“Blake. The dirty boomer’s been taking everything. But the fellows will clean him out before morning.”
About two o’clock, when my work for that night was over and I was going home to sleep, I just dropped in at the cardroom to see how things had come out. The game was breaking up. Since I left them at midnight, they had changed to stud poker, and Blake, the fireman, had cleaned everybody out. He was cashing in his chips when I came in. The bank was a little short, but Blake made no fuss about it. He had something over sixteen hundred dollars lying on the table before him in banknotes and gold. Some of the crowd were insulting him, trying to get him into a fight and loot him. He paid no attention and began to put the money away, not looking at anybody. The bills he folded and put inside the band of his hat. He filled his overalls pockets with the gold, and swept the rest of it into his big red neckerchief.
I’d been interested in this fellow ever since he came on our division; he was closemouthed and unfriendly. He was one of those fellows with a settled, mature body and a young face, such as you often see among workingmen. There was something calm, and sarcastic, and mocking about his expression—that, too, you often see among workingmen. When he had put all his money away, he got up and walked toward the door without a word, without saying good night to anybody.
“Manners of a hog, and a dirty hog!” little Barney Shea yelled after him. Blake’s back was just in the doorway; he hitched up one shoulder, but didn’t turn or make a sound.
I slipped out after him and followed him down the street. His walk was unsteady, and the gold in his baggy overalls pockets clinked with every step he took. I ran a little way and caught up with him. “What are you going to do with all that money, Blake?” I asked him.
“Lose it, tomorrow night. I’m no hog for money. Damned barber-pole dudes!”
I thought I’d better follow him home. I knew he lodged with an old Mexican woman, in the yellow quarter, behind the roundhouse. His room opened on to the street, by a sky-blue door. He went in, didn’t strike a light or make a stab at undressing, but threw himself just as he was on the bed and went to sleep. His hat stuck between the iron rods of the bed-head, the gold ran out of his pockets and rolled over the bare floor in the dark.
I struck a match and lit a candle. The bed took up half the room; on the dresser was a grip with his clean clothes in it, just as he’d brought it in from his run. I took out the clothes and began picking up the money; got the bills out of his hat, emptied his pockets, and collected the coins that lay in the hollow of the bed about his hips, and put it all into the grip. Then I blew out the light and sat down to listen. I trusted all the boys who were at the Ruby Light that night, except Barney Shea. He might try to pull something off on a stranger, down in Mexican town. We had a quiet night, however, and a cold one. I found Blake’s winter overcoat hanging on the wall and wrapped up in it. I wasn’t a bit sorry when the roosters began to crow and the dogs began barking all over Mexican town. At last the sun came up and turned the desert and the ’dobe town red in a minute. I began to shake the man on the bed. Waking men who didn’t want to get up was part of my job, and I didn’t let up on him until I had him on his feet.
“Hello, kid, come to call me?”
I told him I’d come to call him to a Harvey House breakfast. “You owe me a good one. I brought you home last night.”
“Sure, I’m glad to have company. Wait till I wash up a bit.” He took his soap and towel and comb and went out into the patio, a neat little sanded square with flowers and vines all around, and washed at the trough under the pump. Then he called me to come and pump water on his head. After he’d stood the gush of cold water for a few seconds, he straightened up with his teeth chattering.
“That ought to get the whisky out of a fellow’s head, oughtn’t it? Felt good, Tom.” Presently he began feeling his side pockets. “Was I dreaming something, or did I take a string of jackpots last night?”
“The money’s in your grip,” I told him. “You don’t deserve it, for you were too drunk to take care of it. I had to come after you and pick it up out of the mud.”
“All right. I’ll go halvers. Easy come, easy go.”
I told him I didn’t want anything off him but breakfast, and I wanted that pretty soon.
“Go easy, son. I’ve got to change my shirt. This one’s wet.”
“It’s worse than wet. You oughtn’t to go up town without changing. You’re a stranger here, and it makes a bad impression.”
He shrugged his shoulders and looked superior. He had a square-built, honest face and steady eyes that didn’t carry a cynical expression very well. I knew he was a decent chap, though he’d been drinking and acting ugly ever since he’d been on our division.
After breakfast we went out and sat in the sun at a place where the wooden sidewalk ran over a sand gully and made a sort of bridge. I had a long talk
