"And he says he's got maturity,"Barker muttered."I've known him since seventy-nine,and he's kept about eight years old right along."The Governor was cross,and sorry,and presently crosser.His jokes about Lin's marriage came back to him and put him in a rage with the departed fool."Yes,about eight.Or six,"said his Excellency,justifying himself by the past.For he had first known Lin,the boy of nineteen,supreme in length of limb and recklessness,breaking horses and feeling for an early mustache.Next,when the mustache was nearly accomplished,he had mended the boy's badly broken thigh at Drybone.His skill (and Lin's utter health)had wrought so swift a healing that the surgeon overflowed with the pride of science,and over the bandages would explain the human body technically to his wild-eyed and flattered patient.Thus young Lin heard all about tibia,and comminuted,and other glorious new words,and when sleepless would rehearse them.Then,with the bone so nearly knit that the patient might leave the ward on crutches to sit each morning in Barker's room as a privilege,the disobedient child of twenty-one had slipped out of the hospital and hobbled hastily to the hog ranch,where whiskey and variety waited for a languishing convalescent.Here he grew gay,and was soon carried back with the leg refractured.Yet Barker's surgical rage was disarmed,the patient was so forlorn over his doctor's professional chagrin.
"I suppose it ain't no better this morning,Doc?"he had said,humbly,after a new week of bed and weights.
"Your right leg's going to be shorter.That's all.""Oh,gosh!I've been and spoiled your comminuted fee-mur!Ain't I a son-of-a-gun?"You could not chide such a boy as this;and in time's due course he had walked jauntily out into the world with legs of equal length after all and in his stride the slightest halt possible.And Doctor Barker had missed the child's conversation.To-day his mustache was a perfected thing,and he in the late end of his twenties.
"He'll wake up about noon to-morrow in a dive,without a cent,"said Barker."Then he'll come back on a freight and begin over again."At the Denver station Lin McLean passed through the shoutings and omnibuses,and came to the beginning of Seventeenth Street,where is the first saloon.A customer was ordering Hot Scotch;and because he liked the smell and had not thought of the mixture for a number of years,Lin took Hot Scotch.Coming out upon the pavement,he looked across and saw a saloon opposite with brighter globes and windows more prosperous.That should have been his choice;lemon peel would undoubtedly be fresher over there;and over he went at once,to begin the whole thing properly.In such frozen weather no drink could be more timely,and he sat,to enjoy without haste its mellow fitness.Once again on the pavement,he looked along the street toward up-town beneath the crisp,cold electric lights,and three little bootblacks gathered where he stood and cried "Shine?
Shine?"at him.Remembering that you took the third turn to the right to get the best dinner in Denver,Lin hit on the skilful plan of stopping at all Hot Scotches between;but the next occurred within a few yards,and it was across the street.This one being attained and appreciated,he found that he must cross back again or skip number four.At this rate he would not be dining in time to see much of the theatre,and he stopped to consider.It was a German place he had just quitted,and a huge light poured out on him from its window,which the proprietor's father-land sentiment had made into a show.Lights shone among a well-set pine forest,where beery,jovial gnomes sat on roots and reached upward to Santa Claus;he,grinning,fat,and Teutonic,held in his right hand forever a foaming glass,and forever in his left a string of sausages that dangled down among the gnomes.With his American back to this,the cow-puncher,wearing the same serious,absent face he had not changed since he ran away from himself at Cheyenne,considered carefully the Hot Scotch question,and which side of the road to take and stick to,while the little bootblacks found him once more and cried,"Shine?Shine?"monotonous as snow-birds.He settled to stay over here with the south-side Scotches,and the little one-note song reaching his attention,he suddenly shoved his foot at the nearest boy,who lightly sprang away.
"Dare you to touch him!"piped a snow-bird,dangerously.They were in short trousers,and the eldest enemy,it may be,was ten.
"Don't hit me,"said Mr.McLean "I'm innocent.""Well,you leave him be,"said one.
"What's he layin'to kick you for,Billy?'Tain't yer pop,is it?""New!"said Billy,in scorn."Father never kicked me.Don't know who he is.""He's a special!"shrilled the leading bird,sensationally."He's got a badge,and he's goin'to arrest yer."Two of them hopped instantly to the safe middle of the street,and scattered with practiced strategy;but Billy stood his ground."Dare you to arrest me!"said he.
"What'll you give me not to?"inquired Lin,and he put his hands in his pockets,arms akimbo.
"Nothing;I've done nothing,"announced Billy,firmly.But even in the last syllable his voice suddenly failed,a terror filled his eyes,and he,too,sped into the middle of the street.
"What's he claim you lifted?"inquired the leader,with eagerness."Tell him you haven't been inside a store to-day.We can prove it!"they screamed to the special officer.
"Say,"said the slow-spoken Lin from the pavement,"you're poor judges of a badge,you fellows."His tone pleased them where they stood,wide apart from each other.
Mr.McLean also remained stationary in the bluish illumination of the window."Why,if any policeman was caught wearin'this here,"said he,following his sprightly invention,"he'd get arrested himself."This struck them extremely.They began to draw together,Billy lingering the last.
