Jingo Read online

  He said: “Miss Tyrrel, the sheriff asked me to introduce to you ... while he was away ... he asked me to introduce you to ... to ...”

  The wretched wits of the hardware man began to give way. He had forgotten the name. Leadville was the only thing that he could think of. And therefore, in despair, he groaned out: “Asked me to introduce you to Jingo.”

  Then he fled and left Jingo to make the most of it. All the four were looking at him. The girl was saying, in the most incurious way, that she was happy to meet Jingo. One of the young men in white linen looked him up and down as though he were a horse.

  “Maybe this is the town entertainer,” he said.

  He was a handsome young man. He was just the height of Jingo and he was almost as good-looking, except that he was as blond as Jingo was dark. He had a little golden mustache that shone in the light of the dance hall, and in fact there was a shimmering radiance like money that extended even to the clothes of the youth.

  Jingo looked on him with a calm eye, the eye of a Jove at rest, but nevertheless he was gripping a flaming thunderbolt of wrath in the right hand.

  These things had been said and observed in a second or so after the introduction, and Jingo said: “No, I’m not the town entertainer. But the sheriff thought you were perhaps a little bored, Miss Tyrrel. He told me to come over and do what I could. I see you have a chair and a drink and a fan. All I can offer you is a dance.”

  “That’s rather good, too,” said the man with the little golden mustache. And he ran the tips of his fingers over that mustache. For it was so new that he had not lost the first fervor of his love for it and could not help caressing it from time to time.

  The girl was avoiding the invitation with easy skill.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I want you to know Wheeler Bent. This is George Staley ... and Lincoln Waterson. Is your name really Jingo?”

  Jingo acknowledged the introductions with a light, quick handshake all around. He was glad to know that the name of the fellow with the golden mustache was Wheeler Bent. Already in his mind he was making plays upon the word and thinking of various ways in which stronger wheels than that could be bent.

  “It makes a story,” Jingo said.

  The girl looked at Jingo, and Jingo looked at the girl. She looked so closely that she could see that his eyes were brown. They both smiled at exactly the same instant.

  “Do sit down and tell me,” she said.

  “It’s like this,” Jingo began, who had finished cursing the hardware maker to himself. “The name’s made up of two initials and a final word.”

  “Really?” said the girl.

  He sat down beside her. It was when Jingo sat down that people could really see him. Any man can stand up straight, and a good few even know how to hold their head and balance their weight, but not one man in ten million knows how to sit on a chair as though it were a throne from which a world of opportunity may be surveyed, or as though it were the back of a horse fit to leap over mountains. That was how Jingo sat, however, turning just a little toward Eugenia Tyrrel, but never too much.

  “Yeah, really,” Jingo said. “The J is for Jumbo. The I is for Igarone, and the last name is Ngo.”

  She said nothing. She sat still, and her eyes were still, too, but the light in them was quivering.

  “Ngo,” Jingo said, “is African for great chief or king ... Igarone is a family name, and Jumbo is used something like sir in English.

  He grinned at her, and she grinned back. It was not a smile at all.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” she said. “I’ve been out in British East Africa and picked up some of the lingo.”

  “So you know that Ngo stands for king?”

  “As far as I’m concerned, it may,” said the girl.

  They laughed together.

  Mr. Wheeler Bent cleared his throat and moved to a position from which he silently commanded the attention of Eugenia Tyrrel—and failed to get it.

  “What were you doing in Africa?” Jingo asked her. “Shooting?”

  “Yes. Lions.”

  “English lions?” asked Jingo.

  “No.” She chuckled. “African.”

  “Did you get any?”

  She held up one finger.

  “That’s what the headman said,” she explained. “But the lion didn’t drop till after he’d fired a second shot. You can make up your mind for yourself.”

  “I’ve made up my mind,” Jingo said, “that if I give some money to the trombone players, they’d let us hear the music of the strings, for the next dance.”

  “That’s the very best idea,” said Eugenia Tyrrel, “that I’ve heard this evening ... bar one.”

  “What one is barred?” Jingo asked.

  “The one about Ngo,” said the girl.

  “One can always learn little things,” said Jingo. “Are we dancing the next dance?”

  She cast one fleeting glance at the polished tips of his boots.

  “I’d like to,” she told him.

  “Oh, I say, Gene,” interrupted Wheeler Bent.

  “I thought he might have something to say,” Jingo said in one of those voices that travel just far enough to be indiscreet.

  “Yes, Wheeler?” said the girl with the first shadow of a frown.

  “Your next dance is taken,” Wheeler Bent informed her. “Terribly sorry.”

  “Is it taken?” she asked, looking very straight at her chief escort.

  “Yes,” he assured her.

  “Well,” murmured Eugenia Tyrrel, “later on, Mister Ngo?”

  “Name any dance you please,” he said.

  “I’ll work over her program,” Wheeler Bent said. “It may take a little arranging. You know how things are. You have this one, I think, George.”

  George Staley stepped gladly forward as the trombones made the air shudder with their wide-lipped blast.

  “Later,” the girl said over the shoulder of George.

  “Later,” Jingo confirmed.

  Then he saw a figure striding swiftly toward him, half wrecking dancing couples on the way. The figure was that of the sheriff.

  Suddenly Jingo was aware of a window open beside him and was taken with a desire for the cool of the outer night. He stepped through that window. The ground was a dozen feet below. But he hung an instant by the tips of his fingers, and landed as lightly beneath as any cat.

  Chapter Eight

  As the sheriff made for him and he made for the window, Jingo was aware of one important object, and that was the enormous bulk of the Parson striding in the sheriff’s rear, and pointing his great arm over the sheriff’s shoulder. There was not the slightest doubt that the Parson intended to win the $100 bet even if he had to use means a little too rough, even if he had to lean his mighty elbow on the shoulder of the law.

  It was rather the coming of the Parson than the approach of the sheriff that had decided Jingo to seek the cool of the outer night.

  Now he sat on the stump of a tree in front of the barn where only the vaguest glimmerings of light reached through the shadows, but light half so strong would have been enough to set glowing the hair of the lad who now appeared before him.

  “I thought you’d be home in bed, by now, Red,” said Jingo.

  “I knew you’d be needing me again,” Red responded. “Ain’t she a dandy?”

  “Who?” asked Jingo absently.

  “I climbed up to one of the windows and looked in and seen everything,” the boy explained. “Ain’t she a jim-dandy? It’s lucky that you’re rich, mister.”

  “Yeah, it’s lucky that I’m rich,” Jingo said a little sourly.

  He lapsed into a long silence. When he looked up from it, a moment later, Red was still standing immobile before him.

  “Do I believe what I see or am I cock-eyed?” Jingo asked. “Are t
hose people that are arriving just now wearing masks?”

  “I’ve been watching and thinking about it,” Red said. “But it ain’t no good. Every gent has to lift his mask for the sheriff to see him as he goes through the door.”

  “Are you sure?” insisted Jingo.

  “Dead certain. I can see what they’re doing from here.”

  “The devil,” Jingo muttered.

  “Take a new hand,” Red said. “You ain’t beat while you got money.”

  “Here’s five dollars,” Jingo said.

  “What for?” Red asked, taking the money with a moist, swift hand.

  “To do some thinking for me. Start thinking, and think fast. This dance won’t last forever.”

  “Whatcha want?” asked the boy. “Her?”

  “Yes,” said Jingo.

  “Are you going to fetch her away on your horse and marry her somewheres?” asked Red.

  “I want to dance one whole dance with her,” Jingo said.

  “Oh, is that all?” Red asked with a note of deepest disappointment in his voice.

  “That’s all.”

  “Well, you’re Jingo, ain’t you? You got guns, ain’t you? Why don’t you go and shoot ’em up and dance all you wanna dance?” He added, in a greater disgust: “Dance? Huh.”

  “Listen, Red,” Jingo urged. “Brain work is what I want. Not abuse.”

  “All right,” Red said.

  He sat down on the other side of the stump.

  “She liked you,” Red pondered aloud. “You didn’t have long, but you made her shine.”

  “Did I?” asked Jingo sadly.

  “Sure you did. Clean from the window where I was, I seen. I pretty near tasted the wedding cake.”

  After a time Red said: “If you had on some of them white clothes, like yonder, they might help.”

  “White clothes? Where?”

  “See them white trousers walking, over there?”

  Jingo could see them. The low-sweeping branches covered the upper part of the silhouette, but Jingo could see white trousers walking beside a white skirt. Suddenly he stood up.

  “Red,” he said, “I knew you had a brain. Now show that you’ve got eyes that can see in the dark. Just scatter along over there. See if the fellow walking with that white skirt is wearing a little yellow mustache ... and see if the girl is my girl, will you?”

  “What’ll you do? Sock him?” Red asked eagerly.

  “Go along and do what I say,” said Jingo.

  Red disappeared.

  A moment later a whisper came out of the darkness, and Red was before him, panting.

  “It’s your girl, and it’s the gent with the yaller mustache,” declared Red.

  Jingo bent back his head and looked at the bright stars in the sky. And every one of them smiled at him.

  “Now listen,” he said. “But first, hold out your hand.”

  “My thunder,” Red muttered. “Another?”

  “If I had a million, I’d give you half,” Jingo answered heartily. “You barge up to those two ... Wait a minute ...”

  “It’s hard to wait, but I’ll do it,” said Red.

  “What are those masks for?”

  “Everybody’s going to put on masks to jollify things up a little at twelve o’clock. It ain’t minus twelve more’n five minutes now. The grand noise is going to start,” declared Red.

  “It is,” Jingo said gently. “The grand noise is about to start.” He went on: “Run up to them ... tell them ... call him Mister Bent. Understand?”

  “I could understand anything, just now,” Red said with pride. “All right. His name is Mister Bent ... and your name is Jingo.”

  “Leave my name out of it. Run up to him and say ... ‘Mister Bent, I’ve been looking for you everywhere. The buggy horses got into a ruction, and your near horse has been kicked and is down.’ Understand? Tell him to come quick.”

  “Suppose,” Red said, “that your girl goes along with him?”

  “That would be the devil. But we’ve got to chance it. Wait here while you count sixty. Then start. You know where the horse sheds are?”

  “Sure I know where they are.”

  “Well, then, if you can get him away from the girl, whistle as you come along with him. If you can’t get him away from the girl, you’d better fade out into the dark.”

  “I will,” said Red. “I’ll do everything ... and his name is Bent.”

  It was only a part of a minute after this that strange things began to happen to Wheeler Bent. As he walked up and down with Eugenia Tyrrel on his arm, a little red-headed boy rushed up to them out of the shadows.

  He called: “Mister Bent? Mister Bent?”

  “Here, my lad,” Wheeler Bent said.

  The boy danced on one foot, pointing away.

  “Back yonder ... the horses been in a ruction. Your near horse was knocked flat. They want you to come along quick to see ...”

  “I’ll go with you,” the girl said, swaying forward, ready to run.

  That was the trouble with her. Even if she were Missus Wheeler Bent, she would still be ready to pick up her skirts and run like a boy. She would still be ready to climb a tree. And this beautiful, gay, rash, reckless thing was entrusted chiefly to his guardianship tonight. It might be that he would be tempted to extend his authority over her to a greater time and on a stronger basis.

  He said: “Stay here, Gene. Go right back into the dance room, please. You don’t want to be mixed up with a lot of sweating, kicking, dusty horses. Go back, please.”

  She went back. She only gave to him one rather vague glance that drifted away and was lost among the shadows or the stars. Wheeler Bent could not tell which. As soon as he saw her safely started toward the wedge of bright light that seemed to flow in from the dusty night, instead of issuing from the interior of the barn, Bent went after the boy.

  He did not run. He was a powerful fellow, was Wheeler Bent, and every inch of his trim body was layered and lined with strings of muscle, such as constant athletics give to a man. He was as good a runner as one could have found in a county, but he had a very nice sense of the fitness of things and he was not one to run on account of a carriage horse. For a thoroughbred? Well, perhaps. But Wheeler Bent believed that there should be a decent proportion between the needs of life and the actions that serve them. So he merely went forward at a good brisk walking gait with the branches of the big trees moving back above his head until he was in a thickness of gloom.

  Then he saw a man who appeared suddenly, as though he had just stepped from behind a tree trunk.

  “Mister Bent?” said the stranger.

  “Well?” Bent said curtly. Then he recognized Jingo and instantly realized his scheme. “You!” And in a swift flare of anger he aimed a hasty, uncalculated punch at Jingo.

  “Well enough,” Jingo said, dodging, and then he hit Wheeler Bent right on the point of the chin. The shock, of course, seemed to fall on the base of Wheeler Bent’s brain. His knees and all his body sagged forward to meet the twin brother of that first punch that turned the dark of the night into one great flower of red, then all light ceased in the brain of Wheeler Bent.

  Chapter Nine

  When Wheeler Bent recovered, he was lying in the dust in his fine linen underwear. Even his shoes and his socks were gone. His hands were tied behind his back, and the same rope passed around the trunk of a tree. Furthermore, there was a tightly twisted roll of cloth in his mouth that served to gag him, so that he could only make a dull, moaning sound.

  He sat up. The shadows spun around and around. Finally he was able to rise, though the pull of the rope kept him bowed low. Figures, now and then, moved in the near distance, and he strove to attract attention by making gestures with his feet and by uttering the highest-pitched moan of which he was capable.

  But while
the people trooped calmly back toward the lighted entrance, not far away, and while the strains of the dance music began with unusual gentleness—for the trombones were altogether silent—it seemed to Wheeler Bent that he was going to be allowed to strangle unheeded in the darkness of the night. It was not the gag but the fact that he was unheeded that was strangling Wheeler Bent.

  Then there appeared, close to him, a strolling group of the bare-footed urchins of the town. They were startled, at first, by the queer sounds he made, and by the whiteness of his form in the night. But when they had had a chance to examine him more closely, they began to yell with delight.

  Boys have the souls of savages with a sense of humor added, and it seemed to that cluster that here was the victim of a practical joke given into their hands.

  They untied one end of the rope from around the tree, but they kept the other end hitched to the wrists of Wheeler Bent. When he tried to break away, half a dozen of the youngsters attached themselves to the rope and hauled him back. When he tried to charge in at them, they threw clever little loops of the rope that caught him by the feet.

  To fall without hands to save one is not pleasant, and after a time Wheeler Bent stopped charging so furiously. Those lads kept him like a live bear on the end of that rope and swept around him in circles. Their ringleader, their inspiring genius, was a red-headed youngster half the size and twice the devilishness of his companions. It was he who pointed out the glimmering, golden mustache of Wheeler Bent—and straightaway tarnished the mustache with dust. They went on and tarnished all of Mr. Bent with dust.

  He was sweating profusely; his outraged spirit was literally breaking out through the pores of his skin. Therefore the dust clung and turned him from a cool, white form to an almost black one. The more outrageous his appearance became, the more those lads yelled with delight and whirled about like the vortex of a tornado.

  He was at the point of choking with rage when, luckily, he managed to spit the gag out of his mouth. He took one deep breath, and then he let out a yell that whistled through his teeth and tore at his vocal chords. He kept right on yelling. He threatened to have the lot of them in a reform school before morning.