturesque garments that Overland donned in the back room of the little circus-blue barber shop.
The tramp had worthily determined to hold wise and remunerative converse with the first Easterner that "looked good to him." He would make half-truths do double duty. He needed money to purchase a burro, packs, canteen, pick, shovel, dynamite, and provisions. He intended to repay the investor by money-order from some desert town as soon as he found the hidden gold. This unusual and worthy intention lent Overland added assurance, and he needed it. Fortune, goddess evanishing and coy, was with him for once. If he could but dodge the plain-clothes men long enough to outfit and get away....
The "Mojave Bar," on North Main Street of the City of Angels was all but empty. Upon it the lassitude of early afternoon lay heavily. The spider-legged music-racks of the Mexican string orchestra, the empty platform chairs, the deserted side-tables along the pictured wall, the huge cactus scrawled over with pin-etched initials,--all the impedimenta of the saloon seemed to slumber.
The white-coated proprietor, with elbows on the bar, gazed listlessly at a Remington night-scene--a desert nocturne with a shadowy adobe against the blue-black night, a glimmer of lamplight through a doorway, and in the golden pathway a pony and rider and the red flash of pistol shots.
Opposite the bartender, at a table against the wall, sat a young man, clad in cool gray. He smoked a cigarette, and occasionally sipped from a tall glass. He was slender, clean-cut, high-colored, an undeniable patrician. In his mild gray eyes, deep down, gleamed a latent humor, an interior twinkling not apparent to the multitude.
Sweeney Orcutt, the saloon-keeper, noticed this reserve characteristic now for the first time, as the young man turned toward him. Sweeney was a retired plain-clothes man with a record, and a bank account. It was said that he knew every crook from Los Angeles to New York. Be it added, to his credit, that he kept his own counsel--attending to his own business on both sides of the bar.
"Do they ever do those things now?" queried the young man, nodding toward the picture.
Sweeney Orcutt smiled a thin-lipped smile. "Not much. Sometimes in Texas or Mexico. I seen the day when they did."
The young man lazily crossed his legs. "Nice and cool here," he remarked presently.
"Been in town long?" asked Sweeney.
"No, only a few days."
"I was goin' to say there's a good show over on Spring Street--movin'-pictures of the best ridin' and buckin' and ropin' I seen yet."
"Yes? Is there any one in town who is not working for the movies?"
Again Sweeney Orcutt smiled his thin-lipped smile. "Yes, I guess there is. I might scare up one or two I used to know who is workin' the transients, which ain't exactly workin'
for the movies."
"I should like to meet some character who is really doing something in earnest; that is, some cowboy, miner, prospector, teamster,--one of those twenty-mule-team kind, you know,--or any such chap. Why, even the real estate men that have been up to my hotel seem to be acting a part. One expects every minute to see one of them pull a gun and hold up a fellow. No doubt they mean business."
"Bank on that," said Orcutt dryly.
"You see," continued the young man, "I have too much time on my hands just now. The doctors tell me to rest, and I've been doing nothing else all my life. It's pretty monotonous. I've tried to get interested in some of the chaps on North Main Street, and around the plaza. I've offered to buy them drinks and all that, but they seem to shy off. I suppose they think I'm a detective or something of that kind."
"More like, a newspaper man after a story. Hello, there! Now, what's doin'?"
Outside near the curb a crowd had collected. A traffic officer was talking to the driver of an automobile. As Sweeney Orcutt strolled toward the doorway, Overland Red, clean-shaven, clothed in new corduroys and high lace boots, and a sombrero aslant on his stiff red hair, dove into the saloon and called for a "bucket of suds."
"Close--shave--Red--" whispered Orcutt.
"Had me Orcutt, likewise," replied the tramp. "Say, Sweeney, stall off the Dick out there. I think he piped me as I blew in, but I ain't sure. He'll be pokin' in here in a minute. If he sees me talkin',--to the guy there, for instance,--and you give him a steer, he won't look too close. Sabe?" And Overland drank, observing the Easterner at the table over the top of his glass.
"They got that guy Overland Red mugged in every station from here to Chicago," whispered Orcutt. "Paper says he put it over a desert rat up near Barstow. Did you hear about it?"
"Some," replied Overland sententiously.
"And did you hear about his last get-away on one of the Moonstone Rancho ponies? Some class to that!"
"I read somethin' about it," replied Overland.
"Well, Red, if you won't tumble, all I got to say is, beat it. You're worth a thousand bucks to any fly-cop that nips you in this town. I'm handin' you a little dope that you can slide out on and not get stuck."
"Thanks, Sweeney. Well, I'll ring you up from Kalamazoo."
"Kalamazoo? In them clothes?"
"Sure. There's a law against travelin' naked in some States. Where you been grazin' lately?"
"In the bull-pasture; and say, Red, it's gettin' warm there, for some."
"Well, I guess I'll beat it," said Overland.
"Take a slant at the door first."
Overland turned leisurely. In the doorway stood the traffic officer. He glanced from Orcutt to the two men near the table. "Hello, Sweeney!" he called, glancing a second time at Overland.
"Hello!" answered Sweeney, strolling to the end of the bar. "Somebody speedin'?"
"Yes. Say, who's the guy, the big one?"
"Him? Oh, that's Billy Sample, the fella that does the desert stuff for the General Film Company. The kid is his pardner who acts the tenderfoot. They 're waitin' for the machine now to take 'em out to Glendale. Got some stunt to pull off this afternoon, so Billy was tellin' me. They're about half-stewed now. They make me sick."
"Thought I saw the big guy out on the street a minute ago," said the officer, hesitating. "There's a card out for a fella that looks like him. I guess--"
"He thought it was his machine comin'," said Orcutt. "He run out to see. It's a wonder how them movie actors can make up to look like most anybody. Why, I been in your line of business, as you know, and I been fooled lots of times. Makes a fella feel like he don't know where he's at with the town full of them movin'-picture actors."
"Well, so long, Sweeney." And the traffic officer, a little afraid of being laughed at by the famous ex-officer, Sweeney Orcutt, departed, just a thousand dollars poorer than he might have been had he had the courage of his convictions.
Overland and Orcutt exchanged glances. Orcutt's glance rested meaningly, for an instant, on the Easterner at the table. Overland grinned. Orcutt spoke to the young Easterner, who immediately rose to his feet and bowed.
"You was lookin' for somebody that's the real thing, you said. This here's my friend Jack Summers. He used to be sheriff of Abilene once. He ain't workin' for a movin'-picture outfit and he won't borrow your watch. Mebby he has a little business deal to put up to you and mebby not. Take my word for it, he's straight."
"I'm William Winthrop, back East. 'Billy' will do here. I'm a tenderfoot, but I'm not exactly a fool. I observed the delicacy with which you engineered the recent exodus of the policeman. I'm interested."
"Sounds like plush to me," said Overland. "I got a little time--not much. You're correct about the cop. I got a pretty good thing out in the Mojave--gold--"
Winthrop laughed. "You aren't losing any time, are you?"
"You wouldn't neither if you was in my boots," said Overland, grinning cheerfully.
"Oh, Red's all right," said Orcutt. "What'll you gents have?"
"Seein' I'm all right, Sweeney, I'll take five dollars in small change. I need the coin for entertainin' purposes, I'll pay you in the mornin'."
"You got me that time," said Orcutt. "Here's the coin."
"Shall we sit down here?" asked Winthrop, indicating one of the tables.
"Sure! Now this ain't no frame-up. No, I'll set where I can watch Sweeney. He's like to steal his own cash-register if you don't watch him." And Winthrop noticed that his companion faced the door. He also noticed, as the man's coat brushed against a chair as he sat down, that that same coat covered a shiny black shoulder holster in which gleamed the worn butt of an automatic pistol.
"My real name is Jack Summers," began Overland Red. "Some folks took to callin' me 'Overland Red,' seein' as I been some towerist in my time."
"Great!" murmured the Easterner. "'Overland Red!' That name has me hypnotized."
"You was sayin'?" queried Overland.
"Beg your pardon. Nothing worth while. I haven't been so happy for a year. Let me explain. I have a little money, pretty well invested. I also have lungs, I believe. The doctors don't quite agree about that, however. The last one gave me six months to live. That was a year ago. I owe him an apology and six months. I'm not afraid, exactly, and I'm certainly not glad. But I want to forget it. That's all. Go ahead about that desert and the gold. I'm listening." _