I Conquered Read online

  CHAPTER II

  A Young Man Goes West

  From the upper four hundreds on Riverside Drive to Broadway where thelower thirties slash through is a long walk. Danny Lenox walked it thisJune day. As he left the house his stride was long and nervously eager,but before he covered many blocks his gait moderated and the going tookhours.

  Physical fatigue did not slow down his progress. The demands upon hismental machinery retarded his going. He needed time to think, to plan,to bring order out of the chaos into which he had been plunged. Dannyhad suddenly found that many things in life are to be consideredseriously. An hour ago they could have been numbered on his fingers;now they were legion. It was a newly recognized fact, but one sosuddenly obvious that the tardiness of his realization became ofportentous significance.

  Through all the hurt and shame and rage the great truth that his fatherhad hammered home became crystal clear. He had been merely a waster,and a sharp bitterness was in him as he strode along, hands deep inpockets.

  The first flash of his resentment had given birth to the childishdesire to "show 'em," and as he crowded his brain against the host ofstrange facts he found this impulse becoming stronger, growing into ahealthy determination to adjust his standard of values so that hecould, even with this beginning, justify his existence.

  Oh, the will to do was strong in his heart, but about it was a clammy,oppressive something. He wondered at it--then traced it back directlyto the place in his throat that cried out for quenching. As heapproached a familiar haunt that urge became more insistent and thepalms of his hands commenced to sweat. He crossed the street and madeon down the other side. He had wasted his ability to do, had let thisdesire sap his will. He needed every jot of strength now. He wouldbegin at the bottom and call back that frittered vitality. He shut histeeth together and doggedly stuck his head forward just a trifle.

  The boy had no plan; there had not been time to become so specific. Hiswhole philosophy had been stood on its head with bewilderingsuddenness. He knew, though, that the first thing to do was to cut hisenvironment, to get away, off anywhere, to a place where he could buildanew. The idea of getting away associated itself with one thing in hismind: means of transportation. So, when his eyes without consciousmotive stared at the poster advertising a railroad system that crossesthe continent, Danny Lenox stopped and let the crowd surge past him.

  A man behind the counter approached the tall, broad-shouldered chap whofumbled in his pockets and dumped out their contents. He looked with awhimsical smile at the stuff produced: handkerchiefs, pocket-knife,gold pencil, tobacco pouch, watch, cigarette case, a couple of hatchecks, opened letters, and all through it money--money in bills and incoins.

  The operation completed, Danny commenced picking out the money. Hetossed the crumpled bills together in a pile and stacked the coins.That done, he swept up the rest of his property, crammed it into hiscoat pockets, and commenced smoothing the bills.

  The other man, meanwhile, stood and smiled.

  "Cleaning up a bit?" he asked.

  Danny raised his eyes.

  "That's the idea," he said soberly. "To clean up--a bit."

  The seriousness of his own voice actually startled him.

  "How far will that take me over your line?" he asked, indicating themoney.

  The man stared hard; then smiled.

  "You mean you want that much worth of ticket?"

  "Yes, ticket and berth--upper berth. Less this." He took out aten-dollar bill. "I'll eat on the way," he explained gravely.

  The other counted the bills, turning them over with the eraser end ofhis pencil, then counted the silver and made a note of the total.

  "Which way--by St. Louis or Chicago?" he asked. "We can send youthrough either place."

  Danny lifted a dollar from the stack on the counter and flipped it inthe air. Catching it, he looked at the side which came up and said:

  "St. Louis."

  Again the clerk calculated, referring to time-tables and a map.

  "Denver," he muttered, as though to himself. Then to Danny: "Out ofDenver I can give you the Union Pacific, Denver and Rio Grande, orSanta Fe."

  "The middle course."

  "All right--D. and R.G."

  Then more referring to maps and time-tables, more figuring, moreglances at the pile of money.

  "Let's see--that will land you at--at--" as he ran his finger down thetabulation--"at Colt, Colorado."

  Danny moved along the counter to the glass-covered map, a new interestin his face.

  "Where's that--Colt, Colorado?" he asked, leaning his elbows on thecounter.

  "See?" The other indicated with his pencil.

  "You go south from Denver to Colorado Springs; then on through Pueblo,through the Royal Gorge here, and right in here--" he put the leadpoint down on the red line of the railroad and Danny's head came closeto his--"is where you get off."

  The boy gazed lingeringly at the white dot in the red line and thenlooked up to meet the other's smile.

  "Mountains and more mountains," he said with no hint of lightness."That's a long way from this place."

  He gazed out on to flowing Broadway with a look somewhat akin topleading, and heard the man mutter: "Yes, beyond easy walking fromdowntown, at least."

  Danny straightened and sighed. That much was settled. He was going toColt, Colorado. He looked back at the map again, possessed with anuneasy foreboding.

  Colt, Colorado!

  "Well, when can I leave?" he asked, as he commenced putting hisproperty back into the proper pockets.

  "You can scarcely catch the next train," said the clerk, glancing atthe clock, "because it leaves the Grand Central in nineteen min--"

  "Yes, I can!" broke in Danny. "Get me a ticket and I'll get there!"Then, as though to himself, but still in the normal speaking tone: "I'mthrough putting things off."

  Eighteen and three-quarters minutes later a tall, young man trottedthrough the Grand Central train shed to where his Pullman waited. Theporter looked at the length of the ticket Danny handed the conductor.

  "Ain't y'll carryin' nothin', boss?" he asked.

  "Yes, George," Danny muttered as he passed into the vestibule, "butnothing you can help me with."

  With the grinding of the car wheels under him Danny's mind commencedgoing round and round his knotty problem. His plan had called fornothing more than a start. And now--Colt, Colorado!

  Behind him he was leaving everything of which he was certain, sordidthough it might be. He was going into the unknown, ignorant of his owncapabilities, realizing only that he was weak. He thought of thoseburned bridges, of the uncertainty that lay ahead, of the tumbling ofthe old temple about his ears--

  And doubt came up from the ache in his throat, from the call of hisnerves. He had not had a drink since early last evening. He needed--No!That was the last thing he needed.

  He sat erect in his seat with the determination and strove to fightdown the demands which his wasting had made so steely strong. He feltfor his cigarette case. It was empty, but the tobacco pouch held asupply, and as he walked toward the smoking compartment he dusted someof the weed into a rice paper.

  Danny pushed aside the curtain to enter, and a fat man bumped him witha violent jolt.

  "Oh, excuse me!" he begged, backing off. "Sorry. I'll be back in ajiffy with more substantial apologies."

  Three others in the compartment made room for Danny, who lighted hiscigarette and drew a great gasp of smoke into his lungs.

  In a moment the fat man was back, his eyes dancing. In his hand was asilver whisky flask.

  "Now if you don't say this is the finest booze ever turned out of a ginmill, I'll go plumb!" he declared. "Drink, friend, drink!"

  He handed the flask to one of the others.

  "Here's to you!" the man saluted, raising the flask high and thenputting its neck to his mouth.

  Danny's tongue went again to his lips; his breath quickened and thelight in his eyes became a greedy glitter. He could hear the gurgle ofthe liq
uid; his own throat responded in movement as he watched theswallowing. He squeezed his cigarette until the thin paper burst andthe tobacco sifted out.

  "Great!" declared the man with a sigh as he lowered the flask. "Great!"

  He smacked his lips and winked. "Ah! No whisky's bad, but this'sbetter'n most of it!"

  Then, extending the flask toward Danny, he said: "Try it, brother; it'sgood for a soul."

  But Danny, rising to his feet with a suddenness that was almost aspring, strode past him to the door. His face suddenly had become tightand white and harried. He paused at the entry, holding the curtainaside, and turned to see the other, flask still extended, staring athim in bewilderment.

  "I'm not drinking, you know," said Danny weakly, "not drinking."

  Then he went out, and the fat man who had produced the liquor saidsoberly:

  "Not drinking, and havin' a time staying off it. But say--ain't thatsome booze?"

  Long disuse of the power to plan concretely, to think seriously ofserious facts, had left it weak. Danny strove to route himself throughto that new life he knew was so necessary, but he could not call backthe ability of tense thinking with a word or a wish. And while he triedfor that end the boy commenced to realize that perhaps he had not sofar to seek for his fresh start. Perhaps it was not waiting for him inColt, Colorado. Perhaps it was right here in his throat, in his nerves.Perhaps the creature in him was not a thing to be cleared away beforehe could begin to fight--perhaps it was the proper object at which todirect his whole attack.

  Enforced idleness was an added handicap. Physical activity would havemade the beginning much easier, for before he realized it Danny was inthe thick of battle. A system that had been stimulated by poison inincreasing proportion to its years almost from boyhood began to makeunequivocal demands for the stuff that had held it to high pitch.Tantalizingly at first, with the thirsting throat and jumping muscles;then with thundering assertions that warped the vision and numbed theintellect and toyed with the will. He gave up trying to think ahead.His entire mental force went into the grapple with that desire. Wherehe had thought to find possible distress in the land out yonder, it hadcome to meet him--and of a sort more fearful, more tremendous, than anywhich he had been able to conceive.

  Through the rise of that fevered fighting the words of his father rangconstantly in Danny's mind.

  "He was right--right, right!" the boy declared over and over. "It wasbrutal; but he was right! I've wasted, I've gone the limit. And hedoesn't think I can come back!"

  While faith would have been as a helping hand stretched down to pullhim upward, the denial of it served as a stinging goad, driving him on.A chord deep within him had been touched by the raining blows from hisfather, and the vibrations of that chord became quicker and sharper asthe battle crescendoed. The unbelief had stirred a retaliatingdetermination.

  It was this that sent a growl of defiance into Danny's throat at sightof a whisky sign; it was the cause of his cursing when, walking up anddown a station platform at a stop, he saw men in the buffet car liftglasses to their lips and smile at one other. It was this that drew himaway from an unfinished meal in the diner when a man across the tableordered liquor and Danny's eyes ached for the sight of it, his nostrilsbegged for the smell.

  So on every hand came the suggestions that made demands upon hisresistance, that made the weakness gnaw the harder at his will. But hefought against it, on and on across a country, out into the mountains,toward the end of his ride.

  The unfolding of the marvels of a continent's vitals had a peculiareffect on Danny.

  Before that trip he had held the vaguest notions of the West, but withthe realization of the grandeur of it all he was torn between aglorified inspiration and a suffocating sense of his own smallness.

  He had known only cities, and cities are, by comparison, such punythings. They froth and ferment and clatter and clang and boast, and yetthey are merely flecks, despoiled spots, on an expanse so vast that itseems utterly unconscious of their presence. The boy realized this asthe big cities were left behind, as the stretches between stationsbecame longer, the towns more flimsy, newer. A species of terror filledhim as he gazed moodily from his Pullman window out across thatpanorama to the north. Why, he could see as far as to the Canadianboundary, it seemed! On and on, rising gently, ever flowing, neverending, went the prairie. Here and there a fence; now a string oftelephone poles marching out sturdily, bravely, to reduce distance bycountless hours. There a house, alone, unshaded, with a woman standingin the door watching his speeding train. Yonder a man shacking along ona rough little horse, head down, listless--a crawling jot under thatendless sky.

  Even his train, thing of steel and steam, was such a paltry particle,screaming to a heaven that heard not, driving at a distance that carednot.

  Then the mountains!

  Danny awoke in Denver, to step from his car and look at noble Evansraising its craggy, hoary head into the salmon pink of morning,defiant, ignoring men who fussed and puttered down there in its eternalshadow; at Long's Peak, piercing the sky as though striving to be awayfrom humans; at Pike, shimmering proudly through its sixty miles ofcrystal distance, taking a heavy, giant delight in watching beingsworry their way through its hundred-mile dooryard.

  Then along the foothills the train tore with the might of which men areso proud; yet it only crawled past those mountains.

  Stock country now, more and more cattle in sight. Blase, white-facedHerefords lifted their heads momentarily toward the cars. They heededlittle more than did the mountains.

  Then, to the right and into the ranges, twisting, turning, climbing,sliding through the narrow defiles at the grace of the towering heightswhich--so alive did they seem--could have whiffed out that thing, thoselives, by a mere stirring on their complacent bases.

  And Danny commenced to draw parallels. Just as his life had beenartificial, so had his environment. Manhattan--and this! Itscomplaining cars, its popping pavements, its echoing buildings--it hadall seemed so big, so great, so mighty! And yet it was merely a littlemud village, the work of a prattling child, as compared with thiscountry. The subway, backed by its millions in bonds, planned byconstructive genius, executed by master minds, a thing to write intothe history of all time, was a mole-passage compared to this gorge! TheWoolworth, labor of years, girders mined on Superior, stones quarriedelsewhere, concrete, tiling, cables, woods, all manner of fixturescontributed by continents; donkey engines puffing, petulant whistlesscreaming, men of a dozen tongues crawling and worming and dying forit; a nation standing agape at its ivory and gold attainments! And whatwas it? Put it down here and it would be lost in the rolling of theprairie as it swelled upward to meet honest heights!

  No wonder Danny Lenox felt inconsequential. And yet he sensed afriendly something in that grandeur, an element which reached down forhim like a helping hand and offered to draw him out of his cramped,mean little life and put him up with stalwart men.

  "If this rotten carcass of mine, with its dry throat and flutteringhands, will only stick by me I'll show 'em yet!" he declared, and heldup one of those hands to watch its uncertainty.

  And in the midst of one of those bitter, griping struggles to keep hisvagrant mind from running into vinous paths, the brakes clamped downand the porter, superlatively polite, announced:

  "This is Colt, sah."

  A quick interest fired Danny. He hurried to the platform, stood on thelowest step, and watched the little clump of buildings swell to naturalsize. He reached into his pocket, grasped the few coins remainingthere, and gave them to the colored boy.

  The train stopped with a jolt, and Danny stepped off. The conductor,who had dropped off from the first coach as it passed the station, ranout of the depot, waved his hand, and the grind of wheels commencedagain.

  As the last car passed, Danny Lenox stared at it, and for many minuteshis gaze followed its departure. After it had disappeared around thedistant curve he retained a picture of the white-clad servant, leaningforward and pouring some liquid fr
om a bottle.

  The roar of the cars died to a murmur, a muttering, and was swallowedin the canyon. The sun beat down on the squat, green depot and cinderplatform, sending the quivering heat rays back to distort the outlinesof objects. Everywhere was a white, blinding light.

  From behind came a sound of waters, and Danny turned about to gaze fardown into a ragged gorge where a river tumbled and protested throughthe rocky way.

  Beyond the stream was stretching mesa, quiet and flat and smoothlooking in the crystal distance, dotted with pine, shimmering under theheat.

  For five minutes he stared almost stupidly at that grand sweep of stillcountry, failing to comprehend the fact of arrival. Then he walked tothe end of the little station and gazed up at the town.

  A dozen buildings with false fronts, some painted, some withoutpretense of such nicety, faced one another across a thoroughfare fourtimes as wide as Broadway. Sleeping saddle ponies stood, each with ahip slumped and nose low to the yellow ground. A scattering of houseswith their clumps of outbuildings and fenced areas straggled off behindthe stores.

  Scraggly, struggling pine stood here and there among the rocks, butshade was scant.

  Behind the station were acres of stock pens, with high and unpaintedfences. Desolation! Desolation supreme!

  Danny felt a sickening, a revulsion. But lo! his eyes, lifting blindlyfor hope, for comfort, found the thing which raised him above thedepression of the rude little town.

  A string of cliffs, ranging in color from the bright pink of thenearest to the soft violet of those which might be ten or a hundredmiles away, stretched in mighty columns, their varied pigments tellingof the magnificent distances to which they reached. All were plasteredup against a sky so blue that it seemed thick, and as though the colormust soon begin to drip. Glory! The majesty of the earth's raggedcrust, the exquisite harmony of that glorified gaudiness! Danny pulleda great chestful of the rare air into his lungs. He threw up his armsin a little gesture that indicated an acceptance of things as theywere, and in his mind flickered the question:

  "The beginning--or the end?"