The other half

I had advertised that a passenger would be taken (for a price) on my return trip by air from Omaha to the coast, and awaited the responses with no little curiosity. A flying companion should be chosen carefully.

The very first applicant, therefore, startled me. He appeared almost as soon as the papers were off the presses--a spare, intense, elderly man, with gray mustache and imperial, and bushy brows shadowing singularly bright, restless eyes. His years, of course, were against him; his weathered, lean face and active step bespoke energy, nevertheless I judged him to be rising sixty.

“But, my dear sir!” I protested.

He proved insistent.

“Heart perfect,” he snapped. “I’ll leave that to any doctor you appoint. Heart, arteries and lungs, they’re as sound as yours.”

“Just why do you wish to make the trip, may I ask?” said I. “Business or pleasure?”

“Business.” He eyed me sharply. “There’ll be no woman aboard?”

“Scarcely,” I assured.

“All right. No woman. I’ve been across time and again, by train--and there were women; by auto--drove my own car, alone, but there were the women, before, behind, and no way to avoid them.” He grumbled almost, savagely. “I’ll go by air,” he resumed. “I want to get to San Francisco at once. I want to look around. Do you stop at Denver? Salt Lake? Cheyenne?”

“Straight to San Francisco,” said I. “We may have to land en route, perhaps Cheyenne, perhaps Reno; but not for long and I make no promises.”

“All right. I’ll look around San Francisco. I may have missed something. Then I can work back. I’m not through. You’ll have to take me. I’ll pay you double. I’m sounder than most of the younger men; I have no family----”

“You’re not married, sir?” I queried.

“No, no! Thank God, no! You accept me?”

He noted me hesitate. Perhaps he sensed that I deemed him a trifle off center.

“I’ll give you references,” he proffered with dignity. “I’m not crazy--not quite. Look me up, for I mean to go. San Francisco, again: then I can work back. There’s always the chance,” he muttered. “Yes, there’s always the chance.” And he challenged: “If you find me sane and sound, it’s a bargain, is it?”

“Possibly so, in case----”

“And we start at once?”

“Tomorrow.”

He paused.

“You’re a Westerner?”

“Born and raised in Leadville, Colorado,” I assured.

He seized upon the fact.

“Ah! Leadville! We couldn’t stop there?”

“Hardly.”

“But it was a busy camp, once, wasn’t it? A typical camp; a rendezvous, with dance halls, gambling dens, and men and women of all kinds gathered?”

“A boom camp, and wide open,” I said. “That was before my day, however.”

“Yes,” he pursued. “So it was. I’ve been there. I must look into it again. It’s one more place. You were born and raised there, you say? Lived there some time? Wait! Did you ever happen to see the mate to this, in curiosity shops, say, or among relics of the old-timers?”

Thereupon he unsnapped a small protective leather case and passed me the half of a silver coin, pierced as if it once had been strung.

“An old half dollar?” I hazarded.

“Yes. If you’ve aviator’s eyes you can read the lettering around the rim, young man.”

So I could. “God Be With You----” was the legend, unfinished as if cut short. He was gazing anxiously at me, his lips a-tremble. I turned the piece over and passed it back.

“No,” said I; “I never happened to see the other half. A keepsake?”

His face set sternly. He restored the half coin to its case.

“A keepsake. You are married, young man?”

“Not yet.”

“Don’t,” he barked. “Don’t. Pray God you may be spared that.”

A woman-hater, he; odd in a man who should be mellowing. But upon looking him up I found that this was his only apparent defection. A strange, restless man, however, with few friends; antecedents unknown; personal history taboo with him; and wanderlust possessing him today as yesterday and the day before.

“Again?” his banker blurted. “Bound across again? He only just got back from San Francisco, by automobile, via Salt Lake, Cheyenne and Denver. Drove alone. So he’s going through with you? That’ll be his fifth or sixth trip this year. He’s a regular Wandering Jew.”

“And his business?” I invited.

“Business? None.”