THE REVOLUTION THE coyotes who from their seven hills along the Verde were accustomed to make Rome howl found themselves outclassed and left to a thinking part on the night that Pecos Dalhart and Angevine Thorne celebrated the dawn of Reason. The French Revolution being on a larger scale, and, above all, successful, has come down in history as a great social movement; all that can be said of the revolution at Verde Crossing is packed away in those sad words: it failed. It started, like most revolutions, with a careless word, hot from the vitriolic pen of some space-writer gone mad, and ended in that amiable disorder which, for lack of a better word, we call anarchy. Whiskey was at the bottom of it, of course, and it meant no more than a tale told by an In the early part of the evening, according to orders, JosÉ Garcia watched them furtively through the open door, returning at intervals, however, to peer through the window of his own home. At each visit it seemed to him that Angy was getting drunker and the Boss more shameless in his attentions to Marcelina. At last, when he could stand the strain no longer, he threw in with the merry roisterers, leaving it to the SeÑora to protect the dignity of their home. A drink or two mellowed him to their propaganda—at the mention of Crit he burst into a torrent of curses and as the night wore on he declared for the revolution, looking for his immediate revenge in drinking up all the Boss's whiskey. In the end their revelry rose "Here; here, here," he expostulated, as he found Angy in the act of drinking half a pint "The roof's the limit," replied Babe, facetiously. "As the Champeen Booze-fighter of Arizona I am engaged in demonstratin' to all beholders my claim to that illustrious title. Half a pint of whiskey—enough to kill an Injun or pickle a Gila-monster—and all tossed off at a single bout, like the nectar of the gods. Here's to the revolution, and to hell with the oppressors of the poor!" "That's right," chimed in Pecos, elevating his glass and peering savagely over its rim at the Boss, "we done declared a feud against the capitulistic classes and the monneypullistic tendencies of the times. Your game's played out, Old Man; the common people have riz in their might and took the town! Now you go away back in the corner, d'ye understand, and sit down—and don't let me hear a word out of you or I'll beat the fear o' God into you with this!" He hauled out his heavy six-shooter and made the sinister motions of striking "All right," he said, feigning an indulgent smile, "you boys seem to be enjoyin' yourselves, so I'll jest deliver this United States mail as the law requires and leave you to yourselves." He stepped in behind the bar, chucked a couple of demijohns of whiskey into the corner where they might be overlooked, and threw the mail pouch on the counter. "Better come up and git your mail, boys," he observed, dumping the contents out for a lure. "Hey, here's a package for you, Mr. Dalhart—something pretty choice, I 'spect. Nothin' for you, Joe," he scowled, as his faithless retainer lurched up to claim his share. "Here's your paper, Babe. Letter for you, Mr. Dalhart," he continued, flipping a large, official envelope across the bar, "you're developin' quite a correspondence!" He ducked down behind the counter, grinning at his stratagem, and while Pecos and Babe were examining their mail he managed to jerk the money "Well, we'll be goin' home now, Joe," he said, taking the corral boss briskly by the arm. "Come on, hombre, you ain't got no mail!" Under ordinary circumstances JosÉ would have followed peaceably, thus reducing the revolutionary forces to a minimum, but the covert insult to his daughter, magnified by drink, had fired his Latin blood. "No, SeÑor," he replied, fixing his glittering eyes upon the hateful boss. "Yo no go! Carramba, que malo hombre! You dam' coward, Creet—you scare my wife—you scare—" "Shut up!" hissed Crit, hastily cuffing him over the head. "Shut your mouth or I'll—" "Diablo!" shrieked the Mexican, striking back blindly. "I keel you! You have to leave mi niÑa alone!" "What's that?" yelled Angevine Thorne, leaping with drunken impetuosity into the fray, "hev you been—" "Leave him to me!" shouted Pecos, wading "From the pure, Castilian blood," declaimed Angy, waving his hand largely, "a gentleman to whom I take off my hat—his estimable wife and family—" "Now here, boys," broke in Crittenden, taking his cue instantly, "this joke has gone far enough. Mr. Garcia's wife asked me to bring him home—you see what his condition is—and "Sure thing!" responded Angevine Thorne, lovingly twining his arm around his Spanish-American comrade. "Grab a root there, Pecos, and we'll take 'im home in style!" "Wait till I git my package!" cried Pecos, suddenly breaking his hold, and he turned around just in time to see Crit skipping out the back door. "Well, run then, you dastard!" he apostrophized, waving one hand as he tenderly gathered up his mail-order dry goods. "I can't stop to take after ye now. This here package is f'r my little SeÑorita, Marcelina, and I'm goin' to present it like a gentleman and ast her for a kiss. Hey, Angy," he called, as he re-engaged himself with JosÉ, "how do you say 'kiss' in Spanish? Aw, shut up, I don't believe The procession lurched drunkenly up the road and like most such was not received with the cordiality which had been anticipated. The SeÑora Garcia was already furious at Old Crit and when Pecos Dalhart, after delivering her recreant husband, undertook to present the dainty aprons and the blue handkerchiefs, marked M, which he had ordered specially for her daughter, she burst into a torrent of Spanish and hurled them at his head. "Muy malo," "borracho," and "vaya se," were a few of the evil words which followed them and by the gestures alone Pecos knew that he had been called a bad man and a drunkard and told in two words to go. He went, and with him Angy, ever ready to initiate new orgies and help drown his sorrows in the flowing cup. The noise of their bacchanalia rose higher and higher; pistol-shots rang out as Pecos shot off the necks of bottles which personified for the "But what is this 'cumrad' talk and them yells for the revolution?" he soliloquized, as Angy and Pecos returned to their religion. "Is it a G. A. R. reunion or has Joe worked in a Mexican revolution on us? Yes, holler, you crazy fools; it'll be Old Crit's turn, when you come to pay the bills." The first gray light of dawn was striking through the door when Crittenden tip-toed cautiously into the store and gazed about at the wreckage and the sprawling hulks of the revellers. Pecos lay on his face with his huge silver mounted spurs tangled in the potato sack that had thrown him; and Babe, his round moon-face and bald crown still red from his "It's a crime to be Poor!!!" was the heading, "And the penalty is hard labor for life!" "Well, the dam', yaller, two-bit-a-year sheet!" he raved, snatching a fresh copy of the Voice of Reason from the sacred United States mail and hastily scanning its headlines, "and if these crazy fools hain't gone and took it serious!" He tore it in two and jumped on it. "Two-bits a year!" he raged, "and for four-bits I could've got the Fireside Companion!" He rummaged around in the box and gathered up every copy, determined to hurl them into the fireplace, but on the way the yellow wrapper with the United States stamp arrested his "Well," he grumbled, dumping them sullenly back, "mebby it was that new bar'l of whiskey—I s'pose they've got to holler about something when they're drunk, the dam' eejits!" He strode up and down the floor, scowling at the unconscious forms of the roisterers who had beaten him the night before—then he turned back and laid violent hands upon Angy. "Git off'n there, you low-down, lazy hound!" he yelled, dragging him roughly to the floor. "You will start a revolution and try to kill your boss, will you? You're fired!" he shouted when, after a liberal drenching, he had brought Babe back to the world. "Well, gimme my pay, then," returned Angy, holding out his hand and blinking. "You don't git no pay!" declared Crit, with decision. "Who's goin' to pay for all that "Well, I want my pay," reiterated Babe, drunkenly. "I been workin' a long time, now—I'm goin' to draw my money an' go home! 'My mother's heart is breakin', breakin' f'r me, an' that's all—'" he crooned, and, rocking to and fro on the floor, he sang himself back to sleep. Old Crit watched him a moment, sneering; then with vindictive exultation he turned his attention to Pecos. "Git up," he snarled, kicking the upturned soles of his feet, "this ain't no bunk-house! Git out'r here, now; you been pesterin' around these parts too long!" He seized the prostrate cowboy by his broad shoulders and snaked him summarily out the door, where he lay sprawling in the dirt, like a turtle on its back, a mock of his strong, young manhood. To the case-hardened Babe the venom |