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diff --git a/1385-0.txt b/1385-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f637f1d --- /dev/null +++ b/1385-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8227 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1385 *** + +LIN McLEAN + +By Owen Wister + + +DEDICATION + +MY DEAR HARRY MERCER: When Lin McLean was only a hero in manuscript, he +received his first welcome and chastening beneath your patient roof. By +none so much as by you has he in private been helped and affectionately +disciplined, an now you must stand godfather to him upon this public +page. + +Always yours, + +OWEN WISTER + +Philadelphia, 1897 + + + + +HOW LIN McLEAN WENT EAST + +In the old days, the happy days, when Wyoming was a Territory with a +future instead of a State with a past, and the unfenced cattle grazed +upon her ranges by prosperous thousands, young Lin McLean awaked early +one morning in cow camp, and lay staring out of his blankets upon the +world. He would be twenty-two this week. He was the youngest cow-puncher +in camp. But because he could break wild horses, he was earning more +dollars a month than any man there, except one. The cook was a more +indispensable person. None save the cook was up, so far, this morning. +Lin's brother punchers slept about him on the ground, some motionless, +some shifting their prone heads to burrow deeper from the increasing +day. The busy work of spring was over, that of the fall, or beef +round-up, not yet come. It was mid-July, a lull for these hard-riding +bachelors of the saddle, and many unspent dollars stood to Mr. McLean's +credit on the ranch books. + +“What's the matter with some variety?” muttered the boy in his blankets. + +The long range of the mountains lifted clear in the air. They slanted +from the purple folds and furrows of the pines that richly cloaked them, +upward into rock and grassy bareness until they broke remotely into +bright peaks, and filmed into the distant lavender of the north and the +south. On their western side the streams ran into Snake or into Green +River, and so at length met the Pacific. On this side, Wind River flowed +forth from them, descending out of the Lake of the Painted Meadows. A +mere trout-brook it was up there at the top of the divide, with easy +riffles and stepping-stones in many places; but down here, outside +the mountains, it was become a streaming avenue, a broadening course, +impetuous between its two tall green walls of cottonwood-trees. And so +it wound away like a vast green ribbon across the lilac-gray sage-brush +and the yellow, vanishing plains. + +“Variety, you bet!” young Lin repeated, aloud. + +He unrolled himself from his bed, and brought from the garments that +made his pillow a few toilet articles. He got on his long boy legs and +limped blithely to the margin. In the mornings his slight lameness was +always more visible. The camp was at Bull Lake Crossing, where the +fork from Bull Lake joins Wind River. Here Lin found some convenient +shingle-stones, with dark, deepish water against them, where he plunged +his face and energetically washed, and came up with the short curly hair +shining upon his round head. After enough looks at himself in the dark +water, and having knotted a clean, jaunty handkerchief at his throat, he +returned with his slight limp to camp, where they were just sitting at +breakfast to the rear of the cook-shelf of the wagon. + +“Bugged up to kill!” exclaimed one, perceiving Lin's careful dress. + +“He sure has not shaved again?” another inquired, with concern. + +“I ain't got my opera-glasses on,” answered a third. + +“He has spared that pansy-blossom mustache,” said a fourth. + +“My spring crop,” remarked young Lin, rounding on this last one, “has +juicier prospects than that rat-eaten catastrophe of last year's hay +which wanders out of your face.” + +“Why, you'll soon be talking yourself into a regular man,” said the +other. + +But the camp laugh remained on the side of young Lin till breakfast was +ended, when the ranch foreman rode into camp. + +Him Lin McLean at once addressed. “I was wantin' to speak to you,” said +he. + +The experienced foreman noticed the boy's holiday appearance. “I +understand you're tired of work,” he remarked. + +“Who told you?” asked the bewildered Lin. + +The foreman touched the boy's pretty handkerchief. “Well, I have a way +of taking things in at a glance,” said he. “That's why I'm foreman, I +expect. So you've had enough work?” + +“My system's full of it,” replied Lin, grinning. As the foreman stood +thinking, he added, “And I'd like my time.” + +Time, in the cattle idiom, meant back-pay up to date. + +“It's good we're not busy,” said the foreman. + +“Meanin' I'd quit all the same?” inquired Lin, rapidly, flushing. + +“No--not meaning any offence. Catch up your horse. I want to make the +post before it gets hot.” + +The foreman had come down the river from the ranch at Meadow Creek, +and the post, his goal, was Fort Washakie. All this part of the country +formed the Shoshone Indian Reservation, where, by permission, pastured +the herds whose owner would pay Lin his time at Washakie. So the young +cow-puncher flung on his saddle and mounted. + +“So-long!” he remarked to the camp, by way of farewell. He might +never be going to see any of them again; but the cow-punchers were not +demonstrative by habit. + +“Going to stop long at Washakie?” asked one. + +“Alma is not waiter-girl at the hotel now,” another mentioned. + +“If there's a new girl,” said a third, “kiss her one for me, and tell +her I'm handsomer than you.” + +“I ain't a deceiver of women,” said Lin. + +“That's why you'll tell her,” replied his friend. + +“Say, Lin, why are you quittin' us so sudden, anyway?” asked the cook, +grieved to lose him. + +“I'm after some variety,” said the boy. + +“If you pick up more than you can use, just can a little of it for me!” + shouted the cook at the departing McLean. + +This was the last of camp by Bull Lake Crossing, and in the foreman's +company young Lin now took the road for his accumulated dollars. + +“So you're leaving your bedding and stuff with the outfit?” said the +foreman. + +“Brought my tooth-brush,” said Lin, showing it in the breast-pocket of +his flannel shirt. + +“Going to Denver?” + +“Why, maybe.” + +“Take in San Francisco?” + +“Sounds slick.” + +“Made any plans?” + +“Gosh, no!” + +“Don't want anything on your brain?” + +“Nothin' except my hat, I guess,” said Lin, and broke into cheerful +song: + + “'Twas a nasty baby anyhow, + And it only died to spite us; + 'Twas afflicted with the cerebrow + Spinal meningitis!'” + +They wound up out of the magic valley of Wind River, through the +bastioned gullies and the gnome-like mystery of dry water-courses, +upward and up to the level of the huge sage-brush plain above. Behind +lay the deep valley they had climbed from, mighty, expanding, its trees +like bushes, its cattle like pebbles, its opposite side towering also +to the edge of this upper plain. There it lay, another world. One step +farther away from its rim, and the two edges of the plain had flowed +together over it like a closing sea, covering without a sign or ripple +the great country which lay sunk beneath. + +“A man might think he'd dreamed he'd saw that place,” said Lin to the +foreman, and wheeled his horse to the edge again. “She's sure there, +though,” he added, gazing down. For a moment his boy face grew +thoughtful. “Shucks!” said he then, abruptly, “where's any joy in +money that's comin' till it arrives? I have most forgot the feel o' +spot-cash.” + +He turned his horse away from the far-winding vision of the river, and +took a sharp jog after the foreman, who had not been waiting for him. +Thus they crossed the eighteen miles of high plain, and came down to +Fort Washakie, in the valley of Little Wind, before the day was hot. + +His roll of wages once jammed in his pocket like an old handkerchief, +young Lin precipitated himself out of the post-trader's store and away +on his horse up the stream among the Shoshone tepees to an unexpected +entertainment--a wolf-dance. He had meant to go and see what the new +waiter-girl at the hotel looked like, but put this off promptly to +attend the dance. This hospitality the Shoshone Indians were extending +to some visiting Ute friends, and the neighborhood was assembled to +watch the ring of painted naked savages. + +The post-trader looked after the galloping Lin. “What's he quitting his +job for?” he asked the foreman. + +“Same as most of 'em quit.” + +“Nothing?” + +“Nothing.” + +“Been satisfactory?” + +“Never had a boy more so. Good-hearted, willing, a plumb dare-devil with +a horse.” + +“And worthless,” suggested the post-trader. + +“Well--not yet. He's headed that way.” + +“Been punching cattle long?” + +“Came in the country about seventy-eight, I believe, and rode for the +Bordeaux Outfit most a year, and quit. Blew in at Cheyenne till he went +broke, and worked over on to the Platte. Rode for the C. Y. Outfit most +a year, and quit. Blew in at Buffalo. Rode for Balaam awhile on Butte +Creek. Broke his leg. Went to the Drybone Hospital, and when the +fracture was commencing to knit pretty good he broke it again at the +hog-ranch across the bridge. Next time you're in Cheyenne get Dr. Barker +to tell you about that. McLean drifted to Green River last year and went +up over on to Snake, and up Snake, and was around with a prospecting +outfit on Galena Creek by Pitchstone Canyon. Seems he got interested +in some Dutchwoman up there, but she had trouble--died, I think they +said--and he came down by Meteetsee to Wind River. He's liable to go to +Mexico or Africa next.” + +“If you need him,” said the post-trader, closing his ledger, “you can +offer him five more a month.” + +“That'll not hold him.” + +“Well, let him go. Have a cigar. The bishop is expected for Sunday, and +I've got to see his room is fixed up for him.” + +“The bishop!” said the foreman. “I've heard him highly spoken of.” + +“You can hear him preach to-morrow. The bishop is a good man.” + +“He's better than that; he's a man,” stated the foreman--“at least so +they tell me.” + +Now, saving an Indian dance, scarce any possible event at the Shoshone +agency could assemble in one spot so many sorts of inhabitants as a +visit from this bishop. Inhabitants of four colors gathered to view the +wolf-dance this afternoon--red men, white men, black men, yellow men. +Next day, three sorts came to church at the agency. The Chinese laundry +was absent. But because, indeed (as the foreman said), the bishop was +not only a good man but a man, Wyoming held him in respect and went +to look at him. He stood in the agency church and held the Episcopal +service this Sunday morning for some brightly glittering army officers +and their families, some white cavalry, and some black infantry; the +agency doctor, the post-trader, his foreman, the government scout, three +gamblers, the waiter-girl from the hotel, the stage-driver, who was +there because she was; old Chief Washakie, white-haired and royal in +blankets, with two royal Utes splendid beside him; one benchful of +squatting Indian children, silent and marvelling; and, on the back +bench, the commanding officer's new hired-girl, and, beside her, Lin +McLean. + +Mr. McLean's hours were already various and successful. Even at the +wolf-dance, before he had wearied of its monotonous drumming and +pageant, his roving eye had rested upon a girl whose eyes he caught +resting upon him. A look, an approach, a word, and each was soon content +with the other. Then, when her duties called her to the post from him +and the stream's border, with a promise for next day he sought the hotel +and found the three gamblers anxious to make his acquaintance; for when +a cow-puncher has his pay many people will take an interest in him. The +three gamblers did not know that Mr. McLean could play cards. He left +them late in the evening fat with their money, and sought the tepees of +the Arapahoes. They lived across the road from the Shoshones, and among +their tents the boy remained until morning. He was here in church now, +keeping his promise to see the bishop with the girl of yesterday; and +while he gravely looked at the bishop, Miss Sabina Stone allowed his arm +to encircle her waist. No soldier had achieved this yet, but Lin was the +first cow-puncher she had seen, and he had given her the handkerchief +from round his neck. + +The quiet air blew in through the windows and door, the pure, light +breath from the mountains; only, passing over their foot-hills it had +caught and carried the clear aroma of the sage-brush. This it brought +into church, and with this seemed also to float the peace and great +silence of the plains. The little melodeon in the corner, played by one +of the ladies at the post, had finished accompanying the hymn, and now +it prolonged a few closing chords while the bishop paused before his +address, resting his keen eyes on the people. He was dressed in a +plain suit of black with a narrow black tie. This was because the Union +Pacific Railroad, while it had delivered him correctly at Green River, +had despatched his robes towards Cheyenne. + +Without citing chapter and verse the bishop began: + +“And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way +off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his +neck and kissed him.” + +The bishop told the story of that surpassing parable, and then proceeded +to draw from it a discourse fitted to the drifting destinies in whose +presence he found himself for one solitary morning. He spoke unlike many +clergymen. His words were chiefly those which the people round him used, +and his voice was more like earnest talking than preaching. + +Miss Sabina Stone felt the arm of her cow-puncher loosen slightly, and +she looked at him. But he was looking at the bishop, no longer gravely +but with wide-open eyes, alert. When the narrative reached the elder +brother in the field, and how he came to the house and heard sounds of +music and dancing, Miss Stone drew away from her companion and let him +watch the bishop, since he seemed to prefer that. She took to reading +hymns vindictively. The bishop himself noted the sun-browned boy face +and the wide-open eyes. He was too far away to see anything but the +alert, listening position of the young cow-puncher. He could not discern +how that, after he had left the music and dancing and begun to draw +morals, attention faded from those eyes that seemed to watch him, and +they filled with dreaminess. It was very hot in church. Chief Washakie +went to sleep, and so did a corporal; but Lin McLean sat in the same +alert position till Miss Stone pulled him and asked if he intended to +sit down through the hymn. Then church was out. Officers, Indians, and +all the people dispersed through the great sunshine to their dwellings, +and the cow-puncher rode beside Sabina in silence. + +“What are you studying over, Mr. McLean?” inquired the lady, after a +hundred yards. + +“Did you ever taste steamed Duxbury clams?” asked Lin, absently. + +“No, indeed. What's them?” + +“Oh, just clams. Yu' have drawn butter, too.” Mr. McLean fell silent +again. + +“I guess I'll be late for settin' the colonel's table. Good-bye,” said +Sabina, quickly, and swished her whip across the pony, who scampered +away with her along the straight road across the plain to the post. + +Lin caught up with her at once and made his peace. + +“Only,” protested Sabina, “I ain't used to gentlemen taking me out +and--well, same as if I was a collie-dog. Maybe it's Wind River +politeness.” + +But she went riding with him up Trout Creek in the cool of the +afternoon. Out of the Indian tepees, scattered wide among the flat +levels of sage-brush, smoke rose thin and gentle, and vanished. They +splashed across the many little running channels which lead water +through that thirsty soil, and though the range of mountains came no +nearer, behind them the post, with its white, flat buildings and green +trees, dwindled to a toy village. + +“My! but it's far to everywheres here,” exclaimed Sabina, “and it's +little you're sayin' for yourself to-day, Mr. McLean. I'll have to do +the talking. What's that thing now, where the rocks are?” + +“That's Little Wind River Canyon,” said the young man. “Feel like goin' +there, Miss Stone?” + +“Why, yes. It looks real nice and shady like, don't it? Let's.” + +So Miss Stone turned her pony in that direction. + +“When do your folks eat supper?” inquired Lin. + +“Half-past six. Oh, we've lots of time! Come on.” + +“How many miles per hour do you figure that cayuse of yourn can travel?” + Lin asked. + +“What are you a-talking about, anyway? You're that strange to-day,” said +the lady. + +“Only if we try to make that canyon, I guess you'll be late settin' the +colonel's table,” Lin remarked, his hazel eyes smiling upon her. “That +is, if your horse ain't good for twenty miles an hour. Mine ain't, I +know. But I'll do my best to stay with yu'.” + +“You're the teasingest man--” said Miss Stone, pouting. “I might have +knowed it was ever so much further nor it looked.” + +“Well, I ain't sayin' I don't want to go, if yu' was desirous of campin' +out to-night.” + +“Mr. McLean! Indeed, and I'd do no such thing!” and Sabina giggled. + +A sage-hen rose under their horses' feet, and hurtled away heavily over +the next rise of ground, taking a final wide sail out of sight. + +“Something like them partridges used to,” said Lin, musingly. + +“Partridges?” inquired Sabina. + +“Used to be in the woods between Lynn and Salem. Maybe the woods are +gone by this time. Yes, they must be gone, I guess.” + +Presently they dismounted and sought the stream bank. + +“We had music and dancing at Thanksgiving and such times,” said Lin, his +wiry length stretched on the grass beside the seated Sabina. He was not +looking at her, but she took a pleasure in watching him, his curly head +and bronze face, against which the young mustache showed to its full +advantage. + +“I expect you used to dance a lot,” remarked Sabina, for a subject. + +“Yes. Do yu' know the Portland Fancy?” + +Sabina did not, and her subject died away. + +“Did anybody ever tell you you had good eyes?” she inquired next. + +“Why, sure,” said Lin, waking for a moment; “but I like your color best. +A girl's eyes will mostly beat a man's.” + +“Indeed, I don't think so!” exclaimed poor Sabina, too much expectant +to perceive the fatal note of routine with which her transient admirer +pronounced this gallantry. He informed her that hers were like the sea, +and she told him she had not yet looked upon the sea. + +“Never?” said he. “It's a turruble pity you've never saw salt water. +It's different from fresh. All around home it's blue--awful blue in +July--around Swampscott and Marblehead and Nahant, and around the +islands. I've swam there lots. Then our home bruck up and we went to +board in Boston.” He snapped off a flower in reach of his long arm. +Suddenly all dreaminess left him. + +“I wonder if you'll be settin' the colonel's table when I come back?” he +said. + +Miss Stone was at a loss. + +“I'm goin' East to-morrow--East, to Boston.” + +Yesterday he had told her that sixteen miles to Lander was the farthest +journey from the post that he intended to make--the farthest from the +post and her. + +“I hope nothing ain't happened to your folks?” said she. + +“I ain't got no folks,” replied Lin, “barring a brother. I expect he is +taking good care of himself.” + +“Don't you correspond?” + +“Well, I guess he would if there was anything to say. There ain't been +nothin'.” + +Sabina thought they must have quarrelled, but learned that they had not. +It was time for her now to return and set the colonel's table, so Lin +rose and went to bring her horse. When he had put her in her saddle she +noticed him step to his own. + +“Why, I didn't know you were lame!” cried she. + +“Shucks!” said Lin. “It don't cramp my style any.” He had sprung on +his horse, ridden beside her, leaned and kissed her before she got any +measure of his activity. + +“That's how,” said he; and they took their homeward way galloping. “No,” + Lin continued, “Frank and me never quarrelled. I just thought I'd have +a look at this Western country. Frank, he thought dry-goods was good +enough for him, and so we're both satisfied, I expect. And that's a lot +of years now. Whoop ye!” he suddenly sang out, and fired his six-shooter +at a jack-rabbit, who strung himself out flat and flew over the earth. + +Both dismounted at the parade-ground gate, and he kissed her again when +she was not looking, upon which she very properly slapped him; and he +took the horses to the stable. He sat down to tea at the hotel, and +found the meal consisted of black potatoes, gray tea, and a guttering +dish of fat pork. But his appetite was good, and he remarked to himself +that inside the first hour he was in Boston he would have steamed +Duxbury clams. Of Sabina he never thought again, and it is likely that +she found others to take his place. Fort Washakie was one hundred and +fifty miles from the railway, and men there were many and girls were +few. + +The next morning the other passengers entered the stage with +resignation, knowing the thirty-six hours of evil that lay before them. +Lin climbed up beside the driver. He had a new trunk now. + +“Don't get full, Lin,” said the clerk, putting the mail-sacks in at the +store. + +“My plans ain't settled that far yet,” replied Mr. McLean. + +“Leave it out of them,” said the voice of the bishop, laughing, inside +the stage. + +It was a cool, fine air. Gazing over the huge plain down in which lies +Fort Washakie, Lin heard the faint notes of the trumpet on the parade +ground, and took a good-bye look at all things. He watched the American +flag grow small, saw the circle of steam rising away down by the hot +springs, looked at the bad lands beyond, chemically pink and rose amid +the vast, natural, quiet-colored plain. Across the spreading distance +Indians trotted at wide spaces, generally two large bucks on one small +pony, or a squaw and pappoose--a bundle of parti-colored rags. Presiding +over the whole rose the mountains to the west, serene, lifting into the +clearest light. Then once again came the now tiny music of the trumpet. + +“When do yu' figure on comin' back?” inquired the driver. + +“Oh, I'll just look around back there for a spell,” said Lin. “About a +month, I guess.” + +He had seven hundred dollars. At Lander the horses are changed; and +during this operation Lin's friends gathered and said, where was any +sense in going to Boston when you could have a good time where you +were? But Lin remained sitting safe on the stage. Toward evening, at the +bottom of a little dry gulch some eight feet deep, the horses decided +it was a suitable place to stay. It was the bishop who persuaded them +to change their minds. He told the driver to give up beating, and +unharness. Then they were led up the bank, quivering, and a broken trace +was spliced with rope. Then the stage was forced on to the level ground, +the bishop proving a strong man, familiar with the gear of vehicles. +They crossed through the pass among the quaking asps and the pines, +and, reaching Pacific Springs, came down again into open country. That +afternoon the stage put its passengers down on the railroad platform +at Green River; this was the route in those days before the mid-winter +catastrophes of frozen passengers led to its abandonment. The bishop was +going west. His robes had passed him on the up stage during the night. +When the reverend gentleman heard this he was silent for a very short +moment, and then laughed vigorously in the baggage-room. + +“I can understand how you swear sometimes,” he said to Lin McLean; “but +I can't, you see. Not even at this.” + +The cow-puncher was checking his own trunk to Omaha. + +“Good-bye and good luck to you,” continued the bishop, giving his hand +to Lin. “And look here--don't you think you might leave that 'getting +full' out of your plans?” + +Lin gave a slightly shamefaced grin. “I don't guess I can, sir,” he +said. “I'm givin' yu' straight goods, yu' see,” he added. + +“That's right. But you look like a man who could stop when he'd had +enough. Try that. You're man enough--and come and see me whenever we're +in the same place.” + +He went to the hotel. There were several hours for Lin to wait. He +walked up and down the platform till the stars came out and the bright +lights of the town shone in the saloon windows. Over across the way +piano-music sounded through one of the many open doors. + +“Wonder if the professor's there yet?” said Lin, and he went across the +railroad tracks. The bartender nodded to him as he passed through into +the back room. In that place were many tables, and the flat clicking and +rattle of ivory counters sounded pleasantly through the music. Lin +did not join the stud-poker game. He stood over a table at which sat a +dealer and a player, very silent, opposite each other, and whereon were +painted sundry cards, numerals, and the colors red and black in squares. +The legend “Jacks pay” was also clearly painted. The player placed chips +on whichever insignia of fortune he chose, and the dealer slid cards +(quite fairly) from the top of a pack that lay held within a skeleton +case made with some clamped bands of tin. Sometimes the player's pile of +chips rose high, and sometimes his sumptuous pillar of gold pieces was +lessened by one. It was very interesting and pretty to see; Lin had +much better have joined the game of stud-poker. Presently the eye of +the dealer met the eye of the player. After that slight incident the +player's chip pile began to rise, and rose steadily, till the dealer +made admiring comments on such a run of luck. Then the player stopped, +cashed in, and said good-night, having nearly doubled the number of his +gold pieces. + +“Five dollars' worth,” said Lin, sitting down in the vacant seat. The +chips were counted out to him. He played with unimportant shiftings +of fortune until a short while before his train was due, and then, +singularly enough, he discovered he was one hundred and fifty dollars +behind the game. + +“I guess I'll leave the train go without me,” said Lin, buying five +dollars' worth more of ivory counters. So that train came and went, +removing eastward Mr. McLean's trunk. + +During the hour that followed his voice grew dogged and his remarks +briefer, as he continually purchased more chips from the now surprised +and sympathetic dealer. It was really wonderful how steadily Lin +lost--just as steadily as his predecessor had won after that meeting of +eyes early in the evening. + +When Lin was three hundred dollars out, his voice began to clear of its +huskiness and a slight humor revolved and sparkled in his eye. When his +seven hundred dollars had gone to safer hands and he had nothing left at +all but some silver fractions of a dollar, his robust cheerfulness was +all back again. He walked out and stood among the railroad tracks with +his hands in his pockets, and laughed at himself in the dark. Then his +fingers came on the check for Omaha, and he laughed loudly. The trunk by +this hour must be nearing Rawlins; it was going east anyhow. + +“I'm following it, you bet,” he declared, kicking the rail. “Not yet +though. Nor I'll not go to Washakie to have 'em josh me. And yonder lays +Boston.” He stretched his arm and pointed eastward. Had he seen another +man going on in this fashion alone in the dark, among side-tracked +freight cars, he would have pitied the poor fool. “And I guess Boston'll +have to get along without me for a spell, too,” continued Lin. “A man +don't want to show up plumb broke like that younger son did after eatin' +with the hogs the bishop told about. His father was a Jim-dandy, that +hog chap's. Hustled around and set 'em up when he come back home. Frank, +he'd say to me 'How do you do, brother?' and he'd be wearin' a good suit +o' clothes and--no, sir, you bet!” + +Lin now watched the great headlight of a freight train bearing slowly +down into Green River from the wilderness. Green River is the end of a +division, an epoch in every train's journey. Lanterns swung signals, +the great dim thing slowed to its standstill by the coal chute, its +locomotive moved away for a turn of repose, the successor backed +steaming to its place to tackle a night's work. Cars were shifted, +heavily bumping and parting. + +“Hello, Lin!” A face was looking from the window of the caboose. + +“Hello!” responded Mr. McLean, perceiving above his head Honey Wiggin, a +good friend of his. They had not met for three years. + +“They claimed you got killed somewheres. I was sorry to hear it.” Honey +offered his condolence quite sincerely. + +“Bruck my leg,” corrected Lin, “if that's what they meant.” + +“I expect that's it,” said Honey. “You've had no other trouble?” + +“Been boomin',” said Lin. + +From the mere undertone in their voices it was plain they were good +friends, carefully hiding their pleasure at meeting. + +“Wher're yu' bound?” inquired Honey. + +“East,” said Lin. + +“Better jump in here, then. We're goin' west.” + +“That just suits me,” said Lin. + +The busy lanterns wagged among the switches, the steady lights of the +saloons shone along the town's wooden facade. From the bluffs that +wall Green River the sweet, clean sage-brush wind blew down in currents +freshly through the coal-smoke. A wrench passed through the train from +locomotive to caboose, each fettered car in turn strained into motion +and slowly rolled over the bridge and into silence from the steam and +the bells of the railroad yard. Through the open windows of the caboose +great dull-red cinders rattled in, and the whistles of distant Union +Pacific locomotives sounded over the open plains ominous and long, like +ships at sea. + +Honey and Lin sat for a while, making few observations and far between, +as their way is between whom flows a stream of old-time understanding. +Mutual whiskey and silence can express much friendship, and eloquently. + +“What are yu' doing at present?” Lin inquired. + +“Prospectin'.” + +Now prospecting means hunting gold, except to such spirits as the boy +Lin. To these it means finding gold. So Lin McLean listened to the talk +of his friend Honey Wiggin as the caboose trundled through the night. He +saw himself in a vision of the near future enter a bank and thump down +a bag of gold-dust. Then he saw the new, clean money the man would hand +him in exchange, bills with round zeroes half covered by being folded +over, and heavy, satisfactory gold pieces. And then he saw the blue +water that twinkles beneath Boston. His fingers came again on his trunk +check. He had his ticket, too. And as dawn now revealed the gray country +to him, his eye fell casually upon a mile-post: “Omaha, 876.” He began +to watch for them:--877, 878. But the trunk would really get to Omaha. + +“What are yu' laughin' about?” asked Honey. + +“Oh, the wheels.” + +“Wheels?” + +“Don't yu' hear 'em?” said Lin. “'Variety,' they keep a-sayin'. +'Variety, variety.'” + +“Huh!” said Honey, with scorn. “'Ker-chunka-chunk' 's all I make it.” + +“You're no poet,” observed Mr. McLean. + +As the train moved into Evanston in the sunlight, a gleam of dismay shot +over Lin's face, and he ducked his head out of sight of the window, but +immediately raised it again. Then he leaned out, waving his arm with a +certain defiant vigor. But the bishop on the platform failed to notice +this performance, though it was done for his sole benefit, nor would Lin +explain to the inquisitive Wiggin what the matter was. Therefore, very +naturally, Honey drew a conclusion for himself, looked quickly out of +the window, and, being disappointed in what he expected to see remarked, +sulkily, “Do yu' figure I care what sort of a lookin' girl is stuck on +yu' in Evanston?” And upon this young Lin laughed so loudly that his +friend told him he had never seen a man get so foolish in three years. + +By-and-by they were in Utah, and, in the company of Ogden friends, +forgot prospecting. Later they resumed freight trains and journeyed +north In Idaho they said good-bye to the train hands in the caboose, +and came to Little Camas, and so among the mountains near Feather Creek. +Here the berries were of several sorts, and growing riper each day, and +the bears in the timber above knew this, and came down punctually +with the season, making variety in the otherwise even life of the +prospectors. It was now August, and Lin sat on a wet hill making +mud-pies for sixty days. But the philosopher's stone was not in the wash +at that placer, nor did Lin gather gold-dust sufficient to cover the +nail of his thumb. Then they heard of an excitement at Obo, Nevada, and, +hurrying to Obo, they made some more mud-pies. + +Now and then, eating their fat bacon at noon, Honey would say, “Lin, +wher're yu' goin'?” + +And Lin always replied, “East.” This became a signal for drinks. + +For beauty and promise, Nevada is a name among names. Nevada! Pronounce +the word aloud. Does it not evoke mountains and clear air, heights +of untrodden snow and valleys aromatic with the pine and musical with +falling waters? Nevada! But the name is all. Abomination of desolation +presides over nine-tenths of the place. The sun beats down as on a roof +of zinc, fierce and dull. Not a drop of water to a mile of sand. The +mean ash-dump landscape stretches on from nowhere to nowhere, a spot +of mange. No portion of the earth is more lacquered with paltry, +unimportant ugliness. + +There is gold in Nevada, but Lin and Honey did not find it. Prospecting +of the sort they did, besides proving unfruitful, is not comfortable. +Now and again, losing patience, Lin would leave his work and stalk about +and gaze down at the scattered men who stooped or knelt in the water. +Passing each busy prospector, Lin would read on every broad, upturned +pair of overalls the same label, “Levi Strauss, No. 2,” with a picture +of two lusty horses hitched to one of these garments and vainly +struggling to split them asunder. Lin remembered he was wearing a label +just like that too, and when he considered all things he laughed to +himself. Then, having stretched the ache out of his long legs, he would +return to his ditch. As autumn wore on, his feet grew cold in the mushy +gravel they were sunk in. He beat off the sand that had stiffened on his +boots, and hated Obo, Nevada. But he held himself ready to say “East” + whenever he saw Honey coming along with the bottle. The cold weather +put an end to this adventure. The ditches froze and filled with snow, +through which the sordid gravel heaps showed in a dreary fashion; so the +two friends drifted southward. + +Near the small new town of Mesa, Arizona, they sat down again in the +dirt. It was milder here, and, when the sun shone, never quite froze. +But this part of Arizona is scarcely more grateful to the eye than +Nevada. Moreover, Lin and Honey found no gold at all. Some men near them +found a little. Then in January, even though the sun shone, it quite +froze one day. + +“We're seein' the country, anyway,” said Honey. + +“Seein' hell,” said Lin, “and there's more of it above ground than I +thought.” + +“What'll we do?” Honey inquired. + +“Have to walk for a job--a good-payin' job,” responded the hopeful +cow-puncher. And he and Honey went to town. + +Lin found a job in twenty-five minutes, becoming assistant to the +apothecary in Mesa. Established at the drug-store, he made up the +simpler prescriptions. He had studied practical pharmacy in +Boston between the ages of thirteen and fifteen, and, besides this +qualification, the apothecary had seen him when he first came into Mesa, +and liked him. Lin made no mistakes that he or any one ever knew of; +and, as the mild weather began, he materially increased the apothecary's +business by persuading him to send East for a soda-water fountain. The +ladies of the town clustered around this entertaining novelty, and while +sipping vanilla and lemon bought knickknacks. And the gentlemen of +the town discovered that whiskey with soda and strawberry syrup was +delicious, and produced just as competent effects. A group of them were +generally standing in the shop and shaking dice to decide who should +pay for the next, while Lin administered to each glass the necessary +ingredients. Thus money began to come to him a little more steadily than +had been its wont, and he divided with the penniless Honey. + +But Honey found fortune quickly, too. Through excellent card-playing he +won a pinto from a small Mexican horse-thief who came into town from the +South, and who cried bitterly when he delivered up his pet pony to the +new owner. The new owner, being a man of the world and agile on his +feet, was only slightly stabbed that evening as he walked to the +dance-hall at the edge of the town. The Mexican was buried on the next +day but one. + +The pony stood thirteen two, and was as long as a steamboat. He had +white eyelashes, pink nostrils, and one eye was bright blue. If you +spoke pleasantly to him, he rose instantly on his hind-legs and tried +to beat your face. He did not look as if he could run, and that was what +made him so valuable. Honey travelled through the country with him, and +every gentleman who saw the pinto and heard Honey became anxious to get +up a race. Lin always sent money for Wiggin to place, and he soon +opened a bank account, while Honey, besides his racing-bridle, bought a +silver-inlaid one, a pair of forty-dollar spurs, and a beautiful saddle +richly stamped. Every day (when in Mesa) Honey would step into the +drug-store and inquire, “Lin, wher're yu' goin'?” + +But Lin never answered any more. He merely came to the soda-water +fountain with the whiskey. The passing of days brought a choked season +of fine sand and hard blazing sky. Heat rose up from the ground and hung +heavily over man and beast. Many insects sat out in the sun rattling +with joy; the little tearing river grew clear from the swollen mud, and +shrank to a succession of standing pools; and the fat, squatting cactus +bloomed everywhere into butter-colored flowers big as tulips in the +sand. There were artesian wells in Mesa, and the water did not taste +very good; but if you drank from the standing pools where the river +had been, you repaired to the drug-store almost immediately. A troop of +wandering players came dotting along the railroad, and, reaching Mesa, +played a brass-band up and down the street, and announced the powerful +drama of “East Lynne.” Then Mr. McLean thought of the Lynn marshes that +lie between there and Chelsea, and of the sea that must look so cool. +He forgot them while following the painful fortunes of the Lady Isabel; +but, going to bed in the back part of the drug-store, he remembered how +he used to beat everybody swimming in the salt water. + +“I'm goin',” he said. Then he got up, and, striking the light, he +inspected his bank account. “I'm sure goin',” he repeated, blowing the +light out, “and I can buy the fatted calf myself, you bet!” for he had +often thought of the bishop's story. “You bet!” he remarked once more in +a muffled voice, and was asleep in a minute. The apothecary was sorry to +have him go, and Honey was deeply grieved. + +“I'd pull out with yer,” he said, “only I can do business round Yuma and +westward with the pinto.” + +For three farewell days Lin and Honey roved together in all sorts of +places, where they were welcome, and once more Lin rode a horse and +was in his native element. Then he travelled to Deming, and so through +Denver to Omaha, where he was told that his trunk had been sold for +some months. Besides a suit of clothes for town wear, it had contained a +buffalo coat for his brother--something scarce to see in these days. + +“Frank'll have to get along without it,” he observed, philosophically, +and took the next eastbound train. + +If you journey in a Pullman from Mesa to Omaha without a waistcoat, and +with a silk handkerchief knotted over the collar of your flannel shirt +instead of a tie, wearing, besides, tall, high-heeled boots, a soft, +gray hat with a splendid brim, a few people will notice you, but not +the majority. New Mexico and Colorado are used to these things. As Iowa, +with its immense rolling grain, encompasses you, people will stare a +little more, for you're getting near the East, where cow-punchers are +not understood. But in those days the line of cleavage came sharp-drawn +at Chicago. West of there was still tolerably west, but east of +there was east indeed, and the Atlantic Ocean was the next important +stopping-place. In Lin's new train, good gloves, patent-leathers, and +silence prevailed throughout the sleeping-car, which was for Boston +without change. Had not home memories begun impetuously to flood +his mind, he would have felt himself conspicuous. Town clothes and +conventions had their due value with him. But just now the boy's +single-hearted thoughts were far from any surroundings, and he was +murmuring to himself, “To-morrow! tomorrow night!” + +There were ladies in that blue plush car for Boston who looked at Lin +for thirty miles at a stretch; and by the time Albany was reached +the next day one or two of them commented that he was the most +attractive-looking man they had ever seen! Whereas, beyond his tallness, +and wide-open, jocular eyes, eyes that seemed those of a not highly +conscientious wild animal, there was nothing remarkable about young +Lin except stage effect. The conductor had been annoyed to have such +a passenger; but the cow-puncher troubled no one, and was extremely +silent. So evidently was he a piece of the true frontier that curious +and hopeful fellow-passengers, after watching him with diversion, more +than once took a seat next to him. He met their chatty inquiries with +monosyllables so few and so unprofitable in their quiet politeness that +the passengers soon gave him up. At Springfield he sent a telegram to +his brother at the great dry-goods establishment that employed him. + +The train began its homestretch after Worcester, and whirled and swung +by hills and ponds he began to watch for, and through stations with old +wayside names. These flashed on Lin's eye as he sat with his hat off +and his forehead against the window, looking: Wellesley. Then, not long +after, Riverside. That was the Charles River, and did the picnic woods +used to be above the bridge or below? West Newton; Newtonville; Newton. +“Faneuil's next,” he said aloud in the car, as the long-forgotten +home-knowledge shone forth in his recollection. The traveller seated +near said, “Beg pardon?” but, turning, wondered at the all-unconscious +Lin, with his forehead pressed against the glass. The blue water flashed +into sight, and soon after they were running in the darkness between +high walls; but the cow-puncher never moved, though nothing could be +seen. When the porter announced “Boston,” he started up and followed +like a sheep in the general exodus. Down on the platform he moved along +with the slow crowd till some one touched him, and, wheeling round, he +seized both his brother's hands and swore a good oath of joy. + +There they stood--the long, brown fellow with the silk handkerchief +knotted over his flannel shirt, greeting tremendously the spruce +civilian, who had a rope-colored mustache and bore a fainthearted +resemblance to him. The story was plain on its face to the passers-by; +and one of the ladies who had come in the car with Lin turned twice, and +smiled gently to herself. + +But Frank McLean's heart did not warm. He felt that what he had been +afraid of was true; and he saw he was being made conspicuous. He saw men +and women stare in the station, and he saw them staring as he and his +Western brother went through the streets. Lin strode along, sniffing the +air of Boston, looking at all things, and making it a stretch for his +sleek companion to keep step with him. Frank thought of the refined +friends he should have to introduce his brother to; for he had +risen with his salary, and now belonged to a small club where the +paying-tellers of banks played cards every night, and the head clerk at +the Parker House was president. Perhaps he should not have to reveal +the cow-puncher to these shining ones. Perhaps the cow-puncher would +not stay very long. Of course he was glad to see him again, and he would +take him to dine at some obscure place this first evening. But this was +not Lin's plan. Frank must dine with him, at the Parker House. Frank +demurred, saying it was he that should be host. + +“And,” he added, “they charge up high for wines at Parker's.” Then for +the twentieth time he shifted a sidelong eye over his brother's clothes. + +“You're goin' to take your grub with me,” said Lin. “That's all right, I +guess. And there ain't any 'no' about it. Things is not the same like +as if father was livin'--(his voice softened)--and here to see me come +home. Now I'm good for several dinners with wines charged up high, I +expect, nor it ain't nobody in this world, barrin' just Lin McLean, that +I've any need to ask for anything. 'Mr. McLean,' says I to Lin, 'can +yu' spare me some cash?' 'Why, to be sure, you bet!' And we'll start off +with steamed Duxbury clams.” The cow-puncher slapped his pocket, where +the coin made a muffled chinking. Then he said, gruffly, “I suppose +Swampscott's there yet?” + +“Yes,” said Frank. “It's a dead little town, is Swampscott.” + +“I guess I'll take a look at the old house tomorrow,” Lin pursued. + +“Oh, that's been pulled down since--I forget the year they improved that +block.” + +Lin regarded in silence his brother, who was speaking so jauntily of the +first and last home they had ever had. + +“Seventy-nine is when it was,” continued Frank. “So you can save the +trouble of travelling away down to Swampscott.” + +“I guess I'll go to the graveyard, anyway,” said the cow-puncher in his +offish voice, and looking fixedly in front of him. + +They came into Washington Street, and again the elder McLean uneasily +surveyed the younger's appearance. + +But the momentary chill had melted from the heart of the genial Lin. +“After to-morrow,” said he, laying a hand on his brother's shoulder, +“yu' can start any lead yu' please, and I guess I can stay with yu' +pretty close, Frank.” + +Frank said nothing. He saw one of the members of his club on the other +side of the way, and the member saw him, and Frank caught diverted +amazement on the member's face. Lin's hand weighed on his shoulder, and +the stress became too great. “Lin,” said he, “while you're running with +our crowd, you don't want to wear that style of hat, you know.” + +It may be that such words can in some way be spoken at such a time, but +not in the way that these were said. The frozen fact was irrevocably +revealed in the tone of Frank's voice. + +The cow-puncher stopped dead short, and his hand slid off his brother's +shoulder. “You've made it plain,” he said, evenly, slanting his steady +eyes down into Frank's. “You've explained yourself fairly well. Run +along with your crowd, and I'll not bother yu' more with comin' round +and causin' yu' to feel ashamed. It's a heap better to understand these +things at once, and save making a fool of yourself any longer 'n yu' +need to. I guess there ain't no more to be said, only one thing. If yu' +see me around on the street, don't yu' try any talk, for I'd be liable +to close your jaw up, and maybe yu'd have more of a job explainin' that +to your crowd than you've had makin' me see what kind of a man I've got +for a brother.” + +Frank found himself standing alone before any reply to these sentences +had occurred to him. He walked slowly to his club, where a friend joked +him on his glumness. + +Lin made a sore failure of amusing himself that night; and in the +bright, hot morning he got into the train for Swampscott. At the +graveyard he saw a woman lay a bunch of flowers on a mound and kneel, +weeping. + +“There ain't nobody to do that for this one,” thought the cow-puncher, +and looked down at the grave he had come to see, then absently gazed at +the woman. + +She had stolen away from her daily life to come here where her grief +was shrined, and now her heart found it hard to bid the lonely place +goodbye. So she lingered long, her thoughts sunk deep in the motionless +past. When she at last looked up, she saw the tall, strange man re-enter +from the street among the tombs, and deposit on one of them an ungainly +lump of flowers. They were what Lin had been able hastily to buy in +Swampscott. He spread them gently as he had noticed the woman do, but +her act of kneeling he did not imitate. He went away quickly. For some +hours he hung about the little town, aimlessly loitering, watching the +salt water where he used to swim. + +“Yu' don't belong any more, Lin,” he miserably said at length, and took +his way to Boston. + +The next morning, determined to see the sights, he was in New York, and +drifted about to all places night and day, till his money was mostly +gone, and nothing to show for it but a somewhat pleasure-beaten face and +a deep hatred of the crowded, scrambling East. So he suddenly bought a +ticket for Green River, Wyoming, and escaped from the city that seemed +to numb his good humor. + +When, after three days, the Missouri lay behind him and his holiday, he +stretched his legs and took heart to see out of the window the signs +of approaching desolation. And when on the fourth day civilization +was utterly emptied out of the world, he saw a bunch of cattle, and, +galloping among them, his spurred and booted kindred. And his manner +took on that alertness a horse shows on turning into the home road. As +the stage took him toward Washakie, old friends turned up every fifty +miles or so, shambling out of a cabin or a stable, and saying, in casual +tones, “Hello, Lin, where've you been at?” + +At Lander, there got into the stage another old acquaintance, the Bishop +of Wyoming. He knew Lin at once, and held out his hand, and his greeting +was hearty. + +“It took a week for my robes to catch up with me,” he said, laughing. +Then, in a little while, “How was the East?” + +“First-rate,” said Lin, not looking at him. He was shy of the +conversation's taking a moral turn. But the bishop had no intention of +reverting--at any rate, just now--to their last talk at Green River, and +the advice he had then given. + +“I trust your friends were all well?” he said. + +“I guess they was healthy enough,” said Lin. + +“I suppose you found Boston much changed? It's a beautiful city.” + +“Good enough town for them that likes it, I expect,” Lin replied. + +The bishop was forming a notion of what the matter must be, but he had +no notion whatever of what now revealed itself. + +“Mr. Bishop,” the cow-puncher said, “how was that about that fellow you +told about that's in the Bible somewheres?--he come home to his folks, +and they--well there was his father saw him comin'”--He stopped, +embarrassed. + +Then the bishop remembered the wide-open eyes, and how he had noticed +them in the church at the agency intently watching him. And, just +now, what were best to say he did not know. He looked at the young man +gravely. + +“Have yu' got a Bible?” pursued Lin. “For, excuse me, but I'd like yu' +to read that onced.” + +So the bishop read, and Lin listened. And all the while this good +clergyman was perplexed how to speak--or if indeed to speak at this time +at all--to the heart of the man beside him for whom the parable had gone +so sorely wrong. When the reading was done, Lin had not taken his eyes +from the bishop's face. + +“How long has that there been wrote?” he asked. + +He was told about how long. + +“Mr. Bishop,” said Lin, “I ain't got good knowledge of the Bible, and I +never figured it to be a book much on to facts. And I tell you I'm more +plumb beat about it's having that elder brother, and him being angry, +down in black and white two thousand years ago, than--than if I'd seen +a man turn water into wine, for I'd have knowed that ain't so. But the +elder brother is facts--dead-sure facts. And they knowed about that, and +put it down just the same as life two thousand years ago!” + +“Well,” said the bishop, wisely ignoring the challenge as to miracles, +“I am a good twenty years older than you, and all that time I've been +finding more facts in the Bible every day I have lived.” + +Lin meditated. “I guess that could be,” he said. “Yes; after that yu've +been a-readin', and what I know for myself that I didn't know till +lately, I guess that could be.” + +Then the bishop talked with exceeding care, nor did he ask uncomfortable +things, or moralize visibly. Thus he came to hear how it had fared with +Lin his friend, and Lin forgot altogether about its being a parson he +was delivering the fulness of his heart to. “And come to think,” he +concluded, “it weren't home I had went to back East, layin' round them +big cities, where a man can't help but feel strange all the week. No, +sir! Yu' can blow in a thousand dollars like I did in New York, and +it'll not give yu' any more home feelin' than what cattle has put in +a stock-yard. Nor it wouldn't have in Boston neither. Now this country +here” (he waved his hand towards the endless sage-brush), “seein' it +onced more, I know where my home is, and I wouldn't live nowheres else. +Only I ain't got no father watching for me to come up Wind River.” + +The cow-puncher stated this merely as a fact, and without any note of +self-pity. But the bishops face grew very tender, and he looked away +from Lin. Knowing his man--for had he not seen many of this kind in his +desert diocese?--he forbore to make any text from that last sentence the +cow-puncher had spoken. Lin talked cheerfully on about what he should +now do. The round-up must be somewhere near Du Noir Creek. He would +join it this season, but next he should work over to the Powder River +country. More business was over there, and better chances for a man to +take up some land and have a ranch of his own. As they got out at Fort +Washakie, the bishop handed him a small book, in which he had turned +several leaves down, carefully avoiding any page that related of +miracles. + +“You need not read it through, you know,” he said, smiling; “just +read where I have marked, and see if you don't find some more facts. +Goodbye--and always come and see me.” + +The next morning he watched Lin riding slowly out of the post towards +Wind River, leading a single pack-horse. By-and-by the little moving +dot went over the ridge. And as the bishop walked back into the +parade-ground, thinking over the possibilities in that untrained manly +soul, he shook his head sorrowfully. + + + + +THE WINNING OF THE BISCUIT-SHOOTER + +It was quite clear to me that Mr. McLean could not know the news. +Meeting him to-day had been unforeseen--unforeseen and so pleasant that +the thing had never come into my head until just now, after both of us +had talked and dined our fill, and were torpid with satisfaction. + +I had found Lin here at Riverside in the morning. At my horse's +approach to the cabin, it was he and not the postmaster who had come +precipitately out of the door. + +“I'm turruble pleased to see yu',” he had said, immediately. + +“What's happened?” said I, in some concern at his appearance. + +And he piteously explained: “Why, I've been here all alone since +yesterday!” + +This was indeed all; and my hasty impressions of shooting and a corpse +gave way to mirth over the child and his innocent grievance that he had +blurted out before I could get off my horse. + +Since when, I inquired of him, had his own company become such a shock +to him? + +“As to that,” replied Mr. McLean, a thought ruffled, “when a man expects +lonesomeness he stands it like he stands anything else, of course. +But when he has figured on finding company--say--” he broke off (and +vindictiveness sparkled in his eye)--“when you're lucky enough to +catch yourself alone, why, I suppose yu' just take a chair and chat to +yourself for hours.--You've not seen anything of Tommy?” he pursued with +interest. + +I had not; and forthwith Lin poured out to me the pent-up complaints and +sociability with which he was bursting. The foreman had sent him over +here with a sackful of letters for the post, and to bring back the +week's mail for the ranch. A day was gone now, and nothing for a man +to do but sit and sit. Tommy was overdue fifteen hours. Well, you could +have endured that, but the neighbors had all locked their cabins and +gone to Buffalo. It was circus week in Buffalo. Had I ever considered +the money there must be in the circus business? Tommy had taken the +outgoing letters early yesterday. Nobody had kept him waiting. By all +rules he should have been back again last night. Maybe the stage was +late reaching Powder River, and Tommy had had to lay over for it. +Well, that would justify him. Far more likely he had gone to the circus +himself and taken the mail with him. Tommy was no type of man for +postmaster. Except drawing the allowance his mother in the East gave +him first of every month, he had never shown punctuality that Lin could +remember. Never had any second thoughts, and awful few first ones. Told +bigger lies than a small man ought, also. + +“Has successes, though,” said I, wickedly. + +“Huh!” went on Mr. McLean. “Successes! One ice-cream-soda success. And +she”--Lin's still wounded male pride made him plaintive--“why, even that +girl quit him, once she got the chance to appreciate how insignificant +he was as compared with the size of his words. No, sir. Not one of 'em +retains interest in Tommy.” + +Lin was unsaddling and looking after my horse, just because he was +glad to see me. Since our first acquaintance, that memorable summer of +Pitchstone Canyon when he had taken such good care of me and such bad +care of himself, I had learned pretty well about horses and camp craft +in general. He was an entire boy then. But he had been East since, East +by a route of his own discovering--and from his account of that journey +it had proved, I think, a sort of spiritual experience. And then the +years of our friendship were beginning to roll up. Manhood of the +body he had always richly possessed; and now, whenever we met after a +season's absence and spoke those invariable words which all old friends +upon this earth use to each other at meeting--“You haven't changed, you +haven't changed at all!”--I would wonder if manhood had arrived in Lin's +boy soul. And so to-day, while he attended to my horse and explained the +nature of Tommy (a subject he dearly loved just now), I looked at him +and took an intimate, superior pride in feeling how much more mature I +was than he, after all. + +There's nothing like a sense of merit for making one feel aggrieved, +and on our return to the cabin Mr. McLean pointed with disgust to some +firewood. + +“Look at those sorrowful toothpicks,” said he: “Tommy's work.” + +So Lin, the excellent hearted, had angrily busied himself, and chopped a +pile of real logs that would last a week. He had also cleaned the stove, +and nailed up the bed, the pillow-end of which was on the floor. It +appeared the master of the house had been sleeping in it the reverse +way on account of the slant. Thus had Lin cooked and dined alone, supped +alone, and sat over some old newspapers until bed-time alone with his +sense of virtue. And now here it was long after breakfast, and no Tommy +yet. + +“It's good yu' come this forenoon,” Lin said to me. “I'd not have had +the heart to get up another dinner just for myself. Let's eat rich!” + +Accordingly, we had richly eaten, Lin and I. He had gone out among the +sheds and caught some eggs (that is how he spoke of it), we had opened +a number of things in cans, and I had made my famous dish of evaporated +apricots, in which I managed to fling a suspicion of caramel throughout +the stew. + +“Tommy'll be hot about these,” said Lin, joyfully, as we ate the eggs. +“He don't mind what yu' use of his canned goods--pickled salmon and +truck. He is hospitable all right enough till it comes to an egg. Then +he'll tell any lie. But shucks! Yu' can read Tommy right through his +clothing. 'Make yourself at home, Lin,' says he, yesterday. And he +showed me his fresh milk and his stuff. 'Here's a new ham,' says he; +'too bad my damned hens ain't been layin'. The sons-o'guns have quit on +me ever since Christmas.' And away he goes to Powder River for the mail. +'You swore too heavy about them hens,' thinks I. Well, I expect he may +have travelled half a mile by the time I'd found four nests.” + +I am fond of eggs, and eat them constantly--and in Wyoming they were +always a luxury. But I never forget those that day, and how Lin and +I enjoyed them thinking of Tommy. Perhaps manhood was not quite +established in my own soul at that time--and perhaps that is the reason +why it is the only time I have ever known which I would live over again, +those years when people said, “You are old enough to know better”--and +one didn't care! + +Salmon, apricots, eggs, we dealt with them all properly, and I had some +cigars. It was now that the news came back into my head. + +“What do you think of--” I began, and stopped. + +I spoke out of a long silence, the slack, luxurious silence of +digestion. I got no answer, naturally, from the torpid Lin, and then it +occurred to me that he would have asked me what I thought, long before +this, had he known. So, observing how comfortable he was, I began +differently. + +“What is the most important event that can happen in this country?” said +I. + +Mr. McLean heard me where he lay along the floor of the cabin on his +back, dozing by the fire; but his eyes remained closed. He waggled one +limp, open hand slightly at me, and torpor resumed her dominion over +him. + +“I want to know what you consider the most important event that can +happen in this country,” said I, again, enunciating each word with slow +clearness. + +The throat and lips of Mr. McLean moved, and a sulky sound came forth +that I recognized to be meant for the word “War.” Then he rolled over so +that his face was away from me, and put an arm over his eyes. + +“I don't mean country in the sense of United States,” said I. “I mean +this country here, and Bear Creek, and--well, the ranches southward for +fifty miles, say. Important to this section.” + +“Mosquitoes'll be due in about three weeks,” said Lin. “Yu' might leave +a man rest till then.” + +“I want your opinion,” said I. + +“Oh, misery! Well, a raise in the price of steers.” + +“No.” + +“Yu' said yu' wanted my opinion,” said Lin. “Seems like yu' merely +figure on givin' me yours.” + +“Very well,” said I. “Very well, then.” + +I took up a copy of the Cheyenne Sun. It was five weeks old, and I soon +perceived that I had read it three weeks ago; but I read it again for +some minutes now. + +“I expect a railroad would be more important,” said Mr. McLean, +persuasively, from the floor. + +“Than a rise in steers?” said I, occupied with the Cheyenne Sun. “Oh +yes. Yes, a railroad certainly would.” + +“It's got to be money, anyhow,” stated Lin, thoroughly wakened. “Money +in some shape.” + +“How little you understand the real wants of the country!” said I, +coming to the point. “It's a girl.” + +Mr. McLean lay quite still on the floor. + +“A girl,” I repeated. “A new girl coming to this starved country.” + +The cow-puncher took a long, gradual stretch and began to smile. “Well,” + said he, “yu' caught me--if that's much to do when a man is half-witted +with dinner and sleep.” He closed his eyes again and lay with a specious +expression of indifference. But that sort of thing is a solitary +entertainment, and palls. “Starved,” he presently muttered. “We are kind +o' starved that way I'll admit. More dollars than girls to the square +mile. And to think of all of us nice, healthy, young--bet yu' I know who +she is!” he triumphantly cried. He had sat up and levelled a finger at +me with the throw-down jerk of a marksman. “Sidney, Nebraska.” + +I nodded. This was not the lady's name--he could not recall her +name--but his geography of her was accurate. + +One day in February my friend, Mrs. Taylor over on Bear Creek, had +received a letter--no common event for her. Therefore, during several +days she had all callers read it just as naturally as she had them all +see the new baby, and baby and letter had both been brought out for me. +The letter was signed, + +“Ever your afectionite frend. + + “Katie Peck,” + +and was not easy to read, here and there. But you could piece out the +drift of it, and there was Mrs. Taylor by your side, eager to help you +when you stumbled. Miss Peck wrote that she was overworked in Sidney, +Nebraska, and needed a holiday. When the weather grew warm she should +like to come to Bear Creek and be like old times. “Like to come and be +like old times” filled Mrs. Taylor with sentiment and the cow-punchers +with expectation. But it is a long way from February to warm weather on +Bear Creek, and even cow-punchers will forget about a new girl if she +does not come. For several weeks I had not heard Miss Peck mentioned, +and old girls had to do. Yesterday, however, when I paid a visit to Miss +Molly Wood (the Bear Creek schoolmistress), I found her keeping in +order the cabin and the children of the Taylors, while they were gone +forty-five miles to the stage station to meet their guest. + +“Well,” said Lin, judicially, “Miss Wood is a lady.” + +“Yes,” said I, with deep gravity. For I was thinking of an occasion when +Mr. McLean had discovered that truth somewhat abruptly. + +Lin thoughtfully continued. “She is--she's--she's--what are you laughin' +at?” + +“Oh, nothing. You don't see quite so much of Miss Wood as you used to, +do you?” + +“Huh! So that's got around. Well, o' course I'd ought t've knowed +better, I suppose. All the same, there's lots and lots of girls do like +gettin' kissed against their wishes--and you know it.” + +“But the point would rather seem to be that she--” + +“Would rather seem! Don't yu' start that professor style o' yours, or +I'll--I'll talk more wickedness in worse language than ever yu've heard +me do yet.” + +“Impossible!” I murmured, sweetly, and Master Lin went on. + +“As to point--that don't need to be explained to me. She's a lady all +right.” He ruminated for a moment. “She has about scared all the boys +off, though,” he continued. “And that's what you get by being refined,” + he concluded, as if Providence had at length spoken in this matter. + +“She has not scared off a boy from Virginia, I notice,” said I. “He +was there yesterday afternoon again. Ridden all the way over from Sunk +Creek. Didn't seem particularly frightened.” + +“Oh, well, nothin' alarms him--not even refinement,” said Mr. McLean, +with his grin. “And she'll fool your Virginian like she done the balance +of us. You wait. Shucks! If all the girls were that chilly, why, what +would us poor punchers do?” + +“You have me cornered,” said I, and we sat in a philosophical silence, +Lin on the floor still, and I at the window. There I looked out upon +a scene my eyes never tired of then, nor can my memory now. Spring +had passed over it with its first, lightest steps. The pastured levels +undulated in emerald. Through the many-changing sage, that just this +moment of to-day was lilac, shone greens scarce a week old in the +dimples of the foot-hills; and greens new-born beneath today's sun +melted among them. Around the doubling of the creek in the willow +thickets glimmered skeined veils of yellow and delicate crimson. The +stream poured turbulently away from the snows of the mountains behind +us. It went winding in many folds across the meadows into distance +and smallness, and so vanished round the great red battlement of wall +beyond. Upon this were falling the deep hues of afternoon--violet, rose, +and saffron, swimming and meeting as if some prism had dissolved and +flowed over the turrets and crevices of the sandstone. Far over there I +saw a dot move. + +“At last!” said I. + +Lin looked out of the window. “It's more than Tommy,” said he, at +once; and his eyes made it out before mine could. “It's a wagon. That's +Tommy's bald-faced horse alongside. He's fooling to the finish,” Lin +severely commented, as if, after all this delay, there should at least +be a homestretch. + +Presently, however, a homestretch seemed likely to occur. The bald-faced +horse executed some lively manoeuvres, and Tommy's voice reached us +faintly through the light spring air. He was evidently howling the +remarkable strain of yells that the cow-punchers invented as the speech +best understood by cows--“Oi-ee, yah, whoop-yahye-ee, oooo-oop, oop, +oop-oop-oop-oop-yah-hee!” But that gives you no idea of it. Alphabets +are worse than photographs. It is not the lungs of every man that can +produce these effects, nor even from armies, eagles, or mules were such +sounds ever heard on earth. The cow-puncher invented them. And when +the last cow-puncher is laid to rest (if that, alas! have not already +befallen) the yells will be forever gone. Singularly enough, the cattle +appeared to appreciate them. Tommy always did them very badly, and that +was plain even at this distance. Nor did he give us a homestretch, +after all. The bald-faced horse made a number of evolutions and returned +beside the wagon. + +“Showin' off,” remarked Lin. “Tommy's showin' off.” Suspicion crossed +his face, and then certainty. “Why, we might have knowed that!” he +exclaimed, in dudgeon. “It's her.” He hastened outside for a better +look, and I came to the door myself. “That's what it is,” said he. “It's +the girl. Oh yes. That's Taylor's buckskin pair he traded Balaam for. +She come by the stage all right yesterday, yu' see, but she has been +too tired to travel, yu' see, or else, maybe, Taylor wanted to rest his +buckskins--they're four-year-olds. Or else--anyway, they laid over last +night at Powder River, and Tommy he has just laid over too, yu' +see, holdin' the mail back on us twenty-four hours--and that's your +postmaster!” + +It was our postmaster, and this he had done, quite as the virtuously +indignant McLean surmised. Had I taken the same interest in the new +girl, I suppose that I too should have felt virtuously indignant. + +Lin and I stood outside to receive the travellers. As their cavalcade +drew near, Mr. McLean grew silent and watchful, his whole attention +focused upon the Taylors' vehicle. Its approach was joyous. Its gear +made a cheerful clanking, Taylor cracked his whip and encouragingly +chirruped to his buckskins, and Tommy's apparatus jingled musically. For +Tommy wore upon himself and his saddle all the things you can wear in +the Wild West. Except that his hair was not long, our postmaster might +have conducted a show and minted gold by exhibiting his romantic person +before the eyes of princes. He began with a black-and-yellow rattlesnake +skin for a hat-band, he continued with a fringed and beaded shirt of +buckskin, and concluded with large, tinkling spurs. Of course, there +were things between his shirt and his heels, but all leather and deadly +weapons. He had also a riata, a cuerta, and tapaderos, and frequently +employed these Spanish names for the objects. I wish that I had not lost +Tommy's photograph in Rocky Mountain costume. You must understand that +he was really pretty, with blue eyes, ruddy cheeks, and a graceful +figure; and, besides, he had twenty-four hours' start of poor dusty Lin, +whose best clothes were elsewhere. + +You might have supposed that it would be Mrs. Taylor who should present +us to her friend from Sidney, Nebraska; but Tommy on his horse undertook +the office before the wagon had well come to a standstill. “Good friends +of mine, and gentlemen, both,” said he to Miss Peck; and to us, “A lady +whose acquaintance will prove a treat to our section.” + +We all bowed at each other beneath the florid expanse of these +recommendations, and I was proceeding to murmur something about its +being a long journey and a fine day when Miss Peck cut me short, gaily: + +“Well,” she exclaimed to Tommy, “I guess I'm pretty near ready for them +eggs you've spoke so much about.” + +I have not often seen Mr. McLean lose his presence of mind. He needed +merely to exclaim, “Why, Tommy, you told me your hens had not been +laying since Christmas!” and we could have sat quiet and let Tommy +try to find all the eggs that he could. But the new girl was a sore +embarrassment to the cow-puncher's wits. Poor Lin stood by the wheels +of the wagon. He looked up at Miss Peck, he looked over at Tommy, his +features assumed a rueful expression, and he wretchedly blurted, + +“Why, Tommy, I've been and eat 'em.” + +“Well, if that ain't!” cried Miss Peck. She stared with interest at Lin +as he now assisted her to descend. + +“All?” faltered Tommy. “Not the four nests?” + +“I've had three meals, yu' know,” Lin reminded him, deprecatingly. + +“I helped him,” said I. “Ten innocent, fresh eggs. But we have left some +ham. Forgive us, please.” + +“I declare!” said Miss Peck, abruptly, and rolled her sluggish, inviting +eyes upon me. “You're a case, too, I expect.” + +But she took only brief note of me, although it was from head to foot. +In her stare the dull shine of familiarity grew vacant, and she turned +back to Lin McLean. “You carry that,” said she, and gave the pleased +cow-puncher a hand valise. + +“I'll look after your things, Miss Peck,” called Tommy, now springing +down from his horse. The egg tragedy had momentarily stunned him. + +“You'll attend to the mail first, Mr. Postmaster!” said the lady, +but favoring him with a look from her large eyes. “There's plenty of +gentlemen here.” With that her glance favored Lin. She went into the +cabin, he following her close, with the Taylors and myself in the rear. +“Well, I guess I'm about collapsed!” said she, vigorously, and sank upon +one of Tommy's chairs. + +The fragile article fell into sticks beneath her, and Lin leaped to her +assistance. He placed her upon a firmer foundation. Mrs. Taylor brought +a basin and towel to bathe the dust from her face, Mr. Taylor produced +whiskey, and I found sugar and hot water. Tommy would doubtless have +done something in the way of assistance or restoratives, but he was gone +to the stable with the horses. + +“Shall I get your medicine from the valise, deary?” inquired Mrs. +Taylor. + +“Not now,” her visitor answered; and I wondered why she should take such +a quick look at me. + +“We'll soon have yu' independent of medicine,” said Lin, gallantly. “Our +climate and scenery here has frequently raised the dead.” + +“You're a case, anyway!” exclaimed the sick lady with rich conviction. + +The cow-puncher now sat himself on the edge of Tommy's bed, and, +throwing one leg across the other, began to raise her spirits with +cheerful talk. She steadily watched him--his face sometimes, sometimes +his lounging, masculine figure. While he thus devoted his attentions to +her, Taylor departed to help Tommy at the stable, and good Mrs. Taylor, +busy with supper for all of us in the kitchen, expressed her joy at +having her old friend of childhood for a visit after so many years. + +“Sickness has changed poor Katie some,” said she. “But I'm hoping she'll +get back her looks on Bear Creek.” + +“She seems less feeble than I had understood,” I remarked. + +“Yes, indeed! I do believe she's feeling stronger. She was that tired +and down yesterday with the long stage-ride, and it is so lonesome! But +Taylor and I heartened her up, and Tommy came with the mail, and to-day +she's real spruced-up like, feeling she's among friends.” + +“How long will she stay?” I inquired. + +“Just as long as ever she wants! Me and Katie hasn't met since we was +young girls in Dubuque, for I left home when I married Taylor, and he +brought me to this country right soon; and it ain't been like Dubuque +much, though if I had it to do over again I'd do just the same, as +Taylor knows. Katie and me hasn't wrote even, not till this February, +for you always mean to and you don't. Well, it'll be like old times. +Katie'll be most thirty-four, I expect. Yes. I was seventeen and she was +sixteen the very month I was married. Poor thing! She ought to have got +some good man for a husband, but I expect she didn't have any chance, +for there was a big fam'ly o' them girls, and old Peck used to act real +scandalous, getting drunk so folks didn't visit there evenings scarcely +at all. And so she quit home, it seems, and got a position in the +railroad eating-house at Sidney, and now she has poor health with +feeding them big trains day and night.” + +“A biscuit-shooter!” said I. + +Loyal Mrs. Taylor stirred some batter in silence. “Well,” said she then, +“I'm told that's what the yard-hands of the railroad call them poor +waiter-girls. You might hear it around the switches at them division +stations.” + +I had heard it in higher places also, but meekly accepted the reproof. + +If you have made your trans-Missouri journeys only since the new era of +dining-cars, there is a quantity of things you have come too late for, +and will never know. Three times a day in the brave days of old you +sprang from your scarce-halted car at the summons of a gong. You +discerned by instinct the right direction, and, passing steadily through +doorways, had taken, before you knew it, one of some sixty chairs in +a room of tables and catsup bottles. Behind the chairs, standing +attention, a platoon of Amazons, thick-wristed, pink-and-blue, began +immediately a swift chant. It hymned the total bill-of-fare at a blow. +In this inexpressible ceremony the name of every dish went hurtling into +the next, telescoped to shapelessness. Moreover, if you stopped your +Amazon in the middle, it dislocated her, and she merely went back and +took a fresh start. The chant was always the same, but you never learned +it. As soon as it began, your mind snapped shut like the upper berth +in a Pullman. You must have uttered appropriate words--even a parrot +will--for next you were eating things--pie, ham, hot cakes--as fast as +you could. Twenty minutes of swallowing, and all aboard for Ogden, with +your pile-driven stomach dumb with amazement. The Strasburg goose is +not dieted with greater velocity, and “biscuit-shooter” is a grand word. +Very likely some Homer of the railroad yards first said it--for what +men upon the present earth so speak with imagination's tongue as we +Americans? + +If Miss Peck had been a biscuit-shooter, I could account readily for her +conversation, her equipped deportment, the maturity in her round, blue, +marble eye. Her abrupt laugh, something beyond gay, was now sounding +in response to Mr. McLean's lively sallies, and I found him fanning her +into convalescence with his hat. She herself made but few remarks, but +allowed the cow-puncher to entertain her, merely exclaiming briefly +now and then, “I declare!” and “If you ain't!” Lin was most certainly +engaging, if that was the lady's meaning. His wide-open eyes sparkled +upon her, and he half closed them now and then to look at her more +effectively. I suppose she was worth it to him. I have forgotten to say +that she was handsome in a large California-fruit style. They made a +good-looking pair of animals. But it was in the presence of Tommy that +Master Lin shone more energetically than ever, and under such shining +Tommy was transparently restless. He tried, and failed, to bring +the conversation his way, and took to rearranging the mail and the +furniture. + +“Supper's ready,” he said, at length. “Come right in, Miss Peck; right +in here. This is your seat--this one, please. Now you can see my fields +out of the window.” + +“You sit here,” said the biscuit-shooter to Lin; and thus she was +between them. “Them's elegant!” she presently exclaimed to Tommy. “Did +you cook 'em?” + +I explained that the apricots were of my preparation. + +“Indeed!” said she, and returned to Tommy, who had been telling her of +his ranch, his potatoes, his horses. “And do you punch cattle, too?” she +inquired of him. + +“Me?” said Tommy, slightingly; “gave it up years ago; too empty a +life for me. I leave that to such as like it. When a man owns his own +property”--Tommy swept his hand at the whole landscape--“he takes to +more intellectual work.” + +“Lickin' postage-stamps,” Mr. McLean suggested, sourly. + +“You lick them and I cancel them,” answered the postmaster; and it does +not seem a powerful rejoinder. But Miss Peck uttered her laugh. + +“That's one on you,” she told Lin. And throughout this meal it was Tommy +who had her favor. She partook of his generous supplies; she listened to +his romantic inventions, the trails he had discovered, the bears he had +slain; and after supper it was with Tommy, and not with Lin, that she +went for a little walk. + +“Katie was ever a tease,” said Mrs. Taylor of her childhood friend, and +Mr. Taylor observed that there was always safety in numbers. “She'll get +used to the ways of this country quicker than our little school-marm,” + said he. + +Mr. McLean said very little, but read the new-arrived papers. It was +only when bedtime dispersed us, the ladies in the cabin and the men +choosing various spots outside, that he became talkative again for a +while. We lay in the blank--we had spread on some soft, dry sand in +preference to the stable, where Taylor and Tommy had gone. Under the +contemplative influence of the stars, Lin fell into generalization. + +“Ever notice,” said he, “how whiskey and lyin' act the same on a man?” + +I did not feel sure that I had. + +“Just the same way. You keep either of 'em up long enough, and yu' get +to require it. If Tommy didn't lie some every day, he'd get sick.” + +I was sleepy, but I murmured assent to this, and trusted he would not go +on. + +“Ever notice,” said he, “how the victims of the whiskey and lyin' habit +get to increasing the dose?” + +“Yes,” said I. + +“Him roping six bears!” pursued Mr. McLean, after further contemplation. +“Or any bear. Ever notice how the worser a man's lyin' the silenter +other men'll get? Why's that, now?” + +I believe that I made a faint sound to imply that I was following him. + +“Men don't get took in. But ladies now, they--” + +Here he paused again, and during the next interval of contemplation I +sank beyond his reach. + +In the morning I left Riverside for Buffalo, and there or thereabouts I +remained for a number of weeks. Miss Peck did not enter my thoughts, nor +did I meet any one to remind me of her, until one day I stopped at +the drug-store. It was not for drugs, but gossip, that I went. In the +daytime there was no place like the apothecary's for meeting men and +hearing the news. There I heard how things were going everywhere, +including Bear Creek. + +All the cow-punchers liked the new girl up there, said gossip. She was +a great addition to society. Reported to be more companionable than +the school-marm, Miss Molly Wood, who had been raised too far east, and +showed it. Vermont, or some such dude place. Several had been in town +buying presents for Miss Katie Peck. Tommy Postmaster had paid high for +a necklace of elk-tushes the government scout at McKinney sold him. +Too bad Miss Peck did not enjoy good health. Shorty had been in only +yesterday to get her medicine again. Third bottle. Had I heard the big +joke on Lin McLean? He had promised her the skin of a big bear he knew +the location of, and Tommy got the bear. + +Two days after this I joined one of the roundup camps at sunset. They +had been working from Salt Creek to Bear Creek, and the Taylor ranch was +in visiting distance from them again, after an interval of gathering +and branding far across the country. The Virginian, the gentle-voiced +Southerner, whom I had last seen lingering with Miss Wood, was in +camp. Silent three-quarters of the time, as was his way, he sat gravely +watching Lin McLean. That person seemed silent also, as was not his way +quite so much. + +“Lin,” said the Southerner, “I reckon you're failin'.” + +Mr. McLean raised a sombre eye, but did not trouble to answer further. + +“A healthy man's laigs ought to fill his pants,” pursued the Virginian. +The challenged puncher stretched out a limb and showed his muscles with +young pride. + +“And yu' cert'nly take no comfort in your food,” his ingenious friend +continued, slowly and gently. + +“I'll eat you a match any day and place yu' name,” said Lin. + +“It ain't sca'cely hon'able,” went on the Virginian, “to waste away +durin' the round-up. A man owes his strength to them that hires it. If +he is paid to rope stock he ought to rope stock, and not leave it dodge +or pull away.” + +“It's not many dodge my rope,” boasted Lin, imprudently. + +“Why, they tell me as how that heifer of the Sidney-Nebraska brand got +plumb away from yu', and little Tommy had to chase afteh her.” + +Lin sat up angrily amid the laughter, but reclined again. “I'll +improve,” said he, “if yu' learn me how yu' rope that Vermont stock so +handy. Has she promised to be your sister yet?” he added. + +“Is that what they do?” inquired the Virginian, serenely. “I have never +got related that way. Why, that'll make Tommy your brother-in-law, Lin!” + +And now, indeed, the camp laughed a loud, merciless laugh. + +But Lin was silent. Where everybody lives in a glass-house the victory +is to him who throws the adroitest stone. Mr. McLean was readier witted +than most, but the gentle, slow Virginian could be a master when he +chose. + +“Tommy has been recountin' his wars up at the Taylors',” he now told the +camp. “He has frequently campaigned with General Crook, General +Miles, and General Ruger, all at onced. He's an exciting fighter, in +conversation, and kep' us all scared for mighty nigh an hour. Miss Peck +appeared interested in his statements.” + +“What was you doing at the Taylors' yourself?” demanded Lin. + +“Visitin' Miss Wood,” answered the Virginian, with entire ease. For he +also knew when to employ the plain truth as a bluff. “You'd ought to +write to Tommy's mother, Lin, and tell her what a dare-devil her son is +gettin' to be. She would cut off his allowance and bring him home, and +you would have the runnin' all to yourself.” + +“I'll fix him yet,” muttered Mr. McLean. “Him and his wars.” + +With that he rose and left us. + +The next afternoon he informed me that if I was riding up the creek to +spend the night he would go for company. In that direction we started, +therefore, without any mention of the Taylors or Miss Peck. I was +puzzled. Never had I seen him thus disconcerted by woman. With him woman +had been a transient disturbance. I had witnessed a series of flighty +romances, where the cow-puncher had come, seen, often conquered, and +moved on. Nor had his affairs been of the sort to teach a young man +respect. I am putting it rather mildly. + +For the first part of our way this afternoon he was moody, and after +that began to speak with appalling wisdom about life. Life, he said, was +a serious matter. Did I realize that? A man was liable to forget it. A +man was liable to go sporting and helling around till he waked up some +day and found all his best pleasures had become just a business. No +interest, no surprise, no novelty left, and no cash in the bank. Shorty +owed him fifty dollars. Shorty would be able to pay that after the +round-up, and he, Lin, would get his time and rustle altogether some +five hundred dollars. Then there was his homestead claim on Box Elder, +and the surveyors were coming in this fall. No better location for a +home in this country than Box Elder. Wood, water, fine land. All it +needed was a house and ditches and buildings and fences, and to be +planted with crops. Such chances and considerations should sober a +man and make him careful what he did. “I'd take in Cheyenne on our +wedding-trip, and after that I'd settle right down to improving Box +Elder,” concluded Mr. McLean, suddenly. + +His real intentions flashed upon me for the first time. I had not +remotely imagined such a step. + +“Marry her!” I screeched in dismay. “Marry her!” + +I don't know which word was the worse to emphasize at such a moment, but +I emphasized both thoroughly. + +“I didn't expect yu'd act that way,” said the lover. He dropped behind +me fifty yards and spoke no more. + +Not at once did I beg his pardon for the brutality I had been surprised +into. It is one of those speeches that, once said, is said forever. + +But it was not that which withheld me. As I thought of the tone in which +my friend had replied, it seemed to me sullen, rather than deeply angry +or wounded--resentment at my opinion not of her character so much as +of his choice! Then I began to be sorry for the fool, and schemed for +a while how to intervene. But have you ever tried intervention? I soon +abandoned the idea, and took a way to be forgiven, and to learn more. + +“Lin,” I began, slowing my horse, “you must not think about what I +said.” + +“I'm thinkin' of pleasanter subjects,” said he, and slowed his own +horse. + +“Oh, look here!” I exclaimed. + +“Well?” said he. He allowed his horse to come within about ten yards. + +“Astonishment makes a man say anything,” I proceeded. “And I'll say +again you're too good for her--and I'll say I don't generally believe in +the wife being older than the husband.” + +“What's two years?” said Lin. + +I was near screeching out again, but saved myself. He was not quite +twenty-five, and I remembered Mrs. Taylor's unprejudiced computation +of the biscuit-shooter's years. It is a lady's prerogative, however, to +estimate her own age. + +“She had her twenty-seventh birthday last month,” said Lin, with +sentiment, bringing his horse entirely abreast of mine. “I promised her +a bear-skin.” + +“Yes,” said I, “I heard about that in Buffalo.” + +Lin's face grew dusky with anger. “No doubt yu' heard about it,” said +he. “I don't guess yu' heard much about anything else. I ain't told +the truth to any of 'em--but her.” He looked at me with a certain +hesitation. “I think I will,” he continued. “I don't mind tellin' you.” + +He began to speak in a strictly business tone, while he evened the coils +of rope that hung on his saddle. + +“She had spoke to me about her birthday, and I had spoke to her about +something to give her. I had offered to buy her in town whatever she +named, and I was figuring to borrow from Taylor. But she fancied the +notion of a bear-skin. I had mentioned about some cubs. I had found the +cubs where the she-bear had them cached by the foot of a big boulder in +the range over Ten Sleep, and I put back the leaves and stuff on top o' +them little things as near as I could the way I found them, so that the +bear would not suspicion me. For I was aiming to get her. And Miss Peck, +she sure wanted the hide for her birthday. So I went back. The she-bear +was off, and I crumb up inside the rock, and I waited a turruble long +spell till the sun travelled clean around the canyon. Mrs. Bear come +home though, a big cinnamon; and I raised my gun, but laid it down to +see what she'd do. She scrapes around and snuffs, and the cubs start +whining, and she talks back to 'em. Next she sits up awful big, and +lifts up a cub and holds it to her close with both her paws, same as a +person. And she rubbed her ear agin the cub, and the cub sort o' nipped +her, and she cuffed the cub, and the other cub came toddlin', and away +they starts rolling all three of 'em! I watched that for a long while. +That big thing just nursed and played with them little cubs, beatin' em +for a change onced in a while, and talkin', and onced in a while she'd +sit up solemn and look all around so life-like that I near busted. Why, +how was I goin' to spoil that? So I come away, very quiet, you bet! for +I'd have hated to have Mrs. Bear notice me. Miss Peck, she laughed. She +claimed I was scared to shoot.” + +“After you had told her why it was?” said I. + +“Before and after. I didn't tell her first, because I felt kind of +foolish. Then Tommy went and he killed the bear all right, and she has +the skin now. Of course the boys joshed me a heap about gettin' beat by +Tommy.” + +“But since she has taken you?” said I. + +“She ain't said it. But she will when she understands Tommy.” + +I fancied that the lady understood. The once I had seen her she appeared +to me as what might be termed an expert in men, and one to understand +also the reality of Tommy's ranch and allowance, and how greatly these +differed from Box Elder. Probably the one thing she could not understand +was why Lin spared the mother and her cubs. A deserted home in Dubuque, +a career in a railroad eating-house, a somewhat vague past, and a +present lacking context--indeed, I hoped with all my heart that Tommy +would win! + +“Lin,” said I, “I'm backing him.” + +“Back away!” said he. “Tommy can please a woman--him and his blue +eyes--but he don't savvy how to make a woman want him, not any better +than he knows about killin' Injuns.” + +“Did you hear about the Crows?” said I. + +“About young bucks going on the war-path? Shucks! That's put up by the +papers of this section. They're aimin' to get Uncle Sam to order his +troops out, and then folks can sell hay and stuff to 'em. If Tommy +believed any Crows--” he stopped, and suddenly slapped his leg. + +“What's the matter now?” I asked. + +“Oh, nothing.” He took to singing, and his face grew roguish to its full +extent. “What made yu' say that to me?” he asked, presently. + +“Say what?” + +“About marrying. Yu' don't think I'd better.” + +“I don't.” + +“Onced in a while yu' tell me I'm flighty. Well, I am. Whoop-ya!” + +“Colts ought not to marry,” said I. + +“Sure!” said he. And it was not until we came in sight of the +Virginian's black horse tied in front of Miss Wood's cabin next +the Taylors' that Lin changed the lively course of thought that was +evidently filling his mind. + +“Tell yu',” said he, touching my arm confidentially and pointing to +the black horse, “for all her Vermont refinement she's a woman just the +same. She likes him dangling round her so earnest--him that no body ever +saw dangle before. And he has quit spreein' with the boys. And what does +he get by it? I am glad I was not raised good enough to appreciate the +Miss Woods of this world,” he added, defiantly--“except at long range.” + +At the Taylors' cabin we found Miss Wood sitting with her admirer, and +Tommy from Riverside come to admire Miss Peck. The biscuit-shooter might +pass for twenty-seven, certainly. Something had agreed with her--whether +the medicine, or the mountain air, or so much masculine company; +whatever had done it, she had bloomed into brutal comeliness. Her hair +looked curlier, her figure was shapelier, her teeth shone whiter, and +her cheeks were a lusty, overbearing red. And there sat Molly Wood +talking sweetly to her big, grave Virginian; to look at them, there was +no doubt that he had been “raised good enough” to appreciate her, no +matter what had been his raising! + +Lin greeted every one jauntily. “How are yu', Miss Peck? How are yu', +Tommy?” said he. “Hear the news, Tommy? Crow Injuns on the war-path.” + +“I declare!” said the biscuit-shooter. + +The Virginian was about to say something, but his eye met Lin's, and +then he looked at Tommy. Then what he did say was, “I hadn't been goin' +to mention it to the ladies until it was right sure.” + +“You needn't to be afraid, Miss Peck,” said Tommy. “There's lots of men +here.” + +“Who's afraid?” said the biscuit-shooter. + +“Oh,” said Lin, “maybe it's like most news we get in this country. Two +weeks stale and a lie when it was fresh.” + +“Of course,” said Tommy. + +“Hello, Tommy!” called Taylor from the lane. “Your horse has broke his +rein and run down the field.” + +Tommy rose in disgust and sped after the animal. + +“I must be cooking supper now,” said Katie, shortly. + +“I'll stir for yu',” said Lin, grinning at her. + +“Come along then,” said she; and they departed to the adjacent kitchen. + +Miss Wood's gray eyes brightened with mischief. She looked at her +Virginian, and she looked at me. + +“Do you know,” she said, “I used to be so afraid that when Bear Creek +wasn't new any more it might become dull!” + +“Miss Peck doesn't find it dull either,” said I. + +Molly Wood immediately assumed a look of doubt. “But mightn't it become +just--just a little trying to have two gentlemen so very--determined, +you know?” + +“Only one is determined,” said the Virginian + +Molly looked inquiring. + +“Lin is determined Tommy shall not beat him. That's all it amounts to.” + +“Dear me, what a notion!” + +“No, ma'am, no notion. Tommy--well, Tommy is considered harmless, ma'am. +A cow-puncher of reputation in this country would cert'nly never let +Tommy get ahaid of him that way.” + +“It's pleasant to know sometimes how much we count!” exclaimed Molly. + +“Why, ma'am,” said the Virginian, surprised at her flash of indignation, +“where is any countin' without some love?” + +“Do you mean to say that Mr. McLean does not care for Miss Peck?” + +“I reckon he thinks he does. But there is a mighty wide difference +between thinkin' and feelin', ma'am.” + +I saw Molly's eyes drop from his, and I saw the rose deepen in her +cheeks. But just then a loud voice came from the kitchen. + +“You, Lin, if you try any of your foolin' with me, I'll histe yu's over +the jiste!” + +“All cow-punchers--” I attempted to resume. + +“Quit now, Lin McLean,” shouted the voice, “or I'll put yus through that +window, and it shut.” + +“Well, Miss Peck, I'm gettin' most a full dose o' this treatment. Ever +since yu' come I've been doing my best. And yu' just cough in my face. +And now I'm going to quit and cough back.” + +“Would you enjoy walkin' out till supper, ma'am?” inquired the Virginian +as Molly rose. “You was speaking of gathering some flowers yondeh.” + +“Why, yes,” said Molly, blithely. “And you'll come?” she added to me. + +But I was on the Virginian's side. “I must look after my horse,” said I, +and went down to the corral. + +Day was slowly going as I took my pony to the water. Corncliff Mesa, +Crowheart Butte, these shone in the rays that came through the canyon. +The canyon's sides lifted like tawny castles in the same light. Where +I walked the odor of thousands of wild roses hung over the margin where +the thickets grew. High in the upper air, magpies were sailing across +the silent blue. Somewhere I could hear Tommy explaining loudly how he +and General Crook had pumped lead into hundreds of Indians; and when +supper-time brought us all back to the door he was finishing the account +to Mrs. Taylor. Molly and the Virginian arrived bearing flowers, and he +was saying that few cow-punchers had any reason for saving their money. + +“But when you get old?” said she. + +“We mostly don't live long enough to get old, ma'am,” said he, simply. +“But I have a reason, and I am saving.” + +“Give me the flowers,” said Molly. And she left him to arrange them on +the table as Lin came hurrying out. + +“I've told her,” said he to the Southerner and me, “that I've asked her +twiced, and I'm going to let her have one more chance. And I've told her +that if it's a log cabin she's marryin', why Tommy is a sure good wooden +piece of furniture to put inside it. And I guess she knows there's not +much wooden furniture about me. I want to speak to you.” He took the +Virginian round the corner. But though he would not confide in me, I +began to discern something quite definite at supper. + +“Cattle men will lose stock if the Crows get down as far as this,” he +said, casually, and Mrs. Taylor suppressed a titter. + +“Ain't it hawses the're repawted as running off?” said the Virginian. + +“Chap come into the round-up this afternoon,” said Lin. “But he was +rattled, and told a heap o' facts that wouldn't square.” + +“Of course they wouldn't,” said Tommy, haughtily. + +“Oh, there's nothing in it,” said Lin, dismissing the subject. + +“Have yu' been to the opera since we went to Cheyenne, Mrs. Taylor?” + +Mrs. Taylor had not. + +“Lin,” said the Virginian, “did yu ever see that opera Cyarmen?” + +“You bet. Fellow's girl quits him for a bullfighter. Gets him up in +the mountains, and quits him. He wasn't much good--not in her class o' +sports, smugglin' and such.” + +“I reckon she was doubtful of him from the start. Took him to the +mount'ins to experiment, where they'd not have interruption,” said the +Virginian. + +“Talking of mountains,” said Tommy, “this range here used to be a great +place for Indians till we ran 'em out with Terry. Pumped lead into the +red sons-of-guns.” + +“You bet,” said Lin. “Do yu' figure that girl tired of her bull-fighter +and quit him, too?” + +“I reckon,” replied the Virginian, “that the bull-fighter wore better.” + +“Fans and taverns and gypsies and sportin',” said Lin. “My! but I'd like +to see them countries with oranges and bull-fights! Only I expect Spain, +maybe, ain't keepin' it up so gay as when 'Carmen' happened.” + +The table-talk soon left romance and turned upon steers and alfalfa, a +grass but lately introduced in the country. No further mention was made +of the hostile Crows, and from this I drew the false conclusion that +Tommy had not come up to their hopes in the matter of reciting his +campaigns. But when the hour came for those visitors who were not +spending the night to take their leave, Taylor drew Tommy aside with me, +and I noticed the Virginian speaking with Molly Wood, whose face showed +diversion. + +“Don't seem to make anything of it,” whispered Taylor to Tommy, “but the +ladies have got their minds on this Indian truck.” + +“Why, I'll just explain--” began Tommy. + +“Don't,” whispered Lin, joining us. “Yu' know how women are. Once they +take a notion, why, the more yu' deny the surer they get. Now, yu' see, +him and me” (he jerked his elbow towards the Virginian) “must go back to +camp, for we're on second relief.” + +“And the ladies would sleep better knowing there was another man in the +house,” said Taylor. + +“In that case,” said Tommy, “I--” + +“Yu' see,” said Lin, “they've been told about Ten Sleep being burned two +nights ago.” + +“It ain't!” cried Tommy. + +“Why, of course it ain't,” drawled the ingenious Lin. “But that's what I +say. You and I know Ten Sleep's all right, but we can't report from +our own knowledge seeing it all right, and there it is. They get these +nervous notions.” + +“Just don't appear to make anything special of not going back to +Riverside,” repeated Taylor, “but--” + +“But just kind of stay here,” said Lin. + +“I will!” exclaimed Tommy. “Of course, I'm glad to oblige.” + +I suppose I was slow-sighted. All this pains seemed to me larger than +its results. They had imposed upon Tommy, yes. But what of that? He +was to be kept from going back to Riverside until morning. Unless they +proposed to visit his empty cabin and play tricks--but that would be +too childish, even for Lin McLean, to say nothing of the Virginian, his +occasional partner in mischief. + +“In spite of the Crows,” I satirically told the ladies, “I shall sleep +outside, as I intended. I've no use for houses at this season.” + +The cinches of the horses were tightened, Lin and the Virginian laid +a hand on their saddle-horns, swung up, and soon all sound of the +galloping horses had ceased. Molly Wood declined to be nervous and +crossed to her little neighbor cabin; we all parted, and (as always in +that blessed country) deep sleep quickly came to me. + +I don't know how long after it was that I sprang from my blankets in +half-doubting fright. But I had dreamed nothing. A second long, +wild yell now gave me (I must own to it) a horrible chill. I had no +pistol--nothing. In the hateful brightness of the moon my single thought +was “House! House!” and I fled across the lane in my underclothes to +the cabin, when round the corner whirled the two cow-punchers, and I +understood. I saw the Virginian catch sight of me in my shirt, and saw +his teeth as he smiled. I hastened to my blankets, and returned more +decent to stand and watch the two go shooting and yelling round +the cabin, crazy with their youth. The door was opened, and Taylor +courageously emerged, bearing a Winchester. He fired at the sky +immediately. + +“B' gosh!” he roared. “That's one.” He fired again. “Out and at 'em. +They're running.” + +At this, duly came Mrs. Taylor in white with a pistol, and Miss Peck in +white, staring and stolid. But no Tommy. Noise prevailed without, shots +by the stable and shots by the creek. The two cow-punchers dismounted +and joined Taylor. Maniac delight seized me, and I, too, rushed about +with them, helping the din. + +“Oh, Mr. Taylor!” said a voice. “I didn't think it of you.” It was Molly +Wood, come from her cabin, very pretty in a hood-and-cloak arrangement. +She stood by the fence, laughing, but more at us than with us. + +“Stop, friends!” said Taylor, gasping. “She teaches my Bobbie his A B C. +I'd hate to have Bobbie--” + +“Speak to your papa,” said Molly, and held her scholar up on the fence. + +“Well, I'll be gol-darned,” said Taylor, surveying his costume, “if Lin +McLean hasn't made a fool of me to-night!” + +“Where has Tommy got?” said Mrs. Taylor. + +“Didn't yus see him?” said the biscuit-shooter speaking her first word +in all this. + +We followed her into the kitchen. The table was covered with tin plates. +Beneath it, wedged knelt Tommy with a pistol firm in his hand; but the +plates were rattling up and down like castanets. + +There was a silence among us, and I wondered what we were going to do. + +“Well,” murmured the Virginian to himself, “if I could have foresaw, I'd +not--it makes yu' feel humiliated yu'self.” + +He marched out, got on his horse, and rode away. Lin followed him, but +perhaps less penitently. We all dispersed without saying anything, +and presently from my blankets I saw poor Tommy come out of the silent +cabin, mount, and slowly, very slowly, ride away. He would spend the +night at Riverside, after all. + +Of course we recovered from our unexpected shame, and the tale of the +table and the dancing plates was not told as a sad one. But it is a sad +one when you think of it. + +I was not there to see Lin get his bride. I learned from the Virginian +how the victorious puncher had ridden away across the sunny sagebrush, +bearing the biscuit-shooter with him to the nearest justice of the +peace. She was astride the horse he had brought for her. + +“Yes, he beat Tommy,” said the Virginian. “Some folks, anyway, get what +they want in this hyeh world.” + +From which I inferred that Miss Molly Wood was harder to beat than +Tommy. + + + + + +LIN McLEAN'S HONEY-MOON + +Rain had not fallen for some sixty days, and for some sixty more there +was no necessity that it should fall. It is spells of weather like this +that set the Western editor writing praise and prophecy of the boundless +fertility of the soil--when irrigated, and of what an Eden it can be +made--with irrigation; but the spells annoy the people who are trying +to raise the Eden. We always told the transient Eastern visitor, when he +arrived at Cheyenne and criticised the desert, that anything would grow +here--with irrigation; and sometimes he replied, unsympathetically, that +anything could fly--with wings. Then we would lead such a man out and +show him six, eight, ten square miles of green crops; and he, if he +was thoroughly nasty, would mention that Wyoming contained ninety-five +thousand square miles, all waiting for irrigation and Eden. One of these +Eastern supercivilized hostiles from New York was breakfasting with the +Governor and me at the Cheyenne Club, and we were explaining to him +the glorious future, the coming empire, of the Western country. Now the +Governor was about thirty-two, and until twenty-five had never gone West +far enough to see over the top of the Alleghany Mountains. I was not a +pioneer myself; and why both of us should have pitied the New-Yorker's +narrowness so hard I cannot see. But we did. We spoke to him of the size +of the country. We told him that his State could rattle round inside +Wyoming's stomach without any inconvenience to Wyoming, and he told us +that this was because Wyoming's stomach was empty. Altogether I began to +feel almost sorry that I had asked him to come out for a hunt, and had +travelled in haste all the way from Bear Creek to Cheyenne expressly to +meet him. + +“For purposes of amusement,” he said, “I'll admit anything you claim +for this place. Ranches, cowboys, elk; it's all splendid. Only, as an +investment I prefer the East. Am I to see any cowboys?” + +“You shall,” I said; and I distinctly hoped some of them might do +something to him “for purposes of amusement.” + +“You fellows come up with me to my office,” said the Governor. “I'll +look at my mail, and show you round.” So we went with him through the +heat and sun. + +“What's that?” inquired the New-Yorker, whom I shall call James Ogden. + +“That is our park,” said I. “Of course it's merely in embryo. It's +wonderful how quickly any shade tree will grow here wi--” I checked +myself. + +But Ogden said “with irrigation” for me, and I was entirely sorry he had +come. + +We reached the Governor's office, and sat down while he looked his +letters over. + +“Here you are, Ogden,” said he. “Here's the way we hump ahead out here.” + And he read us the following: + + “MAGAW, KANSAS, July 5, 188-- + +“Hon. Amory W. Baker: + +“Sir,--Understanding that your district is suffering from a prolonged +drought, I write to say that for necessary expenses paid I will be glad +to furnish you with a reasonably shower. I have operated successfully +in Australia, Mexico, and several States of the Union, and am anxious to +exhibit my system. If your Legislature will appropriate a sum to cover, +as I said, merely my necessary expenses--say $350 (three hundred and +fifty dollars)--for half an inch I will guarantee you that quantity of +rain or forfeit the money. If I fail to give you the smallest fraction +of the amount contracted for, there is to be no pay. Kindly advise me of +what date will be most convenient for you to have the shower. I require +twenty-four hours' preparation. Hoping a favorable reply, + + “I am, respectfully yours, + + “Robert Hilbrun” + +“Will the Legislature do it?” inquired Ogden in good faith. + +The Governor laughed boisterously. “I guess it wouldn't be +constitutional,” said he. + +“Oh, bother!” said Ogden. + +“My dear man,” the Governor protested, “I know we're new, and our women +vote, and we're a good deal of a joke, but we're not so progressively +funny as all that. The people wouldn't stand it. Senator Warren would +fly right into my back hair.” Barker was also new as Governor. + +“Do you have Senators here too?” said Ogden, raising his eyebrows. +“What do they look like? Are they females?” And the Governor grew more +boisterous than ever, slapping his knee and declaring that these Eastern +men were certainly “out of sight”. Ogden, however, was thoughtful. + +“I'd have been willing to chip in for that rain myself,” he said. + +“That's an idea!” cried the Governor. “Nothing unconstitutional about +that. Let's see. Three hundred and fifty dollars--” + +“I'll put up a hundred,” said Ogden, promptly. “I'm out for a Western +vacation, and I'll pay for a good specimen.” + +The Governor and I subscribed more modestly, and by noon, with the help +of some lively minded gentlemen of Cheyenne, we had the purse raised. +“He won't care,” said the Governor, “whether it's a private enterprise +or a municipal step, so long as he gets his money.” + +“He won't get it, I'm afraid,” said Ogden. “But if he succeeds in +tempting Providence to that extent, I consider it cheap. Now what do you +call those people there on the horses?” + +We were walking along the track of the Cheyenne and Northern, and +looking out over the plain toward Fort Russell. “That is a cow-puncher +and his bride,” I answered, recognizing the couple. + +“Real cow-puncher?” + +“Quite. The puncher's name is Lin McLean.” + +“Real bride?” + +“I'm afraid so.” + +“She's riding straddle!” exclaimed the delighted Ogden, adjusting his +glasses. “Why do you object to their union being holy?” + +I explained that my friend Lin had lately married an eating-house lady +precipitately and against my advice. + +“I suppose he knew his business,” observed Ogden. + +“That's what he said to me at the time. But you ought to see her--and +know him.” + +Ogden was going to. Husband and wife were coming our way. Husband nodded +to me his familiar offish nod, which concealed his satisfaction at +meeting with an old friend. Wife did not look at me at all. But I looked +at her, and I instantly knew that Lin--the fool!--had confided to her my +disapproval of their marriage. The most delicate specialty upon earth is +your standing with your old friend's new wife. + +“Good-day, Mr. McLean,” said the Governor to the cow-puncher on his +horse. + +“How're are yu', doctor,” said Lin. During his early days in Wyoming the +Governor, when as yet a private citizen, had set Mr. McLean's broken leg +at Drybone. “Let me make yu' known to Mrs. McLean,” pursued the husband. + +The lady, at a loss how convention prescribes the greeting of a bride to +a Governor, gave a waddle on the pony's back, then sat up stiff, gazed +haughtily at the air, and did not speak or show any more sign than a cow +would under like circumstances. So the Governor marched cheerfully at +her, extending his hand, and when she slightly moved out toward him her +big, dumb, red fist, he took it and shook it, and made her a series of +compliments, she maintaining always the scrupulous reserve of the cow. + +“I say,” Ogden whispered to me while Barker was pumping the hand of the +flesh image, “I'm glad I came.” The appearance of the puncher-bridegroom +also interested Ogden, and he looked hard at Lin's leather chaps and +cartridge-belt and so forth. Lin stared at the New-Yorker, and his high +white collar and good scarf. He had seen such things quite often, of +course, but they always filled him with the same distrust of the man +that wore them. + +“Well,” said he, “I guess we'll be pulling for a hotel. Any show in +town? Circus come yet?” + +“No,” said I. “Are you going to make a long stay?” + +The cow-puncher glanced at the image, his bride of three weeks. “Till +we're tired of it, I guess,” said he, with hesitation. It was the first +time that I had ever seen my gay friend look timidly at any one, and I +felt a rising hate for the ruby-checked, large-eyed eating-house +lady, the biscuit-shooter whose influence was dimming this jaunty, +irrepressible spirit. I looked at her. Her bulky bloom had ensnared him, +and now she was going to tame and spoil him. The Governor was looking at +her too, thoughtfully. + +“Say, Lin,” I said, “if you stay here long enough you'll see a big +show.” And his eye livened into something of its native jocularity as I +told him of the rain-maker. + +“Shucks!” said he, springing from his horse impetuously, and hugely +entertained at our venture. “Three hundred and fifty dollars? Let me +come in”; and before I could tell him that we had all the money raised, +he was hauling out a wadded lump of bills. + +“Well, I ain't going to starve here in the road, I guess,” spoke the +image, with the suddenness of a miracle. I think we all jumped, and I +know that Lin did. The image continued: “Some folks and their money are +soon parted”--she meant me; her searching tones came straight at me; I +was sure from the first that she knew all about me and my unfavorable +opinion of her--“but it ain't going to be you this time, Lin McLean. Ged +ap!” This last was to the horse, I maintain, though the Governor says +the husband immediately started off on a run. + +At any rate, they were gone to their hotel, and Ogden was seated on some +railroad ties, exclaiming: “Oh, I like Wyoming! I am certainly glad I +came.” + +“That's who she is!” said the Governor, remembering Mrs. McLean all at +once. “I know her. She used to be at Sidney. She's got another husband +somewhere. She's one of the boys. Oh, that's nothing in this country!” + he continued to the amazed Ogden, who had ejaculated “Bigamy!” “Lots of +them marry, live together awhile, get tired and quit, travel, catch on +to a new man, marry him, get tired and quit, travel, catch on--” + +“One moment, I beg,” said Ogden, adjusting his glasses. “What does the +law--” + +“Law?” said the Governor. “Look at that place!” He swept his hand +towards the vast plains and the mountains. “Ninety-five thousand square +miles of that, and sixty thousand people in it. We haven't got policemen +yet on top of the Rocky Mountains.” + +“I see,” said the New-Yorker. “But--but--well let A and B represent +first and second husbands, and X represent the woman. Now, does A know +about B? or does B know about A? And what do they do about it?” + +“Can't say,” the Governor answered, jovially. “Can't generalize. Depends +on heaps of things--love--money--Did you go to college? Well, let A +minus X equal B plus X, then if A and B get squared--” + +“Oh, come to lunch,” I said. “Barker, do you really know the first +husband is alive?” + +“Wasn't dead last winter.” And Barker gave us the particulars. Miss +Katie Peck had not served long in the restaurant before she was +wooed and won by a man who had been a ranch cook, a sheep-herder, +a bar-tender, a freight hand, and was then hauling poles for the +government. During his necessary absences from home she, too, went +out-of-doors. This he often discovered, and would beat her, and she +would then also beat him. After the beatings one of them would always +leave the other forever. Thus was Sidney kept in small-talk until +Mrs. Lusk one day really did not come back. “Lusk,” said the Governor, +finishing his story, “cried around the saloons for a couple of days, and +then went on hauling poles for the government, till at last he said +he'd heard of a better job south, and next we knew of him he was round +Leavenworth. Lusk was a pretty poor bird. Owes me ten dollars.” + +“Well,” I said, “none of us ever knew about him when she came to stay +with Mrs. Taylor on Bear Creek. She was Miss Peck when Lin made her Mrs. +McLean.” + +“You'll notice,” said the Governor, “how she has got him under in three +weeks. Old hand, you see.” + +“Poor Lin!” I said. + +“Lucky, I call him,” said the Governor. “He can quit her.” + +“Supposing McLean does not want to quit her?” + +“She's educating him to want to right now, and I think he'll learn +pretty quick. I guess Mr. Lin's romance wasn't very ideal this trip. +Hello! here comes Jode. Jode, won't you lunch with us? Mr. Ogden, of New +York, Mr. Jode. Mr. Jode is our signal-service officer, Mr. Ogden.” The +Governor's eyes were sparkling hilariously, and he winked at me. + +“Gentlemen, good-morning. Mr. Ogden, I am honored to make your +acquaintance,” said the signal-service officer. + +“Jode, when is it going to rain?” said the Governor, anxiously. + +Now Jode is the most extraordinarily solemn man I have ever known. He +has the solemnity of all science, added to the unspeakable weight of +representing five of the oldest families in South Carolina. The Jodes +themselves were not old in South Carolina, but immensely so in--I think +he told me it was Long Island. His name is Poinsett Middleton Manigault +Jode. He used to weigh a hundred and twenty-eight pounds then, but his +health has strengthened in that climate. His clothes were black; his +face was white, with black eyes sharp as a pin; he had the shape of a +spout--the same narrow size all the way down--and his voice was as +dry and light as an egg-shell. In his first days at Cheyenne he had +constantly challenged large cowboys for taking familiarities with +his dignity, and they, after one moment's bewilderment, had concocted +apologies that entirely met his exactions, and gave them much +satisfaction also. Nobody would have hurt Jode for the world. In time he +came to see that Wyoming was a game invented after his book of rules was +published, and he looked on, but could not play the game. He had fallen, +along with other incongruities, into the roaring Western hotch-pot, and +he passed his careful, precise days with barometers and weather-charts. + +He answered the Governor with official and South Carolina +impressiveness. “There is no indication of diminution of the prevailing +pressure,” he said. + +“Well, that's what I thought,” said the joyous Governor, “so I'm going +to whoop her up.” + +“What do you expect to whoop up, sir?” + +“Atmosphere, and all that,” said the Governor. “Whole business has got +to get a move on. I've sent for a rain-maker.” + +“Governor, you are certainly a wag, sir,” said Jode, who enjoyed Barker +as some people enjoy a symphony, without understanding it. But after we +had reached the club and were lunching, and Jode realized that a letter +had actually been written telling Hilbrun to come and bring his showers +with him, the punctilious signal-service officer stated his position. +“Have your joke, sir,” he said, waving a thin, clean hand, “but I +decline to meet him.” + +“Hilbrun?” said the Governor, staring. + +“If that's his name--yes, sir. As a member of the Weather Bureau and the +Meteorological Society I can have nothing to do with the fellow.” + +“Glory!” said the Governor. “Well, I suppose not. I see your point, +Jode. I'll be careful to keep you apart. As a member of the College of +Physicians I've felt that way about homeopathy and the faith-cure. +All very well if patients will call 'em in, but can't meet 'em in +consultation. But three months' drought annually, Jode! It's slow--too +slow. The Western people feel that this conservative method the Zodiac +does its business by is out of date.” + +“I am quite serious, sir,” said Jode. “And let me express my +gratification that you do see my point.” So we changed the subject. + +Our weather scheme did not at first greatly move the public. Beyond +those who made up the purse, few of our acquaintances expressed +curiosity about Hilbrun, and next afternoon Lin McLean told me in +the street that he was disgusted with Cheyenne's coldness toward the +enterprise. “But the boys would fly right at it and stay with it if the +round-up was near town, you bet,” said he. + +He was walking alone. “How's Mrs. McLean to-day?” I inquired. + +“She's well,” said Lin, turning his eye from mine. “Who's your friend +all bugged up in English clothes?” + +“About as good a man as you,” said I, “and more cautious.” + +“Him and his eye-glasses!” said the sceptical puncher, still looking +away from me and surveying Ogden, who was approaching with the Governor. +That excellent man, still at long range, broke out smiling till his +teeth shone, and he waved a yellow paper at us. + +“Telegram from Hilbrun,” he shouted; “be here to-morrow”; and he +hastened up. + +“Says he wants a cart at the depot, and a small building where he can be +private,” added Ogden. “Great, isn't it?” + +“You bet!” said Lin, brightening. The New Yorker's urbane but obvious +excitement mollified Mr. McLean. “Ever seen rain made, Mr. Ogden?” said +he. + +“Never. Have you?” + +Lin had not. Ogden offered him a cigar, which the puncher pronounced +excellent, and we all agreed to see Hilbrun arrive. + +“We're going to show the telegram to Jode,” said the Governor; and he +and Ogden departed on this mission to the signal service. + +“Well, I must be getting along myself,” said Lin; but he continued +walking slowly with me. “Where're yu' bound?” he said. + +“Nowhere in particular,” said I. And we paced the board sidewalks a +little more. + +“You're going to meet the train to-morrow?” said he. + +“The train? Oh yes. Hilbrun's. To-morrow. You'll be there?” + +“Yes, I'll be there. It's sure been a dry spell, ain't it?” + +“Yes. Just like last year. In fact, like all the years.” + +“Yes. I've never saw it rain any to speak of in summer. I expect it's +the rule. Don't you?” + +“I shouldn't wonder.” + +“I don't guess any man knows enough to break such a rule. Do you?” + +“No. But it'll be fun to see him try.” + +“Sure fun! Well, I must be getting along. See yu' to-morrow.” + +“See you to-morrow, Lin.” + +He left me at a corner, and I stood watching his tall, depressed figure. +A hundred yards down the street he turned, and seeing me looking after +him, pretended he had not turned; and then I took my steps toward the +club, telling myself that I had been something of a skunk; for I had +inquired for Mrs. McLean in a certain tone, and I had hinted to Lin that +he had lacked caution; and this was nothing but a way of saying “I told +you so” to the man that is down. Down Lin certainly was, although it had +not come so home to me until our little walk together just now along the +boards. + +At the club I found the Governor teaching Ogden a Cheyenne specialty--a +particular drink, the Allston cocktail. “It's the bitters that does the +trick,” he was saying, but saw me and called out: “You ought to have +been with us and seen Jode. I showed him the telegram, you know. He read +it through, and just handed it back to me, and went on monkeying with +his anemometer. Ever seen his instruments? Every fresh jigger they get +out he sends for. Well, he monkeyed away, and wouldn't say a word, so +I said, 'You understand, Jode, this telegram comes from Hilbrun.' And +Jode, he quit his anemometer and said, 'I make no doubt, sir, that your +despatch is genuwine.' Oh, South Carolina's indignant at me!” And +the Governor slapped his knee. “Why, he's so set against Hilbrun,” he +continued, “I guess if he knew of something he could explode to stop +rain he'd let her fly!” + +“No, he wouldn't,” said I. “He'd not consider that honorable.” + +“That's so,” the Governor assented. “Jode'll play fair.” + +It was thus we had come to look at our enterprise--a game between a +well-established, respectable weather bureau and an upstart charlatan. +And it was the charlatan had our sympathy--as all charlatans, whether +religious, military, medical, political, or what not, have with the +average American. We met him at the station. That is, Ogden, McLean, and +I; and the Governor, being engaged, sent (unofficially) his secretary +and the requested cart. Lin was anxious to see what would be put in the +cart, and I was curious about how a rain-maker would look. But he turned +out an unassuming, quiet man in blue serge, with a face you could not +remember afterwards, and a few civil, ordinary remarks. He even said it +was a hot day, as if he had no relations with the weather; and what he +put into the cart were only two packing-boxes of no special significance +to the eye. He desired no lodging at the hotel, but to sleep with his +apparatus in the building provided for him; and we set out for it at +once. It was an untenanted barn, and he asked that he and his assistant +might cut a hole in the roof, upon which we noticed the assistant for +the first time--a tallish, good-looking young man, but with a weak +mouth. “This is Mr. Lusk,” said the rain-maker; and we shook hands, +Ogden and I exchanging a glance. Ourselves and the cart marched up Hill +Street--or Capitol Avenue, as it has become named since Cheyenne has +grown fuller of pomp and emptier of prosperity--and I thought we made an +unusual procession: the Governor's secretary, unofficially leading the +way to the barn; the cart, and the rain-maker beside it, guarding his +packed-up mysteries; McLean and Lusk, walking together in unconscious +bigamy; and in the rear, Odgen nudging me in the ribs. That it was the +correct Lusk we had with us I felt sure from his incompetent, healthy, +vacant appearance, strong-bodied and shiftless--the sort of man to weary +of one trade and another, and make a failure of wife beating between +whiles. In Twenty-fourth Street--the town's uttermost rim--the Governor +met us, and stared at Lusk. “Christopher!” was his single observation; +but he never forgets a face--cannot afford to, now that he is in +politics; and, besides, Lusk remembered him. You seldom really forget a +man to whom you owe ten dollars. + +“So you've quit hauling poles?” said the Governor. + +“Nothing in it, sir,” said Lusk. + +“Is there any objection to my having a hole in the roof?” asked the +rain-maker; for this the secretary had been unable to tell him. + +“What! going to throw your bombs through it?” said the Governor, smiling +heartily. + +But the rain-maker explained at once that his was not the bomb system, +but a method attended by more rain and less disturbance. “Not that +the bomb don't produce first-class results at times and under +circumstances,” he said, “but it's uncertain and costly.” + +The Governor hesitated about the hole in the roof, which Hilbrun told +us was for a metal pipe to conduct his generated gases into the air. The +owner of the barn had gone to Laramie. However, we found a stove-pipe +hole, which saved delay. “And what day would you prefer the shower?” + said Hilbrun, after we had gone over our contract with him. + +“Any day would do,” the Governor said. + +This was Thursday; and Sunday was chosen, as a day when no one had +business to detain him from witnessing the shower--though it seemed to +me that on week-days, too, business in Cheyenne was not so inexorable +as this. We gave the strangers some information about the town, and left +them. The sun went away in a cloudless sky, and came so again when the +stars had finished their untarnished shining. Friday was clear and dry +and hot, like the dynasty of blazing days that had gone before. + +I saw a sorry spectacle in the street--the bridegroom and the bride +shopping together; or, rather, he with his wad of bills was obediently +paying for what she bought; and when I met them he was carrying a +scarlet parasol and a bonnet-box. His biscuit-shooter, with the lust of +purchase on her, was brilliantly dressed, and pervaded the street with +splendor, like an escaped parrot. Lin walked beside her, but it might as +well have been behind, and his bearing was so different from his +wonted happy-go-luckiness that I had a mind to take off my hat and say, +“Good-morning, Mrs. Lusk.” But it was “Mrs. McLean” I said, of course. +She gave me a remote, imperious nod, and said, “Come on, Lin,” + something like a cross nurse, while he, out of sheer decency, made her a +good-humored, jocular answer, and said to me, “It takes a woman to know +what to buy for house-keepin,”; which poor piece of hypocrisy endeared +him to me more than ever. The puncher was not of the fibre to succeed in +keeping appearances, but he deserved success, which the angels consider +to be enough. I wondered if disenchantment had set in, or if this were +only the preliminary stage of surprise and wounding, and I felt that but +one test could show, namely, a coming face to face of Mr. and Mrs. +Lusk, perhaps not to be desired. Neither was it likely. The assistant +rain-maker kept himself steadfastly inside or near the barn, at the +north corner of Cheyenne, while the bride, when she was in the street at +all, haunted the shops clear across town diagonally. + +On this Friday noon the appearance of the metal tube above the blind +building spread some excitement. It moved several of the citizens to pay +the place a visit and ask to see the machine. These callers, of course, +sustained a polite refusal, and returned among their friends with a +contempt for such quackery, and a greatly heightened curiosity; so that +pretty soon you could hear discussions at the street corners, and by +Saturday morning Cheyenne was talking of little else. The town prowled +about the barn and its oracular metal tube, and heard and saw nothing. +The Governor and I (let it be confessed) went there ourselves, since the +twenty-four hours of required preparation were now begun. We smelled for +chemicals, and he thought there was a something, but having been bred a +doctor, distrusted his imagination. I could not be sure myself whether +there was anything or not, although I walked three times round the +barn, snuffing as dispassionately as I knew how. It might possibly be +chlorine, the Governor said, or some gas for which ammonia was in part +responsible; and this was all he could say, and we left the place. The +world was as still and the hard, sharp hills as clear and near as ever; +and the sky over Sahara is not more dry and enduring than was ours. +This tenacity in the elements plainly gave Jode a malicious official +pleasure. We could tell it by his talk at lunch; and when the Governor +reminded him that no rain was contracted for until the next day, he +mentioned that the approach of a storm is something that modern science +is able to ascertain long in advance; and he bade us come to his office +whenever we pleased, and see for ourselves what science said. This was, +at any rate, something to fill the afternoon with, and we went to him +about five. Lin McLean joined us on the way. I came upon him lingering +alone in the street, and he told me that Mrs. McLean was calling on +friends. I saw that he did not know how to spend the short recess or +holiday he was having. He seemed to cling to the society of others, and +with them for the time regain his gayer mind. He had become converted +to Ogden, and the New-Yorker, on his side, found pleasant and refreshing +this democracy of Governors and cow-punchers. Jode received us at the +signal-service office, and began to show us his instruments with the +careful pride of an orchid-collector. + +“A hair hygrometer,” he said to me, waving his wax-like hand over it. +“The indications are obtained from the expansion and contraction of +a prepared human hair, transferred to an index needle traversing the +divided arc of--” + +“What oil do you put on the human hair Jode?” called out the Governor, +who had left our group, and was gamboling about by himself among the +tubes and dials. “What will this one do?” he asked, and poked at a wet +paper disc. But before the courteous Jode could explain that it had +to do with evaporation and the dew-point, the Governor's attention +wandered, and he was blowing at a little fan-wheel. This instantly +revolved and set a number of dial hands going different ways. “Hi!” said +the Governor, delighted. “Seen 'em like that down mines. Register air +velocity in feet. Put it away, Jode. You don't want that to-morrow. What +you'll need, Hilbrun says, is a big old rain-gauge and rubber shoes.” + +“I shall require nothing of the sort, Governor,” Jode retorted at once. +“And you can go to church without your umbrella in safety, sir. See +there.” He pointed to a storm-glass, which was certainly as clear as +crystal. “An old-fashioned test, you will doubtless say, gentlemen,” + Jode continued--though none of us would have said anything like +that--“but unjustly discredited; and, furthermore, its testimony is well +corroborated, as you will find you must admit.” Jode's voice was almost +threatening, and he fetched one corroborator after another. I looked +passively at wet and dry bulbs, at self-recording, dotted registers; +I caught the fleeting sound of words like “meniscus” and “terrestrial +minimum thermometer,” and I nodded punctually when Jode went through +some calculation. At last I heard something that I could understand--a +series of telegraphic replies to Jode from brother signal-service +officers all over the United States. He read each one through from date +of signature, and they all made any rain to-morrow entirely impossible. +“And I tell you,” Jode concluded, in his high, egg-shell voice, “there's +no chance of precipitation now, sir. I tell you, sir,”--he was shrieking +jubilantly--“there's not a damn' thing to precipitate!” + +We left him in his triumph among his glass and mercury. “Gee whiz!” said +the Governor. “I guess we'd better go and tell Hilbrun it's no use.” + +We went, and Hilbrun smiled with a certain compassion for the antiquated +scientist. “That's what they all say,” he said. “I'll do my talking +to-morrow.” + +“If any of you gentlemen, or your friends,” said Assistant Lusk, +stepping up, “feel like doing a little business on this, I am ready to +accommodate you.” + +“What do yu' want this evenin'?” said Lin McLean, promptly. + +“Five to one,” said Lusk. + +“Go yu' in twenties,” said the impetuous puncher; and I now perceived +this was to be a sporting event. Lin had his wad of bills out--or +what of it still survived his bride's shopping. “Will you hold stakes, +doctor?” he said to the Governor. + +But that official looked at the clear sky, and thought he would do five +to one in twenties himself. Lusk accommodated him, and then Ogden, and +then me. None of us could very well be stake-holder, but we registered +our bets, and promised to procure an uninterested man by eight next +morning. I have seldom had so much trouble, and I never saw such a +universal search for ready money. Every man we asked to hold stakes +instantly whipped out his own pocketbook, went in search of Lusk, and +disqualified himself. It was Jode helped us out. He would not bet, but +was anxious to serve, and thus punish the bragging Lusk. + +Sunday was, as usual, chronically fine, with no cloud or breeze +anywhere, and by the time the church-bells were ringing, ten to one was +freely offered. The biscuit-shooter went to church with her friends, so +she might wear her fine clothes in a worthy place, while her furloughed +husband rushed about Cheyenne, entirely his own old self again, his wad +of money staked and in Jode's keeping. Many citizens bitterly lamented +their lack of ready money. But it was a good thing for these people that +it was Sunday, and the banks closed. + +The church-bells ceased; the congregations sat inside, but outside +the hot town showed no Sunday emptiness or quiet. The metal tube, +the possible smell, Jode's sustained and haughty indignation, the +extraordinary assurance of Lusk, all this had ended by turning every one +restless and eccentric. A citizen came down the street with an umbrella. +In a moment the by-standers had reduced it to a sordid tangle of ribs. +Old Judge Burrage attempted to address us at the corner about the vast +progress of science. The postmaster pinned a card on his back with the +well-known legend, “I am somewhat of a liar myself.” And all the while +the sun shone high and hot, while Jode grew quieter and colder under the +certainty of victory. It was after twelve o'clock when the people came +from church, and no change or sign was to be seen. Jode told us, with +a chill smile, that he had visited his instruments and found no new +indications. Fifteen minutes after that the sky was brown. Sudden, +padded, dropsical clouds were born in the blue above our heads. They +blackened, and a smart shower, the first in two months, wet us all, +and ceased. The sun blazed out, and the sky came blue again, like those +rapid, unconvincing weather changes of the drama. + +Amazement at what I saw happening in the heavens took me from things +on earth, and I was unaware of the universal fit that now seized +upon Cheyenne until I heard the high cry of Jode at my ear. His usual +punctilious bearing had forsaken him, and he shouted alike to stranger +and acquaintance: “It is no half-inch, sir! Don't you tell me”' And the +crowd would swallow him, but you could mark his vociferous course as +he went proclaiming to the world. “A failure, sir! The fellow's an +impostor, as I well knew. It's no half-inch!” Which was true. + +“What have you got to say to that?” we asked Hilbrun, swarming around +him. + +“If you'll just keep cool,” said he--“it's only the first instalment. In +about two hours and a half I'll give you the rest.” + +Soon after four the dropsical clouds materialized once again above +open-mouthed Cheyenne. No school let out for an unexpected holiday, no +herd of stampeded range cattle, conducts itself more miscellaneously. +Gray, respectable men, with daughters married, leaped over fences +and sprang back, prominent legislators hopped howling up and down +door-steps, women waved handkerchiefs from windows and porches, the +chattering Jode flew from anemometer to rain-gauge, and old Judge +Burrage apostrophized Providence in his front yard, with the +postmaster's label still pinned to his back. Nobody minded the sluicing +downpour--this second instalment was much more of a thing than the +first--and Hilbrun alone kept a calm exterior--the face of the man who +lifts a heavy dumb-bell and throws an impressive glance at the audience. +Assistant Lusk was by no means thus proof against success I saw him put +a bottle back in his pocket, his face already disintegrated with a tipsy +leer. Judge Burrage, perceiving the rain-maker, came out of his gate +and proceeded toward him, extending the hand of congratulation. “Mr. +Hilbrun,” said he, “I am Judge Burrage--the Honorable T. Coleman +Burrage--and I will say that I am most favorably impressed with your +shower.” + +“His shower!” yelped Jode, flourishing measurements. + +“Why, yu' don't claim it's yourn, do yu'?” said Lin McLean, grinning. + +“I tell you it's no half-inch yet, gentlemen,” said Jode, ignoring the +facetious puncher. + +“You're mistaken,” said Hilbrun, sharply. + +“It's a plumb big show, half-inch or no half-inch,” said Lin. + +“If he's short he don't get his money,” said some ignoble subscriber + +“Yes, he will,” said the Governor, “or I'm a short. He's earned it.” + +“You bet “' said Lin. “Fair and square. If they're goin' back on yu', +doctor, I'll chip--Shucks!” Lin's hand fell from the empty pocket; +he remembered his wad in the stake-holder's hands, and that he now +possessed possibly two dollars in silver, all told. “I can't chip +in, doctor,” he said. “That hobo over there has won my cash, an' he's +filling up on the prospect right now. I don't care! It's the biggest +show I've ever saw. You're a dandy, Mr. Hilbrun! Whoop!” And Lin +clapped the rain-maker on the shoulder, exulting. He had been too well +entertained to care what he had in his pocket, and his wife had not yet +occurred to him. + +They were disputing about the rainfall, which had been slightly under +half an inch in a few spots, but over it in many others; and while we +stood talking in the renewed sunlight, more telegrams were brought to +Jode, saying that there was no moisture anywhere, and simultaneously +with these, riders dashed into town with the news that twelve miles out +the rain had flattened the grain crop. We had more of such reports from +as far as thirty miles, and beyond that there had not been a drop or a +cloud. It staggered one's reason; the brain was numb with surprise. + +“Well, gentlemen,” said the rain-maker, “I'm packed up, and my train'll +be along soon--would have been along by this, only it's late. What's the +word as to my three hundred and fifty dollars?” + +Even still there were objections expressed. He had not entirely +performed his side of the contract. + +“I think different, gentlemen,” said he. “But I'll unpack and let that +train go. I can't have the law on you, I suppose. But if you don't pay +me” (the rain-maker put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the +fence) “I'll flood your town.” + +In earthquakes and eruptions people end by expecting anything; and in +the total eclipse that was now over all Cheyenne's ordinary standards +and precedents the bewildered community saw in this threat nothing more +unusual than if he had said twice two made four. The purse was handed +over. + +“I'm obliged,” said Hilbrun, simply. + +“If I had foreseen, gentlemen,” said Jode, too deeply grieved now to +feel anger, “that I would even be indirectly associated with your losing +your money through this--this absurd occurrence, I would have declined +to help you. It becomes my duty,” he continued, turning coldly to +the inebriated Lusk, “to hand this to you, sir.” And the assistant +lurchingly stuffed his stakes away. + +“It's worth it,” said Lin. “He's welcome to my cash.” + +“What's that you say, Lin McLean?” It was the biscuit-shooter, and she +surged to the front. + +“I'm broke. He's got it. That's all,” said Lin, briefly. + +“Broke! You!” She glared at her athletic young lord, and she uttered a +preliminary howl. + +At that long-lost cry Lusk turned his silly face. “It's my darling +Kate,” he said. “Why, Kate!” + +The next thing that I knew Ogden and I were grappling with Lin McLean; +for everything had happened at once. The bride had swooped upon her +first wedded love and burst into tears on the man's neck, which Lin +was trying to break in consequence. We do not always recognize our +benefactors at sight. They all came to the ground, and we hauled the +second husband off. The lady and Lusk remained in a heap, he foolish, +tearful, and affectionate; she turned furiously at bay, his guardian +angel, indifferent to the onlooking crowd, and hurling righteous +defiance at Lin. “Don't yus dare lay yer finger on my husband, you +sage-brush bigamist!” is what the marvelous female said. + +“Bigamist?” repeated Lin, dazed at this charge. “I ain't,” he said to +Ogden and me. “I never did. I've never married any of 'em before her.” + +“Little good that'll do yus, Lin McLean! Me and him was man and wife +before ever I come acrosst yus.” + +“You and him?” murmured the puncher. + +“Her and me,” whimpered Lusk. “Sidney.” He sat up with a limp, confiding +stare at everybody. + +“Sidney who?” said Lin. + +“No, no,” corrected Lusk, crossly--“Sidney, Nebraska.” + +The stakes at this point fell from his pocket which he did not notice. +But the bride had them in safe-keeping at once. + +“Who are yu', anyway--when yu' ain't drunk?” demanded Lin. + +“He's as good a man as you, and better,” snorted the guardian angel. +“Give him a pistol, and he'll make you hard to find.” + +“Well, you listen to me, Sidney Nebraska--” Lin began. + +“No, no,” corrected Lusk once more, as a distant whistle blew--“Jim.” + +“Good-bye, gentlemen,” said the rain-maker. “That's the west-bound. I'm +perfectly satisfied with my experiment here, and I'm off to repeat it at +Salt Lake City.” + +“You are?” shouted Lin McLean. “Him and Jim's going to work it again! +For goodness' sake, somebody lend me twenty-five dollars!” + +At this there was an instantaneous rush. Ten minutes later, in front of +the ticket-windows there was a line of citizens buying tickets for Salt +Lake as if it had been Madame Bernhardt. Some rock had been smitten, +and ready money had flowed forth. The Governor saw us off, sad that his +duties should detain him. But Jode went! + +“Betting is the fool's argument, gentlemen,” said he to Ogden, McLean, +and me, “and it's a weary time since I have had the pleasure.” + +“Which way are yu' bettin'?” Lin asked. + +“With my principles, sir,” answered the little signal-service officer. + +“I expect I ain't got any,” said the puncher. “It's Jim I'm backin' this +time.” + +“See here,” said I; “I want to talk to you.” We went into another car, +and I did. + +“And so yu' knowed about Lusk when we was on them board walks?” the +puncher said. + +“Do you mean I ought to have--” + +“Shucks! no. Yu' couldn't. Nobody couldn't. It's a queer world, all +the same. Yu' have good friends, and all that.” He looked out of the +window. “Laramie already!” he commented, and got out and walked by +himself on the platform until we had started again. “Yu' have good +friends,” he pursued, settling himself so his long legs were stretched +and comfortable, “and they tell yu' things, and you tell them things. +And when it don't make no particular matter one way or the other, yu' +give 'em your honest opinion and talk straight to 'em, and they'll +come to you the same way. So that when yu're ridin' the range alone +sometimes, and thinkin' a lot o' things over on top maybe of some +dog-goned hill, you'll say to yourself about some fellow yu' know mighty +well, 'There's a man is a good friend of mine.' And yu' mean it. And +it's so. Yet when matters is serious, as onced in a while they're bound +to get, and yu're in a plumb hole, where is the man then--your good +friend? Why, he's where yu' want him to be. Standin' off, keepin' his +mouth shut, and lettin' yu' find your own trail out. If he tried to show +it to yu', yu'd likely hit him. But shucks! Circumstances have showed +me the trail this time, you bet!” And the puncher's face, which had been +sombre, grew lively, and he laid a friendly hand on my knee. + +“The trail's pretty simple,” said I. + +“You bet! But it's sure a queer world. Tell yu',” said Lin, with the air +of having made a discovery, “when a man gets down to bed-rock affairs +in this life he's got to do his travellin' alone, same as he does his +dyin'. I expect even married men has thoughts and hopes they don't tell +their wives.” + +“Never was married,” said I. + +“Well--no more was I. Let's go to bed.” And Lin shook my hand, and gave +me a singular, rather melancholy smile. + +At Salt Lake City, which Ogden was glad to include in his Western +holiday, we found both Mormon and Gentile ready to give us odds against +rain--only I noticed that those of the true faith were less free. +Indeed; the Mormon, the Quaker, and most sects of an isolated doctrine +have a nice prudence in money. During our brief stay we visited the +sights: floating in the lake, listening to pins drop in the gallery of +the Tabernacle, seeing frescos of saints in robes speaking from heaven +to Joseph Smith in the Sunday clothes of a modern farm-hand, and in +the street we heard at a distance a strenuous domestic talk between the +new--or perhaps I should say the original--husband and wife. + +“She's corralled Sidney's cash!” said the delighted Lin. “He can't bet +nothing on this shower.” + +And then, after all, this time--it didn't rain! + +Stripped of money both ways, Cheyenne, having most fortunately purchased +a return ticket, sought its home. The perplexed rain-maker went +somewhere else, without his assistant. Lusk's exulting wife, having the +money, retained him with her. + +“Good luck to yu', Sidney!” said Lin, speaking to him for the first time +since Cheyenne. “I feel a heap better since I've saw yu' married.” He +paid no attention to the biscuit-shooter, or the horrible language that +she threw after him. + +Jode also felt “a heap better.” Legitimate science had triumphed. +To-day, most of Cheyenne believes with Jode that it was all a +coincidence. South Carolina had bet on her principles, and won from Lin +the few dollars that I had lent the puncher. + +“And what will you do now?” I said to Lin. + +“Join the beef round-up. Balaam's payin' forty dollars. I guess that'll +keep a single man.” + + + +A JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF CHRISTMAS + +The Governor descended the steps of the Capitol slowly and with pauses, +lifting a list frequently to his eye. He had intermittently pencilled +it between stages of the forenoon's public business, and his gait grew +absent as he recurred now to his jottings in their accumulation, with +a slight pain at their number, and the definite fear that they would be +more in seasons to come. They were the names of his friends' children +to whom his excellent heart moved him to give Christmas presents. He had +put off this regenerating evil until the latest day, as was his custom, +and now he was setting forth to do the whole thing at a blow, entirely +planless among the guns and rocking-horses that would presently surround +him. As he reached the highway he heard himself familiarly addressed +from a distance, and, turning, saw four sons of the alkali jogging into +town from the plain. One who had shouted to him galloped out from the +others, rounded the Capitol's enclosure, and, approaching with radiant +countenance leaned to reach the hand of the Governor, and once again +greeted him with a hilarious “Hello, Doc!” + +Governor Barker, M.D., seeing Mr. McLean unexpectedly after several +years, hailed the horseman with frank and lively pleasure, and, +inquiring who might be the other riders behind, was told that they were +Shorty, Chalkeye, and Dollar Bill, come for Christmas. “And dandies to +hit town with,” Mr. McLean added. “Red-hot.” + +“I am acquainted with them,” assented his Excellency. + +“We've been ridin' trail for twelve weeks,” the cow-puncher continued, +“makin' our beds down anywheres, and eatin' the same old chuck every +day. So we've shook fried beef and heifer's delight, and we're goin' to +feed high.” + +Then Mr. McLean overflowed with talk and pungent confidences, for the +holidays already rioted in his spirit, and his tongue was loosed over +their coming rites. + +“We've soured on scenery,” he finished, in his drastic idiom. “We're +sick of moonlight and cow-dung, and we're heeled for a big time.” + +“Call on me,” remarked the Governor, cheerily, “when you're ready for +bromides and sulphates.” + +“I ain't box-headed no more,” protested Mr. McLean; “I've got maturity, +Doc, since I seen yu' at the rain-making, and I'm a heap older than them +hospital days when I bust my leg on yu'. Three or four glasses and quit. +That's my rule.” + +“That your rule, too?” inquired the Governor of Shorty, Chalkeye, +and Dollar Bill. These gentlemen of the saddle were sitting quite +expressionless upon their horses. + +“We ain't talkin', we're waitin',” observed Chalkeye; and the three +cynics smiled amiably. + +“Well, Doc, see yu' again,” said Mr. McLean. He turned to accompany his +brother cow-punchers, but in that particular moment Fate descended or +came up from whatever place she dwells in and entered the body of the +unsuspecting Governor. + +“What's your hurry?” said Fate, speaking in the official's hearty +manner. “Come along with me.” + +“Can't do it. Where are yu' goin'?” + +“Christmasing,” replied Fate. + +“Well, I've got to feed my horse. Christmasing, yu' say?” + +“Yes; I'm buying toys.” + +“Toys! You? What for?” + +“Oh, some kids.” + +“Yourn?” screeched Lin, precipitately. + +His Excellency the jovial Governor opened his teeth in pleasure at this, +for he was a bachelor, and there were fifteen upon his list, which he +held up for the edification of the hasty McLean. “Not mine, I'm happy +to say. My friends keep marrying and settling, and their kids call me +uncle, and climb around and bother, and I forget their names, and think +it's a girl, and the mother gets mad. Why, if I didn't remember these +little folks at Christmas they'd be wondering--not the kids, they just +break your toys and don't notice; but the mother would wonder--'What's +the matter with Dr. Barker? Has Governor Barker gone back on +us?'--that's where the strain comes!” he broke off, facing Mr. McLean +with another spacious laugh. + +But the cow-puncher had ceased to smile, and now, while Barker ran +on exuberantly, McLean's wide-open eyes rested upon him, singular and +intent, and in their hazel depths the last gleam of jocularity went out. + +“That's where the strain comes, you see. Two sets of acquaintances. +Grateful patients and loyal voters, and I've got to keep solid with both +outfits, especially the wives and mothers. They're the people. So it's +drums, and dolls, and sheep on wheels, and games, and monkeys on a +stick, and the saleslady shows you a mechanical bear, and it costs too +much, and you forget whether the Judge's second girl is Nellie or Susie, +and--well, I'm just in for my annual circus this afternoon! You're in +luck. Christmas don't trouble a chap fixed like you.” + +Lin McLean prolonged the sentence like a distant echo. + +“A chap fixed like you!” The cow-puncher said it slowly to himself. “No, +sure.” He seemed to be watching Shorty, and Chalkeye, and Dollar Bill +going down the road. “That's a new idea--Christmas,” he murmured, for it +was one of his oldest, and he was recalling the Christmas when he wore +his first long trousers. + +“Comes once a year pretty regular,” remarked the prosperous Governor. +“Seems often when you pay the bill.” + +“I haven't made a Christmas gift,” pursued the cow-puncher, dreamily, +“not for--for--Lord! it's a hundred years, I guess. I don't know anybody +that has any right to look for such a thing from me.” This was indeed a +new idea, and it did not stop the chill that was spreading in his heart. + +“Gee whiz!” said Barker, briskly, “there goes twelve o'clock. I've got +to make a start. Sorry you can't come and help me. Good-bye!” + +His Excellency left the rider sitting motionless, and forgot him at once +in his own preoccupation. He hastened upon his journey to the shops +with the list, not in his pocket, but held firmly, like a plank in the +imminence of shipwreck. The Nellies and Susies pervaded his mind, and +he struggled with the presentiment that in a day or two he would recall +some omitted and wretchedly important child. Quick hoof-beats made +him look up, and Mr. McLean passed like a wind. The Governor absently +watched him go, and saw the pony hunch and stiffen in the check of his +speed when Lin overtook his companions. Down there in the distance they +took a side street, and Barker rejoicingly remembered one more name and +wrote it as he walked. In a few minutes he had come to the shops, and +met face to face with Mr. McLean. + +“The boys are seein' after my horse,” Lin rapidly began, “and I've got +to meet 'em sharp at one. We're twelve weeks shy on a square meal, yu' +see, and this first has been a date from 'way back. I'd like to--” Here +Mr. McLean cleared his throat, and his speech went less smoothly. “Doc, +I'd like just for a while to watch yu' gettin'--them monkeys, yu' know.” + +The Governor expressed his agreeable surprise at this change of mind, +and was glad of McLean's company and judgment during the impending +selections. A picture of a cow-puncher and himself discussing a +couple of dolls rose nimbly in Barker's mental eye, and it was with an +imperfect honesty that he said, “You'll help me a heap.” + +And Lin, quite sincere, replied, “Thank yu'.” + +So together these two went Christmasing in the throng. Wyoming's Chief +Executive knocked elbows with the spurred and jingling waif, one man as +good as another in that raw, hopeful, full-blooded cattle era, which now +the sobered West remembers as the days of its fond youth. For one man +has been as good as another in three places--Paradise before the Fall; +the Rocky Mountains before the wire fence; and the Declaration of +Independence. And then this Governor, beside being young, almost as +young as Lin McLean or the Chief Justice (who lately had celebrated his +thirty-second birthday), had in his doctoring days at Drybone known +the cow-puncher with that familiarity which lasts a lifetime without +breeding contempt; accordingly he now laid a hand on Lin's tall shoulder +and drew him among the petticoats and toys. + +Christmas filled the windows and Christmas stirred in mankind. Cheyenne, +not over-zealous in doctrine or litanies, and with the opinion that a +world in the hand is worth two in the bush, nevertheless was flocking +together, neighbor to think of neighbor, and every one to remember the +children; a sacred assembly, after all, gathered to rehearse unwittingly +the articles of its belief, the Creed and Doctrine of the Child. Lin +saw them hurry and smile among the paper fairies; they questioned and +hesitated, crowded and made decisions, failed utterly to find the right +thing, forgot and hastened back, suffered all the various desperations +of the eleventh hour, and turned homeward, dropping their parcels with +that undimmed good-will that once a year makes gracious the universal +human face. This brotherhood swam and beamed before the cow-puncher's +brooding eyes, and in his ears the greeting of the season sang. Children +escaped from their mothers and ran chirping behind the counters to touch +and meddle in places forbidden. Friends dashed against each other with +rabbits and magic lanterns, greeted in haste, and were gone, amid the +sound of musical boxes. + +Through this tinkle and bleating of little machinery the murmur of the +human heart drifted in and out of McLean's hearing; fragments of home +talk, tendernesses, economies, intimate first names, and dinner hours, +and whether it was joy or sadness, it was in common; the world seemed +knit in a single skein of home ties. Two or three came by whose purses +must have been slender, and whose purchases were humble and chosen after +much nice adjustment; and when one plain man dropped a word about both +ends meeting, and the woman with him laid a hand on his arm, saying +that his children must not feel this year was different, Lin made a +step toward them. There were hours and spots where he could readily +have descended upon them at that, played the role of clinking affluence, +waved thanks aside with competent blasphemy, and tossing off some +infamous whiskey, cantered away in the full self-conscious strut of the +frontier. But here was not the moment; the abashed cow-puncher could +make no such parade in this place. The people brushed by him back and +forth, busy upon their errands, and aware of him scarcely more than if +he had been a spirit looking on from the helpless dead; and so, while +these weaving needs and kindnesses of man were within arm's touch of +him, he was locked outside with his impulses. Barker had, in the natural +press of customers, long parted from him, to become immersed in choosing +and rejecting; and now, with a fair part of his mission accomplished, +he was ready to go on to the next place, and turned to beckon McLean. +He found him obliterated in a corner beside a life-sized image of Santa +Claus, standing as still as the frosty saint. + +“He looks livelier than you do,” said the hearty Governor. “'Fraid it's +been slow waiting.” + +“No,” replied the cow-puncher, thoughtfully. “No, I guess not.” + +This uncertainty was expressed with such gentleness that Barker roared. +“You never did lie to me,” he said, “long as I've known you. Well, never +mind. I've got some real advice to ask you now.” + +At this Mr. McLean's face grew more alert. “Say Doc,” said he, “what do +yu' want for Christmas that nobody's likely to give yu'?” + +“A big practice--big enough to interfere with my politics.” + +“What else? Things and truck, I mean.” + +“Oh--nothing I'll get. People don't give things much to fellows like +me.” + +“Don't they? Don't they?” + +“Why, you and Santa Claus weren't putting up any scheme on my stocking?” + +“Well--” + +“I believe you're in earnest!” cried his Excellency. “That's simply +rich!” Here was a thing to relish! The Frontier comes to town “heeled +for a big time,” finds that presents are all the rage, and must +immediately give somebody something. Oh, childlike, miscellaneous +Frontier! So thought the good-hearted Governor; and it seems a venial +misconception. “My dear fellow,” he added, meaning as well as possible, +“I don't want you to spend your money on me.” + +“I've got plenty all right,” said Lin, shortly. + +“Plenty's not the point. I'll take as many drinks as you please with +you. You didn't expect anything from me?” + +“That ain't--that don't--” + +“There! Of course you didn't. Then, what are you getting proud about? +Here's our shop.” They stepped in from the street to new crowds and +counters. “Now,” pursued the Governor, “this is for a very particular +friend of mine. Here they are. Now, which of those do you like best?” + +They were sets of Tennyson in cases holding little volumes equal in +number, but the binding various, and Mr. McLean reached his decision +after one look. “That,” said he, and laid a large muscular hand upon the +Laureate. The young lady behind the counter spoke out acidly, and Lin +pulled the abject hand away. His taste, however, happened to be sound, +or, at least, it was at one with the Governor's; but now they learned +that there was a distressing variance in the matter of price. + +The Governor stared at the delicate article of his choice. “I know +that Tennyson is what she--is what's wanted,” he muttered; and, feeling +himself nudged, looked around and saw Lin's extended fist. This gesture +he took for a facetious sympathy, and, dolorously grasping the hand, +found himself holding a lump of bills. Sheer amazement relaxed him, and +the cow-puncher's matted wealth tumbled on the floor in sight of all +people. Barker picked it up and gave it back. “No, no, no!” he said, +mirthful over his own inclination to be annoyed; “you can't do that. I'm +just as much obliged, Lin,” he added. + +“Just as a loan, Doc--some of it. I'm grass-bellied with spot-cash.” + +A giggle behind the counter disturbed them both, but the sharp +young lady was only dusting. The Governor at once paid haughtily +for Tennyson's expensive works, and the cow-puncher pushed his +discountenanced savings back into his clothes. Making haste to leave +the book department of this shop, they regained a mutual ease, and +the Governor became waggish over Lin's concern at being too rich. He +suggested to him the list of delinquent taxpayers and the latest census +from which to select indigent persons. He had patients, too, whose +inveterate pennilessness he could swear cheerfully to--“since you want +to bolt from your own money,” he remarked. + +“Yes, I'm a green horse,” assented Mr. McLean, gallantly; “ain't used to +the looks of a twenty-dollar bill, and I shy at 'em.” + +From his face--that jocular mask--one might have counted him the most +serene and careless of vagrants, and in his words only the ordinary +voice of banter spoke to the Governor. A good woman, it may well be, +would have guessed before this the sensitive soul in the blundering +body, but Barker saw just the familiar, whimsical, happy-go-lucky McLean +of old days, and so he went gayly and innocently on, treading upon holy +ground. “I've got it!” he exclaimed; “give your wife something.” + +The ruddy cow-puncher grinned. He had passed through the world of woman +with but few delays, rejoicing in informal and transient entanglements, +and he welcomed the turn which the conversation seemed now to be taking. +“If you'll give me her name and address,” said he, with the future +entirely in his mind. + +“Why, Laramie!” and the Governor feigned surprise. + +“Say, Doc,” said Lin, uneasily, “none of 'em ain't married me since I +saw yu' last.” + +“Then she hasn't written from Laramie,” said the hilarious Governor, and +Mr. McLean understood and winced in his spirit deep down. “Gee whiz!” + went on Barker, “I'll never forget you and Lusk that day!” + +But the mask fell now. “You're talking of his wife, not mine,” said the +cow-puncher very quietly, and smiling no more; “and, Doc, I'm going to +say a word to yu', for I know yu've always been my good friend. I'll +never forget that day myself--but I don't want to be reminded of it.” + +“I'm a fool, Lin,” said the Governor, generous instantly. “I never +supposed--” + +“I know yu' didn't, Doc. It ain't you that's the fool. And in a way--in +a way--” Lin's speech ended among his crowding memories, and Barker, +seeing how wistful his face had turned, waited. “But I ain't quite the +same fool I was before that happened to me,” the cow-puncher resumed, +“though maybe my actions don't show to be wiser. I know that there was +better luck than a man like me had any call to look for.” + +The sobered Barker said, simply, “Yes, Lin.” He was put to thinking by +these words from the unsuspected inner man. + +Out in the Bow Leg country Lin McLean had met a woman with thick, +red cheeks, calling herself by a maiden name; and this was his whole +knowledge of her when he put her one morning astride a Mexican saddle +and took her fifty miles to a magistrate and made her his lawful wife +to the best of his ability and belief. His sage-brush intimates were +confident he would never have done it but for a rival. Racing the rival +and beating him had swept Mr. McLean past his own intentions, and the +marriage was an inadvertence. “He jest bumped into it before he could +pull up,” they explained; and this casualty, resulting from Mr. McLean's +sporting blood, had entertained several hundred square miles of alkali. +For the new-made husband the joke soon died. In the immediate weeks that +came upon him he tasted a bitterness worse than in all his life before, +and learned also how deep the woman, when once she begins, can sink +beneath the man in baseness. That was a knowledge of which he had lived +innocent until this time. But he carried his outward self serenely, so +that citizens in Cheyenne who saw the cow-puncher with his bride argued +shrewdly that men of that sort liked women of that sort; and before the +strain had broken his endurance an unexpected first husband, named +Lusk, had appeared one Sunday in the street, prosperous, forgiving, +and exceedingly drunk. To the arms of Lusk she went back in the public +street, deserting McLean in the presence of Cheyenne; and when Cheyenne +saw this, and learned how she had been Mrs. Lusk for eight long, if +intermittent, years, Cheyenne laughed loudly. Lin McLean laughed, too, +and went about his business, ready to swagger at the necessary moment, +and with the necessary kind of joke always ready to shield his hurt +spirit. And soon, of course, the matter grew stale, seldom raked up in +the Bow Leg country where Lin had been at work; so lately he had begun +to remember other things beside the smouldering humiliation. + +“Is she with him?” he asked Barker, and musingly listened while Barker +told him. The Governor had thought to make it a racy story, with the +moral that the joke was now on Lusk; but that inner man had spoken and +revealed the cow-puncher to him in a new and complicated light; hence he +quieted the proposed lively cadence and vocabulary of his anecdote +about the house of Lusk, but instead of narrating how Mrs. beat Mr. on +Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and Mr. took his turn the odd days, +thus getting one ahead of his lady, while the kid Lusk had outlined +his opinion of the family by recently skipping to parts unknown, Barker +detailed these incidents more gravely, adding that Laramie believed Mrs. +Lusk addicted to opium. + +“I don't guess I'll leave my card on 'em,” said McLean, grimly, “if I +strike Laramie.” + +“You don't mind my saying I think you're well out of that scrape?” + Barker ventured. + +“Shucks, no! That's all right, Doc. Only--yu' see now. A man gets tired +pretending--onced in a while.” + +Time had gone while they were in talk, and it was now half after one and +Mr. McLean late for that long-plotted first square meal. So the friends +shook hands, wishing each other Merry Christmas, and the cow-puncher +hastened toward his chosen companions through the stirring cheerfulness +of the season. His play-hour had made a dull beginning among the toys. +He had come upon people engaged in a pleasant game, and waited, shy and +well disposed, for some bidding to join, but they had gone on playing +with each other and left him out. And now he went along in a sort of +hurry to escape from that loneliness where his human promptings had been +lodged with him useless. Here was Cheyenne, full of holiday for sale, +and he with his pockets full of money to buy; and when he thought of +Shorty, and Chalkeye, and Dollar Bill, those dandies to hit a town with, +he stepped out with a brisk, false hope. It was with a mental hurrah and +a foretaste of a good time coming that he put on his town clothes, after +shaving and admiring himself, and sat down to the square meal. He ate +away and drank with a robust imitation of enjoyment that took in even +himself at first. But the sorrowful process of his spirit went on, for +all he could do. As he groped for the contentment which he saw around +him he began to receive the jokes with counterfeit mirth. Memories took +the place of anticipation, and through their moody shiftings he began +to feel a distaste for the company of his friends and a shrinking from +their lively voices. He blamed them for this at once. He was surprised +to think he had never recognized before how light a weight was Shorty; +and here was Chalkeye, who knew better, talking religion after two +glasses. Presently this attack of noticing his friends' shortcomings +mastered him, and his mind, according to its wont, changed at a stroke. +“I'm celebrating no Christmas with this crowd,” said the inner man; and +when they had next remembered Lin McLean in their hilarity he was gone. + +Governor Barker, finishing his purchases at half-past three, went to +meet a friend come from Evanston. Mr. McLean was at the railway station, +buying a ticket for Denver. + +“Denver!” exclaimed the amazed Governor. + +“That's what I said,” stated Mr. McLean, doggedly. + +“Gee whiz!” went his Excellency. “What are you going to do there?” + +“Get good and drunk.” + +“Can't you find enough whiskey in Cheyenne?” + +“I'm drinking champagne this trip.” + +The cow-puncher went out on the platform and got aboard, and the train +moved off. Barker had walked out too in his surprise, and as he stared +after the last car, Mr. McLean waved his wide hat defiantly and went +inside the door. + +“And he says he's got maturity,” Barker muttered. “I've known him since +seventy-nine, and he's kept about eight years old right along.” The +Governor was cross, and sorry, and presently crosser. His jokes about +Lin's marriage came back to him and put him in a rage with the departed +fool. “Yes, about eight. Or six,” said his Excellency, justifying +himself by the past. For he had first known Lin, the boy of nineteen, +supreme in length of limb and recklessness, breaking horses and feeling +for an early mustache. Next, when the mustache was nearly accomplished, +he had mended the boy's badly broken thigh at Drybone. His skill (and +Lin's utter health) had wrought so swift a healing that the surgeon +overflowed with the pride of science, and over the bandages would +explain the human body technically to his wild-eyed and flattered +patient. Thus young Lin heard all about tibia, and comminuted, and other +glorious new words, and when sleepless would rehearse them. Then, +with the bone so nearly knit that the patient might leave the ward +on crutches to sit each morning in Barker's room as a privilege, the +disobedient child of twenty-one had slipped out of the hospital and +hobbled hastily to the hog ranch, where whiskey and variety waited for +a languishing convalescent. Here he grew gay, and was soon carried back +with the leg refractured. Yet Barker's surgical rage was disarmed, the +patient was so forlorn over his doctor's professional chagrin. + +“I suppose it ain't no better this morning, Doc?” he had said, humbly, +after a new week of bed and weights. + +“Your right leg's going to be shorter. That's all.” + +“Oh, gosh! I've been and spoiled your comminuted fee-mur! Ain't I a +son-of-a-gun?” + +You could not chide such a boy as this; and in time's due course he had +walked jauntily out into the world with legs of equal length after all +and in his stride the slightest halt possible. And Doctor Barker had +missed the child's conversation. To-day his mustache was a perfected +thing, and he in the late end of his twenties. + +“He'll wake up about noon to-morrow in a dive, without a cent,” said +Barker. “Then he'll come back on a freight and begin over again.” + +At the Denver station Lin McLean passed through the shoutings and +omnibuses, and came to the beginning of Seventeenth Street, where is the +first saloon. A customer was ordering Hot Scotch; and because he liked +the smell and had not thought of the mixture for a number of years, Lin +took Hot Scotch. Coming out upon the pavement, he looked across and saw +a saloon opposite with brighter globes and windows more prosperous. That +should have been his choice; lemon peel would undoubtedly be fresher +over there; and over he went at once, to begin the whole thing properly. +In such frozen weather no drink could be more timely, and he sat, to +enjoy without haste its mellow fitness. Once again on the pavement, he +looked along the street toward up-town beneath the crisp, cold electric +lights, and three little bootblacks gathered where he stood and cried +“Shine? Shine?” at him. Remembering that you took the third turn to the +right to get the best dinner in Denver, Lin hit on the skilful plan of +stopping at all Hot Scotches between; but the next occurred within a +few yards, and it was across the street. This one being attained and +appreciated, he found that he must cross back again or skip number four. +At this rate he would not be dining in time to see much of the theatre, +and he stopped to consider. It was a German place he had just +quitted, and a huge light poured out on him from its window, which the +proprietor's father-land sentiment had made into a show. Lights shone +among a well-set pine forest, where beery, jovial gnomes sat on roots +and reached upward to Santa Claus; he, grinning, fat, and Teutonic, held +in his right hand forever a foaming glass, and forever in his left a +string of sausages that dangled down among the gnomes. With his American +back to this, the cow-puncher, wearing the same serious, absent face he +had not changed since he ran away from himself at Cheyenne, considered +carefully the Hot Scotch question, and which side of the road to take +and stick to, while the little bootblacks found him once more and cried, +“Shine? Shine?” monotonous as snow-birds. He settled to stay over here +with the south-side Scotches, and the little one-note song reaching his +attention, he suddenly shoved his foot at the nearest boy, who lightly +sprang away. + +“Dare you to touch him!” piped a snow-bird, dangerously. They were in +short trousers, and the eldest enemy, it may be, was ten. + +“Don't hit me,” said Mr. McLean “I'm innocent.” + +“Well, you leave him be,” said one. + +“What's he layin' to kick you for, Billy? 'Tain't yer pop, is it?” + +“New!” said Billy, in scorn. “Father never kicked me. Don't know who he +is.” + +“He's a special!” shrilled the leading bird, sensationally. “He's got a +badge, and he's goin' to arrest yer.” + +Two of them hopped instantly to the safe middle of the street, and +scattered with practiced strategy; but Billy stood his ground. “Dare you +to arrest me!” said he. + +“What'll you give me not to?” inquired Lin, and he put his hands in his +pockets, arms akimbo. + +“Nothing; I've done nothing,” announced Billy, firmly. But even in the +last syllable his voice suddenly failed, a terror filled his eyes, and +he, too, sped into the middle of the street. + +“What's he claim you lifted?” inquired the leader, with eagerness. +“Tell him you haven't been inside a store to-day. We can prove it!” they +screamed to the special officer. + +“Say,” said the slow-spoken Lin from the pavement, “you're poor judges +of a badge, you fellows.” + +His tone pleased them where they stood, wide apart from each other. + +Mr. McLean also remained stationary in the bluish illumination of the +window. “Why, if any policeman was caught wearin' this here,” said he, +following his sprightly invention, “he'd get arrested himself.” + +This struck them extremely. They began to draw together, Billy lingering +the last. + +“If it's your idea,” pursued Mr. McLean, alluringly, as the three took +cautious steps nearer the curb, “that blue, clasped hands in a circle of +red stars gives the bearer the right to put folks in the jug--why, I'll +get somebody else to black my boots for a dollar.” + +The three made a swift rush, fell on simultaneous knees, and clattering +their boxes down, began to spit in an industrious circle. + +“Easy!” wheedled Mr. McLean, and they looked up at him, staring and +fascinated. “Not having three feet,” said the cow-puncher, always grave +and slow, “I can only give two this here job.” + +“He's got a big pistol and a belt!” exulted the leader, who had +precociously felt beneath Lin's coat. + +“You're a smart boy,” said Lin, considering him, “and yu' find a man out +right away. Now you stand off and tell me all about myself while they +fix the boots--and a dollar goes to the quickest through.” + +Young Billy and his tow-headed competitor flattened down, each to a +boot, with all their might, while the leader ruefully contemplated Mr. +McLean. + +“That's a Colt.45 you've got,” ventured he. + +“Right again. Some day, maybe, you'll be wearing one of your own, if the +angels don't pull yu' before you're ripe.” + +“I'm through!” sang out Towhead, rising in haste. + +Small Billy was struggling still, but leaped at that, the two heads +bobbing to a level together; and Mr. McLean, looking down, saw that the +arrangement had not been a good one for the boots. + +“Will you kindly referee,” said he, forgivingly, to the leader, “and +decide which of them smears is the awfulest?” + +But the leader looked the other way and played upon a mouth-organ. + +“Well, that saves me money,” said Mr. McLean, jingling his pocket. +“I guess you've both won.” He handed each of them a dollar. “Now,” he +continued, “I just dassent show these boots uptown; so this time it's a +dollar for the best shine.” + +The two went palpitating at their brushes again, and the leader played +his mouth-organ with brilliant unconcern. Lin, tall and brooding leaned +against the jutting sill of the window, a figure somehow plainly strange +in town, while through the bright plate-glass Santa Claus, holding out +his beer and sausages, perpetually beamed. + +Billy was laboring gallantly, but it was labor, the cow-puncher +perceived, and Billy no seasoned expert. “See here,” said Lin, stooping, +“I'll show yu' how it's done. He's playin' that toon cross-eyed enough +to steer anybody crooked. There. Keep your blacking soft, and work with +a dry brush.” + +“Lemme,” said Billy. “I've got to learn.” So he finished the boot his +own way with wiry determination, breathing and repolishing; and this +event was also adjudged a dead heat, with results gratifying to both +parties. So here was their work done, and more money in their pockets +than from all the other boots and shoes of this day; and Towhead and +Billy did not wish for further trade, but to spend this handsome fortune +as soon as might be. Yet they delayed in the brightness of the window, +drawn by curiosity near this new kind of man whose voice held them and +whose remarks dropped them into constant uncertainty. Even the omitted +leader had been unable to go away and nurse his pride alone. + +“Is that a secret society?” inquired Towhead, lifting a finger at the +badge. + +Mr. McLean nodded. “Turruble,” said he. + +“You're a Wells & Fargo detective,” asserted the leader. + +“Play your harp,” said Lin. + +“Are you a--a desperaydo?” whispered Towhead. + +“Oh, my!” observed Mr. McLean, sadly; “what has our Jack been readin'?” + +“He's a cattle-man!” cried Billy. “I seen his heels.” + +“That's you!” said the discovered puncher, with approval. “You'll do. +But I bet you can't tell me what we wearers of this badge have sworn to +do this night.” + +At this they craned their necks and glared at him. + +“We--are--sworn--don't yu' jump, now, and give me away--sworn--to--blow +off three bootblacks to a dinner.” + +“Ah, pshaw!” They backed away, bristling with distrust. + +“That's the oath, fellows. Yu' may as well make your minds up--for I +have it to do!” + +“Dare you to! Ah!” + +“And after dinner it's the Opera-house, to see 'The Children of Captain +Cant'!” + +They screamed shrilly at him, keeping off beyond the curb. + +“I can't waste my time on such smart boys,” said Mr. McLean, rising +lazily to his full height from the window-sill. “I am goin' somewhere to +find boys that ain't so turruble quick stampeded by a roast turkey.” + +He began to lounge slowly away, serious as he had been throughout, and +they, stopping their noise short, swiftly picked up their boxes, and +followed him. Some change in the current of electricity that fed the +window disturbed its sparkling light, so that Santa Claus, with his arms +stretched out behind the departing cow-puncher seemed to be smiling more +broadly from the midst of his flickering brilliance. + +On their way to turkey, the host and his guests exchanged but few +remarks. He was full of good-will, and threw off a comment or two that +would have led to conversation under almost any circumstances save +these; but the minds of the guests were too distracted by this whole +state of things for them to be capable of more than keeping after Mr. +McLean in silence, at a wary interval, and with their mouths, during +most of the journey, open. The badge, the pistol, their patron's talk, +and the unusual dollars, wakened wide their bent for the unexpected, +their street affinity for the spur of the moment; they believed slimly +in the turkey part of it, but what this man might do next, to be +there when he did it, and not to be trapped, kept their wits jumping +deliciously; so when they saw him stop, they stopped instantly too, ten +feet out of reach. This was Denver's most civilized restaurant--that one +which Mr. McLean had remembered, with foreign dishes and private rooms, +where he had promised himself, among other things, champagne. Mr. McLean +had never been inside it, but heard a tale from a friend; and now he +caught a sudden sight of people among geraniums, with plumes and white +shirt-fronts, very elegant. It must have been several minutes that he +stood contemplating the entrance and the luxurious couples who went in. + +“Plumb French!” he observed at length; and then, “Shucks!” in a key less +confident, while his guests ten feet away watched him narrowly. “They're +eatin' patty de parley-voo in there,” he muttered, and the three +bootblacks came beside him. “Say, fellows,” said Lin, confidingly, “I +wasn't raised good enough for them dude dishes. What do yu' say! I'm +after a place where yu' can mention oyster stoo without givin' anybody a +fit. What do yu' say, boys?” + +That lighted the divine spark of brotherhood! + +“Ah, you come along with us--we'll take yer! You don't want to go in +there. We'll show yer the boss place in Market Street. We won't lose +yer.” So, shouting together in their shrill little city trebles, they +clustered about him, and one pulled at his coat to start him. He started +obediently, and walked in their charge, they leading the way. + +“Christmas is comin' now, sure,” said Lin, grinning to himself. “It +ain't exactly what I figured on.” It was the first time he had laughed +since Cheyenne, and he brushed a hand over his eyes, that were dim with +the new warmth in his heart. + +Believing at length in him and his turkey, the alert street faces, so +suspicious of the unknown, looked at him with ready intimacy as they +went along; and soon, in the friendly desire to make him acquainted with +Denver, the three were patronizing him. Only Billy, perhaps, now and +then stole at him a doubtful look. + +The large Country Mouse listened solemnly to his three Town Mice, who +presently introduced him to the place in Market Street. It was not boss, +precisely, and Denver knows better neighborhoods; but the turkey and +the oyster stew were there, with catsup and vegetables in season, and +several choices of pie. Here the Country Mouse became again efficient; +and to witness his liberal mastery of ordering and imagine his pocket +and its wealth, which they had heard and partly seen, renewed in the +guests a transient awe. As they dined, however, and found the host as +frankly ravenous as themselves, this reticence evaporated, and they all +grew fluent with oaths and opinions. At one or two words, indeed, Mr. +McLean stared and had a slight sense of blushing. + +“Have a cigarette?” said the leader, over his pie. + +“Thank yu',” said Lin. “I won't smoke, if yu'll excuse me.” He had +devised a wholesome meal, with water to drink. + +“Chewin's no good at meals,” continued the boy. “Don't you use +tobaccer?” + +“Onced in a while.” + +The leader spat brightly. “He ain't learned yet,” said he, slanting his +elbows at Billy and sliding a match over his rump. “But beer, now--I +never seen anything in it.” He and Towhead soon left Billy and his +callow profanities behind, and engaged in a town conversation that +silenced him, and set him listening with all his admiring young might. +Nor did Mr. McLean join in the talk, but sat embarrassed by this +knowledge, which seemed about as much as he knew himself. + +“I'll be goshed,” he thought, “if I'd caught on to half that when I was +streakin' around in short pants! Maybe they grow up quicker now.” + But now the Country Mouse perceived Billy's eager and attentive +apprenticeship. “Hello, boys!” he said, “that theatre's got a big start +on us.” + +They had all forgotten he had said anything about theatre, and other +topics left their impatient minds, while the Country Mouse paid the bill +and asked to be guided to the Opera-house. “This man here will look out +for your blackin' and truck, and let yu' have it in the morning.” + +They were very late. The spectacle had advanced far into passages of +the highest thrill, and Denver's eyes were riveted upon a ship and some +icebergs. The party found its seats during several beautiful lime-light +effects, and that remarkable fly-buzzing of violins which is pronounced +so helpful in times of peril and sentiment. The children of Captain +Grant had been tracking their father all over the equator and other +scenic spots, and now the north pole was about to impale them. The +Captain's youngest child, perceiving a hummock rushing at them with a +sudden motion, loudly shouted, “Sister, the ice is closing in!” and she +replied, chastely, “Then let us pray.” It was a superb tableau: the ice +split, and the sun rose and joggled at once to the zenith. The act-drop +fell, and male Denver, wrung to its religious deeps, went out to the +rum-shop. + +Of course Mr. McLean and his party did not do this. The party had +applauded exceedingly the defeat of the elements, and the leader, with +Towhead, discussed the probable chances of the ship's getting farther +south in the next act. Until lately Billy's doubt of the cow-puncher had +lingered; but during this intermission whatever had been holding out +in him seemed won, and in his eyes, that he turned stealthily upon his +unconscious, quiet neighbor, shone the beginnings of hero-worship. + +“Don't you think this is splendid?” said he. + +“Splendid,” Lin replied, a trifle remotely. + +“Don't you like it when they all get balled up and get out that way?” + +“Humming,” said Lin. + +“Don't you guess it's just girls, though, that do that?” + +“What, young fellow?” + +“Why, all that prayer-saying an' stuff.” + +“I guess it must be.” + +“She said to do it when the ice scared her, an' of course a man had to +do what she wanted him.” + +“Sure.” + +“Well, do you believe they'd 'a' done it if she hadn't been on that +boat, and clung around an' cried an' everything, an' made her friends +feel bad?” + +“I hardly expect they would,” replied the honest Lin, and then, suddenly +mindful of Billy, “except there wasn't nothin' else they could think +of,” he added, wishing to speak favorably of the custom. + +“Why, that chunk of ice weren't so awful big anyhow. I'd 'a' shoved her +off with a pole. Wouldn't you?” + +“Butted her like a ram,” exclaimed Mr. McLean. + +“Well, I don't say my prayers any more. I told Mr. Perkins I wasn't +a-going to, an' he--I think he is a flubdub anyway.” + +“I'll bet he is!” said Lin, sympathetically. He was scarcely a prudent +guardian. + +“I told him straight, an' he looked at me an' down he flops on his +knees. An' he made 'em all flop, but I told him I didn't care for them +putting up any camp-meeting over me; an' he says, 'I'll lick you,' an' +I says, 'Dare you to!' I told him mother kep' a-licking me for nothing, +an' I'd not pray for her, not in Sunday-school or anywheres else. Do you +pray much?” + +“No,” replied Lin, uneasily. + +“There! I told him a man didn't, an' he said then a man went to hell. +'You lie; father ain't going to hell,' I says, and you'd ought to heard +the first class laugh right out loud, girls an' boys. An' he was that +mad! But I didn't care. I came here with fifty cents.” + +“Yu' must have felt like a millionaire.” + +“Ah, I felt all right! I bought papers an' sold 'em, an' got more an' +saved, ant got my box an' blacking outfit. I weren't going to be licked +by her just because she felt like it, an' she feeling like it most any +time. Lemme see your pistol.” + +“You wait,” said Lin. “After this show is through I'll put it on you.” + +“Will you, honest? Belt an' everything? Did you ever shoot a bear?” + +“Lord! lots.” + +“Honest? Silver-tips?” + +“Silver-tips, cinnamon, black; and I roped a cub onced.” + +“O-h! I never shot a bear.” + +“You'd ought to try it.” + +“I'm a-going to. I'm a-going to camp out in the mountains. I'd like to +see you when you camp. I'd like to camp with you. Mightn't I some time?” + Billy had drawn nearer to Lin, and was looking up at him adoringly. + +“You bet!” said Lin; and though he did not, perhaps, entirely mean this, +it was with a curiously softened face that he began to look at Billy. +As with dogs and his horse, so always he played with what children he +met--the few in his sage-brush world; but this was ceasing to be quite +play for him, and his hand went to the boy's shoulder. + +“Father took me camping with him once, the time mother was off. Father +gets awful drunk, too. I've quit Laramie for good.” + +Lin sat up, and his hand gripped the boy. “Laramie!” said he, almost +shouting it. “Yu'--yu'--is your name Lusk?” + +But the boy had shrunk from him instantly. “You're not going to take me +home?” he piteously wailed. + +“Heaven and heavens!” murmured Lin McLean. “So you're her kid!” + +He relaxed again, down in his chair, his legs stretched their straight +length below the chair in front. He was waked from his bewilderment by +a brushing under him, and there was young Billy diving for escape to the +aisle, like the cornered city mouse that he was. Lin nipped that poor +little attempt and had the limp Billy seated inside again before the two +in discussion beyond had seen anything. He had said not a word to the +boy, and now watched his unhappy eyes seizing upon the various exits and +dispositions of the theatre; nor could he imagine anything to tell him +that should restore the perished confidence. “Why did yu' lead him off?” + he asked himself unexpectedly, and found that he did not seem to know; +but as he watched the restless and estranged runaway he grew more and +more sorrowful. “I just hate him to think that of me,” he reflected. +The curtain rose, and he saw Billy make up his mind to wait until they +should all be going out in the crowd. While the children of Captain +Grant grew hotter and hotter upon their father's geographic trail, Lin +sat saying to himself a number of contradictions. “He's nothing to +me; what's any of them to me?” Driven to bay by his bewilderment, he +restated the facts of the past. “Why, she'd deserted him and Lusk before +she'd ever laid eyes on me. I needn't to bother myself. He wasn't never +even my step-kid.” The past, however, brought no guidance. “Lord, what's +the thing to do about this? If I had any home--This is a stinkin' world +in some respects,” said Mr. McLean, aloud, unknowingly. The lady in the +chair beneath which the cow-puncher had his legs nudged her husband. +They took it for emotion over the sad fortune of Captain Grant, and +their backs shook. Presently each turned, and saw the singular man with +untamed, wide-open eyes glowering at the stage, and both backs shook +again. + +Once more his hand was laid on Billy. “Say!” The boy glanced at him, and +quickly away. + +“Look at me, and listen.” + +Billy swervingly obeyed. + +“I ain't after yu', and never was. This here's your business, not mine. +Are yu' listenin' good?” + +The boy made a nod, and Lin proceeded, whispering: “You've got no call +to believe what I say to yu'--yu've been lied to, I guess, pretty often. +So I'll not stop yu' runnin' and hidin', and I'll never give it away I +saw yu', but yu' keep doin' what yu' please. I'll just go now. I've saw +all I want, but you and your friends stay with it till it quits. If +yu' happen to wish to speak to me about that pistol or bears, yu' come +around to Smith's Palace--that's the boss hotel here, ain't it?--and if +yu' don't come too late I'll not be gone to bed. But this time of night +I'm liable to get sleepy. Tell your friends good-bye for me, and be good +to yourself. I've appreciated your company.” + +Mr. McLean entered Smith's Palace, and, engaging a room with two beds +in it, did a little delicate lying by means of the truth. “It's a lost +boy--a runaway,” he told the clerk. “He'll not be extra clean, I expect, +if he does come. Maybe he'll give me the slip, and I'll have a job cut +out to-morrow. I'll thank yu' to put my money in your safe.” + +The clerk placed himself at the disposal of the secret service, and Lin +walked up and down, looking at the railroad photographs for some ten +minutes, when Master Billy peered in from the street. + +“Hello!” said Mr. McLean, casually, and returned to a fine picture of +Pike's Peak. + +Billy observed him for a space, and, receiving no further attention, +came stepping along. “I'm not a-going back to Laramie,” he stated, +warningly. + +“I wouldn't,” said Lin. “It ain't half the town Denver is. Well, +good-night. Sorry yu' couldn't call sooner--I'm dead sleepy.” + +“O-h!” Billy stood blank. “I wish I'd shook the darned old show. Say, +lemme black your boots in the morning?” + +“Not sure my train don't go too early.” + +“I'm up! I'm up! I get around to all of 'em.” + +“Where do yu' sleep?” + +“Sleeping with the engine-man now. Why can't you put that on me +to-night?” + +“Goin' up-stairs. This gentleman wouldn't let you go up-stairs.” + +But the earnestly petitioned clerk consented, and Billy was the first +to hasten into the room. He stood rapturous while Lin buckled the +belt round his scanty stomach, and ingeniously buttoned the suspenders +outside the accoutrement to retard its immediate descent to earth. + +“Did it ever kill a man?” asked Billy, touching the six-shooter. + +“No. It ain't never had to do that, but I expect maybe it's stopped some +killin' me.” + +“Oh, leave me wear it just a minute! Do you collect arrow-heads? I think +they're bully. There's the finest one you ever seen.” He brought out +the relic, tightly wrapped in paper, several pieces. “I foun' it myself, +camping with father. It was sticking in a crack right on top of a rock, +but nobody'd seen it till I came along. Ain't it fine?” + +Mr. McLean pronounced it a gem. + +“Father an' me found a lot, an' they made mother mad laying around, an' +she throwed 'em out. She takes stuff from Kelley's.” + +“Who's Kelley?” + +“He keeps the drug-store at Laramie. Mother gets awful funny. That's +how she was when I came home. For I told Mr. Perkins he lied, an' I ran +then. An' I knowed well enough she'd lick me when she got through her +spell--an' father can't stop her, an' I--ah, I was sick of it! She's +lamed me up twice beating me--an' Perkins wanting me to say 'God bless +my mother!' a-getting up and a-going to bed--he's a flubdub! An' so I +cleared out. But I'd just as leaves said for God to bless father--an' +you. I'll do it now if you say it's any sense.” + +Mr. McLean sat down in a chair. “Don't yu' do it now,” said he. + +“You wouldn't like mother,” Billy continued. “You can keep that.” He +came to Lin and placed the arrow-head in his hands, standing beside +him. “Do you like birds' eggs? I collect them. I got twenty-five +kinds--sage-hen, an' blue grouse, an' willow-grouse, an' lots more +kinds harder--but I couldn't bring all them from Laramie. I brought +the magpie's, though. D' you care to see a magpie egg? Well, you +stay to-morrow an' I'll show you that en' some other things I got the +engine-man lets me keep there, for there's boys that would steal an egg. +An' I could take you where we could fire that pistol. Bet you don't know +what that is!” + +He brought out a small tin box shaped like a thimble, in which were +things that rattled. + +Mr. McLean gave it up. + +“That's kinni-kinnic seed. You can have that, for I got some more with +the engine-man.” + +Lin received this second token also, and thanked the giver for it. His +first feeling had been to prevent the boy's parting with his treasures, +but something that came not from the polish of manners and experience +made him know that he should take them. Billy talked away, laying bare +his little soul; the street boy that was not quite come made place for +the child that was not quite gone, and unimportant words and confidences +dropped from him disjointed as he climbed to the knee of Mr. McLean, and +inadvertently took that cow-puncher for some sort of parent he had not +hitherto met. It lasted but a short while, however, for he went to sleep +in the middle of a sentence, with his head upon Lin's breast. The man +held him perfectly still, because he had not the faintest notion +that Billy would be impossible to disturb. At length he spoke to him, +suggesting that bed might prove more comfortable; and, finding how it +was, rose and undressed the boy and laid him between the sheets. The +arms and legs seemed aware of the moves required of them, and stirred +conveniently; and directly the head was upon the pillow the whole small +frame burrowed down, without the opening of an eye or a change in the +breathing. Lin stood some time by the bedside, with his eyes on the +long, curling lashes and the curly hair. Then he glanced craftily at the +door of the room, and at himself in the looking-glass. He stooped and +kissed Billy on the forehead, and, rising from that, gave himself a +hangdog stare in the mirror, and soon in his own bed was sleeping the +sound sleep of health. + +He was faintly roused by the church bells, and lay still, lingering +with his sleep, his eyes closed, and his thoughts unshaped. As he became +slowly aware of the morning, the ringing and the light reached him, and +he waked wholly, and, still lying quiet, considered the strange room +filled with the bells and the sun of the winter's day. “Where have I +struck now?” he inquired; and as last night returned abruptly upon his +mind, he raised himself on his arm. + +There sat Responsibility in a chair, washed clean and dressed, watching +him. + +“You're awful late,” said Responsibility. “But I weren't a-going without +telling you good-bye.” + +“Go?” exclaimed Lin. “Go where? Yu' surely ain't leavin' me to eat +breakfast alone?” The cow-puncher made his voice very plaintive. Set +Responsibility free after all his trouble to catch him? This was more +than he could do! + +“I've got to go. If I'd thought you'd want for me to stay--why, you said +you was a-going by the early train!” + +“But the durned thing's got away on me,” said Lin, smiling sweetly from +the bed. + +“If I hadn't a-promised them--” + +“Who?” + +“Sidney Ellis and Pete Goode. Why, you know them; you grubbed with +them.” + +“Shucks!” + +“We're a-going to have fun to-day.” + +“Oh!” + +“For it's Christmas, an' we've bought some good cigars, an' Pete says +he'll learn me sure. O' course I've smoked some, you know. But I'd just +as leaves stayed with you if I'd only knowed sooner. I wish you lived +here. Did you smoke whole big cigars when you was beginning?” + +“Do you like flapjacks and maple syrup?” inquired the artful McLean. +“That's what I'm figuring on inside twenty minutes.” + +“Twenty minutes! If they'd wait--” + +“See here, Bill. They've quit expecting yu', don't yu' think? I'd ought +to waked, yu' see, but I slep' and slep', and kep' yu' from meetin' your +engagements, yu' see--for you couldn't go, of course. A man couldn't +treat a man that way now, could he?” + +“Course he couldn't,” said Billy, brightening. + +“And they wouldn't wait, yu' see. They wouldn't fool away Christmas, +that only comes onced a year, kickin' their heels and sayin' 'Where's +Billy?' They'd say, 'Bill has sure made other arrangements, which he'll +explain to us at his leesyure.' And they'd skip with the cigars.” + +The advocate paused, effectively, and from his bolster regarded Billy +with a convincing eye. + +“That's so,” said Billy. + +“And where would yu' be then, Bill? In the street, out of friends, out +of Christmas, and left both ways, no tobaccer and no flapjacks. Now, +Bill, what do yu' say to us putting up a Christmas deal together? Just +you and me?” + +“I'd like that,” said Billy. “Is it all day?” + +“I was thinkin' of all day,” said Lin. “I'll not make yu' do anything +yu'd rather not.” + +“Ah, they can smoke without me,” said Billy, with sudden acrimony. “I'll +see 'em to-morro'.” + +“That's you!” cried Mr. McLean. “Now, Bill, you hustle down and tell +them to keep a table for us. I'll get my clothes on and follow yu'.” + +The boy went, and Mr. McLean procured hot water and dressed himself, +tying his scarf with great care. “Wished I'd a clean shirt,” said he. +“But I don't look very bad. Shavin' yesterday afternoon was a good +move.” He picked up the arrow-head and the kinni-kinnic, and was +particular to store them in his safest pocket. “I ain't sure whether +you're crazy or not,” said he to the man in the looking-glass. “I ain't +never been sure.” And he slammed the door and went down-stairs. + +He found young Bill on guard over a table for four, with all the chairs +tilted against it as warning to strangers. No one sat at any other table +or came into the room, for it was late, and the place quite emptied of +breakfasters, and the several entertained waiters had gathered behind +Billy's important-looking back. Lin provided a thorough meal, and Billy +pronounced the flannel cakes superior to flapjacks, which were not upon +the bill of fare. + +“I'd like to see you often,” said he. “I'll come and see you if you +don't live too far.” + +“That's the trouble,” said the cow-puncher. “I do. Awful far.” He stared +out of the window. + +“Well, I might come some time. I wish you'd write me a letter. Can you +write?” “What's that? Can I write? Oh yes.” + +“I can write, an' I can read too. I've been to school in Sidney, +Nebraska, an' Magaw, Kansas, an' Salt Lake--that's the finest town +except Denver.” + +Billy fell into that cheerful strain of comment which, unreplied to, +yet goes on contented and self-sustaining, while Mr. McLean gave amiable +signs of assent, but chiefly looked out of the window; and when the now +interested waiter said respectfully that he desired to close the room, +they went out to the office, where the money was got out of the safe and +the bill paid. + +The streets were full of the bright sun, and seemingly at Denver's gates +stood the mountains sparkling; an air crisp and pleasant wafted from +their peaks; no smoke hung among the roofs, and the sky spread wide over +the city without a stain; it was holiday up among the chimneys and tall +buildings, and down among the quiet ground-stories below as well; and +presently from their scattered pinnacles through the town the bells +broke out against the jocund silence of the morning. + +“Don't you like music?” inquired Billy. + +“Yes,” said Lin. + +Ladies with their husbands and children were passing and meeting, +orderly yet gayer than if it were only Sunday, and the salutations of +Christmas came now and again to the cow-puncher's ears; but to-day, +possessor of his own share in this, Lin looked at every one with a sort +of friendly challenge, and young Billy talked along beside him. + +“Don't you think we could go in here?” Billy asked. A church door was +open, and the rich organ sounded through to the pavement. “They've good +music here, an' they keep it up without much talking between. I've been +in lots of times.” + +They went in and sat to hear the music. Better than the organ, it seemed +to them, were the harmonious voices raised from somewhere outside, like +unexpected visitants; and the pair sat in their back seat, too deep +in listening to the processional hymn to think of rising in decent +imitation of those around them. The crystal melody of the refrain +especially reached their understandings, and when for the fourth time +“Shout the glad tidings, exultingly sing,” pealed forth and ceased, both +the delighted faces fell. + +“Don't you wish there was more?” Billy whispered. + +“Wish there was a hundred verses,” answered Lin. + +But canticles and responses followed, with so little talking between +them they were held spellbound, seldom thinking to rise or kneel. +Lin's eyes roved over the church, dwelling upon the pillars in their +evergreen, the flowers and leafy wreaths, the texts of white and +gold. “'Peace, good-will towards men,'” he read. “That's so. Peace and +good-will. Yes, that's so. I expect they got that somewheres in the +Bible. It's awful good, and you'd never think of it yourself.” + +There was a touch on his arm, and a woman handed a book to him. “This is +the hymn we have now,” she whispered, gently; and Lin, blushing scarlet, +took it passively without a word. He and Billy stood up and held the +book together, dutifully reading the words: + + “It came upon the midnight clear, + That glorious song of old, + From angels bending near the earth + To touch their harps of gold; + Peace on the earth--” + +This tune was more beautiful than all, and Lin lost himself in it, +until he found Billy recalling him with a finger upon the words, the +concluding ones: + + “And the whole world sent back the song + Which now the angels sing.” + +The music rose and descended to its lovely and simple end; and, for a +second time in Denver, Lin brushed a hand across his eyes. He turned +his face from his neighbor, frowning crossly; and since the heart has +reasons which Reason does not know, he seemed to himself a fool; but +when the service was over and he came out, he repeated again, “'Peace +and good-will.' When I run on to the Bishop of Wyoming I'll tell him if +he'll preach on them words I'll be there.” + +“Couldn't we shoot your pistol now?” asked Billy. + +“Sure, boy. Ain't yu' hungry, though?” + +“No. I wish we were away off up there. Don't you?” + +“The mountains? They look pretty, so white! A heap better 'n houses. +Why, we'll go there! There's trains to Golden. We'll shoot around among +the foothills.” + +To Golden they immediately went, and after a meal there, wandered in the +open country until the cartridges were gone, the sun was low, and Billy +was walked off his young heels--a truth he learned complete in one +horrid moment, and battled to conceal. + +“Lame!” he echoed, angrily. “I ain't.” + +“Shucks!” said Lin, after the next ten steps. “You are, and both feet.” + +“Tell you, there's stones here, an' I'm just a-skipping them.” + +Lin, briefly, took the boy in his arms and carried him to Golden. +“I'm played out myself,” he said, sitting in the hotel and looking +lugubriously at Billy on a bed. “And I ain't fit to have charge of a +hog.” He came and put his hand on the boy's head. + +“I'm not sick,” said the cripple. “I tell you I'm bully. You wait an' +see me eat dinner.” + +But Lin had hot water and cold water and salt, and was an hour upon his +knees bathing the hot feet. And then Billy could not eat dinner! + +There was a doctor in Golden; but in spite of his light prescription +and most reasonable observations, Mr. McLean passed a foolish night of +vigil, while Billy slept, quite well at first, and, as the hours passed, +better and better. In the morning he was entirely brisk, though stiff. + +“I couldn't work quick to-day,” he said. “But I guess one day won't lose +me my trade.” + +“How d' yu' mean?” asked Lin. + +“Why, I've got regulars, you know. Sidney Ellis an' Pete Goode has +theirs, an' we don't cut each other. I've got Mr. Daniels an' Mr. Fisher +an' lots, an' if you lived in Denver I'd shine your boots every day for +nothing. I wished you lived in Denver.” + +“Shine my boots? Yu'll never! And yu' don't black Daniels or Fisher, or +any of the outfit.” + +“Why, I'm doing first-rate,” said Billy, surprised at the swearing into +which Mr. McLean now burst. “An' I ain't big enough to get to make money +at any other job.” + +“I want to see that engine-man,” muttered Lin. “I don't like your +smokin' friend.” + +“Pete Goode? Why, he's awful smart. Don't you think he's smart?” + +“Smart's nothin',” observed Mr. McLean. + +“Pete has learned me and Sidney a lot,” pursued Billy, engagingly. + +“I'll bet he has!” growled the cow-puncher; and again Billy was taken +aback at his language. + +It was not so simple, this case. To the perturbed mind of Mr. McLean it +grew less simple during that day at Golden, while Billy recovered, and +talked, and ate his innocent meals. The cow-puncher was far too wise to +think for a single moment of restoring the runaway to his debauched +and shiftless parents. Possessed of some imagination, he went through +a scene in which he appeared at the Lusk threshold with Billy and +forgiveness, and intruded upon a conjugal assault and battery. “Shucks!” + said he. “The kid would be off again inside a week. And I don't want him +there, anyway.” + +Denver, upon the following day, saw the little bootblack again at his +corner, with his trade not lost; but near him stood a tall, singular +man, with hazel eyes and a sulky expression. And citizens during that +week noticed, as a new sight in the streets, the tall man and the little +boy walking together. Sometimes they would be in shops. The boy seemed +as happy as possible, talking constantly, while the man seldom said a +word, and his face was serious. + +Upon New-year's Eve Governor Barker was overtaken by Mr. McLean riding a +horse up Hill Street, Cheyenne. + +“Hello!” said Barker, staring humorously through his glasses. “Have a +good drunk?” + +“Changed my mind,” said Lin, grinning. “Proves I've got one. Struck +Christmas all right, though.” + +“Who's your friend?” inquired his Excellency. + +“This is Mister Billy Lusk. Him and me have agreed that towns ain't nice +to live in. If Judge Henry's foreman and his wife won't board him at +Sunk Creek--why, I'll fix it somehow.” + +The cow-puncher and his Responsibility rode on together toward the open +plain. + +“Sufferin Moses!” remarked his Excellency. + + + + + +SEPAR'S VIGILANTE + +We had fallen half asleep, my pony and I, as we went jogging and +jogging through the long sunny afternoon. Our hills of yesterday were +a pale-blue coast sunk almost away behind us, and ahead our goal +lay shining, a little island of houses in this quiet mid-ocean of +sage-brush. For two hours it had looked as clear and near as now, rising +into sight across the huge dead calm and sinking while we travelled our +undulating, imperceptible miles. The train had come and gone invisibly, +except for its slow pillar of smoke I had watched move westward against +Wyoming's stainless sky. Though I was still far off, the water-tank and +other buildings stood out plain and complete to my eyes, like children's +blocks arranged and forgotten on the floor. So I rode along, hypnotized +by the sameness of the lazy, splendid plain, and almost unaware of the +distant rider, till, suddenly, he was close and hailing me. + +“They've caved!” he shouted. + +“Who?” I cried, thus awakened. + +“Ah, the fool company,” said he, quieting his voice as he drew near. +“They've shed their haughtiness,” he added, confidingly, as if I must +know all about it. + +“Where did they learn that wisdom?” I asked, not knowing in the least. + +“Experience,” he called over his shoulder (for already we had met and +passed); “nothing like experience for sweating the fat off the brain.” + +He yelled me a brotherly good-bye, and I am sorry never to have known +more of him, for I incline to value any stranger so joyous. But now I +waked the pony and trotted briskly, surmising as to the company and its +haughtiness. I had been viewing my destination across the sagebrush for +so spun-out a time that (as constantly in Wyoming journeys) the +emotion of arrival had evaporated long before the event, and I welcomed +employment for my otherwise high-and-dry mind. Probably he meant the +railroad company; certainly something large had happened. Even as I +dismounted at the platform another hilarious cow-puncher came out of +the station, and, at once remarking, “They're going to leave us alone,” + sprang on his horse and galloped to the corrals down the line, where +some cattle were being loaded into a train. I went inside for my mail, +and here were four more cow-punchers playing with the agent. They had +got a letter away from him, and he wore his daily look of anxiety to +appreciate the jests of these rollicking people. “Read it!” they said to +me; and I did read the private document, and learned that the railroad +was going to waive its right to enforce law and order here, and would +trust to Separ's good feeling. “Nothing more,” the letter ran, “will be +done about the initial outrage or the subsequent vandalisms. We shall +pass over our wasted outlay in the hope that a policy of friendship will +prove our genuine desire to benefit that section. + +“'Initial outrage,'” quoted one of the agent' large playmates. “Ain't +they furgivin'?” + +“Well,” said I, “you would have some name for it yourself if you sent a +deputy sheriff to look after your rights, and he came back tied to the +cow-catcher!” + +The man smiled luxuriously over this memory. + +“We didn't hurt him none. Just returned him to his home. Hear about the +label Honey Wiggin pinned on to him? 'Send us along one dozen as per +sample.' Honey's quaint! Yes,” he drawled judicially, “I'd be mad at +that. But if you're making peace with a man because it's convenient why, +your words must be pleasanter than if you really felt pleasant.” He took +the paper from me, and read, sardonically: “'Subsequent vandalisms... +wasted outlay.' I suppose they run this station from charity to the +cattle. Saves the poor things walking so far to the other railroad +'Policy of friendship... genuine desire'--oh mouth-wash!” And, shaking +his bold, clever head, he daintily flattened the letter upon the head of +the agent. “Tubercle,” said he (this was their name for the agent, who +had told all of us about his lungs), “it ain't your fault we saw their +fine letter. They just intended you should give it out how they wouldn't +bother us any more, and then we'd act square. The boys'll sit up late +over this joke.” + +Then they tramped to their horses and rode away. The spokesman had +hit the vital point unerringly; for cow-punchers are shrewdly alive +to frankness, and it often draws out the best that is in them; but its +opposite affects them unfavorably; and I, needing sleep, sighed to +think of their late sitting up over that joke. I walked to the board box +painted “Hotel Brunswick”--“hotel” in small italics and “Brunswick” in +enormous capitals, the N and the S wrong side up. + +Here sat a girl outside the door, alone. Her face was broad, wholesome, +and strong, and her eyes alert and sweet. As I came she met me with a +challenging glance of good-will. Those women who journeyed along the +line in the wake of payday to traffic with the men employed a stare well +known; but this straight look seemed like the greeting of some pleasant +young cowboy. In surprise I forgot to be civil, and stepped foolishly by +her to see about supper and lodging. + +At the threshold I perceived all lodging bespoken. On each of the four +beds lay a coat or pistol or other article of dress, and I must lodge +myself. There were my saddle-blankets--rather wet; or Lin McLean might +ride in to-night on his way to Riverside; or perhaps down at the corrals +I could find some other acquaintance whose habit of washing I trusted +and whose bed I might share. Failing these expedients, several +empties stood idle upon a siding, and the box-like darkness of these +freight-cars was timely. Nights were short now. Camping out, the dawn by +three o'clock would flow like silver through the universe, and, sinking +through my blankets, remorselessly pervade my buried hair and brain. But +with clean straw in the bottom of an empty, I could sleep my fill until +five or six. I decided for the empty, and opened the supper-room door, +where the table was set for more than enough to include me; but the +smell of the butter that awaited us drove me out of the Hotel Brunswick +to spend the remaining minutes in the air. + +“I was expecting you,” said the girl. “Well, if I haven't frightened +him!” She laughed so delightfully that I recovered and laughed too. +“Why,” she explained, “I just knew you'd not stay in there. Which side +are you going to butter your bread this evening?” + +“You had smelt it?” said I, still cloudy with surprise. “Yes. +Unquestionably. Very rancid.” She glanced oddly at me, and, with less +fellowship in her tone, said, “I was going to warn you--” when suddenly, +down at the corrals, the boys began to shoot at large. “Oh, dear!” she +cried, starting up. “There's trouble.” + +“Not trouble,” I assured her. “Too many are firing at once to be in +earnest. And you would be safe here.” + +“Me? A lady without escort? Well, I should reckon so! Leastways, we +are respected where I was raised. I was anxious for the gentlemen ovah +yondah. Shawhan, K. C. branch of the Louavull an' Nashvull, is my home.” + The words “Louisville and Nashville” spoke creamily of Blue-grass. + +“Unescorted all that way!” I exclaimed. + +“Isn't it awful?” said she, tilting her head with a laugh, and showing +the pistol she carried. “But we've always been awful in Kentucky. Now I +suppose New York would never speak to poor me as it passed by?” And she +eyed me with capable, good-humored satire. + +“Why New York?” I demanded. “Guess again.” + +“Well,” she debated, “well, cowboy clothes and city language--he's +English!” she burst out; and then she turned suddenly red, and whispered +to herself, reprovingly, “If I'm not acting rude!” + +“Oh!” said I, rather familiarly. + +“It was, sir; and please to excuse me. If you had started joking so +free with me, I'd have been insulted. When I saw you--the hat and +everything--I took you--You see I've always been that used to talking +to--to folks around!” Her bright face saddened, memories evidently rose +before her, and her eyes grew distant. + +I wished to say, “Treat me as 'folks around,'” but this tall country +girl had put us on other terms. On discovering I was not “folks around,” + she had taken refuge in deriding me, but swiftly feeling no solid ground +there, she drew a firm, clear woman's line between us. Plainly she was a +comrade of men, in her buoyant innocence secure, yet by no means in the +dark as to them. + +“Yes, unescorted two thousand miles,” she resumed, “and never as far +as twenty from home till last Tuesday. I expect you'll have to be +scandalized, for I'd do it right over again to-morrow.” + +“You've got me all wrong,” said I. “I'm not English; I'm not New York. +I am good American, and not bounded by my own farm either. No sectional +line, or Mason and Dixon, or Missouri River tattoos me. But you, when +you say United States, you mean United Kentucky!” + +“Did you ever!” said she, staring at what was Greek to her--as it is to +most Americans. “And so if you had a sister back East, and she and you +were all there was of you any more, and she hadn't seen you since--not +since you first took to staying out nights, and she started to visit +you, you'd not tell her 'Fie for shame'?” + +“I'd travel my money's length to meet her!” said I. + +A wave of pain crossed her face. “Nate didn't know,” she said then, +lightly. “You see, Nate's only a boy, and regular thoughtless about +writing.” + +Ah! So this Nate never wrote, and his sister loved and championed him! +Many such stray Nates and Bobs and Bills galloped over Wyoming, lost and +forgiven. + +“I'm starting for him in the Buffalo stage,” continued the girl. + +“Then I'll have your company on a weary road,” said I; for my journey +was now to that part of the cattle country. + +“To Buffalo?” she said, quickly. “Then maybe you--maybe--My brother is +Nate Buckner.” She paused. “Then you're not acquainted with him?” + +“I may have seen him,” I answered, slowly. “But faces and names out here +come and go.” + +I knew him well enough. He was in jail, convicted of forgery last week, +waiting to go to the penitentiary for five years. And even this wild +border community that hated law courts and punishments had not been +sorry, for he had cheated his friends too often, and the wide charity +of the sage-brush does not cover that sin. Beneath his pretty looks and +daring skill with horses they had found vanity and a cold, false heart; +but his sister could not. Here she was, come to find him after lonely +years, and to this one soul that loved him in the world how was I to +tell the desolation and the disgrace? I was glad to hear her ask me if +the stage went soon after supper. + +“Now isn't that a bother?” said she, when I answered that it did not +start till morning. She glanced with rueful gayety at the hotel. “Never +mind,” she continued, briskly; “I'm used to things. I'll just sit up +somewhere. Maybe the agent will let me stay in the office. You're sure +all that shooting's only jollification?” + +“Certain,” I said. “But I'll go and see.” + +“They always will have their fun,” said she. “But I hate to have a poor +boy get hurt--even him deserving it!” + +“They use pistols instead of fire-crackers,” said I. “But you must never +sleep in that office. I'll see what we can do.” + +“Why, you're real kind!” she exclaimed, heartily. And I departed, +wondering what I ought to do. + +Perhaps I should have told you before that Separ was a place once--a +sort of place; but you will relish now, I am convinced, the pithy fable +of its name. + +Midway between two sections of this still unfinished line that, rail +after rail and mile upon mile, crawled over the earth's face visibly +during the constructing hours of each new day, lay a camp. To this point +these unjoined pieces were heading, and here at length they met. Camp +Separation it had been fitly called, but how should the American +railway man afford time to say that? Separation was pretty and apt, +but needless; and with the sloughing of two syllables came the brief, +businesslike result--Separ. Chicago, 1137-1/2 miles. It was labelled on +a board large almost as the hut station. A Y-switch, two sidings, the +fat water-tank and steam-pump, and a section-house with three trees +before it composed the north side. South of the track were no trees. +There was one long siding by the corrals and cattle-chute, there were +a hovel where plug tobacco and canned goods were for sale, a shed where +you might get your horse shod, a wire fence that at shipping times +enclosed bales of pressed hay, the hotel, the stage stable, and the +little station--some seven shanties all told. Between them were spaces +of dust, the immediate plains engulfed them, and through their midst +ran the far-vanishing railroad, to which they hung like beads on a great +string from horizon to horizon. A great east-and-west string, one end +in the rosy sun at morning, and one in the crimson sun at night. Beyond +each sky-line lay cities and ports where the world went on out of +sight and hearing. This lone steel thread had been stretched across the +continent because it was the day of haste and hope, when dollars seemed +many and hard times were few; and from the Yellowstone to the Rio Grande +similar threads were stretching, and little Separs by dispersed hundreds +hung on them, as it were in space eternal. Can you wonder that vigorous +young men with pistols should, when they came to such a place, shoot +them off to let loose their unbounded joy of living? + +And yet it was not this merely that began the custom, but an error of +the agent's. The new station was scarce created when one morning Honey +Wiggin with the Virginian had galloped innocently in from the round-up +to telegraph for some additional cars. + +“I'm dead on to you!” squealed the official, dropping flat at the sight +of them; and bang went his gun at them. They, most naturally, thought +it was a maniac, and ran for their lives among the supports of the +water-tank, while he remained anchored with his weapon, crouched behind +the railing that fenced him and his apparatus from the laity; and some +fifteen strategic minutes passed before all parties had crawled forth +to an understanding, and the message was written and paid for and +comfortably despatched. The agent was an honest creature, but of tame +habits, sent for the sake of his imperfect lungs to this otherwise +inappropriate air. He had lived chiefly in mid-West towns, a serious +reader of our comic weeklies; hence the apparition of Wiggin and the +Virginian had reminded him sickeningly of bandits. He had express money +in the safe, he explained to them, and this was a hard old country, +wasn't it? and did they like good whiskey? + +They drank his whiskey, but it was not well to have mentioned that +about the bandits. Both were aware that when shaved and washed of their +round-up grime they could look very engaging. The two cow-punchers rode +out, not angry, but grieved that a man come here to dwell among them +should be so tactless. + +“If we don't get him used to us,” observed the Virginian, “he and his +pop-gun will be guttin' some blameless man.” + +Forthwith the cattle country proceeded to get the agent used to it. +The news went over the sage-brush from Belle Fourche to Sweetwater, +and playful, howling horsemen made it their custom to go rioting +with pistols round the ticket office, educating the agent. His lungs +improved, and he came dimly to smile at this life which he did not +understand. But the company discerned no humor whatever in having its +water-tank perforated, which happened twice; and sheriffs and deputies +and other symptoms of authority began to invest Separ. Now what +should authority do upon these free plains, this wilderness of +do-as-you-please, where mere breathing the air was like inebriation? The +large, headlong children who swept in from the sage-brush and out +again meant nothing that they called harm until they found themselves +resisted. Then presently happened that affair of the cow-catcher; and +later a too-zealous marshal, come about a mail-car they had +side-tracked and held with fiddles, drink, and petticoats, met his death +accidentally, at which they were sincerely sorry for about five minutes. +They valued their own lives as little, and that lifts them forever +from baseness at least. So the company, concluding such things must be +endured for a while yet, wrote their letter, and you have seen how wrong +the letter went. All it would do would be from now on to fasten upon +Separ its code of recklessness; to make shooting the water-tank (for +example) part of a gentleman's deportment when he showed himself in +town. + +It was not now the season of heavy shipping; to-night their work would +be early finished, and then they were likely to play after their manner. +To arrive in such a place on her way to her brother, the felon in jail, +made the girl's journey seem doubly forlorn to me as I wandered down to +the corrals. + +A small, bold voice hailed me. “Hello, you!” it said; and here was +Billy Lusk, aged nine, in boots and overalls, importantly useless with a +stick, helping the men prod the steers at the chute. + +“Thought you were at school,” said I. + +“Ah, school's quit,” returned Billy, and changed the subject. “Say, +Lin's hunting you. He's angling to eat at the hotel. I'm grubbing with +the outfit.” And Billy resumed his specious activity. + +Mr. McLean was in the ticket-office, where the newspaper had transiently +reminded him of politics. “Wall Street,” he was explaining to the agent, +“has been lunched on by them Ross-childs, and they're moving on. Feeding +along to Chicago. We want--” Here he noticed me and, dragging his +gauntlet off, shook my hand with his lusty grasp. + +“Your eldest son just said you were in haste to find me,” I remarked. + +“Lose you, he meant. The kid gets his words twisted.” + +“Didn't know you were a father, Mr. McLean,” simpered the agent. + +Lin fixed his eye on the man. “And you don't know it now,” said he. Then +he removed his eye. “Let's grub,” he added to me. My friend did not walk +to the hotel, but slowly round and about, with a face overcast. “Billy +is a good kid,” he said at length, and, stopping, began to kick small +mounds in the dust. Politics floated lightly over him, but here was a +matter dwelling with him, heavy and real. “He's dead stuck on being a +cow-puncher,” he presently said. + +“Some day--” I began. + +“He don't want to wait that long,” Lin said, and smiled affectionately. +“And, anyhow, what is 'some day'? Some day we punchers will not be here. +The living will be scattered, and the dead--well, they'll be all right. +Have yu' studied the wire fence? It's spreading to catch us like nets do +the salmon in the Columbia River. No more salmon, no more cow-punchers,” + stated Mr. McLean, sententiously; and his words made me sad, though I +know that progress cannot spare land and water for such things. “But +Billy,” Lin resumed, “has agreed to school again when it starts up in +the fall. He takes his medicine because I want him to.” Affection crept +anew over the cow-puncher's face. “He can learn books with the quickest +when he wants, that Bear Creek school-marm says. But he'd ought to have +a regular mother till--till I can do for him, yu' know. It's onwholesome +him seeing and hearing the boys--and me, and me when I forget!--but +shucks! how can I fix it? Billy was sure enough dropped and deserted. +But when I found him the little calf could run and notice like +everything!” + +“I should hate your contract, Lin,” said I. “Adopting's a touch-and-go +business even when a man has a home.” + +“I'll fill the contract, you bet! I wish the little son-of-a-gun was +mine. I'm a heap more natural to him than that pair of drunkards that +got him. He likes me: I think he does. I've had to lick him now and +then, but Lord! his badness is all right--not sneaky. I'll take him +hunting next month, and then the foreman's wife at Sunk Creek boards him +till school. Only when they move, Judge Henry'll make his Virginia man +foreman--and he's got no woman to look after Billy, yu' see.” + +“He's asking one hard enough,” said I, digressing. + +“Oh yes; asking! Talk of adopting--” said Mr. McLean, and his wide-open, +hazel eyes looked away as he coughed uneasily. Then abruptly looking at +me again, he said: “Don't you get off any more truck about eldest son +and that, will yu', friend? The boys are joshing me now--not that I +care for what might easy enough be so, but there's Billy. Maybe he'd +not mind, but maybe he would after a while; and I am kind o' set +on--well--he didn't have a good time till he shook that home of his, and +I'm going to make this old bitch of a world pay him what she owes him, +if I can. Now you'll drop joshing, won't yu'?” His forehead was moist +over getting the thing said and laying bare so much of his soul. + +“And so the world owes us a good time, Lin?” said I. + +He laughed shortly. “She must have been dead broke, then, quite a while, +you bet! Oh no. Maybe I used to travel on that basis. But see here” + (Lin laid his hand on my shoulder), “if you can't expect a good time +for yourself in reason, you can sure make the kids happy out o' reason, +can't yu'?” + +I fairly opened my mouth at him. + +“Oh yes,” he said, laughing in that short way again (and he took his +hand off my shoulder); “I've been thinking a wonderful lot since we met +last. I guess I know some things yu' haven't got to yet yourself--Why, +there's a girl!” + +“That there is!” said I. “And certainly the world owes her a better--” + +“She's a fine-looker,” interrupted Mr. McLean, paying me no further +attention. Here the decrepit, straw-hatted proprietor of the Hotel +Brunswick stuck his beard out of the door and uttered “Supper!” with a +shrill croak, at which the girl rose. + +“Come!” said Lin, “let's hurry!” + +But I hooked my fingers in his belt, and in spite of his plaintive oaths +at my losing him the best seat at the table, told him in three words the +sister's devoted journey. + +“Nate Buckner!” he exclaimed. “Him with a decent sister!” + +“It's the other way round,” said I. “Her with him for a brother!” + +“He goes to the penitentiary this week,” said Lin. “He had no more cash +to stake his lawyer with, and the lawyer lost interest in him. So his +sister could have waited for her convict away back at Joliet, and saved +time and money. How did she act when yu' told her?” + +“I've not told her.” + +“Not? Too kind o' not your business? Well, well! You'd ought to know +better 'n me. Only it don't seem right to let her--no, sir; it's not +right, either. Put it her brother was dead (and Miss. Fligg's husband +would like dearly to make him dead), you'd not let her come slap up +against the news unwarned. You would tell her he was sick, and start her +gently.” + +“Death's different,” said I. + +“Shucks! And she's to find him caged, and waiting for stripes and a +shaved head? How d' yu' know she mightn't hate that worse 'n if he'd +been just shot like a man in a husband scrape, instead of jailed like a +skunk for thieving? No, sir, she mustn't. Think of how it'll be. Quick +as the stage pulls up front o' the Buffalo post-office, plump she'll be +down ahead of the mail-sacks, inquiring after her brother, and all that +crowd around staring. Why, we can't let her do that; she can't do that. +If you don't feel so interfering, I'm good for this job myself.” And Mr. +McLean took the lead and marched jingling in to supper. + +The seat he had coveted was vacant. On either side the girl were empty +chairs, two or three; for with that clean, shy respect of the frontier +that divines and evades a good woman, the dusty company had sat itself +at a distance, and Mr. McLean's best seat was open to him. Yet he had +veered away to the other side of the table, and his usually roving eye +attempted no gallantry. He ate sedately, and it was not until after long +weeks and many happenings that Miss Buckner told Lin she had known he +was looking at her through the whole of this meal. The straw-hatted +proprietor came and went, bearing beefsteak hammered flat to make it +tender. The girl seemed the one happy person among us; for supper was +going forward with the invariable alkali etiquette, all faces brooding +and feeding amid a disheartening silence as of guilt or bereavement that +springs from I have never been quite sure what--perhaps reversion to the +native animal absorbed in his meat, perhaps a little from every guest's +uneasiness lest he drink his coffee wrong or stumble in the accepted +uses of the fork. Indeed, a diffident, uncleansed youth nearest Miss +Buckner presently wiped his mouth upon the cloth; and Mr. McLean, +knowing better than that, eyed him for this conduct in the presence of a +lady. The lively strength of the butter must, I think, have reached all +in the room; at any rate, the table-cloth lad, troubled by Mr. McLean's +eye, now relieved the general silence by observing, chattily: + +“Say, friends, that butter ain't in no trance.” + +“If it's too rich for you,” croaked the enraged proprietor, “use +axle-dope.” + +The company continued gravely feeding, while I struggled to preserve +the decorum of sadness, and Miss Buckner's face was also unsteady. But +sternness mantled in the countenance of Mr. McLean, until the harmless +boy, embarrassed to pieces, offered the untasted smelling-dish to Lin, +to me, helped himself, and finally thrust the plate at the girl, saying, +in his Texas idiom, + +“Have butter.” + +He spoke in the shell voice of adolescence, and on “butter” cracked an +octave up into the treble. Miss Buckner was speechless, and could only +shake her head at the plate. + +Mr. McLean, however, thought she was offended. “She wouldn't choose for +none,” he said to the youth, with appalling calm. “Thank yu' most to +death.” + +“I guess,” fluted poor Texas, in a dove falsetto, “it would go slicker +rubbed outside than swallered.” + +At this Miss Buckner broke from the table and fled out of the house. + +“You don't seem to know anything,” observed Mr. McLean. “What toy-shop +did you escape from?” + +“Wind him up! Wind him up!” said the proprietor, sticking his head in +from the kitchen. + +“Ah, what's the matter with this outfit?” screamed the boy, furiously. +“Can't yu' leave a man eat? Can't yu' leave him be? You make me sick!” + And he flounced out with his young boots. + +All the while the company fed on unmoved. Presently one remarked, + +“Who's hiring him?” + +“The C. Y. outfit,” said another. + +“Half-circle L.,” a third corrected. + +“I seen one like him onced,” said the first, taking his hat from beneath +his chair. “Up in the Black Hills he was. Eighteen seventy-nine. Gosh!” + And he wandered out upon his business. One by one the others also +silently dispersed. + +Upon going out, Lin and I found the boy pacing up and down, eagerly in +talk with Miss Buckner. She had made friends with him, and he was now +smoothed down and deeply absorbed, being led by her to tell her about +himself. But on Lin's approach his face clouded, and he made off for the +corrals, displaying a sullen back, while I was presenting Mr. McLean to +the lady. + +Overtaken by his cow-puncher shyness, Lin was greeting her with ungainly +ceremony, when she began at once, “You'll excuse me, but I just had to +have my laugh.” + +“That's all right, m'm,” said he; “don't mention it.” + +“For that boy, you know--” + +“I'll fix him, m'm. He'll not insult yu' no more. I'll speak to him.” + +“Now, please don't! Why--why--you were every bit as bad!” Miss Buckner +pealed out, joyously. “It was the two of you. Oh dear!” + +Mr. McLean looked crestfallen. “I had no--I didn't go to--” + +“Why, there was no harm! To see him mean so well and you mean so well, +and--I know I ought to behave better!” + +“No, yu' oughtn't!” said Lin, with sudden ardor; and then, in a voice of +deprecation, “You'll think us plumb ignorant.” + +“You know enough to be kind to folks,” said she. + +“We'd like to.” + +“It's the only thing makes the world go round!” she declared, with an +emotion that I had heard in her tone once or twice already. But she +caught herself up, and said gayly to me, “And where's that house you +were going to build for a lone girl to sleep in?” + +“I'm afraid the foundations aren't laid yet,” said I. + +“Now you gentlemen needn't bother about me.” + +“We'll have to, m'm. You ain't used to Separ.” + +“Oh, I am no--tenderfoot, don't you call them?” She whipped out her +pistol, and held it at the cow-puncher, laughing. + +This would have given no pleasure to me; but over Lin's features went a +glow of delight, and he stood gazing at the pointed weapon and the girl +behind it. “My!” he said, at length, almost in a whisper, “she's got the +drop on me!” + +“I reckon I'd be afraid to shoot that one of yours,” said Miss Buckner. +“But this hits a target real good and straight at fifteen yards.” And +she handed it to him for inspection. + +He received it, hugely grinning, and turned it over and over. “My!” + he murmured again. “Why, shucks!” He looked at Miss Buckner with stark +rapture, caressing the polished revolver at the same time with a fond, +unconscious thumb. “You hold it just as steady as I could,” he said with +pride, and added, insinuatingly, “I could learn yu' the professional +drop in a morning. This here is a little dandy gun.” + +“You'd not trade, though,” said she, “for all your flattery.” + +“Will yu' trade?” pounced Lin. “Won't yu'?” + +“Now, Mr. McLean, I am afraid you're thoughtless. How could a girl like +me ever hold that awful.45 Colt steady?” + +“She knows the brands, too!” cried Lin, in ecstasy. “See here,” he +remarked to me with a manner that smacked of command, “we're losing time +right now. You go and tell the agent to hustle and fix his room up for a +lady, and I'll bring her along.” + +I found the agent willing, of course, to sleep on the floor of the +office. The toy station was also his home. The front compartment held +the ticket and telegraph and mail and express chattels, and the railing, +and room for the public to stand; through a door you then passed to +the sitting, dining, and sleeping box; and through another to a +cooking-stove in a pigeon-hole. Here flourished the agent and his lungs, +and here the company's strict orders bade him sleep in charge; so +I helped him put his room to rights. But we need not have hurried +ourselves. Mr. McLean was so long in bringing the lady that I went +out and found him walking and talking with her, while fifty yards away +skulked poor Texas, alone. This boy's name was, like himself, of the +somewhat unexpected order, being Manassas Donohoe. + +As I came towards the new friends they did not appear to be joking, and +on seeing me Miss Buckner said to Lin, “Did he know?” + +Lin hesitated. + +“You did know!” she exclaimed, but lost her resentment at once, and +continued, very quietly and with a friendly tone, “I reckon you don't +like to have to tell folks bad news.” + +It was I that now hesitated. + +“Not to a strange girl, anyway!” said she. “Well, now I have good news +to tell you. You would not have given me any shock if you had said you +knew about poor Nate, for that's the reason--Of course those things +can't be secrets! Why, he's only twenty, sir! How should he know about +this world? He hadn't learned the first little thing when he left +home five years ago. And I am twenty-three--old enough to be Nate's +grandmother, he's that young and thoughtless. He couldn't ever realize +bad companions when they came around. See that!” She showed me a paper, +taking it out like a precious thing, as indeed it was; for it was a +pardon signed by Governor Barker. “And the Governor has let me carry +it to Nate myself. He won't know a thing about it till I tell him. The +Governor was real kind, and we will never forget him. I reckon Nate must +have a mustache by now?” said she to Lin. + +“Yes,” Lin answered, gruffly, looking away from her, “he has got a +mustache all right.” + +“He'll be glad to see you,” said I, for something to say. + +“Of course he will! How many hours did you say we will be?” she asked +Lin, turning from me again, for Mr. McLean had not been losing time. It +was plain that between these two had arisen a freemasonry from which I +was already shut out. Her woman's heart had answered his right impulse +to tell her about her brother, and I had been found wanting! + +So now she listened over again to the hours of stage jolting that +“we” had before us, and that lay between her and Nate. “We would be +four--herself, Lin, myself, and the boy Billy.” Was Billy the one at +supper? Oh no; just Billy Lusk, of Laramie. “He's a kid I'm taking up +the country,” Lin explained. “Ain't you most tuckered out?” + +“Oh, me!” she confessed, with a laugh and a sigh. + +There again! She had put aside my solicitude lightly, but was willing +Lin should know her fatigue. Yet, fatigue and all, she would not sleep +in the agent's room. At sight of it and the close quarters she drew back +into the outer office, so prompted by that inner, unsuspected strictness +she had shown me before. + +“Come out!” she cried, laughing. “Indeed, I thank you. But I can't have +you sleep on this hard floor out here. No politeness, now! Thank you +ever so much. I'm used to roughing it pretty near as well as if I was--a +cowboy!” And she glanced at Lin. “They're calling forty-seven,” she +added to the agent. + +“That's me,” he said, coming out to the telegraph instrument. “So you're +one of us?” + +“I didn't know forty-seven meant Separ,” said I. “How in the world do +you know that?” + +“I didn't. I heard forty-seven, forty-seven, forty-seven, start and go +right along, so I guessed they wanted him, and he couldn't hear them +from his room.” + +“Can yu' do astronomy and Spanish too?” inquired the proud and smiling +McLean. + +“Why, it's nothing! I've been day operator back home. Why is a deputy +coming through on a special engine?” + +“Please don't say it out loud!” quavered the agent, as the machine +clicked its news. + +“Yu' needn't be scared of a girl,” said Lin. “Another sheriff! So +they're not quit bothering us yet.” + +However, this meddling was not the company's, but the county's; a +sheriff sent to arrest, on a charge of murder, a man named Trampas, +said to be at the Sand Hill Ranch. That was near Rawhide, two stations +beyond, and the engine might not stop at Separ, even to water. So here +was no molesting of Separ's liberties. + +“All the same,” Lin said, for pistols now and then still sounded at the +corrals, “the boys'll not understand that till it's explained, and they +may act wayward first. I'd feel easier if you slept here,” he urged +to the girl. But she would not. “Well, then, we must rustle some other +private place for you. How's the section-house?” + +“Rank,” said the agent, “since those Italians used it. The pump engineer +has been scouring, but he's scared to bunk there yet himself.” + +“Too bad you couldn't try my plan of a freight-car!” said I. + +“An empty?” she cried. “Is there a clean one?” + +“You've sure never done that?” Lin burst out. + +“So you're scandalized,” said she, punishing him instantly. “I reckon it +does take a decent girl to shock you.” And while she stood laughing +at him with robust irony, poor Lin began to stammer that he meant no +offence. “Why, to be sure you didn't!” said she. “But I do enjoy you +real thoroughly.” + +“Well, m'm,” protested the wincing cow-puncher, driven back to +addressing her as “ma'am,” “we ain't used--” + +“Don't tangle yourself up worse, Mr. McLean. No more am I 'used.' I have +never slept in an empty in my life. And why is that? Just because I've +never had to. And there's the difference between you boys and us. You do +lots of things you don't like, and tell us. And we put up with lots of +things we don't like, but we never let you find out. I know you meant +no offense,” she continued, heartily, softening towards her crushed +protector, “because you're a gentleman. And lands! I'm not complaining +about an empty. That will be rich--if I can have the door shut.” + +Upon this she went out to view the cars, Mr. McLean hovering behind her +with a devoted, uneasy countenance, and frequently muttering “Shucks!” + while the agent and I followed with a lamp, for the dark was come. With +our help she mounted into the first car, and then into the next, taking +the lamp. And while she scanned the floor and corners, and slid the door +back and forth, Lin whispered in my ear: “Her name's Jessamine. She +told me. Don't yu' like that name?” So I answered him, “Yes, very much,” + thinking that some larger flower--but still a flower--might have been +more apt. + +“Nobody seems to have slept in these,” said she, stepping down; and on +learning that even the tramp avoided Separ when he could, she exclaimed, +“What lodging could be handier than this! Only it would be so cute if +you had a Louavull an' Nashvull car,” said she. “Twould seem like my old +Kentucky home!” And laughing rather sweetly at her joke, she held +the lamp up to read the car's lettering. “'D. and R. G.' Oh, that's +a way-off stranger! I reckon they're all strange.” She went along the +train with her lamp. “Yes, 'B. and M.' and 'S. C. and P.' Oh, this is +rich! Nate will laugh when he hears. I'll choose 'C., B. and Q.' That's +a little nearer my country. What time does the stage start? Porter, +please wake 'C., B. and Q.' at six, sharp,” said she to Lin. + +From this point of the evening on, I think of our doings--their +doings--with a sort of unchanging homesickness. Nothing like them can +ever happen again, I know; for it's all gone--settled, sobered, and +gone. And whatever wholesomer prose of good fortune waits in our cup, +how I thank my luck for this swallow of frontier poetry which I came in +time for! + +To arrange some sort of bed for her was the next thing, and we made a +good shake-down--clean straw and blankets and a pillow, and the agent +would have brought sheets; but though she would not have these, she did +not resist--what do you suppose?--a looking-glass for next morning! +And we got a bucket of water and her valise. It was all one to her, +she said, in what car Lin and I put up; and let it be next door, by all +means, if it pleased him to think he could watch over her safety better +so; and she shut herself in, bidding us good-night. We began spreading +straw and blankets for ourselves, when a whistle sounded far and long, +and its tone rose in pitch as it came. + +“I'll get him to run right to the corrals,” said the agent, “so the +sheriff can tell the boys he's not after them.” + +“That'll convince 'em he is,” said Lin. “Stop him here, or let him go +through.” + +But we were not to steer the course that events took now. The rails +of the main line beside us brightened in wavering parallels as the +headlight grew down upon us, and in this same moment the shootings at +the corrals chorused in a wild, hilarious threat. The burden of the +coming engine heavily throbbed in the air and along the steel, and met +and mixed with the hard, light beating of hoofs. The sounds approached +together like a sort of charge, and I stepped between the freight-cars, +where I heard Lin ordering the girl inside to lie down flat, and could +see the agent running about in the dust, flapping his arms to signal +with as much coherence as a chicken with its head off. I had very short +space for wonder or alarm. The edge of one of my freight-cars glowed +suddenly with the imminent headlight, and galloping shots invaded the +place. The horsemen flew by, overreaching, and leaning back and lugging +against their impetus. They passed in a tangled swirl, and their dust +coiled up thick from the dark ground and luminously unfolded across the +glare of the sharp-halted locomotive. Then they wheeled, and clustered +around it where it stood by our cars, its air-brake pumping deep +breaths, and the internal steam humming through its bowels; and I came +out in time to see Billy Lusk climb its front with callow, enterprising +shouts. That was child's play; and the universal yell now raised by +the horsemen was their child's play too; but the whole thing could so +precipitately reel into the fatal that my thoughts stopped. I could only +look when I saw that they had somehow recognized the man on the +engine for a sheriff. Two had sprung from their horses and were making +boisterously toward the cab, while Lin McLean, neither boisterous nor +joking, was going to the cab from my side, with his pistol drawn, to +keep the peace. The engineer sat with a neutral hand on the lever, the +fireman had run along the top of the coal in the tender and descended +and crouched somewhere, and the sheriff, cool, and with a good-natured +eye upon all parties, was just beginning to explain his errand, when +some rider from the crowd cut him short with an invitation to get down +and have a drink. At the word of ribald endearment by which he named the +sheriff, a passing fierceness hardened the officer's face, and the new +yell they gave was less playful. Waiting no more explanations, they +swarmed against the locomotive, and McLean pulled himself up on the +step. The loud talking fell at a stroke to let business go on, and in +this silence came the noise of a sliding-door. At that I looked, and +they all looked, and stood harmless, like children surprised. For there +on the threshold of the freight-car, with the interior darkness behind +her, and touched by the headlight's diverging rays, stood Jessamine +Buckner. + +“Will you gentlemen do me a favor?” said she. “Strangers, maybe, have +no right to ask favors, but I reckon you'll let that pass this time. For +I'm real sleepy!” She smiled as she brought this out. “I've been four +days and nights on the cars, and to-morrow I've got to stage to Buffalo. +You see I'll not be here to spoil your fun to-morrow night, and I want +boys to be boys just as much as ever they can. Won't you put it off till +to-morrow night?” + +In their amazement they found no spokesman; but I saw Lin busy among +them, and that some word was passing through their groups. After the +brief interval of stand-still they began silently to get on their +horses, while the looming engine glowed and pumped its breath, and the +sheriff and engineer remained as they were. + +“Good-night, lady,” said a voice among the moving horsemen, but the +others kept their abashed native silence; and thus they slowly filed +away to the corrals. The figures, in their loose shirts and leathern +chaps, passed from the dimness for a moment through the cone of light +in front of the locomotive, so that the metal about them made here and +there a faint, vanishing glint; and here and there in the departing +column a bold, half-laughing face turned for a look at the girl in the +doorway, and then was gone again into the dimness. + +The sheriff in the cab took off his hat to Miss Buckner, remarking that +she should belong to the force; and as the bell rang and the engine +moved, off popped young Billy Lusk from his cow-catcher. With an +exclamation of horror she sprang down, and Mr. McLean appeared, and, +with all a parent's fright and rage, held the boy by the arm grotesquely +as the sheriff steamed by. + +“I ain't a-going to chase it,” said young Billy, struggling. + +“I've a mind to cowhide you,” said Lin. + +But Miss Buckner interposed. “Oh, well,” said she, “next time; if he +does it next time. It's so late to-night! You'll not frighten us that +way again if he lets you off?” she asked Billy. + +“No,” said Billy, looking at her with interest. “Father 'd have cowhided +me anyway, I guess,” he added, meditatively. + +“Do you call him father?” + +“Ah, father's at Laramie,” said Billy, with disgust. “He'd not stop for +your asking. Lin don't bother me much.” + +“You quit talking and step up there!” ordered his guardian. “Well, m'm, +I guess yu' can sleep good now in there.” + +“If it was only an 'L. and N.' I'd not have a thing against it! +Good-night, Mr. McLean; good-night, young Mr.--” + +“I'm Billy Lusk. I can ride Chalkeye's pinto that bucked Honey Wiggin.” + +“I am sure you can ride finely, Mr. Lusk. Maybe you and I can take a +ride together. Pleasant dreams!” + +She nodded and smiled to him, and slid her door to; and Billy considered +it, remarking: “I like her. What makes her live in a car?” + +But he was drowsing while I told him; and I lifted him up to Lin, who +took him in his own blankets, where he fell immediately asleep. One +distant whistle showed how far the late engine had gone from us. We left +our car open, and I lay enjoying the cool air. Thus was I drifting off, +when I grew aware of a figure in the door. It was Lin, standing in his +stockings and not much else, with his pistol. He listened, and then +leaped down, light as a cat. I heard some repressed talking, and lay in +expectancy; but back he came, noiseless in his stockings, and as he +slid into bed I asked what the matter was. He had found the Texas +boy, Manassas Donohoe, by the girl's car, with no worse intention than +keeping a watch on it. “So I gave him to understand,” said Lin, “that I +had no objection to him amusing himself playing picket-line, but that +I guessed I was enough guard, and he would find sleep healthier for +his system.” After this I went to sleep wholly; but, waking once in the +night, thought I heard some one outside, and learned in the morning from +Lin that the boy had not gone until the time came for him to join +his outfit at the corrals. And I was surprised that Lin, the usually +good-hearted, should find nothing but mirth in the idea of this unknown, +unthanked young sentinel. “Sleeping's a heap better for them kind till +they get their growth,” was his single observation. + +But when Separ had dwindled to toys behind us in the journeying stage +I told Miss Jessamine, and although she laughed too, it was with a note +that young Texas would have liked to hear; and she hoped she might see +him upon her return, to thank him. + +“Any Jack can walk around all night,” said Mr. McLean, disparagingly. + +“Well, then, and I know a Jack who didn't,” observed the young lady. + +This speech caused her admirer to be full of explanations; so that +when she saw how readily she could perplex him, and yet how capable and +untiring he was about her comfort, helping her out or tucking her in +at the stations where we had a meal or changed horses, she enjoyed the +hours very much, in spite of their growing awkwardness. + +But oh, the sparkling, unbashful Lin! Sometimes he sat himself beside +her to be close, and then he would move opposite, the better to behold +her. + +Never, except once long after (when sorrow manfully borne had still +further refined his clay), have I heard Lin's voice or seen his look +so winning. No doubt many a male bird cares nothing what neighbor bird +overhears his spring song from the top of the open tree, but I extremely +doubt if his lady-love, even if she be a frank, bouncing robin, does +not prefer to listen from some thicket, and not upon the public lawn. +Jessamine grew silent and almost peevish; and from discourse upon man +and woman she hopped, she skipped, she flew. When Lin looked at his +watch and counted the diminished hours between her and Buffalo, she +smiled to herself; but from mention of her brother she shrank, glancing +swiftly at me and my well-assumed slumber. + +And it was with indignation and self-pity that I climbed out in the hot +sun at last beside the driver and small Billy. + +“I know this road,” piped Billy, on the box + +“'I camped here with father when mother was off that time. You can take +a left-hand trail by those cottonwoods and strike the mountains.” + +So I inquired what game he had then shot. + +“Ah, just a sage-hen. Lin's a-going to let me shoot a bear, you know. +What made Lin marry mother when father was around?” + +The driver gave me a look over Billy's head, and I gave him one; and I +instructed Billy that people supposed his father was dead. I withheld +that his mother gave herself out as Miss Peck in the days when Lin met +her on Bear Creek. + +The formidable nine-year-old pondered. “The geography says they used to +have a lot of wives at Salt Lake City. Is there a place where a woman +can have a lot of husbands?” + +“It don't especially depend on the place,” remarked the driver to me. + +“Because,” Billy went on, “Bert Taylor told me in recess that mother'd +had a lot, and I told him he lied, and the other boys they laughed and +I blacked Bert's eye on him, and I'd have blacked the others too, +only Miss Wood came out. I wouldn't tell her what Bert said, and Bert +wouldn't, and Sophy Armstrong told her. Bert's father found out, and he +come round, and I thought he was a-going to lick me about the eye, and +he licked Bert! Say, am I Lin's, honest?” + +“No, Billy, you're not,” I said. + +“Wish I was. They couldn't get me back to Laramie then; but, oh, bother! +I'd not go for 'em! I'd like to see 'em try! Lin wouldn't leave me go. +You ain't married, are you? No more is Lin now, I guess. A good many +are, but I wouldn't want to. I don't think anything of 'em. I've seen +mother take 'pothecary stuff on the sly. She's whaled me worse than Lin +ever does. I guess he wouldn't want to be mother's husband again, and if +he does,” said Billy, his voice suddenly vindictive, “I'll quit him and +skip.” + +“No danger, Bill,” said I. + +“How would the nice lady inside please you?” inquired the driver. + +“Ah, pshaw! she ain't after Lin!” sang out Billy, loud and scornful. +“She's after her brother. She's all right, though,” he added, +approvingly. + +At this all talk stopped short inside, reviving in a casual, scanty +manner; while unconscious Billy Lusk, tired of the one subject, now +spoke cheerfully of birds' eggs. + +Who knows the child-soul, young in days, yet old as Adam and the hills? +That school-yard slur about his mother was as dim to his understanding +as to the offender's, yet mysterious nature had bid him go to instant +war! How foreseeing in Lin to choke the unfounded jest about his +relation to Billy Lusk, in hopes to save the boy's ever awakening to +the facts of his mother's life! “Though,” said the driver, an easygoing +cynic, “folks with lots of fathers will find heaps of brothers in this +country!” But presently he let Billy hold the reins, and at the next +station carefully lifted him down and up. “I've knowed that woman, too,” + he whispered to me. “Sidney, Nebraska. Lusk was off half the time. We +laughed when she fooled Lin into marryin' her. Come to think,” he mused, +as twilight deepened around our clanking stage, and small Billy slept +sound between us, “there's scarcely a thing in life you get a laugh out +of that don't make soberness for somebody.” + +Soberness had now visited the pair behind us; even Lin's lively talk had +quieted, and his tones were low and few. But though Miss Jessamine at +our next change of horses “hoped” I would come inside, I knew she did +not hope very earnestly, and outside I remained until Buffalo. + +Journeying done, her face revealed the strain beneath her brave +brightness, and the haunting care she could no longer keep from her +eyes. The imminence of the jail and the meeting had made her cheeks +white and her countenance seem actually smaller; and when, reminding me +that we should meet again soon, she gave me her hand, it was ice-cold. +I think she was afraid Lin might offer to go with her. But his heart +understood the lonely sacredness of her next half-hour, and the cow +puncher, standing aside for her to pass, lifted his hat wistfully +and spoke never a word. For a moment he looked after her with sombre +emotion; but the court-house and prison stood near and in sight, and, +as plain as if he had said so, I saw him suddenly feel she should not be +stared at going up those steps; it must be all alone, the pain and the +joy of that reprieve! He turned away with me, and after a few silent +steps said, “Wasted! all wasted!” + +“Let us hope--” I began. + +“You're not a fool,” he broke in, roughly. “You don't hope anything.” + +“He'll start life elsewhere,” said I. + +“Elsewhere! Yes, keep starting till all the elsewheres know him like +Powder River knows him. But she! I have had to sit and hear her tell and +tell about him; all about back in Kentucky playin' around the farm, and +how she raised him after the old folks died. Then he got bigger and made +her sell their farm, and she told how it was right he should turn it +into money and get his half. I did not dare say a word, for she'd have +just bit my head off, and--and that would sure hurt me now!” Lin brought +up with a comical chuckle. “And she went to work, and he cleared out, +and no more seen or heard of him. That's for five years, and she'd given +up tracing him, when one morning she reads in the paper about how her +long-lost brother is convicted for forgery. That's the way she knows +he's not dead, and she takes her savings off her railroad salary and +starts for him. She was that hasty she thought it was Buffalo, New York, +till she got in the cars and read the paper over again. But she had +to go as far as Cincinnati, either way. She has paid every cent of the +money he stole.” We had come to the bridge, and Lin jerked a stone +into the quick little river. “She's awful strict in some ways. Thought +Buffalo must be a wicked place because of the shops bein' open Sunday. +Now if that was all Buffalo's wickedness! And she thinks divorce is +mostly sin. But her heart is a shield for Nate.” + +“Her face is as beautiful as her actions,” he added. + +“Well,” said I, “and would you make such a villain your brother-in-law?” + +He whirled round and took both my shoulders. “Come walking!” he urged. +“I must talk some.” So we followed the stream out of town towards the +mountains. “I came awful near asking her in the stage,” said he. + +“Goodness, Lin! give yourself time!” + +“Time can't increase my feelings.” + +“Hers, man, hers! How many hours have you known her?” + +“Hours and hours! You're talking foolishness! What have they got to do +with it? And she will listen to me. I can tell she will. I know I can +be so she'll listen, and it will go all right, for I'll ask so hard. +And everything'll come out straight. Yu' see, I've not been spending +to speak of since Billy's on my hands, and now I'll fix up my cabin and +finish my fencing and my ditch--and she's going to like Box Elder Creek +better than Shawhan. She's the first I've ever loved.” + +“Then I'd like to ask--” I cried out. + +“Ask away!” he exclaimed, inattentively, in his enthusiasm. + +“When you--” but I stopped, perceiving it impossible. It was, of +course, not the many transient passions on which he had squandered his +substance, but the one where faith also had seemed to unite. Had he +not married once, innocent of the woman's being already a wife? But I +stopped, for to trench here was not for me or any one. + +And my pause strangely flashed on him something of that I had in my +mind. + +“No,” he said, his eyes steady and serious upon me, “don't you ask about +the things you're meaning.” Then his face grew radiant and rather +stern. “Do you suppose I don't know she's too good for me? And that some +bygones can't ever be bygones? But if you,” he said, “never come to look +away up to a woman from away down, and mean to win her just the same as +if you did deserve her, why, you'll make a turruble mess of the whole +business!” + +When we walked in silence for a long while, he lighted again with the +blossoming dawn of his sentiment. I thought of the coarse yet taking +vagabond of twenty I had once chanced upon, and hunted and camped with +since through the years. Decidedly he was not that boy to-day! It is +not true that all of us rise through adversity, any more than that all +plants need shadow. Some starve out of the sunshine; and I have seen +misery deaden once kind people to everything but self--almost the +saddest sight in the world! But Lin's character had not stood well the +ordeal of happiness, and for him certainly harsh days and responsibility +had been needed to ripen the spirit. Yes, Jessamine Buckner would have +been much too good for him before that humiliation of his marriage, and +this care of young Billy with which he had loaded himself. “Lin,” said +I, “I will drink your health and luck.” + +“I'm healthy enough,” said he; and we came back to the main street and +into the main saloon. + +“How d'ye, boys?” said some one, and there was Nate Buckner. “It's on me +to-day,” he continued, shoving whiskey along the bar; and I saw he was +a little drunk. “I'm setting 'em up,” he continued. “Why? Why, +because”--he looked around for appreciation--“because it's not every +son-of-a-gun in Wyoming gets pardoned by Governor Barker. I'm important, +I want you to understand,” he pursued to the cold bystanders. “They'll +have a picture of me in the Cheyenne paper. 'The Bronco-buster of Powder +River!' They can't do without me! If any son-of-a-gun here thinks +he knows how to break a colt,” he shouted, looking around with the +irrelevant fierceness of drink--and then his challenge ebbed vacantly in +laughter as the subject blurred in his mind. “You're not drinking, Lin,” + said he. + +“No,” said McLean, “I'm not.” + +“Sworn off again? Well, water never did agree with me.” + +“Yu' never gave water the chance,” retorted the cow-puncher, and we left +the place without my having drunk his health. + +It was a grim beginning, this brag attempt to laugh his reputation down, +with the jail door scarce closed behind him. “Folks are not going to +like that,” said Lin, as we walked across the bridge again to the hotel. +Yet the sister, left alone here after an hour at most of her brother's +company, would pretend it was a matter of course. Nate was not in, she +told us at once. He had business to attend to and friends to see he must +get back to Riverside and down in that country where colts were waiting +for him. He was the only one the E. K. outfit would allow to handle +their young stock. Did we know that? And she was going to stay with a +Mrs. Pierce down there for a while, near where Nate would be working. +All this she told us; but when he did not return to dine with her +on this first day, I think she found it hard to sustain her wilful +cheeriness. Lin offered to take her driving to see the military post and +dress parade at retreat, and Cloud's Peak, and Buffalo's various sights; +but she made excuses and retired to her room. Nate, however, was at tea, +shaven clean, with good clothes, and well conducted. His tone and manner +to Jessamine were confidential and caressing, and offended Mr. McLean, +so that I observed to him that it was scarcely reasonable to be jealous. + +“Oh, no jealousy!” said he. “But he comes in and kisses her, and +he kisses her good-night, and us strangers looking on! It's such +oncontrollable affection, yu' see, after never writing for five years. I +expect she must have some of her savings left.” + +It is true that the sister gave the brother money more than once; and as +our ways lay together, I had chances to see them both, and to wonder if +her joy at being with him once again was going to last. On the road to +Riverside I certainly heard Jessamine beg him to return home with her; +and he ridiculed such a notion. What proper life for a live man was that +dead place back East? he asked her. I thought he might have expressed +some regret that they must dwell so far apart, or some intention to +visit her now and then; but he said nothing of the sort, though he +spoke volubly of himself and his prospects. I suppose this spectacle of +brother and sister had rubbed Lin the wrong way too much, for he held +himself and Billy aloof, joining me on the road but once, and then +merely to give me the news that people here wanted no more of Nate +Buckner; he would be run out of the country, and respect for the sister +was all that meanwhile saved him. But Buckner, like so many spared +criminals, seemed brazenly unaware he was disgraced, and went hailing +loudly any riders or drivers we met, while beside him his sister sat +close and straight, her stanch affection and support for the world to +see. For all she let appear, she might have been bringing him back from +some gallant heroism achieved; and as I rode along the travesty seemed +more and more pitiful, the outcome darker and darker. + +At all times is Riverside beautiful, but most beautiful when the sun +draws down through the openings of the hills. From each one a stream +comes flowing clearly out into the plain, and fields spread green along +the margins. It was beneath the long-slanted radiance of evening that +we saw Blue Creek and felt its coolness rise among the shifting veils of +light. The red bluff eastward, the tall natural fortress, lost its stern +masonry of shapes, and loomed a soft towering enchantment of violet and +amber and saffron in the changing rays. The cattle stood quiet about +the levels, and horses were moving among the restless colts. These the +brother bade his sister look at, for with them was his glory; and I +heard him boasting of his skill--truthful boasting, to be sure. Had +he been honest in his dealings, the good-will that man's courage and +dashing appearance beget in men would have brought him more employment +than he could have undertaken. He told Jessamine his way of breaking a +horse that few would dare, and she listened eagerly. “Do you remember +when I used to hold the pony for you to get on?” she said. “You always +would scare me, Nate!” And he replied, fluently, Yes, yes; did she see +that horse there, near the fence? He was a four-year-old, an outlaw, and +she would find no one had tried getting on his back since he had been +absent. This was the first question he asked on reaching the cabin, +where various neighbors were waiting the mail-rider; and, finding he was +right, he turned in pride to Jessamine. + +“They don't know how to handle that horse,” said he. “I told you so. +Give me a rope.” + +Did she notice the cold greeting Nate received? I think not. Not only +was their welcome to her the kinder, but any one is glad to witness bold +riding, and this chance made a stir which the sister may have taken for +cordiality. But Lin gave me a look; for it was the same here as it had +been in the Buffalo saloon. + +“The trick is easy enough,” said Nate, arriving with his outlaw, and +liking an audience. “You don't want a bridle, but a rope hackamore like +this--Spanish style. Then let them run as hard as they want, and on a +sudden reach down your arm and catch the hackamore short, close up by +the mouth, and jerk them round quick and heavy at full speed. They quit +their fooling after one or two doses. Now watch your outlaw!” + +He went into the saddle so swift and secure that the animal, amazed, +trembled stock-still, then sprang headlong. It stopped, vicious and +knowing, and plunged in a rage, but could do nothing with the man, and +bolted again, and away in a straight blind line over the meadow, when +the rider leaned forward to his trick. The horse veered in a jagged +swerve, rolled over and over with its twisted impetus, and up on its +feet and on without a stop, the man still seated and upright in the +saddle. How we cheered to see it! But the figure now tilted strangely, +and something awful and nameless came over us and chilled our noise +to silence. The horse, dazed and tamed by the fall, brought its burden +towards us, a wobbling thing, falling by small shakes backward, until +the head sank on the horse's rump. + +“Come away,” said Lin McLean to Jessamine and at his voice she obeyed +and went, leaning on his arm. + +Jessamine sat by her brother until he died, twelve hours afterwards, +having spoken and known nothing. The whole weight of the horse +had crushed him internally. He must have become almost instantly +unconscious, being held in the saddle by his spurs, which had caught in +the hair cinch; it may be that our loud cheer was the last thing of this +world that he knew. The injuries to his body made impossible any taking +him home, which his sister at first wished to do. “Why, I came here to +bring him home,” she said, with a smile and tone like cheerfulness in +wax. Her calm, the unearthly ease with which she spoke to any comer (and +she was surrounded with rough kindness), embarrassed the listeners; she +saw her calamity clear as they did, but was sleep-walking in it. It was +Lin gave her what she needed--the repose of his strong, silent presence. +He spoke no sympathy and no advice, nor even did he argue with her about +the burial; he perceived somehow that she did not really hear what was +said to her, and that these first griefless, sensible words came from +some mechanism of the nerves; so he kept himself near her, and let her +tell her story as she would. Once I heard him say to her, with the +same authority of that first “come away”; “Now you've had enough of +the talking. Come for a walk.” Enough of the talking--as if it were +a treatment! How did he think of that? Jessamine, at any rate, again +obeyed him, and I saw the two going quietly about in the meadows and +along the curving brook; and that night she slept well. On one only +point did the cow-puncher consult me. + +“They figured to put Nate on top of that bald mound,” said he. “But +she has talked about the flowers and shade where the old folks lie, and +where she wants him to be alongside of them. I've not let her look at +him to-day, for--well, she might get the way he looks now on her memory. +But I'd like to show you my idea before going further.” + +Lin had indeed chosen a beautiful place, and so I told him at the first +sight of it. + +“That's all I wanted to know,” said he. “I'll fix the rest.” + +I believe he never once told Jessamine the body could not travel so far +as Kentucky. I think he let her live and talk and grieve from hour +to hour, and then led her that afternoon to the nook of sunlight and +sheltering trees, and won her consent to it thus; for there was Nate +laid, and there she went to sit, alone. Lin did not go with her on those +walks. + +But now something new was on the fellow's mind. He was plainly occupied +with it, whatever else he was doing, and he had some active cattle-work. +On my asking him if Jessamine Buckner had decided when to return east, +he inquired of me, angrily, what was there in Kentucky she could +not have in Wyoming? Consequently, though I surmised what he must be +debating, I felt myself invited to keep out of his confidence, and I did +so. My advice to him would have been ill received, and--as was soon to +be made plain--would have done his delicacy injustice. Next, one morning +he and Billy were gone. My first thought was that he had rejoined +Jessamine at Mrs. Pierce's, where she was, and left me away over here on +Bear Creek, where we had come for part of a week. + +But stuck in my hat-band I found a pencilled farewell. + +Now Mr. McLean constructed perhaps three letters in the year--painful, +serious events--like an interview with some important person with whom +your speech must decorously flow. No matter to whom he was writing, it +froze all nature stiff in each word he achieved; and his bald business +diction and wild archaic penmanship made documents that I value among my +choicest correspondence; this one, especially: + + + “Wensday four a. m. + +“DEAR SIR this is to Inform you that i have gone to Separ on important +bisness where i expect to meet you on your arrival at same point. You +will confer a favor and oblidge undersigned by Informing Miss J. Buckner +of date (if soon) you fix for returning per stage to Separ as Miss +J. Buckner may prefer company for the trip being long and poor +accommodations. + + “Yours &c. L. McLEAN.” + + +This seemed to point but one way; and (uncharitable though it sound) +that this girl, so close upon bereavement, should be able to give +herself to a lover was distasteful to me. + +But, most extraordinary, Lin had gone away without a word to her, and +she was left as plainly in the dark as myself. After her first frank +surprise at learning of his departure, his name did not come again from +her lips, at any rate to me. Good Mrs. Pierce dropped a word one day as +to her opinion of men who deceive women into expecting something from +them. + +“Let us talk straight,” said I. “Do you mean that Miss Buckner says +that, or that you say it?” + +“Why, the poor thing says nothing!” exclaimed the lady. “It's like a man +to think she would. And I'll not say anything, either, for you're all +just the same, except when you're worse; and that Lin McLean is going to +know what I think of him next time we meet.” + +He did. On that occasion the kind old dame told him he was the best boy +in the country, and stood on her toes and kissed him. But meanwhile we +did not know why he had gone, and Jessamine (though he was never subtle +or cruel enough to plan such a thing) missed him, and thus in her +loneliness had the chance to learn how much he had been to her. + +Though pressed to stay indefinitely beneath Mrs. Pierce's hospitable +roof, the girl, after lingering awhile, and going often to that nook in +the hill by Riverside, took her departure. She was restless, yet clung +to the neighborhood. It was with a wrench that she fixed her going when +I told her of my own journey back to the railroad. In Buffalo she walked +to the court-house and stood a moment as if bidding this site of one +life-memory farewell, and from the stage she watched and watched the +receding town and mountains. “It's awful to be leaving him!” she said. +“Excuse me for acting so in front of you.” With the poignant emptiness +overcoming her in new guise, she blamed herself for not waiting in +Illinois until he had been sent to Joliet, for then, so near home, he +must have gone with her. + +How could I tell her that Nate's death was the best end that could have +come to him? But I said: “You know you don't think it was your fault. +You know you would do the same again.” She listened to me, but her eyes +had no interest in them. “He never knew pain,” I pursued, “and he died +doing the thing he liked best in the world. He was happy and enjoying +himself, and you gave him that. It's bad only for you. Some would talk +religion, but I can't.” + +“Yes,” she answered, “I can think of him so glad to be free. Thank you +for saying that about religion. Do you think it's wicked not to want +it--to hate it sometimes? I hope it's not. Thank you, truly.” + +During our journey she summoned her cheerfulness, and all that she said +was wholesome. In the robust, coarse soundness of her fibre, the +wounds of grief would heal and leave no sickness--perhaps no higher +sensitiveness to human sufferings than her broad native kindness already +held. We touched upon religion again, and my views shocked her Kentucky +notions, for I told her Kentucky locked its religion in an iron cage +called Sunday, which made it very savage and fond of biting strangers. +Now and again I would run upon that vein of deep-seated prejudice that +was in her character like some fine wire. In short, our disagreements +brought us to terms more familiar than we had reached hitherto. But when +at last Separ came, where was I? There stood Mr. McLean waiting, and at +the suddenness of him she had no time to remember herself, but stepped +out of the stage with such a smile that the ardent cow-puncher flushed +and beamed. + +“So I went away without telling you goodbye!” he began, not wisely. +“Mrs. Pierce has been circulating war talk about me, you bet!” + +The maiden in Jessamine spoke instantly. “Indeed? There was no special +obligation for you to call on me, or her to notice if you didn't.” + +“Oh!” said Lin, crestfallen. “Yu' sure don't mean that?” + +She looked at him, and was compelled to melt. “No, neighbor, I don't +mean it.” + +“Neighbor!” he exclaimed; and again, “Neighbor,” much pleased. “Now it +would sound kind o' pleasant if you'd call me that for a steady thing.” + +“It would sound kind of odd, Mr. McLean, thank you.” + +“Blamed if I understand her,” cried Lin. “Blamed if I do. But you're +going to understand me sure quick!” He rushed inside the station, spoke +sharply to the agent, and returned in the same tremor of elation that +had pushed him to forwardness with his girl, and with which he seemed +near bursting. “I've been here three days to meet you. There's a letter, +and I expect I know what's in it. Tubercle has got it here.” He took +it from the less hasty agent and thrust it in Jessamine's hand. “You +needn't to fear. Please open it; it's good news this time, you bet!” + He watched it in her hand as the boy of eight watches the string of a +Christmas parcel he wishes his father would cut instead of so carefully +untie. “Open it,” he urged again. “Keeping me waiting this way!” + +“What in the world does all this mean?” cried Jessamine, stopping short +at the first sentence. + +“Read,” said Lin. + +“You've done this!” she exclaimed. + +“Read, read!” + +So she read, with big eyes. It was an official letter of the railroad, +written by the division superintendent at Edgeford. It hoped Miss +Buckner might feel like taking the position of agent at Separ. If she +was willing to consider this, would she stop over at Edgeford, on her +way east, and talk with the superintendent? In case the duties were more +than she had been accustomed to on the Louisville and Nashville, she +could continue east with the loss of only a day. The superintendent +believed the salary could be arranged satisfactorily. Enclosed please to +find an order for a free ride to Edgeford. + +Jessamine turned her wondering eyes on Lin. “You did do this,” she +repeated, but this time with extraordinary quietness. + +“Yes,” said he. “And I am plumb proud of it.” + +She gave a rich laugh of pleasure and amusement; a long laugh, and +stopped. “Did anybody ever!” she said. + +“We can call each other neighbors now, yu' see,” said the cow-puncher. + +“Oh no! oh no!” Jessamine declared. “Though how am I ever to thank you?” + +“By not argufying,” Lin answered. + +“Oh no, no! I can do no such thing. Don't you see I can't? I believe you +are crazy.” + +“I've been waiting to hear yu' say that,” said the complacent McLean. +“I'm not argufying. We'll eat supper now. The east-bound is due in an +hour, and I expect you'll be wanting to go on it.” + +“And I expect I'll go, too,” said the girl. + +“I'll be plumb proud to have yu',” the cow-puncher assented. + +“I'm going to get my ticket to Chicago right now,” said Jessamine, again +laughing, sunny and defiant. + +“You bet you are!” said the incorrigible McLean. He let her go into +the station serenely. “You can't get used to new ideas in a minute,” he +remarked to me. “I've figured on all that, of course. But that's why,” + he broke out, impetuously, “I quit you on Bear Creek so sudden. 'When +she goes back away home,' I'd been saying to myself every day, 'what'll +you do then, Lin McLean?' Well, I knew I'd go to Kentucky too. Just +knew I'd have to, yu' see, and it was inconvenient, turruble +inconvenient--Billy here and my ranch, and the beef round-up comin'--but +how could I let her go and forget me? Take up, maybe, with some +Blue-grass son-of-a-gun back there? And I hated the fix I was in till +that morning, getting up, I was joshin' the Virginia man that's after +Miss Wood. I'd been sayin' no educated lady would think of a man who +talked with an African accent. 'It's repotted you have a Southern rival +yourself,' says he, joshin' back. So I said I guessed the rival would +find life uneasy. 'He does,' says he. 'Any man with his voice broke in +two halves, and one down in his stomach and one up among the angels, is +goin' to feel uneasy. But Texas talks a heap about his lady vigilante in +the freight-car.' 'Vigilante!' I said; and I must have jumped, for they +all asked where the lightning had struck. And in fifteen minutes after +writing you I'd hit the trail for Separ. Oh, I figured things out on +that ride!” (Mr. McLean here clapped me on the back.) “Got to Separ. Got +the sheriff's address--the sheriff that saw her that night they held up +the locomotive. Got him to meet me at Edgeford and make a big talk to +the superintendent. Made a big talk myself. I said, 'Put that girl in +charge of Separ, and the boys'll quit shooting your water-tank. But +Tubercle can't influence 'em.' 'Tubercle?' says the superintendent. +'What's that?' And when I told him it was the agent, he flapped his two +hands down on the chair arms each side of him and went to rockin' up and +down. I said the agent was just a temptation to the boys to be gay right +along, and they'd keep a-shooting. 'You can choose between Tubercle and +your tank,' I said; 'but you've got to move one of 'em from Separ if yu' +went peace.' The sheriff backed me up good, too. He said a man couldn't +do much with Separ the way it was now; but a decent woman would be +respected there, and the only question was if she could conduct the +business. So I spoke up about Shawhan, and when the whole idea began to +soak into that superintendent his eyeballs jingled and he looked as wise +as a work-ox. 'I'll see her,' says he. And he's going to see her.” + +“Well,” said I, “you deserve success after thinking of a thing like +that! You're wholly wasted punching cattle. But she's going to Chicago. +By eleven o'clock she will have passed by your superintendent.” + +“Why, so she will!” said Lin, affecting surprise. + +He baffled me, and he baffled Jessamine. Indeed, his eagerness with her +parcels, his assistance in checking her trunk, his cheerful examination +of check and ticket to be sure they read over the same route, plainly +failed to gratify her. + +Her firmness about going was sincere, but she had looked for more +dissuasion; and this sprightly abettal of her departure seemed to leave +something vacant in the ceremonies She fell singularly taciturn during +supper at the Hotel Brunswick, and presently observed, “I hope I shall +see Mr. Donohoe.” + +“Texas?” said Lin. “I expect they'll have tucked him in bed by now up at +the ranch. The little fellow is growing yet.” + +“He can walk round a freight-car all night,” said Miss Buckner, stoutly. +“I've always wanted to thank him for looking after me.” + +Mr. McLean smiled elaborately at his plate + +“Well, if he's not actually thinking he'll tease me!” cried out +Jessamine “Though he claims not to be foolish like Mr. Donohoe. Why, +Mr. McLean, you surely must have been young once! See if you can't +remember!” + +“Shucks!” began Lin. + +But her laughter routed him. “Maybe you didn't notice you were young,” + she said. “But don't you reckon perhaps the men around did? Why, maybe +even the girls kind o' did!” + +“She's hard to beat, ain't she?” inquired Lin, admiringly, of me. + +In my opinion she was. She had her wish, too about Texas; for we found +him waiting on the railroad platform, dressed in his best, to say +good-bye. The friendly things she told him left him shuffling and +repeating that it was a mistake to go, a big mistake; but when she said +the butter was not good enough, his laugh cracked joyously up into the +treble. The train's arrival brought quick sadness to her face, but she +made herself bright again with a special farewell for each acquaintance. + +“Don't you ride any more cow-catchers,” she warned Billy Lusk, “or I'll +have to come back and look after you.” + +“You said you and me were going for a ride, and we ain't,” shouted +the long-memoried nine-year-old. “You will,” murmured Mr. McLean, +oracularly. + +As the train's pace quickened he did not step off, and Miss Buckner +cried “Jump!” + +“Too late,” said he, placidly. Then he called to me, “I'm hard to beat, +too!” So the train took them both away, as I might have guessed was his +intention all along. + +“Is that marriage again?” said Billy, anxiously. “He wouldn't tell me +nothing.” + +“He's just seeing Miss Buckner as far as Edgeford,” said the agent. “Be +back to-morrow.” + +“Then I don't see why he wouldn't take me along,” Billy complained. And +Separ laughed. + +But the lover was not back to-morrow. He was capable of anything, gossip +remarked, and took up new themes. The sun rose and set, the two trains +made their daily slight event and gathering; the water-tank, glaring +bulkily in the sun beaconed unmolested; and the agent's natural sleep +was unbroken by pistols, for the cow-boys did not happen to be in town. +Separ lay a clot of torpor that I was glad to leave behind me for a +while. But news is a strange, permeating substance, and it began to be +sifted through the air that Tubercle was going to God's country. + +That is how they phrased it in cow-camp, meaning not the next world, but +the Eastern States. + +“It's certainly a shame him leaving after we've got him so good and used +to us,” said the Virginian. + +“We can't tell him good-bye,” said Honey Wiggin. “Separ'll be slow.” + +“We can give his successor a right hearty welcome,” the Virginian +suggested. + +“That's you!” said Honey. “Schemin' mischief away ahead. You're +the leadin' devil in this country, and just because yu' wear a +faithful-looking face you're tryin' to fool a poor school-marm.” + +“Yes,” drawled the Southerner, “that's what I'm aiming to do.” + +So now they were curious about the successor, planning their hearty +welcome for that official, and were encouraged in this by Mr. McLean. +He reappeared in the neighborhood with a manner and conversation highly +casual. + +“Bring your new wife?” they inquired. + +“No; she preferred Kentucky,” Lin said. + +“Bring the old one?” + +“No; she preferred Laramie.” + +“Kentucky's a right smart way to chase after a girl,” said the +Virginian. + +“Sure!” said Mr. McLean. “I quit at Edgeford.” + +He met their few remarks so smoothly that they got no joy from him; and +being asked had he seen the new agent, he answered yes, that Tubercle +had gone Wednesday, and his successor did not seem to be much of a man. + +But to me Lin had nothing to say until noon camp was scattering from +its lunch to work, when he passed close, and whispered, “You'll see her +to-morrow if you go in with the outfit.” Then, looking round to +make sure we were alone in the sage-brush, he drew from his pocket, +cherishingly, a little shining pistol. “Hers,” said he, simply. + +I looked at him. + +“We've exchanged,” he said. + +He turned the token in his hand, caressing it as on that first night +when Jessamine had taken his heart captive. + +“My idea,” he added, unable to lift his eyes from the treasure. “See +this, too.” + +I looked, and there was the word “Neighbor” engraved on it. + +“Her idea,” said he. + +“A good one!” I murmured. + +“It's on both, yu' know. We had it put on the day she settled to accept +the superintendent's proposition.” Here Lin fired his small exchanged +weapon at a cotton-wood, striking low. “She can beat that with mine!” he +exclaimed, proud and tender. “She took four days deciding at Edgeford, +and I learned her to hit the ace of clubs.” He showed me the cards they +had practiced upon during those four days of indecision; he had them in +a book as if they were pressed flowers. “They won't get crumpled that +way,” said he; and he further showed me a tintype. “She's got the other +at Separ,” he finished. + +I shook his hand with all my might. Yes, he was worthy of her! Yes, he +deserved this smooth course his love was running! And I shook his hand +again. To tonic her grief Jessamine had longed for some activity, some +work, and he had shown her Wyoming might hold this for her as well as +Kentucky. “But how in the world,” I asked him, “did you persuade her to +stop over at Edgeford at all?” + +“Yu' mustn't forget,” said the lover (and he blushed), “that I had her +four hours alone on the train.” + +But his face that evening round the fire, when they talked of their next +day's welcome to the new agent, became comedy of the highest, and he was +so desperately canny in the moments he chose for silence or for comment! +He had not been sure of their ignorance until he arrived, and it was +a joke with him too deep for laughter. He had a special eye upon the +Virginian, his mate in such a tale of mischiefs, and now he led him on. +He suggested to the Southerner that caution might be wise; this change +at Separ was perhaps some new trick of the company's. + +“We mostly take their tricks,” observed the Virginian. + +“Yes,” said Lin, nodding sagely at the fire, “that's so, too.” + +Yet not he, not any one, could have foreseen the mortifying harmlessness +of the outcome. They swept down upon Separ like all the hordes of +legend--more egregiously, perhaps, because they were play-acting and +no serious horde would go on so. Our final hundred yards of speed and +copious howling brought all dwellers in Separ out to gaze and disappear +like rabbits--all save the new agent in the station. Nobody ran out or +in there, and the horde whirled up to the tiny, defenceless building and +leaped to earth--except Lin and me; we sat watching. The innocent door +stood open wide to any cool breeze or invasion, and Honey Wiggin tramped +in foremost, hat lowering over eyes and pistol prominent. He stopped +rooted, staring, and his mouth came open slowly; his hand went feeling +up for his hat, and came down with it by degrees as by degrees his +grin spread. Then in a milky voice, he said: “Why, excuse me, ma'am! +Good-morning.” + +There answered a clear, long, rippling, ample laugh. It came out of the +open door into the heat; it made the sun-baked air merry; it seemed to +welcome and mock; it genially hovered about us in the dusty quiet of +Separ; for there was no other sound anywhere at all in the place, +and the great plain stretched away silent all round it. The bulging +water-tank shone overhead in bland, ironic safety. + +The horde stood blank; then it shifted its legs, looked sideways at +itself, and in a hesitating clump reached the door, shambled in, and +removed its foolish hat. + +“Good-morning, gentlemen,” said Jessamine Buckner, seated behind her +railing; and various voices endeavored to reply conventionally. + +“If you have any letters, ma'am,” said the Virginian, more inventive, +“I'll take them. Letters for Judge Henry's.” He knew the judge's office +was seventy miles from here. + +“Any for the C. Y.?” muttered another, likewise knowing better. + +It was a happy, if simple, thought, and most of them inquired for the +mail. Jessamine sought carefully, making them repeat their names, which +some did guiltily: they foresaw how soon the lady would find out no +letters ever came for these names! + +There was no letter for any one present. + +“I'm sorry, truly,” said Jessamine behind the railing. “For you seemed +real anxious to get news. Better luck next time! And if I make mistakes, +please everybody set me straight, for of course I don't understand +things yet.” + +“Yes, m'm.” + +“Good-day, m'm.” + +“Thank yu', m'm.” + +They got themselves out of the station and into their saddles. + +“No, she don't understand things yet,” soliloquized the Virginian. “Oh +dear, no.” He turned his slow, dark eyes upon us. “You Lin McLean,” said +he, in his gentle voice, “you have cert'nly fooled me plumb through this +mawnin'.” + +Then the horde rode out of town, chastened and orderly till it was quite +small across the sagebrush, when reaction seized it. It sped suddenly +and vanished in dust with far, hilarious cries and here were Lin and I, +and here towered the water-tank, shining and shining. + +Thus did Separ's vigilante take possession and vindicate Lin's knowledge +of his kind. It was not three days until the Virginian, that lynx +observer, fixed his grave eyes upon McLean “'Neighbor' is as cute a name +for a six-shooter as ever I heard,” said he. “But she'll never have need +of your gun in Separ--only to shoot up peaceful playin'-cyards while she +hearkens to your courtin'.” + +That was his way of congratulation to a brother lover. “Plumb strange,” + he said to me one morning after an hour of riding in silence, “how a man +will win two women while another man gets aged waitin' for one.” + +“Your hair seems black as ever,” said I. + +“My hopes ain't so glossy any more,” he answered. “Lin has done better +this second trip.” + +“Mrs. Lusk don't count,” said I. + +“I reckon she counted mighty plentiful when he thought he'd got her +clamped to him by lawful marriage. But Lin's lucky.” And the Virginian +fell silent again. + +Lucky Lin bestirred him over his work, his plans, his ranch on Box Elder +that was one day to be a home for his lady. He came and went, seeing his +idea triumph and his girl respected. Not only was she a girl, but a +good shot too. And as if she and her small, neat home were a sort of +possession, the cow-punchers would boast of her to strangers. They +would have dealt heavily now with the wretch who should trifle with the +water-tank. When camp came within visiting distance, you would see one +or another shaving and parting his hair. They wrote unnecessary letters, +and brought them to mail as excuses for an afternoon call. Honey Wiggin, +more original, would look in the door with his grin, and hold up an +ace of clubs. “I thought maybe yu' could spare a minute for a +shootin'-match,” he would insinuate; and Separ now heard no more +objectionable shooting than this. Texas brought her presents of +game--antelope, sage-chickens--but, shyness intervening, he left them +outside the door, and entering, dressed in all the “Sunday” that he had, +would sit dumbly in the lady's presence. I remember his emerging +from one of these placid interviews straight into the hands of his +tormentors. + +“If she don't notice your clothes, Texas,” said the Virginian, “just +mention them to her.” + +“Now yer've done offended her,” shrilled Manassas Donohoe. “She heard +that.” + +“She'll hear you singin' sooprano,” said Honey Wiggin. “It's good this +country has reformed, or they'd have you warblin' in some dance-hall and +corrupt your morals.” + +“You sca'cely can corrupt the morals of a soprano man,” observed the +Virginian. “Go and play with Billy till you can talk bass.” + +But it was the boldest adults that Billy chose for playmates. Texas he +found immature. Moreover, when next he came, he desired play with no +one. Summer was done. September's full moon was several nights ago; he +had gone on his hunt with Lin, and now spelling-books were at hand. But +more than this clouded his mind, he had been brought to say good-bye +to Jessamine Buckner, who had scarcely seen him, and to give her a +wolverene-skin, a hunting trophy. “She can have it,” he told me. “I like +her.” Then he stole a look at his guardian. “If they get married and +send me back to mother,” said he, “I'll run away sure.” So school and +this old dread haunted the child, while for the man, Lin the lucky, +who suspected nothing of it, time was ever bringing love nearer to his +hearth. His Jessamine had visited Box Elder, and even said she wanted +chickens there; since when Mr. McLean might occasionally have been seen +at his cabin, worrying over barn-yard fowls, feeding and cursing them +with equal care. Spring would see him married, he told me. + +“This time right!” he exclaimed. “And I want her to know Billy some more +before he goes to Bear Creek.” + +“Ah, Bear Creek!” said Billy, acidly. “Why can't I stay home?” + +“Home sounds kind o' slick,” said Lin to me. “Don't it, now? 'Home' is +closer than 'neighbor,' you bet! Billy, put the horses in the corral, +and ask Miss Buckner if we can come and see her after supper. If you're +good, maybe she'll take yu' for a ride to-morrow. And, kid, ask her +about Laramie.” + +Again suspicion quivered over Billy's face, and he dragged his horses +angrily to the corral. + +Lin nudged me, laughing. “I can rile him every time about Laramie,” said +he, affectionately. “I wouldn't have believed the kid set so much store +by me. Nor I didn't need to ask Jessamine to love him for my sake. What +do yu' suppose? Before I'd got far as thinking of Billy at all--right +after Edgeford, when my head was just a whirl of joy--Jessamine says to +me one day, 'Read that.' It was Governor Barker writin' to her about her +brother and her sorrow.” Lin paused. “And about me. I can't never tell +you--but he said a heap I didn't deserve. And he told her about me +picking up Billy in Denver streets that time, and doing for him because +his own home was not a good one. Governor Barker wrote Jessamine all +that; and she said, 'Why did you never tell me?' And I said it wasn't +anything to tell. And she just said to me, 'It shall be as if he was +your son and I was his mother.' And that's the first regular kiss she +ever gave me I didn't have to take myself. God bless her! God bless +her!” + +As we ate our supper, young Billy burst out of brooding silence: “I +didn't ask her about Laramie. So there!” + +“Well, well, kid,” said the cow-puncher, patting his head, “yu' needn't +to, I guess.” + +But Billy's eye remained sullen and jealous. He paid slight attention +to the picture-book of soldiers and war that Jessamine gave him when we +went over to the station. She had her own books, some flowers in pots, +a rocking-chair, and a cosey lamp that shone on her bright face and dark +dress. We drew stools from the office desks, and Billy perched silently +on one. + +“Scanty room for company!” Jessamine said. “But we must make out this +way--till we have another way.” She smiled on Lin, and Billy's face +darkened. “Do you know,” she pursued to me, “with all those chickens Mr. +McLean tells me about, never a one has he thought to bring here.” + +“Livin' or dead do you want 'em?” inquired Lin. + +“Oh, I'll not bother you. Mr. Donohoe says he will--” + +“Texas? Chickens? Him? Then he'll have to steal 'em!” And we all laughed +together. + +“You won't make me go back to Laramie, will you?” spoke Billy, suddenly, +from his stool. + +“I'd like to see anybody try to make you?” exclaimed Jessamine. “Who +says any such thing?” + +“Lin did,” said Billy. + +Jessamine looked at her lover reproachfully. “What a way to tease him!” + she said. “And you so kind. Why, you've hurt his feelings!” + +“I never thought,” said Lin the boisterous. “I wouldn't have.” + +“Come sit here, Billy,” said Jessamine. “Whenever he teases, you tell +me, and we'll make him behave.” + +“Honest?” persisted Billy. + +“Shake hands on it,” said Jessamine. + +“Cause I'll go to school. But I won't go back to Laramie for no one. And +you're a-going to be Lin's wife, honest?” + +“Honest! Honest!” And Jessamine, laughing, grew red beside her lamp. + +“Then I guess mother can't never come back to Lin, either,” stated +Billy, relieved. + +Jessamine let fall the child's hand. + +“Cause she liked him onced, and he liked her.” + +Jessamine gazed at Lin. + +“It's simple,” said the cow-puncher. “It's all right.” + +But Jessamine sat by her lamp, very pale. + +“It's all right,” repeated Lin in the silence, shifting his foot and +looking down. “Once I made a fool of myself. Worse than usual.” + +“Billy?” whispered Jessamine. “Then you--But his name is Lusk!” + +“Course it is,” said Billy. “Father and mother are living in Laramie.” + +“It's all straight,” said the cow-puncher. “I never saw her till three +years ago. I haven't anything to hide, only--only--only it don't come +easy to tell.” + +I rose. “Miss Buckner,” said I, “he will tell you. But he will not tell +you he paid dearly for what was no fault of his. It has been no secret. +It is only something his friends and his enemies have forgotten.” + +But all the while I was speaking this, Jessamine's eyes were fixed on +Lin, and her face remained white. + +I left the girl and the man and the little boy together, and crossed to +the hotel. But its air was foul, and I got my roll of camp blankets +to sleep in the clean night, if sleeping-time should come; meanwhile +I walked about in the silence To have taken a wife once in good faith, +ignorant she was another's, left no stain, raised no barrier. I could +have told Jessamine the same old story myself--or almost; but what had +it to do with her at all? Why need she know? Reasoning thus, yet with +something left uncleared by reason that I could not state, I watched +the moon edge into sight, heavy and rich-hued, a melon-slice of glow, +seemingly near, like a great lantern tilted over the plain. The smell of +the sage-brush flavored the air; the hush of Wyoming folded distant and +near things, and all Separ but those three inside the lighted window +were in bed. Dark windows were everywhere else, and looming above rose +the water-tank, a dull mass in the night, and forever somehow to me a +Sphinx emblem, the vision I instantly see when I think of Separ. Soon I +heard a door creaking. It was Billy, coming alone, and on seeing me he +walked up and spoke in a half-awed voice. + +“She's a-crying,” said he. + +I withheld from questions, and as he kept along by my side he said: “I'm +sorry. Do you think she's mad with Lin for what he's told her? She just +sat, and when she started crying he made me go away.” + +“I don't believe she's mad,” I told Billy; and I sat down on my blanket, +he beside me, talking while the moon grew small as it rose over the +plain, and the light steadily shone in Jessamine's window. Soon young +Billy fell asleep, and I looked at him, thinking how in a way it was he +who had brought this trouble on the man who had saved him and loved him. +But that man had no such untender thoughts. Once more the door opened, +and it was he who came this time, alone also. She did not follow him +and stand to watch him from the threshold, though he forgot to close the +door, and, coming over to me, stood looking down. + +“What?” I said at length. + +I don't know that he heard me. He stooped over Billy and shook him +gently. “Wake, son,” said he. “You and I must get to our camp now.” + +“Now?” said Billy. “Can't we wait till morning?” + +“No, son. We can't wait here any more. Go and get the horses and put the +saddles on.” As Billy obeyed, Lin looked at the lighted window. “She is +in there,” he said. “She's in there. So near.” He looked, and turned to +the hotel, from which he brought his chaps and spurs and put them on. +“I understand her words,” he continued. “Her words, the meaning of them. +But not what she means, I guess. It will take studyin' over. Why, she +don't blame me!” he suddenly said, speaking to me instead of to himself. + +“Lin,” I answered, “she has only just heard this, you see. Wait awhile.” + +“That's not the trouble. She knows what kind of man I have been, and +she forgives that just the way she did her brother. And she knows how I +didn't intentionally conceal anything. Billy hasn't been around, and +she never realized about his mother and me. We've talked awful open, +but that was not pleasant to speak of, and the whole country knew it so +long--and I never thought! She don't blame me. She says she understands; +but she says I have a wife livin'.” + +“That is nonsense,” I declared. + +“Yu' mustn't say that,” said he. “She don't claim she's a wife, either. +She just shakes her head when I asked her why she feels so. It must be +different to you and me from the way it seems to her. I don't see her +view; maybe I never can see it; but she's made me feel she has it, and +that she's honest, and loves me true--” His voice broke for a moment. +“She said she'd wait.” + +“You can't have a marriage broken that was never tied,” I said. “But +perhaps Governor Barker or Judge Henry--” + +“No,” said the cow-puncher. “Law couldn't fool her. She's thinking of +something back of law. She said she'd wait--always. And when I took it +in that this was all over and done, and when I thought of my ranch and +the chickens--well, I couldn't think of things at all, and I came and +waked Billy to clear out and quit.” + +“What did you tell her?” I asked. + +“Tell her? Nothin', I guess. I don't remember getting out of the room. +Why, here's actually her pistol, and she's got mine!” + +“Man, man!” said I, “go back and tell her to keep it, and that you'll +wait too--always!” + +“Would yu'?” + +“Look!” I pointed to Jessamine standing in the door. + +I saw his face as he turned to her, and I walked toward Billy and the +horses. Presently I heard steps on the wooden station, and from its +black, brief shadow the two came walking, Lin and his sweetheart, into +the moonlight. They were not speaking, but merely walked together in +the clear radiance, hand in hand, like two children. I saw that she +was weeping, and that beneath the tyranny of her resolution her whole +loving, ample nature was wrung. But the strange, narrow fibre in her +would not yield! I saw them go to the horses, and Jessamine stood while +Billy and Lin mounted. Then quickly the cow-puncher sprang down again +and folded her in his arms. + +“Lin, dear Lin! dear neighbor!” she sobbed. She could not withhold this +last good-bye. + +I do not think he spoke. In a moment the horses started and were gone, +flying, rushing away into the great plain, until sight and sound of them +were lost, and only the sage-brush was there, bathed in the high, bright +moon. The last thing I remember as I lay in my blankets was Jessamine's +window still lighted, and the water-tank, clear-lined and black, +standing over Separ. + + + + + +DESTINY AT DRYBONE + + + +PART I + +Children have many special endowments, and of these the chiefest is to +ask questions that their elders must skirmish to evade. Married people +and aunts and uncles commonly discover this, but mere instinct does not +guide one to it. A maiden of twenty-three will not necessarily divine +it. Now except in one unhappy hour of stress and surprise, Miss +Jessamine Buckner had been more than equal to life thus far. But never +yet had she been shut up a whole day in one room with a boy of nine. +Had this experience been hers, perhaps she would not have written to Mr. +McLean the friendly and singular letter in which she hoped he was well, +and said that she was very well, and how was dear little Billy? She +was glad Mr. McLean had stayed away. That was just like his honorable +nature, and what she expected of him. And she was perfectly happy at +Separ, and “yours sincerely and always, 'Neighbor.'” Postscript. Talking +of Billy Lusk--if Lin was busy with gathering the cattle, why not send +Billy down to stop quietly with her. She would make him a bed in the +ticket-office, and there she would be to see after him all the time. She +knew Lin did not like his adopted child to be too much in cow-camp with +the men. She would adopt him, too, for just as long as convenient to +Lin--until the school opened on Bear Creek, if Lin so wished. Jessamine +wrote a good deal about how much better care any woman can take of a boy +of Billy's age than any man knows. The stage-coach brought the answer +to this remarkably soon--young Billy with a trunk and a letter of twelve +pages in pencil and ink--the only writing of this length ever done by +Mr. McLean. + +“I can write a lot quicker than Lin,” said Billy, upon arriving. “He was +fussing at that away late by the fire in camp, an' waked me up crawling +in our bed. An' then he had to finish it next night when he went over to +the cabin for my clothes.” + +“You don't say!” said Jessamine. And Billy suffered her to kiss him +again. + +When not otherwise occupied Jessamine took the letter out of its locked +box and read it, or looked at it. Thus the first days had gone finely +at Separ, the weather being beautiful and Billy much out-of-doors. +But sometimes the weather changes in Wyoming; and now it was that Miss +Jessamine learned the talents of childhood. + +Soon after breakfast this stormy morning Billy observed the twelve pages +being taken out of their box, and spoke from his sudden brain. “Honey +Wiggin says Lin's losing his grip about girls,” he remarked. “He says +you couldn't 'a' downed him onced. You'd 'a' had to marry him. Honey +says Lin ain't worked it like he done in old times.” + +“Now I shouldn't wonder if he was right,” said Jessamine, buoyantly. +“And that being the case, I'm going to set to work at your things till +it clears, and then we'll go for our ride.” + +“Yes,” said Billy. “When does a man get too old to marry?” + +“I'm only a girl, you see. I don't know.” + +“Yes. Honey said he wouldn't 'a' thought Lin was that old. But I guess +he must be thirty.” + +“Old!” exclaimed Jessamine. And she looked at a photograph upon her +table. + +“But Lin ain't been married very much,” pursued Billy. “Mother's the +only one they speak of. You don't have to stay married always, do you?” + +“It's better to,” said Jessamine. + +“Ah, I don't think so,” said Billy, with disparagement. “You ought to +see mother and father. I wish you would leave Lin marry you, though,” + said the boy, coming to her with an impulse of affection. “Why won't you +if he don't mind?” + +She continued to parry him, but this was not a very smooth start for +eight in the morning. Moments of lull there were, when the telegraph +called her to the front room, and Billy's young mind shifted to +inquiries about the cipher alphabet. And she gained at least an hour +teaching him to read various words by the sound. At dinner, too, he was +refreshingly silent. But such silences are unsafe, and the weather was +still bad. Four o'clock found them much where they had been at eight. + +“Please tell me why you won't leave Lin marry you.” He was at the +window, kicking the wall. + +“That's nine times since dinner,” she replied, with tireless good humor. +“Now if you ask me twelve--” + +“You'll tell?” said the boy, swiftly. + +She broke into a laugh. “No. I'll go riding and you'll stay at home. +When I was little and would ask things beyond me, they only gave me +three times.” + +“I've got two more, anyway. Ha-ha!” + +“Better save 'em up, though.” + +“What did they do to you? Ah, I don't want to go a-riding. It's nasty +all over.” He stared out at the day against which Separ's doors had been +tight closed since morning. Eight hours of furious wind had raised the +dust like a sea. “I wish the old train would come,” observed Billy, +continuing to kick the wall. “I wish I was going somewheres.” Smoky, +level, and hot, the south wind leapt into Separ across five hundred +unbroken miles. The plain was blanketed in a tawny eclipse. Each minute +the near buildings became invisible in a turbulent herd of clouds. Above +this travelling blur of the soil the top of the water-tank alone rose +bulging into the clear sun. The sand spirals would lick like flames +along the bulk of the lofty tub, and soar skyward. It was not shipping +season. The freight-cars stood idle in a long line. No cattle huddled in +the corrals. No strangers moved in town. No cow-ponies dozed in front of +the saloon. Their riders were distant in ranch and camp. Human noise was +extinct in Separ. Beneath the thunder of the sultry blasts the place +lay dead in its flapping shroud of dust. “Why won't you tell me?” droned +Billy. For some time he had been returning, like a mosquito brushed +away. + +“That's ten times,” said Jessamine, promptly. + +“Oh, goodness! Pretty soon I'll not be glad I came. I'm about twiced as +less glad now.” + +“Well,” said Jessamine, “there's a man coming to-day to mend the +government telegraph-line between Drybone and McKinney. Maybe he would +take you back as far as Box Elder, if you want to go very much. Shall I +ask him?” + +Billy was disappointed at this cordial seconding of his mood. He did not +make a direct rejoinder. “I guess I'll go outside now,” said he, with a +threat in his tone. + +She continued mending his stockings. Finished ones lay rolled at one +side of her chair, and upon the other were more waiting her attention. + +“And I'm going to turn back hand-springs on top of all the +freight-cars,” he stated, more loudly. + +She indulged again in merriment, laughing sweetly at him, and without +restraint. + +“And I'm sick of what you all keep a-saying to me!” he shouted. “Just as +if I was a baby.” + +“Why, Billy, who ever said you were a baby?” + +“All of you do. Honey, and Lin, and you, now, and everybody. What makes +you say 'that's nine times, Billy; oh, Billy, that's ten times,' if you +don't mean I'm a baby? And you laugh me off, just like they do, and just +like I was a regular baby. You won't tell me--” + +“Billy, listen. Did nobody ever ask you something you did not want to +tell them?” + +“That's not a bit the same, because--because--because I treat 'em square +and because it's not their business. But every time I ask anybody 'most +anything, they say I'm not old enough to understand; and I'll be ten +soon. And it is my business when it's about the kind of a mother I'm +agoing to have. Suppose I quit acting square, an' told 'em, when they +bothered me, they weren't young enough to understand! Wish I had. Guess +I will, too, and watch 'em step around.” For a moment his mind dwelt +upon this, and he whistled a revengeful strain. + +“Goodness, Billy!” said Jessamine, at the sight of the next stocking. +“The whole heel is scorched off.” + +He eyed the ruin with indifference. “Ah, that was last month when I +and Lin shot the bear in the swamp willows. He made me dry off my legs. +Chuck it away.” + +“And spoil the pair? No, indeed!” + +“Mother always chucked 'em, an' father'd buy new ones till I skipped +from home. Lin kind o' mends 'em.” + +“Does he?” said Jessamine, softly. And she looked at the photograph. + +“Yes. What made you write him for to let me come and bring my stockin's +and things?” + +“Don't you see, Billy, there is so little work at this station that I'd +be looking out of the window all day just the pitiful way you do?” + +“Oh!” Billy pondered. “And so I said to Lin,” he continued, “why didn't +he send down his own clothes, too, an' let you fix 'em all. And Honey +Wiggin laughed right in his coffee-cup so it all sploshed out. And the +cook he asked me if mother used to mend Lin's clothes. But I guess she +chucked 'em like she always did father's and mine. I was with father, +you know, when mother was married to Lin that time.” He paused again, +while his thoughts and fears struggled. “But Lin says I needn't ever +go back,” he went on, reasoning and confiding to her. “Lin don't like +mother any more, I guess.” His pondering grew still deeper, and he +looked at Jessamine for some while. Then his face wakened with a new +theory. “Don't Lin like you any more?” he inquired. + +“Oh,” cried Jessamine, crimsoning, “yes! Why, he sent you to me!” + +“Well, he got hot in camp when I said that about sending his clothes to +you. He quit supper pretty soon, and went away off a walking. And that's +another time they said I was too young. But Lin don't come to see you +any more.” + +“Why, I hope he loves me,” murmured Jessamine. “Always.” + +“Well, I hope so too,” said Billy, earnestly. “For I like you. When I +seen him show you our cabin on Box Elder, and the room he had fixed +for you, I was glad you were coming to be my mother. Mother used to be +awful. I wouldn't 'a' minded her licking me if she'd done other things. +Ah, pshaw! I wasn't going to stand that.” Billy now came close to +Jessamine. “I do wish you would come and live with me and Lin,” said he. +“Lin's awful nice.” + +“Don't I know it?” said Jessamine, tenderly. + +“Cause I heard you say you were going to marry him,” went on Billy. +“And I seen him kiss you and you let him that time we went away when you +found out about mother. And you're not mad, and he's not, and nothing +happens at all, all the same! Won't you tell me, please?” + +Jessamine's eyes were glistening, and she took him in her lap. She was +not going to tell him that he was too young this time. But whatever +things she had shaped to say to the boy were never said. + +Through the noise of the gale came the steadier sound of the train, +and the girl rose quickly to preside over her ticket-office and duties +behind the railing in the front room of the station. The boy ran to the +window to watch the great event of Separ's day. The locomotive loomed +out from the yellow clots of drift, paused at the water-tank, and then +with steam and humming came slowly on by the platform. Slowly its long +dust-choked train emerged trundling behind it, and ponderously halted. +There was no one to go. No one came to buy a ticket of Jessamine. The +conductor looked in on business, but she had no telegraphic orders +for him. The express agent jumped off and looked in for pleasure. He +received his daily smile and nod of friendly discouragement. Then the +light bundle of mail was flung inside the door. Separ had no mail to +go out. As she was picking up the letters young Billy passed her like a +shadow, and fled out. Two passengers had descended from the train, a man +and a large woman. His clothes were loose and careless upon him. He held +valises, and stood uncertainly looking about him in the storm. Her +firm, heavy body was closely dressed. In her hat was a large, handsome +feather. Along between the several cars brakemen leaned out, watched +her, and grinned to each other. But her big, hard-shining blue eyes were +fixed curiously upon the station where Jessamine was. + +“It's all night we may be here, is it?” she said to the man, harshly. + +“How am I to help that?” he retorted. + +“I'll help it. If this hotel's the sty it used to be, I'll walk to +Tommy's. I've not saw him since I left Bear Creek.” + +She stalked into the hotel, while the man went slowly to the station. He +entered, and found Jessamine behind her railing, sorting the slim mail. + +“Good-evening,” he said. “Excuse me. There was to be a wagon sent here.” + +“For the telegraph-mender? Yes, sir. It came Tuesday. You're to find the +pole-wagon at Drybone.” + +This news was good, and all that he wished to know. He could drive out +and escape a night at the Hotel Brunswick. But he lingered, because +Jessamine spoke so pleasantly to him. He had heard of her also. + +“Governor Barker has not been around here?” he said. + +“Not yet, sir. We understand he is expected through on a hunting-trip.” + +“I suppose there is room for two and a trunk on that wagon?” + +“I reckon so, sir.” Jessamine glanced at the man, and he took himself +out. Most men took themselves out if Jessamine so willed; and it was +mostly achieved thus, in amity. + +On the platform the man found his wife again. + +“Then I needn't to walk to Tommy's,” she said. “And we'll eat as we +travel. But you'll wait till I'm through with her.” She made a gesture +toward the station. + +“Why--why--what do you want with her. Don't you know who she is?” + +“It was me told you who she was, James Lusk. You'll wait till I've been +and asked her after Lin McLean's health, and till I've saw how the likes +of her talks to the likes of me.” + +He made a feeble protest that this would do no one any good. + +“Sew yourself up, James Lusk. If it has been your idea I come with yus +clear from Laramie to watch yus plant telegraph-poles in the sage-brush, +why you're off. I ain't heard much 'o Lin since the day he learned it +was you and not him that was my husband. And I've come back in this +country to have a look at my old friends--and” (she laughed loudly and +nodded at the station) “my old friends' new friends!” + +Thus ordered, the husband wandered away to find his wagon and the horse. + +Jessamine, in the office, had finished her station duties and returned +to her needle. She sat contemplating the scorched sock of Billy's, and +heard a heavy step at the threshold. She turned, and there was the +large woman with the feather quietly surveying her. The words which the +stranger spoke then were usual enough for a beginning. But there was +something of threat in the strong animal countenance, something of +laughter ready to break out. Much beauty of its kind had evidently been +in the face, and now, as substitute for what was gone, was the brag +look of assertion that it was still all there. Many stranded travellers +knocked at Jessamine's door, and now, as always, she offered the +hospitalities of her neat abode, the only room in Separ fit for a woman. +As she spoke, and the guest surveyed and listened, the door blew shut +with a crash. + +Outside, in a shed, Billy had placed the wagon between himself and his +father. + +“How you have grown!” the man was saying; and he smiled. “Come, shake +hands. I did not think to see you here.” + +“Dare you to touch me!” Billy screamed. “No, I'll never come with you. +Lin says I needn't to.” + +The man passed his hand across his forehead, and leaned against the +wheel. “Lord, Lord!” he muttered. + +His son warily slid out of the shed and left him leaning there. + + + +PART II + +Lin McLean, bachelor, sat out in front of his cabin, looking at a small +bright pistol that lay in his hand. He held it tenderly, cherishing it, +and did not cease slowly to polish it. Revery filled his eyes, and in +his whole face was sadness unmasked, because only the animals were +there to perceive his true feelings. Sunlight and waving shadows moved +together upon the green of his pasture, cattle and horses loitered +in the opens by the stream. Down Box Elder's course, its valley and +golden-chimneyed bluffs widened away into the level and the blue of the +greater valley. Upstream the branches and shining, quiet leaves entered +the mountains where the rock chimneys narrowed to a gateway, a citadel +of shafts and turrets, crimson and gold above the filmy emerald of the +trees. Through there the road went up from the cotton-woods into the +cool quaking asps and pines, and so across the range and away to Separ. +Along the ridge-pole of the new stable, two hundred yards down-stream, +sat McLean's turkeys, and cocks and hens walked in front of him here by +his cabin and fenced garden. Slow smoke rose from the cabin's chimney +into the air, in which were no sounds but the running water and the +afternoon chirp of birds. Amid this framework of a home the cow-puncher +sat, lonely, inattentive, polishing the treasured weapon as if it were +not already long clean. His target stood some twenty steps in front of +him--a small cottonwood-tree, its trunk chipped and honeycombed with +bullets which he had fired into it each day for memory's sake. Presently +he lifted the pistol and looked at its name--the word “Neighbor” + engraved upon it. + +“I wonder,” said he, aloud, “if she keeps the rust off mine?” Then he +lifted it slowly to his lips and kissed the word “Neighbor.” + +The clank of wheels sounded on the road, and he put the pistol quickly +down. Dreaminess vanished from his face. He looked around alertly, but +no one had seen him. The clanking was still among the trees a little +distance up Box Elder. It approached deliberately, while he watched for +the vehicle to emerge upon the open where his cabin stood; and then they +came, a man and a woman. At sight of her Mr. McLean half rose, but sat +down again. Neither of them had noticed him, sitting as they were in +silence and the drowsiness of a long drive. The man was weak-faced, with +good looks sallowed by dissipation, and a vanquished glance of the +eye. As the woman had stood on the platform at Separ, so she sat now, +upright, bold, and massive. The brag of past beauty was a habit settled +upon her stolid features. Both sat inattentive to each other and to +everything around them. The wheels turned slowly and with a dry, dead +noise, the reins bellied loosely to the shafts, the horse's head hung +low. So they drew close. Then the man saw McLean, and color came into +his face and went away. + +“Good-evening,” said he, clearing his throat. “We heard you was in +cow-camp.” + +The cow-puncher noted how he tried to smile, and a freakish change +crossed his own countenance. He nodded slightly, and stretched his legs +out as he sat. + +“You look natural,” said the woman, familiarly. + +“Seem to be fixed nice here,” continued the man. “Hadn't heard of it. +Well, we'll be going along. Glad to have seen you.” + +“Your wheel wants greasing,” said McLean, briefly, his eye upon the man. + +“Can't stop. I expect she'll last to Drybone. Good-evening.” + +“Stay to supper,” said McLean, always seated on his chair. + +“Can't stop, thank you. I expect we can last to Drybone.” He twitched +the reins. + +McLean levelled a pistol at a chicken, and knocked off its head. “Better +stay to supper,” he suggested, very distinctly. + +“It's business, I tell you. I've got to catch Governor Barker before +he--” + +The pistol cracked, and a second chicken shuffled in the dust. “Better +stay to supper,” drawled McLean. + +The man looked up at his wife. + +“So yus need me!” she broke out. “Ain't got heart enough in yer +played-out body to stand up to a man. We'll eat here. Get down.” + +The husband stepped to the ground. “I didn't suppose you'd want--” + +“Ho! want? What's Lin, or you, or anything to me? Help me out.” + +Both men came forward. She descended, leaning heavily upon each, her +blue staring eyes fixed upon the cow-puncher. + +“No, yus ain't changed,” she said. “Same in your looks and same in your +actions. Was you expecting you could scare me, you, Lin McLean?” + +“I just wanted chickens for supper,” said he. + +Mrs. Lusk gave a hard high laugh. “I'll eat 'em. It's not I that cares. +As for--” She stopped. Her eye had fallen upon the pistol and the name +“Neighbor.” “As for you,” she continued to Mr. Lusk, “don't you be +standing dumb same as the horse.” + +“Better take him to the stable, Lusk,” said McLean. + +He picked the chickens up, showed the woman to the best chair in his +room, and went into his kitchen to cook supper for three. He gave his +guests no further attention, nor did either of them come in where he +was, nor did the husband rejoin the wife. He walked slowly up and down +in the air, and she sat by herself in the room. Lin's steps as he +made ready round the stove and table, and Lusk's slow tread out in the +setting sunlight, were the only sounds about the cabin. When the host +looked into the door of the next room to announce that his meal was +served, the woman sat in her chair no longer, but stood with her back +to him by a shelf. She gave a slight start at his summons, and replaced +something. He saw that she had been examining “Neighbor,” and his face +hardened suddenly to fierceness as he looked at her; but he repeated +quietly that she had better come in. Thus did the three sit down to +their meal. Occasionally a word about handing some dish fell from one +or other of them, but nothing more, until Lusk took out his watch and +mentioned the hour. + +“Yu've not ate especially hearty,” said Lin, resting his arms upon the +table. + +“I'm going,” asserted Lusk. “Governor Barker may start out. I've got my +interests to look after.” + +“Why, sure,” said Lin. “I can't hope you'll waste all your time on just +me.” + +Lusk rose and looked at his wife. “It'll be ten now before we get to +Drybone,” said he. And he went down to the stable. + +The woman sat still, pressing the crumbs of her bread. “I know you seen +me,” she said, without looking at him. + +“Saw you when?” + +“I knowed it. And I seen how you looked at me.” She sat twisting and +pressing the crumb. Sometimes it was round, sometimes it was a cube, now +and then she flattened it to a disk. Mr. McLean seemed to have nothing +that he wished to reply. + +“If you claim that pistol is yourn,” she said next, “I'll tell you I +know better. If you ask me whose should it be if not yourn, I would not +have to guess the name. She has talked to me, and me to her.” + +She was still looking away from him at the bread-crumb, or she could +have seen that McLean's hand was trembling as he watched her leaning on +his arms. + +“Oh yes, she was willing to talk to me!” The woman uttered another +sudden laugh. “I knowed about her--all. Things get heard of in this +world. Did not all about you and me come to her knowledge in its own +good time, and it done and gone how many years? My, my, my!” Her voice +grew slow and absent. She stopped for a moment, and then more rapidly +resumed: “It had travelled around about you and her like it always will +travel. It was known how you had asked her, and how she had told you she +would have you, and then told you she would not when she learned about +you and me. Folks that knowed yus and folks that never seen yus in their +lives had to have their word about her facing you down you had another +wife, though she knowed the truth about me being married to Lusk and him +livin' the day you married me, and ten and twenty marriages could +not have tied you and me up, no matter how honest you swore to no +hinderance. Folks said it was plain she did not want yus. It give me +a queer feelin' to see that girl. It give me a wish to tell her to her +face that she did not love yus and did not know love. Wait--wait, Lin! +Yu' never hit me yet.” + +“No,” said the cow-puncher. “Nor now. I'm not Lusk.” + +“Yu' looked so--so bad, Lin. I never seen yu' look so bad in old days. +Wait, now, and I must tell it. I wished to laugh in her face and say, +'What do you know about love?' So I walked in. Lin, she does love yus!” + +“Yes,” breathed McLean. + +“She was sittin' back in her room at Separ. Not the ticket-office, +but--” + +“I know,” the cow-puncher said. His eyes were burning. + +“It's snug, the way she has it. 'Good-afternoon,' I says. 'Is this Miss +Jessamine Buckner?'” + +At his sweetheart's name the glow in Lin's eyes seemed to quiver to a +flash. + +“And she spoke pleasant to me--pleasant and gay-like. But a woman can +tell sorrow in a woman's eyes. And she asked me would I rest in her room +there, and what was my name. 'They tell me you claim to know it better +than I do,' I says. 'They tell me you say it is Mrs. McLean.' She +put her hand on her breast, and she keeps lookin' at me without never +speaking. 'Maybe I am not so welcome now,' I says. 'One minute,' says +she. 'Let me get used to it.' And she sat down. + +“Lin, she is a square-lookin' girl. I'll say that for her. + +“I never thought to sit down onced myself; I don't know why, but I kep' +a-standing, and I took in that room of hers. She had flowers and things +around there, and I seen your picture standing on the table, and I seen +your six-shooter right by it--and, oh, Lin, hadn't I knowed your face +before ever she did, and that gun you used to let me shoot on Bear +Creek? It took me that sudden! Why, it rushed over me so I spoke right +out different from what I'd meant and what I had ready fixed up to say. + +“'Why did you do it?' I says to her, while she was a-sitting. 'How could +you act so, and you a woman?' She just sat, and her sad eyes made me +madder at the idea of her. 'You have had real sorrow,' says I, 'if they +report correct. You have knowed your share of death, and misery, and +hard work, and all. Great God! ain't there things enough that come to +yus uncalled for and natural, but you must run around huntin' up more +that was leavin' yus alone and givin' yus a chance? I knowed him onced. +I knowed your Lin McLean. And when that was over, I knowed for the first +time how men can be different.' I'm started, Lin, I'm started. Leave me +go on, and when I'm through I'll quit. 'Some of 'em, anyway,' I says to +her, 'has hearts and self-respect, and ain't hogs clean through.' + +“'I know,” she says, thoughtful-like. + +“And at her whispering that way I gets madder. + +“'You know!' I says then. 'What is it that you know? Do you know that +you have hurt a good man's heart? For onced I hurt it myself, though +different. And hurts in them kind of hearts stays. Some hearts is that +luscious and pasty you can stab 'em and it closes up so yu'd never +suspicion the place--but Lin McLean! Nor yet don't yus believe his is +the kind that breaks--if any kind does that. You may sit till the gray +hairs, and you may wall up your womanhood, but if a man has got manhood +like him, he will never sit till the gray hairs. Grief over losin' the +best will not stop him from searchin' for a second best after a +while. He wants a home, and he has got a right to one,' says I to Miss +Jessamine. 'You have not walled up Lin McLean,' I says to her. Wait, +Lin, wait. Yus needn't to tell me that's a lie. I know a man thinks he's +walled up for a while.” + +“She could have told you it was a lie,” said the cow-puncher. + +“She did not. 'Let him get a home,' says she. 'I want him to be happy.' +'That flash in your eyes talks different,' says I. 'Sure enough yus +wants him to be happy. Sure enough. But not happy along with Miss Second +Best.' + +“Lin, she looked at me that piercin'! + +“And I goes on, for I was wound away up. 'And he will be happy, too,' I +says. 'Miss Second Best will have a talk with him about your picture and +little “Neighbor,” which he'll not send back to yus, because the hurt in +his heart is there. And he will keep 'em out of sight somewheres after +his talk with Miss Second Best.' Lin, Lin, I laughed at them words of +mine, but I was that wound up I was strange to myself. And she watchin' +me that way! And I says to her: 'Miss Second Best will not be the crazy +thing to think I am any wife of his standing in her way. He will tell +her about me. He will tell how onced he thought he was solid married to +me till Lusk came back; and she will drop me out of sight along with the +rest that went nameless. They was not uncomprehensible to you, was they? +You have learned something by livin', I guess! And Lin--your Lin, not +mine, nor never mine in heart for a day so deep as he's yourn right +now--he has been gay--gay as any I've knowed. Why, look at that face of +his! Could a boy with a face like that help bein' gay? But that don't +touch what's the true Lin deep down. Nor will his deep-down love for +you hinder him like it will hinder you. Don't you know men and us is +different when it comes to passion? We're all one thing then, but they +ain't simple. They keep along with lots of other things. I can't make +yus know, and I guess it takes a woman like I have been to learn their +nature. But you did know he loved you, and you sent him away, and you'll +be homeless in yer house when he has done the right thing by himself and +found another girl.' + +“Lin, all the while I was talkin' all I knowed to her, without knowin' +what I'd be sayin' next, for it come that unexpected, she was lookin' +at me with them steady eyes. And all she says when I quit was, 'If I saw +him I would tell him to find a home.'” + +“Didn't she tell yu' she'd made me promise to keep away from seeing +her?” asked the cow-puncher. + +Mrs. Lusk laughed. “Oh, you innocent!” said she. + +“She said if I came she would leave Separ,” muttered McLean, brooding. + +Again the large woman laughed out, but more harshly. + +“I have kept my promise,” Lin continued. + +“Keep it some more. Sit here rotting in your chair till she goes away. +Maybe she's gone.” + +“What's that?” said Lin. But still she only laughed harshly. “I could +be there by to-morrow night,” he murmured. Then his face softened. “She +would never do such a thing!” he said, to himself. + +He had forgotten the woman at the table. While she had told him matters +that concerned him he had listened eagerly. Now she was of no more +interest than she had been before her story was begun. She looked at his +eyes as he sat thinking and dwelling upon his sweetheart. She looked at +him, and a longing welled up into her face. A certain youth and heavy +beauty relighted the features. + +“You are the same, same Lin everyways,” she said. “A woman is too many +for you still, Lin!” she whispered. + +At her summons he looked up from his revery. + +“Lin, I would not have treated you so.” + +The caress that filled her voice was plain. His look met hers as he sat +quite still, his arms on the table. Then he took his turn at laughing. + +“You!” he said. “At least I've had plenty of education in you.” + +“Lin, Lin, don't talk that brutal to me to-day. If yus knowed how near I +come shooting myself with 'Neighbor.' That would have been funny! + +“I knowed yus wanted to tear that pistol out of my hand because it was +hern. But yus never did such things to me, fer there's a gentleman in +you somewheres, Lin. And yus didn't never hit me, not even when you come +to know me well. And when I seen you so unexpected again to-night, and +you just the same old Lin, scaring Lusk with shooting them chickens, so +comic and splendid, I could 'a' just killed Lusk sittin' in the wagon. +Say, Lin, what made yus do that, anyway?” + +“I can't hardly say,” said the cow-puncher. “Only noticing him so +turruble anxious to quit me--well, a man acts without thinking.” + +“You always did, Lin. You was always a comical genius. Lin, them were +good times.” + +“Which times?” + +“You know. You can't tell me you have forgot.” + +“I have not forgot much. What's the sense in this?” + +“Yus never loved me!” she exclaimed. + +“Shucks!” + +“Lin, Lin, is it all over? You know yus loved me on Bear Creek. Say you +did. Only say it was once that way.” And as he sat, she came and put her +arms round his neck. For a moment he did not move, letting himself be +held; and then she kissed him. The plates crashed as he beat and struck +her down upon the table. He was on his feet, cursing himself. As he went +out of the door, she lay where she had fallen beneath his fist, looking +after him and smiling. + +McLean walked down Box Elder Creek through the trees toward the stable, +where Lusk had gone to put the horse in the wagon. Once he leaned his +hand against a big cotton-wood, and stood still with half-closed eyes. +Then he continued on his way. “Lusk!” he called, presently, and in a few +steps more, “Lusk!” Then, as he came slowly out of the trees to meet the +husband he began, with quiet evenness, “Your wife wants to know--” But +he stopped. No husband was there. Wagon and horse were not there. The +door was shut. The bewildered cow-puncher looked up the stream where the +road went, and he looked down. Out of the sky where daylight and stars +were faintly shining together sounded the long cries of the night hawks +as they sped and swooped to their hunting in the dusk. From among the +trees by the stream floated a cooler air, and distant and close by +sounded the splashing water. About the meadow where Lin stood his horses +fed, quietly crunching. He went to the door, looked in, and shut it +again. He walked to his shed and stood contemplating his own wagon alone +there. Then he lifted away a piece of trailing vine from the gate of +the corral, while the turkeys moved their heads and watched him from the +roof. A rope was hanging from the corral, and seeing it, he dropped the +vine. He opened the corral gate, and walked quickly back into the middle +of the field, where the horses saw him and his rope, and scattered. But +he ran and herded them, whirling the rope, and so drove them into the +corral, and flung his noose over two. He dragged two saddles--men's +saddles--from the stable, and next he was again at his cabin door with +the horses saddled. She was sitting quite still by the table where she +had sat during the meal, nor did she speak or move when she saw him look +in at the door. + +“Lusk has gone,” said he. “I don't know what he expected you would do, +or I would do. But we will catch him before he gets to Drybone.” + +She looked at him with her dumb stare. “Gone?” she said. + +“Get up and ride,” said McLean. “You are going to Drybone.” + +“Drybone?” she echoed. Her voice was toneless and dull. + +He made no more explanations to her, but went quickly about the cabin. +Soon he had set it in order, the dishes on their shelves, the table +clean, the fire in the stove arranged; and all these movements she +followed with a sort of blank mechanical patience. He made a small +bundle for his own journey, tied it behind his saddle, brought her horse +beside a stump. When at his sharp order she came out, he locked his +cabin and hung the key by a window, where travellers could find it and +be at home. + +She stood looking where her husband had slunk off. Then she laughed. +“It's about his size,” she murmured. + +Her old lover helped her in silence to mount into the man's saddle--this +they had often done together in former years--and so they took their way +down the silent road. They had not many miles to go, and after the first +two lay behind them, when the horses were limbered and had been put to +a canter, they made time quickly. They had soon passed out of the trees +and pastures of Box Elder and came among the vast low stretches of the +greater valley. Not even by day was the river's course often discernible +through the ridges and cheating sameness of this wilderness; and beneath +this half-darkness of stars and a quarter moon the sage spread shapeless +to the looming mountains, or to nothing. + +“I will ask you one thing,” said Lin, after ten miles. + +The woman made no sign of attention as she rode beside him. + +“Did I understand that she--Miss Buckner, I mean--mentioned she might be +going away from Separ?” + +“How do I know what you understood?” + +“I thought you said--” + +“Don't you bother me, Lin McLean.” Her laugh rang out, loud and +forlorn--one brief burst that startled the horses and that must have +sounded far across the sage-brush. “You men are rich,” she said. + +They rode on, side by side, and saying nothing after that. The Drybone +road was a broad trail, a worn strip of bareness going onward over +the endless shelvings of the plain, visible even in this light; and +presently, moving upon its grayness on a hill in front of them, they +made out the wagon. They hastened and overtook it. + +“Put your carbine down,” said McLean to Lusk. “It's not robbers. It's +your wife I'm bringing you.” He spoke very quietly. + +The husband addressed no word to the cow-puncher “Get in, then,” he said +to his wife. + +“Town's not far now,” said Lin. “Maybe you would prefer riding the +balance of the way?” + +“I'd--” But the note of pity that she felt in McLean's question overcame +her, and her utterance choked. She nodded her head, and the three +continued slowly climbing the hill together. + +From the narrows of the steep, sandy, weather-beaten banks that the +road slanted upward through for a while, they came out again upon the +immensity of the table-land. Here, abruptly like an ambush, was the +whole unsuspected river close below to their right, as if it had emerged +from the earth. With a circling sweep from somewhere out in the gloom +it cut in close to the lofty mesa beneath tall clean-graded descents of +sand, smooth as a railroad embankment. As they paused on the level to +breathe their horses, the wet gulp of its eddies rose to them through +the stillness. Upstream they could make out the light of the Drybone +bridge, but not the bridge itself; and two lights on the farther bank +showed where stood the hog-ranch opposite Drybone. They went on over +the table-land and reached the next herald of the town, Drybone's +chief historian, the graveyard. Beneath its slanting headboards and +wind-shifted sand lay many more people than lived in Drybone. They +passed by the fence of this shelterless acre on the hill, and shoutings +and high music began to reach them. At the foot of the hill they saw the +sparse lights and shapes of the town where ended the gray strip of road. +The many sounds--feet, voices, and music--grew clearer, unravelling from +their muffled confusion, and the fiddling became a tune that could be +known. + +“There's a dance to-night,” said the wife to the husband. “Hurry.” + +He drove as he had been driving. Perhaps he had not heard her. + +“I'm telling you to hurry,” she repeated. “My new dress is in that +wagon. There'll be folks to welcome me here that's older friends than +you.” + +She put her horse to a gallop down the broad road toward the music and +the older friends. The husband spoke to his horse, cleared his throat +and spoke louder, cleared his throat again and this time his sullen +voice carried, and the animal started. So Lusk went ahead of Lin McLean, +following his wife with the new dress at as good a pace as he might. If +he did not want her company, perhaps to be alone with the cow-puncher +was still less to his mind. + +“It ain't only her he's stopped caring for,” mused Lin, as he rode +slowly along. “He don't care for himself any more.” + + + +PART III + +To-day, Drybone has altogether returned to the dust. Even in that day +its hour could have been heard beginning to sound, but its inhabitants +were rather deaf. Gamblers, saloon-keepers, murderers, outlaws male +and female, all were so busy with their cards, their lovers, and their +bottles as to make the place seem young and vigorous; but it was second +childhood which had set in. + +Drybone had known a wholesome adventurous youth, where manly lives and +deaths were plenty. It had been an army post. It had seen horse and +foot, and heard the trumpet. Brave wives had kept house for their +captains upon its bluffs. Winter and summer they had made the best of +it. When the War Department ordered the captains to catch Indians, +the wives bade them Godspeed. When the Interior Department ordered the +captains to let the Indians go again, still they made the best of it. +You must not waste Indians. Indians were a source of revenue to so many +people in Washington and elsewhere. But the process of catching Indians, +armed with weapons sold them by friends of the Interior Department, was +not entirely harmless. Therefore there came to be graves in the Drybone +graveyard. The pale weather-washed head-boards told all about it: +“Sacred to the memory of Private So-and-So, killed on the Dry Cheyenne, +May 6, 1875.” Or it would be, “Mrs. So-and-So, found scalped on Sage +Creek.” But even the financiers at Washington could not wholly preserve +the Indian in Drybone's neighborhood. As the cattle by ten thousands +came treading with the next step of civilization into this huge domain, +the soldiers were taken away. Some of them went West to fight more +Indians in Idaho, Oregon, or Arizona. The battles of the others being +done, they went East in better coffins to sleep where their mothers or +their comrades wanted them. Though wind and rain wrought changes upon +the hill, the ready-made graves and boxes which these soldiers left +behind proved heirlooms as serviceable in their way as were the +tenements that the living had bequeathed to Drybone. Into these +empty barracks came to dwell and do business every joy that made the +cow-puncher's holiday, and every hunted person who was baffling the +sheriff. For the sheriff must stop outside the line of Drybone, as +shall presently be made clear. The captain's quarters were a saloon now; +professional cards were going in the adjutant's office night and day; +and the commissary building made a good dance-hall and hotel. Instead +of guard-mounting, you would see a horse-race on the parade-ground, and +there was no provost-sergeant to gather up the broken bottles and old +boots. Heaps of these choked the rusty fountain. In the tufts of yellow, +ragged grass that dotted the place plentifully were lodged many aces +and queens and ten-spots, which the Drybone wind had blown wide from the +doors out of which they had been thrown when a new pack was called for +inside. Among the grass tufts would lie visitors who had applied for +beds too late at the dance-hall, frankly sleeping their whiskey off in +the morning air. + +Above, on the hill, the graveyard quietly chronicled this new epoch of +Drybone. So-and-so was seldom killed very far out of town, and of course +scalping had disappeared. “Sacred to the memory of Four-ace Johnston, +accidently shot, Sep. 4, 1885.” Perhaps one is still there unaltered: +“Sacred to the memory of Mrs. Ryan's babe. Aged two months.” This unique +corpse had succeeded in dying with its boots off. + +But a succession of graves was not always needed to read the changing +tale of the place, and how people died there; one grave would often be +enough. The soldiers, of course, had kept treeless Drybone supplied with +wood. But in these latter days wood was very scarce. None grew nearer +than twenty or thirty miles--none, that is, to make boards of a +sufficient width for epitaphs. And twenty miles was naturally far to go +to hew a board for a man of whom you knew perhaps nothing but what he +said his name was, and to whom you owed nothing, perhaps, but a trifling +poker debt. Hence it came to pass that headboards grew into a sort of +directory. They were light to lift from one place to another. A single +coat of white paint would wipe out the first tenant's name sufficiently +to paint over it the next comer's. By this thrifty habit the original +boards belonging to the soldiers could go round, keeping pace with the +new civilian population; and though at first sight you might be puzzled +by the layers of names still visible beneath the white paint, you could +be sure that the clearest and blackest was the one to which the present +tenant had answered. + +So there on the hill lay the graveyard, steadily writing Drybone's +history, and making that history lay the town at the bottom--one thin +line of houses framing three sides of the old parade ground. In these +slowly rotting shells people rioted, believing the golden age was here, +the age when everybody should have money and nobody should be arrested. +For Drybone soil, you see, was still government soil, not yet handed +over to Wyoming; and only government could arrest there, and only for +government crimes. But government had gone, and seldom worried Drybone! +The spot was a postage-stamp of sanctuary pasted in the middle of +Wyoming's big map, a paradise for the Four-ace Johnstons. Only, you must +not steal a horse. That was really wicked, and brought you instantly to +the notice of Drybone's one official--the coroner! For they did keep a +coroner--Judge Slaghammer. He was perfectly illegal, and lived next door +in Albany County. But that county paid fees and mileage to keep tally of +Drybone's casualties. His wife owned the dance-hall, and between their +industries they made out a living. And all the citizens made out a +living. The happy cow-punchers on ranches far and near still earned and +instantly spent the high wages still paid them. With their bodies +full of youth and their pockets full of gold, they rode into town by +twenties, by fifties, and out again next morning, penniless always and +happy. And then the Four-ace Johnstons would sit card-playing with each +other till the innocents should come to town again. + +To-night the innocents had certainly come to town, and Drybone was +furnishing to them all its joys. Their many horses stood tied at every +post and corner--patient, experienced cow-ponies, well knowing it was +an all-night affair. The talk and laughter of the riders was in the +saloons; they leaned joking over the bars, they sat behind their cards +at the tables, they strolled to the post-trader's to buy presents for +their easy sweethearts their boots were keeping audible time with the +fiddle at Mrs. Slaghammer's. From the multitude and vigor of the sounds +there, the dance was being done regularly. “Regularly” meant that upon +the conclusion of each set the gentleman led his lady to the bar and +invited her to choose and it was also regular that the lady should +choose. Beer and whiskey were the alternatives. + +Lin McLean's horse took him across the square without guiding from the +cow-puncher, who sat absently with his hands folded upon the horn of his +saddle. This horse, too, was patient and experienced, and could not know +what remote thoughts filled his master's mind. He looked around to see +why his master did not get off lightly, as he had done during so +many gallant years, and hasten in to the conviviality. But the lonely +cow-puncher sat mechanically identifying the horses of acquaintances. + +“Toothpick Kid is here,” said he, “and Limber Jim, and the Doughie. +You'd think he'd stay away after the trouble he--I expect that pinto is +Jerky Bill's.” + +“Go home!” said a hearty voice. + +McLean eagerly turned. For the moment his face lighted from its +sombreness. “I'd forgot you'd be here,” said he. And he sprang to the +ground. “It's fine to see you.” + +“Go home!” repeated the Governor of Wyoming, shaking his ancient +friend's hand. “You in Drybone to-night, and claim you're reformed? + +“Yu' seem to be on hand yourself,” said the cow-puncher, bracing to be +jocular, if he could. + +“Me! I've gone fishing. Don't you read the papers? If we poor governors +can't lock up the State House and take a whirl now and then--” + +“Doc,” interrupted Lin, “it's plumb fine to see yu'!” Again he shook +hands. + +“Why, yes! we've met here before, you and I.” His Excellency the Hon. +Amory W. Barker, M.D., stood laughing, familiar and genial, his sound +white teeth shining. But behind his round spectacles he scrutinized +McLean. For in this second hand-shaking was a fervor that seemed a +grasp, a reaching out, for comfort. Barker had passed through Separ. +Though an older acquaintance than Billy, he had asked Jessamine fewer +and different questions. But he knew what he knew. “Well, Drybone's the +same old Drybone,” said he. “Sweet-scented hole of iniquity! Let's see +how you walk nowadays.” + +Lin took a few steps. + +“Pooh! I said you'd never get over it.” And his Excellency beamed with +professional pride. In his doctor days Barker had set the boy McLean's +leg; and before it was properly knit the boy had escaped from the +hospital to revel loose in Drybone on such another night as this. Soon +he had been carried back, with the fracture split open again. + +“It shows, does it?” said Lin. “Well, it don't usually. Not except when +I'm--when I'm--” + +“Down?” suggested his Excellency. + +“Yes, Doc. Down,” the cow-puncher confessed. + +Barker looked into his friend's clear hazel eyes. + +Beneath their dauntless sparkle was something that touched the +Governor's good heart. “I've got some whiskey along on the trip--Eastern +whiskey,” said he. “Come over to my room awhile.” + +“I used to sleep all night onced,” said McLean, as they went. “Then I +come to know different. But I'd never have believed just mere thoughts +could make yu'--make yu' feel like the steam was only half on. I eat, +yu' know!” he stated, suddenly. “And I expect one or two in camp lately +have not found my muscle lacking. Feel me, Doc.” + +Barker dutifully obeyed, and praised the excellent sinews. + +Across from the dance-hall the whining of the fiddle came, high and gay; +feet blurred the talk of voices, and voices rose above the trampling of +feet. Here and there some lurking form stumbled through the dark among +the rubbish; and clearest sound of all, the light crack of billiard +balls reached dry and far into the night Barker contemplated the stars +and calm splendid dimness of the plain. “'Though every prospect pleases, +and only man is vile,'” he quoted. “But don't tell the Republican party +I said so.” + +“It's awful true, though, Doc. I'm vile myself. Yu' don't know. Why, I +didn't know!” + +And then they sat down to confidences and whiskey; for so long as the +world goes round a man must talk to a man sometimes, and both must drink +over it. The cow-puncher unburdened himself to the Governor; and the +Governor filled up his friend's glass with the Eastern whiskey, and +nodded his spectacles, and listened, and advised, and said he should +have done the same, and like the good Governor that he was, never +remembered he was Governor at all with political friends here who +had begged a word or two. He became just Dr. Barker again, the young +hospital surgeon (the hospital that now stood a ruin), and Lin was again +his patient----Lin, the sun-burnt free-lance of nineteen, reckless, +engaging, disobedient, his leg broken and his heart light, with no +Jessamine or conscience to rob his salt of its savor. While he now told +his troubles, the quadrilles fiddled away careless as ever, and the +crack of the billiard balls sounded as of old. + +“Nobody has told you about this, I expect,” said the lover. He brought +forth the little pistol, “Neighbor.” He did not hand it across to +Barker, but walked over to Barker's chair, and stood holding it for the +doctor to see. When Barker reached for it to see better, since it was +half hidden in the cow-puncher's big hand, Lin yielded it to him, but +still stood and soon drew it back. “I take it around,” he said, “and +when one of those stories comes along, like there's plenty of, that she +wants to get rid of me, I just kind o' take a look at 'Neighbor' when +I'm off where it's handy, and it busts the story right out of my mind. I +have to tell you what a fool I am.” + +“The whiskey's your side,” said Barker. “Go on.” + +“But, Doc, my courage has quit me. They see what I'm thinking about just +like I was a tenderfoot trying his first bluff. I can't stick it out no +more, and I'm going to see her, come what will. + +“I've got to. I'm going to ride right up to her window and shoot off +'Neighbor,' and if she don't come out I'll know--” + +A knocking came at the Governor's room, and Judge Slaghammer entered. +“Not been to our dance, Governor?” said he. + +The Governor thought that perhaps he was tired, that perhaps this +evening he must forego the pleasure. + +“It may be wiser. In your position it may be advisable,” said the +coroner. “They're getting on rollers over there. We do not like trouble +in Drybone, but trouble comes to us--as everywhere.” + +“Shooting,” suggested his Excellency, recalling his hospital practice. + +“Well, Governor, you know how it is. Our boys are as big-hearted as any +in this big-hearted Western country. You know, Governor. Those generous, +warm-blooded spirits are ever ready for anything.” + +“Especially after Mrs. Slaghammer's whiskey,” remarked the Governor. + +The coroner shot a shrewd eye at Wyoming's chief executive. It was not +politically harmonious to be reminded that but for his wife's liquor a +number of fine young men, with nothing save youth untrained and health +the matter with them, would to-day be riding their horses instead +of sleeping on the hill. But the coroner wanted support in the next +campaign. “Boys will be boys,” said he. “They ain't pulled any guns +to-night. But I come away, though. Some of 'em's making up pretty free +to Mrs. Lusk. It ain't suitable for me to see too much. Lusk says he's +after you,” he mentioned incidentally to Lin. “He's fillin' up, and says +he's after you.” McLean nodded placidly, and with scant politeness. +He wished this visitor would go. But Judge Slaghammer had noticed the +whiskey. He filled himself a glass. “Governor, it has my compliments,” + said he. “Ambrosier. Honey-doo.” + +“Mrs. Slaghammer seems to have a large gathering,” said Barker. + +“Good boys, good boys!” The judge blew importantly, and waved his arm. +“Bull-whackers, cow-punchers, mule-skinners, tin-horns. All spending +generous. Governor, once more! Ambrosier. Honey-doo.” He settled himself +deep in a chair, and closed his eyes. + +McLean rose abruptly. “Good-night,” said he. “I'm going to Separ.” + +“Separ!” exclaimed Slaghammer, rousing slightly. “Oh, stay with us, stay +with us.” He closed his eyes again, but sustained his smile of office. + +“You know how well I wish you,” said Barker to Lin. “I'll just see you +start.” + +Forthwith the friends left the coroner quiet beside his glass, and +walked toward the horses through Drybone's gaping quadrangle. The dead +ruins loomed among the lights of the card-halls, and always the keen +jockey cadences of the fiddle sang across the night. But a calling and +confusion were set up, and the tune broke off. + +“Just like old times!” said his Excellency. “Where's the dump-pile!” It +was where it should be, close by, and the two stepped behind it to +be screened from wandering bullets. “A man don't forget his habits,” + declared the Governor. “Makes me feel young again.” + +“Makes me feel old,” said McLean. “Hark!” + +“Sounds like my name,” said Barker. They listened. “Oh yes. Of course. +That's it. They're shouting for the doctor. But we'll just spare them a +minute or so to finish their excitement.” + +“I didn't hear any shooting,” said McLean. “It's something, though.” + +As they waited, no shots came; but still the fiddle was silent, and +the murmur of many voices grew in the dance-hall, while single voices +wandered outside, calling the doctor's name. + +“I'm the Governor on a fishing-trip,” said he. “But it's to be done, I +suppose.” + +They left their dump-hill and proceeded over to the dance. The musician +sat high and solitary upon two starch-boxes, fiddle on knee, staring and +waiting. Half the floor was bare; on the other half the revellers were +densely clotted. At the crowd's outer rim the young horsemen, flushed +and swaying, retained their gaudy dance partners strongly by the waist, +to be ready when the music should resume. “What is it?” they asked. “Who +is it?” And they looked in across heads and shoulders, inattentive to +the caresses which the partners gave them. + +Mrs. Lusk was who it was, and she had taken poison here in their midst, +after many dances and drinks. + +“Here's Doc!” cried an older one. + +“Here's Doc!” chorused the young blood that had come into this country +since his day. And the throng caught up the words: “Here's Doc! here's +Doc!” + +In a moment McLean and Barker were sundered from each other in this +flood. Barker, sucked in toward the centre but often eddied back by +those who meant to help him, heard the mixed explanations pass his ear +unfinished--versions, contradictions, a score of facts. It had been +wolf-poison. It had been “Rough on Rats.” It had been something in a +bottle. There was little steering in this clamorous sea; but Barker +reached his patient, where she sat in her new dress, hailing him with +wild inebriate gayety. + +“I must get her to her room, friends,” said he. + +“He must get her to her room,” went the word. “Leave Doc get her to her +room.” And they tangled in their eagerness around him and his patient. + +“Give us 'Buffalo Girls!'” shouted Mrs. Lusk.... “'Buffalo Girls,' you +fiddler!” + +“We'll come back,” said Barker to her. + +“'Buffalo Girls,' I tell yus. Ho! There's no sense looking at that +bottle, Doc. Take yer dance while there's time!” She was holding the +chair. + +“Help him!” said the crowd. “Help Doc.” + +They took her from her chair, and she fought, a big pink mass of +ribbons, fluttering and wrenching itself among them. + +“She has six ounces of laudanum in her,” Barker told them at the top of +his voice. “It won't wait all night.” + +“I'm a whirlwind!” said Mrs. Lusk. “That's my game! And you done your +share,” she cried to the fiddler. “Here's my regards, old man! 'Buffalo +Girls' once more!” + +She flung out her hand, and from it fell notes and coins, rolling +and ringing around the starch boxes. Some dragged her on, while some +fiercely forbade the musician to touch the money, because it was hers, +and she would want it when she came to. Thus they gathered it up for +her. But now she had sunk down, asking in a new voice where was Lin +McLean. And when one grinning intimate reminded her that Lusk had gone +to shoot him, she laughed out richly, and the crowd joined her mirth. +But even in the midst of the joke she asked again in the same voice +where was Lin McLean. He came beside her among more jokes. He had kept +himself near, and now at sight of him she reached out and held him. +“Tell them to leave me go to sleep, Lin,” said she. + +Barker saw a chance. “Persuade her to come along,” said he to McLean. +“Minutes are counting now.” + +“Oh, I'll come,” she said, with a laugh, overhearing him, and holding +still to Lin. + +The rest of the old friends nudged each other. “Back seats for us,” they +said. “But we've had our turn in front ones.” Then, thinking they would +be useful in encouraging her to walk, they clustered again, rendering +Barker and McLean once more well-nigh helpless. Clumsily the escort made +its slow way across the quadrangle, cautioning itself about stones and +holes. Thus, presently, she was brought into the room. The escort set +her down, crowding the little place as thick as it would hold; the rest +gathered thick at the door, and all of them had no thought of departing. +The notion to stay was plain on their faces. + +Barker surveyed them. “Give the doctor a show now, boys,” said he. +“You've done it all so far. Don't crowd my elbows. I'll want you,” he +whispered to McLean. + +At the argument of fair-play, obedience swept over them like a veering +of wind. “Don't crowd his elbows,” they began to say at once, and told +each other to come away. “We'll sure give the Doc room. You don't want +to be shovin' your auger in, Chalkeye. You want to get yourself pretty +near absent.” The room thinned of them forthwith. “Fix her up good, +Doc,” they said, over their shoulders. They shuffled across the +threshold and porch with roundabout schemes to tread quietly. When one +or other stumbled on the steps and fell, he was jerked to his feet. +“You want to tame yourself,” was the word. Then, suddenly, Chalkeye +and Toothpick Kid came precipitately back. “Her cash,” they said. And +leaving the notes and coins, they hastened to catch their comrades on +the way back to the dance. + +“I want you,” repeated Barker to McLean. + +“Him!” cried Mrs. Lusk, flashing alert again. “Jessamine wants him about +now, I guess. Don't keep him from his girl!” And she laughed her hard, +rich laugh, looking from one to the other. “Not the two of yus can't +save me,” she stated, defiantly. But even in these last words a sort of +thickness sounded. + +“Walk her up and down,” said Barker. “Keep her moving. I'll look what +I can find. Keep her moving brisk.” At once he was out of the door; and +before his running steps had died away, the fiddle had taken up its tune +across the quadrangle. + +“'Buffalo Girls!'” exclaimed the woman. “Old times! Old times!” + +“Come,” said McLean. “Walk.” And he took her. + +Her head was full of the music. Forgetting all but that, she went with +him easily, and the two made their first turns around the room. Whenever +he brought her near the entrance, she leaned away from him toward the +open door, where the old fiddle tune was coming in from the dark. +But presently she noticed that she was being led, and her face turned +sullen. + +“Walk,” said McLean. + +“Do you think so?” said she, laughing. But she found that she must go +with him. Thus they took a few more turns. + +“You're hurting me,” she said next. Then a look of drowsy cunning filled +her eyes, and she fixed them upon McLean's dogged face. “He's gone, +Lin,” she murmured, raising her hand where Barker had disappeared. + +She knew McLean had heard her, and she held back on the quickened pace +that he had set. + +“Leave me down. You hurt,” she pleaded, hanging on him. + +The cow-puncher put forth more strength. + +“Just the floor,” she pleaded again. “Just one minute on the floor. +He'll think you could not keep me lifted.” + +Still McLean made no answer, but steadily led her round and round, as he +had undertaken. + +“He's playing out!” she exclaimed. “You'll be played out soon.” She +laughed herself half-awake. The man drew a breath, and she laughed more +to feel his hand and arm strain to surmount her increasing resistance. +“Jessamine!” she whispered to him. “Jessamine! Doc'll never suspicion +you, Lin.” + +“Talk sense,” said he. + +“It's sense I'm talking. Leave me go to sleep. Ah, ah, I'm going! I'll +go; you can't--” + +“Walk, walk!” he repeated. He looked at the door. An ache was numbing +his arms. + +“Oh yes, walk! What can you and all your muscle--Ah, walk me to glory, +then, craziness! I'm going; I'll go. I'm quitting this outfit for keeps. +Lin, you're awful handsome to-night! I'll bet--I'll bet she has never +seen you look so. Let me--let me watch yus. Anyway, she knows I came +first!” + +He grasped her savagely. “First! You and twenty of yu' don't--God!! what +do I talk to her for?” + +“Because--because--I'm going; I'll go. He slung me off--but he had to +sling--you can't--stop--” + +Her head was rolling, while the lips smiled. Her words came through +deeper and deeper veils, fearless, defiant, a challenge inarticulate, a +continuous mutter. Again he looked at the door as he struggled to move +with her dragging weight. The drops rolled on his forehead and neck, his +shirt was wet, his hands slipped upon her ribbons. Suddenly the drugged +body folded and sank with him, pulling him to his knees. While he took +breath so, the mutter went on, and through the door came the jigging +fiddle. A fire of desperation lighted in his eyes. “Buffalo Girls!” he +shouted, hoarsely, in her ear, and got once more on his feet with her +as though they were two partners in a quadrille. Still shouting her to +wake, he struck a tottering sort of step, and so, with the bending load +in his grip, strove feebly to dance the laudanum away. + +Feet stumbled across the porch, and Lusk was in the room. “So I've got +you!” he said. He had no weapon, but made a dive under the bed and came +up with a carbine. The two men locked, wrenching impotently, and fell +together. The carbine's loud shot rang in the room, but did no harm; and +McLean lay sick and panting upon Lusk as Barker rushed in. + +“Thank God!” said he, and flung Lusk's pistol down. The man, deranged +and encouraged by drink, had come across the doctor, delayed him, +threatened him with his pistol, and when he had torn it away, had left +him suddenly and vanished. But Barker had feared, and come after him +here. He glanced at the woman slumbering motionless beside the two men. +The husband's brief courage had gone, and he lay beneath McLean, who +himself could not rise. Barker pulled them apart. + +“Lin, boy, you're not hurt?” he asked, affectionately, and lifted the +cow-puncher. + +McLean sat passive, with dazed eyes, letting himself be supported. + +“You're not hurt?” repeated Barker. + +“No,” answered the cow-puncher, slowly. “I guess not.” He looked about +the room and at the door. “I got interrupted,” he said. + +“You'll be all right soon,” said Barker. + +“Nobody cares for me!” cried Lusk, suddenly, and took to querulous +weeping. + +“Get up,” ordered Barker, sternly. + +“Don't accuse me, Governor,” screamed Lusk. “I'm innocent.” And he rose. + +Barker looked at the woman and then at the husband. “I'll not say there +was much chance for her,” he said. “But any she had is gone through you. +She'll die.” + +“Nobody cares for me!” repeated the man. “He has learned my boy to scorn +me.” He ran out aimlessly, and away into the night, leaving peace in the +room. + +“Stay sitting,” said Barker to McLean, and went to Mrs. Lusk. + +But the cow-puncher, seeing him begin to lift her toward the bed without +help, tried to rise. His strength was not sufficiently come back, and he +sank as he had been. “I guess I don't amount to much,” said he. “I feel +like I was nothing.” + +“Well, I'm something,” said Barker, coming back to his friend, out of +breath. “And I know what she weighs.” He stared admiringly through his +spectacles at the seated man. + +The cow-puncher's eyes slowly travelled over his body, and then sought +Barker's face. “Doc,” said he, “ain't I young to have my nerve quit me +this way?” + +His Excellency broke into his broad smile. + +“I know I've racketed some, but ain't it ruther early?” pursued McLean, +wistfully. + +“You six-foot infant!” said Barker. “Look at your hand.” + +Lin stared at it--the fingers quivering and bloody, and the skin grooved +raw between them. That was the buckle of her belt, which in the struggle +had worked round and been held by him unknowingly. Both his wrists and +his shirt were ribbed with the pink of her sashes. He looked over at the +bed where lay the woman heavily breathing. It was a something, a sound, +not like the breath of life; and Barker saw the cow-puncher shudder. + +“She is strong,” he said. “Her system will fight to the end. Two hours +yet, maybe. Queer world!” he moralized. “People half killing themselves +to keep one in it who wanted to go--and one that nobody wanted to stay!” + +McLean did not hear. He was musing, his eyes fixed absently in front of +him. “I would not want,” he said, with hesitating utterance--“I'd +not wish for even my enemy to have a thing like what I've had to do +to-night.” + +Barker touched him on the arm. “If there had been another man I could +trust--” + +“Trust!” broke in the cow-puncher. “Why, Doc, it is the best turn yu' +ever done me. I know I am a man now--if my nerve ain't gone.” + +“I've known you were a man since I knew you!” said the hearty Governor. +And he helped the still unsteady six-foot to a chair. “As for your +nerve, I'll bring you some whiskey now. And after”--he glanced at +the bed--“and tomorrow you'll go try if Miss Jessamine won't put the +nerve--” + +“Yes, Doc, I'll go there, I know. But don't yu'--don't let's while +she's--I'm going to be glad about this, Doc, after awhile, but--” + +At the sight of a new-comer in the door, he stopped in what his soul was +stammering to say. “What do you want, Judge?” he inquired, coldly. + +“I understand,” began Slaghammer to Barker--“I am informed--” + +“Speak quieter, Judge,” said the cow-puncher. + +“I understand,” repeated Slaghammer, more official than ever, “that +there was a case for the coroner.” + +“You'll be notified,” put in McLean again. “Meanwhile you'll talk quiet +in this room.” + +Slaghammer turned, and saw the breathing mass on the bed. + +“You are a little early, Judge,” said Barker, “but--” + +“But your ten dollars are safe,” said McLean. + +The coroner shot one of his shrewd glances at the cow-puncher, and sat +down with an amiable countenance. His fee was, indeed, ten dollars; and +he was desirous of a second term. + +“Under the apprehension that it had already occurred--the +misapprehension--I took steps to impanel a jury,” said he, addressing +both Barker and McLean. “They are--ah--waiting outside. Responsible men, +Governor, and have sat before. Drybone has few responsible men to-night, +but I procured these at a little game where they were--ah--losing. You +may go back, gentlemen,” said he, going to the door. “I will summon +you in proper time.” He looked in the room again. “Is the husband not +intending--” + +“That's enough, Judge,” said McLean. “There's too many here without +adding him.” + +“Judge,” spoke a voice at the door, “ain't she ready yet?” + +“She is still passing away,” observed Slaghammer, piously. + +“Because I was thinking,” said the man--“I was just--You see, us jury is +dry and dead broke. Doggonedest cards I've held this year, and--Judge, +would there be anything out of the way in me touching my fee in advance, +if it's a sure thing?” + +“I see none, my friend,” said Slaghammer, benevolently, “since it must +be.” He shook his head and nodded it by turns. Then, with full-blown +importance, he sat again, and wrote a paper, his coroner's certificate. +Next door, in Albany County, these vouchers brought their face value of +five dollars to the holder; but on Drybone's neutral soil the saloons +would always pay four for them, and it was rare that any jury-man could +withstand the temptation of four immediate dollars. This one gratefully +received his paper, and, cherishing it like a bird in the hand, he with +his colleagues bore it where they might wait for duty and slake their +thirst. + +In the silent room sat Lin McLean, his body coming to life more readily +than his shaken spirit. Barker, seeing that the cow-puncher meant +to watch until the end, brought the whiskey to him. Slaghammer drew +documents from his pocket to fill the time, but was soon in slumber over +them. In all precincts of the quadrangle Drybone was keeping it up late. +The fiddle, the occasional shouts, and the crack of the billiard-balls +travelled clear and far through the vast darkness outside. Presently +steps unsteadily drew near, and round the corner of the door a voice, +plaintive and diffident, said, “Judge, ain't she most pretty near +ready?” + +“Wake up, Judge!” said Barker. “Your jury has gone dry again.” + +The man appeared round the door--a handsome, dishevelled fellow--with +hat in hand, balancing himself with respectful anxiety. Thus was a +second voucher made out, and the messenger strayed back happy to his +friends. Barker and McLean sat wakeful, and Slaghammer fell at once +to napping. From time to time he was roused by new messengers, each +arriving more unsteady than the last, until every juryman had got his +fee and no more messengers came. The coroner slept undisturbed in +his chair. McLean and Barker sat. On the bed the mass, with its pink +ribbons, breathed and breathed, while moths flew round the lamp, tapping +and falling with light sounds. So did the heart of the darkness wear +itself away, and through the stone-cold air the dawn began to filter and +expand. + +Barker rose, bent over the bed, and then stood. Seeing him, McLean stood +also. + +“Judge,” said Barker, quietly, “you may call them now.” And with careful +steps the judge got himself out of the room to summon his jury. + +For a short while the cow-puncher stood looking down upon the woman. She +lay lumped in her gaudiness, the ribbons darkly stained by the laudanum; +but into the stolid, bold features death had called up the faint-colored +ghost of youth, and McLean remembered all his Bear Creek days. “Hind +sight is a turruble clear way o' seein' things,” said he. “I think I'll +take a walk.” + +“Go,” said Barker. “The jury only need me, and I'll join you.” + +But the jury needed no witness. Their long waiting and the advance pay +had been too much for these responsible men. Like brothers they had +shared each others' vouchers until responsibility had melted from their +brains and the whiskey was finished. Then, no longer entertained and +growing weary of Drybone, they had remembered nothing but their distant +beds. Each had mounted his pony, holding trustingly to the saddle, and +thus, unguided, the experienced ponies had taken them right. Across the +wide sagebrush and up and down the river they were now asleep or riding, +dispersed irrevocably. But the coroner was here. He duly received +Barker's testimony, brought his verdict in, and signed it, and even +while he was issuing to himself his own proper voucher for ten dollars +came Chalkeye and Toothpick Kid on their ponies, galloping, eager in +their hopes and good wishes for Mrs. Lusk. Life ran strong in them both. +The night had gone well with them. Here was the new day going to be +fine. It must be well with everybody. + +“You don't say!” they exclaimed, taken aback. “Too bad.” + +They sat still in their saddles, and upon their reckless, kindly faces +thought paused for a moment. “Her gone!” they murmured. “Hard to get +used to the idea. What's anybody doing about the coffin?” + +“Mr. Lusk,” answered Slaghammer, “doubtless--” + +“Lusk! He'll not know anything this forenoon. He's out there in the +grass. She didn't think nothing of him. Tell Bill--not Dollar Bill, +Jerky Bill, yu' know; he's over the bridge--to fix up a hearse, and +we'll be back.” The two drove their spurs in with vigorous heels, and +instantly were gone rushing up the road to the graveyard. + +The fiddle had lately ceased, and no dancers stayed any longer in the +hall. Eastward the rose and gold began to flow down upon the plain over +the tops of the distant hills. Of the revellers, many had never gone to +bed, and many now were already risen from their excesses to revive in +the cool glory of the morning. Some were drinking to stay their hunger +until breakfast; some splashed and sported in the river, calling and +joking; and across the river some were holding horse-races upon the +level beyond the hog-ranch. Drybone air rang with them. Their lusty, +wandering shouts broke out in gusts of hilarity. Their pistols, aimed +at cans or prairie dogs or anything, cracked as they galloped at large. +Their speeding, clear-cut forms would shine upon the bluffs, and, +descending, merge in the dust their horses had raised. Yet all this was +nothing in the vastness of the growing day. + +Beyond their voices the rim of the sun moved above the violet hills, and +Drybone, amid the quiet, long, new fields of radiance, stood august and +strange. + +Down along the tall, bare slant from the graveyard the two horsemen were +riding back. They could be seen across the river, and the horse-racers +grew curious. As more and more watched, the crowd began to speak. It was +a calf the two were bringing. It was too small for a calf. It was dead. +It was a coyote they had roped. See it swing! See it fall on the road! + +“It's a coffin, boys!” said one, shrewd at guessing. + +At that the event of last night drifted across their memories, and they +wheeled and spurred their ponies. Their crowding hoofs on the bridge +brought the swimmers from the waters below and, dressing, they climbed +quickly to the plain and followed the gathering. By the door already +were Jerky Bill and Limber Jim and the Doughie and always more, dashing +up with their ponies; halting with a sharp scatter of gravel to hear and +comment. Barker was gone, but the important coroner told his news. And +it amazed each comer, and set him speaking and remembering past things +with the others. “Dead!” each one began. “Her, does he say?” + +“Why, pshaw!” + +“Why, Frenchy said Doc had her cured!” + +Jack Saunders claimed she had rode to Box Elder with Lin McLean. “Dead? +Why, pshaw!” + +“Seems Doc couldn't swim her out.” + +“Couldn't swim her out?” + +“That's it. Doc couldn't swim her out.” + +“Well--there's one less of us.” + +“Sure! She was one of the boys.” + +“She grub-staked me when I went broke in '84.” + +“She gave me fifty dollars onced at Lander, to buy a saddle.” + +“I run agin her when she was a biscuit-shooter.” + +“Sidney, Nebraska. I run again her there, too.” + +“I knowed her at Laramie.” + +“Where's Lin? He knowed her all the way from Bear Creek to Cheyenne.” + +They laughed loudly at this. + +“That's a lonesome coffin,” said the Doughie. “That the best you could +do?” + +“You'd say so!” said Toothpick Kid. + +“Choices are getting scarce up there,” said Chalkeye. “We looked the lot +over.” + +They were arriving from their search among the old dug-up graves on +the hill. Now they descended from their ponies, with the box roped and +rattling between them. “Where's your hearse, Jerky?” asked Chalkeye. + +“Have her round in a minute,” said the cowboy, and galloped away with +three or four others. + +“Turruble lonesome coffin, all the same,” repeated the Doughie. And they +surveyed the box that had once held some soldier. + +“She did like fixin's,” said Limber Jim. + +“Fixin's!” said Toothpick Kid. “That's easy.” + +While some six of them, with Chalkeye, bore the light, half-rotted +coffin into the room, many followed Toothpick Kid to the post-trader's +store. Breaking in here, they found men sleeping on the counters. These +had been able to find no other beds in Drybone, and lay as they had +stretched themselves on entering. They sprawled in heavy slumber, some +with not even their hats taken off and some with their boots against +the rough hair of the next one. They were quickly pushed together, few +waking, and so there was space for spreading cloth and chintz. Stuffs +were unrolled and flung aside till many folds and colors draped the +motionless sleepers, and at length a choice was made. Unmeasured yards +of this drab chintz were ripped off, money treble its worth was thumped +upon the counter, and they returned, bearing it like a streamer to the +coffin. While the noise of their hammers filled the room, the hearse +came tottering to the door, pulled and pushed by twenty men. It was an +ambulance left behind by the soldiers, and of the old-fashioned shape, +concave in body, its top blown away in winds of long ago; and as they +revolved, its wheels dished in and out like hoops about to fall. While +some made a harness from ropes, and throwing the saddles off two ponies +backed them to the vehicle, the body was put in the coffin, now covered +by the chintz. But the laudanum upon the front of her dress revolted +those who remembered their holidays with her, and turning the woman upon +her face, they looked their last upon her flashing, colored ribbons, and +nailed the lid down. So they carried her out, but the concave body of +the hearse was too short for the coffin; the end reached out, and it +might have fallen. But Limber Jim, taking the reins, sat upon the other +end, waiting and smoking. For all Drybone was making ready to follow in +some way. They had sought the husband, the chief mourner. He, however, +still lay in the grass of the quadrangle, and despising him as she had +done, they left him to wake when he should choose. Those men who could +sit in their saddles rode escort, the old friends nearest, and four held +the heads of the frightened cow-ponies who were to draw the hearse. They +had never known harness before, and they plunged with the men who held +them. Behind the hearse the women followed in a large ranch-wagon, this +moment arrived in town. Two mares drew this, and their foals gambolled +around them. The great flat-topped dray for hauling poles came last, +with its four government mules. The cow-boys had caught sight of it and +captured it. Rushing to the post-trader's, they carried the sleeping +men from the counter and laid them on the dray. Then, searching Drybone +outside and in for any more incapable of following, they brought them, +and the dray was piled. + +Limber Jim called for another drink and, with his cigar between his +teeth, cracked his long bull-whacker whip. The ponies, terrified, sprang +away, scattering the men that held them, and the swaying hearse leaped +past the husband, over the stones and the many playing-cards in the +grass. Masterfully steered, it came safe to an open level, while the +throng cheered the unmoved driver on his coffin, his cigar between his +teeth. + +“Stay with it, Jim!” they shouted. “You're a king!” + +A steep ditch lay across the flat where he was veering, abrupt and +nearly hidden; but his eye caught the danger in time, and swinging from +it leftward so that two wheels of the leaning coach were in the air, +he faced the open again, safe, as the rescue swooped down upon him. The +horsemen came at the ditch, a body of daring, a sultry blast of youth. +Wheeling at the brink, they turned, whirling their long ropes. The +skilful nooses flew, and the ponies, caught by the neck and foot, were +dragged back to the quadrangle and held in line. So the pageant started +the wild ponies quivering but subdued by the tightened ropes, and the +coffin steady in the ambulance beneath the driver. The escort, in their +fringed leather and broad hats, moved slowly beside and behind it, many +of them swaying, their faces full of health, and the sun and the strong +drink. The women followed, whispering a little; and behind them the +slow dray jolted, with its heaps of men waking from the depths of their +whiskey and asking what this was. So they went up the hill. When the +riders reached the tilted gate of the graveyard, they sprang off and +scattered among the hillocks, stumbling and eager. They nodded to Barker +and McLean, quietly waiting there, and began choosing among the open, +weather-drifted graves from which the soldiers had been taken. Their +figures went up and down the uneven ridges, calling and comparing. + +“Here,” said the Doughie, “here's a good hole.” + +“Here's a deep one,” said another. + +“We've struck a well here,” said some more. “Put her in here.” + +The sand-hills became clamorous with voices until they arrived at a +choice, when some one with a spade quickly squared the rain-washed +opening. With lariats looping the coffin round, they brought it and were +about to lower it, when Chalkeye, too near the edge, fell in, and one +end of the box rested upon him. He could not rise by himself, and they +pulled the ropes helplessly above. + +McLean spoke to Barker. “I'd like to stop this,” said he, “but a man +might as well--” + +“Might as well stop a cloud-burst,” said Barker. + +“Yes, Doc. But it feels--it feels like I was looking at ten dozen Lin +McLeans.” And seeing them still helpless with Chalkeye, he joined them +and lifted the cow-boy out. + +“I think,” said Slaghammer, stepping forward, “this should proceed no +further without some--perhaps some friend would recite 'Now I lay me?”' + +“They don't use that on funerals,” said the Doughie. + +“Will some gentleman give the Lord's Prayer?” inquired the coroner. + +Foreheads were knotted; triad mutterings ran among them; but some one +remembered a prayer book in one of the rooms in Drybone, and the notion +was hailed. Four mounted, and raced to bring it. They went down the +hill in a flowing knot, shirts ballooning and elbows flapping, and so +returned. But the book was beyond them. “Take it, you; you take it,” + each one said. False beginnings were made, big thumbs pushed the pages +back and forth, until impatience conquered them. They left the book +and lowered the coffin, helped again by McLean. The weight sank slowly, +decently, steadily, down between the banks. The sound that it struck the +bottom with was a slight sound, the grating of the load upon the solid +sand; and a little sand strewed from the edge and fell on the box at the +same moment. The rattle came up from below, compact and brief, a single +jar, quietly smiting through the crowd, smiting it to silence. One +removed his hat, and then another, and then all. They stood eying each +his neighbor, and shifting their eyes, looked away at the great valley. +Then they filled in the grave, brought a head-board from a grave near +by, and wrote the name and date upon it by scratching with a stone. + +“She was sure one of us,” said Chalkeye. “Let's give her the Lament.” + +And they followed his lead: + + + “Once in the saddle, I used to go dashing, + Once in the saddle, I used to go gay; + First took to drinking, and then to card-playing; + Got shot in the body, and now here I lay. + + “Beat the drum slowly, Play the fife lowly, + Sound the dead march as you bear me along. + Take me to Boot-hill, and throw the sod over me-- + I'm but a poor cow-boy, I know I done wrong.” + + +When the song was ended, they left the graveyard quietly and went down +the hill. The morning was growing warm. Their work waited them across +many sunny miles of range and plain. Soon their voices and themselves +had emptied away into the splendid vastness and silence, and they were +gone--ready with all their might to live or to die, to be animals or +heroes, as the hours might bring them opportunity. In Drybone's deserted +quadrangle the sun shone down upon Lusk still sleeping, and the wind +shook the aces and kings in the grass. + + + +PART IV + +Over at Separ, Jessamine Buckner had no more stockings of Billy's to +mend, and much time for thinking and a change of mind. The day after +that strange visit, when she had been told that she had hurt a good +man's heart without reason, she took up her work; and while her hands +despatched it her thoughts already accused her. Could she have seen that +visitor now, she would have thanked her. She looked at the photograph on +her table. “Why did he go away so quickly?” she sighed. But when young +Billy returned to his questions she was buoyant again, and more than a +match for him. He reached the forbidden twelfth time of asking why Lin +McLean did not come back and marry her. Nor did she punish him as she +had threatened. She looked at him confidentially, and he drew near, full +of hope. + +“Billy, I'll tell you just why it is,” said she. “Lin thinks I'm not a +real girl.” + +“A--ah,” drawled Billy, backing from her with suspicion. + +“Indeed that's what it is, Billy. If he knew I was a real girl--” + +“A--ah,” went the boy, entirely angry. “Anybody can tell you're a girl.” + And he marched out, mystified, and nursing a sense of wrong. Nor did his +dignity allow him to reopen the subject. + +To-day, two miles out in the sage-brush by himself, he was shooting +jack-rabbits, but began suddenly to run in toward Separ. A horseman had +passed him, and he had loudly called; but the rider rode on, intent upon +the little distant station. Man and horse were soon far ahead of the +boy, and the man came into town galloping. + +No need to fire the little pistol by her window, as he had once thought +to do! She was outside before he could leap to the ground. And as he +held her, she could only laugh, and cry, and say “Forgive me! Oh, why +have you been so long?” She took him back to the room where his picture +was, and made him sit, and sat herself close. “What is it?” she asked +him. For through the love she read something else in his serious face. +So then he told her how nothing was wrong; and as she listened to all +that he had to tell, she, too, grew serious, and held very close to him. +“Dear, dear neighbor!” she said. + +As they sat so, happy with deepening happiness, but not gay yet, young +Billy burst open the door. “There!” he cried. “I knowed Lin knowed you +were a girl!” + +Thus did Billy also have his wish. For had he not told Jessamine that he +liked her, and urged her to come and live with him and Lin? That cabin +on Box Elder became a home in truth, with a woman inside taking the +only care of Mr. McLean that he had known since his childhood: though +singularly enough he has an impression that it is he who takes care of +Jessamine! + + + + +IN THE AFTER-DAYS + + The black pines stand high up the hills, + The white snow sifts their columns deep, + While through the canyon's riven cleft + From there, beyond, the rose clouds sweep. + + Serene above their paling shapes + One star hath wakened in the sky. + And here in the gray world below + Over the sage the wind blows by; + + Rides through the cotton-woods' ghost-ranks, + And hums aloft a sturdy tune + Among the river's tawny bluffs, + Untenanted as is the moon. + + Far 'neath the huge invading dusk + Comes Silence awful through the plain; + But yonder horseman's heart is gay, + And he goes singing might and main. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lin McLean, by Owen Wister + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1385 *** |