Cactus and Rattlers

At least twice a year, when he came in to Stovepipe Springs to get his mail and flour, Sagebrush answered to the cognomen of George Beam. This was one of the occasions. To his acute consternation, he had discovered that “The Springs” was crowded with life and gayety, for there was a strange female stopping at the hotel, and another pilgrim was coming in by stage this same afternoon.

Sagebrush presented a general vista of whiskers, red nose and nondescript garments, bleached by sun and white with alkali dust; yet it was his proud boast that he was the only man between Death Valley and the big bend of the Colorado who kept abreast of the times. Subscribing to several weekly magazines, he came in once every six months to get the accumulated copies. Then he sat down and answered the advertisements, requesting circulars. Thus he had a burro-load of magazines to read for six months, then a burro-load of circulars wherewith to while away the next six months—an involved and vicious circle in which Sagebrush was always trying to catch up with himself. He kept the post office on the map, however.

“Now, dog-gone it,” he observed to his three patient burros, as he tied on his grub and magazines and a bundle of postal cards, “you and me got to hike out again in order to git our correspondence goin’ in peace! Dad blame this dad-blamed town! What in hell is folks crowding in this country for, anyhow?”

Haywire Johnson, assistant postmaster and general utility man about the hotel, showed up in time to answer this query.

“Hi, Sagebrush! Aint you stoppin’ over in town? Things is pickin’ up right fast. We got a settler yesterday, and we got a tourist comin’ today.”

“That’s jest it,” growled Sagebrush. “A feller can’t have no peace no more. That makes three women in town now, not countin’ them females over to José Garcia’s shack.”

“Well, listen!” Haywire laid his hand on the desert rat’s arm. “Where’d you get that dust you weighed in over to the store, eh? Let’s you and me go in and talk, Sagebrush. If you aint got no objections to wettin’ down them whiskers with a mite o’ licker, s’pose we go inside and arbitrate.”

Sagebrush grunted, hitched his three burros to the rail, and vanished in the hotel.

Once Stovepipe Springs had been a boom mining town, but now it was dead and dried out. To west and north lay desert, to the south lay more desert and the Colorado. To the east was the Chuckwalla Range—in it and beyond it rich cattle country with water galore. Here in Stovepipe Springs, and over across the Chuckwallas, men talked different languages, had different customs and were themselves different. No cow-men came over this way unless they were well ahead of the sheriff; and Stovepipe Springs, having its own railroad connections at a distance of twenty miles, was supremely independent of the remainder of the county, and heartily despised all ranchers and cow-men.

Here, besides the hotel, were five inhabited houses and two stores, a bank and a garage. Had it not been for the literary enterprise of Sagebrush Beam, even the post office would have long since been wiped off the map. The town was a point of call for desert rats, and being at present on a detour of the cross-continent automobile highway, had more business than its looks would warrant. Its inhabitants lived only for the day when some one would strike it rich and bring back the boom.

It was three in the afternoon and blazing hot when the exhaust whistle of the autostage announced its arrival. The entire dozen persons of the local constituency gathered to watch. One of these onlookers was a small man in rusty and dilapidated attire. He stood barely five feet six, his face was a grayish mask from which shone two bright and glittery gray eyes, and there was a stoop to his shoulders—but he was not crowded. He was not only the most flourishing, but he was the most respected citizen of all Chuckwalla County.

The stage whooped out a final whistle and came to rest amid a whirl of dust in front of the hotel. The driver flung off a mail-sack, handed off an empty express-box, then swung down and vanished abruptly into the hotel. His solitary passenger, meantime, descended before the assembled gaze of Stovepipe Springs, staring around with unassumed interest. And Stovepipe Springs, after the first gasp, stared back—hard.