"Travelin'
On"


By
WILLIAM S. HART


"Travelin' On"

By
William S. Hart

In the year 1880, a wagon schooner wagon was seen
coming along the Montana trail. The driver of the
wagon was a stern visaged man, with an almost holy
light in his eyes. In the wagon, with a meagre amount
of household effects, was a young mother, and by her
side, a little girl.

The wagon comes out of a draw and on to a sort of
a plateau, and Hi Morton, the driver, pulls up his
team and looks into the valley below, where there is
spread out a rude Western town of that period. Morton
turns to his wife and tells her that there are only
a few more miles to travel and that they will be where
they can get food and shelter and continue to spread
the word of the Lord. For Hi Morton is an evangelist,
the type of man of those days who, while they were
uncommon, nevertheiess they did exist, itinerant and
unordained preachers, who in some way got religion
and ever after devoted all their energies toward its
teaching, even to the extent of sacrificing all they
owned and pauperizing not only themselves, but
their families. Such a man is Hi Morton.

COPYRIGHTED 1920 BY WILLIAM S. HART
WILL A. KISTLER CO. PRINTERS, LOS ANGELES, CALIF., U. S. A.


"TRAVELIN' ON"

In the town of Tumble Bluff we see the usual street
activities and the usual saloons and dance halls, which
are dwarfed by one central Palace of Chance, which
is conducted by Dandy Allen McGee, known far and
wide as a most proficient gambler, a wearer of many
diamonds and a mighty slick man with women. While
a man of striking personality, Dandy Allen McGee
has a face that strongly suggests the animal, its most
prominent feature in this respect being a pug-nose,
which seems to more strongly suggest his pugnacious
nature.

The prairie schooner arrives and Morton pulls up
to water his jaded stock. Out of Dandy Allen McGee's
place come two men rolling and fighting. Hi Morton
watches intently, bystanders gather around but do
not interfere. It becomes too much for Hi Morton
and he jumps from his wagon and goes to where the
combatants are :fighting, and draws from his inside
coat pocket a Bible and starts to preach. His horses
are hungry, his wife and child have made a long journey
in a box wagon and they need nourishment, but all
that is forgotten by Hi Morton in his religious zeal.
He reads his text in all seriousness and starts to preach
fervently and feelingly, which causes the combatants
to stop fighting and gaze upon this dispenser of the
gospel in open mouthed wonderment. And this unusual
happening causes all of the occupants of the different
dance halls and places of business to flock
around him. Among the dance hall girls who gather,
having come out of Dandy Allen McGee's palace, is
Carmen Rosa, a pretty and chique Spanish girl, and
perched upon her shoulder is a pet, a little chattering
monkey which she calls Jacko. The dealers also come
out in their shirt sleeves and still with their eye-shades


"TRAVELIN' ON"

on. The eloquence of the preacher, while diametrically
opposed to all of their views, is winning out
sufficiently to hold their attention for the time being.
Dandy Allen McGee comes out also and listens with
a satirical, smile on his face, and then suddenly his
eyes go fixed and intent and he half turns and gazes
away, and he sees a stage coach upon a lonely trail
being held up by two masked men. He sees the coach
depart and he sees the bandits pull their masks down
from their faces, one is himself, Dandy Allen McGee,
and the other is Hi Morton. And he sees stretched
across the road in front of the horses a lariat, the
rope upon which the horses have stumbled, and in
this manner caused confusion and allowed the bandits
to have the upper hand in their work.

And then Dandy Allen McGee turns and looks at
Morton, beads of perspiration are standing out upon
his forehead, his hickory shirt is open at the neck and
he is preaching the word of God in such a manner that
no one on earth could doubt his sincerity. Dandy
Allen McGee cannot understand; he is bewildered,
but his face never loses the satirical smile, for Dandy
Allen McGee doesn't propose that any evangelist
shall come into Tumble Bluff and even in the slightest
degree interfere with his profession, and he involuntarily
utters the words, "Well, I'll be damned."

Among the characters that are assembled, listening
to this unusual happening is a habitue of the Palace
of Dandy Allen McGee, known as "Know-It-AllHaskins,"
and when the preacher in an impassioned
utterance speaks of the Lord and says, "We are all
His children," Haskins, resenting the fact that someone
is attempting to infringe upon his territory, ob



"TRA VELIN' ON"

serves, "There was a man oncet named Darwin what
wrote a book what said that we're all come from the
same people as Jacko," which causes a general laugh.
Thus encouraged, Haskins goes on, "Seems to me,
Dan, you and Jacko seem to bear out what this book
said, because there sure is a resemblance."

The laugh that follows from the crowd causes McGee
to lose his temper and while he endeavors to cover it
up by laughing himself, there is bitterness underneath
it, and reaching over, he strikes at Jacko, as Jacko
sits perched upon the sho:ulder of Carmen Rosa, and
the little fellow squeals back at him in anger. This
causes him to strike again and he hits the little fellow
and says to Carmen Rosa, "I've told you before to
keep that thing away from me and out of my place.
Now that goes and I ain't tellin' you agin, understand!"
And Carmen Rosa, clutching her little pet to her,
shrinks away.

A11d then Dandy Allen McGee turns and he sees
seated upon the driver's seat and holding the reins
of the tired team the wife, mother of the child. Dandy
Allen McGee doesn't care anything about the child,
but he is stung by the beauty, simplicity and charm
of the mother. She is tired, she is hungry, but she
is watching her husband and following his every word
with belief and faith. Dandy Allen McGee moves
around the crowd and comes to the mother and talks
to her-yes, they have come a long distance; yes, they
are very tired, but they are content, they are working
for God. For the mother, while not active, is equally
as religious as her husband, but she is not a fanatic.
She would go about worshipping the Almighty quietly
and unostentatiously in her own way and in her own
self, if it were not for the fact that her husband is


"TRAVELIN' ON"

a religious fanatic. McGee talks to the mother and in
this way allows the itinerant preacher to remain at
his calling far longer than he would ordinarily have
done, for Dandy Allen McGee is smitten, he is smitten
hard, by this beautiful creature. So much is this true
.that he circles the crowd until he reaches one of his
principle henchmen and drawing him aside, gives
him instructions to have the meeting broken up without
him (Dandy Allen McGee) appearing in it,
because Dandy Allen McGee has plans in which the
young mother is vitally concerned, and he doesn't
wish to off end her.

Under instructions from McGee, the men soon
break up the meeting and disperse the crowd, but Hi
Morton stands his ground and continues to preach
until the last man is gone, and when all are departed,
he utters a silent and sincere prayer of thanks to the
Lord, and then going to his wagon, says, "Come,
mother, we'll find a home in this place. We must remain
here, for there is work to be done here for the
Lord.''

Upon the same plateau overlooking the town of
Tumble Bluff, sitting upon a tired Pinto horse, is a
frontiersman, and he says, "Paint, old man, you and
me is due to inspect that town down yonder, and then
we'll be travelin' on."

From the stranger's place of view, he can only see
that it is a scattered Western frontier town, but were
he closer he would have seen a man just finishing and
pasting up a large rude drawing, which is a cartoon
of Hi Morton, clergyman; several of the men after a
time trying their marksmanship upon it. It is during


"TRA VELIN' ON"

this that the stranger finally arrives and looks on.
Now among these men that are doing the shooting,
is a man named Gila, a huge type 0f the Western
plains. Gila is a good shot, an excellent shot, but when
the stranger finally takes a hand, Gila is up against
the best shot in the world, and also Gila is about two
parts drunk, which doesn't add any softening influence
to his brutal nature. As the shooting goes on, he becomes
enraged at the quiet stranger who is, by his
marvelous marksmanship, actually changing the character
of the cartoon by placing certain shots just where
he wants them. So Gila finally asserts himself, saying,
"I'm Gila from Arizona. Who in hell are you?"

The unruffled stranger replies in a cool drawling
manner, "I never heard of but two things in Arizona
by that name before, one is a river what runs and the
other is a snake." Gila says, "Never mind showing
your knowledge of geogr'phy and animals. I'm here
to say that I ain't runnin' none and I ain't no reptile,
and I'm agin askin' who in hell are you?"

Again the stranger replies as cooly and quietly
as before, "Not answerin' you in pertikler, but for the
benefit of our friends, I'm J. B."

At this point the enraged Gila is completely gone,
and, throwing discretion to the winds, says, "I suppose
you think you're a hell of a feller, 'cause you got a
good outfit and ride a calico circus horse and can
shoot at marks some, but let me tell you, stranger,

(and he lurches over in a tantalizing manner), but let
me tell you, shootin' at a mark, unless that mark is
a human, ain't no shootin' at all. Any kid kin shoot


"TRAVELIN' ON"

I

at a mark with a pop gun, but it takes guts to draw
a gun on a man. If you had to do that, your hand
would be about as steady as the end of a fish pole
that had a pickerel hooked onto it."

There is an ominous silence, for with all. the bluffing
ways of Gila, he is a gun man and a killer, not a fair
fighter but a killer. The crowd await expectantly
for the next move, knowing that some action must
.now take place. The stranger, still unmoved, looks
Gila over closely, paying no attention to the fact that
Gila's hand is resting easily on his cartidge belt three
inches from his gun. Then the stranger speaks again
quietly and finally, "Gila, either your head is too little
or your hat is too big. I ain't aimin' to say which it
is." And he cooly reaches up and takes Gila's hat
by the rim and pulls it down over his eyes. There is
a snarl from the blinded Gila as he reaches quickly
for his gun, but the fist of the stranger crashes out
and lands full on the point of Gila's jaw, and he goes
down and out for the time being, and forever disgraced
in the eyes of Tumble Bluff. The stranger had even
disdained to use a gun on him, and cooly walked away
and entered the Palace of Chance of Dandy Allen
McGee.

Wheri J. B. enters the Palace, he is the object of
all eyes but is apparently unmindful of it all. He goes
to the bar and orders his drink. Now, Gila is half
dunk, and Gila had been struck down and disgraced
and in his semi-dazed condition, both from drink
and the blow on the point of his jaw, he seeks to do
that which he ordinarily would not have done in any
Western community: he seeks to do murder. With


"TRAVELIN' ON"

8

his face contorted with hate, he lurches over to the
front of the Palace and deliberately resting his sixshooter
on the hitching rack, he starts to draw an
accurate bead on J. B., who is up against the bar, just
in the act of raising his glass to his lips. J. B.'s back
is toward the door, but he is facing the mirror over the
bar and in it he could see. Without the movement.
of a muscle, save his right arm and hand, he slowly
draws his gun from his right holster, and resting it
in the croch of his left arm, and still looking steadily
into the mirror and tasting his drink, he fires. There
is a sound of breaking glass as the bullet crashes thru
the front window, and tears its way straightinto the
gun hand of Gila and shatters it. With a howl of pain,'
Gila doubles up and then staggers away, vowing vengeance
and looking for a doctor. J. B. quietly finishes
his drink and returns his gun to its holster, and just
simply remarks to the bartender, ''When there's no
mirror behind a bar, I always drink with my back to
it."

Carmen Rosa has seen and heard, and Carmen Rosa
loves bravery and loves daring. So Carmen Rosa,
in company with another pretty dance hall girl, comes
forward with Jacko still perched upon her shoulder.

,

"Buy a drink?" says Carmen.

"Sure," says J. B.

And the drink is bought and drained. "Come and
sit down and have a talk," says Carmen Rosa. To
which J. B. replies, "When I want women, I go get
'em, and I ain't aimin' to be bothered none." At which
Carmen Rosa and her companion stand, not knowing



"TRAVELIN' ON"

what to say. But Dandy Allen McGee has heard and
it suits his purpose in his irritableness toward Carmen
and his hatred for Jacko to come forward, and say,
to Carmen, "I told you to keep that damn thing out
of here. You get out and if yo'u bring it in here again,
I will take it by the hind legs and knock its brains out
up agin the wall." And then Dandy Allen McGee
turns to J. B. and says, "Stranger, you're a man after
my own heart. You know how to treat women."

J. B. says, "I'm admittin' I ain't strong for women,
but I aJso am observin' that I like four footed things
and if you ever touch that little helpless pet of her'n
agin,' there'll be a funeral around here and you won't
hear what the preacher's sayin." And then J. B.
turns quietly and cooly and goes out.
Now, Carmen Rosa knows that the threat of Dandy
Allen McGee is no idle threat. She knows that he
will keep his word and she is after all just a dance hall
girl living upon the privilege of plying her trade in
Dandy Allen McGee's place, but still she is actuated
in what she does by her honest affection for her little
pet. She follows J. B. out to the hitching rack, where
he is untying his little Pinto horse and says, "Mister,
I love this little fellow. I think the world of him, but
I know that if I don't get rid of him, it will mean that
he will be killed in some way or another, and I'm
askin' you please to take him. If there is anyone in
the world that can take care of him, I know you can."

J. B. stands and thinks for a moment and then says,
"Lady, I think I understand, and I'm acceptin."
And he takes the little fell ow and perches him upon
the Pinto's saddle and turning to a passerby, says,
"Pardner, it seems I've got a family and as I aim to
stay in these parts for a few days, it might not take

io


kindly to sleepin' out. Kin you tell me if there is an
empty barn anywhere in town?" The passerby replies,
"Go straight ahead and you'll find one, tthelast
shack on the left, leaving town. It's the one just
beyond where that preacher and his family have hung

up their hats." And, thanking him, J. B. leads his
Pirito horse up the street with Jacko perched upon the
saddle.
As the bystander had told J. B., Hi Morton and his
wife and baby are already settled in their tumbled
down shack. They are even already working out their
plans in the service of the Lord. They are working
out their plans to complete a church. They are wrapping
many small books in brown paper, such as they
would get from the little trading store.
And next we see Susan behind an upturned dry
goods box upon the main street with a little child by
her side, and over the box there is a rudely lettered
sign-"A book every gambler should read.-Price
$5.00." At another part of the street, we see Hi Morton
paying his last fifty dollars for a lot upon which to
build his church. The sign naturally attracts the
attention of some passersby, and one of them enters
the Palace to get his morning drink and tells the bartender,
and the bartender tells Three-fingered Alec, a
dealer; and they all go to the door and look out and
Three-fingered Alec finally removes his eye-shade and I
goes out to where Susan is timidly awaiting her customers.
Alec reads the sign and sees some twenty
little brown paper parcels. He walks up and pays
his five dollars and takes one, and then returns inside I I
of the saloon, and, going to a corner of the room, he
unties the paper and examines the book. There is


"TRAVELIN' On"

a grin spreads o:ver his face as h,e slips the book into
his pocket. It is a Bible. A fellow gambler approaches
and asks, "Is it any good, Alec?" And Alec replies,
"I only looked at the first page, but that sure seemed
interestin'." Alec is too good a sport to squeal.

There is a rush on the little book stand and in five
minutes ther.e is only one copy left. And that one copy!.
the last one, is bought by J. B. As each purchaser
buys his book, he involuntarily seeks some nook to
see what he has got. Some take their medicine as did
Alec, and others are sore. Among these is Gila, with
his right arm in a sling. Know-It-All-Haskins is also
sore. They, with some two or three others, come to
Susan and demand their money back. She is about
to return it but J. B. interferes, saying, "What in hell
do you all want for five dollars? Ain't that a purty
book?" J. B. cannot read. His name, the only one
he knows, is the brand of a cattle out-fit he once worked
for. The ones who are not satisfied do not intend to
taake things so easily, and the situation is quite tense
for a few moments, but J. B. says, "I'm escortin' this
lady and her little child home and everybody is steppin'
aside. I'm J. B." They do step aside and J. B. walks
with Susan and the little child to their home which
is only some fifty yards removed from his stable shack.

After Susan and J.B. have left, one of the men asks
who f B. is, and Know-It-All Haskins says, "There
oncet was a man named John Bunyan who wrote the
Pilgrim's Progress, but that ain't him."

Susan is grateful to J. B. and in her kind and gentleI I way she shows it. She even puts her hand upon the arm
of B. and tells him of her gratitude. She is met with


"TRAVELIN' ON"

the even cool gaze of J. B., who says, "Now you are
the kind of a woman I like. I want you. I'm J. B."
Susan is distressed, but Susan is fearless, a fearlessness
born of innocence, and she tells J. B. to read the book,
and it will teach him oh so much. And J. B. goes to
his stable home and talks to the Pinto horse and talks
to Jacko and tells them they are ornery, no account .
cusses just the same as he is 'cause they cannot read.
Now J. B. is a man who doesn't like to give up. He is
a man who doesn't like to be beaten, and then there
is something that has come into the life of J. B., which,
were he highly educated, he could not explain nor
understand. So J. B., in his simple way, forms a plan.
He sneaks around Hi Morton's cabin, and he gets
little Mary Jane to come and play with Jacko, and he
promises her candy, and they go to a store and J. B.
buys two little A B C books for the little girl and he
puts one in his pocket and he returns to his stable
abode with little Mary Jane, who unwittingly and
unknowingiy gives him his first lesson, with the man
pretending that he is teaching her. There are many
such meetings and many such lessons and, of course, J.B.
becomes immeasurably fond of little Mary Jane.
And at one of these meetings comes Susan, naturally
looking for her little one and she talks much to J. B.,
but J. B. is still, so far as speech is concerned, the same
calloused being, but J. B. is not the same, but there
is only one power that knows this-God must
know it.

Hi Morton finds himself blocked on all sides. He
selis his horse, he sells his wagon, he sells all of their
household belongings, save actual necessities to build
his church. The sale of the Bibles only put up the
skeleton of the building and lumber is high. Hi Morton



"TRA VELIN' ON"


investigates. He knows that some one is blocking him,
and he finds that it is Dandy Allen McGee. But Hi
Morton can never meet McGee, can never see him, so
he sends Susan and thereby does just what Dandy
Allen McGee wants and has planned for. He dare not
let Morton see him for fear of being recognized, altho
their relationships dated some fifteen years before.
When Susan goes to McGee, he tries to get her, by
every means, using all of the better side of his nature
in every way in which he is capable, but Susan doesn't
understand. And it is at this stage of affairs that
everything is at a stand still and they have nothing

. to eat, much less to build a church, that there comes
a night, a lowering, cloudy, stormy night with great
flashes of lightning tearing the sky and causing the
flimsy board shacks of Tumble Bluff to creak and
groan in the wind. It is this black lowering night
when J. B. comes home to his stable shack and finds
little Jacko's chain broken and little Jacko gone.
He looks outside and up at the sky and there is a blinding
flash of lightning and at first J. B. suspects that it
is a trick of Dandy Allen McGee and that little Jacko
has been stolen by one of his henchmen, but the chain
is broken; so J. B. looks around and finds a little lane
in the weeds heading straight toward the foothills
and he knows that Jacko has broken loose and run
away, perhaps he and the Pinto had been playing
and half fighting, as they were in the habit of doing,
and the little fellow in a sudden jump had broken his
chain and so felt his liberty and escaped, for in the
jagged, broken window pain of the one little window
of the barn were a few of Jacko's hairs that had been
scraped off when he had gone thru.

So J. B. goes outside again and once more looks at


"TRAVELIN' ON"

the sky and at the swaying brush and trees bowing
to the coming storm, and he takes the little fellow's
trail and follows and soon the storm breaks and the
rain comes down in torrents and the brush sweeps
his face, but little Jacko is in the timber somewhere
and he must find him. The trail is gone and he is in
a forest of swaying trees, and beating, twisting winds,
and blinding rain, but still he never falters; and when
the heavens are lit up with great flashes of lightning,
his face is seen set but, oh, so kind and gentle and
anxious, as he hunts for his little friend, the poor little
chattering monkey. He hunts for hours, his hat is
a shapeless thing, his clothing is torn, his face is scratched
and bloody from the brush and branches, but still
he goes on and calls "Jacko, Jacko," and then listens
in vain for the chatter of the little friend in the noise
of the storm. It is not an exemplification of the Almighty
that he should create a man in the likeness
of his own image, so hard, so seemingly cruel, as to
be an outcast among men of his race, and yet there
is this touch of the Almighty's hand in this man's
nature. He is out in the wilderness, in this blinding
storm, where the heavens are being torn asunder,
searching for this little animal. There is a great flare
of light, a big sentinel of the forest has been struck
and torn from its resting place of years and falls to
the ground, and as J. B. jumps back to escape its crashing
force, little Jacko is thrown from its branches at
the feet of his friend. And this illiterate gun man,
this man from nowhere, this traveler on, ta_kes him
in his arms and hugs him, hugs him close to his breast.

When the dawn breaks in Tumble Bluff, the mudbespattered
stage comes in, its four horse team splashing
thru the pools left by the storm. It has been held


up and robbed by a man that they could s by the
flashes of lightning rode a Pinto hor e, who took one
thousand and left four thousand untouched, and the
robbery was done by stretching a rope across the
road, the robber then cut the traces of the four horses
and turned the horses loose in the storm. Dandy
Allen McGee hears and once more his mind goes back
to the old trick of stretching a rope across the road and
letting the horses pile up. He knows who the robber
was, he knows who took the one thousand and left
the four thousand. And he can use the Pinto horse
on another man-surely the devil was aiding his own.

When the dawn is breaking, also comes thru the
forest J. B. with his little pet in his arms and enters
his cabin. He puts Jacko down and is scolding him,
when he sees the Pinto who is mud-bespattered, who
is still wet. He has been ridden. hard and the saddle
while in its accustomed place, is also soaking wet, and
the rope that was tied to the saddle strings is gone.

J. B. finds some canned milk for Jacko and takes
the Pinto and rubs him down and then starts to remove
his wet clothing. When an hour later Mary
Jane comes to see Jacko, J. B. is clothed in a blanket,
but they have their little lesson just the same, and
Mary Jane plays with Jacko unmindful of the two
riders who come up the trail and see some clothes of
J. B.'s drying on the bushes in front of the cabin.
They turn and go back but not before one had said to
the other, "His clothes may be wet, but I'm gambling
his guns ain't. Let's go and report."
Now, Mary Jane loves J. B., and as she sits on his
blanketed lap and unknowingly teaches J. B., his


"TRAVELIN' ON"

A B C's by illustrating little pictures in the child's
primer, she says, "My papa came home all wet, too."
And then J. B. knows who stole the Pinto, and when
he goes to town and hears the news, he knows who
held up the stage, but he gives no sign, but goes about
unmolested; and such is his bearing that no man
dare say a word.

He sees Hi Morton and his two carpenters at work,
and he sees the huge load of lumber being dumped
upon the ground. Dandy Allen McGee also sees and
knows all, and he plans to play his last, and to his
mind, his winning card. That night he sends for
Susan to come to his private room which is located
over his P.alace of Chance, at a late hour. And Susan
strong in her belief in the ways of the Lord, thinks
he has relented and that he will give his aid to hir
husband in the building and establishing of his church,
and she in her innocence goes. Dandy Allen McGee
at first uses his usual tactics, but in so doing, he lays
his unclean hands upon her and she shrinks from him
and he throws off his mask and tells her, "Now, we'll
cut out all of this and talk plain. I want you." But,
oh, how different it sounds, those same words, by this
man and him, that other man, of whom she had no
fear. Again the voice comes, "I want you and I'm
willing to help your husband build his damn church.
I'll do that for you. I've got to have you. (Knowing
full well that he would not keep his word. ) And if
you deny me, I'll ruin him. I'll drive him out of town.
I'll ruin him, I tell you." And as he goes on, he loses
himself entirely and says, "I'll do more. I'll have him
hung, and I can do it. I ain't sayin' how, but I can
do it, and, by God, I'll do it." And again he lays his
unclean hands upon her, the sweet, pure Susan. She


"TRAVELIN' ON"


screams and struggles in his grasp, but he is a powerful
man, and then his brain is now completely turned by
his true nature. He tries to force the struggling girl
into his lustful arms, but altho meek and lowly in spirit,
Susan is strong in all else, and she fights desperately.
Tables and chairs are overthrown, oil lamps are broken,
and by aid of darkness, Susan evades the monster,
and Susan finds the door and opens it and from the
hall light, we see her all disheveled, rushing from this
place of planned dishonor. Straight along the moonlighted
street she goes, straight past the church where
her husband and his two workman are building his
temple of worship, by the aid of lighted lanterns,
straight past her own home where her little child is
asleep, straight to him. (The ways of the Almighty
are many and hard to understand ) . And as she runs
along the trail, she trips and falls and rises and runs
again. And we see inside the stable shack by the same
moonlight that lights the trail, whose rays come from
the broken window, a horse asleep, a little pet monkey
curled up and asleep, and the man asleep with a saddle
for his pillow, and by his side a flickering candle burned
to its base, a child's primer and a Bible. The horse
raises his head and listens, the horse rises and goes
to his master and noses his face and wakes him. His
master rises to a seating posture and listens, and then
suddenly jumps to his feet, grasping his six-shooter
that had laid at his side, and crouching behind the door,
he waits and in answer to a hurried knock, he says,
"Come in." And the door opens and she enters in
the shaft of moonlight. And as the astounded man
lowers his gun she tells him, this good pure girl, this
follower of the teaching of the Lord, she tells him. all.
And the man from nowhere listens, and then he coldly
snarls at her, "Everything in the world is rotten,


"TRAVELIN' ON"

everything in the world is bad. I'm bad, but I might
have believed in women folks account o' you, but you're
same as all the rest. Your husband is a faker. Your
husband stole my horse and held up the stage." And
Susan replies, "I know it, my husband told me, but
he did it for God." There is a pause, a pause such
as can only be caused by the most dramatic moments
in the lives of human beings. Little Jacko curls closer
in his sleep, the Pinto horse looks on, and the moonlight
seems to purify the night, and the hammering in the
distance, in the stillness of the night, can be faintly
heard sinking the nails deeper into the home of God.
And then he speaks, and if it were possible for the Spirit
of the Almighty to enter into this strange being, it
is in his voice, it is in his rought untutored man's
voice, and he says, "I'm takin' you home, and I'm
tellin' you not to worry none. I'm J. B."

At Susan's door he leaves her without a word and
continues on.

At Dandy Allen McGee's place it is the time of sordid
revelry. It is the time of night when those who
sought by intent or accident to become drunk, are
drunk. Dandy Allen McGee is of neither class. His
mind is made up. He has been repulsed in such a
manner he knows that to gain his object, the end has
come. He suspends his games and mounts a table
and calls all to listen. He is going to tell, he is going
to ruin the husband and force the wife to become his,
and he could do it except for God. And this man is
fighting God, but the ways of God are many and hard
to understand, for a man enters, and, going straight
to Dandy Allen McGee, says, "I ain't sayin' why I
say this. I don't have to. I'm just sayin' it, and I'm


"TRAVELIN' ON"

here to answer for my words to any of this thing's
friends after I'm thru with him. A few days ago
somethin' was said about this thing lookin' like what
is now my little Jacko, and as the little feller ain't
big enough to resent the insult, I'm here to do it fer
him. I reckon my little Jacko would play with a
snake and see in him a member of his fambly of animals,
but he sure resents bein' classed with a thing
that is lower than a snake's hips. I'm tellin' you this
and I'm J.B." These words fall from the lips of this
minister of justice in cool tones and his steady eyes
never leave those he is addressing. The face of Dandy
Allen McGee is livid, is bloated with rage. He, Dandy
-Allen McGee, is being forever disgraced, forever
ruined in the eyes of the only people in the world
who could ever respect him, and he dare not draw.
He knows what his tempter wants but he dare not
draw. Cold sweat gathers in great beads upon his
forehead, his muscles twist convulsively, but before
him stands that cool steady machine of death and be
dare not draw. Not a sound could be heard but the
ticking of the clock over the bar. And then the man
walks slowly over to him, not a word is said, as the man
cooly removes his hat from his head, all is tense and
silent, and the man carefully folds his hat lengthwise
and slowly takes hold of one end of it arid then with
lightning swiftness, and with all the force of his powerful
arm he draws it full across the face of the man
monkey, Dandy Allen McGee. And as he, blinded,
cries out in pain and rage, the man cooly straightens
out his hat and places it upon his head, and all, as tho
it were one action, turns deliberately and walks toward
the door. There is a snarl like that of a wild beast
at bay. Dandy Allen McGee reaches for his gun and
fires, but the man has turned and fired first. And as


"TRAVELIN' ON"

he walks out of the . door, he leaves upon the floor
the crumbling, lifeless form of what was once Dandy
Allen McGee.

With the rising sun, we see the man walking
past the now boarded up church with its two workmen
and Hi Morton at work. We see him leading his
Pinto horse with little Jacko perched chattering upon
the saddle; we see her watching with little Mary Jane
by her side; but the stranger looks neither to the right
nor to the left, and when he is past the house, the
little child runs after him and says to him, "My Mamma's
crying," and Jacko chatters to go to his little
playmate, and the man puts little Jacko in her arms
and says, "I'm leavin' him with you 'cause me an' the
Pinto is travelin' on.

And then we see the mountain trail, a double guarded
stage coach and we hear the driver say, "There's that
damn trap again, ahead, stretched across the road."
And we see the rope stretched across the road and we
hear the driver say, "Get set, boys, I'm goin' thru it."
And we see the driver lash his horses and we see a
man mounted on a Pinto horse dash out into the road
and we see the guards fire from the coach. We see
the man fall from the plunging Pinto as the coach
dashes on. The guard says, "Well, I got him anyhow,
and what do you think of the nerve of the damn fool
trying to do the same thing twice?" And then we see
the fallen man roll over and arise, and we see him in
a dazed, surprised way, open his shirt and take from it
a book, a blood covered book, with a bullet hole clear
thru it. It is the Bible. And we see him take a pocket
knife and cut from his breast a bullet that was just


"TRAVELIN' ON"

under the skin, and we see him gather the reins of his
faithful horse, who has come to him, and we hear him
say, "Now, Paint, I reckon we kin be travelin' on."

THE END