He plodded to the door and shouted to one of the ranch hands to saddle my horse.
Ross lit a stogy and stood thoughtful in the middle of the room. Then he began: 'I've a durn good notion, George, to knock your confounded head off and throw you into that snowbank, if--'
'You're wrong, mister. That ain't a durned good notion you've got. It's durned bad. Look here!' He pointed steadily out of doors until we were both forced to follow his finger. 'You're in here for more'n a week yet.' After allowing this fact to sink in, he barked out at Ross: 'Can you cook?' Then at me: 'Can you cook?' Then he looked at the wreck of Etienne and sniffed.
There was an embarrassing silence as Ross and I thought solemnly of a foodless week.
'If you just use hoss sense,' concluded George, 'and don't go for to hurt my feelin's, all I want to do is to take this young gal down to Hicksville; and then I'll head back here and cook fer you.'
The horse and Miss Adams arrived simultaneously, both of them very serious and quiet. The horse because he knew what he had before him in that weather; the girl because of what she had left behind.
Then all at once I awoke to a realization of what the cook was doing. 'My God, man!' I cried, 'aren't you afraid to go out in that snow?'
Behind my back I heard Ross mutter, 'Not him.'
George lifted the girl daintily up behind the saddle, drew on his gloves, put his foot in the stirrup, and turned to inspect me leisurely.
As I passed slowly in his review, I saw in my mind's eye the algebraic equation of Snow, the equals sign, and the answer in the man before me.
'Snow is my last name,' said George. He swung into the saddle and they started cautiously out into the darkening swirl of fresh new currency just issuing from the Snowdrop Mint. The girl, to keep her place, clung happily to the sturdy figure of the camp cook.
I brought three things away from Ross Curtis's ranch house--yes, four. One was the appreciation of snow, which I have so humbly tried here to render; (2) was a collarbone, of which I am extra careful; (3) was a memory of what it is to eat very extremely bad food for a week; and (4) was the cause of (3) a little note delivered at the end of the week and hand-painted in blue pencil on a sheet of meat paper.
'I cannot come back there to that there job. Mrs. Snow say no, George. I been revolvin' it in my mind; considerin' circumstances she's right.'
Whirligigs (1910)
A favourite dodge to get your story read by the public is to assert that it is true, and then add that Truth is stranger than Fiction. I do not know if the yarn I am anxious for you to read is true; but the Spanish purser of the fruit steamer El Carrero swore to me by the shrine of Santa Guadalupe that he had the facts from the U. S. vice- consul at La Paz - a person who could not possibly have been cognizant of half of them.
As for the adage quoted above, I take pleasure in punc- turing it by affirming that I read in a purely fictional story the other day the line: ''Be it so,' said the police- man.' Nothing so strange has yet cropped out in Truth.
When H. Ferguson Hedges, millionaire promoter, investor and man-about-New-York, turned his thoughts upon matters convivial, and word of it went 'down the line,' bouncers took a precautionary turn at the Indian clubs, waiters put ironstone china on his favourite tables, cab drivers crowded close to the curbstone in front of all-night cafes, and careful cashiers in his regular haunts charged up a few bottles to his account by way of preface and introduction.
As a money power a one-millionaire is of small account in a city where the man who cuts your slice of beef behind the free-lunch counter rides to work in his own automobile. But Hedges spent his money as lavishly, loudly and showily as though he were only a clerk squandering a week's wages. And, after all, the bartender takes no interest in your reserve fund. He would rather look you up on his cash register than in Bradstreet.
On the evening that the material allegation of facts begins, Hedges was bidding dull care begone in the com- pany of five or six good fellows -- acquaintances and friends who had gathered in his wake.
Among them were two younger men -- Ralph Merriam, a broker, and Wade, his friend.
Two deep-sea cabmen were chartered. At Columbus Circle they hove to long enough to revile the statue of the great navigator, unpatriotically rebuking him for having voyaged in search of land instead of liquids. Midnight overtook the party marooned in the rear of a cheap cafe far uptown.
Hedges was arrogant, overriding and quarrelsome. He was burly and tough, iron-gray but vigorous, 'good' for the rest of the night. There was a dispute -- about nothing that matters -- and the five-fingered words were passed -- the words that represent the glove cast into the lists. Merriam played the role of the verbal Hotspur.
Hedges rose quickly, seized his chair, swung it once and smashed wildly dowp at Merriam's head. Merriam dodged, drew a small revolver and shot Hedges in the chest. The leading roysterer stumbled, fell in a wry heap, and lay still.
Wade, a commuter, had formed that habit of prompt- ness. He juggled Merriam out a side door, walked him to the corner, ran him a block and caught a hansom. They rode five minutes and then got out on a dark corner and dismissed the cab. Across the street the lights of a small saloon betrayed its hectic hospitality.
'Go in the back room of that saloon,' said Wade, 'and wait. I'll go find out what's doing and let you know. You may take two drinks while I am gone - no more.'
At ten minutes to one o'clock Wade returned. 'Brace up, old chap,' he said. 'The ambulance got there just as I did. The doctor says he's dead. You may have one more drink. You let me run this thing for you. You've got to skip. I don't believe a chair is legally a deadly weapon. You've got to make tracks, that's all there is to it.'
Merriam complained of the cold querulously, and asked for another drink. 'Did you notice what big veins he had on the back of his hands?' he said. 'I never could stand -- I never could -- '
