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diff --git a/15573-h/15573-h.htm b/15573-h/15573-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b95d868 --- /dev/null +++ b/15573-h/15573-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,11407 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Judith Of The Plains by Marie Manning</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +p.caption {font-weight: bold; + text-align: center; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold;'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Judith Of The Plains by Marie Manning</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Judith Of The Plains</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Marie Manning</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: April 2005 [eBook #15573]<br /> +[Most recently updated: May 3, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: David Garcia, Josephine Paolucci, Joshua Hutchinson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUDITH OF THE PLAINS ***</div> + +<h1>Judith Of The Plains</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Marie Manning</h2> + +<p class="center"> +Harper & Brothers Publishers +</p> + +<p class="center"> +New York And London +</p> + +<p class="center"> +Copyright, 1903. By Harper & Brothers +</p> + +<p class="center"> +Printed In The United States Of America +</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/image01.png" width="480" height="605" alt="[Illustration]" /> +<p class="caption">Peter’s Hand Sought Hers, And All Her Woman’s +Fear Of The Vague Terrors Of The Dreadful Night Spoke In Her Answering +Pressure.</p> +</div> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I. “Town”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II. The Encounter</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III. Leander And His Lady</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV. Judith, The Postmistress</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V. The Trail Of Sentiment</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI. A Daughter Of The Desert</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII. Chugg Takes The Ribbons</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII. The Rodneys At Home</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX. Mrs. Yellett And Her “Gov’ment”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X. On Horse-thief Trail</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI. The Cabin In The Valley</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII. The Round-up</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII. Mary’s First Day In Camp</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV. Judith Adjusts The Situation</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">CHAPTER XV. The Wolf-hunt</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI. In The Land Of The Red Silence</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">CHAPTER XVII. Mrs. Yellett Contends With A Cloudburst</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">CHAPTER XVIII. Foreshadowed</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">CHAPTER XIX. “Rocked By A Hempen String”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">CHAPTER XX. The Ball</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>Judith Of The Plains</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>I.<br /> +“Town”</h2> + +<p> +It was June, and a little past sunrise, but there was no hint of early summer +freshness in the noxious air of the sleeping-car as it toiled like a snail over +the infinity of prairie. From behind the green-striped curtains of the berths, +now the sound of restless turning and now a long-drawn sigh signified the +uneasy slumber due to stifling air and discomfort. +</p> + +<p> +The only passenger stirring was a girl whose youth drooped under the +unfavorable influences of foul air, fatigue, and a strained anxiety to come to +the end of this fateful journey. She had been up while it was yet dark, and her +hand—luggage, locked, strapped, and as pitifully new at the art of +travelling as the girl herself, clustered about the hem of her blue serge skirt +like chicks about a hen. The engine shrieked, but its voice sounded weak and +far off in that still ocean of space; the girl tightened her grasp on the +largest of the satchels and looked at the approaching porter tentatively. +</p> + +<p> +“We’re late twenty-fi’e minutes,” he reassured her, +with the hopeless patience of one who has lost heart in curbing +travellers’ enthusiasms. +</p> + +<p> +She turned towards the window a pair of shoulders plainly significant of the +burdensome last straw. +</p> + +<p> +“Four days and nights in this train”—they were slower in +those days—“and now this extra twenty-five minutes!” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Carmichael’s famous dimple hid itself in disgust. The demure lines +of mouth and chin, that could always be relied upon for special pleading when +sentence was about to be passed on the dimple by those who disapproved of +dimples, drooped with disappointment. But the light-brown hair continued to +curl facetiously—it was the sort of hair whose spontaneous rippling +conveys to the seeing eye a sense of humor. +</p> + +<p> +The train plodded across the spacious vacancy that unrolled itself farther and +farther in quest of the fugitive horizon. The scrap of view that came within a +closer range of vision spun past the car windows like a bit of stage mechanism, +a gigantic panorama rotating to simulate a race at breakneck speed. But Miss +Carmichael looked with unseeing eyes; the whirling prairie with its golden +flecks of cactus bloom was but part of the universal strangeness, and the dull +ache of homesickness was in it all. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear! my dear!”—a head in crimpers was thrust from +between the curtains of the section opposite—“I’ve been awake +half the night. I was so afraid I wouldn’t see you before you got +off.” +</p> + +<p> +The head was followed, almost instinctively, by a hand travelling furtively to +the crimpers that gripped the lady’s brow like barnacles clinging to a +keel. +</p> + +<p> +Mary expressed a grieved appreciation at the loss of rest in behalf of her +early departure, and conspicuously forbore to glance in the direction of the +barnacles, that being a first principle as between woman and woman. +</p> + +<p> +“And, oh, my dear, it gets worse and worse. I’ve looked at it this +morning, and it’s worse in Wyoming than it was in Colorado. What it +’ll be before I reach California, I shudder to think.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s bound to improve,” suggested Mary, with the easy +optimism of one who was leaving it. “It couldn’t be any worse than +this, could it?” +</p> + +<p> +The neuter pronoun, it might be well to state, signified the prairie; its +melancholy personality having penetrated the very marrow of their train +existence, they had come to refer to it by the monosyllable, as in certain +nether circles the head of the house receives his superlative distinction in +“He.” +</p> + +<p> +Again the locomotive shrieked, again the girl mechanically clutched the +suit-case, as presenting the most difficult item in the problem of +transportation, and this time the shriek was not an idle formality. The train +slowed down; the uneasy sleepers behind the green-striped curtains stirred +restlessly with the lessening motion of their uncouth cradle. The porter came +to help her, with the chastened mien of one whose hopes of largess are small, +the lady with the barnacles called after her redundant farewells, and a moment +later Miss Carmichael was standing on the station platform looking helplessly +after the train that toiled and puffed, yet seemed, in that crystalline +atmosphere, still within arm’s-reach. She watched it till its floating +pennant of smoke was nothing but a gray feather blowing farther and farther out +of sight on the flat prairie. +</p> + +<p> +The town—it would be unkind to mention its name—had made merry the +night before at the comprehensive invitation of a sheepman who had just +disposed of his wool-clip, and who said, by way of general summons, +“What’s the use of temptin’ the bank?” +“Town,” therefore, when Mary Carmichael first made its +acquaintance, was still sleeping the sleep of the unjust. Those among last +night’s roisterers who had had to make an early start for their camps +were well into the foot-hills by this time, and would remember with +exhilaration the cracked tinkle of the dance-hall piano as inspiring music when +the lonesomeness of the desert menaced and the young blood again clamored for +its own. +</p> + +<p> +“Town”—it contained in all some two dozen buildings—was +very unlovely in slumber. It sprawled in the lap of the prairies, a grimy-faced +urchin, with the lines of dismal sophistication writ deep. Yet where in all the +“health resorts” of the East did air sweep from the clean +hill-country with such revivifying power? It seemed a glad world of abiding +youth. Surely “Town” was but a dreary illusion, a mirage that hung +in the unmapped spaces of this new world that God had made and called good; an +omen of the abominations that men would make when they grew blind to the beauty +of God’s world. +</p> + +<p> +Mary Carmichael, with much the feelings of a cat in a strange garret, wandered +about the sluggard town; and presently the blue-and-white sign of a telegraph +office, with the mythological figure of a hastening messenger, suggested to her +that a reassuring telegram was only Aunt Adelaide’s due. Whereupon she +began to rap on the door of the office, a scared pianissimo which naturally had +little effect on the operator, who was at home and asleep some three blocks +distant. But the West is the place for woman if she would be waited upon. No +seven-to-one ratio of the sexes has tempered the chivalry of her sons of the +saddle. A loitering something in a sombrero saw rather than heard the rapping, +and, at the sight, went in quest of the dreaming operator without so much as +embarrassing Miss Carmichael with an offer of his services. And presently the +operator, whose official day did not begin for some two hours yet, appeared, +much dishevelled from running and the cursory nature of his toilet, prepared to +receive a message of life and death. +</p> + +<p> +The wire to Aunt Adelaide ran: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“Practically at end of journey. Take stage to Lost Trail this morning. Am +well. Don’t worry about me. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“M<small>ARY</small>.” +</p> + +<p> +And the telegraph operator, dimly remembering that he had heard Lost Trail was +a “pizen mean country,” and that it was tucked some two hundred +miles back in the foot-hills, did not find it very hard to forgive the girl, +who was “practically at end of journey,” particularly as the dimple +had come out of hiding, and he had never been called upon to telegraph the word +“practically” before. He was a progressive man and liked to extend +his experiences. +</p> + +<p> +After sending the telegram, Miss Carmichael, quite herself by reason of the +hill air, felt that she was getting along famously as a traveller, but that it +was an expensive business, and she was glad to be “practically” at +the end of her journey. And, drawing from her pocket a square envelope of heavy +Irish linen, a little worn from much reading, but primarily an envelope that +bespoke elegance of taste on the part of her correspondent, she read: +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“L<small>OST</small> T<small>RAIL</small>, W<small>YOMING</small>. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“My Dear Miss Carmichael,—Pray let me assure you of my +gratification that the preliminaries have been so satisfactorily arranged, and +that we are to have you with us by the end of June. The children are profiting +from the very anticipation of it, and it will be most refreshing to all us +isolated ones to be able to welcome an Eastern girl as a member of our +family.<br /> + “Although the long journey across the continent is trying, +particularly to one who has not made it before, I hope you may not find it +utterly fatiguing. Please remember that after leaving the train, it will be +necessary to take a stage to Lost Trail. If it is possible, I shall meet you +with the buckboard at one of the stage stations; otherwise, keep to the stage +route, being careful to change at Dax’s Ranch.<br /> + “Unfortunately, the children vary so in their accomplishments that I +fear I can make no suggestions as to what you may need to bring with you in the +way of text-books. But I think you will find them fairly well grounded.<br /> + “I had a charming letter from Mrs. Kirkland, who said the pleasantest +things possible of you. I am glad the wife of our Senator was able +conscientiously to commend us.<br /> + “With our most cordial good wishes for a safe journey, believe me, +dear Miss Carmichael, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Sincerely yours,<br /> + “S<small>ARAH</small> Y<small>ELLETT</small>.” +</p> + +<p> +In the mean time, “Town” came yawning to breakfast. It was not so +prankish as it had been the night before, when it accepted the sheepman’s +broad-gauge hospitality and made merry till the sun winked from behind the +mountains. It made its way to the low, shedlike eating-house with a +pre-breakfast solemnity bordering on sulkiness. Not a petticoat was in sight to +offset the spurs and sombreros that filed into breakfast from every point in +the compass, prepared to eat primitively, joke broadly, and quarrel speedily if +that sensitive and often inconsistent something they called honor should be +brushed however lightly. +</p> + +<p> +But the eternal feminine was within, and, discovering it, the temper of +“Town” was changed; it ate self-consciously, made jokes meet for +the ears of ladies, and was more interested in the girl in the sailor-hat than +it was in remembering old feuds or laying the foundations of new. +</p> + +<p> +In its interior aspect, the eating-house conveyed no subtle invitation to eat, +drink, and be merry. On the contrary, its mission seemed to be that of +confounding appetite at every turn. A long, shedlike room it was, with walls of +unpainted pine, still sweating from the axe. Festoons of scalloped paper, in +conflicting shades, hung from the ceiling, a menace to the taller of the +guests. On the rough walls some one, either prompted by a latent spirit of +æstheticism or with an idea of abetting the town towards merrymaking—an +encouragement it hardly required—had tacked posters of shows, mainly +representing the tank-and-sawmill school of drama. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Carmichael sat at the extreme end of the long, oilcloth-covered table, on +which a straggling army of salt and pepper shakers, catsup bottles, and divers +commercial condiments seemed to pause in a discouraged march. A plague of flies +was on everything, and the food was a threat to the hardiest appetite. One man +summed up the steak with, “You got to work your jaw so hard to eat it +that it ain’t fair to the next meal.” +</p> + +<p> +His neighbor heaved a sigh. “This here formation, whatever it +be”—and he turned the meat over for better +inspection—“do shore remind me of an indestructible doll that an +old maid aunt of mine giv’ my sister when we was kids. That doll sort of +challenged me, settin’ round oncapable o’ bein’ destroyed, +and one day I ups an’ has a chaw at her. She war ondestructible, all +right; ’fore that I concluded my speriments I had left a couple o’ +teeth in her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I discyards the steak and draw to a pair of aces,” and the +first man helped himself to a couple of biscuits. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Carmichael knew, by the continual scraping of chairs across the gritty +floor, that the places at the table must be nearly all taken; and while she +anticipated, with an utterly unreasonable terror, any further invasion of her +seclusion at the end of the table, still she could not persuade herself to +raise her eyes to detect the progress of the enemy, even in the interest of the +diary she had kept so conscientiously for the past three days; which was +something of a loss to the diary, as those untamed, manly faces were well worth +looking at. Reckless they were in many instances, and sometimes the lines of +hardship were cruelly writ across young faces that had not yet lost the down of +adolescence, but there were humor and endurance and the courage that knows how +to make a crony of death and get right good sport from the comradeship. Their +faults were the faults of lusty, red-blooded youth, and their virtues the +open-handed generosity, the ready sympathy of those uncertain tilters at life +who ride or fall in the tourney of a new country. +</p> + +<p> +At present, “the yearling,” drinking her execrable coffee in an +agony of embarrassment, weighed heavily on their minds. They would have liked +to rise as a man and ask if there was anything they could do for her. But as a +glance towards the end of the table seemed to increase her discomfiture +tenfold, they did the kindest and for them the most difficult thing and looked +in every direction but Miss Carmichael’s. With a delicacy of perception +that the casual observer might not have given them credit for, they had +refrained from taking seats directly opposite her, or those immediately on her +right, which, as she occupied the last seat at the table, gave her at least a +small degree of seclusion. +</p> + +<p> +As one after another of them came filing in, bronzed, rugged, radiating a +beauty of youth and health that no sketchy exigence of apparel could obscure, +some one already seated at the table would put a foot on a chair opposite him +and send it spinning out into the middle of the floor as a hint to the +new-comer that that was his reserved seat. And the cow-puncher, sheep-herder, +prospector, or man about “Town,” as the case might be, would take +the hint and the chair, leaving the petticoat separated from the sombreros by a +table-land of oilcloth and a range of four chairs. +</p> + +<p> +But now entered a man who failed to take the hint of the spinning chair. In +fact, he entered the eating-house with the air of one who has dropped in +casually to look for a friend and, incidentally, to eat his breakfast. He +stopped in the doorway, scanned the table with deliberation, and started to +make his way towards Mary Carmichael with something of a swagger. Some one +kicked a chair towards him at the head of the table. Some one else nearly upset +him with one before he reached the middle, and the Texan remarked, quite +audibly, as he passed: +</p> + +<p> +“The damned razor-back!” +</p> + +<p> +But the man made his way to the end of the table and drew out the chair +opposite Miss Carmichael with a degree of assurance that precipitated the rest +of the table into a pretty pother. +</p> + +<p> +Suppose she should countenance his audacity? The fair have been known to +succumb to the headlong force of a charge, when the persistence of a long siege +has failed signally. What figures they would cut if she did!—and Simpson, +of all men! A growing tension had crept into the atmosphere of the +eating-house; knives and forks played but intermittently, and Mary, sitting at +the end of the oilcloth-covered table, felt intuitively that she was the centre +of the brewing storm. Oh, why hadn’t she been contented to stay at home +and make over her clothes and share the dwindling fortunes of her aunts, +instead of coming to this savage place? +</p> + +<p> +“From the look of the yearling’s chin, I think he’ll get all +that’s coming to him,” whispered the man who had nearly upset him +with the second chair. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re right, pard. If I’m any good at reading brands, she +is as self-protective as the McKinley bill.” +</p> + +<p> +The man Simpson was not a pleasant vis-à-vis. He wore the same picturesque +ruffianliness of apparel as his fellows, but the resemblance stopped there. He +lacked their dusky bloom, their clearness of eye, the suppleness and easy flow +of muscle that is the hall-mark of these frontiersmen. He was fat and squat and +had not the rich bronzing of wind, sun, and rain. His small, black eyes +twinkled from his puffy, white face, like raisins in a dough-pudding. +</p> + +<p> +He was ogling Mary amiably when the woman who kept the eating-house brought him +his breakfast. Mrs. Clark was a potent antidote for the prevailing spirit of +romance, even in this woman-forsaken country. A good creature, all limp calico, +Roman nose, and sharp elbows, she brought him his breakfast with an ill grace +that she had not shown to the others. The men about the table gave him scant +greeting, but the absence of enthusiasm didn’t embarrass Simpson. +</p> + +<p> +He lounged expansively on the table, regarding Miss Carmichael attentively +meanwhile; then favored her with the result of his observations, “From +the East, I take it.” And the dumpling face screwed into a smile whose +mission was pacific. +</p> + +<p> +Every knife and fork in the room suspended action in anxiety to know how the +“yearling” would take it. Would their chivalry, which strained at a +gnat, be compelled to swallow such a conspicuous camel as the success of +Simpson? With the attitude he had taken towards the girl, there had crept into +the company an imperceptible change; deep-buried impulses sprang to the +surface. If a scoundrel like Simpson was going to try his luck, why +shouldn’t they? They didn’t see a pretty girl once in a blue moon. +With the advent of the green-eyed monster at the board, each man unconsciously +became the rival of his neighbor. +</p> + +<p> +But Miss Carmichael merely continued her breakfast, and if she heard the +amiable deductions of Simpson regarding her, she gave no sign. But a rebuff to +him was in the nature of an appetizer, a fillip to press the acquaintance. He +encroached a bit farther on the narrow limits of the table and continued, +“Nice weather we’re having.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Carmichael gave her undivided attention to her coffee. The spurs and +sombreros, that had not relaxed a muscle in their strained observation of the +little drama, breathed reflectively. Perhaps it was just as well that they had +not emulated Simpson in his brazen charge; the “yearling” was not +to be surprised into talking, that was certain. +</p> + +<p> +“He shore is showing hisself to be a friendly native,” commented +the man who had sacrificed milk-teeth investigating the indestructible doll. +</p> + +<p> +“Seems to me that the system he’s playing lacks a heap of science. +My money’s on the yearling.” And the man who had “discarded +the steak and drawn to the biscuits” leaned a little forward that he +might better watch developments. +</p> + +<p> +Simpson by this time fully realized his error, but failure before all these +bantering youngsters was a contingency not to be accepted lightly. As he +phrased it to himself, it was worth “another throw.” “Seems +kind o’ lonesome not having any one to talk to while you’re +eatin’, don’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Carmichael’s air of perfect composure seemed a trifle out of tune +with her surroundings; the nice elevation of eyebrow, the slightly questioning +curl of the lip as she, for the first time apparently, became aware of the man +opposite, seemed to demand a prim drawing-room rather than the atmosphere of +the slouching eating-house. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, really, I’ve hardly had a chance of finding out.” And +her eyes were again on her coffee-cup. And there was joy among the men at table +that they had not rushed in after the manner of those who have a greater +courage than the angels. +</p> + +<p> +“No offence meant,” deprecated Simpson, with an uneasy glance +towards the other end of the table, where the men sat with necks craned forward +in an attitude uncomfortably suggestive of hounds straining at the leash. +Simpson felt rather than saw that something was afoot among the sombreros. +There was a crowding together in whispered colloquy, and in a flash some +half-dozen of them were on their feet as a man. Descending upon Simpson, they +lifted him, chair and all, to the other end of the table, as far removed as +possible from Miss Carmichael. +</p> + +<p> +The man who thought Simpson’s system lacked science rubbed his hands in +delight. “She took the trick all right; swept his hand clean off the +board!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>II.<br /> +The Encounter</h2> + +<p> +Simpson, from the seat to which he had been so rapidly transplanted, looked +about him with blinking anxiety. It was more than probable that the boys +intended “to have fun with him,” though his talking, or rather +trying to talk, to a girl that sat opposite him at an eating-house table was, +according to his ethics, plainly none of their business. He knew he +wasn’t popular since he had done for Jim Rodney’s sheep, though the +crime had never been laid at his door, officially. He had his way to make, the +same as the next one; and, all said and done, the cattle-men were glad to get +Jim Rodney’s sheep off the range, even if they treated him as a felon for +the part he had played in their extermination. +</p> + +<p> +Thus reasoned Simpson, while he marked with an uneasy eye that the temper of +the company had grown decidedly prankish with the exit of the girl, who, after +having caused all the trouble, had, with an irritating quality peculiar to her +sex, vanished through the kitchen door. +</p> + +<p> +Some three or four of the boys now ran to Simpson’s former seat at the +table and rushed towards him with his half-eaten breakfast, as if the errand +had been one of life and death. They showered him with mock attentions, waiting +on him with an exaggerated deference, and the pale, fat man, remembering the +hideousness of some of their manifestations of a sense of humor, breathed hard +and felt a falling-off of appetite. +</p> + +<p> +Costigan, the cattle-man, a strapping Irish giant, was clearing his throat with +ominous sounds that suggested the tuning-up of a bass fiddle. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure, Simpson, me lad, if ye happen to have a matther av fifty dollars, +’tis mesilf that can tell ye av an illegint invistmint.” +</p> + +<p> +Simpson looked up warily, but Costigan’s broad countenance did not harbor +the wraith of a smile. “What kin I git for fifty chips? +’Tain’t much,” mused the pariah, with the prompt inclination +to spend that stamps the comparative stranger to ready money. +</p> + +<p> +“Ye can git a parrut, man—a grane parrut—to kape ye coompany +while ye’re aiting—” +</p> + +<p> +Simpson interrupted with an oath. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be hard on old Simmy; remember he’s studied for the +ministry! How did I savey that Simpson aimed to be a sharp on doctrine?” +A cow-puncher with a squint addressed the table in general. “I scents the +aroma of dogma about Simpson in the way he throwed his conversational lariat at +the yearling. He urbanes at her, and then comes his ‘firstly,’ it +being a speculation as to her late grazing-ground, which he concludes to be the +East. His ‘secondly’ ain’t nothing startling, words familiar +to us all from our mother’s knee—‘nice +weather’—the congregation ain’t visibly moved. His +‘thirdly’ is insinuating. In it he hints that it ain’t good +for man to be alone at meals—” +</p> + +<p> +“’Twas the congregation that added the ‘foinelly,’ +though, before hastily leaving be the back door!” and Costigan slapped +his thigh. +</p> + +<p> +“The gentleman in question don’t seem to be makin’ much use +of his present conversational opportunities. I’m feelin’ kinder +turned down myself”; and the Texan began to look over his six-shooter. +</p> + +<p> +The man with the squint looked up and down the board. +</p> + +<p> +“Gentlemen, I believe the foregoing expresses the sentiment of this +company, which, while it incloodes many foreign and frequent-warring elements, +is at present held together by the natchral tie of eating.” +</p> + +<p> +Thumping with knife and fork handles, stamping of feet, cries of “Hear! +hear!” with at least three cow-boy yells, argued well for a resumption of +last night’s festivities. Simpson glowered, but said nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“Seems to me you-all goin’ the wrong way ’bout drawin’ +Mistu’ Simpson out. He is shy an’ has to be played fo’ like a +trout, an’ heah you-all come at him like a cattle stampede.” The +big Texan leaned towards Simpson. “Now you-all watch my methods. +Mistu’ Simpson, seh, what du think of the prospects of rain?” +</p> + +<p> +There was a general recommendation from Simpson that the entire company go to a +locality below the rain-belt. +</p> + +<p> +A boy, plainly “from the East,” and looking as if the ink on his +graduating thesis had scarce had time to dry, was on his feet, swaggering; he +would not have swapped his newly acquired <i>camaraderie</i> with these bronzed +Westerners for the Presidency. +</p> + +<p> +“Gentlemen, you have all heard Simpson say it is lonesome having no one +to talk to during meals. We sympathized with him and offered him a choice of +subjects. He greets our remarks by a conspicuous silence, varied by profanity. +This, gentlemen, reflects on us, and is a matter demanding public satisfaction. +All who feel that their powers as conversationalists have been impugned by the +silence of Simpson, please say ‘Ay.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay” was howled, sung, and roared in every note of the gamut. +</p> + +<p> +“If me yoong frind here an me roight”—and Costigan jerked a +shoulder towards the boy—“will be afther closin’ that +silf-feeding automatic dictionary av his for a moment, I shud be glad to call +the attintion av the coomp’ny to somethin’ in the nature av an +ixtinuatin’ circoomsthance in the case av Simpson.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hear! hear!” they shouted. The broad countenance of Costigan +beamed with joy at what he was about to say. “Gintlemin, the silence av +Mr. Simpson is jew in all probabilitee to a certain ivint recalled by many here +prisint, an’ more that’s absent, an’ amicablee settled out av +coort—” +</p> + +<p> +Up to this time the unhappy Simpson had shown an almost superhuman endurance. +Now he bristled—and after looking up and down the board for a sympathetic +face, and not finding one, he declared, loudly and generally, +“’Tain’t so!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ye may have noticed that frind Simpson do be t’reatened wid +lockjaw in the societee av min, but in the prisince av a female ye can’t +count on him. Now, talk wid a female is an agreeable, if not a profitable, way +av passin’ the toime, but sure ye niver know where it will ind—as +witness Simpson. This lady I’m recallin’—’tis a matther +av two years ago—followed the ancient and honorable profission av biscuit +shootin’ not far from Caspar. Siz Simpson to the lady some such +passin’ civilitee as, ‘Good-marnin’; plisent weather +we’re havin’.’ Whereupon the lady filt a damage to her +affictions an’ sued him for breach av promise.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Twan’t that way, at all!” screamed Simpson. +“’Sall a lie!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yu ought er said ‘Good-evenin’’ to the lady, Mistu +Simpson; hit make a diffunce,” drawled the man from Texas, pleasantly. +</p> + +<p> +“But ’twas ‘Good-marnin’’ Simpson made chyce +av,” resumed Costigan. “An’ the lady replied, +‘You’ve broke my heart.’ Whereupon Simpson, havin’ a +matther av t’ree thousand dollars to pay for his passin’ civilitee, +learned thot silince was goolden.” +</p> + +<p> +They all remembered the incident in question, and thundered applause at the +reappearance of an old favorite. Without warning, a shadow fell across the +sunlight-flooded room, and, as one after another of the men glanced up from the +table, they saw standing in the doorway a man of such malignant aspect that his +look fell across the company like a menace. The swing of their banter slowed +suddenly; it was as if the cold of a new-turned grave had struck across the +June sunshine checking their roughshod fun. None of them had the hardihood to +joke with a man that stood in the shadow of death; and hate and murder looked +from the eyes of the man in the doorway and looked towards Simpson. One by one +they perceived the man of the shadow, all but Simpson, eating steak drowned in +Worcestershire. +</p> + +<p> +The man in the doorway was tall and lean, and the prison blench upon his face +was in unpleasant contrast to the ruddy tan of the faces about the table. His +sombrero was tipped back and the hair hung dank about the pale, sweating +forehead, suggestive of sickness. But weak health did not imply weak purpose; +every feature in that hawk-like face was sharp with hatred, and in the +narrowing eye was vengeance that is sweet. +</p> + +<p> +He stood still; there was in his hatred a something hypnotic that grew +imperceptibly and imperceptibly communicated itself to the men at table. He +gloated over the eating fat man as if he had dwelt much in imagination on the +sight and was in no hurry to curtail his joy at the reality. The men began to +get restless, shuffle their feet, moisten their lips; only the college boy +spoke, and then from a wealth of ignorance, knowing nothing of the rugged, +give-and-take justice of the plains—an eye for an eye, a tooth for a +tooth, and the law and the courts go hang while a man’s got a right arm +to pull a trigger. Not one in all that company, even the cattle-men whose +interests were opposed to Rodney’s, but felt the justice of his errand. +</p> + +<p> +“When did they let him out?” whispered the college boy; and then, +“Oughtn’t we to do something?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yis, me son,” whispered Costigan. “We ought to sit still and +learn a thing or two.” +</p> + +<p> +The fat man cleaned his plate with a crust of bread stuck on the point of a +knife. There was nothing more to eat in the way of substantials, and he debated +pouring a little more of the sauce on his plate and mopping it with a bit of +bread still uneaten. Considering the pro and con of this extra tid-bit, he +glanced up and saw the gaunt man standing in the doorway. +</p> + +<p> +Simpson dropped the knife from his shaking hand and started up with a cry that +died away in a gurgle, an inhuman, nightmare croak. He looked about wildly, +like a rat in a trap, then backed towards the wall. The men about the table got +up, then cleared away in a circle, leaving the fat man. It was all like a dream +to the college boy, who had never seen a thing of the kind before and could not +realize now that it was happening. Rodney advanced, never once relaxing the +look in which he seemed to hold his enemy as in a vise. Simpson was like a man +bewitched. Once, twice, he made a grab for his revolver, but his right hand +seemed to have lost power to heed the bidding of his will. Rodney, now well +towards the centre of the room, waited, with a suggestion of ceremony, for +Simpson to get his six-shooter. +</p> + +<p> +It was one of those moments in which time seems to have become petrified. The +limp-clad proprietress of the eating-house, made curious by the sudden silence, +looked in from the kitchen. Simpson, his eyes wandering like a trapped rat, +saw, and called, through teeth that chattered in an ague of fear, +“Ree—memm—her thth—there’s la—dies +p—present! For Gawd’s sake, remember t—there’s ladies +p—present!” +</p> + +<p> +The pale man looked towards the kitchen, and, seeing the woman, he gave Simpson +a look in which there was only contempt. “You’ve hid behind the law +once, and this time it’s petticoats. The open don’t seem to have no +charm for you. But—” He didn’t finish, there was no need to. +Every one knew and understood. He put up his revolver and walked into the +street. +</p> + +<p> +The men broke into shouts of laughter, loud and ringing, then doubled up and +had it out all over again. And their noisy merriment was as clear an indication +of the suddenly lifted strain, at the averted shooting, as it was of their +enjoyment of the farce. Simpson, relieved of the fear of sudden death, now +sought to put a better face on his cowardice. Now that his enemy was well out +of sight, Simpson handled his revolver with easy assurance. +</p> + +<p> +“Put ut up,” shouted Costigan, above the general uproar. +“’Tis toime to fear a revolver in the hands av Simpson whin +he’s no intinsions av shootin’.” +</p> + +<p> +Simpson still attempted to harangue the crowd, but his voice was lost in the +general thigh-slapping and the shouts and roars that showed no signs of +abating. But when he caught a man by the coat lapel in his efforts to secure a +hearing, that was another matter, and the man shook him off as if his touch +were contagion. Simpson, craving mercy on account of petticoats, evading a +meeting that was “up to him,” they were willing to stand as a +laughing-stock, but Simpson as an equal, grasping the lapels of their coats, +they would have none of. +</p> + +<p> +He slunk away from them to a corner of the eating-house, feeling the stigma of +their contempt, yet afraid to go out into the street where his enemy might be +waiting for him. Much of death and blood and recklessness “Town” +had seen and condoned, but cowardice was the unforgivable sin. It balked the +rude justice of these frontiersmen and tampered with their code, and Simpson +knew that the game had gone against him. +</p> + +<p> +“What was it all about? Were they in earnest, or was it only their way of +amusing themselves?” inquired Mary Carmichael, who had slipped into Mrs. +Clark’s kitchen after the men at the table had taken things in hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Jim Rodney was in earnest, an’ he had reason to be. That man +Simpson was paid by a cattle outfit—now, mind, I ain’t sayin’ +which—to get Jim Rodney’s sheep off the range. They had threatened +him and cut the throats of two hundred of his herd as a warning, but Jim went +right on grazin’ ’em, same as he had always been in the habit of +doing. Well, I’m told they up and makes Simpson an offer to get rid of +the sheep. Jim has over five thousand, an’ it’s just before +lambing, and them pore ewes, all heavy, is being druv’ down to +Watson’s shearing-pens, that Jim always shears at. Jim an’ two +herders and a couple of dawgs—least, this is the way I heard it—is +drivin’ ’em easy, ’cause, as I said before, it’s just +before lambing. It does now seem awful cruel to me to shear just before +lambing, but that’s their way out here. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, nothing happens, and Jim ain’t more’n two hours from +the pens an’ he comes to that place on the road that branches out over +the top of a cañon, and there some one springs out of a clump of willows +an’ dashes into the herd and drives the wether that’s leading right +over the cliff. The leaders begin to follow that wether, and they go right over +the cliff like the pore fools they are. The herder fired and tried to drive +’em back, they tell me, an’ he an’ the dawg were shot at from +the clump of willows by some one else who was there. Three hundred sheep had +gone over the cliff before Jim knew what was happening. He rode like mad right +through the herd to try and head ’em off; but you know what sheep is +like—they’re like lost souls headin’ for damnation. Nothing +can stop ’em when they’re once started. And Jim lost every +head—started for the shearing-pens a rich man—rich for +Jim—an’ seen everything he had swept away before his eyes, his wife +an’ children made paupers. My son he come by and found him. He said that +Jim was sittin’ huddled up in a heap, his knees drawed up under his chin, +starin’ straight up into the noonday sky, same as if he was askin’ +God how He could be so cruel. His dead dawg, that they had shot, was by the +side of him. The herder that was with Jim had taken the one that was shot into +Watson’s, so when my son found Jim he was alone, sittin’ on the +edge of the cliff with his dead dawg, an’ the sky about was black with +buzzards; an’ Jim he just sat an’ stared up at ’em, and when +my son spoke to him he never answered any more than a dead man. He shuck him by +the arm, but Jim just sat there, watchin’ the sun, the buzzards, and the +dead sheep.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was nothing done to this man Simpson?” +</p> + +<p> +“The cattle outfit that he done the dirty work for swore an alibi for +him. Jim has been in hard luck ever since. He’s been rustlin’ +cattle right along; but Lord, who can blame him? He got into some trouble down +to Rawlins—shot a man he thought was with Simpson, but who +wasn’t—and he’s been in jail ever since. Course now that +he’s out Simpson’s bound to get peppered. Glad it didn’t +happen here, though. ’Twould be a kind of unpleasant thing to have +connected with a eating-house, don’t you think so?” she inquired, +with the grim philosophy of the country. +</p> + +<p> +The eating-house patrons had gone their several ways, and the quiet of the +dining-room was oppressive by contrast with its late boisterousness. Mrs. +Clark, her hands imprisoned in bread-dough, begged Mary to look over the screen +door and see if anything was happening. “I’m always suspicious when +it’s quiet. I know they’re in deviltry of some sort.” +</p> + +<p> +Mary tiptoed to the door and peeped over, but the room was deserted, save for +Simpson, huddled in a corner, biting his finger-nails. “The nasty +thing!” exploded Mrs. Clark, when she had received the bulletin. +“I’d turn him out if it wasn’t for the notoriety he might +bring my place in gettin’ killed in front of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I dare say I’d better go and see after my trunk; it’s still +on the station platform.” Mary wondered what her prim aunts would think +of her for sitting in Mrs. Clark’s kitchen, but it had seemed so much +more of a refuge than the sordid streets of the hideous little town, with its +droves of men and never a glimpse of a woman that she had been only too glad to +avail herself of the invitation of the proprietress to “make herself at +home till the stage left.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, good luck to you,” said Mrs. Clark, wiping her hand only +partially free from dough and presenting it to Miss Carmichael. She had not +inquired where the girl was going, nor even hinted to discover where she came +from, but she gave her the godspeed that the West knows how to give, and the +girl felt better for it. +</p> + +<p> +At the station, where Mary shortly presented herself, in the interest of that +old man of the sea of all travellers, luggage, she learned that the stage did +not leave town for some three-quarters of an hour yet. A young man, +manipulating many sheets of flimsy, yellow paper covered with large, +flourishing handwriting, looked up in answer to her inquiries about Lost Trail. +This young man, whose accent, clothes, and manner proclaimed him “from +the East,” whither, in all probability, he would shortly return if he did +not mend his ways, disclaimed all knowledge of the place as if it were an +undesirable acquaintance. But before he could deny it thrice, a man who had +heard the cabalistic name was making his way towards the desk, the pride of the +traveller radiating from every feature. +</p> + +<p> +The cosmopolite who knew Lost Trail was the type of man who is born to be a +Kentucky colonel, and perhaps may have achieved his destiny before coming to +this “No Man’s Land,” for reasons into which no one inquired, +and which were obviously no one’s business. They knew him here by the +name of “Lone Tooth Hank,” and he wore what had been, in the days +of his colonelcy—or its equivalent—a frock-coat, restrained by the +lower button, and thus establishing a waist-line long after nature had had the +last word to say on the subject. With this he wore the sombrero of the country, +and the combination carried a rakish effect that was positively sinister. +</p> + +<p> +The scornful clerk introduced Mary as a young lady inquiring about some place +in the bad-lands. Off came the sombrero with a sweep, and Lone Tooth smiled in +a way that accented the dental solitaire to which he owed his name. Miss +Carmichael, concealing her terror of this casual cavalier, inquired if he could +tell her the distance to Lost Trail. +</p> + +<p> +“I sho’ly can, and with, consid’able pleasure.” The +sombrero completed a semicircular sweep and arrived in the neighborhood of Mr. +Hank’s heart in significance of his vassalage to the fair sex. He +proceeded: +</p> + +<p> +“Lost Trail sutney is right lonesome. A friend of mine gets a little too +playful fo’ the evah-increasin’ meetropolitan spirit of this yere +camp, and tries a little tahget practice on the main bullyvard, an’ finds +the atmospheah onhealthful in consequence. Hearin’ that the quiet +solitude of Lost Trail is what he needs, he lit out with the following +circumstance thereof happenin’. One day something in his harness +giv’ way—and he recollects seein’ a boot sunnin’ itself +back in the road ’bout a quartah of a mile. An’ he figgahs +he’ll borry a strip of leather off the boot to mend his harness. Back he +goes and finds it has a kind of loaded feelin’. So my friend +investigates—and I be blanked if there wasn’t a foot and leg inside +of it.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Carmichael had always exercised a super-feminine self-restraint in the +case of casual mice, and it served her in the present instance. Instead of +screaming, she said, after the suppression of a gasp or two: +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you so much, but I won’t detain you any longer. Your +information makes Lost Trail even more interesting than I had expected.” +</p> + +<p> +Besides, Miss Carmichael had a faint suspicion that this might be a +preconcerted plan to terrify the “lady tenderfoot,” and she prided +herself on being equal to the situation. The time at her disposal before the +stage would embark on that unknown sea of prairies she spent in the delectable +pastime of shopping. The financial and social interests of the town seemed to +converge in Hugous & Co.’s “trading store,” where Miss +Carmichael invested in an extra package of needles for the mere excitement of +being one of the shoppers, though her aunt Adelaide had stocked the little +plaid-silk work-bag to repletion with every variety of needle known to woman. +She pricked up her ears, meanwhile, at some of the purchases made by the +cow-boys for their camp-larders—devilled ham, sardines, canned tomatoes +heading the list as prime favorites. Did these strapping border lads live by +the fruit of the tin alone? Apparently yes, with the sophisticated +accompaniment of soda biscuit, to judge by the quantity of baking-powder they +invested in—literally pounds of it. Men in any other condition of life +would have died of slow poisoning as the result of it. +</p> + +<p> +There were other customers at Hugous’ that morning besides the spurred +and booted cow-puncher and his despised compeer, the sheep-herder. That +restless emigrant class, whose origin, as a class, lay in the community of its +own uncertain schemes of fortune; the West, with her splendid, lavish promises, +called them from their thriftless farms in the South and their gray cabins in +New England. They began their journeying towards the land of promise long +before the Indians had ever seen the shrieking “fire-wagon.” All +day they would toil over the infinitude of prairie, the sun that hid nightly +behind that maddeningly elusive vanishing-point, the horizon, their only guide. +But the makeshifts of the wagon life were not without charm. They began to +wander in quest of they knew not precisely what, and from these vague +beginnings there had sprung into existence that nomadic population that was +once such a feature of the far West, but is now going the way of the Indians +and the cow-boys. +</p> + +<p> +This breathing-space in the long journey had for them the stimulus of a +holiday-making. They bought their sides of bacon and their pounds of coffee as +merrily as if they were playing a game of forfeits, the women fingering the +calico they did not want for the joy of pricing and making shoppers’ +talk. +</p> + +<p> +The scene had a scriptural flavor that not even the blue overalls of the men +nor the calico gowns of the women could altogether eliminate. Their wagons, +bulging with household goods and trailing with kitchen utensils secured by bits +of rope, were drawn up in front of the trading-store. From a pump, at some +little distance, the pilgrims filled their stone water-bottles, for the wise +traveller does not trust to the chance springs of the desert. Baskets of +chickens were strapped to many of the wagons, but whether the unhappy fowls +were designed to supply fresh eggs and an occasional fricassée, or were taken +for the pleasure of their company, there was no means of determining short of +impertinent cross-questioning. Sometimes a cow, and invariably a dog, formed +one of the family party, and an edifying <i>esprit de corps</i> seemed to dwell +among them all. +</p> + +<p> +Lone Tooth Hank, in his capacity of man about town, stood on the steps of +Hugous’ watching the preparations; and, seeing Miss Carmichael, +approached with the air of an old and tried family friend. +</p> + +<p> +“Do I obsehve yu regyarding oweh ‘settleahs,’ called +settleahs ’cause they nevah settle?” Hank laughed gently, as one +who has made a joke meet for ladies. “I’ve known whole famblies to +bohn an’ raise right in one of them wagons; and tuhn out a mighty fine, +endurin’ lot, too, this hyeh prospectin’ round afteh +somethin’ they wouldn’t reco’nize if they met. Gits to be a +habit same as drink. They couldn’t live in a house same as humans, not if +yu filled their gyarden with nuggets an’ their well with +apple-jack.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Carmichael looked attentive but said nothing. In truth, she was more +afraid of Hank, his obvious gallantry, and his grewsome tales of boots with +legs in them than she was of the unknown terrors of Lost Trail. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe that is my stage,” she said, as a red conveyance not +unlike a circus wagon halted at some little distance from the trading-store. +And as she spoke she saw four of her companions of the breakfast-table heading +towards the stage, each with a piece of her precious luggage. Mary Carmichael +was precipitated in a sudden panic; she had heard tales of the pranks of these +playful Western squires—a little gun-play to induce the terrified +tenderfoot to put a little more spirit into his Highland fling, “by +request.” She remembered their merrymaking with Simpson at breakfast. +What did they intend to do with her belongings? And as she remembered the +little plaid sewing-bag that Aunt Adelaide had made for +her—surreptitiously drying her tears in the mean time—when she +remembered that bag and the possibility of its being submitted to ignominy, she +could have cried or done murder, she wasn’t sure which. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, ’pon my wohd, heah ah the boys with yo’ baggage. How +time du fly!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” she gasped, “what are they going to do with it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Place it on the stage, awaitin’ yo’ ohdahs.” And to +her expression of infinite relief—“Yo’ didn’t think any +disrepec’ would be shown the baggage of a lady honorin’ this hyeh +metropolis with her presence?” +</p> + +<p> +She thanked the knights of the lariat the more warmly for her unjust +suspicions. They stowed away the luggage with the deft capacity of men who have +returned to the primitive art of using their hands. She climbed beside the +driver on the box of the stage. Lone Tooth Hank and the cow-punchers +chivalrously raised their sombreros with a simultaneous spontaneity that +suggested a flight of rockets. The driver cracked his whip and turned the +horses’ heads towards the billowing sea of foot-hills, and the last cable +that bound Mary Carmichael to civilization was cut. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>III.<br /> +Leander And His Lady</h2> + +<p> +The only stage passenger besides Miss Carmichael was a fat lady, whose entire +luggage seemed to consist of luncheon—pasteboard boxes of sandwiches, +baskets of fruit, napkins of cake. These she began to dispose of, before the +stage had fairly started, with an industry almost automatic, continuing +faithful to her post as long as the supplies lasted. Then she dozed, sleeping +the sleep of the just and those who keep their mouths open. From time to time +the stage-driver invoked his team in cabalistic words, and each time the horses +toiled forward with fresh energy; but progress became a mockery in that ocean +of space, their driving seemed as futile as the sport of children who crack a +whip and play at stage-coach with a couple of chairs; the mountains still +mocked in the distance. +</p> + +<p> +A flat, unbroken sweep of country, a tangle of straggling sage-brush, a glimpse +of foot-hills in the distance, was the outlook mile after mile. The day grew +pitilessly hot. Clouds of alkaline dust swept aimlessly over the desert or +whirled into spirals till lost in space. From horizon to horizon the sky was +one cloudless span of blue that paled as it dipped earthward. Mary Carmichael +dozed and wakened, but the prospect was always the same—the red stage +crawling over the wilderness, making no evident progress, and always the sun, +the sage-brush, and the silence. +</p> + +<p> +It was all so overwhelmingly different from the peaceful atmosphere of things +at home. The mellow Virginia country, with its winding, red roads, wealth of +woodland, and its grave old houses that were the more haughtily aloof for the +poverty that gnawed at their vitals. This wilderness was so gaunt, so parched; +she closed her eyes and thought of a bit of landscape at home. A young forest +of silver beeches growing straight and fine as the threads on a loom; and +through the gray perspective of their satin-smooth trunks you caught the white +gleam of a fairy cascade as it tumbled over the moss-grown stones to the brook +below. It was like a bit from a Japanese garden in its delicate artificiality. +</p> + +<p> +And harder to leave than these cherished bits of landscape had been the old +house Runnymede, that always seemed dozing in the peaceful comatose of +senility. It was beyond the worry of debt; the succession of mortgages that +sapped its vitality and wrote anxious lines on the faces of Aunt Adelaide and +Aunt Martha was nothing to the old house. Had it not sheltered Carmichaels for +over a century?—it had faith in the name. But Mary could never remember +when the need of money to pay the mortgage had not invaded the gentle routine +of their home-life, robbing the sangaree of its delicate flavor in the long, +sleepy summer afternoons, invading the very dining-room, an unwelcome guest at +the old mahogany table, prompting Aunt Adelaide to cast anxious glances at the +worn silver—would it go to pay that blood-sucking mortgage next? +</p> + +<p> +But hardest of all to leave had been Archie, best and most promising of young +brothers—Archie, who had come out ahead of his class in the high-school, +all ready to go to The University—the University of Virginia is always +“The University”; but who, it had seemed at a certain dark season, +must give up this long-cherished hope for lack of the wherewithal. Mary, being +four years older than her brother and quite twenty, had long felt a maternal +obligation to administer his affairs. If he did not go to the university, like +his father and grandfather before him, it would be because she had failed in +her duty. At this particular phase of the domestic problem there had appeared, +in a certain churchly periodical, a carefully worded advertisement for a +governess, and the subsequent business of references, salary, and information +to be imparted and received proving eminently satisfactory, Mary had finally +received a tearful permission from her aunts to depart for some place in +Wyoming, the name of which was not even to be found on the map. She was to +consider herself quite one of the family, and the compensation was to be fifty +dollars a month. Archie would now be able to go to “The +University.” +</p> + +<p> +As the day wore on the sage-brush became scarcer and grayer, there were fewer +flowering cacti, and the great white patches of alkali grew more and more +frequent. In the distance there was a riot of rainbow tints—violet, pink, +and pale orange. It seemed inconceivable that such barrenness could produce +such wealth of color; nothing could have been more beautiful—not even the +changing colors on a pigeon’s neck—than the coppery iridescence, +shading to cobalt and blue on some of the buttes. +</p> + +<p> +Night had fallen before they made the first break in their journey. The low, +beetle-browed cabin that faced them in the wilderness carried in its rude +completeness a hint of the prestidigitateur’s art—a world of +desolation, and behold a log cabin with smoke issuing from the chimney and +curtains at the windows! The interior was unplastered, but this shortcoming was +surmounted by tacking cheesecloth neatly over the logs, a device at once simple +and strategic, as in the lamplight the effect was that of plaster. Miss +Carmichael, suddenly released from the actual rumbling of the stage, felt its +confused motion the more strongly in imagination, and hardly knew whether she +was eating canned tomatoes, served uncooked directly from the tin, fried steak, +black coffee, and soda biscuit, in company with the fat lady, the stage-driver, +and the woman who kept the road ranch, or if it was all some Alice in +Wonderland delusion. +</p> + +<p> +The fat lady had brought her own bedding—an apoplectic roll of +bedquilts—and these she insisted on making a bed of, despite the protests +of the ranch-woman, who seemed to detect a covert insinuation against her +accommodations in the precedent. Miss Carmichael profited by the controversy. +The landlady, touched no doubt by the simple faith of a traveller who trusted +to the beds of a road-ranch, or because she was young or a girl, led the way in +triumph to her own bedroom, and indicating an imposing affair with +pillow-shams, she defied Miss Carmichael to find a more comfortable bed +“in the East.” +</p> + +<p> +In the unaccountable manner of these desert conveyances, that creak and groan +across the arid wastes with an apparently lumbering inconsequence, the stage +that brought the travellers to the Dax ranch left at sunrise to pursue a +seemingly erratic career along the North Platte, while Miss Carmichael and the +fat lady were to continue their journey with one Lemuel Chugg, who drove a +stage northward towards the Red Desert, when he was sober enough to handle the +ribbons. +</p> + +<p> +Breakfast was largely devoted to speculation regarding the approximate +condition of Mr. Chugg—would he be wholly or partially incapacitated for +his job? Mrs. Dax, flirting a feather-duster in the neighborhood of Miss +Carmichael in a futile effort to beguile her into giving a reason for her +solitary journey across the desert, took a gloomy view of the situation. +</p> + +<p> +But Miss Carmichael kept her own counsel. Not so the fat lady. Falling into the +snare ingenuously set for another, she divulged her name, place of residence, +and the object of her travels, which was to visit a son on Sweetwater. +Furthermore, she stated the probable cause of every death in her family for the +past thirty-five years. Miss Carmichael felt an especial interest in an Uncle +Henry who “died of a Friday along of eating clams.” He stood out +with such refreshing vividness against a background of neutralities who +succumbed to consumption, bile colic, and other more familiar ailments of the +patent-medicine litany. But loquacity, apparently, like virtue, is its own +reward, for the landlady scarce vouchsafed a comment on this dismal recitative, +while Miss Carmichael remained the object of her persistent attentions. +</p> + +<p> +But there seemed to be no topic of universal interest but Chugg’s +condition, Mrs. Dax finally asserting, “Before I’d trust my +precious neck to him, I’d get Mr. Dax to shoot me.” +</p> + +<p> +Meditating on this Spartan statement, Mary and the fat lady became aware for +the first time of a subtle, silent force in the domestic economy. But so +unobtrusive was this influence that one had to scrutinize very closely, indeed, +to detect the evanescent personality of Mrs. Dax’s husband. Leander was +his name, but it is safe to say that he swam no Hellesponts for the masterful +wife of his bosom. Otherwise he was slender, willowy, bald; if he ever stood +straight enough to get the habitually apologetic crooks out of his knees, he +would be tall; but so in the habit was he of repressing himself in the marital +presence that Leander passed for middle height. He waited on the table at +breakfast with the dumb submissiveness of a trained dog that has been taught to +give pathetic imitations of human servility. But no sooner had his lady left +the room than Leander began quite brazenly to call attention to himself as a +man and an individual, coughing, rattling his dishes, and clearing his throat. +Mary and the fat lady, out of very pity, responded to these crude signals with +overtures equally frank, and Leander ventured finally to inquire if they aimed +to spend the night at his brother’s ranch, it being the next mess-box +between here and nowhere. They admitted that his brother’s ranch was +their next stopping-place, and Leander went through perfect contortions of +apology and self-effacement before he could bring himself to ask them to do him +a favor. It would have taken a very stern order of womankind to refuse anything +so abject, and they blindly committed themselves to the pledge. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell him I send my compliments,” he whispered, and, looking about +him furtively, he repeated the blood-curdling request. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that all?” sniffed the fat lady, at no pains to conceal her +disappointment. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s enough, if it was known, to raise a war-whoop and stampede +this yere family.” His glance at the door through which his wife had +disappeared was pregnant with meaning. +</p> + +<p> +“Family troubles?” asked the fat lady, as a gourmet might say +“Truffles.” +</p> + +<p> +“Looks like it,” said Leander, dismally. “Me and Johnnie +don’t ask for nothin’ better than to bask in each other’s +company; but our wives insists on keepin’ up the manœuvres of a +war-dance the whole endoorin’ time.” +</p> + +<p> +“So,” said the fat lady, as a gourmet might tell of a favorite way +of preparing truffles, “it’s a case of wives?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, marm, an’ teeth an’ nails an’ husbands thrown in, +when they get a sight of each other’s petticoats.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve known sisters-in-law not to agree,” helped on the fat +lady, by way of an encouraging parallel. +</p> + +<p> +“While I deplores usin’ such a comparison to the refinin’ and +softenin’ inflooance of wimmen, the meetin’ of the Dax ladies by +chanst anywheres has all the elements of danger and excitement that accompanies +an Injun uprisin’.” +</p> + +<p> +The travellers looked all manner of encouragement. +</p> + +<p> +“You see, my wife’s a great housekeeper; her talent +lies”—and here Leander winked knowingly—“in +managin’ the help.” +</p> + +<p> +“Land’s sake!” interrupted the fat lady. “Why +don’t you kick?” +</p> + +<p> +Leander sighed softly. “I tried to once. As an experiment it partook of +the trustfulness of a mule kickin’ against the stony walls of Badger +Cañon. But to resoom about the difficulties that split the Dax family. Before +Johnnie got mislaid in that matrimonial landslide o’ his, he herds with +us. Me an’ him does the work of this yere shack, and my wife just +roominates and gives her accomplishments as manager full play. She never put +her hand in dirty water any more than Mrs. Cleveland sittin’ up in the +White House parlor. Johnnie done the fancy cookin’; he could make a pie +like any one’s maw, and while you was lost to the world in the delights +of masticatin’ it, he’d have all his greasy dishes washed up and +put away—” +</p> + +<p> +“No wonder she hated to lose a man like that,” interrupted the fat +lady, feelingly. +</p> + +<p> +“But he took to pinin’ and proclaimin’ that he shore was a +lone maverick, and he just stampeded round lookin’ for trouble and +bleatin’ a song that went: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘No one to love,<br /> +None to caress.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Well, the lady that answers his signal of distress don’t bear none +of the brands of this yere range. She lives back East, and him and her took up +their claims in each other’s affections through a matrimonial paper known +as <i>The Heart and Hand</i>. So they takes their pens in hand and gets through a hard +spell of courtin’ on paper. Love plumb locoes Johnnie. His spellin’ +don’t suit him, his handwritin’ don’t suit him, his natchral +letters don’t suit him. So off he sends to Denver for all the +letter-writin’ books he can buy—<i>Handbook of Correspondence</i>, <i>The +Epistolary Guide</i>, <i>The Ready Letter-Writer</i>, and a stack more. There’s no +denyin’ it, Johnnie certainly did sweat hisself over them letters.” +</p> + +<p> +“Land’s sakes!” said the fat lady. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, marm; he used to read ’em to me, beginnin’ how he had +just seized five minutes to write to her, when he’d worked the whole day +like a mule over it. She seemed to like the brand, an’ when he sent her +the money to come out here an’ get married, she come as straight as if +she had been mailed with a postage-stamp.” +</p> + +<p> +“The brazen thing!” said the fat lady. +</p> + +<p> +“They stopped here, goin’ home to their place. My Lord! +warn’t she a high-flyer! She done her hair like a tied-up +horse-tail—my wife called it a Sikey knot—and it stood out a foot +from her head. Some of the boys, kinder playful, wanted to throw a hat at it +and see if it wouldn’t hang, but they refrained, out of respect to the +feelin’s of the groom. +</p> + +<p> +“From the start,” continued Leander, “the two Mrs. Daxes just +hankered to get at each other; an’ while I, as a slave to the fair +sex”—here he bowed to the fat lady and to Miss +Carmichael—“hesitates to use such langwidge in their presence, the +attitood of them two female wimmin shorely reminds me of a couple of unfriendly +dawgs just hankerin’ to chaw each other. +</p> + +<p> +“At first, Johnnie waited on her hand an’ foot, and she just read +novels and played stylish all the time and danced. She was the hardest dancer +that ever struck this yere trail, and she could give lessons to any old +war-dancin’ chief up to the reservation. No dance she ever heard of was +too far for her to go to. She just went and danced till broad daylight. Many a +man would have took to dissipation, in his circumstances, but Johnnie just lost +heart and grew slatterly. Why, he’d leave his dishes go from one day till +the next—” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s more as would leave their dishes from one day till the +next if they wasn’t looked after.” And the wife of his bosom stood +in the door like a vengeful household goddess. Mr. Dax made a grab for the +nearest plates. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>IV.<br /> +Judith, The Postmistress</h2> + +<p> +The arrival of Chugg’s stage with the mail should have been coincident +with the departure of the stage that brought the travellers from +“Town,” but Chugg was late—a tardiness ascribed to indulgence +in local lethe waters, for Lemuel Chugg had survived a romance and drank to +forget that woman is a variable and a changeable thing. In consequence of which +the sober stage-driver departed without the mails, leaving Mary Carmichael and +the fat lady to scan the horizon for the delinquent Chugg, and incidentally to +hear a chapter of prairie romance. +</p> + +<p> +Some sort of revolution seemed to be in progress in the room in which the +travellers had breakfasted. Mrs. Dax had assumed the office of dictator, with +absolute sway. Leander, as aide-de-camp, courier, and staff, executed +marvellous feats of domestic engineering. The late breakfast-table, swept and +garnished with pigeon-holes, became a United States post-office, prepared to +transact postal business, and for the time being to become the social centre of +the surrounding country. +</p> + +<p> +Down the yellow road that climbed and dipped and climbed and dipped again over +foot-hills and sprawling space till it was lost in a world without end, Mary +Carmichael, standing in the doorway, watched an atom, so small that it might +have been a leaf blowing along in the wind, turn into a horseman. +</p> + +<p> +There was inspiration for a hundred pictures in the way that horse was ridden. +No flashes of daylight between saddle and rider in the jolting, Eastern +fashion, but the long, easy sweep that covers ground imperceptibly and is a +delight to the eye. It needed but the solitary figure to signify the infinitude +of space in the background. In all that great, wide world the only hint of life +was the galloping horseman, the only sound the rhythmical ring of the nearing +hoofs. The rider, now close enough for Miss Carmichael to distinguish the +features, was a thorough dandy of the saddle. No slouching garb of exigence and +comfort this, but a pretty display of doeskin gaiter, varnished boot, and smart +riding-breeches. The lad—he could not have been, Miss Carmichael thought, +more than twenty—was tanned a splendid color not unlike the bloomy +shading on a nasturtium. And when the doughty horseman made out the girl +standing in the doorway, he smiled with a lack of formality not suggested by +the town-cut of his trappings. Throwing the reins over the neck of the horse +with the real Western fling, he slid from the saddle in a trice, and—Mary +Carmichael experienced something of the gasping horror of a shocked old lady as +she made out two splendid braids of thick, black hair. Her doughty cavalier was +no cavalier at all, but a surprisingly handsome young woman. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Carmichael gasped a little even as she extended her hand, for the +masquerader had pulled off her gauntlet and held out hers as if she was +conferring the freedom of the wilderness. It was impossible for a homesick girl +not to respond to such heartiness, though it was with difficulty at first that +Mary kept her eyes on the girl’s face. Curiosity, agreeably piqued, urged +her to take another glimpse of the riding clothes that this young woman wore +with such supreme unconcern. +</p> + +<p> +Now, “in the East” Mary Carmichael had not been in the habit of +meeting black-haired goddesses who rode astride and whose assurance of the +pleasure of meeting her made her as self-conscious as on her first day at +dancing-school; and though she tried to prove her cosmopolitanism by not +betraying this, the attempt was rather a failure. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you surprised that I did not wait for an introduction?” the +girl in the riding clothes asked, noticing Mary’s evident uneasiness; +“but you don’t know how good it is to see a girl. I’m so +tired of spurs and sombreros and cattle and dust and distance, and +there’s nothing else here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where I come from it’s just the other way—too many +petticoats and hat-pins.” +</p> + +<p> +The horseman who was no horseman dropped Miss Carmichael’s hand and went +into the house. Mary wondered if she ought to have been more cordial. +</p> + +<p> +From the back door came Leander, with dishcloths, which he began to hang on the +line in a dumb, driven sort of way. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is she?” asked Mary. +</p> + +<p> +“Her?” he interrogated, jerking his head in the direction of the +house. “The postmistress, Judith Rodney; yes, that’s her +name.” He dropped his voice in the manner of one imparting momentous +things. “She never wears a skirt ridin’, any more than a +man.” +</p> + +<p> +Mary felt that she was tempting Leander into the paths of gossip, undoubtedly +his besetting sin, but she could not resist the temptation to linger. He had +disposed of his last dish-cloth, and he withdrew the remaining clothes-pin from +his mouth in a way that was pathetically feminine. +</p> + +<p> +“She keeps the post-office here, since Mrs. Dax lost the job, and boards +with us; p’r’aps it’s because she is my wife’s +successor in office, or p’a’ps it’s jest the natural grudge +that wimmin seem to harbor agin each other, I dunno, but they don’t +sandwich none.” +</p> + +<p> +Leander having disposed of his last dish-towel, squinted at it through his +half-closed eyes, like an artist “sighting” a landscape, saw +apparently that it was in drawing, and next brought his vision to bear on the +back premises of his own dwelling, where he saw there was no wifely figure in +evidence. +</p> + +<p> +“Sh-sh-h!” he said, creeping towards Mary, his dull face +transfigured with the consciousness that he had news to tell. +“Sh-sh—her brother’s a rustler. If ’twan’t for +her”—Leander went through the grewsome pantomime of tying an +imaginary rope round his neck and throwing it over the limb of an imaginary +tree. “They’re goin’ to get him for shore this time, soon as +he comes out of jail; but would you guess it from her bluff?” +</p> + +<p> +There was no mistaking the fate of a rustler after Mr. Dax’s grisly +demonstration, but of the quality of his calling Mary was as ignorant as +before. +</p> + +<p> +“And why should they do that?” she inquired, with tenderfoot +simplicity. +</p> + +<p> +“Stealin’ cattle ain’t good for the health hereabouts,” +said Leander, as one who spoke with authority. “It’s apt to bring +on throat trouble.” +</p> + +<p> +But Mary did not find Leander’s joke amusing. She had suddenly remembered +the pale, gaunt man who had walked into the eating-house the previous morning +and walked out again, his errand turned into farce-comedy by the cowardice of +an unworthy antagonist. The pale man’s grievance had had to do with sheep +and cattle. His name had been Rodney, too. She understood now. He was Judith +Rodney’s brother, and he was in danger of being hanged. Mary Carmichael +felt first the admiration of a girl, then the pity of a woman, for the brave +young creature who so stoutly carried so unspeakable a burden. But she could +not speak of her new knowledge to Leander. +</p> + +<p> +She glanced towards this childlike person and saw from his stealthy manner that +he had more to impart. He walked towards the kitchen door, saw no one, and came +back to Mary. +</p> + +<p> +“There ain’t a man in this Gawd-forsaken country wouldn’t +lope at the chance to die for her—but the women!” Leander’s +pantomimic indication of absolute feminine antagonism was conclusive. +</p> + +<p> +“The wimmin treats her scabby—just scabby. Don’t you go to +thinkin’ she ain’t a good girl on that account”; and +something like an attitude of chivalrous protection straightened the apologetic +crook in his craven outline. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s good, just good, and when a woman’s that there’s +no use in sayin’ it any more fanciful. As I says to my wife, every time +she give me a chance, ‘If Judy wasn’t a good girl these boys about +here would just natchrally become extinct shootin’ each other upon +account of her.’ But she don’t favor none enough to cause +trouble.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are the women jealous of her?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s her independence that riles ’em. They take on awful +about her ridin’ in pants, an’ it certainly is a heap more modest +than ridin’ straddle in a hitched up caliker skirt, same as some of them +do.” +</p> + +<p> +“And do all the women out here ride astride?” Mary gasped. +</p> + +<p> +“A good many does, when you ain’t watchin’; horses in these +parts ain’t broke for no such lopsided foolishness as side-saddles. But +you see she does it becomin’, and that’s where the grudge comes in. +You can’t stir about these foot-hills without coming across a woman, like +as not, holdin’ on to a posse of kids, and ridin’ clothes-pin +fashion in a looped-up skirt; when she sees you comin’ she’ll +p’r’aps upset a kid or two assoomin’ a decorous attitood. +That’s feemi<i>nine</i>, and as such is approved by the ladies, +but”—and here Leander put his head on one side and gave a grotesque +impression of outraged decorum—“pants is considered +unwomanly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Leander! Leander!” came in accusing accents from the kitchen. +</p> + +<p> +“Run!” gasped Mrs. Dax’s handmaiden; “don’t let +her catch us chinnin’.” +</p> + +<p> +Mary Carmichael ran round one side of the house as she was bidden, but, like +Lot’s wife, could not resist the temptation of looking back. Leander, +with incredible rapidity, grabbed two clothes-pins off the line, clutched a +dish-towel, shook it. “Comin’! comin’!” he called, as +he went through the farce of rehanging it. +</p> + +<p> +The lonesomeness of plain and foot-hill, the utter lack of the human element +that gives to this country its character of penetrating desolation, had been +changed while Mary Carmichael forgathered with Leander by the clothes-line. +From the four quarters of the compass, men in sombreros, flannel shirts, and +all manner of strange habiliments came galloping over the roads as if their +horses were as keen on reaching Dax’s as their riders. They came towards +the house at full tilt, their horses stretching flat with ears laid back +viciously, and Mary, who was unused to the tricks of cow-ponies, expected to +see them ride through the front door, merely by way of demonstrating their +sense of humor. Not so; the little pintos, buckskins, bays, and chestnuts +dashed to the door and stopped short in a full gallop; as a bit of staccato +equestrianism it was superb. +</p> + +<p> +And then the wherefore of all this dashing horsemanship, this curveting, +prancing, galloping revival of knightly tourney effects was +apparent—Judith Rodney had opened post-office. She had changed her riding +clothes; or, rather, that portion of them to which the ladies took exception +was now concealed by a long, black skirt. Her wonderful braids of black hair +had been twisted high on her head. She was well worth a trip across the alkali +wastes to see. The room was packed with men. One unconsciously got the +impression that a fire, a fight, or some crowd-collecting casualty had +happened. Above the continual clinking of spurs there arose every idiom and +peculiarity of speech of which these United States are capable. There is no +Western dialect, properly speaking. Men bring their modes of expression with +them from Maine or Minnesota, as the case may be, but their figures of speech, +which give an essential picturesqueness to their language, are almost entirely +local—the cattle and sheep industries, prospecting, the Indians, poker, +faro, the dance-halls, all contribute their printable or unprintable +embellishment. +</p> + +<p> +Judith managed them all—cow-punchers, sheep-herders, prospectors, +freighters—with an impersonal skill that suggested a little solitary +exercise in the bowling-alley. The ten-pins took their tumbles in good +part—no one could congratulate himself on escaping the levelling +ball—and where there’s a universal lack of luck, doubtless also +there will be found a sort of grim fellowship. +</p> + +<p> +That they were all more or less in love with her there could be no doubt. As a +matter of fact, Judith Rodney did not depend on the scarcity of women in the +desert for her pre-eminence in the interests of this hot-headed group. Her +personality—and through no conscious effort of hers—would have been +pre-eminent anywhere. As it was, in this woman-forsaken wilderness she might +have stirred up a modern edition of the Trojan war at any moment. That she did +not, despite the lurking suggestion of temptation written all over her, brought +back the words of Leander: “If Judy wasn’t a good girl, these boys +would just nacherally become extinct shooting each other upon account of +her.” +</p> + +<p> +And yet what a woman she was! It struck Miss Carmichael, as she watched Judith +hold these warring elements in the hollow of her hand, that her interest might +be due to a certain temperamental fusion; that there might lie, at the essence +of her being, a subtle combination of saint and devil. One could fancy her +leading an army on a crusade or provoking a bar-room brawl. The challenging +quality of her beauty, the vividness of color, the suggestion of endurance and +radiating health in every line, were comparable to the great primeval forces +about her. She was cast to be the mother of men of brawn and muscle, who would +make this vast, unclaimed wilderness subject to them. +</p> + +<p> +At present neither pole of her character, as it had been hastily estimated, was +even remotely suggested. The atmosphere in the post-office was, considering the +potential violence of its visitors, singularly calm. And Judith, feeding these +wild border lads on scraps of chaff and banter, and retaining their absolute +loyalty, was a sight worth seeing. She had the alertness of a lion-tamer locked +in a cage with the lords of the jungle; the rashly confident she humbled, the +meek she exalted, and all with such genuine good-fellowship, such an absence of +coquetry in the genial game of give and take, that one ceased to wonder at even +the devotion of Leander. And since they were to her, on her own confession, but +“spurs and sombreros,” one wondered at the elaboration of the +comedy, the endless wire-pulling in the manipulation of these most picturesque +marionettes—until one remembered the outlaw brother and felt that what +she did she did for him. +</p> + +<p> +“You right shore there ain’t a letter for me, Miss Judith. My +creditors are pretty faithful ’bout bearing me in mind.” It was the +third time that the big, shambling Texan who had been one of the company at +Mrs. Clark’s eating-house had inquired for mail, and seemed so +embarrassed by his own bulk that he moved cautiously, as if he might step on a +fellow-creature and maim him. Each time he had asked for a letter he took his +place at the end of the waiting-line and patiently bided his time for the +chance of an extra word with the postmistress. +</p> + +<p> +“They’ve begun to lose hope, Texas.” +</p> + +<p> +She shuffled the letters impartially, as a goddess dispensing fate, and barely +glanced at the man who had ridden a hundred and fifty miles across sand and +cactus to see her. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the difference between them and me.” There was a grim +finality in his tone. +</p> + +<p> +“What, you’re going to take your place at the end of that line +again! I’ll try and find you a circular.” +</p> + +<p> +He tried to look at her angrily, but she smiled at him with such +good-fellowship that he went off singing significantly that universal anthem of +the cow-puncher the West over: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie,<br /> + In a narrow grave just six by three,<br /> + Where the wild coyotes will howl o’er me.<br /> +Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ain’t there a love letter for me?” The young man who +inquired seemed to belong to a different race from these bronzed squires of the +saddle. He suggested over-crowded excursion boats on Sunday afternoons in +swarming Eastern cities. He buttonholed every one and explained his presence in +the West on the score of his health, as though leaving his native asphalt were +a thing that demanded apology. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” answered the postmistress, with a real motherly note, +“here is one from Hugous & Co.” +</p> + +<p> +A roar went up at this, and the blushing tenderfoot pocketed his third bill for +the most theatrical style of Mexican sombrero; it had a brass snake coiled +round the crown for a hat-band, and a cow-puncher in good and regular standing +would have preferred going bareheaded to wearing it. +</p> + +<p> +“She seems to be pressing her suit, son; you better name the day,” +one of the loungers suggested. +</p> + +<p> +“The blamed thing ain’t worth twenty-five dollars,” the young +man from the East declared. A conspicuous silence followed. It seemed to +irritate the owner of the hat that no one would defend it. “It +ain’t worth it,” he repeated. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you allowed you was out here for your health?” the big +Texan, who had returned from the corral, inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Betcher life,” swaggered the man with the hat, +“N’York’s good enough for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“But”—and the Texan smiled sweetly—“the man who +sold you the hat ain’t out here for his.” +</p> + +<p> +Judith hid her head and stamped letters. The boys were suspiciously quiet, then +some one began to chant: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“The devil examined the desert well,<br /> +And made up his mind ’twas too dry for hell;<br /> +He put up the prices his pockets to swell,<br /> +And called it a—heal-th resort.” +</p> + +<p> +The postmistress waited for the last note of the chorus to die away, and read +from a package she held in her hand—“‘Mrs. Henry Lee, Deer +Lodge, Wyoming.’ Well, Henry, here’s a wedding-present, I guess. +And my congratulations, though you’ve hardly treated us well in never +saying a word.” +</p> + +<p> +The unfortunate Henry, who hadn’t even a sweetheart, and who was noted as +the shyest man in the “Goose Creek Outfit,” had to submit to the +mock congratulations of every man in the room and promise to set up the drinks +later. +</p> + +<p> +“I never felt we’d keep you long, son; them golden curls seldom +gets a chance to ripen singly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shoshone squaw, did you say she was, Henry? They ain’t much for +looks, but there’s a heep of wear to ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, go on, now; you fellows know I ain’t married.” And the +boy handled the package with a sort of dumb wonder, as if the superscription +were indisputable evidence of a wife’s existence. +</p> + +<p> +“Open it, Henry; you shore don’t harbor sentiments of curiosity +regarding the post-office dealings of your lady.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, old man, this here may be grounds for divorce.” +</p> + +<p> +“See what the other fellow’s sending your wife.” +</p> + +<p> +Henry, badgered, jostled, the target of many a homely witticism, finally opened +the package, which proved to be a sample bottle of baby food. At sight of it +they howled like Apaches, and Henry was again forced to receive their +congratulations. Judith, who had been an interested on-looker without joining +in the merriment, now detected in the tenor of their humor a tendency towards +breadth. In an instant her manner was official; rapping the table with her +mailing-stamp, she announced: +</p> + +<p> +“Boys, this post-office closes in ten minutes, if you want to buy any +stamps.” +</p> + +<p> +The silence following this statement on the part of the postmistress was +instantaneous. Henry took his mirth-provoking package and went his way; some of +the more hilariously inclined followed him. The remainder confined themselves +absolutely to business, scrawling postal-cards or reading their mail. The +pounce of the official stamp on the letters, as the postmistress checked them +off for the mail-bag, was the only sound in the hot stillness. +</p> + +<p> +A heavily built man, older than those who had been keeping the post-office +lively, now took advantage of the lull to approach Judith. He had a twinkling +face, all circles and pouches, but it grew graver as he spoke to the +postmistress. He was Major Atkins, formerly a famous cavalry officer, but since +his retirement a cattle-man whose herds grazed to the pan-handle of Texas. As +he took his mail, talking meantime of politics, of the heat, of the lack of +water, in the loud voice for which he was famous, he managed, with clumsy +diplomacy, to interject a word or two for her own ear alone. +</p> + +<p> +“Jim’s out,” he conveyed to her, in a successfully muffled +tone. “He’s out, and they’re after him, hot. Get him out of +the State, Judy—get him out, quick. He tried to kill Simpson at Mrs. +Clark’s, in town, yesterday. The little Eastern girl that’s here +will tell you.” Then the major was gone before Judith could perfectly +realize the significance of what he had told her. +</p> + +<p> +She threw back her head and the pulse in her throat beat. Like a wild forest +thing, at the first warning sound, she considered: Was it time for +flight?—or was the warning but the crackling of a twig? Major Atkins was +a cattle-man: her brother hated all cattle-men. How disinterested had been the +major’s warning! He had always been her friend. Mrs. Atkins had been one +of the ladies at the post who had helped to send her to school to the nuns at +Santa Fé. She despised herself for doubting; yet these were troublous times, +and all was fair between sheep and cattle-men. Major Atkins had spoken of the +Eastern girl; then that pretty, little, curly-haired creature, whom Judith had +found standing in the sunshine, had seen Jim—had heard him threaten to +kill. Should she ask her about it—consult her? Judith’s training +was not one to impel her to give her confidence to strangers, still she had +liked the little Eastern girl. +</p> + +<p> +These were the perplexities that beset her, sweeping her thoughts hither and +thither, as sea-weed is swept by the wash of the waves. She strove to collect +her faculties. How should she rid the house of her cavaliers? She had regularly +to refuse some half-dozen of them each day that she kept post-office. +</p> + +<p> +In a few minutes more the group in the post-office began to disperse under the +skilful manipulation of the postmistress. To some she sold stamps with an air +of “God speed you,” and they were soon but dwindling specks on the +horizon. To others she implied such friendly farewells that there was nothing +to do but betake themselves to their saddles. Others had compromised with the +saloon opposite, and their roaring mirth came in snatches of song and shouts of +laughter. She fastened up the little pile of letters that had remained uncalled +for with what seemed a deliberate slowness. Each time any one entered the room +she looked up—then the hope died hard in her face. Leander came in with +catlike tread and removed the pigeon-holes from the table. The post-office was +closed. Family life had been resumed at the Daxes’. +</p> + +<p> +Judith left the room and stood in the blinding sunlight, basking in it as if +she were cold. The mercury must have stood close to a hundred, and she was +hatless. There was no trace of her ebullient spirits of the morning. Her head +was sunk on her breast and she held her hands with locked fingers behind her. +It was hot, hot as the breaths of a thousand belching furnaces. A white, +burning glare had spread itself from horizon to horizon, and the earth wrinkled +and cracked beneath it. From every corner of this parched wilderness came an +ominous whirring, like the last wheezing gasp of an alarm-clock before striking +the hour. This menacing orchestration was nothing more or less than millions of +grasshoppers rasping legs and wings together in hoarse appreciation of the heat +and glare; but it had a sound that boded evil. Again and again she turned +towards the yellow road as it dipped over the hills; but there was never a +glimpse of a horseman from that direction. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>V.<br /> +The Trail Of Sentiment</h2> + +<p> +Within the house the travellers had disposed themselves in a repressed and +melancholy circle that suggested the suspended animation of a funeral +gathering. The fat lady had turned back her skirt to save her travelling dress. +The stage was late, and there was no good and sufficient reason for wearing it +out. A similar consideration of economy led her to flirt off flies with her +second best pocket-handkerchief. Mrs. Dax presided over the gathering with +awful severity. Every one truckled to her shamefully, receiving her lightest +remarks as if they were to be inscribed on tablets of bronze. Leander, his eyes +bright with excitement at being received in the family circle on an equal +footing, balanced perilously on the edge of his chair, anticipating dismissal. +</p> + +<p> +“Chugg’s never ben so late as this,” said Mrs. Dax, rocking +herself furiously. She strongly resembled one of those mottled chargers of the +nursery whose flaunting nostrils seem forever on the point of sending forth +flame. Leander, the fat lady, and Miss Carmichael meekly murmured assent and +condemnation. +</p> + +<p> +“And there ain’t a sign of him,” said Mrs. Dax, returning to +the house after straining the landscape through her all-observant eye, and not +detecting him in any of the remote pin-pricks on the horizon, in which these +plainsfolk invariably decipher a herd of antelope, an elk or two, or a +horseman. +</p> + +<p> +“Bet he had a woman in the stage and upset it with her,” said +Leander, in the animated manner of a poor relation currying favor with a bit of +news. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Dax regarded him severely for a moment, then conspicuously addressed her +next remark to the ladies. “Bet he had a woman in the stage, the old +scoundrel!” +</p> + +<p> +“Wonder who she was?” said Leander, with the sparkling triumph of a +poor relation whose surmise had been accepted. But Mrs. Dax had evidently +decided that Leander had gone far enough. +</p> + +<p> +“Was you expectin’ any of your lady friends by Chugg’s stage +that you are so frettin’ anxious?” she inquired, and the poor +relation collapsed miserably. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve heard about Chugg’s goin’ on since +‘Mountain Pink’ jilted him?” inquired Mrs. Dax of the fat +lady, as the only one of the party who might have kept abreast with the social +chronicles of the neighborhood. +</p> + +<p> +“My land, yes,” responded the fat lady, proud to be regarded as +socially cognizant. “M’ son says he’s plumb locoed about +it—didn’t want me to travel by his stage. But I said he dassent +upset a woman of my age—he just nacherally dassent!” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Carmichael, by dint of patient inquiry, finally got the story which was +popularly supposed to account for the misdemeanors of the stage-driver, +including his present delinquency that was delaying them on their journey. +</p> + +<p> +It appeared that Lemuel Chugg, then writhing in the coils of perverse romance, +was among the last of those famous old stage-drivers whose talents combined +skill at handling the ribbons with the diplomacy necessary to treat with a +masked envoy on the road. His luck in these encounters was proverbial, and many +were the hair-breadth escapes due to Chugg’s ready wit and quick aim; +and, to quote Leander, “while he had been shot as full of holes as a +salt-shaker, there was a lot of fight in the old man yet.” +</p> + +<p> +Chugg had had no loves, no hates, no virtues, no genial vices after the manner +of these frontiersmen. Avarice had warmed the cockles of his heart, and the +fetish he prayed to was an old gray woollen stocking, stuffed so full of +twenty-dollar gold pieces that it presented the bulbous appearance of the +“before treatment” view of a chiropodist’s sign. This darling +of his old age had been waxing fat since Chugg’s earliest manhood. It had +been his only love—till he met Mountain Pink. +</p> + +<p> +Mountain Pink’s husband kept a road-ranch somewhere on Chugg’s +stage-route. She was of a buxom type whose red-and-white complexion had not yet +surrendered to the winds, the biting dust, and the alkali water. Furthermore, +she could “bring about a dried-apple pie” to make a man forget the +cooking of his mother. Great was the havoc wrought by Mountain Pink’s +pies and complexion, but she followed the decorous precedent of Cæsar’s +wife, and, like her pastry, remained above suspicion. +</p> + +<p> +Her husband, whose name was Jim Bosky, seemed, to the self-impanelled jury that +spent its time sitting on the case, singularly insensible to his own +advantages. Not only did he fail to take a proper pride in her beauty, but +there were dark hints abroad that he had never tasted one of her pies. When +delicately questioned on this point, at that stage of liquid refreshment that +makes these little personalities not impossible, Bosky had grimly quoted the +dearth of shoes among shoe-makers’ children. +</p> + +<p> +Whatever were the facts of the case, Mountain Pink got the sympathy that might +have been expected in a section of the country where the ratio of the sexes is +fifty to one. Chugg, eating her pies regularly once a week on his stage-route, +said nothing, but he presented her with a red plush photograph album with +oxidized silver clasps, and by this first reckless expenditure of money in the +life of Chugg, Natrona, Johnson, Converse, and Sweetwater counties knew that +Cupid had at last found a vulnerable spot in the tough and weather-tanned hide +of the old stage-driver. +</p> + +<p> +Nor did Cupid stop here with his pranks. Having inoculated the stage-driver +with the virus of romance, madness began to work in the veins of Chugg. He +presented Mountain Pink with the gray woollen stocking—not extracting a +single coin—and urged her to get a divorce from the clodlike man who had +never appreciated her and marry him. +</p> + +<p> +Mountain Pink coyly took the stocking so generously given for the divorce and +subsequent trousseau, and Chugg continued to drive his stage with an +Apollo-like abandon, whistling love-songs the while. +</p> + +<p> +Coincident with Mountain Pink’s disappearance Dakotaward, in the +interests of freedom, went also one Bob Catlin, a mule-wrangler. Bosky, with +conspicuous pessimism, hoped for the worst from the beginning, and as time went +on and nothing was heard of either of the wanderers, some of Mountain +Pink’s most loyal adherents confessed it looked “romancy.” +But crusty old Chugg remained true to his ideal. “She’ll write when +she gets good and ready,” and then concluded, loyally, “Maybe she +can’t write, nohow,” and nothing could shake his faith. +</p> + +<p> +When Mountain Pink and the mule-wrangler returned as bride and groom and set up +housekeeping on the remainder of Chugg’s stocking, and on his +stage-route, too, so that he had to drive right past the honeymoon cottage +every time he completed the circuit, they lost caste in Carbon County. Chugg +never spoke of the faithlessness of Mountain Pink. His bitterness found vent in +tipping over the stage when his passengers were confined to members of the +former Mrs. Bosky’s sex, and, as Leander said, “the flask in his +innerds held more.” And these were the only traces of tragedy in the life +of Lemuel Chugg, stage-driver. +</p> + +<p> +Judith had continued her unquiet pacing in the blinding glare while the group +within doors, somnolent from the heat and the incessant shrilling of the +locusts, droningly discussed the faithlessness of Mountain Pink, dozed, and +took up the thread of the romance. Each time she turned Judith would stop and +scan the yellow road, shading her eyes with her hand, and each time she had +turned away and resumed her walk. Mary, who gave the postmistress no unstinted +share of admiration for the courage with which she faced her difficulties, and +who had been seeking an opportunity to signify her friendship, and now that she +saw the last of the gallants depart, inquired of Judith if she might join her. +</p> + +<p> +They walked without speaking for several minutes, enjoying a sense of +comradeship hardly in keeping with the brevity of their acquaintance; a freedom +from restraint spared them the necessity of exchanging small-talk, that +frequently irritating toll exacted as tribute to possible friendship. +</p> + +<p> +The desert lay white and palpitating beneath the noonday glare, and from the +outermost rim of desolation came dancing “dust-devils” whirling and +gliding through the mazes of their eerie dance. “I think +sometimes,” said Judith, “that they are the ghosts of those who +have died of thirst in the desert.” +</p> + +<p> +Mary shuddered imperceptibly. “How do you stand it with never a glimpse +of the sea?” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll love it, or hate it; the desert is too jealous for half +measures. As for the sea”—Judith shrugged her fine +shoulders—“from all I’ve heard of it, it must be very +wet.” +</p> + +<p> +Each felt a reticence about broaching the subject uppermost in her +thoughts—Judith from the instinctive tendency towards secretiveness that +was part of the heritage of her Indian blood; Mary because the subject so +closely concerned this girl for whom she felt such genuine admiration. +</p> + +<p> +Judith finally brought up the matter with an abruptness that scarce concealed +her anxiety. +</p> + +<p> +“You saw my brother yesterday at Mrs. Clark’s eating-house; will +you be good enough to tell me just what happened?” +</p> + +<p> +Mary related the incident in detail, Judith cross-examining her minutely as to +the temper of the men at table towards Jim. Did she know if any cattle-men were +present? Did she hear where her brother had gone? +</p> + +<p> +Mary had heard nothing further after he had left the eating-house; the only one +she had talked to had been Mrs. Clark, whose sympathy had been entirely with +Jim. Judith thanked her, but in reality she knew no more now than she had heard +from Major Atkins. +</p> + +<p> +Judith now stopped in their walk and stood facing the road as it rolled over +the foot-hills—a skein of yellow silk glimmering in the sun. Then Mary +saw that the object spinning across it in the distance, hardly bigger than a +doll’s carriage, was the long-delayed stage. She spoke to the +postmistress, but apparently she did not hear—Judith was watching the +nearing stage as if it might bring some message of life and death. She stood +still, and the drooping lines of her figure straightened, every fibre of her +beauty kindled. She was like a flame, paling the sunlight. +</p> + +<p> +And presently was heard the uncouth music of sixteen iron-shod hoofs beating +hard from the earth rhythmic notes which presently grew hollow and sonorous as +they came rattling over the wooden bridge that spanned the creek. +</p> + +<p> +“Chugg!” exclaimed Leander, rushing to the door in a tumult. There +was something crucial in the arrival of the delayed stage-driver. His +delinquencies had deflected the course of the travellers, left them stranded in +a remote corner of the wilderness; but now they should again resume the thread +of things; Chugg’s coming was an event. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tain’t Chugg, by God!” said Leander, impelled to +violent language by the unexpected. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s Peter Hamilton!” exclaimed Mrs. Dax. +</p> + +<p> +“Land’s sakes, the New-Yorker!” said the fat lady. Only +Judith said nothing. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hamilton held the ribbons of that battered prairie-stage as if he had been +driving past the judges’ bench at the Horse Show. Furthermore, he wore +blue overalls, a flannel shirt, and a sombrero, which sartorial inventory, +while it highly became the slim young giant, added an extra comedy touch to his +rôle of whip. He was as dusty as a miller; close-cropped, curly head, features, +and clothes were covered with a fine alkali powdering; but he carried his youth +as a banner streaming in the blue. And he swung from the stage with the easy +flow of muscle that is the reward of those who live in the saddle and make a +fine art of throwing the lariat. +</p> + +<p> +They greeted him heartily, all but Judith, who did not trust herself to speak +to him before the prying eyes of Mrs. Dax, and escaped to the house. +Chugg’s latest excursion into oblivion had resulted in a fall from the +box. He was not badly hurt, and recuperation was largely a matter of +“sleeping it off,” concluded Peter Hamilton’s bulletin of the +condition of the stage-driver. So the travellers were still marooned at +Dax’s, and the prospect of continuing their journey was as vague as ever. +</p> + +<p> +“Last I heard of you,” said Mrs. Dax to Hamilton, with a sort of +stone-age playfulness, “you was punching cows over to the Bitter +Root.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s true, Mrs. Dax”—he gave her his most winning +smile—“but I could not stay away from you long.” +</p> + +<p> +Leander grimaced and rubbed his hands in an ecstasy of delight at finding a man +who had the temerity to bandy words with Mrs. Dax. +</p> + +<p> +“Hum-m-m-ph!” she whinnied, with equine coquetry. “Guess it +was rustlers brought you back as much as me.” +</p> + +<p> +Judith, who had entered the room in time to hear Mrs. Dax’s last remark, +greeted him casually, but her eyes, as they met his, were full of questioning +fear. Had he come from the Bitter Root range to hunt down her brother? The +thought was intolerable. Yet, when he had bade her good-bye some three weeks +ago, he had told her that he did not expect to return much before the fall +“round-up.” She had heard, a day or two before, that he was again +in the Wind River country, and her morning vigil beneath the glare of the +desert sun had been for him. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Dax regarded them with the mercilessness of a death-watch; she remembered +the time when Hamilton’s excuses for his frequent presence at the +post-office had been more voluble than logical. But now he no longer came, and +Judith, for all her deliberate flow of spirits, did not quite convince the +watchful eyes of Leander’s lady—the postmistress was a trifle too +cheerful. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Dax,” pleaded Peter, boyishly, “I’m perishing for +a cup of coffee, and I’ve got to get back to my outfit before +dark.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, go on with you,” whinnied the gorgon; but she left the room to +make the coffee. +</p> + +<p> +Judith’s eyes sought his. “Why don’t you and Leander form a +coalition for the overthrow of the enemy?” His voice had dropped a tone +lower than in his parley with Mrs. Dax; it might have implied special devotion, +or it might have implied but the passing tribute to a beautiful woman in a +country where women were few—the generic admiration of all men for all +women, ephemerally specialized by place and circumstance. +</p> + +<p> +But Judith, harassed at every turn, heart-sick with anxiety, had anticipated in +Peter’s coming, if not a solution of her troubles, at least some evidence +of sustaining sympathy, and was in no mood for resuscitating the perennial +pleasantries anent Leander and his masterful lady. +</p> + +<p> +The shrilling of the locusts emphasized their silence. She spoke to him +casually of his change of plan, but he turned the subject, and Judith let the +matter drop. She was too simple a woman to stoop to oblique measures for the +gaining of her own ends. If he was here to hunt down her brother, if he was +here to see the Eastern woman at the Wetmore ranch—well, “life was +life,” to be taken or left. Thus spoke the fatalism that was the heritage +of her Indian blood. +</p> + +<p> +The thought of Miss Colebrooke at Wetmore’s reminded her of a letter for +Peter that had been brought that morning by one of the Wetmore cow-boys. +</p> + +<p> +“I forgot—there’s a letter for you.” She went to the +pigeon-holes on the wall that held the flotsam and jetsam of unclaimed mail, +and brought him a square, blue linen envelope—distinctly a lady’s +letter. +</p> + +<p> +Peter took it with rather a forced air of magnanimity, as if in neglecting to +present it to him sooner she drew heavily on his reserve of patience. Tearing +open the envelope, he read it voraciously, read it to the exclusion of his +surroundings, the world at large, and—Judith. He strode up and down the +floor two or three times, and called to Leander, who was passing: +</p> + +<p> +“Dax, I must have that gray mare of yours right away.” He went in +the direction of the stable, without a second glance at the postmistress, and +presently they saw him galloping off in the opposite direction from which he +had come. Mrs. Dax came in with a tray on which were a pot of coffee and sundry +substantial delicacies. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s he gone?” she demanded, putting the tray down so +hard that the coffee slopped. +</p> + +<p> +“I dunno,” said Leander. “He said he’d got to have the +gray mare, saddled her hisself, and rode off like hell.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Dax looked at them all savagely for the explanation that they could not +give. In sending her out to make coffee she felt that Peter, whom she regarded +in the light of a weakness, had taken advantage of her affections to dupe her +in regard to his plans. +</p> + +<p> +“Take them things back to the kitchen,” she commanded Leander. +</p> + +<p> +Mary Carmichael involuntarily glanced at Judith; the fall of the leaf was in +her cheek. +</p> + +<p> +Peter Hamilton, bowed in his saddle and flogging forward inhumanely, bred rife +speculation as to his destination among the group that watched him from the +Daxes’ front door. Mrs. Dax, who entertained so profound a respect for +her own omniscience that she disdained to arrive at a conclusion by a logical +process of deduction, was “plumb certain that he had gone after +‘rustlers!’” Leander, who had held no opinions since his +marriage except that first and all-comprehensive tenet of his creed—that +his wife was a person to be loved, honored, and obeyed instantly—agreed +with his lady by a process of reflex action. The fat lady, who had a +commonplace for every occasion, didn’t “know what we were all +coming to.” Miss Carmichael, who was beginning to find her capacity for +amazement overstrained, alone accepted this last incident with apathy. Mr. +Hamilton might have gone in swift pursuit of cattle thieves or he might be +riding the mare to death for pure whimsy. Only Judith Rodney, who said nothing, +felt that he was spurring across the wilderness at breakneck speed to see a +girl at Wetmore’s. But her lack of comment caused no ripple of surprise +in the flow of loose-lipped speculation that served, for the time being, to +inject a casual interest into the talk of these folk, bored to the verge of +demoralization by long waiting for Chugg. +</p> + +<p> +Judith preferred to confirm her apprehensions regarding Hamilton’s ride, +alone. She knew—had not all her woman’s intuitions risen in +clamorous warning—and yet she hoped, hoped despairingly, even though the +dread alternative to the girl at the Wetmore ranch threatened lynch law for her +brother. Her very gait changed as she withdrew from the group about the door, +covertly gaining her vantage-ground inch by inch. The heels of her riding-boots +made no sound as she stole across the kitchen floor, toeing in like an Indian +tracking an enemy through the forest. The small window at the back of the +kitchen commanded a view of the road in all its sprawling circumlocution. Seen +from this prospect, it had no more design than the idle scrawlings of a child +on a bit of paper; but the choice of roads to Good and Evil was not fraught +with more momentous consequences than was each prong of that fork towards which +Hamilton was galloping. +</p> + +<p> +The right arm swung towards the Wetmore ranch, where at certain times during +the course of the year a hundred cow-punchers reported on the stock that grazed +in four States. At certain seasons, likewise, despite the fact that the ranch +was well into the foot-hill country, there might be found a New York family +playing at life primeval with the co-operation of porcelain bath-tubs, a French +<i>chef</i>, and electric light. +</p> + +<p> +The left fork of the road had a meaner destiny. It dipped straight into +desolation, penetrating a naked wilderness where bad men skulked till the evil +they had done was forgotten in deeds that called afresh to Heaven for +vengeance. It was well away on this west fork of the road that they lynched +Kate Watson—“Cattle Kate”—for the crime of loyalty. It +was she, intrepid and reckless, who threatened the horde of masked scoundrels +when they came to lynch her man for the iniquity of raising a few vegetables on +a strip of ground that cut into their grazing country. And when she, +recognizing them, masked though they were, threatened them with the vengeance +of the law, they hanged her with her man high as Haman. +</p> + +<p> +Judith watched Hamilton with narrowing eyes. And now she was all Indian, the +white woman in her dead. Only the Sioux watched, and, in the patient, Indian +style, bided its time. “Cattle thieves,” “the girl at +Wetmore’s”—the words sang themselves in her head like an +incantation. “Cattle thieves” meant her brother, their recognized +leader—her brother, who was dearer to her than the heart in her breast, +the eye in her head, the right hand that held together the shambling, uncertain +destiny of her people. Would he turn to the left, Justice, on a pale horse, +hunting her brother gallowsward? Would he turn towards the right, the impetuous +lover spurring his steed that he might come swiftly to the woman. A pulse in +her bosom rose slowly until her breath was suspended, then fell again; she was +still watching, without an outward quiver, long after he had turned to the +right—and the woman. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>VI.<br /> +A Daughter Of The Desert</h2> + +<p> +Judith knew that the name of the girl whose letter sent Peter Hamilton vaulting +to the saddle was Katherine Colebrooke. There had been a deal of letter-writing +between her and the young cow-puncher of late, of which perforce, by a singular +irony of fate, the postmistress had been the involuntary instrument. The +correspondence had followed a recent hasty journey to New York, undertaken +somewhat unwillingly by Hamilton in the interest of certain affairs connected +with the settlement of an estate. +</p> + +<p> +The precipitancy of this latest turn of events bewildered Judith; but yet a +little while—a matter of weeks and days—and her friendship with +Hamilton had been of that pleasantly indefinite estate situated somewhere on +the borderland of romance, a kingdom where there is no law but the mutual +interest of the wayfarers. Judith and Peter had been pitifully new at the game +of life when the gods vouchsafed them the equivocal blessing of propinquity. +Judith was but lately come from the convent at Santa Fé, and Hamilton from the +university whose honors availed him little in the trailing of cattle over the +range or in the sweat and tumult of the branding-pen. It was a strange election +of opportunity for a man who had been class poet and had rather conspicuously +avoided athletics during his entire college course. In pursuing fortune +westward Hamilton did not lack for chroniclers who would not have missed a good +story for the want of an authentic dramatic interpretation of his plans. His +uncle, said they, who had put him through college, was disposed to let him sink +or swim by his own efforts; or, again, he had quarrelled with this same +omnipotent uncle and walked from his presence with no prospects but those +within grasp of his own hand. Again, he had taken the negative of a fair lady +more to heart than two-and-twenty is in the habit of taking negatives. Peter +made no confidences. He went West to punch cows for the Wetmore outfit; he was +a distant connection of the Wetmores through his mother’s side of the +family. +</p> + +<p> +In those days Peter wore his rue—whether for lady fair or for towering +prospects stricken down—with a tinge of wan melancholy not unbecoming to +a gentle aquilinity of profile, softened by the grace of adolescence. His +instinctive aristocracy of manners and taste would have availed him little with +his new associates had he been a whit less manly. But as he shirked no part of +the universal hardship, they left him his reticence. He even came to enjoy a +sort of remote popularity as one who was conversant with the best—a +nonchalant social connoisseur—yet who realized the stern primitive +beauties of the range life. +</p> + +<p> +Judith’s convent upbringing had conferred on her the doubtful advantage +of a gentlewoman’s tastes and bearing, making of her, therefore, an alien +in her father’s house. When Mrs. Atkins, who was responsible for her +education, realized the equivocal good of these things, and saw moreover that +the girl had grown to be a beauty, she offered to adopt her; but Judith, with +the pitiful heroism of youth that understands little of what it is renouncing, +thought herself strong enough to hold together a family, uncertain of purpose +as quicksilver. +</p> + +<p> +In those tragic days of readjustment came Peter Hamilton, as strange to the +bald conditions of frontier life as the girl herself. From the beginning there +had been between them the barrier of circumstance. Hamilton was poor, Judith +the mainstay of a household whose thriftlessness had become a proverb. He came +of a family that numbered a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a famous +chief-justice, and the dean of a great university; Judith was uncertain of her +right to the very name she bore. And yet they were young, he a man, she a +woman—eternal fountain of interest. A precocious sense of the fitness of +things was the compass that enabled Peter to steer through the deep waters in +the years that followed. But the girl paid the penalty of her great heart; in +that troublous sea of friendship, she was soon adrift without rudder, sail, or +compass. +</p> + +<p> +Judith was now eight-and-twenty, and a sculptor would have found a hundred +statues in her. Long of limb, deep-bosomed, youth and health radiated from her +as sparks fly upward. In sunlight, her black hair had the bluish iridescence of +a ripe plum. The eyes were deep and questioning—the eyes of a young +seraph whose wings had not yet brushed the far distant heights of paradise. +Again, in her pagan gladness of living, she might have been a Valkyr come down +from Valhalla on a shooting-star. And yet, in this wilderness that was +famishing for woman’s love and tears and laughter, by a very perversity +of fate she walked alone. +</p> + +<p> +She was a true daughter of the desert, the child of stark, unlovely +circumstance. No well-bred romance of book and bells and churchly benediction +had ushered her into being. Her maternal grandfather had been the famous Sioux +chief, Flying Hawk; her grandmother, a white woman, who knew no word of her +people’s tongue, nor yet her name or race. The Indians found the white +baby sleeping by her dead mother after the massacre of an emigrant train. They +took her with them and she grew up, in the Black Hill country, a white-skinned +Sioux, marrying a chief of the people that had slain her people. She accepted +her squaw’s portion uncomplainingly; slaved cheerfully at squaw’s +work while her brave made war on the whites, hunted, and smoked. She reared her +half-breed children in the legends of their father’s people, and died, a +withered crone, cursing the pale-faces who had robbed the Sioux of the buffalo +and their hunting-ground. +</p> + +<p> +Her daughter, Singing Stream, who knew no word of English, but who could do +better bead-work than any squaw in the tribe, went to live with Warren Rodney +when he finished his cabin on Elder Creek. That was before the gold fever +reached the Black Hills, and Rodney built the cabin that he might fish and hunt +and forget the East and why he left it. There were reasons why he wanted to +forget his identity as a white man in his play at being an Indian. In the first +flare of youth and the joy of having come into her woman’s kingdom, the +half-breed squaw was pretty; she was proud, too, of her white man, the house he +had built her, and the girl pappoose with blue eyes. Furthermore, she had been +taught to serve man meekly, for he was the lord of creation. +</p> + +<p> +Rodney talked Sioux to her. He had all but forgotten he was a white man. The +girl pappoose ran about the cabin, brown and bare, but for the bead jacket +Singing Stream had made for her in the pride of her maternity. Rodney called +the little girl “Judith.” Her Indian mother never guessed the +significance of the strange name that she could not say, but made at least ten +soft singing syllables of, in the Indian way. The little Judith greeted her +father in strange lispings; Warren Rodney was far from unhappy in playing at +primitive man. This recessional into conditions primeval endured for +“seven snows,” as the Indian tongue hath it. Then the squaw began +to break, after the manner of the women of her father’s people. She had +begun her race with time a decade after Warren Rodney, and she had outdistanced +him by a decade. +</p> + +<p> +And then the Tumlins came from Tennessee to the Black Hills. They came in an +ox-cart, and the days of their journey were more than two years. They had +stopped in Ohio, and again in Illinois; and, behold! neither was the promised +land, the land that their excited imaginations had painted from the large talk +of returning travellers, and that was further glorified through their own +thriftless discontent with conditions at home. They had travelled on and on +across half a continent in the wake of a vanishing sky-line. The vague westward +impulse was luring them to California, but they waited in Dakota that their +starved stock might fatten, and while they rested themselves from the long +journey, Warren Rodney made the acquaintance of Sally Tumlin, who rallied him +on being a “squaw man.” +</p> + +<p> +Warren Rodney had almost forgotten the sorceries of the women of his people; he +had lived so long with a brown woman, who spread no silken snares. +Sally’s blushes stirred a multitude of dead things—the wiles of +pale women, all strength in weakness, fragile flowers for tender +handling—the squaw had grown as withered as a raisin. +</p> + +<p> +Now, Sally Tumlin had no convictions about life but that the world owed her +“a home of her own.” Her mother had forged the bolt of this +particular maxim at an early date. And Sally saw from precocious observation +that the business of women was home-getting, to which end they must be neat and +sweet and sparing of speech. After the home was forthcoming, then, indeed, +might a woman take ease in slippers and wrapper, and it is surely a +wife’s privilege to speak her mind. Sally knew that she hated travelling +westward after the crawling oxen; each day the sun pursued them, caught up with +them, outdistanced them, and at night left them stranded in the wilderness, and +rose again and mocked them on the morrow. Her father and oafish brother loved +the makeshifts of the wagon life, with its chance shots at fleeing antelope, +scurrying sage-hens, and bounding cotton-tails; a chance parley with a stray +Indian but added zest to the game of chance. But Sally hated it all. The cabin +on Elder Creek had a tight roof; Warren Rodney had money in the bank. He had +had uncommon luck at trapping. His talk to Sally was largely of his prospects. +</p> + +<p> +Sally knew that the world owed her “a home of her own”; and why +should she let a squaw keep her from it? Sally’s mother giggled when +consulted. She plainly regarded the squaw as a rival of her daughter. The +ethics of the case, as far as Mrs. Tumlin was concerned, was merely a question +of white skin against brown, and which should carry the day. Singing Stream +knew not one word of the talk, much of which occurred in her very presence, +that threatened to pull her home about her ears, but she knew that Sally was +taking her man from her. The white-skinned woman wore white ruffles about her +neck and calico dresses that were the color of the wild roses that grew among +the willows at the creek. Sally Tumlin’s pink calico gowns sowed a crop +of nettles in the mind of the squaw. It was the rainbow things, she felt, that +were robbing her of her man. All her barbaric craving for glowing colors +asserted itself as a means towards the one great end of keeping him. Singing +Stream began to scheme schemes. One day Rodney was splitting wood at the Tumlin +camp—though why he should split wood where there were two women puzzled +the squaw. But the ways of the pale-faces were beyond her ken. She only knew +that she must make herself beautiful in the eyes of Warren Rodney, like this +devil woman, and then perhaps the pappoose that she expected with the first +snowfall would be a man-child; and she hoped great things of this happening. +</p> + +<p> +With such primitive reasoning did Singing Stream put the horses to the light +wagon, and, taking the little Judith with her, drove to Deadwood, a matter of +two hundred miles, to buy the bright calicoes that were to make her like a +white woman. It never occurred to the half-breed woman to make known her plans +to Warren Rodney. In circumventing Sally Tumlin the man became the spoils of +war, and it is not the Indian way to tell plans on the war-trail. So the squaw +left her kingdom in the hands of the enemy, without a word. +</p> + +<p> +Sally Tumlin and Warren Rodney looked upon the disappearance of the squaw in +the light of a providential solution of the difficulties attending their +romance. They admitted it was square of her to “hit the trail,” and +they decided to lose no time in going to the army post, where a chaplain, an +Indian missionary, happened to be staying at the time, and have a real wedding, +with a ring and a fee to the parson. The wedding party started for the post, +old mother Tumlin fluttering about the bride as complacently as if the ceremony +had been the culmination of the most decorous courtship. The oafish brother +drove the bridal party, making crude jests by-the-way, to the frank delight of +the prospective groom and the giggling protestations of the bride. The chaplain +at the post was disposed to ask few questions. Parsons made queer marriages in +those tumultuous days, and it was regarded as a patent of worthy motives that +the pair should call in the man of the gospel at all. To the question whether +or not he had been married before, Rodney answered: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, parson, this is the first time I have ever stood up for a life +sentence.” And the ceremony proceeded. +</p> + +<p> +Some of the ladies at the post, hearing that there was to be a wedding, dropped +in and added their smiles and flutterings to the rather grim party; among them, +Mrs. Atkins, who had just come to the post as a bride. They even added a trifle +or two from their own store of pretty things, as presents to Sally. And Miss +Tumlin left the post Mrs. Warren Rodney, with “a home of her own” +to go to. +</p> + +<p> +Singing Stream did not hasten in her quest for bright fabrics with which to +stay the hand of fate. To the half-breed woman the journey to town was not +without a certain revivifying pleasure. The Indian in her stirred to the call +of the open country. The tight roof to the cabin on Elder Creek had not the +attractions for her that it had for Sally Tumlin. She had chafed sometimes at a +house with four walls. But now the dead and gone braves rose in her as she +followed the old trail where they had so often crept to battle against their +old enemies, the Crows, before the white man’s army had scattered them. +And as she drove through the foot-hill country, she told the solemn-eyed little +Judith the story of the Sioux, and what a great fighting people they had been +before Rodney’s people drove them from their land. Judith was holding a +doll dressed exactly like herself, in soft buckskin shirt, little trousers, and +moccasins, all beautifully beaded. In her turn she told the story to the doll. +</p> + +<p> +Singing Stream told her daughter of the making of the world, as the Sioux +believe the story of creation; of the “Four who Never +Die”—Sharper, or Bladder, Rabbit, Turtle, and Monster; likewise of +the coming of a mighty flood on which swam the Turtle and a water-fowl in whose +bill was the earth atom, from which presently the world began to grow, Turtle +supporting the bird on his great back, which was hard like rock. The rest of +the myth, that deals with the rising and setting of the sun, Singing Stream +could not tell her daughter, as the old Sioux chiefs did not think it wise to +let their women folk know too much about matters of theology. Nor did they +relate to squaws the sun myth, with its account of much cutting-off of +heads—thinking, perhaps, with wisdom, that these good ladies saw enough +of carnage in their every-day life without introducing it into their catechism. +</p> + +<p> +But Singing Stream knew the story of “Sharper,” or +“Bladder,” as he is called by some of the people, because he is +round and his grotesquely fat figure resembles a bladder blown to bursting. +Bladder’s province it is to make a fool of himself, diving into water +after plums he sees reflected there from the branches of the trees. He dives +again and again in his pursuit of folly, even tying stones to his wrists and +ankles to keep himself down while he gathers the reflected fruit. After his +rescue, which he fights against valiantly, as he lies gasping on the bank of +the stream, he sees the fruit on the branches above his head. It is this same +Bladder who is one of the <i>dramatis personæ</i> in the moon myth, and that is told +to women as safely without the limits of that little learning that is a +dangerous thing. Bladder met Rabbit hunting; and Bladder kept throwing his eye +up into the tree-tops to look for game. The Rabbit watched him enviously, +thinking what a saving of effort it would be if he could do the same thing. +Wherefore Bladder promised to instruct him, telling him to change eyes after +using one four times, but Rabbit did not think that the first time counted, as +that was but a trial. So he lost his eye after throwing it up the fifth time. +And the eye of the rabbit is the moon, and the face seen in the full moon is +the reflection of the rabbit seen in his own eye as we see ourselves reflected +in the eye of a friend if we look closely. The little girl was wonderfully +impressed. She put her hand to her own eyes, but they were in tight, too tight +to throw up to the tree-tops. +</p> + +<p> +Singing Stream also told little Judith that the Great Mystery had shown truths, +hid to man, to the trees, the streams, the hills; and the clouds that shaped +themselves, drifting hither and yon, were the Great Mystery’s passing +thoughts. But he had deprived all these things of speech, as he did not trust +them fully, and they could only speak to man in dreams, or in some passing +mood, when they could communicate to him the feeling of one of the Great +Spirits, and warn man of what was about to befall him. Judith was not quite +four when she took this memorable drive with her mother, but the impression of +these things abided through all her years. It was to the measureless spaces of +desert loneliness that she learned to bring her sorrows in the days of her arid +youth, and to feel a kinship with all its moods and to hear in the voice of its +silence a never-failing consolation. +</p> + +<p> +And when they had come within a mile of Warren Rodney’s cabin on Elder +Creek, Singing Stream halted and prepared for the great event of reinstatement. +First she made a splendid toilet of purple calico torn into strips and tied +about the waist to simulate the skirts of the devil woman. Over these she wore +a shirt of buckskin, broidered with beads of many colors, and a necklace of elk +teeth, wound twice about the throat. On her feet she wore new moccasins of +tanned elk-hide, and these, too, were beaded in many colors. Her hair, now +braided with strips of scarlet flannel, hung below the waist. And she walked to +Rodney’s cabin, not as an outgrown mistress, but as the daughter of a +chief. The little Judith held up her head and clung tight to the doll. She knew +that something of moment was about to happen. +</p> + +<p> +The gala trio, Singing Stream, Judith, and Judith’s doll, presented +themselves at Rodney’s house, before which the bride was washing clothes, +the day being fine. Sally, as usual, wore one of the rose-colored calicoes with +the collar turned well in and the sleeves rolled above the elbows. She washed +vigorously, with a steady splashing of suds. Sally enjoyed this home of her own +and all the household duties appertaining to it. She was singing, and a strand +of pale-brown hair, crinkly as sea-weed, had blown across the rose of her +cheek, when she felt rather than saw a shadow fall across her path, and, +glancing up, she saw facing her the woman whom she had supplanted, and the +solemn-eyed little girl holding tight to her doll. Now, neither woman knew a +word of the other’s speech, but Sally was proficient in the language of +femininity, and she was not at a loss to grasp the significance of the purple +calico, the beaded buckskin shirt, and the necklace of elk teeth. The +half-breed walked as a chief’s daughter to the woman at the tub, and +Sally grew sick and chill despite her white skin and the gold ring that made +Warren Rodney her man in the face of the law. The dark woman held Judith +proudly by the hand, as a sovereign might carry a sceptre. Judith was her staff +of office, her emblem of authority in the house of Warren Rodney. +</p> + +<p> +Singing Stream held out her hands to Sally in a gesture of appeal—and +blundered. Of the chief’s daughter, walking proudly, Sally was afraid; +but a supplicating half-breed in strips of purple calico, not even hemmed, was +a matter for merriment. Sally put her hands on her hips, arms akimbo, and +laughed a dry cackle. The light in the brown woman’s eyes, as she looked +at the white, was like prairie-fires rolling forward through darkness. There +was no need of a common speech between them. The whole destiny of woman was in +the laugh and the look that answered it. +</p> + +<p> +And the man they could have murdered for came from the house, an unheroic +figure with suspenders dangling and a corncob pipe in his mouth, sullen, angry, +and withal abjectly frightened, as mere man inevitably is when he sniffs a +woman’s battle in the air. The bride, at sight of her husband, took to +hysterics. She wept, she laughed, and down tumbled her hair. She felt the +situation demanded a scene. Rodney, with a marital brevity hardly to be +expected so soon, commanded Sally to go into the house and to “shut +up.” +</p> + +<p> +Then he faced Singing Stream and said to her in her own language: “You +must go away from here. The pale-faced woman is my wife by the white +man’s law—ring and Bible. No Indian marriage about this.” +</p> + +<p> +But the brown woman only pointed to Judith. She asked Rodney had she not been a +good squaw to him. +</p> + +<p> +And Rodney, who at best was but a poltroon, could only repeat: “You got +to keep away from here. It’s the white man’s law—one squaw +for one man.” +</p> + +<p> +From within came the sound of Sally’s lamentation as she called for her +father and brother to take her from the squaw and contamination. Warren Rodney +was a man of few words. It had become his unpleasant duty to act, and to act +quickly. He snatched Judith from her mother and took her into the house, and he +returned with his Winchester, which was not loaded, to Singing Stream. +</p> + +<p> +“You got to go,” he said, and levelling the Winchester, he repeated +the command. Singing Stream looked at him with the dumb wonder of a forest +thing. “I was a good squaw to you,” she said; and did not even +curse him. And turning, she ran towards the foot-hills, with all the length of +purple calico trailing. +</p> + +<p> +Now Mrs. Rodney, <i>née</i> Tumlin, was but human, and her cup of happiness as the +wife of a “squaw man” was not the brimming beaker she had +anticipated. The expulsion of her predecessor, at such a time, to make room for +her own home-coming, was, it seemed, open to criticism. “The +neighborhood”—it included perhaps five families living in a radius +of as many hundred miles—felt that the Tumlins had established a bad +precedent. A “squaw man” driving out a brown wife to make room for +a white is not a heroic figure. It had been done before, but it would not hand +down well in the traditions of the settling of this great country. Trespass of +law and order, with their swift, red-handed reckoning, were but moves of the +great game of colonization. But to shove out a brown woman for a white was a +mean move. Few stopped at the Rodneys’ ranch, though it marked the first +break in the journey from town to the gold-mining country. Rodney had fallen +from his estate as a pioneer; his political opinions were unsought in the +conclaves that sat and spat at the stove, when business brought them to the +joint saloon and post-office. The women dealt with the question more openly, +scorning feminine subtlety at this pass as inadequate ammunition. When they met +Mrs. Rodney they pulled aside their skirts and glared. This outrage against +woman it was woman’s work to settle. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Rodney, who had no more moral sense than a rabbit, felt that she was the +victim of persecution. She knew she was a good woman. Hadn’t she a +husband? Had there ever been a word against her character? What was the use of +making all that fuss over a squaw? It was not as if she was a white woman. The +injustice of it preyed on the former Miss Tumlin. She took to the consolations +of snuff-dipping and fell from her pink-and-white estate. +</p> + +<p> +The Tumlin family did not remain long enough in the Black Hill country to +witness Sally’s failure as the wife of a pioneer. The restlessness of the +“settler,” if the paradox be permissible, was in the marrow of +their bones. The makeshifts of the wagon, the adventures of the road, were the +only home they craved. The spring after Sally’s marriage they set forth +for California, the year following for New Mexico, and still sighed for new +worlds to visit. They were happier now that Sally, the one element of +discontent, had been removed from their perennial journeying by the merciful +dispensation of marriage. Old Tumlin, his wife, and the son gave themselves up +more than ever to the day-dreams of the road, the freedom of the open country, +and the spirit of adventure. +</p> + +<p> +Rodney’s squaw wife was taken in by some neighbors, good folk who were +conversant with all phases of the romance. They stood by her in her hour of +trial, and afterwards continued to keep her as a servant. Her son Jim grew up +with their own children. When he was four years of age his mother, Singing +Stream, died, and Sally persuaded her husband to take young Jim into their own +home, partly as a sop to neighborly criticism, partly as a salve to her own +conscience. Sally had children of her own, and looked at things differently now +from the time when she fought the squaw for Rodney’s favor. +</p> + +<p> +Jim’s foster-parents were, in truth, glad to part with him. From his +earliest babyhood he had been known as a “limb of Satan.” He was an +Ishmael by every instinct of his being. And Mrs. Warren Rodney, née Tumlin, +felt that in dealing with him, in her capacity of step-mother, she daily +expiated any offence that she might have done to his mother. +</p> + +<p> +Sally grew slatternly with increasing maternity. She spent her time in a +rocking-chair, dipping snuff—a consolation imported from her former +home—and lamenting the bad marriage she had made. Rodney ascribed his +ill-fortune to unjust neighborly criticism. He farmed a little, he raised a +little stock, and he drank a great deal of whiskey. Sally hated the Black Hill +country. She felt that it knew too much about her. The neighborly inquisition +had fallen like a blight on the family fortunes. A vague migratory impulse was +on her. She wanted to go somewhere and begin all over again. By dint of +persistent nagging she persuaded her husband to move to Wyoming, then in the +golden age of the cattle industry. Those were days when steers, to speak in the +cow language, had “jumped to seventy-five.” The wilderness grew +light-headed with prosperity. Wonderful are the tales still told about those +fat years in cattle-land. It was in those halcyon days of the Cheyenne Club +that the members rode from the range, white with the dust of the desert, to +enjoy greater luxuries than those procurable at their clubs in New York. +</p> + +<p> +Nor was it all feasting and merrymaking. A heroic band it was that battled with +the wilderness, riding the range with heat and cold, starvation and death, and +making small pin-pricks in that empty blotch of the United States map that is +marked “Great Alkali Desert” blossom into settlements. When the +last word has been said about the pioneers of these United States, let the +cow-boy be remembered in the universal toast, that bronzed son of the saddle +who lived his little day bravely and merrily, and whose real heroism is too +often forgotten in the glamour of his own picturesqueness. +</p> + +<p> +Judith was ten years old when her father, his wife, and their children moved +from Dakota—they were not so particular about North and South Dakota, in +those days—to take up a claim on Sweetwater, Wyoming. Judith gave scant +promise of the beauty that in later life became at once her dower and her +misfortune, that which was as likely to bring wretchedness as happiness. In +Wyoming she was destined to find an old friend, Mrs. Atkins, who, as the bride +of the young lieutenant, had been present at the marriage of Sally Tumlin and +Warren Rodney, and who had always felt a wholly unreasonable sense of guilt at +witnessing the ceremony and contributing a lace handkerchief to the bride. Her +husband, now Major Atkins, was stationed at Fort Washakie, Wyoming. Mrs. Atkins +happening again on the Rodney family, and her husband having increased and +multiplied his army pay many times over by a successful venture in cattle, the +scheme of Judith’s convent education was put through by the major’s +wife, who had kept her New England conscience, the discomforts of frontier +posts notwithstanding. +</p> + +<p> +So Judith went to the nuns to school, and stayed with them till she was +eighteen. Mrs. Atkins would have adopted her then; but Judith by this time knew +her family history in all its sordid ramifications, and felt that duty called +her to her brother, who had not improved his unfortunate start in life, though +his step-mother did not spoil him for the staying of the rod. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>VII.<br /> +Chugg Takes The Ribbons</h2> + +<p> +Chugg, comforted with liquids and stayed with a head-plaster, presented himself +at the Dax ranch just twenty-four hours after he was due. His mien combined +vagueness with hostility, and he harnessed up the stage that Peter Hamilton had +driven over the day before, when his prospective passengers were looking, with +a graphic pantomimic representation of “take it or leave it.” Under +the circumstances, Miss Carmichael and the fat lady consented to be passengers +with much the same feeling of finality that one might have on embarking for the +planet Mars in an air-ship. +</p> + +<p> +There was, furthermore, a suggestion of last rites in the farewells of the +Daxes, each according to their respective personalities, that was far from +reassuring. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s some bread and meat and a bottle of cold coffee, if you +live to need it,” was Mrs. Dax’s grim prognostication of accident. +Leander, being of an emotional nature, could scarce restrain his +tears—the advent of the travellers had created a welcome variation in the +monotony of his dutiful routine—he felt all the agitation of parting with +life-long friends. Mary Carmichael and Judith promised to write—they had +found a great deal to say to each other the preceding evening. +</p> + +<p> +Chugg cracked his whip ominously, the travellers got inside, not daring to +trust themselves to the box. +</p> + +<p> +The journey with the misanthrope was but a repetition of that first day’s +staging—the sage-brush was scarcer, the mountains seemed as far off as +ever, and the outlook was, if possible, more desolate. The entry in Miss +Carmichael’s diary, inscribed in malformed characters as the stage jolted +over ruts and gullies, reads: “I do not mind telling you, in strictest +confidence, ‘Dere Diary’—as the little boy called +you—that when I so lightly severed my connection with civilization, I had +no idea to what an extent I was going in for the prairie primeval. How on earth +does a woman who can write a letter like Mrs. Yellett stand it? And where on +the map of North America is Lost Trail?” +</p> + +<p> +“Land sakes!” regretted the fat lady, “but I do wish I had a +piece of that ‘boy’s favorite’ cake that I had for my lunch +the day we left town. I just ate and ate it ’cause I hadn’t another +thing to do. If I hadn’t been so greedy I could offer him a piece, just +to show him that some women folk have kind hearts, and that the whole sect +ain’t like that Pink.” +</p> + +<p> +“Boy’s favorite,” as adequate compensation for shattered +ideals, a broken heart, and the savings of a lifetime, seemed to Mary +Carmichael inadequate compensation, but she forbore to express her sentiments. +</p> + +<p> +The fat lady had never relaxed her gaze from Chugg’s back since the stage +had started. She peered at that broad expanse of flannel shirt through the tiny +round window, like a careful sailing-master sweeping the horizon for possible +storm-clouds. At every portion of the road presenting a steep decline she would +prod Chugg in the back with the handle of her ample umbrella, and demand that +he let her out, as she preferred walking. The stage-driver at first complied +with these requests, but when he saw they threatened to become chronic, he +would send his team galloping down grade at a rate to justify her liveliest +fears. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think you are a-picnicking, that you crave roominating round +these yere solitoodes?” And the misanthrope cracked his whip and adjured +his team with cabalistic imprecations. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you notice if Mrs. Dax giv’ him any cold coffee, same as she +did us?” anxiously inquired the fat lady from her lookout. +</p> + +<p> +Mary hadn’t noticed. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s drinking something out of a brown bottle—seems to +relish it a heep more’n he would cold coffee,” reported the watch. +“Hi there! Hi! Mr. Chugg!” The stage-driver, thinking it was merely +a request to be allowed to walk, continued to drive with one hand and hold the +brown bottle with the other. But even his too solid flesh was not proof against +the continued bombardment of the umbrella handle. +</p> + +<p> +“Um-m-m,” he grunted savagely, applying a watery eye to the round +window. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing,” answered the fat lady, quite satisfied at having her +worst fears confirmed. +</p> + +<p> +Chugg returned to his driving, as one not above the weakness of seeing and +hearing things. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tain’t coffee.” +</p> + +<p> +“Could you smell it?” questioned Mary, anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +“You never can tell that way, when they are plumb pickled in it, like +him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then how did you know it wasn’t coffee?” +</p> + +<p> +“His eyes had fresh watered.” +</p> + +<p> +Mary collapsed under this expert testimony. “What are we going to do +about it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Appeal to him as a gentleman,” said the fat lady, not without +dramatic intonation. +</p> + +<p> +“You appeal,” counselled Mary; “I saw him look at you +admiringly when you were walking down that steep grade.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is that so?” said the fat lady, with a conspicuous lack of +incredulity; and she put her hand involuntarily to her frizzes. +</p> + +<p> +This time she did not trust to the umbrella-handle as a medium of communication +between the stage-driver and herself. Putting her hand through the port-hole +she grasped Chugg’s arm—the bottle arm—with no uncertain +grip. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Mr. Chugg, this yere place is getting to be a regular summer +resort; think of two ladies trusting themselves to your protection and +travelling out over this great lonesome desert.” +</p> + +<p> +Chugg’s mind, still submerged in local Lethe waters, grappled in silence +with the problem of the feminine invasion, and then he muttered to himself +rather than to the fat lady, “Nowhere’s safe from ’em; women +and house-flies is universally prevailing.” +</p> + +<p> +The fat lady dropped his arm as if it had been a brand. “He’s no +gentleman. As for Mountain Pink, she was drove to it.” +</p> + +<p> +All that day they toiled over sand and sage-brush; the sun hung like a molten +disk, paling the blue of the sky; the grasshoppers kept up their shrill +chirping—and the loneliness of that sun-scorched waste became a tangible +thing. +</p> + +<p> +Chugg sipped and sipped, and sometimes swore and sometimes muttered, and as the +day wore on his driving not only became a challenge to the endurance of the +horses, but to the laws of gravitation. He lashed them up and down grade, he +drove perilously close to shelving declivities, and sometimes he sang, with +maudlin mournfulness: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie.’<br /> +The words came low and mournfully<br /> +From the cold, pale lips of a youth who lay<br /> +On his dying couch at the close of day.” +</p> + +<p> +The fat lady reminded him that he was a gentleman and that he was driving +ladies; she threatened him with her son on Sweetwater, who began, in the +maternal chronicles, by being six feet in his stockings, and who steadily grew, +as the scale of threats increased, till he reached the altitude of six feet +four, growing hourly in height and fierceness. +</p> + +<p> +But Chugg gave no heed, and once he sang the “Ballad of the +Mule-Skinner,” with what seemed to both terrified passengers an awful +warning of their overthrow: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“As I was going down the road,<br /> +With a tired team and a heavy load,<br /> +I cracked my whip and the leaders sprung—<br /> +The fifth chain broke, and the wheelers hung,<br /> +The off-horse stepped on the wagon tongue—” +</p> + +<p> +This harrowing ballad was repeated with accompanying Delsarte at intervals +during the afternoon, but as Mary and the fat lady managed to escape without +accident, they began to feel that they bore charmed lives. +</p> + +<p> +At sundown they came to the road-ranch of Johnnie Dax, bearing Leander’s +compliments as a secret despatch. The outward aspect of the place was certainly +an awful warning to trustful bachelors who make acquaintances through the +columns of <i>The Heart</i> and Hand. The house stood solitary in that scourge of +desolation. The windows and doors gaped wide like the unclosed eyes of a dead +man on a battle-field. Chugg halloed, and an old white horse put his head out +of the door, shook it upward as if in assent, then trotted off. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s Jerry, and he’s the intelligentest animal I ever +see,” remarked the stage-driver, sobering up to Jerry’s good +qualities, and presently Johnnie Dax and the white horse appeared together from +around the corner of the house. +</p> + +<p> +This Mr. Dax was almost an exact replica of the other, even to the apologetic +crook in the knees and a certain furtive way of glancing over the shoulder as +if anticipating missiles. +</p> + +<p> +“Pshaw now, ladies! why didn’t you let me know that you was coming? +and I’d have tidied up the place and organized a few dried-apple +pies.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good house-keepers don’t wait for company to come before they get +to their work,” rebukefully commented the fat lady. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Dax, recognizing the voice of authority, seized a towel and began to beat +out flies, chickens, and dogs, who left the premises with the ill grace of old +residents. Two hogs, dormant, guarded either side of the door-step and refused +so absolutely to be disturbed by the flicking of the towel that one was tempted +to look twice to assure himself that they were not the fruits of the +sculptor’s chisel. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s your wife?” sternly demanded the fat lady. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my Lord! I presume she’s dancin’ a whole lot over to +Ervay. She packed her ball-gown in a gripsack and lit out of here two days ago, +p’inting that way. A locomotive couldn’t stop her none if she got a +chance to go cycloning round a dance.” +</p> + +<p> +In the mean time, the two hogs having failed to grasp the fact that they were +<i>de trop</i>, continued to doze. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, girls, get up,” coaxed Johnnie, persuasively. “Maude, +I don’t know when I see you so lazy. Run on, honey—run on with +Ethel.” For Ethel, the piebald hog, finally did as she was bid. +</p> + +<p> +Mary Carmichael could not resist the temptation of asking how the hogs happened +to have such unusual names. +</p> + +<p> +“To tell the truth, I done it to aggravate my wife. When I finds myself a +discard in the matrimonial shuffle, I figgers on a new deal that’s going +to inclood one or two anxieties for my lady partner—to which +end—viz., namely, I calls one hawg Ethel and the other hawg Maude, +allowing to my wife that they’re named after lady friends in the East. +Them lady friends might be the daughters of Ananias and Sapphira, for all they +ever happened, but they answers the purpose of riling her same as if they were +eating their three squares daily. I have hopes, everything else failing, that +she may yet quit dancing and settle down to the sanctity of the home out of +pure jealousy of them two proxy hawgs.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can just tell you this,” interrupted the fat lady: “I +don’t enjoy occupying premises after hawgs, no matter how fashionable you +name ’em. A hawg’s a hawg, with manners according, if it’s +named after the President of the United States or the King of England.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s just what I used to think, marm, of all critters before I +enjoyed that degree of friendliness that I’m now proud to own. Take Jerry +now, that old white horse—why, me and him is just like brothers. When I +have to leave the kid to his lonesome infant reflections and go off to chop +wood, I just call Jerry in, and he assoomes the responsibility of nurse like he +was going to draw wages for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I reckon there’s faults on both sides,” said the fat lady, +impartially. “No natural woman would leave her baby to a horse to mind +while she went off dancing. And no natural man would fill his house full of +critters, and them with highfalutin names. Take my advice, turn ’em +out.” +</p> + +<p> +Mary did not wait to hear the continuation of the fat lady’s advice. She +went out on the desert to have one last look at the west. The sun had taken his +plunge for the night, leaving his royal raiment of crimson and gold strewn +above the mountain-tops. +</p> + +<p> +Her sunset reflections were presently interrupted by the fat lady, who proposed +that they should walk till Mr. Dax had tidied up his house, observing, with +logic, that it did not devolve on them to clean the place, since they were +paying for supper and lodging. They had gone but a little way when sudden +apprehension caused the fat lady to grasp Mary’s arm. Miss Carmichael +turned, expecting mountain-lions, rattlesnakes, or stage-robbers, but none of +these casualties had come to pass. +</p> + +<p> +“Land sakes! Here we be parading round the prairie, and I never found out +how that man cooked his coffee.” +</p> + +<p> +“What difference does it make, if we can drink it?” +</p> + +<p> +“The ways of men cooks is a sealed book to you, I reckon, or you +wouldn’t be so unconcerned—’specially in the matter of +coffee. All men has got the notion that coffee must be b’iled in a bag, +and if they ’ain’t got a regular bag real handy, they take what +they can get. Oh, I’ve caught ’em,” went on the fat lady, +darkly, “b’iling coffee in improvisations that’d turn your +stomach.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes,” Mary hastily agreed, hoping against hope that she +wasn’t going to be more explicit. +</p> + +<p> +“And they are so cute about it, too; it’s next to impossible to +catch ’em. You ask a man if he b’iles his coffee loose or tight, +and he’ll declare he b’iles it loose, knowing well how suspicious +and prone to investigate is the female mind. But you watch your chance and take +a look in the coffee-pot, and maybe you’ll find—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes, I’ve heard—” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve seen—” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s hurry,” implored Mary. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you made your coffee yet?” inquired the fat lady. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, marm,” promptly responded Johnnie. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you b’iled it in a bag—it clears it beautiful, a bag +does.” +</p> + +<p> +Johnnie shifted uneasily. “No, marm, I b’iles it loose. You see, +bags ain’t always handy.” +</p> + +<p> +The fat lady plied her eye as a weapon. No Dax could stand up before an +accusing feminine eye. He quailed, made a grab for the coffee-pot, and rushed +with it out into the night. +</p> + +<p> +“What did I tell you?” she asked, with an air of triumph. +</p> + +<p> +Johnnie returned with the empty coffee-pot. “To tell the truth, marm, I +made a mistake. I ’ain’t made the coffee. I plumb forgot it. +P’raps you could be prevailed on to assist this yere outfit to coffee +while I organizes a few sody-biscuits.” +</p> + +<p> +After supper, when the fat lady was so busy talking “goo-goo” +language to the baby as to be oblivious of everything else, Mary Carmichael +took the opportunity to ask Johnnie if he knew anything about Lost Trail. The +name of her destination had come to sound unpleasantly ominous in the ears of +the tired young traveller, and she feared that her inquiry did not sound as +casual as she tried to have it. Nor was Johnnie’s candid reply +reassuring. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a pizen-mean country, from all I ever heard tell. The +citizens tharof consists mainly of coyotes and mountain-lions, with a few +rattlers thrown in just to make things neighborly. This yere +place”—waving his hand towards the arid wastes which night was +making more desolate—“is a summer resort, with modern improvements, +compared to it.” +</p> + +<p> +Mary screwed her courage to a still more desperate point, and inquired if Mr. +Dax knew a family named Yellett living in Lost Trail. +</p> + +<p> +“Never heard of no family living there, excepting the bluff at family +life maintained by the wild beasts before referred to. See here, miss, I +ain’t makin’ no play to inquire into your affairs, but you +ain’t thinkin’ o’ visitin’ Lost Trail, be you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps,” said Mary, faintly; and then she, too, talked +“goo-goo” to the baby. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>VIII.<br /> +The Rodneys At Home</h2> + +<p> +All that long and never-to-be-forgotten night the stage lurched through the +darkness with Mary Carmichael the solitary passenger. The fat lady had warned +Johnnie Dax that he was on no account to replenish Chugg’s flask, if he +had the wherewithal for replenishment on the premises. Moreover, she threatened +Dax with the fury of her son should he fail in this particular; and Johnnie, +hurt to the quick by the unjust suspicion that he could fail so signally in his +duty to a lady, not only refused to replenish the flask, but threatened Chugg +with a conditional vengeance in the event of accident befalling the stage. It +was with a partially sobered and much-threatened stage-driver, therefore, that +Mary continued her journey after the supper at Johnnie Dax’s, but the +knowledge of it brought scant reassurance, and it is doubtful if the red stage +ever harbored any one more wakeful than the pale, tired girl who watched all +the changes from dark to dawn at the stage window. +</p> + +<p> +Once or twice she caught a glimpse of distant camp-fires burning and knew that +some cattle outfit was camped there for the night; and once they drove so close +that she could hear the cow-boys’ voices, enriched and mellowed by +distance, borne to them on the cool, evening wind. It gave a sense of security +to know that these big-hearted, manly lads were within call, and she watched +the dwindling spark of their camp-fires and strained her ears to catch the last +note of their singing, with something of the feeling of severed comradeship. +Range cattle, startled from sleep by the stage, scrambled to their feet and +bolted headlong in the blind impulse of panic, their horns and the confused +massing of their bodies showing in sharp silhouette against the horizon for a +moment, then all would settle into quiet again. There was no moon that night, +but the stars were sown broadcast—softly yellow stars, lighting the +darkness with a shaded luster, like lamps veiled in pale-yellow gauze. The +chill electric glitter of the stars, as we know it from between the roofs of +high houses, this world of far-flung distance knows not. There the stars are +big and still, like the eyes of a contented woman. +</p> + +<p> +The hoofs of the horses beat the night away as regularly as the ticking of a +clock. It grew darker as the night wore on, and sometimes a coyote would yelp +from the fringe of willows that bordered a creek in a way that made Mary recall +tales of banshees. And once, when the first pale streak of dawn trembled in the +east and the mountains looked like jagged rocks heaved against the sky and in +danger of toppling, the whole dread picture brought before her one of +Vedder’s pictures that hung in the shabby old library at home. +</p> + +<p> +They breakfasted somewhere, and Chugg put fresh horses to the stage. She knew +this from their difference of color; the horses that they had left the second +Dax ranch with had been white, and these that now toiled over the sand and +desolation were apparently brown. She could not be certain that they were +brown, or that they were toiling over the sand and desolation, or that her name +was Mary Carmichael, or indeed of anything. Four days in the train, and what +seemed like four centuries in the stage, eliminated any certainty as to +anything. She could only sit huddled into a heap and wait for things to become +adjusted by time. +</p> + +<p> +Chugg was behaving in a most exemplary manner. He drove rigidly as an +automaton, and apparently he looked no longer on the “lightning” +when it was bottled. Once or twice he had applied his eye to the pane that +separated him from his passenger, and asked questions relative to her comfort, +but Mary was too utterly dejected to reply in more than monosyllables. As they +crept along, the sun-dried timbers of the stage creaked and groaned in seeming +protest at wearing its life away in endless journeyings over this desert waste, +then settled down into one of those maddeningly monotonous reiterations to +which certain inanimate things are given in seasons of nervous tension. This +time it was: “All the world’s—a +stage—creak—screech—all—the world’s a +stage—creak—screech!” over and over till Mary found herself +fast succumbing to the hypnotic effect of the constant repetition, listening +for it, even, with the tyrannous eagerness of overwrought nerves, when the +stage-driver broke the spell with, “This here stage gets to naggin’ +me along about here. She’s hungry for her axle-grease—that’s +what ails her.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose,” Mary roused herself to say, “you have quite a +feeling of comradeship for the stage.” +</p> + +<p> +“Me and Clara”—the stage had this name painted on the +side—“have been travelling together nigh onto four year. And while +there’s times that I would prefer a greater degree of reciprocity, these +yere silent companions has their advantages. Why, compare Clara to them female +blizzards—the two Mrs. Daxes—and you see Clara’s good +p’ints immejit. Yes, miss, the thirst-quenchers are on me if either one +of the Dax boys wouldn’t be glad to swap, but I’d have to be a heap +more locoed than I am now to consent to the transaction.” +</p> + +<p> +At sunset the interminable monotony of the wilderness was broken by a house of +curious architecture, the like of which the tired young traveller had never +seen before, and whose singular candor of design made her doubt the evidence of +her own thoroughly exhausted faculties. The house seemed to consist of a series +of rooms thrown, or rather blown, together by some force of nature rather than +by formal design of builder or carpenter. The original log-cabin of this +composite dwelling looked better built, more finished, neater of aspect than +those they had previously stopped at in crossing the Desert. Springing from the +main building, like claws from a crustacean, were a series of rooms minus +either side walls or flooring. Indeed, they might easily have passed for +porches of more than usually commodious size had it not been for the beds, +bureaus, chairs, stove with attendant pots, kettles, and supper in the course +of preparation. Seen from any vantage-point in the surrounding country, the +effect was that of an interior on the stage—the background of some homely +drama where pioneer life was being realistically depicted. The <i>dramatis persona</i> +who occupied the centre of the stage when Mary Carmichael drove up was an +elderly woman in a rocking-chair. She was dressed in a faded pink calico gown, +limp and bedraggled, whose color brought out the parchment-like hue and texture +of her skin in merciless contrast. Perhaps because she still harbored illusions +about the perishable quality of her complexion, which gave every evidence of +having borne the brunt of merciless desert suns, snows, blizzards, and the +ubiquitous alkali dust of all seasons, she wore a pink sun-bonnet, though the +hour was one past sundown, and though she sat beneath her own roof-tree, even +if lacking the protection of four walls. From the corner of her mouth protruded +a snuff-brush, so constantly in this accustomed place that it had come to be +regarded by members of her family as part and parcel of her attire—the +first thing assumed in the morning, the last thing laid aside at night. Mary +Carmichael had little difficulty in recognizing Judith Rodney’s +step-mother, <i>née</i> Tumlin—she who had been the heroine of the romance +lately recorded. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Rodney’s interest in the girl alighting from the stage was evinced +in the palsied motion of the chair as it quivered slightly back and forth in +place of the swinging seesaw with which she was wont to wear the hours away. +The snuff-brush was brought into more fiercely active commission, but she said +nothing till Mary Carmichael was within a few inches of her. Then, shifting the +snuff-brush to a position more favorable to enunciation, she said: +“Howdy? Ye be Miz Yellett’s gov’ment, ain’t ye?” +There was something threatening in her aspect, as if the office of governess to +the Yelletts carried some challenging quality. +</p> + +<p> +“Government?” repeated Mary, vaguely, her head still rumbling with +the noise and motion of the stage; “I’m afraid I hardly +understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ain’t you-uns goin’ to teach the Yellett outfit ther +spellin’, writin’, and about George Washington, an’ how the +Yankees kem along arter he was in his grave an’ fit us and broke up the +kentry so we had ter leave our home in Tennessee an’ kem to this yere +outdacious place, where nobody knows the diffunce between aig-bread an’ +corn-dodger? I war a Miss Tumlin from Tennessee.” +</p> + +<p> +The rocking-chair now began to recover its accustomed momentum. This +much-heralded educational expert was far from terrifying. Indeed, to Mrs. +Rodney’s hawklike gaze, that devoured every visible item of Mary’s +extremely modest travelling-dress, there was nothing so very wonderful about +“the gov’ment from the East.” With a deftness compatible only +with long practice, Mrs. Rodney now put a foot on the round of an adjoining +chair and shoved it towards Mary Carmichael in hospitable pantomime, never once +relaxing her continual rocking the meantime. Mary took the chair, and Mrs. +Rodney, after freshening up the snuff-brush from a small, tin box in her lap, +put spurs to her rocking-chair, so to speak, and started off at a brisk canter. +</p> + +<p> +“I ’low it’s mighty queer you-uns don’t recognize the +job you-uns kem out yere to take, when I call it by name.” From the +sheltering flap of the pink sun-bonnet she turned a pair of black eyes full of +ill-concealed suspicion. “Miz Yellett givin’ herself as many airs +’bout hirin’ a gov’ment ’s if she wuz goin’ to +Congress. Queer you don’t know whether you be one or not!” She +withdrew into the sun-bonnet, muttering to herself. She could not be more than +fifty, Mary thought, but her habit of muttering and exhibiting her depopulated +gums while she was in the act of revivifying the snuff-brush gave her a cronish +aspect. +</p> + +<p> +A babel of voices came from the open-faced room on the opposite side of the +house corresponding to the one in which Mary and Mrs. Rodney were sitting. +Apparently supper was being prepared by some half-dozen young people, each of +whom thought he or she was being imposed upon by the others. “Hand me +that knife.” “Git it yourself.” “I’ll tell maw +how you air wolfing down the potatoes as fast as I can fry ’em.” +“Go on, tattle-tale.” This was the repartee, mingled with the hiss +of frying meat, the grinding of coffee, the thumping sound made by bread being +hastily mixed in a wooden bowl standing on a wooden table. The babel grew in +volume. Dogs added to it by yelping emotionally when the smell of the newly +fried meat tempted them too near the platter and some one with a disengaged +foot at his disposal would kick them out of doors. Personalities were exchanged +more freely by members of the family, and the meat hissed harder as it was +newly turned. “Laws-a-massy!” muttered Mrs. Rodney; and then, +shoving back the sun-bonnet, she lifted her voice in a shrill, feminine shriek: +</p> + +<p> +“Eudory! Eu-dory! You-do-ry!” +</p> + +<p> +A Hebe-like creature, blond and pink-cheeked, in a blue-checked apron besmeared +with grease and flour, came sulkily into her mother’s presence. Seeing +Mary Carmichael, she grasped the skirt of the greasy apron with the sleight of +hand of a prestidigitateur and pleated it into a single handful. Her manner, +too, was no slower of transformation. The family sulks were instantly replaced +by a company bridle, aided and abetted by a company simper. “I +didn’t know the stage was in yet, maw. I been talking to Iry.” +</p> + +<p> +“This here be Miz Yellett’s gov’ment. Maybe she’d like +to pearten up some before she eats.” She started the rocking-chair at a +gallop, to signify to her daughter that she washed her hands of further +responsibility. Being proficient in the sign language of Mrs. Rodney’s +second self, as indeed was every member of the family, Eudora led Mary to a +bench placed in one of the rooms enjoying the distinction of a side wall, and +indicated a family toilet service, which displayed every indication of having +lately seen active service. A roll-towel, more frankly significant of the +multitude of the Rodneys than had been the babel of voices, a discouraged +fragment of comb, a tin basin, a slippery atom of soap, these Eudora proffered +with an unction worthy of better things. “I declare Mist’ Chugg +have scarce left any soap, an’ I don’t believe thar’s +’nother bit in the house.” Eudora’s accent was but faintly +reminiscent of her mother’s strong Smoky Mountain dialect, as a crude +feature is sometimes softened in the second generation. It was not unpleasing +on her full, rosy mouth. The girl had the seductiveness of her half-sister, +Judith, without a hint of Judith’s spiritual quality. +</p> + +<p> +Mary told her not to mind about the soap, and went to fetch her hand-bag, +which, consistent with the democratic spirit of its surroundings, was resting +against a clump of sage-brush, whither it had been lifted by Chugg. Miss +Carmichael’s individual toilet service, which was neither handsome nor +elaborate, impressed Eudora far more potently in ranking Mary as a personage +than did her dignity of office as “gov’ment.” +</p> + +<p> +“I reckon you-uns must have seen Sist’ Judy up to Miz Dax’s. +I hope she war lookin’ right well.” There was in the inquiry an +unmistakable note of pride. The connection was plainly one to be flaunted. +Judith, with her gentle bearing and her simple, convent accomplishments, was +plainly the <i>grande dame</i> of the family. Eudora had now divested herself of the +greasy, flour-smeared apron, flinging it under the wash-bench with a single +all-sufficient movement, while Mary’s look was directed towards her +dressing-bag. In glancing up to make some remark about Judith, Mary was +confronted by a radiant apparition whose lilac calico skirts looked fresh from +the iron. +</p> + +<p> +At the side of the house languished a wretched, abortive garden, running over +with weeds and sage-brush, and here a man pottered with the purposeless energy +of old age, working with an ear cocked in the direction of the house, as he +turned a spade of earth again and again in hopeless, pusillanimous industry. +But when his strained attention was presently rewarded by a shouted summons to +supper, and he stood erect but for the slouching droop of shoulders that was +more a matter of temperament than of age, one saw a tall man of massive build, +whose keen glance and slightly grizzled hair belied his groping, ineffectual +labor. The head, and face were finely modelled. Unless nature had fashioned +them in some vagrant, prankish mood, such elegance of line betokened prior +generations in which gentlemen and scholars had played some part—the +vagabond scion of a good family, perhaps. A multitude of such had grafted on +the pioneer stock of the West, under names that carried no significance in the +places whence they came. +</p> + +<p> +Weakness and self-indulgence there were, and those writ large and deep, on the +face of Warren Rodney; and, in default of an expression of deeper significance, +the wavering lines of instability produced a curiously ambiguous effect of a +fine head modelled by a ’prentice hand; a lady’s copy of the +Belvidere, attempted in the ardors of the first lessons, might approximate it. +</p> + +<p> +A smoking kerosene lamp revealed a supper-table of almost institutional +proportions. There were four sons and two daughters of the Tumlin union, +strapping lads and lasses all of them, with more than a common dower of lusty +health and a beauty that was something deeper than the perishable iridescence +of youth. There was Frémont, named for the explorer-soldier; there was Orlando, +named from his mother’s vague, idle musings over paper-backed literature +at certain “unchancy” seasons; there was Richards, named from pure +policy, for a local great man of whom Warren Rodney had anticipated a helping +hand at the time; there was Eudora, whose nominal origin was uncertain, unless +it bore affiliation to that of Orlando; there was Sadie, thus termed to avoid +the painful distinctions of “old Sally” and “young +Sally”; and, lastly, like a postscript, came Dan—with him, fancy, +in the matter of names, seemed to have failed. Dan was now six, a plump little +caricature of a man in blue overalls, which, as they had descended to him from +Richards in the nature of an heirloom, reached high under his armpits and +shortened the function of his suspenders to the vanishing point. +</p> + +<p> +Eudora was now sixteen, and the woman-famine in all the land had gifted her +with a surprising precocity. Eudora knew her value and meant to make the most +of it. Unlike her mother in the old Black Hill days, she expected more than a +“home of her own.” To-night four suitors sat at table with Eudora, +and she might have had forty had she desired it. Any one of the four would have +cheerfully murdered the remaining three had opportunity presented itself. +Supper was a mockery to them, a Barmecide feast. Each watched his +rivals—and Eudora. This was a matter of life and death. There was no time +for food. The girl revelled in the situation to the full of her untaught, +unthinking, primitive nature. She gave the incident a tighter twist by +languishing at them in turns. She smiled, she sighed, she drove them mad by +taking crescent bites out of a slice of bread and exhibiting the havoc of her +little, white teeth with a delectably dainty gluttony. +</p> + +<p> +Her mother, mumbling her supper with toothless impotency, renewed her youth +vicariously, and, while she quarrelled with her daughter from the rising of the +sun to the setting of the same, she added the last straw to the burden of the +distracted suitors by announcing what a comfort Eudora was to her and how handy +she was about the house. +</p> + +<p> +Warren Rodney supported the air of an exile at his own table. Beyond a +preliminary greeting to his daughter’s guests, he said nothing. His +family, in their dealings with him, seemed to accord him the exemptions of +extreme age. He ate with the enthusiasm of a man to whom meals have become the +main business in life. +</p> + +<p> +“How’s your mine up to Bad Water comin’ along, Iry?” +Orlando inquired, not from any hospitable interest in Ira’s claim, but +because he had sundry romantic interests in that neighborhood and hoped to make +use of the young prospector’s interest in his sister by securing an +invitation to return with him. Ira regarded the inquiry in the light of a +special providence. Here was his chance to impress Eudora with the splendor of +his prospects and at the same time smite the claims of his rivals, and behold! +a brother of his lady had led the way. +</p> + +<p> +Ira cleared his throat. “They tell me she air like to yield a million any +day.” At this Eudora gave him the wealth of her eyes, and her mother +reached across two of the glowering suitors and dropped a hot flapjack on his +plate. +</p> + +<p> +“Who sez that she air likely to yield a million any day?” inquired +Ben Swift, openly flouting such prophecy. “Yes, who sez it?” +inquired Hawks and Taylor, joining forces for the overthrow of the common +enemy. +</p> + +<p> +“‘They sez’ is easy talkin’, shore ’nuff,” +mumbled Mrs. Rodney, as she helped herself to butter with her own knife. +</p> + +<p> +“A sharp from the Smithsonian Institute at Washington, he said it, and he +has taken back speciments with him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ye can’t keep lackings from freightin’ round +speciments—naw, sir, ye can’t, not till the fool-killer has +finished his job.” Ben Swift charged the table with the statement as the +prosecution subtly appeals to the high grade of intelligence on the part of the +jury. The point told. Eudora, wavering in her donation of hot flapjacks, gave +them to Ben Swift. +</p> + +<p> +Hawks now leaned across the table with a sinuous, beguiling motion, and, +extending his long neck towards the prospector, with the air of a +turkey-gobbler about to peck, he crooned, softly: “Ira, it’s a heap +risky puttin’ your faith in maverick sharps that trail around the +country, God-a’mightying it, renaming little, old rocks into precious +stones, seein’ gold mines in every gopher-hole they come to. They names +your backyard and the rocks appertainin’ thereunto a heap fashionable, +and like as not some sucker gives him good money to float the trash back +East.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Rodney, whose partisanship in any discussion was analogous to the position +of a hen perching on a fence unable to decide on which side to flutter, was +visibly impressed by Hawks’s presentation of the case. Looking towards +her daughter from under the eaves of her sun-bonnet, she “’lowed +she had hearn that Bad Water was hard on the skin, an’ that it +warn’t much of a place arter all. Folks over thar war mostly +half-livers.” +</p> + +<p> +Ira, now losing all semblance of policy at being thus grievously put down by +his possible mother-in-law, “reckoned that herdin’ sheep over to +the Basin was a heap easier on the skin than livin’ in a comf’table +house over to Bad Water”—this as a fling at Hawks, who herded a +small bunch of sheep “over in the Basin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ai-yi,” openly scoffed the former Miss Tumlin; “talk’s +cheap before—” She would have considered it indelicate to supply +the word “marriage,” but by breaking off her sentence before she +came to the pith of it she continued to maintain the proprieties, and at the +same time conveyed to her audience that she was too old and experienced to +permit any fledgling from her nest to be caught, for want of a warning, by such +obvious ante-matrimonial chaff as fair promises. +</p> + +<p> +“Laws a massy!” she continued, reminiscently, working her toothless +jaw to free it from an escaped splinter from the snuff-brush. “When me +an’ paw war keepin’ comp’ny, satin warn’t good enough +for me. He lowed I wuz to have half creation. Sence we wuz married he +’ain’t never found time, endurin’ all these years, to build +me a bird-house.” +</p> + +<p> +The unbuilt bird-house was the Banquo’s ghost at the Rodney board, Mrs. +Rodney hearkening back to it in and out of season. If the family made merry +over a chance windfall of game or fresh vegetables, a prospect of possible +employment for one of the boys, a donation of money from Judith, Mrs. Rodney +remembered the unbuilt bird-house and indulged herself to the full of +melancholy. It is not improbable that, if she had been asked to name the +chiefest disappointment of her wretched married life, she would have mentioned +the bird-house that was never built. +</p> + +<p> +At mention of it Warren Rodney murmured broken, deprecatory excuses. His dull +eyes nervously travelled about the table for some one to make excuses for him. +The family broke into hearty peals of laughter; the tragedy of the first +generation had grown to be the unfailing source of merriment for the second. +</p> + +<p> +“Maw,” began Orlando, “the reason you don’t get no +bird-house built out hyear is that they ain’t no birds. We have offered +time and time again to build you a house fo’ buzzuds, they bein’ +the only birds hyearabouts, but you ’low that you ain’t +fav’ble to tamin’ ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wuz raised in Tennessee, an’ we-uns had a house for martins made +out’n gourds, an’ it was pearty.” The pride with which she +repeated this particular claim to honor in an alien land never diminished with +repetition. As she advanced further through the dim perspective of years, the +little mountain town in Tennessee became more and more the centre of +cultivation and civic importance. The desolate cabin that she had left for the +interminable journey westward was recalled flatteringly through the hallowing +mists of time. The children, by reason of these chronicles, had grown to regard +their mother as a sort of princess in exile. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Rodney”—Swift leaned towards her and whispered +something in her ear. She regarded him tentatively, then grinned. At her time +of life, why should she put faith in the promises of men? “You fix it up, +an’ you get your bird-house,” was the conclusion of his sentence. +</p> + +<p> +While this discussion had been in progress the viands had not been neglected +except by such members of the company as had been bereft of appetite by loftier +emotions—in consequence of which the table appeared to have sustained a +visitation of seventeen-year locusts. Eudora, ever economic in the value she +placed not only upon herself but her environment, proposed to her guests that +they should wash the dishes, an art in which they were by no means deficient, +being no exception to the majority of range bachelors in their skill in homely +pursuits. And thus it came to pass that Eudora’s suitors, swathed in +aprons, meekly washed dishes shoulder to shoulder, while their souls craved the +performance of valorous deeds. +</p> + +<p> +As this was the last stage station on the way to Lost Trail, Mary Carmichael +was perforce obliged to content herself till Mrs. Yellett should call or send +for her. After supper, Chugg, with fresh horses to the stage, left +Rodney’s, apparently for some port in that seemingly pathless sea of +foot-hills. That there should be trails and defined routes over this vast, +unvaried stretch of space seemed more wonderful to Mary than the charted +high-roads of the Atlantic. The foot-hills seemed to have grown during the long +journey till they were foot-hills no longer; they had come to be the smaller +peaks of the towering range that had formed the spine of the desert. The air, +that seemed to have lost some of its crystalline quality on the flat stretches +of the plains, was again sparkling and heady in the clean hill country. It +stirred the pulses like some rare vintage, some subtle distillation of +sun-warmed fruit that had been mellowing for centuries. +</p> + +<p> +Very lonely seemed the Rodney home among the great company of mountains. A +brooding desolation had settled on it at close of day, and all the laughter and +light footsteps and gayly ringing voices of the young folk could not dispel the +feeling of being adrift in a tiny shell on the black waters of some unknown +sea; or thus it seemed to the stranger within their gate. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Rodney retired within the flap of her sun-bonnet after the evening meal, +settling herself in the rocking-chair as if it were some sort of conveyance. +Her family, who might have told the hour of day or her passing mood by the +action of the chair, knew by her pacific gait that she would lament the unbuilt +bird-house no more that night. The snuff-brush, newly replenished from the tin +box, kept perfect time to the motion of the chair. With the lady of the house +it was one of the brief seasons of passing content vouchsafed by an ample meal +and a good digestion. +</p> + +<p> +Warren Rodney took down a gun from the wall and began to clean it. His hands +had the fumbling, indefinite movements, the obscure action, directed by a brain +already begun to crumble. His industry with the gun was of a part with the +impotent dawdling in the garden. His eyes would seek for the rag or the bottle +of oil in a dull, glazed way, and, having found them, he would forget the +reason of his quest. Not once that evening had they rested on his wife or any +member of his family. He had shown no interest in any of the small happenings +of home, the frank rivalry of Eudora’s suitors, the bickerings of the +girls and boys over the division of household labor. The one thing that had +momentarily aroused his somnolent intelligence was a revival of his +wife’s plaint anent the unbuilt bird-house. That, and a certain furtive +anxiety during supper lest his daughter Eudora should forget to keep his plate +piled high, were the only signs of a participation in the life about him. +</p> + +<p> +From one of the rooms that opened to the world like a stage to the audience, +Mrs. Rodney kept her evening vigil. The last faint amethystine haze on the +mountains was deepening. They towered about the valley where the house lay, +with a challenging immensity, mocking the pitiful grasp of these pygmies on the +thousand hills. The snow on the taller of the peaks still held the high lights. +But all the valleys and the spaces between the mountains were wrapped in sombre +shadows; the crazy house invading the great company of mountains, penetrating +brazenly to the very threshold of their silent councils, seemed but a pitiful +ant-hill at the mercy of some possible giant tread. The ill-adjusted family, +disputing every inch of ground with the wilderness, became invested with a +dignity quite out of keeping with its achievements. Their very weaknesses and +vanities, old Sally still clinging to her sun-bonnet and her limp rose-colored +skirts, an eternal requiem for the dead and gone complexion, lost the +picturesqueness of the pioneer and ranked as universal qualities, admissible in +the austerest setting. Perhaps in some far distant council of the Daughters of +the Pioneers a prospective member of the house of Rodney would unctuously +announce: “My great-great-grandmother was a Miss Tumlin of Tennessee; +great-great-grandfather’s first wife had been a Sioux squaw. Isn’t +it interesting and romantic?” +</p> + +<p> +Eudora now came to her mother with great news. Hawks had taken the first +opportunity of being alone with her to tell her of Jim’s release from +jail and of his abortive encounter with Simpson in the eating-house. He had not +deferred the telling from any feeling of reticence regarding the disclosure of +family affairs before strangers. News travels in the desert by some unknown +agency. Twenty-four hours after a thing happened it would be safe to assume +that every cow and sheep outfit in a radius of three hundred miles would be +discussing it over their camp-fires; and this long before there was an inch of +telegraph wire or a railroad tire in the country. Hawks had merely reserved the +news for Eudora’s private ear because he hoped thus to gain an advantage +over his three rivals. +</p> + +<p> +“Ai-yi!” said old Sally, sharply, and the chair came to an abrupt +stand-still. “In the name o’ Heaven, how kem they to let him +out?” Mrs. Rodney’s knowledge of the law was of the vaguest; and if +incarceration would keep a prisoner out of more grievous trouble, she could not +understand giving him his freedom. To her the case was analogous to releasing a +child from the duress of a corner and turning him loose to play with matches. +“How kem they to let him out?” she repeated, the still +rocking-chair conveying the impersonal dignity of the pulpit or the +justice-seat. “I ’ain’t hearn tell of so pearty a couple as +the jail an’ Jim in years.” +</p> + +<p> +The meaning that she put into her words belied their harsh face-value. With Jim +in jail, her mind was comparatively at rest about him. She knew he had been +branding other men’s cattle since the destruction of his sheep, and she +knew the fate of cattle-thieves, and that Jim would be no exception to the +rule. With her purely instinctive maternity, she had been fond of Jim. He had +been one more boy to mother. She harbored no ill-feeling towards him that he +was not her own. Moreover, she wanted no gallows-tree intermingled with the +annals of her family. It suited her convenience at this particular time that +Jim should stay in jail. That he had been given his freedom loosed the phials +of her condemnation on the incompetents that released him. +</p> + +<p> +“I ’low they wuz grudgin’ him the mouthful they fed to him, +that they ack so outdaciously plumb locoed as to tu’n a man out to get +hisself hanged. An’ Jim never wuz a hearty eater. He never seemed to +relish his food, even when he wuz a growin’ kid.” +</p> + +<p> +A pale, twinkling point of light, faintly glimmering in the vast solitudes +above the billowing peaks, suddenly burst into a dazzling constellation before +the girl and her mother. “It’s a warning!” shivered the old +woman. “Some’um’s bound to happen.” She began to rock +herself slowly. The thing she dreaded had already come to pass in her +imagination. Jim a free man was Jim a dead man. He was so dead that already his +step-mother was going on with a full acceptance of the idea. She reviewed her +relationship to him. No, she had nothing to blame herself for. He had been more +troublesome than any of her own children and for that reason she had been more +liberal with the rod. And yet—the face of the squaw rose before her, +wraithlike, accusing! “Ai-yi!” she said; but this time her favorite +expletive was hardly more than a sigh. +</p> + +<p> +“I mind Jim when he first kem to us,” she said, more to herself +than to Eudora, who sat at her feet. The impending tragedy in the family had +robbed her of all the joy in her suitors. They sat on a bench on the opposite +side of the house, divided by the very nature of their interests yet companions +in misery. +</p> + +<p> +“He wuz scarce four, an’ yet he had never been broke of the habit +of sucking his thumb. Ef he’d ben my child, I’d a lammed it +out’n him before he’d a seen two, but seem’ he was aged for +an infant havin’ such practices, I tried to shame him out’n it. +But, Lord a massy, men folks is hard to shame even at four. I hissed at him +like a gyander every time I seen him do it. Now I’d a knowed +better—I’d a sewed it up in a pepper rag.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s suckin’ his thumb as an infant got to do with his +gettin’ lynched now?” demanded Eudora, with the scepticism of the +second generation. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait till you-uns has children of your own,” sniffed her mother, +from the assured position of maternal experience, “an’ see the +infant that’s allowed to suck its thumb has the makin’s in him of a +felon or a unfortunit.” She rocked a slow accompaniment to her dismal, +prophecy. +</p> + +<p> +Eudora’s eyes, big with wonder, were fixed on the crouching flank of a +distant mountain. Her mother broke the silence. Not often did they speak thus +intimately. Old Sally belonged to that class of mothers who feel a pride in +their reticent dealings with their daughters, and who consider the management +of all affairs of the heart peculiarly the province of youth and inexperience. +</p> + +<p> +But to-night she was prompted by a force beyond her ken to speak to the girl. +“Eudory, in pickin’ out one of them men,” she jerked her +thumb towards the opposite side of the house, “git one tha’s clar +o’ the trick o’ stampedin’ round other wimming. It’s +bound to kem back to ye, same as counterfeit money.” +</p> + +<p> +Eudora giggled. She was of an age when the fascinations of curiosity as to the +unknown male animal prompt lavish conjecture. “I ’lowed they all +stampeded.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” leered the old woman—and she grinned the whole horrid +length of her empty gums—“the most of ’em does. But you must +shet your eyes to it. The moment they know you swallow it, they’s +wuthless, like horses that has run away once.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hark!” said Eudora. “Ain’t that wheels?” +</p> + +<p> +“It be,” answered her mother. “It be that old Ma’am +Yellett after her gov’ment.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>IX.<br /> +Mrs. Yellett And Her “Gov’ment”</h2> + +<p> +The buckboard drew up to the back or open-faced entrance of the Rodney house +with a splendid sweep, terminating in a brilliantly staccato halt, as if to +convey to the residents the flattering implication that their house was reached +via a gravelled driveway, rather than across lumpish inequalities of prairie +overgrown with cactus stumps and clumps of sage-brush. From the buckboard +stepped a figure whose agility was compatible with her driving. +</p> + +<p> +No sketchy outline can do justice to Mrs. Yellett or her costume. Like the bee, +the ant, and other wonders of the economy of nature, she was not to be disposed +of with a glance. And yet there was no attempt at subtlety on her part; on the +contrary, no one could have an appearance of greater candor than the lady whose +children Mary Carmichael had come West to teach. Her costume was a thing apart, +suggesting neither sex, epoch, nor personal vanity, but what it lacked of these +more usual sartorial characteristics, it more than made up in a passionate +individualism; an excessively short skirt, so innocent of “fit” or +“hang” in its wavering, indeterminate outline as to suggest the +possible workmanship of teeth rather than of scissors; and riding-boots coming +well to the knee, displaying a well-shaped, ample foot, perched aloft on the +usual high heel that cow-punchers affect as the expression of their chiefest +vanity. But Mrs. Yellett was not wholly mannish in her tastes, and to offset +the boots she wore a bodice of the type that a generation ago used to be known +as a “basque.” It fitted her ample form as a cover fits a +pin-cushion, the row of jet buttons down the front looking as if a deep breath +might cause them to shoot into space at any moment with the force of Mauser +bullets. +</p> + +<p> +Such a garb was not, after all, incongruous with this original lady’s +weather-beaten face. Her skin was tanned to a fine russet, showing tiny, +radiating lines about the eyes when they twinkled with laughter, which was +often. No individual feature was especially striking, but the general +impression of her countenance was of animation and activity, mingled with +geniality and with native shrewdness. +</p> + +<p> +“Howdy, Miz Yellett,” called out old Sally, hitching her rocker +forward, in an excitement she could ill conceal. “You-uns’ +gov’ment come, an’ she ain’t much bigger’n a lettle +green gourd. Don’t seem to have drawed all the growth comin’ to her +yit.” +</p> + +<p> +“In roundin’ up the p’ints of my gov’ment, Mis’ +Rodney, you don’t want to forget that green gourds and green grapes is +mighty apt to belong to the sour fambly, when they hangs beyant your +reach.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ai-yi!” grimaced old Sally. “It’s tol’able far +to send East for green fruit. We can take our own pep’mint.” +</p> + +<p> +The prospective advent of a governess in the Yellett family, moreover, one from +that mysterious centre of culture, the East, had not only rent the neighborhood +with bitter factions, but had submitted the Yelletts to the reproach of +ostentation. In those days there were no schools in that portion of the Wind +River country where the Yelletts grazed their flocks and herds. Parents anxious +to obtain “educational advantages”—that was the term, +irrespective of the age of the student or the school he attended—sent +them, often, with parental blindness as to the equivocal nature of the blessing +thus conferred, to visit friends in the neighboring towns while they “got +their education.” Or they went uneducated, or they picked up such crumbs +of knowledge as fell from the scant parental board. But never, up to the +present moment, had any one flown into the face of neighborly precedent except +sturdy Sarah Yellett. +</p> + +<p> +Old Sally, in her eagerness to convey that she was in no degree impressed with +the pedagogical importation, like many another belligerent lost the first round +of the battle through an excess of personal feeling. But though down, Sally was +by no means out, and after a brief session with the snuff-brush she returned to +the field prepared to maintain that the Yellett children, for all their +pampering in the matter of having a governess imported for their benefit, were +no better off than her own brood, who had taken the learning the gods provided. +</p> + +<p> +“Too bad, Miz Yellett, that you-uns had to hire that gov’ment +without lookin’ over her p’ints. I’ve ben takin’ her in +durin’ supper, and she’ll never be able to thrash ’em past +Clem. She mought be able to thrash Clem if she got plumb mad, these yere slim +wimmin is tarrible wiry ’n’ active at such times, but she’ll +never be able to thrash beyant her.” And having injected the vitriolic +drop in her neighbor’s cup of happiness, Old Sally struck a gait on her +chair which was the equivalent of a gallop. +</p> + +<p> +But Mrs. Yellett was not the sort of antagonist to be left gaping on the road, +awed to silence by the action of a rocking-chair, no matter how brilliant. +</p> + +<p> +“I reckon I can thrash my own children when it’s needed, without +gettin’ in help from the East, or hereabouts either, for that matter. If +other folks would only take out their public-spirited reformin’ +tendencies on their own famblies, there’d be a heap less lynchin’ +likely to happen round the country in the course of the next ten years.” +</p> + +<p> +Old Sally let the home-thrust pass. “Who ever hearn tell of a good +teacher that wasn’t a fine thrasher in the bargain?” She swung the +chair about with a pivotal motion, as if she were addressing an assemblage +instead of a single listener, and then, bethinking herself of a clinching +illustration, she called aloud to her daughter to bear witness. “Eudory! +Eu-do-ry! You-do-ry!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ye-’s ma’am,” drawled the daughter, coming most +unwillingly from the open-faced room opposite, where she had been inciting all +four of the suitors to battle. +</p> + +<p> +“What was it they called that teacher down to Caspar that larruped the +hide off’n the boys?” +</p> + +<p> +“A fine dis-a-ply-narian, maw.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s it—a dis-a-<i>ply</i>-narian. What kin a lettle green +gourd like her know ’bout dis-apply-in?” +</p> + +<p> +“Your remarks shore remind me of a sayin’ that ‘the +discomfort of havin’ to swallow other folks’ dust causes a heap of +anxiety over their reckless driving.’” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Yellett flicked her riding-boot with her whip. Her voice dropped a couple +of tones, her accent became one of honeyed sweetness. +</p> + +<p> +“Your consumin’ anxiety regardin’ my gov’ment and my +children shore reminds me of a narrative appertainin’ to two dawgs. Them +dawgs was neighbors, livin’ in adj’inin’ yards separated by a +fence, and one day one of them got a good meaty bone and settled hisself down +to the enj’yment thereof. And his intimate friend and neighbor on the +other side of the fence, who had no bone to engage his faculties, he began to +fret hisself ’bout the business of his friend. S’pose he was to +choke hisself over that bone. S’pose the meat disagreed with him. And he +begins to bark warnin’s, but the dawg with the bone he keeps right on. +But the other dawg he dashes hisself again the fence and he scratches with his +claws. He whines pitiful, he’s that anxious about his friend. But the +dawg with the bone he went right on till he gnawed it down to the last morsel, +and, goin’ to the hole in the fence whar his friend had kep’ that +anxious vigil, he says: ‘Friend, the only thing that consoled me while +having to endure the anguish of eatin’ that bone was the thought of your +watchful sympathy!’ Which bein’ the case, I’d thank you to +tell me whar I can find my gov’ment.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ai-yi!” said old Sally. “I ain’t seein’ no bone +this deal. Just a lettle green gourd ’s all I see with my strongest +specs.” +</p> + +<p> +Mary Carmichael, in one of the inner rooms, was writing a home letter, which +was chiefly remarkable for what it failed to relate. It gave long accounts of +the scenery, it waxed didactic over the future of the country; but the +adventures of the trip, with her incidental acquaintance with the Daxes and +Chugg, were not recorded. Eudora announced the arrival of Mrs. Yellett, and +Mary, at the news, dropped the contents of her portfolio and started up with +much the feeling a marooned sailor might have on hearing a sail has been +sighted. At this particular stage of her career Miss Carmichael had not +developed the philosophy that later in life was destined to become her most +valuable asset. Her sense of humor no longer responded to the vagaries of +pioneer life. The comedy element was coming a little too thick and fast. She +was getting a bit heart-sick for a glimpse of her own kind, a word with some +one who spoke her language. And here, at last, was the woman who had written +such a charming letter, who had so graciously intimated that there was room for +her at the hearth-stone. Mary was, indeed, eager to make the acquaintance of +Mrs. Yellett. +</p> + +<p> +To the end of her life she never forgot that first meeting—the perfect +confidence with which she followed Eudora to the open room, the ensuing blank +amazement, the utter inability to reconcile the Mrs. Yellett of the letter with +the Mrs. Yellett of fact. The lamp on the table, burning feebly, seemed to +burst into a thousand shooting-stars as the girl struggled with her tears. Home +was so far, and Mrs. Yellett was so different from what she had expected! And +yet, as she felt her fingers crush in the grip of that hard but not unkindly +hand, there was in the woman’s rugged personality a sustaining quality; +and, thinking again of Archie’s prospects, Mary was not altogether sorry +that she had come. +</p> + +<p> +“You be a right smart young maverick not to get lost none on this long +trail, and no one to p’int you right if you strayed,” commented +Mary’s patroness, affably. “But we won’t roominate here no +longer than we can help. It’s too hard on old Ma’am Rodney. +She’s just ’bout the color of withered cabbage now, ’long of +me havin’ you.” +</p> + +<p> +While she talked, Mrs. Yellett picked up Mary’s trunk and bags and stowed +them in the back of the buckboard with the ease with which another woman might +handle pasteboard boxes. One or two of the male Rodneys offered to help, but +she waved them aside and lashed the luggage to the buckboard, handling the +ropes with the skill of an old sailor. The entire Rodney family and the suitors +of Eudora assembled to witness the departure. “It’s a heap friendly +of you to fret so,” was the parting stab of Sarah Yellett to Sally +Rodney; and she swung the backboard about, cleared the cactus stumps in the +Rodney door-yard, and gained the mountain-road. +</p> + +<p> +“Ai-yi!” said old Sally. “What’s this country +comin’ to?” +</p> + +<p> +“A few more women, thank God!” remarked Ira. Eudora had just +snubbed him, and he put a wealth of meaning into his look after the vanishing +buckboard. +</p> + +<p> +The night was magnificent. From horizon to horizon the sky was sown with +quivering points of light. Each straggling clump of sage-brush, rocky ledge, +and bowlder borrowed a beauty not its own from the yellow radiance of the +stars. +</p> + +<p> +They had gone a good two miles before Mary’s patroness broke the silence +with, “Nothing plumb stampedes my temper like that Rodney +outfit—old Sally buckin’ an’ pitchin’ in her +rockin’-chair same as if she was breakin’ a bronco, an’ that +Eudory always corallin’, deceivin’, and jiltin’ one outfit of +men after another. If she was a daughter of mine, I’d medjure her length +across my knee, full growed and courted though she is. The only one of the +outfit that’s wuth while is Judith, an’ she ain’t old woman +Rodney’s girl, neither. You hyeard that already, did you? Well, this yere +country may be lackin’ in population, but it’s handy as a +sewin’-circle in distributin’ news.” +</p> + +<p> +Mary mentioned Leander. “Yes,” answered Mrs. Yellett, reflectively, +“Leander’s mouth do run about eight and a half octaves. Sometimes I +don’t blame his wife for bangin’ down the lid.” +</p> + +<p> +They talked of Jim Rodney’s troubles, and the growing hatred between +sheep and cattle men, because of range rights. +</p> + +<p> +“Now that pore Jim had a heap of good citizen in him, before that +pestiferous cattle outfit druv’ his sheep over the cliff. Relations +’twixt sheep and cattle men in this yere country is strained beyant the +goin’-back place, I can tell you. My pistol-eye ’ain’t had a +wink of sleep for nigh on eighteen months, an’ is broke to wakefulness +same as a teethin’ babe. +</p> + +<p> +“Jim was wild as a coyote ’fore he marries that girl. She come all +the way from Topeka, Kansas, thinking she was goin’ to find a respectable +home, and when she come out hyear and found the place was a dance-hall, she +cried all the time. She didn’t add none to the hilarity of the place. +An’ one day Jim he strolled in, an’ seem’ the girl +a-cryin’ like a freshet and wishin’ she was dead, he inquired the +cause. She told him how that old harpy wrote her, an’, bein’ an +orphant, she come out thinkin’ she was goin’ to a respectable place +as waitress, an’ Jim he ’lowed it was a case for the law. He was a +little shy of twenty at the time, just a young cockerel ’bout +br’ilin’ size. Some of the old hangers-on ’bout the place +they see a heap of fun in Jim’s takin’ on ’bout the girl, he +bein’ that young that he had scarce growed a pair of spurs yet. An’ +one of ’em says to him,’ Sonny, if you’re afeerd that this +yere corral is onjurious to the young lady’s morals, we’ll call in +the gospel sharp, if you’ll stand for the brand.’ Now Jim +hadn’t a cent, nor no callin’, nor a prospect to his back, but he +struts up to the man that was doin’ the talkin’, game as a bantam, +an’ he says, ‘The lady ain’t rakin’ in anythin’ +but a lettle white chip, in takin’ me, but if she’s willin’, +here’s my hand.’ +</p> + +<p> +“At which that pore young thing cried harder than ever. Well, Jim he up +an’ marries the girl an’ it turns out fine. He gets a job +herdin’ sheep on shares, an’ she stays with the Rodney outfit till +he saves enough to build a cabin. Things is goin’ with Jim like a prairie +afire. In a few years he acquires a herd of his own, a fine herd, not a scabby +sheep in the bunch. Alida she makes him the best kind of a wife, them kids is +the pride of his life, and then, them cursed cattle-men do for him. Of course, +he takes to rustlin’; I’d do more’n rustle if they’d +touch mine.” +</p> + +<p> +The pair of broncos that Mrs. Yellett was driving humped their backs like cats +as they climbed the steep mountain-road. With her, driving was an exact +science. It was a treat to see her handle the ribbons. Mary asked some trifling +question about the children and it elicited the information that one of the +girls was named Cacta. “Yes,” she said, “I like new names for +children, not old ones that is all frazzled out and folks has suffered +an’ died to. It seems to start ’em fair, like playin’ cards +with a new deck. Cacta’s my oldest daughter, and I named her after the +flowers that blooms all over the desert spite of everything, heat, cold, +an’ rain an’ alkali dust—the cactus blooms right through it +all. Even its own thorns don’t seem to fret it none. I called her plain +Cactus till she was three, and along came a sharp studyin’ the flowers +an’ weeds out here, and he ’lowed that Cactus was a boy’s +name an’ Cacta was for girls—called it a <i>fee</i>minin tarnation, or +somethin’ like that, so we changed it. My second daughter +’ain’t got quite so much of a name. She’s called Clematis. +That holds its own out here pretty well, ’long by the willows on the +creek. Paw ’lowed he was terrible afraid that I’d name the youngest +girl Sage-brush, so he spoke to call her Lessie Viola, an’ I giv’ +in. The boys is all plain named, Ben, Jack, and Ned. Paw wouldn’t hear of +a fancy brand bein’ run onto ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +The temperature fell perceptibly as they climbed the heights, and the air had +the heady quality of wine. It was awesome, this entering into the great company +of the mountains. Presently Mary caught the glimmer of something white against +the dark background of the hills. It gleamed like a snow-bank, though they were +far below the snow-line on the mountain-side they were climbing. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, here be camp,” announced Mrs. Yellett. What Mary had taken +for a bank of snow was a huge, canvas-covered wagon. Several dogs ran down to +greet the buckboard, barking a welcome. In the background was a shadowy group, +huge of stature, making its way down the mountain-path. “And here’s +all the children come to meet teacher.” Mrs. Yellett’s tone was +tenderly maternal, as if it was something of a feat for the children to walk +down the mountain-path to meet their teacher. But Mary, straining her eyes to +catch a glimpse of her little pupils, could discover nothing but a group of +persons that seemed to be the sole survivors of some titanic race. Not one +among them but seemed to have reached the high-water mark of six feet. Was it +an optical illusion, a hallucination born of the wonderful starlight? Or were +they as huge as they seemed? The young men looked giants, the girls as if they +had wandered out of the first chapters of Genesis. Their mother introduced +them. They all had huge, warm, perspiring hands, with grips like bears. Mary +looked about for a house into which she could escape to gather her scattered +faculties, but the starlight, yellow and luminous, revealed none. There was the +huge covered wagon that she had taken for a snow-bank, there was a small tent, +there were two light wagons, there were dogs innumerable, but there was no sign +of a house. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you think of it?” inquired Mrs. Yellett, smilingly, +anticipating a favorable answer. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s almost too beautiful to leave.” Mary innocently +supposed that Mrs. Yellett referred to the starlit landscape. “But +I’m so tired, Mrs. Yellett, and so glad to get to a real home at last, +that I’m going to ask if you will not show me the way to the house so +that I may go to bed right away.” +</p> + +<p> +This apparently reasonable request was greeted by a fine chorus of titanic +laughter from Mary’s pupils. Mrs. Yellett waved her hand over the +surrounding landscape in comprehensive gesture. +</p> + +<p> +“Ain’t all this large enough for you?” she asked, gayly. +</p> + +<p> +“You mean the mountains? They’re wonderful. But—I really +think I’d like to go in the house.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shore hope you ain’t figgerin’ on goin’ into no +house, ’cause there ain’t no house to go into.” She laughed +merrily, as if the idea of such an effete luxury as a house were amusing. +“This yere family ’ain’t ever had a house—it +camps.” +</p> + +<p> +Mary gasped. The real meaning of words no longer had the power of making an +impression on her. If Mrs. Yellett had announced that they were in the habit of +sleeping in the moon, it would not have surprised her. +</p> + +<p> +“If you are tired, an’ want to go to bed, you can shuck off and lie +down any time. Ben, Jack, Ned, go an’ set with paw in the tent while the +gov’ment gets ready for bed. Cacta and Clem, you help me with them +quilts.” +</p> + +<p> +Mary stood helpless in the wilderness while quilts and pillows were fetched +somewhere from the adjacent scenery, and Mrs. Yellett asked her, with the +gravity of a Pullman porter interrogating a passenger as to the location of +head and foot, if she liked to sleep “light or dark.” She chose +“dark” at random, hating to display her ignorance of the +alternatives, with the happy result that her bed was made up to leeward of the +great sheep-wagon, in a nice little corner of the State of Wyoming. Mary was +grateful that she had chosen dark. +</p> + +<p> +As she dozed off, she was reminded of a certain magazine illustration that +Archie had pinned over his bed after the aunts had given a grudging consent to +this westward journey. There was a line beneath the pictorial decoy which read: +“Ranch Life in the New West.” And there were piazzas with fringed +Mexican hammocks, wild-grass cushions, a tea-table with a samovar, and, last, a +lady in white muslin pouring tea. The stern reality apparently consisted in +scorching alkali plains, with houses of the packing-box school of architecture +at a distance of seventy or eighty miles apart. No ladies in white muslin +poured tea; they garbed themselves in simple gunny-sacking, and their repartee +had an acrid, personal note. But Mary was glad to know that Archie had that +picture, and that he thought of her in such ideal surroundings. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>X.<br /> +On Horse-thief Trail</h2> + +<p> +Judith, on her black mare, Dolly, left the Dax ranch after the mid-day meal to +go in quest of her brother. He had left his comfortable cabin on the Bear +Creek, when he had turned rustler, and moved into the “bad man’s +country,” one of those remote mountain fastnesses that abound in Wyoming +and furnish a natural protection to the fugitive from justice. Judith took the +left fork of the road even as Peter Hamilton had chosen the right, the day she +had watched him gallop towards Kitty Colebrooke with never a glance backward. +Judith strove now to put him and the memory of that day from her mind by +turning towards the open country without a glance in the direction he had +taken. But her thoughts were weary of journeying over that trail that she would +not look towards; in imagination she had travelled it with Peter a hundred +times, saw each dip and turn of the yellow road, each feature of the landscape +as he rode exultant to Kitty, to be turned, tried, taken or left as her mood +should prompt. But Judith was more woman than saint, and in her heart there was +a blending of joy and pain. For she knew—such skill has love in inference +from detail—that the mysterious far-away girl, who was so powerful that +she could have whatever she wanted, even to Peter, loved her own ambitions +better than she did Peter or Peter’s happiness, and that she would not +marry him except as a makeshift. For Miss Colebrooke wrote verses; Peter had a +white-and-gold volume of them that Judith fancied he said his prayers to. +</p> + +<p> +As for Peter himself, he had never been able to explain the magic Kitty had +brewed for him. There was a heady quality in the very ring of her name. His +first glimpse of her, on Class Day, in a white gown and a hat that to his manly +indiscrimination looked as guileless as a sheaf of poppies nodding above the +pale-yellow hair that had the sheen of corn-silk, had been a vision that +stirred in him heroic promptings. He had no difficulty in securing an +introduction. She was a connection of the Wetmores, as was he, though through +opposite sides of the house. In the few minutes’ talk that followed, he +had the disconcerting sensation of being “talked down to.” There +was the indulgent tolerance of the woman of the world to the “nice +boy” about this amazing young woman, who might have been eighteen. +Hamilton had repudiated the very suggestion of being a “nice boy.” +But he felt himself blushing, groping for words, saying stupid things, +supplying every requisite of the “nice boy” as if he were acting +the part. Her chaperon bore her away presently, and he was left with a radiant +impression of corn-silk hair and a complexion that justified Bouguereau’s +mother-of-pearl flesh tints. And when she had tilted the ruffled lace parasol +over her shoulder, so that it framed her head like a fleecy halo, he had seen +that her eyes were green as jade. Withal he had a sense of having acquitted +himself stupidly. +</p> + +<p> +Later, when he ran the gamut of some friends, they had chaffed him on his +hardihood. By Jove! He had nerve to look at her! Didn’t he know she was +“the” Miss Colebrooke? Now Hamilton was absolutely ignorant of Miss +Colebrooke’s right of way to the definite article, but it was +characteristic of him to make no inquiries. On the whole, he found the +situation meeting with a greater number of the artistic requirements than such +situations usually presented. He was still dallying with this pleasant +vagueness of sensation when he picked up a copy of a magazine, and the name +Katherine Colebrooke caught his eye and held it like the flight of a comet. Her +contribution was a sonnet entitled “The Miracle.” As a naïve +emotional confession, “The Miracle” interested him; as a sonnet, he +rent it unmercifully. +</p> + +<p> +Peter was to learn, however, that this sonnet was but a solitary flake in a +poetic fall of more or less magnitude. He rather conspicuously avoided a +reference to her poetry when they met again. To him it was the very least of +her gifts. Her hair, that had the tender yellow of ripening corn, was worthy a +cycle of sonnets, but pray leave the making of them to some one else! By +daylight the jade-colored eyes seemed to shut out the world. The pupils shrank +to pin-points. The green looked deep—as many fathoms as the sea. She was +all Diana by daylight, a huntress, if you will, of the elusive epithet, but +essentially a maiden goddess, who would add no sprightly romance to the +chronicles of Olympus. By lamp-light she suggested quite another divinity. The +pin-points expanded; they burned black, like coals newly breaking into flame. +</p> + +<p> +When Hamilton knew her better, he did not like to think that he had thought her +eighteen at their first meeting. It impugned his judgment as a man of the +world. Young ladies of eighteen could not possibly be contributors of several +years’ standing to the various magazines. Disconcerting scraps of gossip +floated to him. He heard of her as bridesmaid at a famous wedding of six years +back, when she had deflected the admiration from the bride and remained the +central figure of the picture. Her portrait by Sargent had been the sensation +of the Salon when he had been a grubby-faced boy with his nose in a Latin +grammar. An unusual situation was abhorrent to him. That he should marry an +older woman, one, moreover, who had gained her public in a field to which he +had not gained admission, was doubly distasteful by reason of his deference to +the conventional. If she had flirted with him, his midsummer madness would have +evaporated into thin air; but she kept him at arm’s-length, ostensibly +took him seriously, and the boy proposed. +</p> + +<p> +Her rejection of him was a matter of such consummate skill that Hamilton did +not realize the keenness of his disappointment till he was swinging westward +over the prairies. She had confided to him that her work claimed her and that +she must renounce those sweet responsibilities that made the happiness of other +women. It was with the protective mien of one who sought to shield him from an +adverse destiny that she declined his suit. +</p> + +<p> +This had all happened seven years ago. In the mean time he had adjusted his +disappointment to the new life of the West. To say that he had fallen in love +with the situation would be to misrepresent him. But the rôle of lonely +cow-puncher loyally wedded to the thought of his first love was not without +charm to Peter. How long his constancy would have survived the test of +propinquity to a woman of Judith Rodney’s compelling personality, other +things being equal, it would be difficult to hazard a guess. The coming of +Judith from the convent increased the perspective into which Kitty was +retreating. With the vivid plainswoman in the foreground, the pale-haired +writer of verse dwindled almost to reminiscence. But the reverence for the +usual, that made up the underlying motive for so much of Hamilton’s +conduct, presented barriers alongside of which his previous quandary regarding +Miss Colebrooke’s seniority shrank to insignificance. He might marry a +woman older than himself and swallow the grimace of it, but by no conceivable +system of argument could he persuade himself to marry into a family like that +of the Rodneys—the girl herself, for all her beauty and rare womanliness, +a quarter Indian, her father the synonyme for obloquy, her brother a cattle +thief. Hamilton preferred that other men should make the heroic marriages of a +new country. He was prepared to applaud their hardihood of temperament, but in +his own case such a thing was inconceivable. Similar arguments have ensnared +multitudes in the web of caution and provided a rich feast for the arch-spider, +convention, the shrivelled flies dangling in the web conveying no significance, +apparently, beyond that of advertising the system. +</p> + +<p> +When Peter went East, he had expected to find Kitty worn by the pursuit of +epithets, haunted by the phantom of a career, resigned to the slings and arrows +of remorseful spinsterhood. An obvious regret, or, at least, resignation +tempered with remembrance, was the unguent he anticipated at the hands of +Kitty. But alas for sanctuaries built to refuge wounded pride! He found Kitty +the pivot of an adoring coterie, the magazines flowing with the milk and honey +of her verse and she looking younger, if possible, than when he had first known +her. Time, experience, even the pangs of literary parturition had not writ a +single character on that alabaster brow. The very atrophy of the forces of time +which she had accomplished by unknown necromancy seemed to endow her with an +elfin youth, making her seem smaller, more childlike, more radiantly elusive +than when she had worn the poppy hat at Cambridge. +</p> + +<p> +The tan and hardship of the prairie had adjusted the blunder of their ages. +Stark conditions had overdrawn his account perhaps a decade; she retained a +surplus it would be rude to estimate. Her greeting of him was radiant, her +welcome panoplied in words that verged close to inspiration. A woman would have +scented warning instantly, deep feeling and the curled and perfumed phrase +being suspicious cronies and sure to rouse those lightly slumbering watch-dogs, +the feminine wits. But Peter only turned the other cheek. More than once, in +the days that followed, he devoutly thanked his patron saint, caution, that his +relations with Judith had been governed by characteristic prudence. Kitty +admitted him to her coterie, but he had lost nothing of his attitude of grand +Turk towards her verses. The sin be upon the heads of whomever took such things +seriously! The irony of fate that compelled a class poet to punch cows may have +tinctured his judgment. +</p> + +<p> +A telegram recalled him to the ranch and prevented a final leave-taking with +Miss Colebrooke. He made his adieux by letter, and they were frankly regretful. +Miss Colebrooke’s reply mingled sorrow in parting from her old friend +with joy in having found him. Her letter, a masterpiece of phrase-spinning, +presented to Peter the one significant fact that she would not be averse to the +renewal of his suit. In reading her letter he made no allowance for the fact +that the lady had made a fine art of saying things, and that her joy and regret +at their meeting and parting might have been reminiscent of the printed passion +that was so prominent a feature of magazinedom. Her letters—the like of +them he had never seen outside printed volumes of letters that had achieved the +distinction of classics—culminated in the one that Judith had given him +that morning, announcing that unexpectedly she had decided to join the Wetmore +girls and would be glad to see him at the ranch. +</p> + +<p> +That he had flown at her bidding, Judith knew. What she would least have +suspected was that Miss Colebrooke had received her visitor as if his breakneck +ride across the desert had been in the nature of an afternoon call. If Judith, +knowing what she did of this long-drawn-out romance, could have known likewise +of her knight’s chagrin, would she have pitied him? +</p> + +<p> +Ignorant of the recent anticlimax, and with a burden of many heavy thoughts, +Judith was penetrating a world of unleavened desolation. Beneath the scourge of +the noon-day sun the desert lay, stripped of every illusion. Vegetation had +almost ceased, nothing but sun-scorched, dust-choked sage-brush could spring +from such sterility. The fruit of desolation, it gave back to desolation a +quality more melancholy than utter barrenness. Glittering in the sunlight, the +beds of alkali gleamed leper white; above them the agitated air was like the +hot waves that dance and quiver about iron at white heat. From horizon to +horizon the curse of God seemed to have fallen on the land; it was as if, +cursing it, He had forgotten it, and left it as the abomination of desolation. +Judith scarce heeded, her thoughts straying after first one then another of the +group that made up her little world—Peter Hamilton, Kitty Colebrooke, +Jim, his family—thoughts inconsequent as the dancing dust-devils that +whirled over that infinity of space, and, whirling, disappeared and reappeared +at some new corner of the compass. +</p> + +<p> +The trail that she must take to Jim’s camp in the mountain was known to +but few honest men. Fugitives from justice—the grave, impersonal justice +of the law, or the swift justice of the plains—found there an asylum. And +while they sometimes suffered, in death by thirst or hunger, a sentence more +dreadful than the law of the land or the law of the rope would have given them, +the desert, like the sea, seldom gave up her own. It was more than probable +that no woman except Alida Rodney had ever taken that trail before, and +reasonably certain that no woman had ever taken it alone. Dolly, when she saw +the beds of alkali grow more frequent, and that the trails of the range cattle +turned back, sniffed the lack of water in the air, slackened her pace, and +turned an interrogatory ear towards her mistress. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all right, old girl”; the gauntleted hand patted the +satin neck. “We’re in for”—Judith flung her head up and +confronted the infinite desolation yawning to the sky-line—“God +knows what.” +</p> + +<p> +Dolly broke into a light canter; this evidently was not an occasion for +dawdling. There was a touch of business about the way the reins were held that +made the mare settle down to work. But her flying hoofs made little apparent +progress against the space and silence of the desert. Five, ten, fifteen miles +and the curving shoulder of the mountain, that she must cross, still mocked in +the distance. Only the sun moved in that vast world of seemingly immutable +forces. +</p> + +<p> +There was no stoic Sioux in Judith now. The girl that breasted the crests of +the foot-hills shrank in terror from the loneliness and the suggestion of foes +lurking in ambush. The sun dropped behind the mountain, leaving a blood-red +pool in his wake, like fugitive Cain. Already night was sweeping over the earth +from mountain shadows that flowed imperceptibly together like blackened pools. +To the girl following the trail the silence was more dreadful than a chorus of +threatening voices. She listened till the stillness beat at her ears like the +stamping of ten thousand hoofs, then pulled up her horse, and the desert was as +still as the chamber of death. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, Dolly, my dear, a house is the place for women folk when the night +comes—a house, the fire burning clear, the kettle singing, +and—” Dolly whinnied an affirmative without waiting for the picture +to be completed. The wilderness was being gradually swallowed by the shadows, +as deliberately as a snake swallows its victim. They were nearing the +mountains. The hot blasts of air from the desert blew more and more +intermittently. The breeze swept keen from the hills, towering higher and +higher, and Judith breathed deep of the piny fragrance and felt the tension of +things loosen a little. +</p> + +<p> +Whitening cattle bones gleamed from the darkness, tragic reminders of hard +winters and scant pasturage, and Judith, with the Indian superstition that was +in the marrow of her bones, read ghostly warnings in the empty eye-sockets of +the grinning skulls that stared up at her. She dared not think of the dangers +that the looming darkness might conceal, or of what she might find at her +journey’s end, or—“Whoa, Dolly! softly, girl. Is it my +foolish, white-blood nerves, or is some one following?” +</p> + +<p> +The mare had been trained to respond to the slightest touch on her mouth, and +stopped instantly. Judith swayed slightly in the saddle with the heaving of the +sweating horse. The blood beat at her temples, confusing what she actually +heard with what her imagination pictured. She was half-way up a towering spur +of the Wind River when she slid from the saddle, and putting her ear to the +ground listened, Indian fashion. Above the throbbing stillness of the desert +night, that came to her murmurously, like the imprisoned roar of the sea from a +shell, she could hear the regular beat of horse’s hoofs following up the +steep mountain grade. She scrambled up with the desperate nimbleness of a +hunted thing, but when she attempted to vault to the saddle her limbs failed +and she sank clinging to the pommel. Twice she tried and twice the trembling of +her limbs held her captive. With the loss of each moment the beat of the hoofs +on the trail below became more distinct. The very desperation of her plight +kept her clinging to the pommel, incapable of thought, so that when she finally +flung herself to the saddle she was surprised to find herself there. To the +left the trail dropped sharply to a precipice, choked by the close crowding of +many scrub pines. To the right the snow-clad spires of the Wind River kept +their eternal vigil. If she should call aloud for help, these white, still +mountains would echo the anguish of her woman’s cry and give no further +heed to her plight. +</p> + +<p> +The trail had begun to widen. The horse behind her again stumbled, loosening a +stone that rolled with crashes and echoings down to the precipice below. She +took advantage of the widening of the trail to urge Dolly forward. Her impulse +was to put spurs to the mare and run, to take chances with loose stones, a +narrowing trail, and the possibility of Dolly’s stumbling and breaking a +leg; but discretion prompted the showing of a brave front, the pleasantries of +the road, with flight as the last resource of desperation. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly gaining what seemed to be a plateau, she wheeled and waited the coming +of this possible friend or foe. The thudding of hoofs through the inferno of +darkness stopped, as the rider below considered the latest move of the horseman +above. They were so near that Judith could hear the labored breathing of the +sweating horse. The blackness of the night had become a tangible thing. The +towering mountains were one piece with the gaping precipice, the trail, the +scrub pines, the gauntlet on her hand. The horse below resumed its stumbling +gait. Judith crowded Dolly close to the rocky wall. If the chance comrade of +the wilderness should pass her by in the darkness—God speed him! +</p> + +<p> +“What the devil are you blocking the trail for?” sung out a voice +from the darkness. At sound of it Judith’s heart stopped beating. The +voice was Peter Hamilton’s. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>XI.<br /> +The Cabin In The Valley</h2> + +<p> +And Judith, taken unawares by the unexpected turn of things, comforted as a +lost child that is found, told all her feeling for him in the way she called +his name. The easy tenderness of the man awoke; his senses swayed to the magic +of her voice, the mystery of the night, the shadow world in which they two, +’twixt earth and sky, were alone. They rode without speaking. +Peter’s hand sought hers, and all her woman’s terror of the +desolation, her fear of the vague terrors of the dreadful night, spoke in her +answering pressure. It was as if the desert had given them to each other as +they groped through the silent darkness. In the great company of earth, sky, +silence, and this great-hearted woman, Peter grew conscious of a real thrill. +There were depths to life—vast, still depths; this woman’s +unselfish love for him made him realize them. He felt his soul sweeping out on +the great tide of things. Farther and farther it swept; his patron saint, +caution, beckoning frantically from the receding shore, was miles behind. +“Judith!” he said, and he scarce recognized his own voice. +“Judith!” he struggled as a swimmer in a drowning clutch. Then his +patron saint threw him a life-line and he saved the situation. +</p> + +<p> +“Judith!” he said, a third time, and now he knew his voice. It was +the voice of the man who tilted at life picturesquely in a broad-brimmed hat, +who loved his darling griefs and fitted them as a Rembrandt fits its +background. And still, in the same voice, the voice he knew, he said: “I +feel as if we had died and our souls were meeting. You know Aldrich’s +exquisite lines: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Somewhere in desolate, wind-swept space,<br /> + In twilight land—no man’s land—<br /> +Two hurrying shapes met face to face<br /> + And bade each other stand.<br /> +<br /> +“‘And who are you?’ cried one, agape,<br /> + Shuddering in the gloaming light.<br /> +I know not,’ said the other shape,<br /> + ‘I only died last night.’” +</p> + +<p> +“‘I only died last night!’” she repeated the line, +slowly, significantly. In her questioning she forgot the night, the desolation, +the presence of the man. Had she died last night? Had youth, the joy of living, +her infinite capacity for love, had they died when Peter, with the ugly haste +of the man without a nice sense of the time that should elapse between the old +and the new love, had spurred away cheerfully at the beck of another woman? And +now the desert, this earth-mother as she called it, in the Indian way, had +given him back to her, thrown them together as driftwood in the still ocean of +space. She drew a long breath, the breath of one waking from an anguished +dream. A wild, unreasoning gladness woke in her heart, the joy of living swept +her back again to life. She had not died last night, she was riding through the +wilderness with Peter. +</p> + +<p> +“Look!” she whispered. The sky had lost its forbidding blackness. +The sharp notches of the mountains, faintly outlined in white, undulated +through an eternity of space. Venus hung in the west, burning softly as a +shaded lamp. The trail they climbed seemed to end in her pale yellow light. +</p> + +<p> +Peter had saved the situation, but the wild beauty of the night stirred in him +that gift of silvery speech that was ever his tribute to the sex, rather than +the woman. He bent towards Judith. A loosened strand of her hair blew across +his cheek. The breakneck ride to Kitty was already the madness of a dead and +gone incarnation. He pointed to the pale star, and told her it was the omen of +their destiny; the formless blackness through which they had groped was the way +of life, but for such as were not condemned to eternal darkness Venus held high +her lamp and they scaled the heights. +</p> + +<p> +And Judith, listening, found her heart a battle-field of love and hate. +“Were women dogs, that men should play with them in idle moods, caress +them, and fling them out for other toys?” she demanded of herself, even +while the tones of his voice melted her innermost being to thankfulness for +this hour that he was wholly hers. +</p> + +<p> +Gayly, with ready turns of speech and snatches of song, trolled in his musical +barytone, Peter rode through the night, even as he rode through life, a Sir +Knight of the Joyous Heart, unbrushed by the wing of sorrow, loving his pale +griefs for the values they gave the picture. And Judith understood by reason of +that exquisite perception that was hers in all matters pertaining to him, and, +knowing, only loved the more. +</p> + +<p> +Down the valley came the sharp yelp of a coyote, and in a moment the towering +crags had taken it up, the echo repeating it and giving it back to the valley, +where the coyote barked again at the shadow of his voice. The night was full of +the eerie laughter. Peter put a restraining hand on Dolly’s bridle, and, +waiting for the coyote to stop, called Judith’s name, and all the +mountains made music of it. The echo sang the old Hebrew name as if it had been +a psalm. Peter’s voice gave it to the mountains joyously, but the +mountains gave it back in the minor. And Judith was reminded of the soft, +singing syllables that her mother, in the Indian way, had made of her +daughter’s Indian name. The remembrance tugged at her heart. In her joy +at seeing Peter she had forgotten that the errand that had brought her was an +errand of life and death—life and death for her brother! +</p> + +<p> +But Peter’s ready enthusiasms pressed him hard. Surely love-making was +the business of such a night. “Ah, Judith, goddess of the heights, if I +could sing your name like the mountains, would you love me a little?” +</p> + +<p> +For his pains he had a flash of white teeth in a smile that recalled his first +acquaintance with Kitty, the sort of smile one would give to a “nice +boy” when his manœuvres were a trifle obvious. “Not if you sang my +name as the chorus of all the Himalayas and the Rockies and Andes, and with the +fire of all their volcanoes and the beauty of their snows and the strength of +all their hills, for it’s not my way to love a little!” +</p> + +<p> +He bent towards her; to brush her cheek lightly as they rode was but to imply +his appreciation of the scene as a bit of chiaroscuro, the panorama of the +desert night, eternal romance typified by the man and woman scaling the +heights, the goddess of love lighting them on their way by her flaming torch. +But Judith, who said little because she felt much, was in no mood to brook such +dalliance, and, urging the mare sharply, she cantered down the divide at peril +of life and limb. Peter, cursing the heavy-footed beast he rode, came stumbling +after. +</p> + +<p> +Judith rode wildly through the night, leaving Peter laps behind, to beseech, to +prophesy dire happening if she should slip, and to scramble after, as best he +might, on the heavy-footed beast he repudiated, with all his ancestors, as +oxen, to the fourth generation. But the woman kept her pace. She had stern +questions to put to herself, and they were likely to have truer answers if +Peter were elsewhere than riding beside her. Whither was he going? They had met +casually on a trail known to few honest men. It led over a spur of the Wind +River to a sort of no man’s land, the hiding-place of horse and cattle +thieves. She had gone to warn her brother. Could he be going there—She +could not bring herself to finish. +</p> + +<p> +Her heart was divided against itself. Within it were fought again the red and +the white man’s battles, bitterly, and to the finish. And now the white +man, with his open warfare, won, and all her love rose up and scourged her +little faith. She would wait on the trail for Peter, penitent and ashamed. And +while she waited suspicions bred of her Indian blood stirred distrustfully, and +she told herself that her mother’s daughter made a worthy champion of the +ways of white men. Did Hamilton hunt her brother gallowsward, making merry with +her the meantime? He had not even been courteously concerned as to where she +was going when they met on the divide. They had met and ridden together as +casually as if it had been the most natural thing for them both to be taking +the horse-thief trail as a summer evening’s ride. And she had not thought +to wonder at his possible destination, when the man from whom she rode in +terror through the night proved to be Peter, because the lesser question of his +errand had been swallowed up in the greater miracle of his presence. +</p> + +<p> +She was by this time well down the divide. The temperature had risen +perceptibly on the down grade. The heat of the plains had already mingled with +the cool hill air; the heights, where Venus kept her love vigil, were already +past. Judith gave Dolly a breathing spell, herself lounging easily meanwhile. +She knew how to take her ease in the saddle as well as any cow-puncher on the +range. +</p> + +<p> +“The Hayoka has dominion over me,” she mused, with Indian fatalism. +“As well resign myself to sorrow with dignity. Hayoka, +Hayo—ka!” and she began to croon softly a hymn of propitiation to +the Hayoka, the Sioux god of contrariety. According to the legends, he sat +naked and fanned himself in a Dakota blizzard and huddled, shivering, over a +fire in the heat of summer. Likewise the Hayoka cried for joy and laughed for +sorrow. +</p> + +<p> +She remembered how the nuns at Santa Fé had been shocked at her for praying to +Indian gods, and how once she had built a little mound of stones, which was the +Sioux way of making petition, in the shadow of the statue of the Virgin Mary, +and how Sister Angela had scattered the stones and told her to pray instead to +the Blessed Lady. She still prayed to the Blessed Lady every day; but +sometimes, too, she reared little mounds of stones in the desert when she was +very sad and the kinship between her and the dead gods of her mother’s +people seemed the closer for their common sorrow. +</p> + +<p> +Peter, coming up with a much-blown horse, found her still chanting the Indian +song. +</p> + +<p> +“Sing him a verse for me, Judith. Heaven knows I need something to +straighten out my infernal luck. Tell the Hayoka that I’m a good fellow +and need only half a chance. Tell him to prosper my present venture.” +</p> + +<p> +She had begun to chant the invocation, then stopped suddenly. “I must +not; you know I am a Catholic.” Suspicion that had been scotched, not +killed, raised its head. “What was his present venture?” Her eye +had not changed in expression, nor a tone of her voice, but in her heart was a +sickening distrust for all things. +</p> + +<p> +A belated moon had come up. The level plain, on which their horses threw +grotesque, elongated shadows, was flooded with honey-colored light. Each +straggling clump of sage-brush, whitening bone and bowlder, gleamed mysterious, +ghostly in the radiant flood-tide. They seemed to be riding through a world +that had no kinship with that black, formless void through which they had +groped but yet a little while. Then darkness had been upon the face of the +deep. Now there was a miracle of light such as only the desert, in its +desolation, knows. To Judith, with a soul attuned to every passing expression +of nature, there was significance in this transition from darkness to light. +The sudden radiance was emblematic of her belated perception, coming as it did +after a blindness so dense as to appear almost wilful. Her mind was busy with a +multitude of schemes. Fool though she had been, she would not be the instrument +of her brother’s undoing. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve come too far,” she cried, in sudden dismay. “I +should have stopped at the foot of the divide. I’ve never been over the +trail before.” +</p> + +<p> +“You foolish child, why should you stop in the middle of the +wilderness?” +</p> + +<p> +She wheeled the mare about and faced him, a figure of graven resolution. +</p> + +<p> +“I promised to meet Tom Lorimer there—now you know.” +</p> + +<p> +With which she cracked Dolly sharply with her heel and began to retrace her way +over the trail. Peter turned his horse and followed, with the feeling of utter +helplessness that a man has when confronted with the granite obstinacy of +women. Judith had meanwhile expected that the announcement of her mythical +appointment with Tom Lorimer would be received differently. Tom Lorimer’s +reputation was of the worst. An Eastern man formerly, an absconder from +justice, rumor was busy with tales of ungodly merrymaking that went on at his +ranch, where no woman went except painted wisps from the dance-halls. But Peter +was too loyal a friend, despite his shortcomings as a lover, to see in +Judith’s statement anything more than a sisterly devotion so deeply +unselfish that it failed to take into account the danger to which she subjected +herself. +</p> + +<p> +However, it was plainly his duty to prevent an unprotected rendezvous with +Lorimer, to reason, to plead, and, if he should fail to bring her to a +reasonable frame of mind, to go with her, come what would of the result. There +were reasons innumerable why he, a cattle-man, should avoid the appearance of +dealing with the sheep faction, he reflected, grimly. Lorimer owned sheep, many +thousand head. His herds had been allowed to graze unmolested, while smaller +owners, like Jim Rodney, had been crowded out because his influence, +politically, was a thing to be reckoned with. So Peter followed Judith, +pleading Judith’s cause; she did not understand, he told her, what she +was doing; and while perhaps there was not another man in the country who would +not honor her unselfishness in coming to him, Lorimer’s chivalry was not +a thing to be reckoned with, drunken beast that he was. And Judith, worn with +the struggle, tried beyond measure, made reckless by the daily infusion of +ill-fortune, pulled up the mare and laughed unpleasantly. +</p> + +<p> +“You think I’m going to see Lorimer about Jim? I’m going with +him to a merrymaking. We’re old pals, Lorimer and I.” +</p> + +<p> +“Judith, dear, has it come to this, that you not only distrust an old +friend, but that you try to degrade yourself to hide from him the fact that you +are going to your brother’s? You’ve never spoken to Lorimer. I +heard him say, not a week ago, that he had never succeeded in making you +recognize him. You deceived me at first when you spoke of meeting him—I +thought you had a message from Jim—but this talk of merrymaking is +beneath you.” He shrugged his shoulders in disgust. He felt the torrent +of grief that rent her. No sob escaped her lips; there was no convulsive +movement of shoulder. She rode beside him, still as the desert before the +sand-storm breaks, her soul seared with white-hot iron that knows no saving +grace of sob or tear. She rode as Boadicea might have ridden to battle; there +was not a yielding line in her body. But over and over in her woman’s +heart there rang the cry: “I am so tired! If the long night would but +come!” +</p> + +<p> +Peter drew out his watch. “It’s a quarter to eleven. We’ll +have a hard bit of riding to reach Blind Creek before midnight.” +</p> + +<p> +Then he knew as well as she, perhaps better, the route to Jim’s +hiding-place; she had never been there as yet. And if Peter knew, doubtless +every cattle-man in the country knew. What a fool she had been with her talk of +meeting Tom Lorimer! A sense of utter defeat seemed to paralyze her energies. +She felt like a trapped thing that after eluding its pursuers again and again +finds that it has been but running about a corral. Physical weariness was +telling on her. She had been in the saddle since a little past noon and it was +now not far from midnight. And still there was the unanswered question of +Peter’s errand. It was long since either had broken the silence. A +delicious coolness had crept into the air with the approach of midnight. +Judith, breathing deep draughts of it, reminded herself of the stoicism that +was hers by birthright. +</p> + +<p> +“Peter”—her voice lost some of its old ring, but it had a +deeper note—“Peter, we make strange comrades, you and I, in a +stranger world. We meet on Horse-Thief Trail, and there is reason to suppose +that our errands are inimical. You’ve pierced all my little pretences; +you know that I am going to my brother, who is an outlaw—my brother, the +rope for whose hanging is already cut. And yet we have been friends these many +years, and we meet in this world of desolation and weigh each other’s +words, and there is no trust in our hearts. Our little faith is more pitiful +than the cruel errands that bring us. I take it you, too, are going to my +brother’s?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going there to see that you arrive safe and sound, but I had +no intention of going when I left camp. You’ve brought me a good twenty +miles out of my way, not to mention accusing me of ulterior motives. Now, +aren’t you penitent?” He smiled at her, boyish and irresistible. To +Judith it was more reassuring than an oath. “It’s like dogs +fighting over a picked bone; the meat’s all gone. The range is +overworked; it needs a good, long rest.” He turned towards Judith, +speaking slowly. “What you have said is true. We’re friends before +we’re partisans of either faction. I’m on my way to a round-up. +There’s been an unexpected order to fill a beef contract—a thousand +steers. We’re going to furnish five hundred, the XXX two hundred and +fifty, and the “Circle-Star” two hundred and fifty. Men have been +scouring the enemy’s country for days rounding up stragglers. It will go +hard with the rustlers after this round-up, Judith.” +</p> + +<p> +She felt a great wave of penitence and shame sweep over her. She had not +trusted him; in her heart she had nourished hideous suspicions of him, and he +was telling her, quite simply, of the plans of his own faction, trusting her, +as, indeed, he might, but as she never expected to be trusted. +</p> + +<p> +“Peter, do you know that sometimes I think Jim has gone quite mad with +these range troubles. He’s acted strangely ever since his sheep were +driven over the cliff. He’s not been home to Alida and the children since +he has been out of jail, and you know how devoted to them he has always been! +He spends all his time tracking Simpson. Alida wrote me that she expects him +to-night, and I’m going there on the chance.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the devil’s own hole for desolation that he’s +come to.” Peter looked about the cup-shaped valley that was but a +<i>cul-de-sac</i> in the mountains. Its approach was between the high rock walls of a +cañon. Passing between them, the rise of temperature was almost incredible. The +great barrier of mountain-range, that cut it off from the rest of the world, +seemed also to cut it off from light and air. The atmosphere hung lifeless, the +occasional bellow of range-cattle sounded far-off and muffled. Vegetation was +scant, the sage-brush grew close and scrubby, even the brilliant cactus flowers +seemed to have abandoned the valley to its fate. A lone group of dead +cotton-woods grew like sentinels close to the rocky walls. Their twisted +branches, gaunt and bare, writhed upward as if in dumb supplication. There was +about them a something that made Judith come closer to Peter as they passed +them by. The night wind sang in their leafless branches with a long-drawn, +shuddering sigh. The despair of a barren, deserted thing seemed to have settled +on them. +</p> + +<p> +“Those frightful trees, how can Alida stand them?” She looked back. +“Oh, I wish they were cut down!” +</p> + +<p> +Before them was the cabin, its ruined condition pitifully apparent even by +night. It had been deserted ten years before Jim brought his family to it. +Rumor said it was haunted. Grim stories were told of the death of a woman who +had come there with a man, and had not lived to go away with him. The roof of +the adjoining stable had fallen in, the bars of the corral were missing. The +house was dark but for a feeble light that glimmered in one window, the beacon +that had been lighted, night after night, against Jim’s coming. It added +a further note of apprehension, peering through the dark, still valley like a +wakeful, anxious eye, keeping a long and unrewarded vigil. Judith felt the +consummation of the threatening tragedy after her first glimpse of the sentinel +trees. She could not explain, but her heart cried, even as the wind in them had +sung of death. Perhaps her mother’s spirit spoke to her, just as she had +said, on that memorable drive, that the Great Mystery spoke to his people in +the earth, the sky, and the frowning mountains. +</p> + +<p> +“Peter”—she had slid from her horse and was clinging to his +arm—“when it happens, Peter, you will have no part in it?” +</p> + +<p> +“It won’t happen, Judith, if I can help it.” +</p> + +<p> +She kissed his hand as it held the loose reins. +</p> + +<p> +“Lord, I am not worthy!” was the thought in his heart. He sat +graven in the saddle. Sir Knight of the Joyous Heart though he was, the +unsought kiss of trust gifted him with a self-reverence that would not soon +forsake him. +</p> + +<p> +Judith was rapping on the door and calling to Alida not to be frightened. And +presently it was opened. Peter wanted to leave Judith, now that she was safely +at the end of her journey, but she would not hear of it till he had eaten. +</p> + +<p> +“You would have had your comfortable supper five hours ago had you not +been playing cavalier to me all over the wilderness.” And Peter yielded. +</p> + +<p> +Judith busied herself about the kitchen. Her mood of racking apprehension had +disappeared. Indian stoicism had again the guiding hand. She waved Peter from +the fire that she was kindling, as if he were a blundering incompetent. But she +let him slice the bacon and grind the coffee as one lets a child help. Alida +came in, white-faced and anxious over the long absence of her husband, but +conscientiously hospitable nevertheless. Peter noticed that Judith made a +gallant pretence of eating, crumbling her bread and talking the meanwhile. The +pale wife, who had little to say at the best of times, was put to the test to +say anything at all. But, withal, their intent was so genuinely hospitable that +Peter himself could not speak with the pity of it. Accustomed as he was to the +roughness of these frontier cabins, never had he seen a human habitation so +desolate as this. The mud plaster had fallen away from between the logs, +showing cross sections of the melancholy prospect. An atmosphere of tragedy +brooded over the place. Whether from its long period of emptiness, or from the +vaguely hinted murder of the woman who had died there, or whether it took its +character from the prevailing desolation, the cabin in the valley was an +unlovely thing. Nor did the cleanliness, the conscientious making the best of +things, soften the woful aspect of the place. Rather was the appeal the more +poignant to the seeing eye, as the brave makeshift of the self-respecting poor +strikes deeper than the beggar’s whine. The house was bare but for the +few things that Alida could take in the wagon in which they made their flight. +And all through the pinch of poverty and grinning emptiness there was visible +the woman-touch, the brave making the best of nothing, the pitiful preparation +for the coming of the man. Wild roses from the creek bloomed against the +gnarled and weather-warped logs of the walls. Sprays of clematis trailed their +white bridal beauty from cans rescued from the ashes of a camp-fire. But Alida +was a strategist when it came to adorning her home, and the rusty receptacle +was hid beneath trailing green leaves. There was at the window a muslin curtain +that in its starched and ruffled estate was strongly suggestive of a +child’s frock hastily converted into a window drapery. The curtain was +drawn aside that the lamp might shed its beam farther on the way of the +traveller who came not. There was but one other light in the place, a bit of +candle. Alida apologized for the poor light by which they must eat, but she did +not offer to take the lamp from the window. +</p> + +<p> +Peter was no longer Sir Knight of the Joyous Heart as he watched the little, +white-faced woman, who went so often to the door to look towards the road that +entered the valley that she was no longer aware of what she did. He saw her +wide eyes full of fear, the bow of the mouth strained taut with anxiety, her +unconscious fear of him as one of the alien faction, and withal her concern for +his comfort. Judith’s control was far greater, but though she hid it +skilfully, he knew the sorrow that consumed her. +</p> + +<p> +There was a cry from the room beyond, and Judith, snatching up the candle, went +in to the children. All three of them were sleeping cross-ways in one bed, +their small, round arms and legs striking out through the land of dreams as +swimmers breasting the waves. She gave a little cry of delight and +appreciation, and called Peter to look. Little Jim, who had cried in some +passing fear, sat up sleepily. He stretched out his small arms to Peter, whom +he had never seen before. Peter took him, and again he settled to sleep, +apparently assured that he was in friendly hands. +</p> + +<p> +The warm, small body, giving itself with perfect confidence, strongly affected +Peter’s heightened susceptibilities. In the very nature of the situation +he could be no friend to Jim Rodney, yet here in his arms lay Jim +Rodney’s son, loving, trusting him instinctively. Judith noticed that his +face paled beneath its many coats of tan. He was afraid of the little sleeping +boy, afraid that his unaccustomed touch might hurt him, and yet loath to part +with the small burden. Judith took the boy from Peter and placed him between +the two little girls on the bed. +</p> + +<p> +Through the window they could see Alida’s dress glimmering, like a +phantom in the darkness, as she strained her eyes towards the path. Peter hated +to leave the women and children in this desolate place. The night was far +spent. To reach the round-up in season, he could at best snatch a couple of +hours’ sleep and be again in the saddle while the stars still shone. His +saddle and saddle blanket were enough for him. The broad canopy of heaven, the +bosom of mother earth, had given him sound, dreamless sleep these many years. +He bade the women good-night, and made his bed where the cañon gave entrance to +the valley. But sleep was slow to come. Now, in that vague, uncertain world +where we fall through oceans of space, and the waking is the dream, the dream +the waking, Peter caught pale flashes of Kitty’s gold head as she ran and +ran, ever in the pursuit of something, she knew not what. And as she ran hither +and thither, she would turn her head and beckon to Peter, and as he followed he +felt the burden of years come upon him. And then he saw Judith’s eyes, +still and grave. He turned and wakened. No, it was not Judith’s eyes, but +the stars above the mountain-tops. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>XII.<br /> +The Round-up</h2> + +<p> +The stars were still shining when Peter Hamilton looked at his watch next +morning, but he sternly fought the temptation to lie another two minutes by +remembering the day’s work before him, and went in search of the horse +that he had not picketed overnight, as the beast required a full belly after +the hard night’s ride he had given him. Peter had rolled out of his +blankets with a keen anticipatory relish for the day ahead. It was well, he +knew, that there was ample work of a definite nature for Peter the cow-puncher; +as for Peter the man, he was singularly at sea. Had Judith Rodney been his +desert comrade all these cheerful years for him to get his first belated +insight into the real Judith only a few little hours back? Or was it, he +wondered, her seeming unconsciousness of him, as she rode brave and sorrowful +through the night, to avert, if might be, her brother’s death—at +all events, to comfort and inspirit the frightened woman and her little +children—that had freshly tinged the friendship he had so long felt for +her? Many were the questions that Peter vaguely put to himself as he started +out for his long day in the saddle; and none of them he answered. Indeed, he +could not satisfactorily explain to himself why he should think of Judith at +all in this way—Judith, whom he had known so long, and upon whom he +counted so securely—Judith, who understood things, and was as good a +comrade as a man. Surely it was a strange thing that he should discover himself +in a sentimental dream of Judith! +</p> + +<p> +For it was in such dreams that Katherine Colebrooke had figured ever since +Peter could remember. For years, indeed—and Judith knew it!—he had +stood, tame and tractable, waiting for Chloe to throw her dainty lariat. But +Chloe had intimated that her graceful fingers were engaged with the inkpot and +her head with schemes for further sonneting. Chloe was becoming famous. To +Peter, who was unmodern, there was little to be gained in arguing against a +state of affairs so crassly absurd as career-getting for women. At such seasons +it behooved sane men to pray for patience rather than the gift of tongues. When +the disheartened fair should weary of the phantom pursuit, then might the man +of patience have his little day. Peter winced at the picture. To the world he +knew that his long waiting on the brink of the bog, while his ambitious lady +floundered after false lights, was, in truth, no more impressive a spectacle +than the anguished squawking of a hen who watches a brood of ducklings, of her +own hatching, try their luck in the pond. +</p> + +<p> +And there was Judith the great-hearted, Judith who was as inspiring as a breath +of hill air, Judith with no thought of careers beyond the loyal doing of her +woman’s part, Judith, trusty and loyal—and Judith with that +accursed family connection! +</p> + +<p> +Peter tightened his cinch and turned his horse westward. The stars had grown +dim in the sky. The world that the night before had seemed to float in a +silvery effulgence looked gray and old. The cabin in the valley flaunted its +wretched squalor, like a beggar seeking alms on the highway. Riding by, Peter +lifted his sombrero. “Sweet dreams, gentle lady!” He dug the rowel +into his horse’s side and began his day at no laggard pace. Nor did he +spare his horse in the miles that lay between him and breakfast. The beast +would have no more work to do that day, when once he reached camp, and Peter +was not in his tenderest mood as he spurred through the gray of the morning. +The pale, chastened world was all his own at this hour. Not a creature was +stirring. The mountains, the valleys, the softly huddled hills slept in the +deep hush that is just before the dawn. He looked about with questioning eyes. +Last night this very road had been a pale silver thread winding from the +mountain crests into a world of dreams. To-day it was but a trail across the +range. “Where are the snows of yester year?” he quoted, with a +certain early-morning grimness. At heart he was half inclined to believe Judith +responsible for the vanished world; Judith, Judith—he was riding away +from her as fast as his horse could gallop, and yet his thoughts perversely +lingered about the cabin in the valley. +</p> + +<p> +After a couple of hours’ hard riding he could dimly make out specks +moving on that huge background of space, and presently his horse neighed and +put fresh spirit into his gait, recognizing his fellows in moving dots on the +vast perspective. And being a beast of some intelligence, for all his +heavy-footed failings, he reasoned that food and rest would soon be his +portion. Peter had no further use for the rowel. +</p> + +<p> +Breakfast was already well under way when he reached camp. The outfit, seated +on saddles in a semicircle about the chuck wagon, ate with that peculiar +combination of haste and skill that doubtless the life of the saddle +counteracts, as digestive troubles are apparently unknown among plainsmen. The +cook, in handing Peter his tin plate, cup, spoon, and black-handled fork, asked +him if “he would take overland trout or Cincinnati chicken, this +morning?” The cook never omitted these jocular inquiries regarding the +various camp names for bacon. He seemed to think that a choice of alias was as +good as a change of menu. There was little talk at breakfast, and that bearing +chiefly on the day’s work. Every one was impatient for an early start. +The horse wrangler had his string waiting, the cook was scouring his iron pots, +saddles were thrown over horses fresh from a long night’s good grazing, +cinches were tightened, slickers and blankets were adjusted, and camp melted +away in a troup of horsemen winding away through the gray of early morning. +</p> + +<p> +The scene of the beef round-up was a mighty plain, affording limitless scope +for handling the cattle of a thousand hills. In the distance rose the first +undulations of the mountains, that might be likened to the surplusage of space +that rolled the length of the sweeping levels, then heaped high to the blue. +The specks in the far distance began to grow as if the screw of a field-glass +were bringing them nearer, turning them into horsemen, bunches of cattle, +“chuck-wagons” of the different outfits, reserves of horses +restrained by temporary rope-corrals, all the equipment of a great round-up. +Dozens of men, multitudes of horses, hordes of cattle—the mighty plain +swallowed all the little, prancing, galloping, bellowing things, and still +looked mighty in its loneliness. Fling a handful of toys from a Noah’s +Ark—if they make such simple toys now—in an ordinary field, and the +little, wooden men, horses and cows, will suggest the round-up in relation to +its background. Men darted hither and thither, yelling shrilly; cows—born +apparently to be leaders—broke from the bunches to which they had been +assigned and started at a clumsy run, followed by kindred susceptible to +example. Cow-punchers, waiting for just such manifestations of individuality, +whirled after them like comets, and soon they were again in the pawing, +heaving, sweltering bunch to which they belonged. +</p> + +<p> +Peter Hamilton, whose particular skill as a cow-puncher lay in that branch of +the profession known as “cutting out,” found that the work of the +rustlers had been carried on with no unsparing hand since the early spring +round-up. Calves bearing the “H L” brand—that claimed by a +company known to be made up of cattle-thieves—followed mothers bearing +almost every brand that grazed herds in that part of the State. The Wetmore +outfit, that used a “W” enclosed in a square, were apparently the +heaviest losers. The cows and calves were herded at the right of the plain, +convenient to the branding-pen, the steers well away to the opposite side. As +Peter drove a “W-square” cow, followed by a little, white-faced +calf, whose brand had plainly been tampered with, he heard one of his +associates say: +</p> + +<p> +“There’s nothing small about the ‘H L’ except their +methods.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s ‘H L’ stand for, anyway?” the other +cow-puncher asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Hell, or, How Long; depends whether you’re with ’em or +again ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +Peter wheeled from the men and headed for the bunch he was cutting out. He +fancied that the man had looked at him strangely as he offered a choice of +meanings for the “H L”—and yet he could not have known that +Peter had gone to Rodney’s cabin last night. He flung himself heart and +soul into his work, dashing full tilt at the snorting, stamping bedlam, +enveloped in clouds of dust that dimmed the very daylight. Calves bleated +piteously as they were jammed in the thickening pack. Peter shouted, swung the +rope right and left, thinning the bunch about him, and a second later emerged, +driving before him a cow, followed by a calf. These were turned over to +cow-boys waiting for them. Time after time Hamilton returned to that mass of +unconscious power, that with a single rush could have annihilated the little +band of horsemen that handled them with the skill of a dealer shuffling, +cutting, dealing a pack of cards. +</p> + +<p> +To the left were the steers, pawing and tearing up the earth in a very ecstasy +of impotent fury. Picture the giant propeller of an ocean liner thrashing about +in the sands of the desert and you will have an approximate knowledge of the +dust raised by a thousand steers. Their long-drawn, shrieking bellow had a +sinister note. Horns, hoofs, tails beat the air, their bloodshot eyes looked +menacingly in every direction; but a handful of cow-boys kept them in check, +circling round and round them on ponies who did their work without waiting for +quirt or rowel. +</p> + +<p> +The noonday sun looked down upon a scene that to the eye unskilled in these +things was as confusion worse confounded. Cow-boys dashed from nowhere in +particular and did amazing things with a bit of rope, sending it through the +air with snaky undulations after flying cattle. The rope, taking on lifelike +coils, would pursue the flying beast like an aerial reptile, then the noose +would fall true, and the thing was done. A second later a couple of cow-boys +would be examining the disputed brand on the prone animal. +</p> + +<p> +The smell of burning flesh and hair rose from the branding-pen and mingled with +the stench of the herds in one noisome compound. The yells of the cow-punchers, +each having its different bearing on the work in hand, were all but lost in the +dull, steady roar of the cattle, bellowing in a chorus of fear, rage, and pain. +And still the work of sorting, branding, cutting-out, went steadily on. Though +an outsider would not have perceived it, the work was as crisp-cut and exact in +its methods as the work in a counting-house. One of the cow-boys, in hot +pursuit of a fractious heifer, encountered a gopher-hole, and horse and rider +were down in a heap. In a second a dozen helping hands were dragging him from +under the horse. He limped painfully, but stooped to examine his horse. The +beast had broken a leg, and turned on the man eyes almost human in their pain. +</p> + +<p> +“Bob, Bob!” The cow-puncher went down on his knees and put his arms +about the neck of his pet. “My God!” he said, “me and Bob was +just like brothers. Everybody knowed that.” He uncinched the saddle with +clumsy tenderness; not a man thought a whit less of him because he could not +see well at the moment. He turned his head away, that he might not see the +well-aimed shot that would release his pet from pain. Then he limped away after +another horse—it was all in the day’s work. +</p> + +<p> +The beef contract called for a thousand steers, four and five years old, and +these having been well and duly counted, and some dozen extra head added in +case of accident, they were immediately started on the trail, as they could +accomplish some seven or eight miles before being bedded down for the night. +Hamilton, who had crossed to the beef side of the round-up to have a necessary +word with the “Circle-Star” foreman, was amazed to find Simpson +making ready to start with the trail herd. Peter inquired, with a few +expletives, “how long he had been a cow-man, in good and regular +standing?” +</p> + +<p> +“As far as the regularity is concerned, that would be a pretty hard thing +to answer, but he’s had an interest in the ‘XXX’ +since—since—” +</p> + +<p> +“He drove Rodney’s sheep over the cliff?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ain’t you a little hard on the beginning of his cattle career? It +usually goes by a more business-like name, but—” he shrugged his +shoulders—“it’s up to the ‘XXX.’ We +wouldn’t have him help to pull bogged cattle out of a creek.” +</p> + +<p> +The beeves, hidden in a simoom of their own stamping, were gradually being +pressed forward on the trail, a huge pawn, ignorant of its own strength, +manipulated by a handful of men and horses. Its bellowing, like the tuning of a +thousand bass-fiddles, shook the stillness like the long, sullen roar of the +sea, as out of the plain they thundered, to feed the multitude. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, there goes as pretty a bunch of porterhouses as I’d want to +put tooth to. If I get away from here within the next two months, as I’m +expecting, doubtless I’ll meet some of you again with your personality +somewhat obscured by reason of fried onions.” +</p> + +<p> +The foreman of the “Circle-Star” waved his hand after the slowly +moving herd that gradually pressed forward like an army in loose marching +order. Outriders galloped ahead, like darting insects, and pointing the +lumbering mass that trailed its half-mile length at a snail’s-pace. The +great column steadily advanced, checked, turned, led as easily as a child +trails his little steam-cars after him on the nursery floor, and always by the +little force of a handful of men and a few horses. +</p> + +<p> +After supper came general relaxation around the camp-fire. The men, who had all +day been strung to a keen pitch of nervous energy, lounged in loose, +picturesque uncouthness, while each began to unravel his own lively miscellany +of information or invention. There was jest, laughter, spinning of yarns, +singing of songs. As Peter lay in the fire-light, smoking his brier-wood, he +noticed that the man next him spent a great deal of time poring over a letter, +holding it close to the blaze, now at arm’s-length, which was hardly +surprising, considering the penmanship of the more common variety of +<i>billet-doux</i>. The man was plainly disappointed that Peter would not notice or +comment. Finally he folded it up, and with sentimental significance returned it +to the left side pocket of his flannel shirt, and remarked to Peter, +“It’s from her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed,” said Peter, who had not the faintest notion who +“her” could be. “Let me congratulate you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir,” and there was conviction in the cow-puncher’s +tone; “it’s from old man Kinson’s girl, up to the Basin, and +the parson’s goin’ to give us the life sentence soon. A man gets +sick o’ helling it all over creation.” He rolled a cigarette, lit +it, took a puff or two, then turned to Peter, as one whose acquaintance with +the broader side of life entitled him to speak with a certain authority. +“Is it that, or is it that we’re getting on, a little long in the +tooth, logy in our movements?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think we’re just sick of helling it.” Peter looked towards +the star that last night had been the beacon towards which he and Judith had +scaled the heights. “Yes, we get sick of helling it after we’ve +turned thirty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I can’t be making a mistake. If I thought it was because I +was getting on, I’d stampede this here range. It don’t seem fair to +a girl to allow that you’re broke, tamed, and know the way to the corral, +when it’s just that you’re needin’ to go to an old +man’s home.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now this is really love,” said Peter to himself, with interest. +“This is humility.” A sympathetic liking for the self-distrustful +lover surged hot and generous into Peter’s heart, and he continued to +himself: “Now that’s what Judith would appreciate in a man, some +directness, some humility!” Poor Judith! Poor burden-bearer! Who was to +love her as she deserved to be loved, even as old man Kinson’s girl, of +the Basin, was loved? Yet suppose some one did love her in such fashion and she +returned it? It was a picture Peter had never conjured up before. Nonsense! he +was accustomed to think of Judith a great deal, and that was not the way to +think of her. “Dear Judith!” said Peter, half unconsciously to +himself, and looked again at the fellow, who had gone back to his dingy letter +and continued to reread it in the fire-light as if he hoped to extract some +further meaning from the now familiar words. Nature had fitted him out with a +rag-bag assortment of features—the nose of a clown, the eyes of a ferret, +the mouth that hangs agape like a badly hinged door, the mouth of the incessant +talker. And withal, as he lounged in the fire-light, dreamily turning his +love-letter, he had a sort of superphysical beauty, reflected of the glow that +many waters cannot quench. +</p> + +<p> +Costigan, who had led the merriment against Simpson at Mrs. Clark’s +eating-house, was playing “mumbly-peg” with Texas Tyler. They had +been working like Trojans all day at the round-up, but they pitched their +pocket-knives with as keen a zest as school-boys, bickering over points in the +game, accusing each other of cheating, calling on the rest of the company to +umpire some disputed point. +</p> + +<p> +But presently, from the opposite side of the fire, some one began to sing, in a +rich barytone, a dirgelike thing that caught the attention of first one then +another of the men, making them stop their yarning and knife-throwing to +listen. The tune, in its homely power to evoke the image of the ceremonial of +death, was more or less familiar to most of them. There was a conscious funeral +pageantry in the ring of its measured phrases that recalled to many burials of +the dead that had taken place in their widely scattered homes. Mrs. +Barbauld’s hymn, “Flee as a Bird to the Mountain,” are the +words usually sung to the air. +</p> + +<p> +Costigan presently cut across the dirgelike refrain with: “Phwat +th’ divil is ut about that chune that Oi’m thinkin’ +of?” +</p> + +<p> +“This,” said the man with the barytone voice, “is the tune +that Nick Steele saved his neck to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Begorra, that’s ut. I wasn’t there mesilf, but Oi’ve +heard th’ story told more times than Oi’ve years to me +credit.” +</p> + +<p> +“My father was in that necktie party,” spoke up a young +cow-puncher, “and I’ve heard him tell the story scores of times, +and he always wondered why the devil they let Steele off. Never could +understand it after the thing was done. He was talking of it once to a man who +was a sharp on things like mesmerism, and the man called it hypnotic +suggestion. Said that Steele got control of the whole outfit and mesmerized +’em so they couldn’t do a thing to him.” +</p> + +<p> +Several of the men asked for the story, echoes of which had come down through +all the forty years since its happening. And the cow-puncher, lighting a +cigarette, began: +</p> + +<p> +“It was in the good old forty-nine days in California, when gold was +sometimes more plentiful than bread, and women were so scarce that one day when +they found a girl’s shoe on the trail they fitted a gold heel to it and +put it up in camp to worship. But sentiment wasn’t exactly their long +suit, and any little difficulties that cropped up were straightened out by the +vigilance committee—and a rope. One day a saddle, or maybe it was a gun, +that didn’t belong to him, was found among this man Steele’s traps, +and though he swore that some one had put it there for a grudge, the committee +thought that a hemp necktie was the easiest way out of the argument. And this +here Steele party finds himself, at the age of twenty-four, with something like +thirty minutes of life to his credit. He don’t take on none, nor make a +play for mercy, nor try any fancy speech-making. He just waits round, kinder +pale, but seemin’ indifferent, considerin’ it was his funeral that +was impendin’. I’ve heard my father say that he was a tall, slim +boy, with a kind of girlish prettiness, and the committee looked some for +hysterics and they didn’t get none. The noose was made ready and they +told Steele he could have five minutes to pray, if he wanted to, or he could +take it out in cursing, just as he chose. The boy said he felt that he +hadn’t quite all that was coming to him in the way of enjoyment, and that +while he was far from criticising the vigilance committee, he was not +altogether partial to the nature of his demise, and if it was just the same to +them, instead of praying or cursing, he’d take that five minutes for a +song. +</p> + +<p> +“They was agreeable, and he up and steps on the scaffold, what they was +mighty proud of, it bein’ about the only substantial structure the town +could boast. He began to sing that thing you’ve all been listening to, +and he had a voice like water falling light and fine in a pool below. They +crowded up close about the scaffold and listened. The words he put to it were +his own story, just like those old minstrels that you read about, and at the +end of each verse came the chorus, slow and solemn as the moment after +something great has happened. There wasn’t a hangin’-face in the +crowd after he was started. At some time or other every man had heard somebody +he thought a heap of, buried to that tune, and his voice got to workin’ +on their imaginations and turned their hearts to water. I don’t remember +anything but the chorus—that went like this: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘Who’ll weep for me, on the gallows tree,<br /> + As I sway in the wind and swing?<br /> +Is there never a tear to be shed for me,<br /> + As I swing by a hempen string?<br /> +Who’ll weep, who’ll keep<br /> +Watch, as I’m rocked to sleep,<br /> + Rocked by a hempen string?’” +</p> + +<p> +There was a long silence, broken only by the crackle of the logs in the +camp-fire and the night sounds of the lonely plain. The leaping flames showed a +group of thoughtful faces. Finally, Costigan broke the silence with: +</p> + +<p> +“Begorra, ’tis some av thim ’ud be doin’ well to be +lukin’ to their music-lessons about here, Oi’m thinkin’, +afther th’ day’s wurruk.” +</p> + +<p> +The Irishman, with his instinctive loquacity, had expressed what none of the +rest would have considered politic to hint. It was like the giving way of the +pebble that starts the avalanche. Soon they were deep in tales of lynchings. +Peter knew only too well the trend of their talk, the “XXX” men +were feeling the public pulse, as it were. Now, according to the unwritten code +of the plains, lynching was “meet, right, just, and available” for +the cattle-thief. And Peter felt himself false to his creed, false to his +employer, false to himself, in seeking to evade the question. And yet that +pitiful cabin, the white-faced woman running to the door so often that she knew +not what she did, and the little rosy boy, who had put out his arms so +trustfully! Peter broke into their grewsome yarning. “Lord, but +you’re like a lot of old women just come from a funeral!” +</p> + +<p> +“Whin the carpse died hard, and th’ wake was a success.” +Costigan turned over. “Werra, werra, but we’ll be seein’ +fairies the night!” +</p> + +<p> +A “XXX” man turned his head with a deliberate slowness and regarded +Peter with narrowing eyes: “If the subject of cattle-thieves and their +punishment is unpleasant to the gentleman from New York, perhaps he will favor +us with something more cheerful.” It was the same man who had given the +two definitions of the “H L” brand that morning at the round-up. +</p> + +<p> +“Delighted,” said Peter, affecting not to notice the significance +of the man’s remark. “Did you ever hear of the time that Tony +Neville was burned with snow?” +</p> + +<p> +The “XXX” man yawned long and audibly. No one seemed especially +interested in Tony Neville’s having been burned with snow, but Peter +struck out manfully, just in time to head off a man who said that he had seen +Jim Rodney or some one who looked like him, following the trail-herd. +</p> + +<p> +“Once on a time, when it paid to be a cattle-man,” began Peter, +“there was an outfit near Laramie that hailed from the United Kingdom, +every mother’s son of them. A fine, manly lot of fellows, but wedded to +calamity along of their cooks—not the revered range article,” and +Peter waved his hand towards the “W-square” cook, who was one of +the party, “but the pampered ranch article that boasts a real stove, +planted in a real kitchen, the spoiled darling that never has to light a fire +out of wet wood in the rain. +</p> + +<p> +“These unhappy Britons had every species of ill luck that could befall an +outfit, in the way of cooks; they were of every nationality, age, and sex, and +they stole, drank, quarrelled, till the outfit determined to sweep the house +clear of them and do its own cooking. Every man was to have a turn at it for a +week. There was a Scotchman, who gave them something called ‘pease +bannocks,’ three times a day; followed by an Irishman, who breakfasted +them on potatoes and whiskey. There was an Englishman, who had a beef +slaughtered every time he fancied a tenderloin. There was a Welshman, who sang +as he cooked. There were as many different kinds of indigestion as there were +men in the outfit. They would beg to do night-herding, anything to get them +away from that ranch. Finally, when their little tummies got so bad that their +overcoats thickened, or wore through, or whatever happens to stomachs’ +overcoats that are treated unkindly, some one’s maiden aunt sent him a +tract saying that rice was the salvation of the human race, as witness the +Chinese. Whosever turn it was to cook that week determined to try the old +lady’s prescription. Rice was procured, about a peck, I think; and the +man who was cooking, pro tem, put the entire quantity on to boil in a huge +ham-boiler, over a slow fire, as per the directions of the maiden aunt. The +rice seemed to be doing nicely, when some one came in and said that a bunch of +antelope was over on the hills and there was a good chance to get a couple. +Every man got his gun, all but the cook, and he looked at the rice, that +hadn’t done a thing over the slow fire, in a way that would melt your +heart. ‘Just my luck that it should be my week to pot-wrestle when +there’s good hunting right at one’s front door.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Oh, come on,’ some one said. ‘Didn’t +Kellett’s aunt say the rice ought to be cooked over a slow fire? Kellett, +get your aunt’s letter and read the directions for cooking that rice +again.’ +</p> + +<p> +“The cook didn’t need a second invitation, and they got into their +saddles, cook and all, and went for the antelope. +</p> + +<p> +“Now antelope are not like stationary wash-tubs; they move about. And +when that particular outfit arrived at the spot where those antelope were last +seen, they had moved, but the boys found traces of them, and continued on their +trail. They went in the foot-hills and they searched for those antelope all +day. They caught up with old man Hall’s outfit at dinner-time and were +invited to take a bite. Coming home by way of the ‘Circle-Star’ +ranch, Colonel Semmes asked them in to have a mint-julep; the colonel was a +South Carolinian, and he had just succeeded in raising some mint. They had +several—I fear more than several—drinks before leaving for home, +with never a trace of antelope nor a thought of the rice cooking over the slow +fire. The colonel remembered some hard cider that he had, and topping off on +that, they set out. The weather was pretty warm, and on their way home they +experienced some remorse over the hard cider. Now hard cider is an accumulative +drink; it piles up interest like debt or unpaid taxes. And by the time those +Englishmen had turned the little lane leading into their home corral, they saw +a sight that made their sombreros rise. As I have said before, it was hot, +being somewhere in the month of August. Gentlemen, I hardly expect you to +believe me when I say it was snowing on their house, and not on another God +blessed thing in the landscape. +</p> + +<p> +“The blame thing about it was, that every man took the phenomenon to be +his own private view of snakes, or their bibulous equivalent, manifested in +another and more terrifying form. Here was the August sun pouring down on the +plain where their ranch-house was situated; everything in sight hot and dry as +a lime-kiln, grasshoppers chirping in a hot-wave prophecy, and snow covering +the house and the ground, about to what seemed a depth of four inches. Every +one of them felt sensitive about mentioning what he saw to the others. You see, +gentlemen, being unfamiliar with American drinks, and especially old +Massachusetts cider, they merely looked to keep their saddles and no questions +asked. +</p> + +<p> +“But when they got a bit closer the horror increased. Flying right out of +their windows were perfect drifts of snow, banks of it, gentlemen, and the +thermometer up past a hundred. One of the men looked about him and noticed the +pallor on the faces of the rest: +</p> + +<p> +“‘Do you notice anything strange, old chap? These cursed American +drinks!’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Strange!’—the boy he had spoken to was about +eighteen, a nice, red-cheeked English lad out with his uncle learning the +cattle business. ‘Good God!’ the boy said. ‘I’ve always +tried to lead a good life, and here I am a paretic before I’ve come of +age.’ +</p> + +<p> +“They halted their horses and held a consultation. The boss came to the +conclusion that since they had all seen it, there was nothing to do but +continue the investigation and send the details to the ‘Society for +Psychical Research,’ when he got down from his horse and walked towards +the door of the house. At his approach, as if to rebuke his wanton curiosity, a +great blast of snow blew out of the window and got him full in the face. He +howled—the snow was scalding hot. +</p> + +<p> +“Then they remembered the rice.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is that all?” demanded the man who had wanted to talk about +rustling. +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t it enough?” said Peter, who could afford to be +magnanimous, now that he had accomplished his point. +</p> + +<p> +“When I first heard that story, ’bout ten years ago, it ended with +the Britishers riding like hell over to the Wolcott ranch to borrow umbrellas +to keep off the hot rice while they got into the house,” said the man, +still sulky. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the way they tell it to tenderfeet,” and Peter turned +on his heel. The story-telling for the evening was over, the boys got their +blankets and set about making their beds for the night. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>XIII.<br /> +Mary’s First Day In Camp</h2> + +<p> +The first day spent as governess to the family of Yellett reminded Mary +Carmichael of those days mentioned in the opening chapter of Genesis, days +wherein whole geological ages developed and decayed. Any era, geological or +otherwise, she felt might have had its rise, decline, and fall during that +first day spent in a sheep camp. +</p> + +<p> +She awoke to the sound of faint tinklings, and accepted the towering peaks of +the Wind River mountains, with their snowy mantles all shadowy in the whitening +dawn, and the warmer grays of huddling foot-hills, as one receives, without +question, the fantastic visions of sleep. The faint tinkling grew nearer, +mingled with a light pitter patter and a far off baa-ing and bleating; then, as +shadowy as the sheep in dreams, a great flock came winding round the hill; in +and out through the sage-brush they went and came, elusive as the early morning +shadows they moved among. The air was crystalline and sparkling; +creation’s first morning could not have promised more. It would have been +inconsistent in such a place to waken in a house; the desert, that seemed a +lifeless sea, the sheep moving like gray shadows, were all parts of a big, new +world that had no need of houses built by hands. +</p> + +<p> +Ben, oldest of the Brobdingnag tribe, who had greeted Mary’s request to +be directed to “the house” as a bit of dry Eastern humor, led the +herd to pasture. Ben’s right-hand man was “Stump,” the +collie, so named because he had no tail worth mentioning, but otherwise in full +possession of his faculties. Stump was newly broken to his official duties and +authority sat heavily on him. Keenly alert, he flew hither and thither, first +after one straying member of the herd, then another, barking an early morning +roll-call as he went. Two other male Brobdingnags came from some sequestered +spot in the landscape and joined Ben—Mary recognized two more pupils. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Yellett then unrolled the pillow constructed the night previous of such +garments as she had been willing to dispense with, and put them on. The +vastness of her surroundings did not prevent her from locating the minutest +article, and Mary gave her the respectful admiration of a woman who has spent a +great deal of time searching for things in an infinitely smaller space. The +matriarch then called the remaining members of her household +officially—the Misses Yellett accomplished their early morning toilets +with the simplicity of young robins. Only the new governess hung back, but +finally mustered up enough courage to say that if such a thing was possible she +would like to have a bath. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Yellett greeted her request with the amused tolerance of one who has never +given such a trifle a thought. +</p> + +<p> +“The habit of bathing,” she commented, “is shore like +religion: them that observes it wonders how them that neglects it gets +along.” She beckoned Mary to follow, and led the way to a bunch of +willows that grew about a stone’s-throw from the camp. “Here be a +whole creek full of water, if you don’t lack the fortitood. It’s +cold enough to sell for ten cents a glass down to Texas.” +</p> + +<p> +Somewhat dismayed, Mary stepped gingerly into the creek. Its intense cold +numbed her at first, but a second later awoke all her young lustiness, and she +returned to camp in a fine glow of courage to encounter whatever else there +might be of novelty. Mrs. Yellett was preparing breakfast at a sheet-iron +stove, assisted by Cacta and Clematis. +</p> + +<p> +“Your hankering after a bath like this”—she added another +handful of flour to the biscuit dough—“do shore remind me of an +Englishman who come to visit near Laramie in the days of plenty, when steers +had jumped to forty-five. This yere Britisher was exhibit stock, shore enough, +being what’s called a peer of the realm, which means, in his own country, +that he is just nacherally entitled from the start to h’ist his nose +high. +</p> + +<p> +“The outfit he was goin’ to visit wasn’t in the habit of +havin’ peers drop in on them casual, but they aimed to make him feel that +he wasn’t the first of the herd that headed that way by a +quart”—she cut four biscuits with a tin cup, and +resumed—“to which end they rounded up every specimen of canned food +that’s ever come across the Rockies. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Let him ask for “salmon esplinade,” let him ask for +“chicken marine-go,” let him ask for plum-pudding, let him ask for +hair-oil or throat lozengers, this yere outfit calls his bluff,’ says +Billy Ames, who owns the ‘twin star’ outfit and is +anticipatin’ this peer as a guest. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, just as everything is ready, the can-opener, sharp as a razor, +waitin’ to open up such effete luxuries as the peer may demand, Bill Ames +gets called to California by the sickness of his wife. He feels mean about +abandonin’ the peer, but he don’t seem to have no choice, his wife +bein’ one of them women who shares her bad health pretty impartially +round the family. So Billy he departs. But before he goes he expounds to Joplin +Joe, his foreman, the nature of a peer and how his wants is apt to be a heap +fashionable, and that when he asks for anything to grasp the can-opener and run +to the store-house—Cacta, you put on the coffee! +</p> + +<p> +“That peer arrives in the afternoon, and he never makes a request any +more than a corpse. Beyond a marked disposition to herd by himself and to +maintain the greatest possible distance between his own person and a +six-shooter, he don’t vary none from the bulk of tenderfeet. At night, +when all parties retires, and Joplin Joe ponders on them untouched, effete +luxuries in the store-room, and how the can-opener ’ain’t once been +dimmed in the cause of hospitality, it frets him considerable, and he feels he +ain’t doin’ his duty to the absent Billy Ames. +</p> + +<p> +“At sunrise he can stand it no longer. He thunders on the +Britisher’s door with the butt of his six-shooter, calling out: +</p> + +<p> +“‘Peer, peer, be you awake?’ +</p> + +<p> +“The peer allowed he was, though his teeth was rattling like broken +crockery. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Peer, would you relish some “salmon +esplinade”?’ +</p> + +<p> +“The peer allowed he wouldn’t. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Peer, would you relish some “chicken +marine-go”?’ +</p> + +<p> +“The peer allowed he shore wouldn’t, and the crockery rattled +harder than ever. Joplin Joe then tried him on the hair-oil and the throat +lozengers, the peer declining each with thanks. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Peer,’ said Joplin Joe, fair busting with hospitality, +‘is there anything in this Gawd’s world that you do want?’ +</p> + +<p> +“The crockery rattled an interlood, then Joplin Joe made out: +</p> + +<p> +“‘Thanks, very much. I should like a ba-ath’—Clematis, +you see if them biscuits is brownin’. +</p> + +<p> +“Joe he ran to the store-room, and his eye encountered a barrel of +corned-beef. He calls to a couple of cow-punchers, and the first thing you know +that late corned steer is piled onto the prairie and them cow-punchers is +hustling the empty barrel in to the peer. Next they detaches the steps from the +kitchen door, ropes ’em to the barrel and introduces the peer to his +bath. He’s good people all right, and when he sees they calls his bluff +he steps in all right and lets ’em soak him a couple of buckets. This +here move restores all parties to a mutual understanding, and the peer he +bathes in the corned-beef barrel regular durin’ his stay—you see +the habit had cinched him.” +</p> + +<p> +Ned had shot an antelope a day or two previous, and antelope steak, broiled +over a glowing bed of wood coals, with black coffee, stewed dried apples, and +soda biscuit made up what Mary found to be an unexpectedly palatable breakfast. +As camp did not include a cow, no milk or butter was served with meals. +Nevertheless, the hungry tenderfoot was quite content, and missed none of the +appurtenances she had been brought up to believe essential to a civilized meal, +not even the little silver jug that Aunt Martha always insisted came over with +William the Conqueror—Aunt Martha scorned the <i>May-flower</i> contingent as +parvenus. +</p> + +<p> +The family sat on the grass, tailor fashion, and every one helped himself to +what appetite prompted, in a fashion that suggested brilliant gymnastic powers. +To pass a dish to any one, the governess discovered, was construed as an +evidence of mental weakness and eccentricity. The family satisfied its appetite +without assistance or amenities, but with the skill of a troupe of jugglers. +</p> + +<p> +Breakfast was half over when Mrs. Yellett laid down her knife, which she had +handled throughout the meal with masterly efficiency. Mary watched her in +hopeless embarrassment, and wondered if her own timid use of a tin fork could +be construed as an unfriendly comment upon the Yelletts’ more simple and +direct code of table etiquette. +</p> + +<p> +“Land’s sakes! I just felt, all the time we’ve been eating, +we was forgettin’ something. You children ought to remember, I got so +much on my mind.” +</p> + +<p> +All eyes turned anxiously to the cooking-stove, while an expression of frank +regret began to settle over the different faces. The backbone of their +appetites had been broken, and there was something else, perhaps something even +more appetizing, to come. +</p> + +<p> +Interpreting the trend of their glance and expression, up flared Mrs. Yellett, +with as great a show of indignation as if some one had set a match to her +petticoats. +</p> + +<p> +“I declare, I never see such children; no more nacheral feelin’s +than a herd of coyotes; never thinks of a plumb thing but grub. No, make no +mistake about the character of the objec’ we’ve forgot. +’Tain’t sweet pertaters, ’tain’t molasses, +’tain’t corn-bread—it’s paw! It’s your pore old +paw—him settin’ in the tent, forsook and neglected by his own +children.” +</p> + +<p> +All started up to remedy their filial neglect without loss of time, but Mrs. +Yellett waved them back to their places. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t the whole posse of you go after him, like he’d done +something and was to be apprehended. Ben, you go after your father.” +</p> + +<p> +Ben strode over to the little white tent that Mary had noticed glimmering in +the moonlight the preceding evening, and presently emerged, supporting on his +arm a partially paralyzed old man, who might have been Rip Van Winkle in the +worst of tempers. His white hair and beard encircled a shrivelled, hawklike +face, the mouth was sucked back in a toothless eddy that brought tip of nose +and tip of chin into whispering distance, the eyes glittered from behind the +overhanging, ragged brows like those of a hungry animal searching through the +brush for its prey. +</p> + +<p> +“If you’ve done eatin’,” whispered Mrs. Yellett to Miss +Carmichael, “you’d better run on. Paw’s langwidge is simply +awful when we forget to bring him to meals.” Mary ran on. +</p> + +<p> +When, after the lapse of some thirty minutes or so, the stentorian voice of +Mrs. Yellett recalled Mary to camp, she found that the tin breakfast service +had been washed and returned to the mess-box, the beds had been neatly folded +and piled in one of the wagons—in fact, the extremely simple tent-hold, +to coin a word, was in absolute order. It was just 6 A.M., and Mrs. Yellett +thought it high time to begin school. Mary tried to convey to her that the hour +was somewhat unusual, but she seemed to think that for pupils who were +beginning their tasks comparatively late in life it would be impossible to +start sufficiently early in the morning. So at this young and tender hour, with +many misgivings, Mary set about preparing her <i>al fresco</i> class-room. +</p> + +<p> +She chose a nice, flat little piece of the United States, situated in the shade +of the clump of willows that bordered a trickling creek not far from her sylvan +bath-room of the early morning. How she was to sit on the ground all day and +yet preserve a properly pedagogical demeanor was the first question to be +settled. That there was nothing even remotely resembling a chair in camp she +felt reasonably assured, as “paw” was sitting on an inverted +soap-box under a pine-tree, and “paw,” by reason of age and +infirmity, appropriated all luxuries. Mrs. Yellett, with her usual acumen, +grasped the situation. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m figgerin’,” she commented, “that there must +be easier ways of governin’ than sittin’ up like a prairie-dog +while you’re at it.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Yellett took a hurried survey of the camp, lessening the distance between +herself and one of the light wagons with a gait in which grace was entirely +subservient to speed; then, with one capacious wrench of the arms, she loosened +the spring seat from the wagon and bore it to the governess with an artless air +of triumph. It was difficult, under these circumstances, to explain to Mrs. +Yellett that without that symbol of scholastic authority, a desk, the wagon +seat was useless. Nevertheless, Mary set forth, with all her eloquence, the +mission of a desk. Mrs. Yellett was genuinely depressed. Had she imported the +magician without his wand—Aladdin without his lamp? She proposed a +bewildering choice—an inverted wash-tub, two buckets sustaining the +relation of caryatides to a board, the sheet-iron cooking-stove. In an excess +of solicitude she even suggested robbing “paw” of his soap-box. +</p> + +<p> +Mary chose the wash-tub on condition that Mrs. Yellett consented to sacrifice +the handles in the cause of lower education. She felt that an inverted tub that +was likely to see-saw during class hours would tend rather to develop a sense +of humor in her pupils than to contribute to her pedagogical dignity. +</p> + +<p> +The camp, as may already have been inferred, enjoyed a matriarchal form of +government. Its feminine dictator was no exception to the race of autocrats in +that she was not an absolute stranger to the rosy byways of self-indulgence. +There was a strenuous quality in her pleasuring perhaps not inconsistent in one +whose daily tasks included sheep-herding, ditch-digging, varied by irrigating +and shearing in their proper seasons. Under the circumstances, it was not +surprising that her wash-tub bore about the same relationship to her real +duties as does the crochet needle or embroidery hoop to the lives of less +arduously engaged women. It was at once her fad and her relaxation, the dainty +feminine accomplishment with which she whiled away the hours after a busy day +spent with pick and shovel. Of all this Mary was ignorant when she proposed +that Mrs. Yellett saw off the tub-handles in the cause of culture. However, +Mrs. Yellett procured a saw, yet the hand that held it lingered in its descent +on the handles. She contemplated the tub as affectionately as Hamlet regarding +the skull of “Alas, poor Yorick!” +</p> + +<p> +“This,” she observed, “is the only thing about camp that +reminds me I’m a woman. I’d plumb forget it many a time if it +warn’t for this little tub. The identity of a woman is mighty apt to get +mislaid when dooty compels her to assoome the pants cast aside by the nacheral +head of the house in sickness or death. It’s ben six years now since +paw’s done a thing but set ’round and wait for meals.” Mrs. +Yellett sighed laboriously. “Not that I’m holdin’ it agin him +none. When a man sees eighty, it’s time he bedded himself down +comfortable and waited for the nacheral course of events to weed him out. But +when the boys get old enough to tend to herdin’, irrigatin’, and +the work that God A’mighty provided that man might get the chance to +sweat hisself for bread, accordin’ to the Scriptures, I aim to indulge +myself by doin’ a wash of clothes every day, even if I have to take clean +clothes and do ’em over again.” +</p> + +<p> +The poor “gov’ment’s” tender heart could not resist +this presentation of the case. +</p> + +<p> +“We won’t touch the handles, Mrs. Yellett,” she laughed. +“I’m glad you told me you had a personal sentiment for the tub. +There are some things I should feel the same way about—my hoe and rake, +for instance, that I care for my garden with, at home. And that suggests to me, +why not dig two little trenches for the handles and plant the tub? Then I shall +have an even firmer foundation on which to arrange the—the—the +educational miscellany.” +</p> + +<p> +The suggestion of this harmless expedient was gratefully received, and the +“desk” duly implanted, whereupon Mary pathetically sought to +embellish her “class-room” from such scanty materials as happened +to be at hand. A hemstitched bureau scarf that she had tucked in her trunk, in +unquestioning faith in the bureau that was to be part of the ranch equipment, +took the “raw edge,” as it were, off the desk. A bunch of prairie +flowers, flaming cactus blossoms in scarlet and yellow, ox-eyed daisies, white +clematis from the creek, seemed none the less decorative for the tin cup that +held them. Mary grimly told herself that her school was to have refining +influences, even if it had no furniture. +</p> + +<p> +The books, pencils, and paper arranged in decorous little piles, Miss +Carmichael announced to her patroness that school was ready to open. Mrs. +Yellett, who had never heard that “a soft voice is an excellent thing in +woman,” and whose chest-notes were not unlike those of a Durham in +sustained volume of sound, made the valley of the Wind River echo with the +summons of the pupils to school, upon which the teacher herself was overcome by +the absurdity of the situation and had barely time to escape back of the +willows, where she laughed till she cried. +</p> + +<p> +As the pupils trooped obediently to school, Mary noted that they carried no +flowers to their dear teacher, but that Ben, the oldest pupil, twenty-one years +old, six feet four inches in height and deeply saturnine in manner, carried a +six-shooter in his cartridge-belt. The teacher felt that she was the last to +deny a pupil any reasonable palliative of the tedium of class-hours—the +nearness of her own school-days inclined her to leniency in this +particular—but she was hardly prepared to condone a six-shooter, and +confided her fears to Mrs. Yellett, who received them with the indulgent +tolerance a strong-minded woman might extend to the feminine flutter aroused by +a mouse. She explained that Ben did not shoot for “glory,” but to +defend the herd from the casual calls of mountain-lions, bears, and coyotes. +Jack and Ned, who were very nearly as tall as their older brother, carried +similar weapons. Mary prayed that a fraternal spirit might dwell among her +pupils. +</p> + +<p> +The Misses Yellett were hardly less terrifying than their brothers. They had +their father’s fierce, hawklike profile, softened by youth, and the +appalling height and robustness due to the freedom and fresh air of a nomadic +existence. Their costumes might, Mary thought, have been fashioned out of +gunny-sacks by the simple expedient of cutting holes for the head and arms. The +description of the dress worn by the charcoal-burner’s daughter in any +mediaeval novel of modern construction would approximate fairly well the school +toilets of these young lady pupils. The boys wore overalls and flannel shirts, +which, in contrast to the sketchy effects of their sisters’ costumes, +seemed almost modish. Mrs. Yellett then left the “class-room,” +saying she must take Ben’s place with the sheep. +</p> + +<p> +The Brobdingnags, huge of stature, sinister of aspect, deeply distrustful of +the rites in which they were about to participate, closed in about their +teacher. From the pigeon-holes of memory Mary drew forth the academic smile +with which a certain teacher of hers had invariably opened school. The pupils +greeted the academic smile with obvious suspicion. No one smiled in camp. When +anything according with their conception of the humorous happened, they laughed +uproariously. Thus, early in the morning, on his way to breakfast, Ned had +stumbled over an ax and severely cut his head. Every one but Ned saw the point +of this joke immediately, and hearty guffaws testified to their appreciation. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Carmichael took her place behind the upturned tub. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you please be seated?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +The class complied with the instantaneous precision of automata newly greased +and in excellent working order. Their abrupt obedience was disconcerting. Some +one must have been drilling them, thought their anxious teacher, in the art of +simultaneous squatting. The temper of the class respecting scholastic +deportment leaned towards rigidity bordering on self-torture. +</p> + +<p> +Mary made out a roll-call, and by unanimous consent it was agreed to arrange +the class as it then stood, or rather squatted, with the Herculean Ben at the +top, and gradually diminishing in size till it reached the vanishing point with +Cacta, who was ten and the least terrifying of all. +</p> + +<p> +“And now,” ventured the teacher, with the courage of a white +rabbit, “what have you been in the habit of studying?” +</p> + +<p> +Absolute silence on the part of the class, which confronted its questioner +straight as a row of bottles, presenting faces imperturbable as so many +sphinxes. +</p> + +<p> +Other questions met with an equally disheartening response. Miss Carmichael sat +up straight, pushed back the persistent curls from her face, and bent every +energy towards the achievement of a “firm” demeanor. +</p> + +<p> +“Clematis,” said she, wisely selecting perhaps the least formidable +of the class, “I want you to give me some idea of the kind of work you +have been doing, so that we may all be able to understand each other. Now, in +your mathematics, for instance, which of you have finished with your +arithmetic, and which—” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” begged Clematis, somewhat tearful. +</p> + +<p> +“Where are you in your arithmetic? +</p> + +<p> +“Nowhere, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean you have never learned any?” Mary Carmichael shuddered +as she icily put the question. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is that the case with all of you?” +</p> + +<p> +Emphatic nods left no room for doubt. +</p> + +<p> +“Then we’ll leave that for the present. If you will tell me, +Clematis, what kind of work you have been doing in your history and English, we +will get to work on those to-day. What books have you been using?” +</p> + +<p> +Not unnaturally, Clematis, who was emotional and easily impressed, began to +feel as though she were a criminal. She sobbed in a helpless, feminine way. Ben +spoke up, fearsomely, from the top of the class. +</p> + +<p> +“We ’ain’t got no books,” said he, in grim rebuke, as +though to put an end to a profitless discussion. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you wish me to understand,” quavered Mary, “that you have +had no studies—that you—can’t read?—that +you—don’t know—anything?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s it,” said Ben, with the nearest approach to +cheerfulness he had yet manifested. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile there lay on the teacher’s “desk” copies of +Clodd’s <i>Childhood of the World</i>, two of that excellent series of <i>History +Primers</i>, and <i>The Young Geologist</i>, all carefully selected, in the fulness of +Mary’s ignorance, for the little pupils of her imagination. She had +brought no primer, as Mrs. Yellett’s letter had distinctly said that the +youngest child was ten and that all were comparatively advanced in their +studies. More than ever Mary longed to penetrate the mystery of that Irish +linen decoy, for without doubt it was to be her melancholy fate to conduct this +giant band through the alphabet! +</p> + +<p> +Accordingly she wrote out the letters of the alphabet with large simplicity and +a sublime renunciation of flourish. The class received it tepidly. Mary grew +eloquent over its unswerving verities. The class remained lukewarm. The +difference between a and b was a matter of indifference to the house of +Yellett. They regarded their teacher’s strenuous efforts to furnish a key +to the acquirement of the alphabet with the amused superiority of +“grown-ups” watching infant antics with pencil and paper. Meanwhile +her fear of the class increased in proportion as her ability to hold its +attention diminished. The backbone of the school was plainly wilting. The +little scholars, armed to the teeth, no longer sat up straight as tenpins. +After twenty-five minutes of educational experience, satiety bowled them over. +</p> + +<p> +A single glance had convinced Ben that the alphabet was beneath contempt. He +yawned automatically at regular intervals—long, dismal yawns that +threatened to terminate in a howl, the unchecked, primitive type of yawn that +one hears in the cages of the zoological gardens on a dull day. Miss Carmichael +raised interrogatory eyebrows, but she might as well have looked reproof at a +Bengal tiger. +</p> + +<p> +The class was rapidly promoted to c-a-t, cat; but these dizzy intellectual +heights left them cold and dull. Ben began to clean his revolver, and on being +asked why he did not pay attention to his lessons, answered, briefly: +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all d——d foolishness.” +</p> + +<p> +Cacta and Clem were pulling each other’s hair. Mary affected not to see +this sisterly exchange of torture. Ned whittled a stick; and, in chorus, when +their teacher told them that d-o-g spelled dog, they shouted derision, and +affirmed that they had no difficulty in compelling the obedience of Stump even +without this particular bit of erudition. Though Mary had always abhorred +corporal punishment, she began to see arguments in its favor. +</p> + +<p> +With the handleless tub as an elbow-rest the teacher took counsel with herself. +Strategy must be employed with the intellectual conquest of the Brobdingnags. +Summoning all the pedagogical dignity of which she was capable, she asked: +</p> + +<p> +“Boys, don’t you want to know how to read?” +</p> + +<p> +“Noap,” responded the head of the class. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you want to know how to write?” +</p> + +<p> +“Noap.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, my dear boy, what would you do if you left here and went out into +the world, where every one knows these things and your ignorance would be +evident at every turn. What would you do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Slug the whole blamed outfit!” +</p> + +<p> +Mary looked at her watch. School had lasted just forty-five minutes. Had time +become petrified? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>XIV.<br /> +Judith Adjusts The Situation</h2> + +<p> +Mary had been a member of the Yellett household for something over a week, and +the intellectual conquest of her Brobdingnag pupils seemed as hopeless as on +that first day. School seemed to be regarded by them as a sort of neutral +territory, admirably adapted for the settlement of long-standing grudges, the +pleasant exchange of practical jokes, peace and war conferences; also as a mart +of trade, where fire-arms, knives, bear and elk teeth might be swapped with a +greater expenditure of time and conversation than under the maternal eye. +“Teacher,” as she was understood and accepted by the house of +Yellett, undoubtedly filled a long-felt want. Presiding over a school of +six-imp power for a week, however, had humbled Mary to the point of seriously +considering a letter to the home government, meekly asking for return +transportation. But this was before feminine wile had struggled with feminine +vanity, and feminine wile won the day. School still continued to open at six, +from which early and unusual hour it continued, without recess or interruption, +till noon, when dinner pleasantly invaded the scholastic monotony, to the +infinite relief of all parties concerned. +</p> + +<p> +Mary had dismissed her pupils a few minutes before the usual hour, on a +particularly bad day, that she might rally her scattered faculties and present +something of a countenance to the watchful eye of Mrs. Yellett. Every element +of humor had vanished from the situation. The inverted tub was no longer a +theme for merriment in her diary; home-life without a house was no longer a +diverting epigram; she had closed her eyes that she might not see the mountains +in all their grandeur. In her present mood of abject homesickness the +white-capped peaks were part and parcel of the affront. With head sunk in the +palms of her hands, and elbows resting on the inverted tub, Mary presented a +picture of woe, in which the wicked element of comedy was not wholly lacking. +Looking up suddenly, she saw Judith Rodney advancing. The first glimpse of her +put Mary in a more rational mood. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m so glad to see you! Behold my class-room appointments! They +may seem a trifle novel, but, for that matter, so are my pupils,” began +Mary, determining to present the same front to Judith that she had to Mrs. +Yellett. But Judith was not to be put off. She looked into Mary’s eyes +and did not relax her gaze until she was rewarded with an answering twinkle. +Then Mary laughed long and merrily, the first good, hearty laugh since the +beginning of her teaching. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me,” Mary broke out, suddenly, “or the suspense will +kill me, who wrote that lovely letter—on such good quality Irish linen, +too? Snob that I was, it was the letter that did it.” +</p> + +<p> +“So you have your suspicions that it was not a home product?” +</p> + +<p> +“You didn’t do it, did you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no; though I was asked, and so was Miss Wetmore, I believe. Of course +poor Mrs. Yellett had no other recourse, as I suppose you know. I chose to be +disobliging that time, and was sorry for it afterwards—sorry when I heard +about the letter that really went! Do you find the sheep-wagon so very +dreadful?” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought,” laughed Mary, “that it was going to be like a +picture I saw in a magazine, Mexican hammocks, grass cushions, and a lady +pouring tea from a samovar; instead it was the sheep-wagon and ‘Do you +sleep light or dark?’ There is Mrs. Yellett calling us to dinner. Shall I +have a chance to talk to you alone afterwards?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve come all the way from Dax’s to see you,” +explained Judith, with characteristic directness. “We have all the +afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Really!” Mary displayed a flash of school-girl enthusiasm. +“I feel as if I could almost bear the scenery.” +</p> + +<p> +Presumably Judith was a favorite guest of the Yellett household, and not +without reason. She took her place in the circle about the homely, steaming +fare, with an ease and grace that suggested that dining off the ground was an +every-day affair with her, and chairs and tables undreamed-of luxuries. Mary +envied her ready tact. Why could she not meet these people with Judith’s +poise—bring out the best of them, as she did? The boys talked readily and +naturally—there was even a flavor to what they said. As for herself, try +never so conscientiously and she would be confronted by frank amusement or shy +distrust. Even “paw” beamed at Judith appreciatively as he consumed +his meal with infinite, toothless labor. The Spartan family became almost +sprightly under the pleasantly stimulating influence of its guest. +</p> + +<p> +“What kind of basques are they wearing this summer, Judy?” inquired +Mrs. Yellett, regarding her guest’s trim shirt-waist judicially. “I +reckon them loose, meal-sack things must be all the go since you and Miss Mary +both have ’em; but give me a good, tight-fittin’ basque, every +time. How’s any one to know whether you got a figure or not, in a thing +that never hits you anywhere?” questioned the matriarch, not without a +touch of pride anent her own fine proportions. +</p> + +<p> +“You really ought to have a shirt-waist, Mrs. Yellett. You’ve no +idea of the comfort of them, till you’ve worn them.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see but I’ll have to come to it.” Her tone was +frankly regretful, as one who feels obliged to follow the behests of fashion, +yet, in so doing, sacrifices a cherished ideal. Mary Carmichael choked over her +coffee in an abortive attempt to restrain her audible hilarity. Judith, without +a trace of amusement, was discussing materials, cut, and buttons; the +plainswoman had proved herself the better gentlewoman of the two. +</p> + +<p> +“Get me a spotty calico, white, with a red dot, will you, the next time +you’re over to Ervay? Buttons accordin’ to your judgment; but if +you could get some white chiny with a red ring, I think they’d match it +handsome.” She frowned reflectively. “You’re sure one of them +loose, hangy things ’d become me? Then you can bring it over Tuesday, +when you come to the hunt.” +</p> + +<p> +“What hunt?” asked Judith, in all simplicity. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, the wolf-hunt. Peter Hamilton come here three days ago and made +arrangements for ’em all to have supper here after it was done. +’Lowed there was a young Eastern lady in the party, Miss Colebrooke, who +couldn’t wait to meet me. Course you’re goin’, Judy? +You’ve plumb forgot it, or somethin’ happened to the messenger. Who +ever hyeard tell of anythin’ happenin’ in this yere county +’thout you bein’ the very axle of it?” +</p> + +<p> +Judith had not betrayed her chagrin by the least change of countenance. To the +most searching glance every faculty was intent on the shirt-waist with the +ringed buttons. Yet both women felt—by a species of telepathy wholly +feminine—that Judith was deeply wounded. Loyal Sarah Yellett decided that +Hamilton’s guests would get but a scant supper from her if her friend +Judith was to be unfavored with an invitation, while Judith, in her own warm +heart, resented as deeply as Peter’s slight of herself, his tale of Miss +Colebrooke’s impatience to meet Mrs. Yellett. The matriarch’s +dominant personality evoked many a smile even from those most deeply conscious +of her worth; but it wasn’t like Peter to make a spectacle of his +ruggedly honest neighbor. Nevertheless she remarked, coolly: +</p> + +<p> +“I sha’n’t be able to bring your shirt-waist things up +Tuesday, I’m afraid, Mrs. Yellett, but I’ll try to bring them +towards the end of the week.” Then, with a swift change of subject, +“How are the boys getting on with their education, Miss +Carmichael?” +</p> + +<p> +The boys looked at Mary out of the corners of their eyes. Their prowess in the +field of letters had not been publicly discussed before. Mary Carmichael, +emboldened by Judith’s presence, looked at her tormentors with a +judicious glance. +</p> + +<p> +“The girls are doing fairly well,” she replied, suppressing the +mischief in her eyes, “but the boys, poor fellows, I think something must +be the matter with them. Did they ever fall on their heads when they were +babies, Mrs. Yellett?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not more than common. All babies fall on their heads; it’s as +common as colic.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor boys!” said Mary, with a manner that suggested they were +miles away, rather than within a few feet of her. “Poor boys! I’ve +never seen anything like it. They try so hard, too, yet they can make nothing +of work that would be play for a child of three. They must have fallen on their +heads harder than you supposed, Mrs. Yellett.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps their skulls were a heap frailer than I allowed for at the +time,” said Mrs. Yellett, with similar remoteness, yet with a twinkle +that showed Mary she understood the situation. +</p> + +<p> +“An infant’s skull doesn’t stand much knocking about, I +suppose, Mrs. Yellett?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a great deal, if there ain’t plenty of vinegar and brown paper +handy, and I seldom had such fancy fixings in camp. It’s too bad my boys +should be dumb ’n account of a little thing like vinegar and brown +paper.” +</p> + +<p> +“Maw, they be dumb as Injuns,” declared Cacta, preening herself, +while the Messrs. Yellett reapplied themselves to their dinner with +ostentatious interest. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well!” said Mrs. Yellett; “it be a hard blow to me to +know that my sons are lackings; there’s mothers I know as would give vent +to their disapp’inted ambition in ways I’d consider crool to the +absent-minded. Now hearken, the whole outfit of you! Any offspring of mine now +present and forever after holding his peace, who proves feebleminded by the end +of the coming week, takes over all the work, labor, and chores of such +offspring as demonstrates himself in full possession of his faculties, the +matter to be reported on by the gov’ment.” +</p> + +<p> +No sovereign, issuing a proclamation of war, could have assumed a more +formidable mien than Mrs. Yellett, squatting erect on the prairie, crowned by +her rabbit-skin cap. Mary and Judith, with bland, impassive expressions, noted +the effect of the mandate. There was not the faintest symptom of rebellion; +each Brobdingnag accepted the matriarch’s edict without a murmur. +</p> + +<p> +With an air of further meditation on the efficacy of brown paper and vinegar at +the crucial moment, Mrs. Yellett suddenly observed: +</p> + +<p> +“The lacking, like the dog, may be taught to fetch and carry a book; but +to learn it he is unable.” +</p> + +<p> +“Maw, does it say that in the Book of Hiram?” asked Clematis. +</p> + +<p> +“It says that, an’ more, too. It says, ‘The words of the wise +are an expense, but the lovin’ parent don’t grudge +’em.’” +</p> + +<p> +Mary Carmichael had noticed, as her alien presence came to be less of a check +on Mrs. Yellett’s natural medium of expression, that she was much +addicted to a species of quotation with which she impartially adorned her +conversation, pointed family morals, or administered an occasional reproof. +These family aphorisms were sometimes semi-legal, sometimes semi-scriptural in +turn of phrase, and built on a foundation of homely philosophy. They were +ascribed to the “Book of Hiram” and never failed of salutary effect +in the family circle. But the apt quotations that she had just heard piqued +Mary’s curiosity more than before. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you happen to have a copy of the Book of Hiram, Mrs. Yellett?” +she asked, in all innocence, supposing that the ‘homely apothegms were to +be found at the back of some patent-medicine almanac. Judith Rodney listened in +wonder. The question had never before been asked in her hearing. +</p> + +<p> +“I lost mine.” Mrs. Yellett folded her arms and looked at her +questioner with something of a challenging mien. +</p> + +<p> +“What a pity! I’ve been so interested in the quotations I’ve +heard you make from it.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter with ’em?” she demanded, pride and +apprehension equally commingled. +</p> + +<p> +Judith Rodney rushed to the rescue: +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing is the matter with them, Mrs. Yellett,” she said, with her +disarming smile, “except that there is not quite enough to go +around.” +</p> + +<p> +The matriarch had the air of gathering herself together for something really +worth while. Then she tossed off: +</p> + +<p> +“‘’Tain’t always the quality of the grub that confers +the flavor, but sometimes the scarcity thereof.’” +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps it has been the good-fortune of some of us to say a word of praise to +an author, while unconscious of his relationship to the book praised. Mark the +genial glow radiating from every feature of our auditor! How we feel ourselves +anointed with his approval, our good taste and critical faculty how commended! +It is a luxury that goes a long way towards mitigating the discomfitures caused +by the reverse of this unctuous blunder. +</p> + +<p> +“The Book of Hiram,” said Mrs. Yellett, angling for time, “is +a book—it do surprise me that it escapes your notice back East. You ever +heard tell of the Book of Mormon?” +</p> + +<p> +Mary assented. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, the Book of Hiram is like the Book of Mormon, only a heap more +undefiled. The youngest child can read it without asking a single embarrassing +question of its elder, and the oldest sinner can read it without having any +fleshly meditations intrudin’ on his piety.” +</p> + +<p> +The Yellett family had by this time dispersed itself for the afternoon, and the +matriarch and the two girls started in to clear away the meal and wash the +dishes. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the kind of book for me,” continued Mrs. Yellett, +vigorously swishing about in the soapy water. “Story-books don’t +count none with me these days. It’s my opinion that things are snarled up +a whole lot too much in real life without pestering over the anguish of print +folks. Flesh and blood suffering goes without a groan of sympathy from the +on-lookers, while novel characters wade to the neck in compassion. I’ve +pondered on that a whole lot, seem’ a heap of indifference to every-day +calamity, and the way I assay it is like this: print folks has terrible +fanciful layouts given to their griefs and worriments by the authors of their +being. The trimmings to their troubles is mighty attractive. Don’t you +reckon I’d be willin’ to have a spell of trouble if I had a +sweeping black velvet dress to do it in? Yes, indeed, I’d be +willin’ to turn a few of them shades of anguish, ‘gray’s +ashes,’ ‘pale as death,’ and so on, if they’d give me +the dress novel ladies seems to have for them special occasions.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you used to like novels, you know you did, Mrs. Yellett,” +observed Judith Rodney. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I didn’t always entertain these views concernin’ +romance. You wouldn’t believe it, but there was a time when I just +nacherally went careerin’ round enveloped in fantasies. I was young +then—just about the time I married paw. Every novel that was read to me, +I mean that I read”—Mrs. Yellett blushed a deep copper color +through her many coats of tan—“convinced me that I was the heroine +thereof. And, nacherally, I turned over to paw the feachers and characteristics +of the hero in said book I happened to be enjoyin’ at the time. Paw never +knew it, but sometimes he was a dook, and it was plumb hard work. Just about as +hard as ropin’ a mountain-lion an’ sayin’, ‘remember, +you are a sheep from this time henceforth, and trim your action +accordin’.’ I’d say to paw, ‘Let’s walk together +in the gloaming, here in this deserted garden’; and paw would say, +‘Name o’ Gawd, woman, have you lost your mind? It’s plumb +three hundred and fifty miles to the Tivoli beer-garden in Cheyenne, and it +ain’t deserted, either!’ +</p> + +<p> +“Then I’d wring my hands in anguish, same as the Lady Mary, +an’ paw would declare I was locoed. He seemed a heap more nacheral when I +pretended he was ‘Black Ranger, the Pirate King.’ His language came +in handy, and his cartridge-belt and pistol all came in Black Ranger’s +outfit. Yes, it was a heap easier playing he was a pirate than a dook. All this +happened back to Salt Lake, where me an’ paw was married.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Yellett looked towards the mountain-range that separated her from the +Mormon country, and her listeners realized that she was verging perilously +close to confidences. Mary Carmichael, who dreaded missing any detail of the +chronicle that dealt with paw in the rôle of apocryphal duke, hastened to say: +</p> + +<p> +“And you lost your taste for romance, finally?” +</p> + +<p> +“In Salt Lake I was left to myself a whole lot-there was reasons why I +didn’t mingle with the Mormon herd. Paw was mighty attentive to me, but +them was troublous times for paw. I pastures myself with the fleetin’ +figures of romance the endoorin’ time and enjoys myself a heap. When paw +wasn’t a dook or a pirate king, unbeknownst to himself, like as not he +was Sir Marmaduke Trevelyun, or somebody entitled to the same amount of dog. +</p> + +<p> +“’Bout this time a little stranger was due in our midst, and the +woman who came to take care of me was plumb locoed over novels, same as me, +only worse. She just hungered for ’em, same as if she had a longin’ +for something out of season. She brought a batch of them with her in her trunk, +we borrowed her a lot more, some I don’t know how she come by. But they +didn’t have no effect; it was like feedin’ an’ +Injun—you couldn’t strike bottom. She read out of ’em to me +with disastrous results happenin’, an’ that cured me. The brand on +this here book that effected my change of heart was <i>The Bride of the Tomb</i>. I +forget the name of the girl in that romance, but she was in hard luck from the +start. She couldn’t head off the man pursooin’ her, any way she +turned. She’d wheel out of his way cl’ar across country, but +he’d land thar fust an’ wait for her, a smile on his satanine +feachers. +</p> + +<p> +“I got so wrought up along o’ that book, an’ worried as to +the outcome, ’most as bad as the girl. Think of it! An’ me with +only three baby-shirts an’ a flannel petticoat made at the time! Seemed +’s if I couldn’t hustle my meals fast enough, I just hankered so to +know what was goin’ to happen next! I plumb detested the man with the +handsome feachers, same as the girl. Me an’ her felt precisely alike +about him. And when he shut her up in the family vault I just giv’ up +an’ was took then an’ there, an’ me without so much as +finishin’ the flannel petticoat! I never could endure the sight of a +novel since. Perhaps that’s why Ben is so dumb about his books—just +holds a nacheral grudge against ’em along of my havin’ to borrow +slips for him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Has the Book of Hiram anything to say against the habit of novel +reading, Mrs. Yellett?” inquired Judith, demurely. +</p> + +<p> +She paused for a moment. “It’s mighty inconvenient that I should +have mislaid that book, but rounding up my recollections of it, I recall +something like this: ‘Romance is the loco-weed of humanity.’” +</p> + +<p> +“So you don’t approve of the Mormon Bible?” ventured Mary. +</p> + +<p> +“I jest nacherally execrates Mormonism, spoken, printed, or in +action,” she said, with an emphasis that suggested the subject had a +strong personal bearing. “I recall a text from the Book of Hiram touching +on Mormon deportment in particklar an’ human nature at large. It says, +‘Where several women and one man are gathered together for the purpose of +serving the Lord, the man gets the bulk of the service.” +</p> + +<p> +She broke off suddenly, as if she feared she had said too much. +“Judy,” she demanded, “is Mis’ Dax busy with Leander +now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not more than usual,” smiled Judith. +</p> + +<p> +“Jest tell her for me, will you, that I want to hire her husband to do +some herdin’; Leander’s handy, ’n’ can work good +an’ sharp, if he is an infidel. An’ I like to have him over now +an’ then, as you know, Judy. As the Book of Hiram says, ‘It’s +neighborly to ease the check-rein of a gentled husband.’ But you tell him +I don’t want to hear any of his ever-lastin’ fool argufyin’ +’bout religion. Leander ’d stop in the middle of shearin’ a +sheep to argue that Jonah never came out o’ the whale’s belly. I +ain’t no use for infidels, ’less they’re muzzled, which +Leander mos’ generally is.” +</p> + +<p> +With the feeling that there was an excellent though unspoken understanding +between them, the two girls walked together to the top of the path that +wandered away from camp towards a bluff overlooking wave after wave of +foot-hills, lying blue and still like a petrified sea. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m still dying to know who wrote that letter,” begged Mary. +</p> + +<p> +“It was written by a lady who is very anxious to return to Washington, +and she took that means of getting one more vote. Her husband is going to run +for the Senate next term. We hear a good deal of that side of politics, you +know.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was certainly convincing,” remarked the victim of the letter. +“My aunts detected many virtues in the handwriting.” +</p> + +<p> +“But now that you are really here, isn’t it splendid? Mountains are +such good neighbors. They give you their great company and yet leave you your +own little reservations.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I fear I can never feel at home out-of-doors,” Mary announced, +with such a rueful expression that they both smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps, then, it depends on the frame of mind. I’ve had longer +than you to cultivate it.” +</p> + +<p> +Mary looked towards the mountains, serene in their strength. “Awesome as +they are,” she laughed, “they don’t frighten me nearly as +much as Ben and Ned. They are really very difficile, my pupils, and I feel so +ridiculous sitting up back of that tub, teaching them letters and the spelling +of foolish words, when they know things I’ve never dreamed of. The other +day, out of a few scratches in the dust that I should never have given a second +glance, one of them made out that some one’s horses had broken the corral +and one was trailing a rope. Whereupon my pupil got on a horse, went in search +of the strays, and returned them to men going to a round-up. After that, the +spelling of cat didn’t seem quite so much of an achievement as it had +before.” +</p> + +<p> +“But they need the spelling of cat so much more than you need to +understand trail-marks. Why don’t you try a little strategy with them? +Perhaps a bribe, even? It seems to me I remember something in history about the +part played in colonization by the bright-colored bead.” +</p> + +<p> +Sundry wood-cuts from a long-forgotten primer history of the United States came +back to Mary. In that tear-stained, dog-eared volume, all explorers, from +Columbus down to Lewis and Clarke, were unfailingly depicted in the attitude of +salesmen displaying squares of cloth to savages apparently in urgent need of +them. +</p> + +<p> +“How stupid of me not to remember Father Marquette concluding +negotiations with a necklace!” +</p> + +<p> +“Frankly plagiarize the terms of your treaty from Père Marquette, and +there you are!” +</p> + +<p> +“You are so splendid!” said Mary, impulsively, remembering +Judith’s own sorrows and the smiling fortitude with which she kept them +hidden. “You make me feel like a horrid little girl that has been +whining.” +</p> + +<p> +Judith looked towards the mountains a long time without speaking. +</p> + +<p> +“When you know them well, they whisper great things that little folk +can’t take away.” +</p> + +<p> +She turned back towards camp, walking lightly, with head thrown back. Mary +watched her. Yes, the mountains might have admitted her to their company. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>XV.<br /> +The Wolf-hunt</h2> + +<p> +Judith awakened with all the starry infinitude of sky for a canopy. In the +distance loomed the foot-hills, watchful sentinels of her slumbers; and, +sloping gently away from them, rolled the plain, like some smooth, dark sea +flowing deep and silently. Judith, a solitary figure adrift in that still ocean +of space, sat up and watched the stars fade and saw the young day peer +timorously at the world that lay before it. Her mind, refreshed by long hours +of dreamless sleep, turned to the problem of impending things, serenely +contemplative. The passing of many mornings and many peoples had the mountains +seen as the wreathed mists came and went about their brows, and to all who knew +the value of the gift they gave their great company, and to such as could hear, +they told their great secrets. Judith’s prayer was an outflowing of soul +to the great forces about her, a wish to be in harmony with them, to remember +her kinship, to keep some measure of their serenity in the press of burdens. +The way of the Indian was ever her way when circumstance raised no barriers; +the four walls of a house were a prison to her after the days lengthened and +the summer nights grew warm. To the infinite disapproval of that custodian of +propriety, Mrs. Dax, she would make her bed beneath the stars, night after +night, and bathe in the cold, clear waters of the stream that purled from the +white-capped crest of the mountains. +</p> + +<p> +“Nasty Injun ways!” scoffed Leander’s masterful lady, +consciously superior from the intrenchment of her stuffy bedroom, that boasted +crochet-work on the backs of the chairs and a scant lace curtain at its +solitary window. +</p> + +<p> +Judith, going to her favorite pool to bathe, saw that it had shrunk till it +seemed but a fairy well hid among the willows. A quarter of a mile above was +another pool, hidden like a jewel in its case of green, broidered with scarlet +roseberries and white clematis; and towards this she bent her steps, as time +was a-plenty that morning. She kept to the stones of the creek for a pathway, +jumping lightly from those that were moss-grown to those that hid their +nakedness in the dark, velvet shadows of early morning, her white feet touching +the shallow stream like pale gulls that dipped and skimmed. +“Diana’s Pool,” as she called it, was always clear. It lay +half hid beneath a shelving rock, a fount for the tiny, white fall that crooned +and sang as it fell. And here she bathed, as the east flamed where the +mountains blackened against it. Gold halos tipped the clouds, that melted +presently into fiery waves, then burst into one great aureole through which the +sun rode triumphant, and it was day. +</p> + +<p> +She had kept post-office the day before, and it would not be till day after +to-morrow that the squires of the lariat would come again to offer their +hearts, their worldly goods, their complete reformation, if she would only +change her mind. It was all such an old story that she had grown to regard them +with a tenderness almost maternal. But to-day was all her own, and the spirit +of adventure swelled high in her bosom as she thought of what she had planned. +It was warm and close and still in the Dax house as Judith made her way softly +to her own room and began her preparations for the long journey she was to take +afoot. To walk in the abominations devised by the white man for the purpose of +cramping his feet would have been a serious handicap to Judith. The twenty +miles that she would walk before nightfall was no very great undertaking to +her, but it was part of her primitive directness to accomplish it with as +little expenditure of fatigue and comfort as possible. Moreover, who could +steal through the forest in those heeled things without announcing his coming +and frightening the forest folk, and sending them skurrying? And Judith loved +to surprise them and see them busy with their affairs—to creep along in +her soft, elk-hide moccasins and catch their watchful eyes and see the things +that were not for the heavy-booted white man. +</p> + +<p> +She might have inspired Kitty Colebrooke to a sonnet as she stepped out into +the glad morning light, in short skirt and jacket, green-clad as the pines that +girdled the mountains, with a knapsack with rations of bread and meat and the +wherewithal to build a fire should she wander belated. She softly closed the +door, not to awaken Leander and his slumbering lady, and broke into the running +gait that the Indians use on their all-day journeys, the elk-hide moccasins +falling soft as snow-flakes on the trail. Dolly she missed chiefly for her +companionship, for Judith had not the white man’s utter helplessness +without a horse in this country of high altitudes. When she walked she +breathed, carried herself, covered ground like her mother’s people, and +loved the inspiration of it. +</p> + +<p> +The eerie shadows of the desert drew back and hid themselves in the mountains. +The day began with splendid promise—the day of the wolf-hunt, of which no +word had been spoken to her by Peter. She, too, was going hunting, but silently +and unbidden she would steal through the forest and see this mysterious woman +who played fast and loose with Peter, who loved her apparently all the better +for the game she played. What manner of woman could do these things? What +manner of woman could be indifferent to Peter? Judith was consumingly curious +to see. And, apart from this naked and unashamed curiosity, there was the +possibility that at sight of Miss Colebrooke there might come a relaxation of +Peter’s tyrannous hold upon her thoughts, her life, her very +heart’s blood. Would her loyalty bear the test of seeing Peter made a +fool of by a woman she could dismiss with a shrug—a softly speaking +shrew, perhaps, who played a waiting game with her finger on the pulse of +Peter’s prospects? For there was talk of a partnership with the Wetmores. +Or a fool, perhaps, for all her sonneting, for there are men who relish a weak +headpiece as the chiefest ornament of women, especially when its indeterminate +vagaries boast an escape-valve remotely connected with the fine arts. Or a +devil-woman, perhaps—an upright wanton who could think no wrong from very +poverty of temperament, yet kept him dangling. The possibility of Kitty’s +honesty, Judith in her jealousy would not admit. Had she gone to the devil for +him, stood and faced the drift of opinion for his sake, that Judith could have +understood. But what was the spinning of verses to a woman’s portion of +loving and being loved? Even Alida, through all her distracting anxieties, had +in her heart the thrice-blessed leaven, reasoned the woman of the plains, who +might, according to modern standards, be reckoned a trifle primitive in her +psychological deductions. And, withal, Judith was forced to admit that there +was something simple and true about a man who would let a woman make a fool of +him, whoever the woman was. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps with this hunting would end the long reign of Peter as a divinity. +Judith was tired, not in her vigorous young body, because that was strong and +healthful as the hill wind, but tired in heart and mind and life. Her destiny +had not been beautiful or happy before he invaded it, but it had been calm, and +now serenity seemed the worthiest gift of the gods. It was not that she loved +him less, but that she had so long reflected upon him that her imagination was +numb; her thoughts, arid, unfruitful as the desert, turned from him to the +problems that beset her, and from them back to him again, in dull, subconscious +yearning. She could no longer project an anguished consciousness to those +scenes wherein he walked and talked with Kitty. Her Indian fatalism had +intervened. “Life was life,” to be lived or left. And yet she felt +herself a poor creature, one who had lived long on illusion, who had bent her +neck to the yoke of arid unrealities. The pale-haired woman who kept him with +her miserliness of self, who intruded no sombre tragedy of loving, was well +worth a trip across the foot-hills to see. And yet, Judith reflected, it was +the portion of her mother’s daughter to make of loving the whole business +of life, even if she rebelled and fought against it as an accursed destiny. It +was in her inheritance to know and live for the wild thrill of ecstasy in her +pulses, to feel trembling joy and despair and frantic hope, that exacted its +tribute hardly less poignant; as it was, also, to feel a shivering +sensitiveness in regard to the loneliness and bitterness of her life, to have +the same measureless capacity for sorrow that she had for loving, to have a +soul attuned to the tragedy of things, to love the mighty forces about her, to +feel the reflection of all their moods in her heart, and, lastly, it was her +destiny to be the daughter of a half-Sioux and a border adventurer, and to feel +the counter influences of the two races make forever of her heart a +battleground. +</p> + +<p> +Her light feet scarcely touched the ground as she sped swiftly through all the +network of the hills; and more than once her woman’s heart asked the +question, “And, prithee, Judith, if from henceforth you are only to hold +fellowship with the stars and have no part in the ways of men, why do you walk +a day’s journey to catch a glimpse of a pale-haired woman?” +</p> + +<p> +She knew the probable course of the wolf-hunt. She had been on scores of them, +galloped with Peter after the fleeing gray thing that swept along the ground +like the nucleus of a whirling dust-devil. At least she was sure of the place +of their nooning—a limpid stream that ran close to many young pine-trees. +Here was a pause in the rugged ascent, a level space of open green, thick with +buffalo grass. Many times had she been here with Peter, sometimes with many +other people on the chase—sometimes, and these occasions were enshrined +in her memory, each with its own particular halo, with Peter alone; and they +had fished for trout and cooked their supper on the grassy levels. It was in +Judith’s planning to arrive before the hunting-party, to hide among the +thickets of scrub pine that grew along the steep cliffs and overlooked the +grassy level, to take her fill of looking at the pale-haired girl and the +hunters at their merrymaking, and, when she had seen, to steal back across the +trail to the Daxes’. They would not penetrate the thickets where she +meant to hide, and, should they, she was prepared for that contingency, too. +She had brought with her a bright-colored shawl that she would throw over her +head, and with the start of them she could outrun them all, even Peter. Had she +not outdistanced him easily, many times, in fun? Through the tangle of +tree-trunks that grew not far from the thicket, they would think she was but a +poor Shoshone squaw lying in wait for the broken meat of the revellers. +</p> + +<p> +By crossing and recrossing the tiny creeks that trickled slow and obstructed +through the gaunt levels of plain and foot-hill, she had come by a direct route +to the fringes of the pine country. And here she found a world dim, green, and +mysterious. It was wellnigh inconceivable that the land of sage-brush and +silence could, within walking distance of desolation, show such wealth of young +timber, such shade and beauty. Her noiseless footfalls scarce startled a +sage-hen that, realizing too late her presence, froze to the dead stump—a +ruffled gray excrescence with glittering bead eyes that stared at her +furtively, the one live thing in the tense body. +</p> + +<p> +The sun wanted an hour of noon when Judith rested by the stream, bathed her +face and hands, flushed from the long walk, ate the bread and meat, then lay on +the bed of pine-needles, brown and soft from the weathering of many suns and +snows. She had been all day in the company she loved best—the earth, the +sky, the sun and wind—and in her heart at last was a deep tranquillity. +Thus she could face life and ask nothing but to watch the cloud fleeces as they +are spun and heaped high in the long days of summer; in soberer moods to watch +the thoughts of the Great Mystery as He reveals them in the shifting cloud +shapes; to penetrate further and further into the councils of the great forces. +Thus did she dream the moments away till the sun was high in the blue and threw +long, yellow splashes of light on her still body, on the soft pine-needles, +beneath the boughs. But there was no time for further day-dreams if she +intended to forestall the hunters at the place of nooning. She followed a game +trail that lay along the stream, ascending through the dense growths till she +reached the top of the jutting rocks. Her hair was loosened, her skirt awry, +and the pine-needles stood out from it as from a cushion. Much of the way she +gained by creeping beneath the low branches on her hands and knees. No white +woman would be likely to follow her reasoned the daughter of the plains. It +would be a little too hard on her appearance. And here, by lying flat and +hanging over the jutting knob of rock, with a pine branch in her hand, she +could see this mysterious woman and Peter and the hunters. +</p> + +<p> +She broke a branch to shade her face, she looked down on the grassy level. She +waited, but there was no sound of hoofs falling muffled on the soft ground. The +shadows of the pines contended with the splashes of sunlight for the little +world beneath the trees. They trembled in mimic battle, then the shadows stole +the sunlight, bit by bit, till all was pale-green twilight, and there was no +sound of the hunters. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The hunters, meanwhile, had not been altogether successful in the chase. The +necessary wolf had been coy, and they, perforce, had to compromise with his +poor relation, the coyote—a poor relation, indeed, whose shabby coat, +thinned by the process of summer shedding, made it an unworthy souvenir to Miss +Colebrooke. But it was not the lack of a wolf that robbed the hunting-party of +its zest for Kitty. She could not tell what it was, but something seemed to +have gone wrong with the day from the beginning. She rode beside her cavalier +in a habit the like of which the country had never before seen, and Peter, +usually the most observant of men, had no word for its multitude of +perfections. In the first realization of disappointment with the day, the hunt, +the hardships of the long ride, her perturbed consciousness took up the problem +of this missing element and tried to adjust itself to the irritating absence. +Kitty wondered if it were something she had forgotten. No, there were her two +little cambric pocket-handkerchiefs, remotely suggestive of orris, and bearing +her monogram delicately wrought and characteristic. It was not her watch, the +ribbon fob of which fluttered now and then in the breeze. It was not veil nor +scarf-pin nor any of the paraphernalia of the properly garbed horsewoman. And +yet there was something missing, something she should have had with her, +something the absence of which was taking the savor from the day’s +hunting. +</p> + +<p> +It must be the very bigness of this great, splendid world that gave her the +sense of being alone at sea. Intuitively she turned and looked at Peter riding +beside her. There was something in his face that made her look again before +accepting the realization at first incredulously, then with frank amusement. +Peter had scarcely spoken since they left the ranch. She had come down to +breakfast so sure of her new riding-habit. The Wetmore girls had been moved to +hyperboles about its cut and fit and the trim shortness of the +skirt—short riding-skirts were something of a novelty then. The fine gold +hair, twisted tight at the back of the shapely head, was like a coiled mass of +burnished metal, some safe-keeping device of mint or gold-worker till the +season of coining or fashioning should come round. The translucent flesh-tints, +pearl-white flushing into pink—“Bouguereau realized at last,” +as Nannie Wetmore was in the habit of summing up her cousin’s +complexion—was as marvellous as ever. The delicate firmness of profile +gave to the face the artificial perfection of an old miniature, rather than of +a flesh-and-blood countenance, and all these were there as of yore, but the +marvel of them failed of the customary tribute. Kitty, on scanty reflection, +was at no loss to translate Peter’s reserve into a language at once +flattering and retributive. In her scheme of life he was always to be her +devoted cavalier, as indeed he had been from the beginning. She loved her own +small eminence too well to imperil her tenure of it by sharing its pretty view +of men and things with any one. In country house parties she loved the mild +wonder that the successful <i>littérateuse</i> could fight and play and win her social +triumphs so well. She loved the star part, and next to playing it she enjoyed +wresting it from other women or eclipsing them completely in some conspicuously +minor rôle, while, in the matter of dress, Miss Colebrooke went beyond the +point decreed by the most exigent mandates of fashion. When hats were worn over +the face, her admirers had to content themselves with a glimpse of her charming +mouth and chin. When they flared, hers fairly challenged the laws of +equilibrium. She danced with the same facility with which she rode, swam, and +played tennis. In doing these things supremely well she felt that she +vindicated the position of the woman of letters. Why should one be a frump +because one wrote? +</p> + +<p> +Her friendship with Peter was to endure to greenest old age, more platonic, +perhaps, than that of Madame Récamier and Chateaubriand. It was to be fruitful +in letters that would compare favorably with the best of the seventeenth +century series. Even now her own letters to Peter were no sprightly scrawl of +passing events, but efforts whose seriousness suggested, at least in their +carefully elaborated stages of structure, the letters of the ladies of +Cranford. +</p> + +<p> +But in the course of these Western wanderings, undertaken not wholly without +consideration of Peter, there had appeared in the maplike exactness of her +plans an indefinite territory that threatened undreamed-of proportions. It +menaced the scheme of the letters, it shook the foundations of the +Chateaubriand-Récamier friendship. The unknown quantity was none other than the +frequent and irritating mention of one Judith Rodney, who, from all accounts, +appeared a half-breed. Her name, her beauty, some intrinsic charm of +personality made her an all too frequent topic, except in the case of Peter. He +had been singularly keen in scenting any interrogatory venue that led to the +mysterious half-breed; when questioned he persistently refused to exhibit her +as a type. +</p> + +<p> +Kitty knew that she had treated her long-suffering cavalier with scant +consideration the day he had spurred across the desert to see her. True, she +had written him on her arrival, but, with feminine perversity of logic, thought +it a trifle inconsiderate of him to come so soon after that trying railroad +journey. An ardent resumption of his suit—and Peter could be depended on +for renewing it early and often—was farthest from her inclination at that +particular time. She intended to salve her conscience at the wolf-hunt for her +casual reception of his impetuous visit. But apparently Peter did not intend to +be prodigal of opportunity. +</p> + +<p> +“How garrulous you people are this morning!” Nannie Wetmore +challenged them. Peter came out of his brown study with the look of one who has +again returned to earth. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t find it like the drop-curtain of a theatre, now that +you’ve seen it?” he questioned Kitty. For she had doubted her +pleasure in the mountains, in the conviction that they would be too dramatic +for her simple taste. +</p> + +<p> +Kitty closed her eyes and sighted the peaks as if she were getting the color +scheme for an afternoon toilet. +</p> + +<p> +“Mass, bulk, rather than line—no, it’s not like a +drop-curtain, but it’s distinctly ‘hand-painted.’ All it +needs is a stag surveying the prospect from that great cliff. It’s the +kind of thing that would sound well in a description. Oh, I assure you I intend +to make lavish use of it, but it leaves nothing to one’s poor +imagination!” +</p> + +<p> +Peter had a distinct feeling of being annoyed. No, she could not appreciate the +mountains any more than they could appreciate her. They were incongruous, +antipathetic, antipodal. Kitty, in her pink and white and flaxen prettiness and +her trim habit, was in harmony with the bridle-path of a city park; in this +great, lonely country she was an alien. He thought of Judith and the night they +had climbed Horse-Thief Trail, of her quiet endurance, her keen pleasure in the +wild beauty of the night, her quality of companionship, her loyalty, her silent +bearing of many burdens. Yet until he had seen them both against the same +relentless background, he had never been conscious of comparing the two women. +</p> + +<p> +Nannie Wetmore had fallen behind. She was riding with a bronzed young +lieutenant from Fort Washakie. The two ahead rode long without speaking. Then +Peter broke the silence impatiently: +</p> + +<p> +“You did not really mean that, did you?” He was boyishly hurt at +her flippant summing up of his beloved blue country. And Kitty, tired with the +long, hard ride, and missing that something in Peter that had always been hers, +turned on him a pair of blue eyes in which the tears were brimming +suspiciously. They were well out of sight of the others, and had come to the +heavy fringes of a pine wood. Was it the psychological moment at last? Then +suddenly their horses, that had been sniffing the air suspiciously, stopped. +Kitty’s horse, which was in advance of Peter’s, rushed towards the +thicker growth of pines as if all Bedlam were in pursuit. Peter’s horse, +swerving from the cause of alarm, bolted back across the trail over which they +had just made their way. A large brown bear, feeding with her cub, and hidden +by the trees till they were directly in front of her, had caused the alarm. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +And presently the hush of the shadowy green world in which Judith lay was +broken by a light, sobbing sound. It had been so still that, lying on her bed +of pine-needles, she had likened it to great waves of silence, rolling up from +the valley, breaking over her and sweeping back again, noiseless, green from +the billowing ocean of pine branches, and sunlit. Judith bent over the rocky +ledge and saw a girl making her way down the game trail, dishevelled and +tearful. Her hat was gone, her pale-yellow hair, that in shadow had the +greenish tinge of corn-silk, blew about her shoulders, her trim skirt was torn +and dusty, and she looked about, bewildered, hardly realizing that through the +unexpected course of things she had been stranded in this great world of sunlit +splendor and loneliness. She closed her eyes. The awful vastness and solitude +oppressed her with a deepening sense of calamity. Suppose they never found her? +How could she find her way in this endless wilderness, afoot? She sank to the +turf and began to cry hysterically. +</p> + +<p> +Judith knew in a flash of instant cognition that this was Miss Colebrooke. +Amazement seemed to have dulled her powers of action—amazement that she, +who had stolen to this place and crouched close to earth that she might see the +triumph of this preferred woman, and, having seen and paid her grievous dole, +steal away and take up the thread of endless little things that spun for her +the web of life, was forced instead to be an unwilling witness of the +other’s distress. Judith had risen with her first impulse, which had been +to go to Kitty, but half-way through the thicket she hesitated and +reconsidered. Undoubtedly Peter would come soon, and Peter’s consolation +would be more potent than any she could offer. She shrank in shuddering +self-consciousness at the thought of her presence at their meeting, the +uninvited guest, the outgrown friend and confidante, blundering in at such a +time, pitifully full of good intentions. She recoiled from the picture as from +a precipice that all unwittingly she had escaped. What madness had induced her +to come on this expedition? A sudden panic at the possibility of discovery +possessed her; suppose Peter should find her skulking like a beggar, waiting +for broken meats? She looked at the image of herself that she carried in her +heart. It was that of a proud woman who made no moan at the scourge of the +inevitable. Many burdens had she carried in her proud, lonely heart, but of +them her lips gave no sign. In her contemplative stoicism she felt with pride +that she was no unworthy daughter of her mother’s people, and catching a +glimpse through the trees of the abjectly waiting woman who, though safe and +sound, could but wait, wretched and dispirited, for some one to come and adjust +her to the situation, Judith felt for her a wondering pity at her helplessness. +She waited, expectant, for the sound of Peter’s horse. Surely he must +come at any moment, overcome with apologies, and she—Judith hid her face +in her hands at the thought—she would steal away through the thicket at +the first sound of hoofs. But as the minutes slipped by and still no sign of +Peter, a sickening anxiety began to gnaw at her heart. Had something happened +to him? +</p> + +<p> +She did not wait to ask herself the question twice. She crawled the length of +the thicket with incredible rapidity, gained the pine forest, and made her way +beneath the low-hanging boughs; without stopping to protect herself from them +she gained the open space and ran quickly to Kitty. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you hurt? What has happened?” +</p> + +<p> +Kitty looked up, startled at the voice. She had not heard the sound of the +moccasined feet. Her wandering, forlorn thoughts crystallized at sight of the +woman before her. A new lightning leaped into her eyes as she recognized +Judith. There was between them a thrilling consciousness that gave to their +mutual perception a something sharp and fine, that grasped the drama of the +moment with the precision and fidelity of a camera. And through all the wonder +of the meeting there was in the heart of each an outflowing that met and +mingled and understood the potential tragedy element of the situation. +</p> + +<p> +“You are Miss Rodney, I believe?” +</p> + +<p> +Kitty was conscious of something strange in her voice as she looked into the +dark eyes, wide with questioning fear. Ah, but she had amazing beauty, and a +something that seemed of the very essence of deep-souled womanliness! The two +women presented a fine bit of antithesis, Kitty, flower-like, small, delicately +wrought, the finished product of the town, exotic as some rare transplanted +orchid growth. And in Judith there was a gemlike quality: it was in the bloom +of her skin, the iridescent radiance of her hair, that was bluish, like a plum +in sunlight; it was in the warm, red life in her lips, in the pulsing vitality +of the slim, brown throat; in every line was sensuous force restrained by +spiritual passion. +</p> + +<p> +Kitty told of the accident in which her horse had thrown her and disappeared in +the pine fringes, leaving her stunned for a moment or two; and how she had +finally pulled herself together and followed what appeared to be a trail, in +the hope of finding some one. She dwelt long on the details of the accident. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but Peter, what has happened him?” Judith chose her words +impatiently. She was racked with anxiety at his long delay, and now she hung +over Kitty, waiting for her answer, without the semblance of a cloak for her +alarm. +</p> + +<p> +There was reproof in Kitty’s amendment. “I don’t know which +way Mr. Hamilton’s horse went. It started back over the trail, I +think.” +</p> + +<p> +Judith clasped her hands. “Let us go and look for him. Why do we waste +time?” But Kitty hung back. She was shaken from her fall, and upset by +the events of the morning. Besides, her faith in Peter’s ability to cope +with all the exigencies of this country was supreme. And chiefest reason of all +for her not going was a something within her that winced at the thought of this +fellowship that had for its object the quest of Peter. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t you see,” pleaded Judith, “that if something +had not happened to him he would have been here long ago?” +</p> + +<p> +Judith’s anxiety awoke in Kitty a new consciousness. What was she to him, +that at the possibility of harm, a fear not shared by Kitty, she should throw +off a reserve that every line of her face pronounced habitual? In her very +energy of attitude, an energy that all unconsciously communicated itself to +Kitty, there was the power that belongs to all elemental human +emotion—the power that compels. Kitty rose to follow Judith, then +hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure nothing has happened him. No, I’m really too +unstrung by my fall to walk.” She sank again to the bowlder on which she +had been sitting. +</p> + +<p> +To the woman of the world, Judith’s ingenuous display of feeling had in +its very sincerity a something pitiable. How could she strip from her soul +every fold of reserve and stand unloved and unashamed, sanctified, as it were, +by the very hopelessness of her passion? How could women make of their whole +existence a thing to be rejected, reflected Kitty, who, giving nothing, could +not understand. She looked again at the bronzed face beside her, so bold in +outline, so expressive in detail. Yes, she was beautiful, and yet, what had her +beauty availed her? The thought that she herself was the preferred woman +throbbed through her for a moment with a sense of exaltation. The next moment a +haunting doubt laid hold of her heart, held up mockingly the little that she +and Peter had lived through together, the lofty plane of friendship along which +she had tried to lead his unwilling feet sedately, his protests, his frank +amusement at her serious pretensions to a career. How much fuller might not +have been the intercourse between him and this woman, who, in all probability, +had been his comrade for years? And she had been idealizing him, and his love +for her, and his loneliness! Kitty stood with eyes cast down, while images +crowded upon her, leaving her cold and smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“But think,” pleaded Judith; “if you don’t come it will +take me longer to search the trail-marks. You could show me just where the +horses ran—” +</p> + +<p> +Kitty’s eyes were still on the ground. She did not lift them, and Judith, +realizing that further appeal was but a waste of time, turned and ran swiftly +down the trail. +</p> + +<p> +“He is her lover,” said Kitty; and all the wilderness before her +was no lonelier than her heart. +</p> + +<p> +Swift, intent, Judith traced Kitty’s footprints. They followed the game +trail, the one she herself had taken earlier in the day. She traced them back +through the pine wood about a hundred rods, and then the trail-marks grew +confused. This was unquestionably the place where the horses had taken fright, +circled, reared, then dashed in different directions. She traced the other +horse, whose tracks led under low-hanging boughs. It would have been a +difficult matter for a horse with a rider to clear; and now the impression of +the horse’s shoes grew fainter, from the lighter footfalls of a horse at +full gallop. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” A cry broke from her as she saw the marks had become almost +eliminated by something that had dragged, something heavy. Those long-drawn +lines were finger-prints, where a hand had dragged in its vain endeavor to +grasp at something. A sickening image came persistently before her +eyes—Peter’s upturned face, blood-smeared and disfigured. +</p> + +<p> +“Sh-sh-sh!” She put her hand to her breast to still the beating of +her heart. She could hear the sound of hoofs falling muffled on the soft +ground, and a man’s voice speaking in a soothing sing-song. She listened. +It was Peter’s voice, reassuring the horse, asking him what kind of a bag +of nerves he was for a cow pony, to get frightened at a bear? Judith stood tall +and straight among the pines. Surely he could not blindly pass her by. He must +feel the joy in her heart that all was well with him. The hoofs came nearer, +the man’s voice sounded but intermittently, as he got his horse under +better control. She felt as if he must come to her, as if some overpowering +consciousness of her presence would speak from her heart to his; but his eyes +scanned the distant trail for a glimpse of Kitty or Kitty’s horse. Judith +saw that his head was bound in something white and that it bore a red stain, +but he held himself well in the saddle. He was not the man to heed a tumble. He +urged the horse forward, never looking towards the tree-trunks, his face white +and strained with anxiety as he scoured the trail for evidences of Kitty. The +horse, with a keener sense than his master, shied slightly as he passed the +group of pines where Judith stood; but Peter’s glance was for the open +trail, and as she heard him canter by, so close that she could have touched his +stirrup with her hand, it seemed as if he must hear the beating of her heart. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, blind eyes, and ears that will not hear, and heart that has +forgotten how to beat! Yes, go to that pale, cold girl! You speak one language, +and life for you is the way of little things!” +</p> + +<p> +She waited till the last sound of the horse’s hoofs had died away and all +was still in the tremulous green of the forest. Judith’s mind was busy +with the image of their meeting, the man bringing the joy of his youth to the +calm divinity who could feel no thrill of fear in his absence. She broke into +the running gait and hurried through the forest to the Daxes’. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>XVI.<br /> +In The Land Of The Red Silence</h2> + +<p> +The beef-herd, that had been the pivotal point of the round-up and had made the +mighty plain echo to its stampings and bellowings, beating up simooms that +choked it with thirst, blinded it with dust, confounding itself on every side +by the very fury of its blind force, had trailed for a week, tractable as toys +in the hands of children. Little had happened to vary the monotony for the +cow-punchers that handled the herd—they grazed, guarded, watered, +night-herded the cattle day after day, night after night. Pasturage had been +sufficient, if not abundant. The creeks were running low and slimy with the +advance of summer, but there had been sufficient water to let the herd drink +its fill at least once a day. +</p> + +<p> +The outfit ate its “sow-belly,” soda-biscuit, and coffee three +times a day, and smoked its pipes, but was a little shy on yarns round the +camp-fire. +</p> + +<p> +“This yere outfit don’t lather none,” commented the cook to +the horse-wrangler, over the smoke of an early morning fire. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t lather no more than a chunk of wood,” agreed the +horse-wrangler. “That’s the trouble with a picked-up outfit like +this. Catch ‘W-square’ men kowtowing to a ‘XXX’ boss, +even if he is only acting foreman.” +</p> + +<p> +Simpson, the origin of whose connection with the “XXX” was rather a +sensitive subject with that outfit, had begun to take his duties as a +cattle-man with grim seriousness; he was untiring in his labors; he spent long +hours in the saddle, he took his turn at night herding, though he was old for +this kind of work. He condemned the sheep-men with foul-mouthed denunciations, +scoffed at their range-rights, said the sheep question should be dealt with in +the business-like manner in which the Indian question had been settled. He was +an advocate of violence—in short, a swaggering, bombastic wind-bag. He +talked much of “his outfit” and “his men.” “What +was good enough for them was good enough for him,” he would announce at +meal-time, in a snivelling tone, when the food happened to be particularly bad. +He split the temporary outfit, brought together for the purpose of handling the +beef-herd, into factions. He put the “XXX” in worse repute than it +already enjoyed—he was, in fact, the discordant spirit of the expedition. +The men attended to their work sullenly. Discord was rife. The one thought they +shared in common was that of the wages that would come to them at the end of +the drive; of the feverish joy of “blowing in,” in a single night; +perchance, of forgetting, in one long, riotous evening, the monotony, the +hardship, the lack of comradery that made this particular drive one long to be +remembered in the mind of every man who had taken part in it. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile the herd trailed its half-mile length to the slaughtering pens day +after day, all unconscious of its power. When the steers had trailed for about +a fortnight, the question of finding sufficient water for them began to be a +serious one. The preceding winter had been unusually mild, the snow-fall on the +mountains averaging less than in the recollection of the oldest plains-man. +Summer had begun early and waxed hot and dry. The earth began to wrinkle, and +cracked into trenches, like gaping mouths, thirsty for the water that came not. +Such streams as had not dried shrank and crawled among the willows like slimy +things, that the herd, thirsty though it was from the long drives, had to be +coaxed to drink from. +</p> + +<p> +Discontent grew. The acting foreman, who was a “XXX” man, and a +comparative stranger to that part of the country, refused to consult with the +“W-square” men in the outfit, who knew every inch of the ground. +The acting foreman thought the Wetmore men looked down on him, “put on +dog”; and, to flaunt his authority, he ordered the herd driven due west +instead of skirting to the north by the longer route, where they would have had +the advantage of drinking at several creeks before crossing Green River. +Moreover, the acting foreman was drinking hard, and he insisted upon his order +in spite of the Wetmore men’s protestations. +</p> + +<p> +The character of the country began to change, the soil took on the color of +blood, even the omnipresent sage-brush began to fail the landscape; +sun-bleached bones glistened on the red soil, white as ulcers. All the animal +trails led back from the country into which they were proceeding. The sky, a +vivid, cloudless blue, paled as it dipped earthward. The sun looked down, a +flaming copper shield. There was no sign of life in all the land. Even the +grasshoppers had left it to the sun, the silence, and the desolation. To ears +accustomed to the incessant shrilling of the insects, the cessation was +ominous, like the sudden stopping of a clock in a chamber of death. Above the +angry bellow of the thirsty herd the men strained their ears again and again +for this familiar sound of life, but there was nothing but the bellowing of the +cattle, the trampling of their hoofs, and sometimes the long, squealing whinny +of a horse as he threw back his head in seeming demand to know the justice of +this thing. +</p> + +<p> +Across the red plain snailed the herd, like a many-jointed, prehistoric reptile +wandering over the limitless spaces of some primeval world. A cloud of red dust +hung over them in a dense haze, trailed after them a weary length, then all was +featureless monotony as before. What were a thousand steers, a handful of men +and horses, in the land of the red silence? It had seen the comings and goings +of many peoples, and once it had flowed with streams; but that was before the +curse of God came upon it, and in its harsh, dry barrenness it grew to be a +menace to living things. +</p> + +<p> +The saddle-stock had been watered at some fetid alkali holes that had scarce +given enough to slake their thirst. The effect of the water had weakened them, +and the steers that had been without water for thirty-six hours were being +pushed on a course slightly northwest as rapidly as the enfeebled condition of +the saddle-horses would permit. Creek after creek that they had made for proved +to be but a dry bed. +</p> + +<p> +The glare of the red earth, under the scourge of the flaming sun, tormented the +eyes of the men into strange illusions. The naked red plain stretched flat like +the colossal background of a screen, over which writhed a huge dragon, spined +with many horns, headless, trailing its tortuous way over the red world. +Sometimes it was as unreal as a fever-haunted dream, a drug-inspired nightmare, +when a Chinese screen, perchance, has stood at the foot of the sleeper’s +bed. Sometimes the dragon curled itself into a ball, and the foreman sung out +that they were milling, and the men turned and rode away from it, then dashed +back at it, after getting the necessary momentum, entered like a flying wedge, +fought their way into the rocking sea of surging bodies, shouted from their +thirst-parched throats imprecations that were lost in the dull, sullen roar. +Then the dragon would uncoil and again trail its way over the red waste-lands. +</p> + +<p> +A red sun had begun to set over a red earth, and the men who had been out since +noon-scouring the country for water, returned to say that none had been found, +and they began to look into each other’s faces for the answer that none +could give. At sunset they made a dry camp; there was but enough water left to +cook with. Each man received, as a thirst-quenching ration, a can of tomatoes. +After supper they consulted, and it was agreed to trail the herd till midnight, +taking advantage of the coolness to hurry them on as fast as possible to Green +River. The grave nature of their plight was indicated by the fact that no one +smoked after supper. Silent, sullen, they sat round, waiting for the foreman to +give the order to advance. He waited for the moon to come up. Slowly it rose +over the Bad Land Hills and hung round and full like a gigantic lantern. The +watches were arranged for the night with a double guard. Every man in the +outfit was beginning to have a feeling of panic that communicated itself to +every other man, and as they looked at the herd, tractable now no longer, but a +blind force that they must take chances with through the long watches of the +night, while the thirst grew in the beasts’ parched throats, they foresaw +what would in all probability happen; they thought of their women, of all that +most strongly bound them to life, and they sat and waited dumbly. +</p> + +<p> +The moon that night was too brilliant for benisons; the gaunt, red world lay +naked and unshriven for the sin that long ago had brought upon it the wrath of +God. The picture was still that of the grotesque Chinese screen, with the +headless dragon crawling endlessly; but the dream was long, centuries long, it +seemed to the men listening to the bellowing of the herd. And while they +waited, the red grew dull and the dragon dingy, and its fury made its +contortions the more horrible; and that was all the difference between day and +night in the land of the red silence. Sometimes the dragon split, and joints of +it tried to turn back to the last water it had drunk; for cattle, though +blinded with thirst, never forget the last stream at which they have quenched +thirst, and will turn back to it, though they drop on the way. But the men +pressed them farther and farther, and for yet a little while the cattle +yielded. +</p> + +<p> +At midnight the saddle-stock was incapable of moving farther. One horse had +fallen and lay too weak to rise. The others, limping and foot-sore, no longer +responded to quirt and rowel. The foreman ordered the herd thrown on the bed +ground for the night. The herders for the first watch began to circle. The rest +of the outfit took to its blankets to snatch a little rest for the double duty +that awaited every man that night. Now it is a time-honored belief among +cow-men that the herd must be sung to, particularly when it is restless, and +to-night they tried all the old favorites, the “Cow-boy’s +Lament” being chief among them. But the herd refused to be soothed, and +round and round it circled; not once would it lie down. +</p> + +<p> +The moon gleamed almost brazen, showing the cruel scars, the trenches torn by +cloud-bursts, the lines wrought by the long, patient waiting of the earth for +the lifting of the wrath of God. Imperishable grief was writ on the land as on +a human face. The night wore on, the watches changed, the herd continued +restless; not more than a third of it had bedded down. The third watch was from +one o’clock to half-past three in the morning. Simpson and another +“XXX” man, with two of the Wetmore outfit, made up a double watch, +and rode, singing, about the herd, as the long, dreary watch wore away. The +cattle’s lowing had taken on a gasping, cracked sound that was more +frightful than the maddened bellow of the early evening. Simpson, who was past +the age when men live the life of the saddle, felt the hardship keenly. He had +ridden since sunrise, but for the respite at noon and the scant time at the dry +camp while the evening meal was being eaten. He was more than half asleep now, +as he lurched heavily in the saddle, crossing and recrossing his partner in the +half-circle they completed about the herd. Suddenly the sharp yelp of a coyote +rang out; it seemed to come from no farther than twenty yards away. The cattle +heard it, too, and a wave of panic swept through them. Simpson stiffened in his +saddle. The sound, which was repeated, was an exact reproduction of a +coyote’s yelp, yet he knew that it was not a coyote. +</p> + +<p> +The herd rose to its feet as a single steer, and for a second stood +undetermined. From a clump of sage-brush not more than two feet high fluttered +something long and white like a sheet. It waved in the wind as the cry was +repeated. The herd crashed forward in a stampede, Simpson in the lead on a +tired horse, but a scant length ahead of a thousand maddened steers bolting in +a panic of thirst and fear. +</p> + +<p> +“Hell’s loose!” yelled the men in their blankets, making for +the temporary rope corral to secure horses. Simpson, tallow-colored with fear, +clung like a cat to his horse, and dug the rowels in the beast’s flanks +till they were bloody and dripping. He had seen Jim Rodney’s face above +the white cloth as it fluttered in the face of the herd that came pounding +behind him with the rumble of nearing thunder. He was too close to them to +attempt to fire his revolver in the air in the hope of turning them, but the +boys had evidently got into their saddles, to judge by the volley of shots that +rang out and were answered. Simpson alone rode ahead of the herd that tore +after him, ripping up the earth as it came, bellowing in its blind fury. His +horse, a thoroughly seasoned cow-pony, sniffed the bedlam and responded to the +goading spur. She had been in cattle stampedes before, and, though every fibre +ached with fatigue, she flattened out her lean body and covered ground to the +length of her stride at each gallop. The herd was so close that Simpson could +smell the stench of their sweating bodies, taste their dust, and feel the +scorch of their breath. The sound of their hoofs was like the pounding of a +thousand propellers. From above looked the moon, round and serene; she had +watched the passing of many peoples in the land of the red silence. The horse +seemed to be gaining. A few more lengths ahead and Simpson could turn her to +one side and let the maddened cattle race to their own destruction. All he +asked of God was to escape their trampling hoofs, and though he gained he dug +the rowel and plied the quirt, unmindful of what he did. On they came; the +chorus of their fear swelled like the voice of a mighty cataract, the pound, +pound, pound of their hoofs ringing like mighty sledge-hammers. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly he felt himself sinking, horribly, irresistibly. “God! What is +it?” as his horse went down with her foreleg in a gopher-hole. “Up, +up, you damned brute!” but the mare’s leg had cracked like a +pipe-stem. In his fury at the beast Simpson began kicking her, then started to +run as the cattle swept forward like a black storm-cloud. +</p> + +<p> +The next second the great sea of cattle had broken over horse and rider. When +it had passed there was not enough left of either to warrant burial or to +furnish a feast for the buzzards. A few shreds of clothes, that had once been a +man, lay scattered there; a something that had been a horse. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>XVII.<br /> +Mrs. Yellett Contends With A Cloudburst</h2> + +<p> +The matriarch had delayed longer in moving camp than was consistent with her +habitual watchfulness where the interests of the sheep were involved. Mary +Carmichael, who had already become inured to the experience of moving, was even +conscious of a certain impatience at the delay, and could only explain the +apathy with which Mrs. Yellett received reports of the dearth of pasturage on +the ground that she wished each fresh educational germ to take as deep root as +possible before transplantation. So that when Mrs. Yellett, shortly after +Leander Dax’s arrival at camp in the capacity of herder, announced that +she and Leander were to make a trip to the dipping-vat that had kept Ben from +his classes for the past ten days, and invited the “gov’ment” +to join the expedition, Mary accepted with fervor. +</p> + +<p> +The Yelletts’ “bunch” of sheep did not exceed three thousand +head, and the matriarch had wisely decreed that it should be restricted to that +number, as she wished always to give the flock her personal supervision. +</p> + +<p> +“‘The hen that’s the surest of her chicks is the one that +does her own settin’,’” was the adage from the Book of Hiram +with which Mrs. Yellett succinctly summed up the case. +</p> + +<p> +Each autumn, therefore, the wethers and the dry-bag ewes were sent to the +market, and as the result of continual weeding of the stock the matriarch had +as promising a herd of its size as could be found in Wyoming. Often she had +explained to Mary, who was learning of the wonders of this new world with +remarkable aptness, that she had constantly to fight against the inclination to +increase her business of sheep-raising, but that as soon as she should begin to +hire herders or depend on strangers things would go wrong. With the assistance +of her sons, she therefore managed the entire details of the herd, with the +exception of those occasions on which Leander lent his semi-professional +co-operation. +</p> + +<p> +As a workman Leander was, considering his size and apparent weakness, +surprisingly efficient. It was as a dispenser of anti-theological doctrine that +Mrs. Dax’s husband annoyed his temporary employer. Freed from his +wife’s masterful presence, Leander dared to be an “agnostic,” +as he called himself, of an unprecedentedly violent order. His iconoclasm was +not of a pattern with paw’s gusty protests against life in general, but +it was Leander’s way of asserting himself, on the rare occasions when he +got a chance, to deny clamorously every tenet advanced by every religion. The +mere use of certain familiar expletives drove him, ordinarily mild and +submissive though he was, to frantic gesticulation and diatribe. Mary +Carmichael could not make out, as she watched the comedy with growing +amusement, whether poor Leander really believed that he was the first of +doubting Thomases, or whether he took an unfair advantage of the lack of +general information in his casual audiences to set forth well-known opinions as +his own. Whatever its basis may have been, Leander sustained the rôle of +doubter with passionate zeal, wearing himself to tatters of rage and hoarseness +over arguments maliciously contrived beforehand by cow-punchers and +sheep-herders in need of amusement; and yet he never saw the traps, going out +of his way, apparently, to fall into them, tumbling headlong into the identical +pits time after time. Jonah and the whale constituted one bait by means of +which Leander could be lured from food, sleep, or work of the most pressing +nature. +</p> + +<p> +“The poor fool would stop in the middle of shearing a sheep to argue that +Jonah never come out of the whale’s belly,” the matriarch had told +Mary Carmichael, in summing up Leander’s disadvantages as a herder. And +the first remark she had addressed to him on his arrival was: “Leander +Dax, you’d have to be made over, and made different, to keep you from +bein’ a infidel, but there’s one p’int on which you are +particularly locoed, and that’s Jonah and the whale. Now at this +particular time in the hist’ry of the United States, nobody in his +faculties has got no call to fret hisself over Jonah and his +whereabouts—none whatever. There’s a lot of business round this +here camp that’s a heap more pressin’. Now, Leander Dax, if I do +hereby undertake to hire, engage, and employ you to herd sheep, do you agree to +renounce discussions, arguments, and debates on the late Jonah and his +whereabouts durin’ them three days? God A’mighty, man, any one +would think you was Jonah’s wife, the interest you have in his +absence!” +</p> + +<p> +“I come here to herd sheep,” Leander had brazenly retaliated. +“I ’ain’t come to try to make you think.” +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, he appeared docile enough as the time came for the journey to the +dipping-vat, and did his part in making ready. The wagon was the rudest of +structures; it consisted merely of one long, stout pole. Though she saw the +horses being harnessed to this pole, Mary Carmichael, discreetly exercising her +newly acquired wisdom, forbore to ask where she was going to sit, and listened +with interest to a discussion between Mrs. Yellett and Leander as to the number +of horses it would take to get the dip up the mountain. Leander, who loved pomp +and splendor, was for taking six, but Mrs. Yellett, who carried simplicity to a +fault, was in favor of only two. They finally compromised on four, and Leander +went to fetch the extra two. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Yellett, ever economical of the flitting moment, took advantage of the +delay to give Mr. Yellett a dose of “Brainard’s Beneficial +Blackthorn.” +</p> + +<p> +“Paw’s as hard to manage as a bent pin,” she remarked, in an +aside to Mary, while he protested and fought her off with his stick. But she, +with the agility of an acrobat, got directly back of him, took his head under +her arm, pried open his mouth, and poured down the unwelcome, if beneficial, +dose. +</p> + +<p> +“There, there, paw,” she said, wiping his mouth as if he had been a +baby, “don’t take on so! It’s all gone, and I can’t +have you sick on my hands.” +</p> + +<p> +But Mr. Yellett continued to splutter and flare and use violent language, +whereupon the matriarch went into the tent and returned with a drink of +condensed-milk and water, “to wash down the nasty taste,” she told +him, soothingly. +</p> + +<p> +A moment afterwards she and Leander were engaged in rolling the barrels of +sheep-dip to the wagon, Mary Carmichael helplessly looking on while Mrs. +Yellett looked doubtfully at a “gov’ment” who could not +handle barrels. Finally, under the skilful manipulation of Mrs. Yellett and +Leander, the long pole took on the aspect of a colossal vertebral column, from +which huge barrel-ribs projected horizontally, leaving at the rear a foot or so +of bare pole as a smart caudal appendage, bearing about the same proportion to +the wagon as the neatly bitten tail of a fox-terrier does to the dog. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Yellett kissed “paw” good-bye, explaining to Mary, in +extenuation of her weakness, that she would never forgive herself if she +neglected it and anything happened to him during her absence. She then climbed +to the front barrel and secured the ribbons. Leander had brought out three +rolls of bedding of the inevitable bed-quilt variety, but Mrs. Yellett scorned +such luxury while driving, and accordingly gave hers to the +“gov’ment” for a back-rest. Mary sat on the lower row of +barrels, with her feet dangling, using one roll of bedding for a seat and the +other comfortably arranged at her back as a cushion. +</p> + +<p> +Madam called sharply to the horses, “Hi-hi-hi-kerat! +hi-kerat-kerat!” and they started off at a rattling pace, the barrels of +dip creaking and squeaking as they swayed under their rope lashings. Mary +bounced about like a bean in a bag, working loose from between the bed-quilt +rolls at each gulley, clinging frantically to barrel ends, shaken back and +forth like a shuttle. Indeed, the drive seemed to combine every known form of +physical exercise. Mrs. Yellett herself was in fine fettle; she drove sitting +for a while, then rose, standing on a narrow ledge while she held the four +ribbons lightly in one hand and tickled the leaders with a long whip carried in +the other. She drove her four horses over the rough road with the skill of a +circus equestrienne, balancing easily on the crazy ledge, shifting her weight +from side to side as the wagon rattled down gullies and up ridges, the horses +responding gallantly to the shrill “Hi-hi-kerat! hi-kerat! +hi-kerat!” Her costume on this occasion represented joint concessions to +her sex and the work that was before her, as the head of a family at the +dipping-vat. She still wore the drum-shaped rabbit-skin cap pulled well down +over her forehead for driving. The great, cable-like braids of hair stood out +well below the cap, giving her head an appearance of denseness and solidity, +but the rambling curls were still blowing about her face, perhaps adding to the +sum total of grotesqueness. She wore a man’s shirt of gray flannel, well +open at the neck, from which the bronzed column of the throat rose in austere +dignity. A pair of Mr. Yellett’s trousers, stuffed into high, +cow-puncher’s boots, that met the hem of a skirt coming barely to the +knees, contributed to the originality of her dress. +</p> + +<p> +The wagon had been pitching like a ship at sea through the desert dreariness +for about an hour, when Mary Carmichael suddenly became conscious that the +prods she had been receiving from time to time in her back were not due either +to their manner of locomotion or to the freight carried. Clinging to two +barrels, she waited for the next lurch of the wagon to shake her free from the +rolls of bedding, and, at the peril of life and limb, looked round. Leander +hung over the top row of barrels, gesticulating wildly. The change in the man, +since leaving camp some two hours previous, was appalling. He seemed to have +shrivelled away to a wraith of his former self. His cheeks, his chin, had waned +to the vanishing point. He opened his lips and mouthed horribly, yet his +frightful grimacings conveyed no meaning. Mary called to Mrs. Yellett, but her +voice was drowned in the rattle of the wagon, the clatter of four horses’ +hoofs, and the continual “Hi-hi-hi-kerat! hi-kerat!” of the driver. +In the mean time Leander pointed to his mouth and back to the road in +indescribably pathetic pantomime. “Perhaps the poor creature wants to +turn back and die in his bed, like a Christian, even if he isn’t +one,” thought Mary, as she called and called, Leander still emitting the +most inhuman of cries, like the sounds made by deaf mutes in distress. +Presently Mrs. Yellett drew up, and asked in the name of many profane things +what was the matter with her companions. +</p> + +<p> +Leander resumed his mouthings and his dumb show, but Mrs. Yellett proved a +better interpreter than Mary Carmichael. +</p> + +<p> +“God A’mighty!” she said, “he’s lost his false +teeth!” And without another word she turned the four horses and the wagon +with a skill that fell little short of sleight-of-hand. +</p> + +<p> +The dialogue that followed between Mrs. Yellett and Leander as to how far back +he had dropped his teeth, cannot be given, owing to the inadequacy of the +English language to reproduce his toothless enunciation. Catching, as Mary did, +the meaning of Mrs. Yellett’s remarks only, she received something of the +one-sided impression given by overhearing a telephone conversation: +</p> + +<p> +“What did you have ’em out for?... You didn’t have ’em +out?... I just shook ’em out? Then what made you have your mouth open? Ef +your mouth had been shut, you couldn’t have lost ’em.... You was +a-yawnin’, eh? Well, you are a plumb fool to yawn on this kind of a +waggin, with your mouth full o’ china teeth. Your yawnin’ ’ll +put us back a good hour an’ we won’t reach camp before +sundown.” +</p> + +<p> +At this point of the diatribe the Infidel left the wagon and began to search +along the road. He said he had noticed a buffalo skull near the place where he +had dropped the teeth, and thought he could trace them by this landmark. Mrs. +Yellett held the ribbons and suggested that Mary get down “and help to +prospect for them teeth.” As Mary clambered down she heard a fragment of +the matriarch’s monologue, which, being duly expurgated for polite ears, +was to the effect that she would rather take ten babies anywhere than one grown +man, and that as for getting in the way, hindering, obstructing, and being a +nuisance, generally speaking, man had not his counterpart in the scheme of +creation. +</p> + +<p> +“Talk about a woman bein’ at the bottom of everything!” +sniffed Mrs. Yellett; “I be so sick of always hearin’ about +‘the woman in the case!’ Half the time the case would be a blame +sight worse if it was left exclusive to the men. The Book of Hiram says: +‘A skunk may have his good p’ints, but few folks is takin’ +the risk of waitin’ round to get acquainted with ’em.’” +</p> + +<p> +While Mary was still “prospecting,” a glad cry roused her +attention, and Leander came up smiling, with his dental treasures nicely +adjusted. +</p> + +<p> +“Quit smilin’ like a rattlesnake, you plumb fool!” called out +Mrs. Yellett. “Do you want to lose ’em again?” +</p> + +<p> +So, curtailing the muscular contraction indicative of his pleasure, the Infidel +again took his place among the bed-quilts and the journey was resumed. +</p> + +<p> +It was now about five in the afternoon. The heat, which had been oppressive all +day, suddenly relaxed its blistering grip, and a keenly penetrating dampness, +not unlike that of a sea-fog, came from some unknown quarter of the arid wastes +and chilled the three travellers to the marrow. The horses flung up their heads +and sniffed it, rearing and plunging as if they had scent of something +menacing. Across the horizon a dark cloud scudded, no bigger than your hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Cloud-burst!” announced Mrs. Yellett. +</p> + +<p> +“Cloud-burst, all right enough,” agreed Leander, and he turned up +his coat-collar in simple preparation for the deluge. +</p> + +<p> +There flashed into Mary Carmichael’s mind a sentence from her physical +geography that she had been obliged to commit to heart in her school-days: +“A cloud-burst is a sudden, capricious rainfall, as if the whole cloud +had been precipitated at once.” She wanted to question her companions as +to the accuracy of this definition, but before she had time to frame a sentence +the real cloud-burst came, with a splitting crack of thunder; then the +lightning flashed out its message in the short-hand of the storm, across the +inky blackness, and the water fell as if the ocean had been inverted. In the +fraction of a second all three were drenched to the skin, the water pouring +from them in sheets, as if they had been some slight obstruction in the path of +a waterfall. The wagon was soon in a deep gully, with frothing, foaming, yellow +water up to the hubs of the wheels. Mrs. Yellett, like some goddess of the +storm, lashed her horses forward to keep them from foundering in the mud, and +the wagon creaked and groaned in all its timbers as it lurched and jolted +through the angry torrents. +</p> + +<p> +Each moment Mary expected to be flung from the barrels, and clung till her +finger-tips were white and aching. From the drenched red bedquilts a sticky +crimson trail ran over the barrel heads, as well as over Mary’s hands, +face, and dress. Still they forged on through the deluge, Mrs. Yellett shouting +and lashing the horses, holding them erect and safe with the skill she never +lost. The fur on her rabbit-skin cap was beaten flat. The great, wet braids had +fallen from the force of the water and hung straight and black, like huge +snakes uncoiled. She was far from losing her grip on either the horses or the +situation, and from the inspiring ring of her voice as she urged them forward +it was plain that she took a fierce joy in this conflict of the elements. +</p> + +<p> +It was bitterly cold, and Mary reflected that if Leander’s teeth +chattered half as hard as hers did, without breaking, they must, indeed, be of +excellent quality. The storm began to abate, and the sky became lighter, though +the water still poured in torrents. As soon as her responsibility as driver +left her time to speak, Mrs. Yellett lost no time in fastening the cloud-burst +to Leander. +</p> + +<p> +“This here is what comes of settin’ up your back against God +A’mighty and encouragin’ the heathen and the infidel in his +idolatry. I might ’a’ knowed somethin’ would happen, +takin’ you along! ‘And the heathen and the infidel went out, and +the Lord God sent a cloud-burst to wet him,’” quoted Mrs. Yellett +from the apocryphal Scriptures that never yet failed to furnish her with verse +and text. +</p> + +<p> +The infidel, from his side of the wagon, began to display agitation. His jaws +worked, but he said nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“You ’ain’t lost them teeth again, have you?” +</p> + +<p> +He nodded his head wretchedly. +</p> + +<p> +“‘And the Lord took away the teeth of his enemy, so that he could +neither bite nor talk,’” quoted Mrs. Yellett to the miserable man, +who could make no reply. +</p> + +<p> +“Wonder you wouldn’t see the foolishness o’ being a heathen +and a infidel, and turn to the Lord! You ’ain’t got no teeth, and +it takes your wife to herd you. ‘And the Lord multiplied the tribulations +of his enemy.’ You got no more show standin’ up agin the Lord than +an insect would have standin’ up agin me.” +</p> + +<p> +She had Leander, at last, just where she wanted him. He was forced to listen, +and he could make no reply. She alternately abused him for his lack of faith +and urged him to repentance. Leander raged, gesticulated, turned his back on +her, mouthed, and finally put his fingers in his ears. But nothing stemmed the +tide of Mrs. Yellett’s eloquence; it was as inexhaustible and as +remorseless as the cloud-burst. +</p> + +<p> +It continued bitterly cold, even after the rain had stopped falling, and the +heap of sodden bedclothes furnished no protection against the chilling +dampness. It was growing dark; there was no red in the sunset, only a streak of +vivid orange along the horizon, chill and clear as the empty, soulless flame of +burning paper. There were no deep, glowing coals, no amethystine opalescence, +fading into gold and violet. All was cold and subdued, and the scrub pines on +the mountain-tops stood out sharply against this cold background like an +etching on yellow paper. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Yellett’s self-inspired scriptural maxims were discontinued after a +while, either because she could think of no more, or because the rain-soaked, +shivering, chattering object towards which they were directed was too abject to +inspire further efforts. Leander huddled on the barrel that was farthest from +Mrs. Yellett, and wrapped himself in the soaked red bedquilt. The dye smeared +his face till he looked like an Indian brave ready for battle, but there was no +further suggestion of the fighting red man in the utter desolation of his +attitude. Mary Carmichael, on her barrel, shivered with grim patience and +longed for a cup of tea. Only Mrs. Yellett gave no sign of anxiety or +discomfort; she drove along, sometimes whistling, sometimes swearing, erect as +an Indian, and to all appearances as oblivious of cold and wet as if she were +in her own home. +</p> + +<p> +The gathering darkness into which the horses were plunging was mysterious and +appalling. Objects stood out enormously magnified, or distorted grotesquely, in +the uncertain light. It was like penetrating into the real Inferno, like +stumbling across the inspiration of Dante in all its sinister splendor. It was +the Inferno of his dream rather than the Inferno of his poem; it had the +ghastly reality of the unreal. +</p> + +<p> +“It wouldn’t surprise me if we had a smash-up in Clear +Creek,” said Mrs. Yellett, just by way of adding her quota of cheerful +speculation. She ducked her head and whispered in Mary’s ear: +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all along of me hirin’ <i>him!</i> I wouldn’t be +surprised if paw died. I’m thinkin’ of shakin’ him out after +his teeth. ‘Take not up with the enemy of the Lord, lest he make of you +also an enemy.’” +</p> + +<p> +But there was no accent of apprehension in Mrs. Yellett’s dismal +prognostications of the evil that might befall her for employing Leander. She +spoke more with the air of one who produces incidents to prove an argument than +of one who anticipates a calamity. +</p> + +<p> +Leander, toothless and wretched, sitting on the side of the wagon, began to +show symptoms of joy comparable to that of the vanguard of the Israelites, +catching their first glimpse of the Promised Land. Touching Mary Carmichael on +the shoulder, he pointed to a white tent and the remains of a camp-fire. +Already Mrs. Yellett had begun to “Hallo, Ben!” But Ben was at work +at the vat, which was still a quarter of a mile further up the mountain; so +Mrs. Yellett, throwing the reins to Leander and bidding him turn out the +horses, lost no time in building a fire, putting on coffee, and making her +little party comfortable. So various was her efficiency that she seemed no less +at home in these simple domestic tasks than when guiding her horses, +goddess-like, through the cloud-burst. And Mary Carmichael, succumbing +gradually to the revivifying influence of the fire and the hot coffee, +acknowledged honestly to herself a warmth of affection for her hostess and for +the atmosphere Mrs. Yellett created about her that made even Virginia and her +aunts seem less the only pivot of rational existence. She felt that she had +come West with but one eye, as it were, and countless prejudices, whereas her +powers of vision were fast becoming increased a hundredfold. How very tame life +must be, she reflected, as she sat smiling to herself, to those who did not +know Mrs. Yellett, how over-serious to those who did not know Leander! Yet, +after all, she knew that the real basis of her readjusted vision was her brief +but illuminating acquaintance with Judith Rodney. To Mary, freed for the first +time in her life from the most elegantly provincial of surroundings, Judith +seemed the incarnation of all the splendor and heroism of the West. And in the +glow of her enthusiasm she decided then and there not to abandon the Yellett +educational problem till she should have solved it successfully. She might not +be born to valiant achievement, like these sturdy folk about her, but she might +as well prove to them that an Eastern tenderfoot was not all feebleness and +inefficiency. +</p> + +<p> +“Leander!” called Mrs. Yellett. “Just act as if you was to +home and wash up these dishes.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>XVIII.<br /> +Foreshadowed</h2> + +<p> +Alida awoke, knowing what was to happen. She had dreamed of it, just before +daylight, and lay in bed stupefied by the horror of it, living, again and +again, through each frightful detail. It had happened—there, in the very +room, and before the children; the noise of it had startled them; and then she +woke and knew she had been dreaming. In the dream the noise had wakened the +children—when it really happened they must never know. It wouldn’t +be fair to them; they needed a “clean start.” +</p> + +<p> +What had she done to keep them quiet? There had been a thunderous knocking at +the door. She had expected it and was prepared; because the lock was feeble, +she had shoved the old brown bureau against the door. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing had happened. What a fool she was to lie there and think of it! There +was the brown bureau against the wall; she could hear the deep breathing of Jim +in the room beyond. Jim had been unequal to the task of conventionally going to +bed the night before, and she had put a pillow under his head and a quilt over +him. She was the last woman in the world to worry about Jim, drunk, or to nag +him for it when sober. But she didn’t like the children to see him that +way. +</p> + +<p> +What was it that she had done to quiet the children when “they” +rode up? She had done something and they had gone to sleep again, and +she—and she—oh no, it hadn’t happened. What a fool she was to +lie there thinking! There were the children to rouse and dress, and breakfast +to cook, and Jim—Jim would be feeling pretty mean this morning; +he’d like a good cup of coffee. She was glad he was alive to make coffee +for. +</p> + +<p> +She got up and, in the uncertainty bred of the dream, felt the brown bureau, +felt it hungrily, almost incredulously. The brown bureau had been pushed +against the door when they had come, and knocked and knocked. Then they had +thundered with the butts of their six-shooters, and the children had wakened, +and she had called out to them: +</p> + +<p> +“Sh-sh! It’s only a bad dream. Mammy will give you some dough to +bake to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +And she had gone to press her face flat to the thin wall, and call, “For +God’s sake, don’t wake the children!” +</p> + +<p> +And they had called out, “Let him come out quiet, then.” +</p> + +<p> +And then she could feel that they put their shoulders to the door—the +weather-beaten door—with its crazy lock that didn’t half catch. The +brown bureau had spun across the floor like a top, and they had crowded in. +Then she had done something to quiet the children—it was queer that she +could not remember what it was, when everything else in the dream still lived +within her, horribly distinct and real. +</p> + +<p> +What a fool she was, with Jim asleep in the next room; she would not think +about it another minute. She began to dress, but her fingers were heavy, and +the vague oppression of nightmare blocked her efficiency. Repeatedly she would +detect herself subconsciously brooding over some one of the links in that +pitiless memory—what they had said to Jim; his undaunted replies; how she +had left him and gone into the next room because Jim had told her to. +</p> + +<p> +She called the children, but the sight of them, happy and flushed with sleep, +did not reassure her. +</p> + +<p> +“Mammy,” said Topeka, eldest of the family, and lately on the +invalid list, the victim of a cactus thorn, “my toe’s all well; can +I go barefoot?” +</p> + +<p> +“Topeka Rodney, what kind of feet do you expect to have when you are a +young lady, if you run barefoot now?” +</p> + +<p> +Topeka, sitting on the side of the bed, with tousled hair, put her small feet +together and contemplated them. The toe was still suspiciously inflamed for +perfect convalescence, although Topeka, with a Spartan courage that won her a +place in the annals of household valor, had the day before allowed her mother +to pick out with a needle the torturing cactus thorn, scorning to shed a tear +during the operation, though afterwards she had taken the piece of dried apple +that was offered her and devoured it to the last bite, as only just +compensation for her sufferings. +</p> + +<p> +“Dimmy dot a tore toe, too.” But Jimmy showed a strange reticence +about offering proofs of his affliction. At the peril of his equilibrium, he +clasped the allegedly injured member in his chubby hand and rolled over on the +bed in apparent anguish. +</p> + +<p> +“Less see, Jimmy,” asked his mother, anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t bleeve him, mammy. He ’ain’t ever cried. +He’d a cried, for sure, if his toe was sore.” At the age of five, +little Judith, namesake of her aunt, was something of a doubting Thomas. +</p> + +<p> +“Let mammy see, Jimmy,” and Alida bent over her son and heir. +</p> + +<p> +“Doth Dimmy det any apple?” The wee man sometimes succeeded in +making terms with his mother, when the other children were not present. Though +feeling himself a trifle over-confident, he held the disputed toe with the air +of one keeping back a trump card, and looked his mother squarely in the eyes. +</p> + +<p> +She struggled with the temptation to give him the apple. He had lifted the +horrors of her dream as nothing else could have done, but she answered him with +quiet firmness. +</p> + +<p> +“Jimmy must not tell stories.” +</p> + +<p> +“Less see,” insisted Topeka. +</p> + +<p> +“He dassent,” affirmed Judith, junior, of little faith. +</p> + +<p> +“It hurths me,” and Jimmy tried to squeeze out a tear. “It +hurths me, my tore toe!” +</p> + +<p> +His mother tipped him over on his fat little back and opened the chubby hand +that held the trump toe. It was white from the pressure applied by the infant +dissembler, but there was no trace of the treacherous cactus thorn. She gave +him an affectionate spank and went into the kitchen to make coffee. +</p> + +<p> +“I with I had a tore toe,” he crooned, quite unabashed at the +discovery of his deception. “I with I toud det a tore toe ’thout +the hurt.” +</p> + +<p> +But the horror of the dream gripped her when she found herself alone in the +kitchen; and she remembered she had not told the children not to go into the +room where their father was sleeping. She went back and found that Jimmy had +not left his post on the side of the bed, where he still regretted that his +perfectly well toe did not entitle him to gastronomic consideration. Topeka, +who had arrived at an age where little girls, in the first subconscious attempt +at adornment, know no keener delight than plastering their heads with a wet +hairbrush, till they present an appearance of slippery rotundity equalled only +by a peeled onion, put down the brush with guilty haste at sight of her mother. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m goin’ to dress him soon as I’ve done my +hair.” +</p> + +<p> +“Any one think you was goin’ to be married, the time you’ve +took to it.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s gettin’ so long,” urged Topeka. +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t give it a chance to grow no longer while Jimmy was +waitin’ to get dressed. And don’t go into the front room. Your +father’s gettin’ his sleep out.” +</p> + +<p> +Topeka opened her round eyes. There was always something suspicious about that +sleep her father had to get out, but she felt it was something she must not ask +questions about. Her mother lingered; she dreaded to be alone in the kitchen. +The little, familiar intimacies between herself and her children scattered the +horrors of the dream which would come back to her when she was again at the +mercy of her thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +“Judy, s’pose you dress Jimmy this morning! I want Topeka to help +me get breakfast.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yessum,” said Judith, dutifully. “Is he to have his face +washed?” +</p> + +<p> +“He certainly is, Judy. I’s ashamed to have you ask such a +question. ’Ain’t you all been brought up to have your faces +washed?” +</p> + +<p> +But young Judith seemed disinclined to take up this phase of family +superiority. She merely inquired further: +</p> + +<p> +“Is he to have it washed with soap, maw?” +</p> + +<p> +“He shore is. Any one would think you had been born and raised in Arizony +or Nebrasky, to hear you talk. I’m plumb ashamed of you, Judy.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, ’deed, maw, I ain’t big enough to wash his face with +soap. It takes Topeka to hold his head.” +</p> + +<p> +The subject of the discussion still sat on the edge of the bed, a small lord of +creation, letting his women folk arrange among themselves who should minister +to his wants. As an instrument of torture the washcloth, in the hands of his +sister Judy, was no ignoble rival of the cactus thorn. The question of making +terms for his sufferings again appealed to him in the light of a feasible +business proposition. +</p> + +<p> +“Muvvy, tan’t I have the apple? Judy hurts me a lot when she wathes +my face wis soap.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you can have the apple, honey; and, Judy, you be gentle with him. +Don’t rub his features up, and be careful and don’t get soap in his +eyes.” +</p> + +<p> +“No’m.” And Judy heroically stifled the longing to slick her +hair, like Topeka’s, with the wet hairbrush. There were easier tasks than +washing the face of her younger brother. +</p> + +<p> +When Topeka and her mother were alone in the kitchen, Topeka grinding the +coffee and all unconsciously working her jaw in an accompaniment to the +coffee-mill, her mother bent over her and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Did you dream of anything last night?” +</p> + +<p> +Topeka simultaneously stopped working the coffee-mill and her jaw, and regarded +her mother solemnly. She did not remember having been thus questioned about her +dreams before. +</p> + +<p> +“No’m,” she answered, after laborious consideration. But +something in her mother’s face held her. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re sure you didn’t dream nothing?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, maw.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did Judy or Jim say that they dreamed anything?” +</p> + +<p> +“Jim said he dreamed he had a pup.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was that all? Think hard, Topeka!” +</p> + +<p> +Topeka held the handle of the coffee-mill in her hand; her jaw continued to +work with the labor of her mental process. “I’ve thought hard, maw, +and all he told was about the pup.” +</p> + +<p> +Alida went back to her bedroom and again felt the brown bureau. +“What’s the matter with me, anyhow? It’s the lonesomeness, +and they bein’ agin Jim the way they are. God, this country’s hard +on women and horses!” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +When breakfast was over, and young Jim had received the reward of his valor in +presenting a brave face to his ablution, and Judith the reward of her skill, +the evidence of which almost prevented the young martyr from smiling while he +enjoyed his treat, their mother sent them all to play in the cañon. She told +them not to come home till she should come for them, and if any one should ask +about their father, to say that he was away from home. And this, as well as the +mystery of her father’s “getting his sleep out,” roused some +slight apprehension in Topeka, who was old for her age. They were seldom sent +to the cañon to play. Topeka looked at her mother as she had when questioned +about the dream, but there was no further confidence between them. +</p> + +<p> +“You do as your sister Topeka tells you, and remember what I said about +your papa,” Alida said to the younger children. Jim and Judy clasped each +other’s hands in mute compact at the edict. Their sister Topeka had a +real genius for authority; they were minded all too well when she swayed the +maternal sceptre vicariously. +</p> + +<p> +Alida made fresh coffee for Jim when the children had gone. She made it +carefully; there was this morning, unconsciously, about each little thing that +she did for him, the solemnity of a funeral rite. Struggle as she would, she +could not divest her mind of the conviction that what she did this day she did +for the dead. She would go to the door and listen to his breathing, and tell +herself that she was a fool, then wring her hands at the remembrance of the +dream. +</p> + +<p> +As he tossed, half waking, she heard him groan and curse the cattle-men with +oaths that made her glad she had sent the children from home. Then she bent +over him and woke him from his uneasy slumber. +</p> + +<p> +“Jim, don’t you want me to bathe your head? And here’s some +nice, hot coffee all ready for you.” +</p> + +<p> +Jim woke slowly to a realization of his troubles and his blessings. His wife +was bathing his head with hands that trembled. Not always had she greeted his +indiscretions with such loving forbearance. He noticed, though his waking +faculties were not over-keen, that her face was pale and frightened, and that +her eyes, meeting his, held a dumb, measureless affection. +</p> + +<p> +“What th’ hell are you babying me for?” But his roughness did +not deceive her woman’s wits. He was not getting the lecture he +anticipated, and this was his way of showing that he was not embarrassed by her +kindness. The morning sunlight was pitilessly frank in its exposure of the grim +pinch of poverty in the mean little room, but the woman was unconscious of +these things; what she saw was that Jim, the reckless, Jim, the dare-devil +terror of the country, Jim, who had married and settled with her into +home-keeping respectability, Jim, who had struggled with misfortune and fallen, +had, young as he was, lost every look of youth; that hope had gone from his +dull eyes, and that his face had become drawn until the death’s-head +grinned beneath the scant padding of flesh. But he was to-day, as always, the +one man in the world for her. In making a world of their own and reducing their +parents to supplementary consideration, their children, whom she had sent away +that she might be alone with him, had given a different quality to the love of +this pair that had known so many curious vicissitudes. The responsibilities of +parenthood had placed them on a tenderer, as well as a securer footing; and as +she saw his age and weariness, he recognized hers, and both felt a +self-accusing twinge. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a blamed good cup of coffee,” he said, by way of +relieving the tension that had crept into the situation. “Any one would +think you was settin’ your cap for me ’stead of us being married +for years.” +</p> + +<p> +Alida sighed. “It’s better to end than to begin like this,” +she said, in the far-away voice of one who thinks aloud. The word +“end” had slipped out before she realized what she was saying, and +the knowledge haunted her as an omen. She glanced at him quickly, to see if he +had noticed it. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you say end?” He saw that her eyes were full of tears and +chafed her. “You ain’t thinking of divorcing me, like Mountain Pink +done Bosky?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Jim,” she said, and her face was all aquiver, “I never +could divorce you, no matter what you done.” And then the grim philosophy +of the plains-woman asserted itself. “I never can understand why women +feed their pride on their heart’s blood; it never was my way.” +</p> + +<p> +He did not like to remember that he had given her cause for a way. +“There’s a lot of women as wouldn’t exactly regard me as a +Merino, or a Southdown, either;” he gulped the coffee to ease the +tightness in his throat. +</p> + +<p> +“They’d be women of no judgment, then,” she said, with +conviction. +</p> + +<p> +Jim’s head was tilted back, resting in the palm of his hand. His profile, +sharpened by anxiety, more than suggested his quarter-strain of Sioux blood. He +might almost have been old Chief Flying Hawk himself, as he looked steadily at +the woman who had been a young girl and reckless, when he had been a boy and +reckless; who had paid her woman’s penalty and come into her +woman’s kingdom; who had made a man of him by the mystery of her +motherhood, and who had uncomplainingly gone with him into the wilderness and +become an alien and an outcast. +</p> + +<p> +These things unmanned him as the sight of the gallows and the rope for his +hanging could not have done. Shielding himself with an affected roughness, he +asked: +</p> + +<p> +“What the hell’s the matter with you? I’ve been drinking like +a beast of an Indian, and you give me coffee instead of a +tongue-lashing.” +</p> + +<p> +The color had all gone out of her face. She gasped the words: +</p> + +<p> +“Jim, I dreamed it last night—they came for you!” +</p> + +<p> +She cowered at the recollection. +</p> + +<p> +“Did they get me?” he asked. There was no surprise in his tone. He +spoke as one who knew the answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, the children saw. The noise woke them.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mustn’t let ’em see, when—they come. They’ve +a right to a fair start; we didn’t get it, old girl.” +</p> + +<p> +“The children gave it to us,” and she faced him. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes, but we want them to have it from the start, like good +folks.” +</p> + +<p> +They looked into each other’s eyes. The memory of dead and gone madness +twinkled there a moment, then each remembered: +</p> + +<p> +“You must hurry, Jim. You haven’t a moment to lose. I dreamed it +was to be to-night—they’ll come to-night!” +</p> + +<p> +“The game’s all up, old girl! If I had a month I couldn’t get +away. Morrison’s been looking for me over to the Owl Creek Range; +he’s back—Stevens told me yesterday. He’ll be heading here +soon. The price on my head is a strain on friendship.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have the sheep-men gone back on you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, damn them! A thousand dollars is big money, and they’ve had +hard luck!” +</p> + +<p> +“They deserve it; I hope every herd in the State dies of scab.” +</p> + +<p> +“There wasn’t a scabby sheep in our bunch. What a sight they were, +loaded with tallow! There wasn’t one of them that couldn’t have +weathered a blizzard; they could have lived on their own tallow for a +month.” +</p> + +<p> +She tried to divert his attention from his lost flock. When he began to talk +about them the despair of his loss drove him to drink. She was ground between +the millstones of his going or staying. If he stayed they would come for him; +if he went, they would apprehend him before he was ten miles from the house. +</p> + +<p> +“Jim, we got to think. If there’s a chance in a thousand that you +can get away, you got to take it; if there ain’t, the children +mustn’t know. We got to think it out!” +</p> + +<p> +“There ain’t a chance in a thousand, old girl. There ain’t +one in a million. They’re circling round in the hills out here now, +waitin’ for me, like buzzards waitin’ for the eyes of a dyin’ +horse.” +</p> + +<p> +She rocked herself, and the clutching fingers left white marks on her face, but +the eyes that met his glittered tearless: +</p> + +<p> +“Then there ain’t nothing left but to face it like a man?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all there be.” He might have been giving an opinion +on a matter in which he had no interest. +</p> + +<p> +“Then there ain’t no use in our having any more talk about +it?” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tain’t just what you’d call an agreeable +subject,” he answered, with the sinister humor of the frontiersman who +has learned to make a crony of death. +</p> + +<p> +She was tempted to kiss him—they were not given to demonstrations, this +pair—then decided it were kinder to him, less suggestive of what they +anticipated, not to deviate from their undemonstrative marital routine. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you want your breakfast now?” +</p> + +<p> +“I guess you might bring it along.” +</p> + +<p> +And for the same reason that she refrained from kissing him, she repressed a +desire to wring the neck of a young broiler and cook it for his breakfast, +remembering that she had heard they gave folks pretty much what they wanted +when they wouldn’t want it long. So Jim got his usual breakfast of bacon, +uncooked canned tomatoes, soda-biscuit, and coffee. She sat with him while he +ate, but they spoke no more of “them” or of how soon +“they” might be expected. She told him that young Jim had pretended +that morning that he had a cactus thorn in his foot, so that he might have a +piece of dried apple. And old Jim, in an excess of parental fondness and pride, +said: “The damned little liar, he’ll get to Congress yet!” +</p> + +<p> +But the children were a dangerous topic for overstrained nerves at this +particular time, so Alida told Jim that she had put the black hen to set and +she thought they’d have some chickens at last. Jim smoked while Alida +washed the dishes, and when Jim’s back was turned she examined the lock +on the door—a good push would open it. Then she looked at the brown +bureau, and the recklessness of despair came into her eyes. In the room beyond, +Jim was reading a two weeks’ old newspaper and smoking. He looked like a +lazy ranchman taking his ease. +</p> + +<p> +As she went about her household tasks that morning, Alida noticed things as she +had never noticed them before. A sunbeam came through the shutterless window of +the house and writhed and quivered on the wall as if it were a live thing. She +read a warning in this, and in the color of the sun, that was red, like blood, +and in the whirr of the grasshoppers, that was sinister and threatening. The +creeks had dried, and their slimy beds crept along the willows like sluggish +snakes. Gaunt range-cattle bellowed in their thirst, and the parched earth +crackled beneath the sun that hung above the house like a flaming disk. +Sometimes she sank beneath the burden of it; then she would wring her hands and +call on God to help them; they were beyond human power. She and Jim were alone +all the morning; they did not again refer to what they knew would happen. He +read his old paper and she put her house in order. She did it with especial +care. It was meet to have things seemly in the house of the dead. And every +time she glanced at Jim she repressed the desire to fling herself on his breast +and cry out the anguish that consumed her. +</p> + +<p> +At noon she brought the children home to dinner, and afterwards Jim taught them +to throw the lasso and played buffalo with them. Alida did not trust herself to +watch them; she stayed in the kitchen and saw the sunbeam grow pale with the +waning of the day, the day whose minutes dragged like lead, yet had rushed from +her, leaving her the night to face. At sundown she cooked supper, but she no +longer knew what she did. A crazy agility had taken possession of her and she +spun about the kitchen, doing the same errand many times, finding herself doing +always something different from that she had set about doing. The molten day +was burning itself out like a fever; hot gusts of air beat up from the earth, +but the woman who waited felt chilled to the marrow, and took a cloak down from +a peg and wrapped it about her while she waited for the biscuit to bake. At +supper they sat down together, the man and his wife and their three children. +The children were in fine spirits from the fun they had had that afternoon. +Never had daddy been so nice to them. He had taught Topeka to throw the lasso +so well that she had caught the cat once and little Jim twice; and daddy had +played he was a buffalo and had charged them all with his head down, till they +screamed in terror. But daddy seemed more quiet through the meal, and once +mother started up and cried: +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that?” +</p> + +<p> +She ran to the door with her hand pressed to her side, but daddy called after +her: +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you know the cowards better than that? They’ll wait +for nightfall.” +</p> + +<p> +But these things had not worried the children, with their heads full of playing +buffalo and throwing the lariat. +</p> + +<p> +“Jim,” said his father, before they went to bed, “remember +you are the man of the family.” But young Jim was already nodding with +sleep. Topeka and Judith were sleepy, too; they kissed their father and were +glad to go to bed. +</p> + +<p> +The night began menacingly to close over the wilderness. Where the sun had hung +above the mountain a moment before there glowed a great pool of red that +dripped across the blackness in faint tricklings. The outlines of the +foot-hills loomed huge, formless, uncouth. In the half-light it seemed a world +struggling in the birth-throes. All day the dry, burning heat had quivered over +the desert, like hot-air waves flickering over a bed of live coals, and now the +very earth seemed to palpitate with the intensity of its fever. The bellowing +of the thirst-maddened cattle had not stopped with the twilight that brought no +dew to slake their parched throats. In the hills the coyotes wailed like lost +souls. It was night bereft of benisons, day made frightful by darkness. All the +heat of a cycle of desert summers seemed concentrated in that house in the +valley where the man and his wife waited. Each sound of the desert night Alida +translated into the trampling of horses’ feet; then, as the sound would +die away, or prove to be but some night noise of the wilderness, the pallor +would lose its pinch on her features, and she would stare into her +husband’s face with eyes that did not see. Jim smoked his pipe and +refilled it, smoked and filled again, but gave no sign of the object of his +waiting. +</p> + +<p> +“Jim,” she said, when the clock had struck ten, then eleven, +“I am going to fasten up the house.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you hear them?” he asked, without emotion, but as one who +deferred to the finer senses of women. +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak. +</p> + +<p> +He looked at the door that was shrunken and warped from the heat till it barely +held together, and there was no measure to the tenderness he put into: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you poor little fool, do you think you could keep them out by +fastening that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Jim, I must,” and her voice broke. “They may think you are +not here, that it’s only me and the children, and that’s why the +house is fastened.” She got up and began to move about as though her +thoughts scourged her to action, even if futile. He shook the ashes from his +pipe. +</p> + +<p> +“Do anything you blame please,” he said, more by way of humoring +her than from faith in her stratagem. He felt strong enough to face his +destiny, to meet it in a way worthy of his mother’s people. +</p> + +<p> +Alida seemed under a spell in her preparations for the night. Each thing she +did as she had done it in her dream the night before; it was as if she were +constrained by a power greater than her will to fulfil a sinister prophecy. Yet +now and then she would stop and wonder if she might not break the spell by +doing things differently from the way she had dreamed them. Her hand grasped +the knob of the door uncertainly, and she swung it to and fro on its creaking +hinges, while her mind seemed likewise to sway hither and thither. Should she +fasten the door and push the bureau against it, as it had been in the dream, or +should she leave door and windows gaping wide for them? And then, as one who +walks and does familiar things in sleep, she shut the door and turned the key. +Jim smiled at her, but she could no longer look at him. One of the children +wailed fretfully from the room beyond. Sleep had become a scourge in the +stifling heat. One by one she lowered the windows and nailed them down; then +she dragged the brown bureau against the door, took the brace of six-shooters +from the wall, and sat down with Jim to wait. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you going to do with them toys?” he asked, as he saw her +examine the chambers of one of the six-shooters. +</p> + +<p> +“You ain’t going to let yourself be caught like a rat in a hole, +are you?” she reproached him. +</p> + +<p> +“’Ain’t we agreed that it’s best to keep onpleasant +family matters from the kids?” He smiled at her bravely. “The +remembrance of what we’re anticipatin’ ain’t going to help +young Jim to get to Congress when his time comes, nor it ain’t going to +help the girls get good husbands, either. This here country ain’t what it +was in the way of liberality since it’s got to be a State.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sh-sh-sh!” she said. “Is that the range-cattle +stampedin’ after water, or is it—” They listened. The +furniture in the room crackled; there was not a fibre of it to which the +resistless heat had not penetrated. On the range the cattle bellowed in their +thirst-torture; in the intervals of their cries sounded something far off, but +regular as the thumping of a ship’s screw. The woman did not need an +answer to her question. The steady trampling of hoofs came muffled through the +dead air, but the sound was unmistakable. She put her arms about the +man’s neck and crushed him to her with all her woman strength. “Oh, +Jim, you’ve been a good man to me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Steady—steady.” He strained her close to him. +“They’d be, by the sound of them, on the straight bit of road now, +before the turn. Soon we’ll hear their hoofs ring hollow as they cross +the plank bridge.” +</p> + +<p> +His plainsman’s faculty was as keen as ever; his calculation of the +horsemen’s distance was made as though he were the least concerned. All +Alida’s courage had gone, with the dread thing at hand. She clung to him, +dazed. +</p> + +<p> +“They’re sober, all right enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“They’d be cursing and bellowing if they were drunk.” +</p> + +<p> +The hoofs rang hollow on the little plank bridge that crossed the ditch about a +stone’s-throw from the door. Not a word was said either within or +without. The lynchers seemed to have drilled for their part; there was no +whispering, no deferring to a leader. On they came, so close that Jim and Alida +could hear the creaking of their saddles. There was the clank of spurs and the +straining of leather as they dismounted, then some one knocked at the door till +the warped boards rattled. +</p> + +<p> +Jim could feel the thudding of Alida’s heart as she clung to him, but +when the knock was repeated a new courage came to her, and she left Jim and +went on her knees close to the outer wall. +</p> + +<p> +“Jim, is that you?” she called, and now every sense was trained to +battle; her voice had even a sleepy cadence, as if she had been suddenly +roused. +</p> + +<p> +“That won’t do at all, Miz Rodney. We know you got Jim in there, +just as certain as we’re out here, and we want him to come out and +we’ll do the thing square, otherwise he can take the consequences.” +</p> + +<p> +Jim opened his mouth to speak, but she, still on her knees beside the wall, +gained his silence by one supplicating gesture. There was a sleepy, fretful cry +from the room beyond—the noise had roused one of the children. +</p> + +<p> +“Sh-sh, dear,” she called. “It’s only a bad dream. Go +to sleep again; mother is here.” +</p> + +<p> +Through the warped door came sounds of the whispering voices without, drowned +by the shrieking bellow of the cattle. There was not a breath of air in the +suffocating room. Jim bent towards Alida: +</p> + +<p> +“I’m goin out to ’em. They’ll do it square, over on the +cotton-woods; this rumpus’ll only wake the kids.” +</p> + +<p> +But she shook her head imploringly, putting her finger to her lips as a sign +that he was not to speak, and he had not the heart to refuse, though knowing +that she made a desperate situation worse. +</p> + +<p> +“Gentlemen”—she spoke in a low, distinct +voice—“Jim ain’t here. He’s been away from home five +days. There’s no one here but me and the children; you’ve woke them +up and frightened them by pounding on the door. I ask you to go away.” +</p> + +<p> +“If he ain’t in there, will you let us search the house?” It +was Henderson that spoke, Henderson, foreman of the “XXX” outfit. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t have them frightened; please take my word and go +away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Whas er matter, muvvy?” called Judith, sleepily. Young Jim was by +this time crying lustily. Only Topeka said nothing. With the precocity of a +frontier child, she half realized the truth. She tried to comfort little Jim, +though her teeth chattered in fear and she felt cold in the hot, still room. +Then Judith called out, “Make papa send them away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your papa ain’t here, Judith.” But the fight had all gone +out of Alida’s voice; it was the groan of an animal in a trap. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s papa gone to?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sh-sh, Judith! Topeka, keep your sister quiet.” +</p> + +<p> +It was absolutely still, within and without, for a full minute. Then Alida +heard the shoving of shoulders against the door. Once, twice, thrice the lock +resisted them. The brown bureau spun across the room like a child’s toy. +The lynchers, bursting in, saw Alida with her arms around Jim. When the last +hope had gone it was instinct with her to protect him with her own body. +</p> + +<p> +“Go into the kids, old girl, this is no place for you.” And there +was that in his voice that made her obey. +</p> + +<p> +Something of the glory of old Chief Flying Hawk, riding to battle, was in the +face of his grandson. +</p> + +<p> +“Remember, the children ain’t to know,” he said to his wife; +and to the lynchers, “Gentlemen, I’m ready.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>XIX.<br /> +“Rocked By A Hempen String”</h2> + +<p> +Alida heard the mingled sounds of footsteps and hoofs grow fainter on the +trail. The children looked at her to tell them why this night was different +from all others—what was happening. But she could only cower among them, +more terrified than they. She seemed to be shrunken from the happenings of that +day. They hardly knew the little, shrivelled, gray woman who looked at them +with unfamiliar eyes. Alida gazed at the little Judith, and there was something +in her mother’s glance that made the little one hide her face in her +sister’s shoulder. Young Judith it was who all unwittingly had told the +lynchers that her father was at home, and in Alida’s heart there was +towards this child a blind, unreasoning hate. Better had she never been born +than live to do this thing! +</p> + +<p> +It was the wee man, Jim, who first began to reflect resentfully on this +intrusion on his slumbers. He had been sleeping well and comfortably when some +grown-ups came with a lot of noise, and his father had gone away with them. It +had frightened him, but his mother was here, and why should she not put him to +sleep again? +</p> + +<p> +“Muvvy, sing ‘Dway Wolf.’” And as she paid no heed, but +looked at him, white-faced and strange, he again repeated, with his most +insinuating and beguiling tricks of eye and smile: +</p> + +<p> +“Muvvy, sing ‘Dway Wolf’ for Dimmy.” +</p> + +<p> +The child put his head in his mother’s lap, and Alida began, scarce +knowing what she did: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘The gray wolves are coming fast over the hill,<br /> + Run fast, little lamb, do not baa, do not bleat,<br /> +For the gray wolves are hungry, they come here to kill,<br /> + And the lambs shall be scattered—’ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +No, no, Jimmy, muvvy cannot sing. Oh, can’t you feel, child? Judith, +Judith, why were you ever born?” +</p> + +<p> +It was still in the valley. Had they come to the dead cotton-woods yet? Had +they begun it? The children shrank from this gray-faced woman whom they did not +know and but yet a little while had been their mother. An awful silence had +fallen on the night. The range-cattle no longer bellowed in their thirst; the +hot wind no longer blew from the desert. A hush not of earth nor air nor the +things that were of her ken seemed to have fallen about them, muffing the dark +loneliness as by invisible flakes. The children had crouched close together for +comfort. They feared the little, gray-faced woman who seemed to have stolen +into their mother’s place and looked at them with strange eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Jimmy looked at the woman who held him, hoping his mother would come, and he +could see them both. And while he waited he dropped off to sleep; and little +Judith, hiding her head on Topeka’s shoulder, that she might not see the +look in those accusing eyes, presently dreamed that all was well with her +again; and Topeka reflected that if her mother should ask her in the morning +whether she had dreamed last night, she would have a fine tale to tell of men +riding up, and loud voices, and trying of the door, and father going away with +them. Her mother had questioned her this morning when nothing had happened to +warrant it. Surely she would ask again to-morrow, and Topeka could +tell—she could tell—all. +</p> + +<p> +Alida looked at her three sleeping children—his children, and yet they +could sleep. Into her mind came that cry of utter desolation, “Could ye +not watch with me one hour?” And God had been deaf to Him, His son, even +as He was deaf to her. +</p> + +<p> +The children were sleeping easily. The hush that had hung like a pall over the +valley had not lifted. Had they done it? Was it over yet? She went to the door +and listened. Surely the silence that wrapped the valley was a thing apart. It +was as no other silence that she could remember. It was still, still, and yet +there was vibration to it, like the muffled roar within a shell. She strained +her ears—was that the sound of horsemen going down the trail? No, no, it +was only the beating of her foolish heart that would not be still, but beat and +fluttered and would not let her hear. Yes, surely, that was the sound of hoofs. +It was over then—they were going. +</p> + +<p> +She would go and look for him. Perhaps it would not be too late—she had +heard of such things. A dynamic force consumed her. She had no consciousness of +her body. Her feet and hands did things with incredible swiftness—lighted +a lantern, selected a knife, ran to the corral for an old ladder that had been +there when they took possession of the deserted house; and through all her +frantic haste she could feel this new force, as it were, lick up the red blood +in her veins, burn her body to ashes as it gave her new power. She felt that +never again would she have need of meat and drink and sleep. This force would +abide with her till all was over, then leave her, like the whitened bones of +the desert. +</p> + +<p> +It was dark in the valley, but the menacing stillness seemed to be lifting. The +range-cattle had again taken up their plaint, the sounds of the desert night +swept across the stony walls of the cañon. Alida knew that it must have +happened at the dead cotton-woods. There were no other high trees about for +miles. Again she listened before advancing. There was no sound of hoof or +champing bit or men moving quickly. They had gone their way into the valley. +She ran swiftly, her lantern throwing its beam across the scrubby inequalities +of ground, but for her there was no need of its beacon. To-night she was beyond +the halting, stumbling uncertainties of tread to which man is subject. There +was magic in her feet and in her hands and brain. Like the wind she ran, the +wind on the great plain where there are no foot-hills to hinder its course. The +black, dead trees stood out distinctly against the starry sky, and from a +cross-limb of one of them dangled something with head awry, like a broken +jumping-jack, something that had once been a man—and her husband. She +could touch the feet of this frightful thing and feel its human warmth. A wind +came up from the desert and blew across the cañon’s rocky walls into the +valley, and the parody of a man swayed to it. +</p> + +<p> +She had been expecting this thing. For weeks the image of it had been graven on +her heart. Sleeping or waking, she had seen nothing but his dangling body from +the cross-limb. Yet with the actual consummation before her, she felt its +hideous novelty as though it were unexpected. At sight of it the force that had +borne her up through the happenings of that day went out of her, and as she +stood with the knife and the rope, that she had brought in the hope of cheating +the lynchers, dangling from her nerveless hand her helplessness overcame her. +Again and again she called to the dead man for help, called to him as she had +been accustomed to call when her woman’s strength had been unequal to +some heavy household task. +</p> + +<p> +Far down the trail she could hear the gallop of a horse coming closer, and +mingled with the sounds of its flying feet was a voice urging the horse to +greater speed in the shrill cabalistic “Hi-hi-hi-ki!” of the +plains-man. What was it—one of them returning to see that she did not +cheat the rope of its due?—to hang her beside him, as an after-thought, +as they hanged Kate Watson beside her man? Let them. She was standing near the +swaying thing when horse and rider gained the ground beside her, and what was +left to her of consciousness made out that the rider was Judith. She pointed to +it, and stood helpless with the dangling rope in her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Are we too late?” Judith almost whispered, as she caught +Alida’s cold, inert hands. “I dreamed it all and came. If I could +have dreamed it sooner!” +</p> + +<p> +Alida did not seem to hear, neither could she speak. She only pointed again to +the thing beside her. +</p> + +<p> +Judith understood. The women had a task to share, and in silence they began it. +The lynchers had done their work all too well. Again and again the women strove +with all their strength to take down the dangling parody of a man, which in its +dead-weight resistance seemed in league with the forces against them. At last +the thing was done. Down to a pale world, that in the haggard gray of morning +seemed to bear in its countenance something of the pinch of death, Judith +lowered the thing that had so lately been a man. She cut the rope away from the +neck, she straightened the wry neck that seemed to wag in pantomimic +representation of the last word to the lynchers. They’d have to reckon +with him on dark nights, and when the wind wailed like a famished wolf and when +things not to be explained lurked in the shadows of the desert. +</p> + +<p> +The morning stillness came flooding into the cup-shaped valley like a soft, +resistless wave. Something had come to the gray, old earth—another day, +with all its human gift of joy and woe, and the earth welcomed it though it had +known so many. The sun burst through the gold-tipped aureole of cloud, +scattering far and wide lavish promises of a perfect day. The earth seemed to +respond with a thrill. No longer was the pinch of death in her countenance. The +valley, the mountains, the invisible wind, even the dead cotton-woods, seemed +endowed with throbbing life that contrasted fearsomely with the terrible +nullity of this thing that once had been Jim Rodney. +</p> + +<p> +Alida had ceased to take any part in the hideous drama. She sat on the ground, +a crouching thing with glittering eyes. It was past comprehension that the sun +could shine and the world go on with her man dead before her. Judith had become +the force that planned and did to save the family pride. While her hands were +busy with preparations for the dead, she rehearsed what she would say to this +and that one to account for Jim’s absence. The silence of the men who had +done this thing would be as steadfast as their own. +</p> + +<p> +And there were the children. Through all her frantic search for things in the +house, Judith remembered that she must step softly and not waken the children. +With each turn of the screw, as her numbed consciousness rallied and responded +afresh to the hideous realization of this thing, there came no release from the +tyrannous hold of petty detail. She remembered that she must be back at noon to +hold post-office, and there would be the endless comedy to be played once more +with her cavaliers. They must never suspect from word or look of hers. And +there was the dance to-night at the Benton ranch—she hid her face in her +hands. Ah, no, she could not do this thing! And yet they must not suspect. She +must contrive to give the impression that Jim had cheated the rope. Yes, she +must go and dance, and, if need be, dance with his very murderers. Jim’s +children were to have the “clean start” that he intended, and they +would have to get it here. There was no money for an exodus and a beginning +elsewhere. +</p> + +<p> +Alida still crouched beside the long, even tarpaulin roll that Judith had +prepared with hands that knew not what they did. But now Judith gently roused +her and put in her hand a spade; already she herself had begun. But Alida +stared at it dully, as if she did not understand. Then Judith pointed to +something black that had begun to wheel in the sky, wheel, and with each +circular swoop come closer to the roll of tarpaulin. Then Alida knew, and, +taking the spade, she and Judith began to dig the grave. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a>XX.<br /> +The Ball</h2> + +<p> +The dance in the Benton ranch was the great social event of the midsummer +season. The Bentons had begun to give dances in the days of plenty, when the +cattle industry had been at its dizziest height; and they had continued to give +dances through all the depressing fluctuations of the trade, perhaps in much +the same spirit as one whistles in the dark to keep up his courage. Thus, +though cattle fell and continued to fall in the scale of prices till the end no +man dared surmise, the Benton “boys”—they were two brothers, +aged respectively forty-five and fifty years—continued to hold out +facilities to dance and be merry. +</p> + +<p> +All day strange wagons—ludicrous, makeshift things—had been +discharging loads of women and children at the Benton ranch, tired mothers and +their insistent offspring. To the women this strenuous relaxation came as manna +in the wilderness. What was the dreary round of washing, ironing, baking, and +the chain of household tasks that must be done as primitively as in Genesis, if +only they might dance and forget? So the mothers came early and stayed late, +and the primary sessions of the dances fulfilled all the functions of the +latter-day mothers’ congresses—there were infant ailments to be +discussed, there were the questions of food and of teething, of paregoric and +of flannel bands, which, strange heresy, seemed to be “going out,” +according to the latest advices from those compendiums of all domestic +information, the “Woman’s Pages” of the daily papers. +</p> + +<p> +Inasmuch as these more than punctual debaters must be cooked for, there was, to +speak plainly, “feeling” on the part of the housekeeper at the +Bentons’. Wasn’t it enough for folks to come to a dance and get a +good supper, and go away like Christians when the thing was over, instead of +coming a day before it began and lingering on as if they had no home to go to? +This, at least, was the housekeeper’s point of view, a crochety one, be +it said, not shared by the brothers Benton, whose hospitality was as genuine as +it was primitive. To this same difficult lady the infants, who were too tender +in years to be separated from their mothers, were as productive of anxiety as +their elders. A room had been set apart for their especial accommodation, the +floor of which, carefully spread with bed-quilts and pillows, prevented any +great damage from happening to the more tender of the guests; and they rolled +and crooned and dug their small fists into each other’s faces while their +mothers danced in the room beyond. +</p> + +<p> +By nightfall the Benton ranch gleamed on the dark prairie like a constellation. +Lights burned at every window; a broad beam issued from the door and threw a +welcoming beacon across the darkness and silence of the night. The scraping of +fiddles mingled with the rhythmic scuffle of feet and the singsong of the words +that the dancers sung as they whirled through the figures of the quadrille and +lancers. About the walls of the room where the dancing was in progress stood a +fringe of gallants, their heads newly oiled, and proclaiming the fact in a +bewildering variety of strong perfumes. Red silk neckerchiefs knotted with +elaborate carelessness displayed to advantage bronzed throats; new overalls, +and of the shaggiest species, amply testified to the social importance of the +Benton dance. +</p> + +<p> +As yet the dancing was but intermittent and was engaged in chiefly by the +mothers with large progeny, who felt that after the arrival of a greater number +of guests, and among them the unmarried girls, their opportunities might not be +as plentiful as at present. One or two cow-punchers, in an excess of civility +at the presence of the fair, had insisted on giving up their six-shooters, +mumbling something about “there being ladies present and a man being +hasty at times.” In the “bunk-room,” which did duty as a +gentleman’s cloak-room, things were really warming up. There was much +drinking of healths, as the brothers Benton had thoughtfully provided the +wherewithal, and that in excellent quality. +</p> + +<p> +Costigan was there, and Texas Tyler, who had ridden sixty miles to “swing +a petticoat,” or, if there were not enough to go round, to dance with a +handkerchief tied to some fellow’s sleeve. By “swinging a +petticoat” it was perfectly understood among all his friends that he +meant a chance to dance with Judith Rodney. Year in and year out Texas never +failed to present himself at the post-office on mail-days, if his work took him +within a radius of fifty miles of the Daxes. No dance where the possibility of +seeing Judith was even remote was too long a ride for him to undertake, even +when it took him across the dreariest wastes of the desert. Texas had been +devoted to Judith since she had left the convent, and sometimes, perhaps twice +a year, she told him that she valued his friendship. On all other occasions she +rejected his suit as if his continual pressing of it were something in the +nature of an affront. Yet Texas persevered. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, here’s lukin’ at you, since in the way of a frind +there’s nothing better to look at!” and Costigan drained a tin cup +at Texas Tyler. +</p> + +<p> +“Your very good health,” said Texas, who was somewhat embarrassed +by what was regarded as Costigan’s “floweriness.” +</p> + +<p> +“Begorra, is that Hinderson or the ghost av the b’y?” +Costigan’s roving eye was arrested by the foreman of the +“XXX,” who stood drinking with two or three men of his outfit. He +was pale and ill-looking. He drank several times in succession, as if he needed +the stimulant, and without the formality of drinking to any one. The two or +three “XXX” men who were with him seemed to be equally in need of +restoratives. +</p> + +<p> +They talked of the cattle stampede in which several of the outfits had been +heavy losers. Some nine hundred head of cattle had been recovered, and members +of the different outfits were still scouring the Red Desert for strays. +</p> + +<p> +Something in the nature of a sensation was created by the arrival of the +Wetmore party. The women were frankly interested in the clothes, bearing, and +general deportment of the New-Yorkers. Rumors of Miss Colebrooke’s beauty +were rife, and there was a general inclination to compare her with local +belles. Such exotic types—they had seen these city beauties +before—were as a rule too colorless for their appreciation. They liked +faces that had “more go to them,” was the verdict passed upon one +famous beauty who had visited the Wetmores the year before. In arrangement of +the hair, perhaps, in matters of dress, the judges were willing to concede the +laurels to city damsels, but there concession stopped. But evidently Kitty, to +judge from the elaboration of her toilet, did not intend to be dismissed thus +cursorily. She herself was delicately, palely pretty, as always, but her hair +was tortured to a fashionable fluffiness, and the simplicity of her green +muslin gown was only in the name. It was muslin disguised, elaborated, +beribboned, lace-trimmed till its identity was all but lost in the multitude of +pretty complications. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you know that old Ma’am Yellett had a school-marm up to her +place?” asked one of the men, apropos of Eastern prettiness. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well,” Costigan reminisced, “’tis some av thim +Yillitt lambs thot’s six fut in their shtockings, if Oi be rimimbering +right. Sure, the tacher ought to be something av a pugilist, Oi’m +thinkin’.” +</p> + +<p> +“I seen her the other day, and a neater little heifer never turned out to +pasture. Lord, I’d like to be gnawing the corners of the primer right +now, if she was there to whale the ruler.” +</p> + +<p> +“Arrah,” bayed Costigan, “but the women question is +gittin’ complicated ontoirely, wid Miss Rodney—an’ herself +lukin’ loike a saint in a church window—dalin’ the mails +an’ th’ other wan tachin’ in the mountains. Sure, this place +is gittin’ to be but a sorry shpot for bachelors loike mesilf.” +</p> + +<p> +“I ain’t mentionin’ no names, but there’s a man here +ain’t treatin’ a mighty fine woman square and accordin’ to +the way she ought to be treated.” +</p> + +<p> +The information ran through the circle like an electric shock. Men stopped in +the act of pledging each other’s healths to listen. Loungers straightened +up; every topic was dropped. The man who had made the statement was the +loose-lipped busybody who had suggested to his host that he give up his +six-shooter since there were “ladies present.” +</p> + +<p> +“What the hell are you waiting for?” queried Texas Tyler, savagely. +“You’ve cracked your whip, made your bow, and got our attention; +why the hell don’t you go on?” +</p> + +<p> +The man looked about nervously. He was rather alarmed at the interest he had +excited. The next moment Peter Hamilton had walked into the room. There was +something crucial in his entrance at this particular time; it crystallized +suspicion. The gossip took advantage of the greetings to Hamilton to make his +escape. Texas Tyler left the bunk-room immediately and looked for him in the +room with the dancers. The fiddles, in the hands of a couple of Mexicans, had +set the whole room whirling as if by magic. As they danced they sang, joining +with the “caller-out,” who held his vociferous post between the +rooms, till the room was full of singing, dancing men and women, who spun and +pirouetted as if they had not a care in the world. But Texas Tyler was not of +these, as he looked through the dancers for his man. There was a red flash in +the pupils of his eyes, and he told himself that he was going to do things the +way they did them in Texas, for, of course, he knew that the loose-lipped idiot +had meant Judith Rodney and Peter Hamilton. Never before had such an idea +occurred to him, and now that it had been presented to his mind’s eye, he +wondered why he had been such a blind fool. Never had the singing to these +dances seemed so absurd. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Hawk hop out and the crow hop in,<br /> +Three hands round and go it ag’in.<br /> +Allemane left, back to the missus,<br /> +Grande right and left and sneak a few kisses.” +</p> + +<p> +He rushed from the room and down to the stable. At sight of him some one leaped +on a horse and rode out into the darkness. +</p> + +<p> +“Who was that?” asked Texas of a man lounging by the corral. +</p> + +<p> +“That was—” and he gave the name of the loose-lipped man. +</p> + +<p> +Texas cursed long and picturesquely. Then he went back to the bunk-room and +tried to pick a quarrel with Peter Hamilton, who good-naturedly assumed that +his old friend had been drinking and refused to take offence. +</p> + +<p> +Peter went in to ask Kitty to dance with him. All that evening he had been +waiting anxiously for Judith. Meanwhile he had used all his influence as a +newly appointed member of the Wetmore outfit to soothe the ruffled feelings of +the cattle-men. Of the tragedy in the valley he had heard no rumor. +</p> + +<p> +Kitty had come to the point where she was willing to waive the +Récamier-Chateaubriand friendship in favor of one more personal and ordinary. +In fact, as Peter showed a disposition to regard as final her answer to him on +the day he had spurred across the desert, Kitty, with true feminine perversity, +inclined to permit him to resume his suit. His acquiescence in her refusal she +had at first regarded as the turning of the worm; after the wolf-hunt, however, +her meditations were more disturbing. She had never told Peter of that strange +woodland meeting with Judith, yet Judith’s beauty, her probable hold over +Peter, the degree of his affection for her were rankling questions in +Kitty’s consciousness. In the stress of these considerations Kitty lost +her head completely for so old a campaigner. She drew the apron-string +tight—attempted force instead of strategy. +</p> + +<p> +Kitty and Peter finished their waltz, one of the few round dances of the +evening. +</p> + +<p> +“How perfectly you dance, Kitty! It’s a long time since we’ve +had a waltz together.” +</p> + +<p> +The cow-punchers looked at Kitty as if she were not quite flesh and blood. Such +flaxen daintiness, femininty etherealized to angelic perfection, was new to +them, but their admiration was like that given to a delicate exotic which, +wonderful as it is, one is well pleased to view through the glass of the +florist’s window. +</p> + +<p> +Peter was deferentially attentive and zealous to make the Wetmore party have a +thoroughly good time, yet he did all these things, as it were, with his eye on +the door. He was not obviously distrait; he was the man of the world, talking, +making himself agreeable, “doing his duty,” while his +subconsciousness was busy with other matters. It was rather through telepathy +than through any lack of attention paid to her that Kitty realized the state of +things, and in proportion to her realization came a feeling of helplessness; it +was so new, so unexpected, so cruel. He seemed drifting away from her on some +tide of affairs of the very existence of which she had been unconscious. +Further and further he had drifted, till intelligible speech no longer seemed +possible between them. They said the foolish, empty things that people call out +as the boat glides away from the shore, the things that all the world may hear, +and in his eyes there was only that smiling kindness. How had it come about +after all these years? What was it that had first cut the cable that sent him +drifting? What was it? She must think. Oh, who could think with that noise! How +silly was their singing as they danced, how uncouth! +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“All dance as pretty as you can,<br /> +Turn your toes and left alleman;<br /> + First gent sashay to the right,<br /> +Now swing the girl you last swung about,<br /> +And now the one that’s cut her out,<br /> + And now the one that’s dressed in white,<br /> +And now the belle of the ball.” +</p> + +<p> +The dancers seemed bitten to the quick with the tarantula of an ecstatic +hilarity; their bodies swayed in perfect harmony to the swing of the fiddles +and the swell of the chorus. The most uncouth of them came under the spell of +that mad magic. Their movements, that in the beginning of the dance had been +shy and awkward, became almost beautiful; they forgot arms, hands, feet; their +bodies had become like the strings of some skilfully played instrument, +obediently responsive to rhythm, and in that composite blending of races each +in his dancing brought some of the poetry of his own far land. The scene was +amazing in its beauty and simplicity, like the strong, inspirational power and +rugged rhythm of some old border minstrel. One by one the dancers glowed with +better understanding; discordant elements, alien nations were fused to harmony +in this vivid picture. +</p> + +<p> +Peter turned to Kitty, expecting to see her face aglow with the warmth of it. +She stood beside him, the one unresponsive soul in the room, on her lips a +pale, tolerant smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t they splendid, Kitty, these women? More than half of them +work like beavers all day, and they have young children and dozens of worries, +but would you suspect it? They’re just the women for this country.” +</p> + +<p> +Now in the present state of affairs almost any other subject would have been +better calculated to promote good feeling than the one on which Peter had +alighted. Kitty’s thoughts had perversely lingered about one who, though +not one with these women, had yet their sturdy self-reliance, their +acquiescence in grim conditions, their pleasure in simple things. Kitty’s +apprehension, slow to kindle, had taken fire like a forest, and by its blaze +she saw things in a distorted light; her present vision magnified the relations +of Peter and Judith to a degree that a month ago she would have regarded as +impossible. “He is her lover!” was the accusation that suddenly +flashed through her mind, and with the thought an overwhelming desire to say +something unkind, something that should hurt him, supplanted all judgment and +reason. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s a decidedly remarkable scene, pictorially, I agree with +you. And an artist, of course—but isn’t it a trifle quixotic, +Peter, to idealize them because they are having a good time? There’s no +virtue in it. It is conceivable that they might have to work just as hard and +have just as many little children to look after, and yet not have these dances +you praise them for coming to.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid you find us and our amusements a little crude. +Evidently the spirit of our dances does not appeal to you; but I did not +suppose it necessary to remind you that they should not be judged by the +standard of conventional evening parties,” said Peter, hurt and angry in +his turn. +</p> + +<p> +“Us, our amusements, our dances? So you are quite identified with these +people, my dear Peter, and I had thought you an ornament of cotillions and +country clubs. I can only infer that it is somebody in particular who has +brought about your change of heart.” +</p> + +<p> +Peter flushed a little, and Kitty kept on: “Some of the native belles are +quite wonderful, I believe. Nannie Wetmore tells of a half-breed who is very +handsome.” +</p> + +<p> +Peter set his lips. “At the expense of spoiling Nannie’s pretty +romance, I must tell you that the lady she refers to is not only the most +beautiful of women, but she would be at ease in any drawing-room. It would be +as ridiculous to apply the petty standards of ladyhood to her as it would +to—well, imagine some foolish girl bringing up the question at a +woman’s club—‘Was Joan of Arc a lady?’” Peter +spoke without calculating the conviction that his words carried. He was angry, +and his manner, voice, intonation showed it. +</p> + +<p> +Kitty, now that her most unworthy suspicions had been confirmed by +Peter’s ardent championing of Judith, lost her discretion in the pang +that gnawed her little soul: “I beg your pardon, Peter. When I spoke I +did not, of course, know that this young woman was anything to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Anything to me? My dear Kitty, I’ve never had a better friend than +Judith Rodney.” +</p> + +<p> +The dance was at its flood-tide. The exhilaration had grown with each sweep of +the fiddle-bow, with the sorcery of sinuous, swaying bodies, with the song of +the dancers as they joined in the calling out of the figures, with the rhythmic +shuffle of feet, with the hum of the pulses, with the leaping of blood to cheek +and heart till the dancers whirled as leaves circling towards the eddies of a +whirlpool. The dancing Mrs. Dax split her favors into infinitesimal fragments, +for each measure of which her long list of waiting gallants stood ready to pick +a quarrel if need be. Her dancing, in the splendor of its spontaneity, had +something of the surge of the west wind sweeping over a field of grain. +Sometimes she waved back her partner and alone danced a figure, putting to the +music her own interpretation—barbaric, passionate, rude, but +magnificently vivid. And the dancers would stop and crowd about her, clapping +hands and stamping feet to the rhyming movement of her body, while against the +wall her hostile sister-in-law, Mrs. Leander, stood and glared in a fury of +disapproval, Leander himself smiling broadly meanwhile and exercising the +utmost restraint to keep from joining Mrs. Johnnie’s train. +</p> + +<p> +The “XXX” men, who had remained aloof from the dancers and the +merriment, keeping a faithful vigil in the bunk-room, where the hospitable +bottles were to be found, seemed to awaken from the spell that had bound them +all day. Henderson, the foreman, whose face had not lost its tallow paleness +despite the number of his potations, put his head through the door to have a +look at the dancing Mrs. Dax, was caught in the outermost eddy of the whirling +throng, and was soon dancing as madly as the others. The rest of the +“XXX” party still hugged the bunk-room, where the bottles gleamed +hospitable. They were still dusty from their long ride of the early morning, +and more than once their fear-quickened imaginations had been haunted by the +spectre of the dead cotton-woods, from which something heavy and limp and warm +had been swaying when they left it. Henderson had secured the dancing Mrs. Dax +for a partner. The “caller-out,” stationed between the two rooms, +warmed to his genial task. He improvised, he put a wealth of imagination and +personality into his work, he showered compliments on the nimbleness of Mrs. +Dax’s feet, he joked Henderson on his pallor, he attempted a florid +venture at Kitty. Miguel put fresh magic into his bowing, José’s fiddle +rioted with the madness of it. +</p> + +<p> +Judith stood for a moment in the kindly enveloping darkness, and her heart +cried out in protest at the thing she must do. It was the utmost cruelty of +fate that forced her here to dance on the evening of the day that they had +killed him. But she must do it, that his children might evade the stigma of +“cattle-thief,” that the shadow of the gallows-tree might not fall +across their young lives, that the neighbors might give credence to the tale of +Jim’s escape from his enemies, that Alida and she might earn the pittance +that would give the children the “clean start” that Jim had set his +heart on so confidently. And she must dance and be the merriest of them all +that these things might happen, but again and again she deferred the dread +moment. The light, the music, the voices, the shuffle of the feet came to her +as she stood forlorn in the grateful darkness. On the wall the shadows of the +dancers, magnified and grotesque, parodied their movements, as they contended +there, monstrous, uncouth shapes, like prehistoric monsters gripping, clinching +in some mighty struggle; and above it all sang out the wild rhythm of +Miguel’s fiddle, and young José’s bow capered madly. +</p> + +<p> +Judith drew close to the window, and the merriment struck chill at her heart +like the tolling of a knell. She saw the pale face of Henderson gleam +yellow-white among the dancers, and, watching him, the blood-lust of the Indian +woke in her heart. The rest of the room was but a blur; the dancers faded into +swaying shadows; she saw nothing but Henderson as he danced that he might +forget the gray of morning, the black, dead trees, and the grotesque thing with +head awry that swayed in the breeze like a pendulum. He dreaded the long, black +ride that would bring him to his camp, for he alone of the lynchers remained. +Something was drawing his gaze out into the blackness of the night. He +struggled against the temptation to look towards the window. He whirled the Dax +woman till her twinkling feet cleared the floor. He sang to the accompaniment +of Miguel’s fiddle. He was outwitting the thing that dangled before his +eyes, having the incontrovertible last word with a vengeance. And as he danced +and swayed, all unwittingly his glance fell on the window opposite, and Jim +Rodney’s face looked in at him, beautiful in its ecstasy of +hate—Rodney’s face, refined, sharpened, tried in some bitter +crucible, but Rodney’s face! Henderson could not withdraw his fascinated +gaze. He stood in the midst of the dancers like a man turned to stone. He put +up his hand to his eyes as if to brush away a cloud of swarming gnats, then +threw up his arms and rushed from the room. The dancers paused in their mad +whirl. Miguel’s bow stopped with a wailing shriek. Every eye turned +towards the window for an explanation of Henderson’s sudden panic, but +all was dark without on the prairie. The magic had gone from the dance, the +whirlwind of drapery that had swung like flags in a breeze dropped in dead air. +“What was it?” the dancers asked one another in whispers. +</p> + +<p> +And for answer Judith entered, but a Judith that was strange to them. There was +about her a white radiance that kept the dancers back, and in her eyes +something of Mary’s look, as she turned from Calvary. The dancers still +kept the position of the figures, the men with their arms about their +partners’ waists, the women stepping forward; they were like the painted +figures of dancers in a fresco. And among them stood Judith, waiting to play +her part, waiting to show her world that she could dance and be merry because +all was well with her and hers. But the bronzed sons of the saddle hung back, +they who a day before would have quarrelled for the honor of a dance. They were +afraid of her; it would be like dancing with the death angel. She looked from +face to face. Surely some one would ask her to dance, and her eyes fell on +Henderson, returning from the bottled courage in the bunk-room. Some word was +due from him to explain his terror of a moment ago. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Miss Judith, I thought you was a ghost when I seen you at the +window.” +</p> + +<p> +“A ghost that’s ready to dance.” She held out her hand to +him. In her gesture there was something of royal command, and Henderson, +reading the meaning in her eyes, stepped forward. Her face, almost a perfect +replica of the dead man’s, looked at him. +</p> + +<p> +“I bring you greeting from my brother,” she said. “He has +gone on a long journey.” +</p> + +<p> +Henderson started. Through the still room ran the murmur, “Rodney’s +outwitted them; he’s played a joke on the rope!” And Judith, his +dare-devil sister, had come with his greetings to Henderson, leader of the +faction against him! The tide had turned. The applause that is ever the meed of +the winner was hers to command. The cattle faction were ready to sing the +praises of her splendid audacity. In their hearts they were glad in the thought +that Jim had outwitted them. +</p> + +<p> +Miguel’s bow dashed across the strings, and he drew from the little brown +fiddle music that again made them merry and glowing. The magic came back to the +dance, the blood leaped again with the merry madness, and they swept to the +bowing like leaves when the first faint wail of winter cries in the trees. +</p> + +<p> +Hamilton, standing apart with Kitty Colebrooke, had been a dazed witness of the +scene. With the rest he had watched the entrance of Judith, had been stunned by +the change in her appearance, had seen her triumph and heard the rumor of +Jim’s escape, and his heart had warmed with the good word. She had +probably managed the plan, and had come to-night, in the joy of her triumph, to +hurl in their faces that she had outwitted them. And she had paid the penalty +of her courage—her face told that. What a woman she was! Her heart would +pay the penalty to the last throb, and yet she could dance with the merriest of +them. And as she danced she seemed to Peter Hamilton, in her white draperies, +like a cloud of whirling snow-flakes drifting across the silence of the desert +night. She was the one woman in all the world for him, though his blind eyes +had faced the light for years and had not known it. He had squandered the +strength of his youth in the pursuit of a little wax light, and had not marked +the serene shining of the moon. +</p> + +<p> +“And a man there was and he made his prayer—” he quoted to +himself. Well, thank God that it had not been answered. He would take her away +from here. She could take her place in his family and reflect credit on his +choice. His family, his friends—he winced at the thought of their +possible reception of the news. But Judith’s presence would adjust these +difficulties. He would present her to Kitty now, that his old friend might see +what manner of woman she was. Kitty, he felt, would be kind in memory of the +old days. She would give to them both in friendship what she had denied him in +love. And as he warmed to the thought he turned to the woman of his youth. And +she read a look in his face that had not been there in a long time. Had he, +then, come back to her? Was the distance from bark to shore lessening as the +sea of misunderstanding diminished? +</p> + +<p> +“Kitty, we were speaking a moment ago of Miss Rodney. You would like to +know her, I’m sure. We’ve been such good friends all these years +while you were deciding that what I wanted was not good for us—and +deciding wisely, as I know now. Look at her! You’ll understand how she +has helped me keep the balance of things. When she’s finished dancing +you’ll let me bring her to you, won’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +And Kitty, who had expected much different words, struggled with the meaning of +these unexpected ones. The strangeness of the pain bewildered her. Her dazed +consciousness refused to accept that Peter was asking permission to present to +her a woman whom she thought should not have been permitted to enter her +presence. There was about her a white flame of anger that seemed to lick up the +red blood in her veins as she turned to answer: +</p> + +<p> +“She is undeniably handsome, Peter, but I do not care to meet your +mistress.” +</p> + +<p> +He bowed low to her as Lieutenant Swift, of Fort Washakie, who was of the +Wetmore party, came to claim Kitty’s hand for the next dance. Judith and +Henderson were leading the last figure, their hands clasped high in an arch +through which the dancers trooped in couples. Again and again he tried to catch +Judith’s eye, but her glance never once met his. Her great, wide eyes had +a far-away look as if they saw some tragedy, the shadow of which would never +fall from her. She was, indeed, the tragic muse in her floating white drapery, +the tragic muse whose grief is too deep for tears. He watched her as she swept +towards him in the figure of the dance, the head thrown back, slightly +foreshortened, the mouth smiling with the smile that knows all things, the eyes +holy wells of truth. He saw in her something of the tenderness of Eve, for all +the blending of the calm modern woman, capable in affairs, equal to emergency. +It was like her to contrive her brother’s escape and then to dance with +the very men who had knotted the noose for his hanging. Henderson was bowing to +her, the dance was over, and the next moment she was alone. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it you, Peter?” She thrust a strand of hair back from her +temple. Her eyes rested on him for a moment, then wandered, till in their +absent look was the rapt expression of the sleep-walker. The dark-rimmed eyes +had in their depths the quiet of a conflagration, and Peter, seeing these +things, and knowing the gamut of all her moods, saw that he had been mistaken. +She had not come, to dance in triumph, in the face of her brother’s +enemies. There was no triumph in her face, but white, consuming despair. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ask me to dance?” Again she put back the strand of hair. +“Forgive me for being so stupid, but I’ve kept post-office to-day, +and had a long ride, and I danced with Henderson.” +</p> + +<p> +He drew her arm within his and led the way out through the crowd of dancers to +the star-strewn night. She did not speak again, nor did she seem to notice that +they had left the room with the dancers. She turned her face towards the lonely +valley, where the drama of her brother’s passing had been consummated, +and something there was in her look as it turned towards the hills that told +Peter. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me, Judith, ‘what has happened?” +</p> + +<p> +For answer she pointed towards the valley. “They did it last night at the +dead cotton-woods. Henderson led them. I could not stay with Alida. I had to +come here to dance that no one might suspect.” +</p> + +<p> +Her voice was steady, but low and thrilling. In its deep resonance was the echo +of all human sorrow. There was no hint of accusation, yet Peter felt accused. +He felt, now when it was too late, that his position had been one of almost +pusillanimous negligence. From the beginning he had taken a firm stand against +violent measures. He had talked, argued, reasoned, inveighed against violence; +no later than a week ago he had ridden across the desert to tell Henderson that +the Wetmore outfit would take no part in violence of any sort, and that the +cattle outfit that did resort to extreme measures would miss the support of the +“W-Square” in any future range business. But it had not been +enough. He should have made plain his position in regard to Judith. With her as +his future wife the tragedy of the valley would not have been possible. +</p> + +<p> +From the ranch-house came the swell of the fiddles, the rhythmic shuffle of +feet, the song of the dancers, dulled by distance. Beside him was Judith, a +white spirit, the woman in her dead of grief. And yet, through all the grim +horror of the tragedy she remembered the part that had been allotted to her, +threw all the weight of her personality on the side of the game she was +playing. +</p> + +<p> +“You must be on our side, Peter, and when there is talk of Jim’s +absence you must imply that he is East somewhere. You will know how to meet +such inquiries better than we women. Henderson will be only too glad. You +should have seen the wretch when I held out my hand to him and told him to +dance with me. He came, white and shambling; we have nothing to fear from +Henderson. Alida has no money to go away with. She and I must stay here and +make a beginning for the children, and, Peter, we want you to help us.” +</p> + +<p> +He had no voice to answer her brave words for a minute, and then his sentences +came uncertain and halting. +</p> + +<p> +“You must think me a poor sort of friend, Judith, one who has been blind +till the eleventh hour and is then found wanting. I feel so guilty to you, to +your brother’s wife, to that little child who put out his arms so +trustfully to me that night, but I never imagined that things would come to +such a pass as this. The smaller cattle outfits have been doing a good deal of +blustering, but the more conservative element supposed that they had them in +check, and did not for a moment think that they would take the law into their +own hands. Believe me, this lawlessness has been in the face of every influence +that could be brought to bear, and it shall not go unpunished.” +</p> + +<p> +She spoke to him from the darkness, as the spirit of grief might speak. +“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, that is the justice of the +plains. But, Peter, it is but poor justice. What’s done is done, and +fresh violence will not give back Alida her husband nor the little ones their +father. What we need is friends, one or two loyal souls who, though knowing the +hideous truth of this thing, will stand by us in our pitiful falsehood. I have +told no one, nor shall I, but you and—Peter, you must not laugh at your +fellow-conspirator—Leander.” +</p> + +<p> +He took her hands in his and pressed them; big hands they were, and hardened by +many a homely task, but withal tender and with the healing quality of +womanliness in the touch of their warm, supple fingers. But to-night she did +not seem to know that he held them, nor to be conscious of his presence. The +woman in her was dead of grief. The white spirit in her place, that plotted and +planned that Jim’s children and Jim’s wife might not from +henceforth walk in the shadow of the gallows, was beyond the prompting of the +flesh. And again she spoke to him in the same far-away voice, with the same +far-away look in her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“You must know, Peter, that Leander is at heart of the salt of the earth. +I told him about it all, and he asked to be given the commission to deal with +the men. He has risen to his post magnificently. I heard him swear the wretches +to secrecy, hint to them that he had a great story to tell them. They were +frightened, and listened. And the poor little man that we have so despised told +them convincingly how Jim had made good his escape—even Henderson half +believes we saved him.” +</p> + +<p> +Peter hoped that she would accuse him of his half-heartedness indirectly, if +not openly. It would have made his conscience more comfortable, and his +conscience troubled him sorely to-night. It was that fatal habit of +procrastination that had brought this thing about. He had hesitated all these +weeks about Judith, and while he had threshed out the pro and con of her +disadvantageous family connection, this hideous tragedy had happened. +</p> + +<p> +“Peter”—and now her eyes seemed to come back to earth again, +to lose something of the far-away look of the sleep-walker—“Peter, +I’m cruel to speak to you of these things now. When your heart is full of +your own happiness, I come to you like a dark shadow with this tragedy. But I +am glad for the good that has come to you, Peter. Perhaps Miss Colebrooke told +you of the day I met her in the wood, the day of the wolf-hunt. She was so +beautiful, I understood—” +</p> + +<p> +“Judith, I hardly know how to say what I am going to, I feel that I have +been such a bad friend to you, but you must hear me patiently. Together, if you +are willing, after knowing all of me that you do, we must look after your +brother’s children. That night in the little house in the valley, when +the little chap came to me, don’t you remember, there was something fine +and fearless in the way he did it. ‘You may belong to the cattle side of +the argument,’ he seemed to say, ‘but I trust you.’ Now, +Judith dear, that boy’s faith in me is not going to be shaken. We must +look after them together. It is a very little thing you have asked of me, my +dearest, but a very big one that I am asking of you. Do you understand, my +Judith, it is you that I want? Don’t think of me as I have been, Judith, +but as you are going to make me. I want you to give me the right now, this +evening, to share all this trouble with you. Do we understand each other, +Judith? Is it to be? And will you come back with me now, into the room where +they are dancing, and let me present you to them, to the Wetmores, as <i>my</i> +Judith, my betrothed?” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Peter, I don’t understand. I—I thought you and Miss +Colebrooke were—” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all over, Judith. I did love her once. Oh, you dear, brave +woman, I’m not a hero from any point of view, and you know it. It’s +but a sorry lover that’s making his prayer to you, my dearest; but you +won’t judge, I know, beloved, you will love me instead?” +</p> + +<p> +Judith turned towards the valley. Her whole being throbbed with a passionate +response to the man who stood so humbly before her, but there were duties that +came first. Her mind was full of Alida and her children, and her eyes still +sought Peter’s imploringly. +</p> + +<p> +“You will be a good friend to them, Peter—to Jim’s people? I +cannot talk to you of anything else to-night. Your heart is big, Peter, but you +cannot feel, perhaps—” +</p> + +<p> +“Listen, Judith. Whatever friendship and protection I can give your +family you may count upon from now till the end of time. I will be theirs as I +am yours. I feel your grief, but I want to soothe it, too. And if you love me, +and I feel, Judith, that you do, you must let them all see to-night, these +people who know us both, that we stand together before all the world for better +or worse. Think, Judith, and you will see that you owe it to yourself, to me, +to all these men, who reverence you as the one woman, the one ideal in their +lonely lives.” +</p> + +<p> +She could not speak. The moment was too full, the strain had been too great; +but she smiled surrender, and Peter caught her tenderly in his arms and kissed +her once—his Judith she was now, his heroine. Then, without another word, +he drew her arm through his and led her back to the lights, where the dancers +still held high carnival. +</p> + +<p> +Judith’s half-sister, Eudora, was making a pretty quarrel by perversely +forgetting the order in which she had given her dances. The girl was so +undeniably happy that Judith dreaded the grim news she must tell her. Eudora +blushed as she encountered Judith’s eye. Her half-sister ever offered a +check on Eudora’s exuberant coquetry, with its precipitation of +discussions that often ended in bullets. Leander stood on the outermost fringe +of Eudora’s potential partners. He would not have dared to maintain it +openly, yet he was sure the pretty minx had promised that dance to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Dance with Leander, dear, and don’t let those men begin +quarrelling. I’ve something to tell you, presently,” said Judith. +</p> + +<p> +Texas Tyler stood glowering at them from the doorway. He would not catch +Judith’s eye as she tried to speak to him. Kitty sat alone for the +moment. She had sent the young lieutenant to fetch her a cup of coffee, but as +Peter approached with Judith she averted her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Kitty, may I present to you my fiancée, Miss Rodney?” +</p> + +<p> +Kitty rose superbly to the situation. She might, indeed, have made the match +she was so overjoyed in the good-fortune of her old friend Peter. She made no +reference to the woodland meeting—she hoped for the happiness of seeing +them in town. And she bade Peter tell the good news to Nannie Wetmore, they +would be so glad. Nannie swallowed a grimace and proffered a cousinly hand. She +had suspected some such news as this when she saw that things were not going +well with Kitty and Peter. +</p> + +<p> +“Better one dance with a good partner that can swing ye than several with +a feeble partner that leaves ye to swing your own corners!” +</p> + +<p> +Judith looked up, smiling. She recognized the characteristic utterance of her +old friend Mrs. Yellett. The matriarch had sustained a breakdown, and arrived, +in consequence, when the dance was half over, but she was philosophical, as +always, in the face of misfortune, and loudly attested her pleasure in the +renowned pedal feats of her partner, Costigan. +</p> + +<p> +Behind came Mary Carmichael, looking brown and happy. From the attitude of the +group around Judith and Peter Mary divined what had happened, and came to add +her congratulations. Even Mrs. Yellett forgot to choose an axiom as her medium +of expression, and kissed Judith publicly, with affectionate unction. Henderson +had effaced himself, and Leander, proud of his triumph and Judith’s +commendation, sat in a corner and smiled contentedly. Ignorant of the drama to +which they had played chorus, the dancers still riotously swung one another up +and down the length of the room, and from the little brown fiddles came the gay +music of Judith’s betrothal. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +THE END +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUDITH OF THE PLAINS ***</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This file should be named 15573-h.htm or 15573-h.zip</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/5/7/15573/</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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