________________________________________________
_ Every half tide Billy raced out the south wall over the dangerous
course he and Hall had traveled, and each trial found him doing
it in faster time.
"Wait till Sunday," he said to Saxon. "I'll give that poet a run
for his money. Why, they ain't a place that bothers me now. I've
got the head confidence. I run where I went on hands an' knees. I
figured it out this way: Suppose you had a foot to fall on each
side, an' it was soft hay. They'd be nothing to stop you. You
wouldn't fall. You'd go like a streak. Then it's just the same if
it's a mile down on each side. That ain't your concern. Your
concern is to stay on top and go like a streak. An', d'ye know,
Saxon, when I went at it that way it never bothered me at all.
Wait till he comes with his crowd Sunday. I'm ready for him."
"I wonder what the crowd will be like," Saxon speculated.
"Like him, of course. Birds of a feather flock together. They
won't be stuck up, any of them, you'll see."
Hall had sent out fish-lines and a swimming suit by a Mexican
cowboy bound south to his ranch, and from the latter they learned
much of the government land and how to get it. The week flew by;
each day Saxon sighed a farewell of happiness to the sun; each
morning they greeted its return with laughter of joy in that
another happy day had begun. They made no plans, but fished,
gathered mussels and abalones, and climbed among the rocks as the
moment moved them. The abalone meat they pounded religiously to a
verse of doggerel improvised by Saxon. Billy prospered. Saxon had
never seen him at so keen a pitch of health. As for herself, she
scarcely needed the little hand-mirror to know that never, since
she was a young girl, had there been such color in her cheeks,
such spontaneity of vivacity.
"It's the first time in my life I ever had real play," Billy
said. "An' you an' me never played at all all the time we was
married. This beats bein' any kind of a millionaire."
"No seven o'clock whistle," Saxon exulted. "I'd lie abed in the
mornings on purpose, only everything is too good not to be up.
And now you just play at chopping some firewood and catching a
nice big perch, Man Friday, if you expect to get any dinner."
Billy got up, hatchet in hand, from where he had been lying
prone, digging holes in the sand with his bare toes.
"But it ain't goin' to last," he said, with a deep sigh of
regret. "The rains'll come any time now. The good weather's
hangin' on something wonderful."
On Saturday morning, returning from his run out the south wall,
he missed Saxon. After helloing for her without result, he
climbed to the road. Half a mile away, he saw her astride an
unsaddled, unbridled horse that moved unwillingly, at a slow
walk, across the pasture.
"Lucky for you it was an old mare that had been used to
ridin'--see them saddle marks," he grumbled, when she at last
drew to a halt beside him and allowed him to help her down.
"Oh, Billy," she sparkled, "I was never on a horse before. It was
glorious! I felt so helpless, too, and so brave."
"I'm proud of you, just the same," he said, in more grumbling
tones than before. " 'Tain't every married women'd tackle a
strange horse that way, especially if she'd never ben on one.
An' I ain't forgot that you're goin' to have a saddle animal all
to yourself some day--a regular Joe dandy."
The Abalone Eaters, in two rigs and on a number of horses,
descended in force on Bierce's Cove. There were half a score of
men and almost as many women. All were young, between the ages of
twenty-five and forty, and all seemed good friends. Most of them
were married. They arrived in a roar of good spirits, tripping
one another down the slippery trail and engulfing Saxon and Billy
in a comradeship as artless and warm as the sunshine itself.
Saxon was appropriated by the girls--she could not realize them
women; and they made much of her, praising her camping and
traveling equipment and insisting on hearing some of her tale.
They were experienced campers themselves, as she quickly
discovered when she saw the pots and pans and clothes-boilers for
the mussels which they had brought.
In the meantime Billy and the men had undressed and scattered out
after mussels and abalones. The girls lighted on Saxon's ukulele
and nothing would do but she must play and sing. Several of them
had been to Honolulu, and knew the instrument, confirming
Mercedes' definition of ukulele as "jumping flea." Also, they
knew Hawaiian songs she had learned from Mercedes, and soon, to
her accompaniment, all were singing: "Aloha Oe," "Honolulu
Tomboy," and "Sweet Lei Lehua." Saxon was genuinely shocked when
some of them, even the more matronly, danced hulas on the sand.
When the men returned, burdened with sacks of shellfish, Mark
Hall, as high priest, commanded the due and solemn rite of the
tribe. At a wave of his hand, the many poised stones came down in
unison on the white meat, and all voices were uplifted in the
Hymn to the Abalone. Old verses all sang, ocasionally some one
sang a fresh verse alone, whereupon it was repeated in chorus.
Billy betrayed Saxon by begging her in an undertone to sing the
verse she had made, and her pretty voice was timidly raised in:
"We sit around and gaily pound,
And bear no acrimony
Because our ob--ject is a gob
Of sizzling abalone."
"Great!" cried the poet, who had winced at ob--ject. "She speaks
the language of the tribe! Come on, children--now!"
And all chanted Saxon's lines. Then Jim Hazard had a new verse,
and one of the girls, and the Iron Man with the basilisk eyes of
greenish-gray, whom Saxon recognized from Hall's description. To
her it seemed he had the face of a priest.
"Oh! some like ham and some like lamb
And some like macaroni;
But bring me in a pail of gin
And a tub of abalone.
"Oh! some drink rain and some champagne
Or brandy by the pony;
But I will try a little rye
With a dash of abalone.
"Some live on hope and some on dope
And some on alimony.
But our tom-cat, he lives on fat
And tender abalone."
A black-haired, black-eyed man with the roguish face of a satyr,
who, Saxon learned, was an artist who sold his paintings at five
hundred apiece, brought on himself universa1 execration and
acclamation by singing:
"The more we take, the more they make
In deep sea matrimony;
Race suicide cannot betide
The fertile abalone."
And so it went, verses new and old, verses without end, all in
glorification of the succulent shellfish of Carmel. Saxon's
enjoyment was keen, almost ecstatic, and she had diffculty in
convincing herself of the reality of it all. It seemed like some
fairy tale or book story come true. Again, it seemed more like a
stage, and these the actors, she and Billy having blundered into
the scene in some incomprehensible way. Much of wit she sensed
which she did not understand. Much she did understand. And she
was aware that brains were playing as she had never seen brains
play before. The puritan streak in her training was astonished
and shocked by some of the broadness; but she refused to sit in
judgment. They SEEMED good, these light-hearted young people;
they certainly were not rough or gross as were many of the crowds
she had been with on Sunday picnics. None of the men got drunk,
although there were cocktails in vacuum bottles and red wine in a
huge demijohn.
What impressed Saxon most was their excessive jollity, their
childlike joy, and the childlike things they did. This effect was
heightened by the fact that they were novelists and painters,
poets and critics, sculptors and musicians. One man, with a
refined and delicate face--a dramatic critic on a great San
Francisco daily, she was told--introduced a feat which all the
men tried and failed at most ludicrously. On the beach, at
regular intervals, planks were placed as obstacles. Then the
dramatic critic, on all fours, galloped along the sand for all
the world like a horse, and for all the world like a horse taking
hurdles he jumped the planks to the end of the course.
Quoits had been brought along, and for a while these were pitched
with zest. Then jumping was started, and game slid into game.
Billy took part in everything, but did not win first place as
often as he had expected. An English writer beat him a dozen feet
at tossing the caber. Jim Hazard beat him in putting the heavy
"rock." Mark Hall out-jumped him standing and running. But at the
standing high back-jump Billy did come first. Despite the
handicap of his weight, this victory was due to his splendid back
and abdominal lifting muscles. Immediately after this, however,
he was brought to grief by Mark Hall's sister, a strapping young
amazon in cross-saddle riding costume, who three times tumbled
him ignominiously heels over head in a bout of Indian wrestling.
"You're easy," jeered the Iron Man, whose name they had learned
was Pete Bideaux. "I can put you down myself,
catch-as-catch-can."
Billy accepted the challenge, and found in all truth that the
other was rightly nicknamed. In the training camps Billy had
sparred and clinched with giant champions like Jim Jeffries and
Jack Johnson, and met the weight of their strength, but never had
he encountered strength like this of the Iron Man. Do what he
could, Billy was powerless, and twice his shoulders were ground
into the sand in defeat.
"You'll get a chance back at him," Hazard whispered to Billy, off
at one side. "I've brought the gloves along. Of course, you had
no chance with him at his own game. He's wrestled in the music
halls in London with Hackenschmidt. Now you keep quiet, and we'll
lead up to it in a casual sort of way. He doesn't know about
you."
Soon, the Englishman who had tossed the caber was sparring with
the dramatic critic, Hazard and Hall boxed in fantastic
burlesque, then, gloves in hand, looked for the next
appropriately matched couple. The choice of Bideaux and Billy was
obvious.
"He's liable to get nasty if he's hurt," Hazard warned Billy, as
he tied on the gloves for him. "He's old American French, and
he's got a devil of a temper. But just keep your head and tap
him--whatever you do, keep tapping him."
"Easy sparring now"; "No roughhouse, Bideaux"; "Just light
tapping, you know," were admonitions variously addressed to the
Iron Man.
"Hold on a second," he said to Billy, dropping his hands. "When I
get rapped I do get a bit hot. But don't mind me. I can't help
it, you know. It's only for the moment, and I don't mean it."
Saxon felt very nervous, visions of Billy's bloody fights and all
the scabs he had slugged rising in her brain; but she had never
seen her husband box, and but few seconds were required to put
her at ease. The Iron Man had no chance. Billy was too completely
the master, guarding every blow, himself continually and almost
at will tapping the other's face and body. There was no weight in
Billy's blows, only a light and snappy tingle; but their
incessant iteration told on the Iron Man's temper. In vain the
onlookers warned him to go easy. His face purpled with anger, and
his blows became savage. But Billy went on, tap, tap, tap,
calmly, gently, imperturbably. The Iron Man lost control, and
rushed and plunged, delivering great swings and upper-cuts of
man-killing quality. Billy ducked, side-stepped, blocked,
stalled, and escaped all damage. In the clinches, which were
unavoidable, he locked the Iron Man's arms, and in the clinches
the Iron Man invariably laughed and apologized, only to lose his
head with the first tap the instant they separated and be more
infuriated than ever.
And when it was over and Billy's identity had been divulged, the
Iron Man accepted the joke on himself with the best of humor. It
had been a splendid exhibition on Billy's part. His mastery of
the sport, coupled with his self-control, had most favorably
impressed the crowd, and Saxon, very proud of her man boy, could
not but see the admiration all had for him.
Nor did she prove in any way a social failure. When the tired and
sweating players lay down in the dry sand to cool off, she was
persuaded into accompanying their nonsense songs with the
ukulele. Nor was it long, catching their spirit, ere she was
singing to them and teaching them quaint songs of early days
which she had herself learned as a little girl from Cady--Cady,
the saloonkeeper, pioneer, and ax-cavalryman, who had been a
bull-whacker on the Salt Intake Trail in the days before the
railroad.
One song which became an immediate favorite was:
"Oh! times on Bitter Creek, they never can be beat,
Root hog or die is on every wagon sheet;
The sand within your throat, the dust within your eye,
Bend your back and stand it--root hog or die."
After the dozen verses of "Root Hog or Die," Mark Hall claimed
to be especially infatuated with:
"Obadier, he dreampt a dream,
Dreampt he was drivin' a ten-mule team,
But when he woke he heaved a sigh,
The lead-mule kicked e-o-wt the swing-mule's eye."
It was Mark Hall who brought up the matter of Billy's challenge
to race out the south wall of the cove, though he referred to the
test as lying somewhere in the future. Billy surprised him by
saying he was ready at any time. Forthwith the crowd clamored for
the race. Hall offered to bet on himself, but there were no
takers. He offered two to one to Jim Hazard, who shook his head
and said he would accept three to one as a sporting proposition.
Billy heard and gritted his teeth.
"I'll take you for five dollars," he said to Hall, "but not at
those odds. I'll back myself even."
"It isn't your money I want; it's Hazard's," Hall demurred.
"Though I'll give either of you three to one."
"Even or nothing," Billy held out obstinately.
Hall finally closed both bets--even with Billy, and three to one
with Hazard.
The path along the knife-edge was so narorw that it was
impossible for runners to pass each other, so it was arranged to
time the men, Hall to go first and Billy to follow after an
interval of half a minute.
Hall toed the mark and at the word was off with the form of a
sprinter. Saxon's heart sank. She knew Billy had never crossed
the stretch of sand at that speed. Billy darted forward thirty
seconds later, and reached the foot of the rock when Hall was
half way up. When both were on top and racing from notch to
notch, the Iron Man announced that they had scaled the wall in
the same time to a second.
"My money still looks good," Hazard remarked, "though I hope
neither of them breaks a neck. I wouldn't take that run that way
for all the gold that would fill the cove."
"But you'll take bigger chances swimming in a storm on Carmel
Beach," his wife chided.
"Oh, I don't know," he retorted. "You haven't so far to fall when
swimming."
Billy and Hall had disappeared and were making the circle around
the end. Those on the beach were certain that the poet had gained
in the dizzy spurts of flight along the knife-edge. Even Hazard
admitted it.
"What price for my money now?" he cried excitedly, dancing up and
down.
Hall had reappeared, the great jump accomplished, and was running
shoreward. But there was no gap. Billy was on his heels, and on
his heels he stayed, in to shore, down the wall, and to the mark
on the beach. Billy had won by half a minute.
"Only by the watch," he panted. "Hall was over half a minute
ahead of me out to the end. I'm not slower than I thought, but
he's faster. He's a wooz of a sprinter. He could beat me ten
times outa ten, except for accident. He was hung up at the jump
by a big sea. That's where I caught 'm. I jumped right after 'm
on the same sea, then he set the pace home, and all I had to do
was take it."
"That's all right," said Hall. "You did better than beat me.
That's the first time in the history of Bierce's Cove that two
men made that jump on the same sea. And all the risk was yours,
coming last."
"It was a fluke," Billy insisted.
And at that point Saxon settled the dispute of modesty and raised
a general laugh by rippling chords on the ukulele and parodying
an old hymn in negro minstrel fashion:
"De Lawd move in er mischievous way
His blunders to perform."
In the afternoon Jim Hazard and Hall dived into the breakers and
swam to the outlying rocks, routing the protesting sea-lions and
taking possession of their surf-battered stronghold. Billy
followed the swimmers with his eyes, yearning after them so
undisguisedly that Mrs. Hazard said to him:
"Why don't you stop in Carmel this winter? Jim will teach you all
he knows about the surf. And he's wild to box with you. He works
long hours at his desk, and he really needs exercise."
Not until sunset did the merry crowd carry their pots and pans
and trove of mussels up to the road and depart. Saxon and Billy
watched them disappear, on horses and behind horses, over the top
of the first hill, and then descended hand in hand through the
thicket to the camp. Billy threw himself on the sand and
stretched out.
"I don't know when I've been so tired," he yawned. "An' there's
one thing sure: I never had such a day. It's worth livin'twenty
years for an' then some."
He reached out his hand to Saxon, who lay beside him.
"And, oh, I was so proud of you, Billy," she said. "I never saw
you box before. I didn't know it was like that. The Iron Man was
at your mercy all the time, and you kept it from being violent or
terrible. Everybody could look on and enjoy--and they did, too."
"Huh, I want to say you was goin' some yourself. They just took
to you. Why, honest to God, Saxon, in the singin' you was the
whole show, along with the ukulele. All the women liked you, too,
an' that's what counts."
It was their first social triumph, and the taste of it was sweet:
"Mr. Hall said he'd looked up the 'Story of the Files,'" Saxon
recounted. "And he said mother was a true poet. He said it was
astonishing the fine stock that had crossed the Plains. He told
me a lot about those times and the people I didn't know. And he's
read all about the fight at Little Meadow. He says he's got it in
a book at home, and if we come back to Carmel he'll show it to
me."
"He wants us to come back all right. D'ye know what he said to
me, Saxon t He gave me a letter to some guy that's down on the
government land--some poet that's holdin' down a quarter of a
section--so we'll be able to stop there, which'll come in handy
if the big rains catch us. An'--Oh! that's what I was drivin' at.
He said he had a little shack he lived in while the house was
buildin'. The Iron Man's livin' in it now, but he's goin' away to
some Catholic college to study to be a priest, an' Hall said the
shack'd be ours as long as we wanted to use it. An' he said I
could do what the Iron Man was doin' to make a livin'. Hall was
kind of bashful when he was offerin' me work. Said it'd be only
odd jobs, but that we'd make out. I could help'm plant potatoes,
he said; an' he got half savage when he said I couldn't chop
wood. That was his job, he said; an' you could see he was
actually jealous over it."
"And Mrs. Hall said just about the same to me, Billy. Carmel
wouldn't be so bad to pass the rainy season in. And then, too,
you could go swimming with Mr. Hazard."
"Seems as if we could settle down wherever we've a mind to,"
Billy assented. "Carmel's the third place now that's offered.
Well, after this, no man need be afraid of makin' a go in the
country."
"No good man," Saxon corrected.
"I guess you're right." Billy thought for a moment. "Just the
same a dub, too, has a better chance in the country than in the
city."
"Who'd have ever thought that such fine people existed?" Saxon
pondered. "It's just wonderful, when you come to think of it."
"It's only what you'd expect from a rich poet that'd trip up a
foot-racer at an Irish picnic," Billy exposited.
"The only crowd such a guy'd run with would be like himself, or
he'd make a crowd that was. I wouldn't wonder that he'd make
this crowd. Say, he's got some sister, if anybody'd ride up on a
sea-lion an' ask you. She's got that Indian wrestlin' down pat,
an' she's built for it. An' say, ain't his wife a beaut?"
A little longer they lay in the warm sand. It was Billy who broke
the silence, and what he said seemed to proceed out of profound
meditation.
"Say, Saxon, d'ye know I don't care if I never see movie pictures
again." _
Read next: BOOK III: CHAPTER IX
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