recollection of that first night in Forks remained with him when the memory of many subsequent nights had passed from him. It stuck to him as only the first strong impressions of a new life can.
He met Sally Ranks—she was two sizes too large for the dining-room of the boarding-house—who talked in a shrieking nasal manner that cut the air like a knife, and who heaped the plates with coarse food that it was well to have a good appetite to face. He dined for the first time in his life at a table that had no cloth, and devoured his food with the aid of a knife and fork that had never seen a burnish since they had first entered the establishment, and drank boiled tea out of a tin cup that had once been enameled. He was no longer John Tresler, fresh from the New England States, but one of fourteen boarders, the majority of whom doubled the necessary length of their sentences when they conversed by reason of an extensive vocabulary of blasphemy, and picked their teeth with their forks.
But it was pleasant to him. He was surrounded by something approaching the natural man. Maybe they were drawn from the dregs of society, but nevertheless they had forcibly established their right to live—a feature that had lifted them from the ruck of thousands of law-abiding citizens. He experienced a friendly feeling for these ruffians. More, he had a certain respect for them.
After supper many of them drifted back to their recreation-ground, the saloon. Tresler, although he had no inclination for drink, would have done the same. He wished to see more of the people, to study them as a man who wishes to prepare himself for a new part. But the quiet Slum drew him back and talked gently to him; and he listened.
“Say, Tresler,” the little man remarked offhandedly, “ther’s three fellers lookin’ fer a gamble. Two of ’em ain’t a deal at ‘draw,’ the other’s pretty neat. I tho’t, mebbe, you’d notion a hand up here wi’ us. It’s better’n loafin’ down ’t the saloon. We most gener’ly play a dollar limit.”
And so it was arranged. Tresler stayed. He was initiated. He learned the result of a game of “draw” in Forks, where the players made the whole game of life a gamble, and attained a marked proficiency in the art.
The result was inevitable. By midnight there were four richer citizens in Forks, and a newcomer who was poorer by his change out of a hundred-dollar bill. But Tresler lost quite cheerfully. He never really knew how it was he lost, whether it was his bad play or bad luck. He was too tired and sleepy long before the game ended. He realized next morning, when he came to reflect, that in some mysterious manner he had been done. However, he took his initiation philosophically, making only a mental reservation for future guidance.
That night he slept on a palliasse of straw, with a pillow consisting of a thin bolster propped on his outer clothes. Three very yellow blankets made up the tally of comfort. And the whole was spread out on the floor of a room in which four other men were sleeping noisily.
After breakfast he paid his bill, and, procuring his horse, prepared for departure. His first acquaintance in Forks stood his friend to the last. Slum it was who looked round his horse to see that the girths of the saddle were all right; Slum it was who praised the beast in quiet, critical tones; Slum it was who shook him by the hand and wished him luck; Slum it was who gave him a parting word of advice; just as it was Slum who had first met him with ridicule, cared for him—at a price—during his sojourn, and quietly robbed him at a game he knew little about. And Tresler, with the philosophy of a man who has that within him which must make for achievement, smiled, shook hands heartily and with good will, and quietly stored up the wisdom he had acquired in his first night in Forks Settlement.
“Say, Tresler,” exclaimed Slum, kindly, as he wrung his departing guest’s hand, “I’m real glad I’ve met you. I ’lows, comin’ as you did, you might ’a’ run dead into some durned skunk as hadn’t the manners for dealin’ with a hog. There’s a hatful of ’em in Forks. S’long. Say, ther’s a gal at Skitter Bend. She’s the ol’ blind boss’s daughter, an’ she’s a dandy. But don’t git sparkin’ her wi’ the ol’ man around.”
Tresler laughed. Slum amused him.
“Good-bye,” he said. “Your kindness has taken a load—off my mind. I know more than I did yesterday morning. No, I won’t get sparking the girl with the old man around. See you again some time.”
And he passed out of Forks.
“That feller’s a decent—no, he’s a gentleman,” muttered Slum, staring after the receding horseman. “Guess Skitter Bend’s jest about the place fer him. He’ll bob out on top like a cork in a water bar’l. Say, Jake Harnach’ll git his feathers trimmed or I don’t know a ‘deuce-spot’ from a ‘straight flush.’ ”
Which sentiment spoke volumes for his opinion of the man who had just left him.
CHAPTER II
MOSQUITO BEND
Forks died away in a shimmering haze of heat as Tresler rode out over the hard prairie trail. Ten miles they had told him it was to Mosquito Bend; a ten-mile continuation of the undulating plains he had now grown accustomed to. He allowed his horse to take it leisurely. There was no great hurry for an early arrival.
John Tresler had done what many an enterprising youngster from the New England States has done since. At the age of twenty-five, finding himself, after his university career at Harvard, with an excellent training in all athletics, particularly boxing and wrestling and all those games pertaining to the noble art of self-defense, but with only a limited proficiency in matters relating to the earning of an adequate living, he had decided to break new ground for himself on the prairie-lands of the West. Stock-raising was his object, and, to this end, he had sought out a ranch where he could thoroughly master the craft before embarking on his own enterprise.
It was through official channels that he had heard of Mosquito Bend as one of the largest ranches in the country at the time, and he had at once entered into negotiations with the owner, Julian Marbolt, for a period of instruction. His present journey was the result.
He thought a good deal as his horse ambled over that ten miles. He weighed the stories he had heard from Shaky, and picked them threadbare. He reduced his efforts to a few pointed conclusions. Things were decidedly rough at Mosquito Bend. Probably the brutality was a case of brute force pitted against brute force—he had taken into consideration the well-known disposition of the Western cowpuncher—and, as such, a matter of regretable necessity for the governing of the place. Shaky had in some way fallen foul of the master and foreman and had allowed personal feelings to warp his judgment. And, lastly, taking his “greenness” into account, he had piled up the agony simply from the native love of the “old hand” for scaring a newcomer.
Tresler was no weakling or he would never have set out to shape his own course as he was now doing. He was a man of considerable purpose, self-reliant and reasonable, with sufficient easy good-nature to be compatible with strength. He liked his own experiences too, though he never scorned the experiences of another. Slum had sized him up pretty shrewdly when he said “he’ll bob out on top like a cork in a water bar’l,” but he had not altogether done him full justice.
The southwestern trail headed slantwise for the mountains, which snowy barrier bounded his vision to the west the whole of his journey. He had watched the distant white-capped ramparts
