"You're not sorry it was the don who went down?" His version stung me.
"I've always regretted it," he answered.
His regret was not for the don's death so much as for the failure of his own life. I think that many times Porter would have welcomed death to the galling humiliation of prison life.
If we could have stayed in Mexico all of us might have escaped the shadows of unhappy pasts. We were hurried out and none of us wished to leave.
Down toward the peninsula, about 50 miles south-west of Mexico City, the richest valley in the world lay. We had looked it over.
It was to have been our home. Things grew there almost spontaneously. Bananas, corn, alligator pears asked only to be planted. The palms were magnificent.
"Here," Porter said when we had decided to purchase it, "one could work and dream out his imagery." I did not know what he meant. I learned when I read "Cabbages and Kings." Here, too, Frank and I hoped to reestablish ourselves. Each had his own dream.
In that silent ride the vision passed. To Frank and to me it was but another misadventure in lives already overcrowded. Neither of us realized that a bitter crisis had been reached in the life of the reticent, droll-tongued fellow, "Bill."
We never dreamed that prison waited for him as it did for us. We never thought that this born aristocrat would one day be compelled to eat at a "hog trough" with thieves and murderers and to bend his pride to the ignorant scowl of a convict guard. Porter, I think, knew that the die was cast for him when we left Mexico.
If we could have planted ourselves in that miraculous valley he might have escaped the forbidding future awaiting him. He could have sent for his daughter. He would have avoided the shame of that striped suit the shame that wore into his heart and broke his life up in wretchedness.
But he smiled lightly at the don's sefiorita, and consequences hurled him back to face the issues he had dodged.
It is easy now to understand the look of rigid horror on his face as we got down at Rector's home.
Jumbo poured whiskey for us and tried to lighten our mood. Porter was so unstrung that when the coachman knocked to tell us the team was ready he reeled and seemed about to collapse.
"Don't worry," Rector said as he shook hands. "Everything will be all right. You can trust this driver. I'm going back to the hotel. I will tell the officers you are at my home. It will give you a fair start."
We went to a little way station on the Tampico road, later caught a tramp steamer at Mazatlan and finally arrived at San Diego, striking out on a flying trip to San Francisco, We never got there.
CHAPTER XIII.
In California; the bank-robbery; O. Henry's refusal; purchase of a ranch; coming of the marshals; flight and pursuit; the trap; capture at last.
O. Henry has been called a democrat, a citizen of the world. The laboratory wherein he caught and dissected the hearts of men and women was in the alleys and honkatonks. He sought to interpret life in the raw, not in the superficial livery disguising it on the broad ways. The under dog was his subject But at heart he was an aristocrat.
He had all the proud sensitiveness of the typical Southern gentleman. He liked to mingle with the masses ; he was not one of them. Gladly he threw in his lot with a pair of bandits and fugitives. It would have cut him to the soul to have been branded as one of them.
For his haughty nature, the ramble from Mexico to San Diego and up the coast to San Francisco was fraught with disagreeable suspense. It was humiliating to "be on the dodge."
I will never forget the look of chagrin that spread over his face when I bumped against him and Frank just as the ferry boat was swinging into the slip.
"Sneak," I said. "They're here."
The chief of the Wells Fargo detectives was on the boat. He had brushed against my arm. Before he had an opportunity to renew old acquaintance, I sauntered over to Frank and Porter. Wells Fargo had many uncollected claims against me. I was not ready for the settlement. Captain Dodge was probably unaware of my presence. We could not afford to take any chances. We stayed on the boat and it brought us back to Oakland.
Bill was a trifle upset. He insisted on staking us all to a drink, although he had to borrow the money from me to pay for the treat. Texas seemed to be the only safe camping ground for us.
With about $417 left from our capital of $30,000, we landed in San Antonio, still hankering for the joys of simple range life. There I met an old cowman friend of mine and he took us out to his ranch. Fifty miles from the town it ran into low hills and valleys, prairies and timber. A finer strip of country no peeler would ask. The cowman offered us range, cattle and horses for $15,000.
It was a bargain. Frank and I decided to snap it up. Financial arrangements, the cowman assured us, could be made with the bank in ......., several hundred miles distant. In the safe there was at least $15,000, and it could be easily removed. This was a straight tip.
It was a peculiar situation. Frank and I had both decided to quit the outlaw life. But we hadn't a cent and there was but one way to gather a quick haul. The fine fervor of reformation had lost its early ardor. Necessity completed the cooling process.
But we were a little worried about Porter. Whatever may have been his reasons for staying with us we were confident that Bill was not a lawbreaker.
The very thing that decided us to take him into our confidence was his pride. We knew he needed the money. We knew it humiliated him to borrow.
I had given him many and various sums since our flight from Honduras. These were always accepted as loans. We didn't want Bill to be under an obligation to us. We wanted him to earn his interest in the ranch.
The square thing was to invite him to go into the banking venture. If you had seen Bill Porter's face then and the helpless surprise that scooted across it, you would believe as I do that he was never guilty of the theft which sent him for nearly four years of his life to the Ohio Penitentiary. He had neither recklessness nor the sangfroid of the lawbreaker.
Just about evening I went down to the corral. Porter was sitting there enjoying the quiet peace. He was rolling a corn- shuck cigarette.
He looked happier and more at ease than at any time since the shooting of the don. I suppose I should have broached the subject mildly. The satisfying dreariness of this October night was not suggestive of crime or robbery. But the gentleness of the Madonna would not have lured Bill Porter into the scheme.
"Bill," I said, "we're going to buy the ranch for $15,000 and we want you to come in with us on the deal."
He paused with his cigarette half rolled.
"Colonel," he said, "I would like nothing better than to settle in this magnificent country, and to live here unafraid and unmolested. But I have no funds."
"That's just it. Neither have we. We're about to get them. Down there in----, there's a bank with $15,000 in its vaults. That money ought to be put into circulation."
The tobacco dropped from the paper. Porter looked up quickly and searched my face. He saw that I was in earnest. He was not with us, but not for a fortune would he wound us or even permit me to think that he judged us.
"Colonel---" This time his large eyes twinkled. It was seldom that he smiled. I never heard him laugh but twice. "I'd like a share in this range. But tell me, would I have to shoot anybody?"
"Oh, perhaps so, but most likely not."
"Well, give me the gun. If I go on the job I want to act like an expert. I'll practice shooting."
No outlaw would ever ask another for his forty-five. The greatest compliment a cowpuncher can give the man he trusts is to hand over his gun for inspection.