Criminals -- Fiction; Social problems -- Fiction; United States -- Social conditions -- 1865-1918 -- Fiction
They did not show themselves in the bar-room again. Some young smart
Alecks from the country were there, flushed with beer and showing off.
Curly and Archie left by a side door, walked hurriedly to the canal,
dodged along its edges to the river, then along the wharves to the long
bridge up stream, and over to the west side, and at four o’clock, after
a wide detour through quiet streets, they gained Sam Gray’s at last.
Sam Gray kept a quiet saloon, with a few rooms upstairs for lodgers.
Gray was a member of a family noted in the under world; his brothers
kept similar places in other cities. His wife was a Rawson, a famous
family of thieves, at the head of which was old Scott Rawson, who owned
a farm and was then in hiding somewhere with an enormous reward hanging
over his head. Gray’s wife was a sister of Rawson; and the sister, too,
of Nan Rawson, whom Snuffer Wilson had in mind when, on the scaffold, he
said, "Tell Nan good-by for me." And in these saloons, kept by the
Rawsons and the Grays, and at the Rawson farm, thieves in good standing
were always welcome; many a hunted man had found refuge there; the
Rawsons would have care of him, and nurse him back to health of the
wounds inflicted by official bullets.
When Curly and Archie entered, a man of sixty years with thick white
hair above a wide white brow, in shirt-sleeves, his waistcoat
unbuttoned, and his trousers girded tightly into the fat at his waist,
came out, treading softly in slippers.
"A friend of mine, Mr. Gray," said Curly. "He’s right. He’s just done
his bit; got home last night, and the bulls pinched him. He’s got
orders and I’m going to take him out with me. But we can’t go
yet--Phillie Dave’s out."
The old man smiled vaguely at the mention of the old thief.
"All right," he said, taking Archie’s hand.
Archie felt a glow of pride when Curly mentioned his having done his
bit; he was already conscious, now that he had a record, of improved
standing.
"Who’s back there?" asked Curly, jerking his head toward a partition
from behind which voices came.
"A couple of the girls," said old Sam. "You know ’em, I guess."
The two women who sat at a table in the rear room looked up hastily when
the men appeared.
"Hello, Curly," they said, in surprise and relief.
They had passed thirty, were well dressed in street gowns, wore gloves,
and carried small shopping-bags. They had put their veils up over their
hats. Archie, thinking of his appearance, was more self-conscious than
ever, and his embarrassment did not diminish when one of the women,
after Curly had told them something of their plans, looked at the black
mark rubbed into Archie’s neck by the prison clothes and said:
"You can’t do nothin’ in them stir clothes." Before he could reply, she
got up impulsively.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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