Colorado Jim Part 3

"Who in h.e.l.l are you?"

"Ask her."

Jim turned to Edith. She seemed strangely perturbed.

"My--my husband!"

"Wal, I'm glad to meet you," said Jim coolly. "Your wife had a fit or something, so I jest brought her along. I guess I'll be mus.h.i.+ng."

To his amazement the man barred his path.

"A nice story," he said.

The eyes of Colorado Jim narrowed to the merest slits. He turned to the woman.

"Tell him!" he growled.

She shrunk before those terrible eyes of his, and gripped the pillow with nerveless hands. Her lips opened but she said nothing. Jim started, and then caught her by the shoulder.

"Did you git me? He's wanting to know why I'm here. Tell him."

"How can I tell him?" she wailed.

The man laughed.

"You needn't waste breath. So this is how Mr. James Conlan spends his time. It'll make a fine story...."

Jim's brain was working fast; but he was slow in the uptake in such circ.u.mstances as this. The woman had seemed so genuine. Why did she maintain silence? It was a novel experience in his life. All the ways of this strange city were foreign to him.

The man's voice broke in:

"A fine story it will make in the press."

"Eh----!"

"The morals of a millionaire."

"Eh!" growled Jim again.

"Maybe you wouldn't like this to appear in print?..."

And then Jim saw it all. It was like a story from a magazine. He had never believed those things could be true. But here it was in real life. A frame-up--a dirty piece of blackmail.

"Can't we come to terms, Mr. Conlan...."

The suave voice got no farther than that. He saw six-feet-odd of bone and muscle rear up like a piece of steel and descend on him. A great hard hand caught him by the neck and bounced him up and down the room.

"You swab! You tinhorn! I've manured a potato patch with better stuff, by Gawd! And she's your wife, you dirty tras.h.!.+ She ain't your wife--no, sir.

I savvy what she is. Suffering rattlesnakes! I'm waitin' to hear about it.

When did you frame to put this over me? Talk up or I'll yank you outer the window into the street."

"d.a.m.n you--let me go!"

"I'll 'd.a.m.n you,' you muck! Take that!"

A resounding slap sounded as a hand like leather met the man's face. Edith screamed.

"Talk up!"

"We--arranged--it--this afternoon," gasped the man.

Jim flung him to the floor and advanced on the pallid Edith. She retreated before him. He was about to clasp her when a voice rang out.

"Hands up!"

He swung round to find his late victim brandis.h.i.+ng a revolver. An ugly leer crossed his face. He evidently meant business. Jim stared at the revolver.

"Put 'em up or I'll drill you. I can plead the unwritten law. I've got you now, my buck-jumping desperado."

Jim coolly blew his nose.

"Put 'em up!"

He put up his hands and dropped the handkerchief. He stooped to pick up the latter and, with a lightning movement, caught the edge of the mat and pulled with all his strength. The man, standing on the end of it, came to earth with a crash. Jim flew at him and made for the hand that held the gun. Over and over they went like cats. Then it was that Edith lent a hand--to her confederate. She ran to the dressing-table and took up a small penknife. Jim was leaning over his victim, wresting the gun from his hand, when she reached him. The knife came down twice in his shoulder.

The intense pain caused him to drop the gun, but he picked it up again, hurled his inert opponent across the room, and went to Edith. The knife dropped from her fingers as she saw the blood streaming down his white s.h.i.+rtfront.

"I don't fight wimmen," he growled. "There ain't nothing I can do to you, 'cept this."

He suddenly caught her and, holding both her wrists in one hand, with the other tore every shred of clothing from her.... Then without a word he strode out of the room.

"I'm through with this place," he muttered. "Bright lights! Gosh, I'm looking for where they don't s.h.i.+ne so strong."

Somewhere in England were the graves of his ancestors. He didn't want to see the graves of his forefathers, even if he could find them, but the desire to give London the "once over" was now stronger than ever. The next day he booked a steamer berth and packed his bags.

CHAPTER III

SOCIAL ADVANCEMENT

Jim's first impression of London was an ocean of flying mud, through which myriads of phantasmagorial creatures and things moved in sullen, unceasing procession; an all-enveloping wall of brown fog; and a roar like unto some monster in pain. When he stood on the Embankment and strove to get a glimpse of the river, he came to the conclusion that "the hub of the Universe" was not up to specification. The famous Strand amazed him by its narrowness and its shortness. The buildings were dirtier than any buildings he had ever seen before, and the people cold, self-contained, units who seemed visibly to shrink back into their sh.e.l.ls at his every attempt to hold conversation.

For a whole week the fog and the drizzle continued as though no sun existed, or ever could exist. He wandered aimlessly, like a lost sheep, wondering how long a man could swallow quarts of dirt with his oxygen without getting permanently transformed into a human sewer.

But he was getting a grip on things. His brain was gradually adapting itself to changed conditions. No longer did he gasp when a child in Stepney picked up orange-peel from the gutter and ate it. Here was the unending manifestation of Nature's inexorable law, the survival of the fittest, more clearly and cruelly displayed than in New York. Wealth and Poverty were more definitely marked. If they merged at all, it was away in the suburbs, or in the Jewish quarter, whence issued, on Sat.u.r.days, thousands of dark-skinned lads and girls, westward bound, to spend one hectic evening in the pleasure-ground west of St. Paul's.