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+ +<!-- +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Judith Of The Plains by Marie Manning
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 http://www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+
+
+Title: Judith Of The Plains
+
+Author: Marie Manning
+
+Release Date: April 2005 [EBook #15573]
+
+Language: American English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
--> +
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+ <title>Judith Of The Plains</title>
+ <author>Marie Manning</author>
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+ <edition n="1">Edition 1
+ <date value="2005-4">April 2005</date>
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+ <date value="2005-4">April 2005</date>
+ <idno type="etext-no">15573</idno>
+ <availability>
+ <p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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
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+ <title>Judith Of The Plains</title>
+ <author>Marie Manning</author>
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+ <date>1903</date>
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+<front>
+ +<div> +<divGen type="pgheader" rend="page-break-before: always" /> +</div> +
+<titlePage rend="page-break-before: right">
+<docTitle><titlePart type="main" rend="font-size: x-large">Judith Of The Plains</titlePart></docTitle>
+
+<lb /><byline>By <docAuthor>Marie Manning</docAuthor><lb /><lb /></byline>
+
+<docImprint>Harper & Brothers Publishers<lb />
+New York And London<lb />
+<lb />
+Copyright, 1903. By Harper & Brothers<lb />
+<lb/>
+Printed In The United States Of America</docImprint>
+</titlePage>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<p rend="text-align: center">
+<figure rend="w95" url="images/image01.png">
+<head>Peter's Hand Sought Hers, And All Her Woman's Fear Of
+The Vague Terrors Of The Dreadful Night Spoke
+In Her Answering Pressure—See p. <ref target="Pg154">154</ref>.</head>
+<figDesc>Image #1</figDesc></figure></p>
+</div>
+ +<div rend="page-break-before: right">
+<index index="pdf" /> +<head>Contents</head> +<divGen type="toc" /> +</div> +
+</front>
+
+<body>
+<div rend="page-break-before: right">
+
+<head>Judith Of The Plains</head>
+
+<p></p>
+</div>
+
+<div>
+<pb n="001" />
+<anchor id="Pg001" />
+
+<head>I</head>
+<index index="pdf" /><index index="toc" level1=""Town"" />
+<head type="sub">"Town"</head>
+
+<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>
+<pb n="002" />
+<anchor id="Pg002" />
+
+<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>
+<pb n="003" />
+<anchor id="Pg003" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="004" />
+<anchor id="Pg004" />
+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
+<pb n="005" />
+<anchor id="Pg005" />
+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>
+
+<quote rend="display">
+<p>"Practically at end of journey. Take stage to Lost Trail
+this morning. Am well. Don't worry about me.</p>
+
+<p rend="text-align: right">"MARY."</p>
+</quote>
+
+<p>And the telegraph operator, dimly remembering
+that he had heard Lost Trail was a "pizen mean
+<pb n="006" />
+<anchor id="Pg006" />
+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>
+
+<quote rend="display">
+<p rend="text-align: right">"LOST TRAIL, WYOMING.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Unfortunately, the children vary so in their accomplishments
+<pb n="007" />
+<anchor id="Pg007" />
+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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"With our most cordial good wishes for a safe journey,
+believe me, dear Miss Carmichael,</p>
+
+<p rend="text-align: right">"Sincerely yours,</p>
+
+<p rend="text-align: right">"SARAH YELLETT."</p>
+</quote>
+
+<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
+<pb n="008" />
+<anchor id="Pg008" />
+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
+<pb n="009" />
+<anchor id="Pg009" />
+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
+<pb n="010" />
+<anchor id="Pg010" />
+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?
+<pb n="011" />
+<anchor id="Pg011" />
+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
+<pb n="012" />
+<anchor id="Pg012" />
+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
+<pb n="013" />
+<anchor id="Pg013" />
+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>
+<pb n="014" />
+<anchor id="Pg014" />
+
+<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>
+<pb n="015" />
+<anchor id="Pg015" />
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<head>II</head>
+<index index="pdf" /><index index="toc" level1="The Encounter" />
+<head type="sub">The Encounter</head>
+
+<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
+<pb n="016" />
+<anchor id="Pg016" />
+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
+<pb n="017" />
+<anchor id="Pg017" />
+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
+<pb n="018" />
+<anchor id="Pg018" />
+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 <hi rend="font-style: italic">camaraderie</hi>
+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
+<pb n="019" />
+<anchor id="Pg019" />
+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
+<pb n="020" />
+<anchor id="Pg020" />
+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
+<pb n="021" />
+<anchor id="Pg021" />
+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,
+<pb n="022" />
+<anchor id="Pg022" />
+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
+<pb n="023" />
+<anchor id="Pg023" />
+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
+<pb n="024" />
+<anchor id="Pg024" />
+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
+<pb n="025" />
+<anchor id="Pg025" />
+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
+<pb n="026" />
+<anchor id="Pg026" />
+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
+<pb n="027" />
+<anchor id="Pg027" />
+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>
+<pb n="028" />
+<anchor id="Pg028" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="029" />
+<anchor id="Pg029" />
+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
+<pb n="030" />
+<anchor id="Pg030" />
+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
+<pb n="031" />
+<anchor id="Pg031" />
+party, and an edifying <hi rend="font-style: italic">esprit de corps</hi> 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,
+<pb n="032" />
+<anchor id="Pg032" />
+"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>
+<pb n="033" />
+<anchor id="Pg033" />
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<head>III</head>
+<index index="pdf" /><index index="toc" level1="Leander And His Lady" />
+<head type="sub">Leander And His Lady</head>
+
+<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
+<pb n="034" />
+<anchor id="Pg034" />
+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
+<pb n="035" />
+<anchor id="Pg035" />
+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
+<pb n="036" />
+<anchor id="Pg036" />
+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
+<pb n="037" />
+<anchor id="Pg037" />
+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
+<pb n="038" />
+<anchor id="Pg038" />
+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,
+<pb n="039" />
+<anchor id="Pg039" />
+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 manoeuvres 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>
+<pb n="040" />
+<anchor id="Pg040" />
+
+<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>
+<pb n="041" />
+<anchor id="Pg041" />
+
+<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>
+
+<lg>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">"'No one to love,</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">None to caress.'</l>
+</lg>
+
+<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 <hi rend="font-style: italic">The Heart and Hand</hi>.
+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—<hi rend="font-style: italic">Handbook of
+Correspondence, The Epistolary Guide, The Ready
+Letter-Writer</hi>, 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>
+<pb n="042" />
+<anchor id="Pg042" />
+
+<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>
+<pb n="043" />
+<anchor id="Pg043" />
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<head>IV</head>
+<index index="pdf" /><index index="toc" level1="Judith, The Postmistress" />
+<head type="sub">Judith, The Postmistress</head>
+
+<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
+<pb n="044" />
+<anchor id="Pg044" />
+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>
+<pb n="045" />
+<anchor id="Pg045" />
+
+<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>
+<pb n="046" />
+<anchor id="Pg046" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="047" />
+<anchor id="Pg047" />
+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>
+<pb n="048" />
+<anchor id="Pg048" />
+
+<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<hi rend="font-style: italic">nine</hi>, 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>
+<pb n="049" />
+<anchor id="Pg049" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="050" />
+<anchor id="Pg050" />
+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
+<pb n="051" />
+<anchor id="Pg051" />
+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
+<pb n="052" />
+<anchor id="Pg052" />
+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>
+<pb n="053" />
+<anchor id="Pg053" />
+
+<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>
+
+<lg>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">"Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie,</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 4">In a narrow grave just six by three,</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 4">Where the wild coyotes will howl o'er me.</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie."</l>
+</lg>
+
+<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
+<pb n="054" />
+<anchor id="Pg054" />
+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>
+
+<lg>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">"The devil examined the desert well,</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">And made up his mind 'twas too dry for hell;</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">He put up the prices his pockets to swell,</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">And called it a—heal-th resort."</l>
+</lg>
+
+<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?
+<pb n="055" />
+<anchor id="Pg055" />
+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
+<pb n="056" />
+<anchor id="Pg056" />
+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,
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">quick</hi>. 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
+<pb n="057" />
+<anchor id="Pg057" />
+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>
+<pb n="058" />
+<anchor id="Pg058" />
+
+<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>
+<pb n="059" />
+<anchor id="Pg059" />
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<head>V</head>
+<index index="pdf" /><index index="toc" level1="The Trail Of Sentiment" />
+<head type="sub">The Trail Of Sentiment</head>
+
+<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>
+<pb n="060" />
+<anchor id="Pg060" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="061" />
+<anchor id="Pg061" />
+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
+<pb n="062" />
+<anchor id="Pg062" />
+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>
+<pb n="063" />
+<anchor id="Pg063" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="064" />
+<anchor id="Pg064" />
+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>
+<pb n="065" />
+<anchor id="Pg065" />
+
+<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,
+<pb n="066" />
+<anchor id="Pg066" />
+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>
+<pb n="067" />
+<anchor id="Pg067" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="068" />
+<anchor id="Pg068" />
+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
+<pb n="069" />
+<anchor id="Pg069" />
+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>
+<pb n="070" />
+<anchor id="Pg070" />
+
+<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.
+<pb n="071" />
+<anchor id="Pg071" />
+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
+<pb n="072" />
+<anchor id="Pg072" />
+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 <hi rend="font-style: italic">chef</hi>, 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,
+<pb n="073" />
+<anchor id="Pg073" />
+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>
+<pb n="074" />
+<anchor id="Pg074" />
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<head>VI</head>
+<index index="pdf" /><index index="toc" level1="A Daughter Of The Desert" />
+<head type="sub">A Daughter Of The Desert</head>
+
+<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
+<pb n="075" />
+<anchor id="Pg075" />
+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
+<pb n="076" />
+<anchor id="Pg076" />
+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>
+<pb n="077" />
+<anchor id="Pg077" />
+
+<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>
+<pb n="078" />
+<anchor id="Pg078" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="079" />
+<anchor id="Pg079" />
+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
+<pb n="080" />
+<anchor id="Pg080" />
+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
+<pb n="081" />
+<anchor id="Pg081" />
+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
+<pb n="082" />
+<anchor id="Pg082" />
+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
+<pb n="083" />
+<anchor id="Pg083" />
+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
+<pb n="084" />
+<anchor id="Pg084" />
+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 <hi rend="font-style: italic">dramatis personæ</hi>
+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.
+<pb n="085" />
+<anchor id="Pg085" />
+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
+<pb n="086" />
+<anchor id="Pg086" />
+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>
+<pb n="087" />
+<anchor id="Pg087" />
+
+<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,
+<pb n="088" />
+<anchor id="Pg088" />
+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, <hi rend="font-style: italic">née</hi> 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,
+<pb n="089" />
+<anchor id="Pg089" />
+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.
+<pb n="090" />
+<anchor id="Pg090" />
+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, <hi rend="font-style: italic">née</hi> 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
+<pb n="091" />
+<anchor id="Pg091" />
+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
+<pb n="092" />
+<anchor id="Pg092" />
+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>
+<pb n="093" />
+<anchor id="Pg093" />
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<head>VII</head>
+<index index="pdf" /><index index="toc" level1="Chugg Takes The Ribbons" />
+<head type="sub">Chugg Takes The Ribbons</head>
+
+<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
+<pb n="094" />
+<anchor id="Pg094" />
+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>
+<pb n="095" />
+<anchor id="Pg095" />
+
+<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>
+<pb n="096" />
+<anchor id="Pg096" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="097" />
+<anchor id="Pg097" />
+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>
+
+<lg>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">"'Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie.'</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">The words came low and mournfully</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">From the cold, pale lips of a youth who lay</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">On his dying couch at the close of day."</l>
+</lg>
+
+<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
+<pb n="098" />
+<anchor id="Pg098" />
+"Ballad of the Mule-Skinner," with what seemed
+to both terrified passengers an awful warning of
+their overthrow:</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">"As I was going down the road,</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">With a tired team and a heavy load,</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">I cracked my whip and the leaders sprung—</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">The fifth chain broke, and the wheelers hung,</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">The off-horse stepped on the wagon tongue—"</l>
+</lg>
+
+<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
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">The Heart and Hand</hi>. 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
+<pb n="099" />
+<anchor id="Pg099" />
+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 <hi rend="font-style: italic">de trop</hi>, 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
+<pb n="100" />
+<anchor id="Pg100" />
+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
+<pb n="101" />
+<anchor id="Pg101" />
+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>
+<pb n="102" />
+<anchor id="Pg102" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="103" />
+<anchor id="Pg103" />
+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>
+<pb n="104" />
+<anchor id="Pg104" />
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<head>VIII</head>
+<index index="pdf" /><index index="toc" level1="The Rodneys At Home" />
+<head type="sub">The Rodneys At Home</head>
+
+<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
+<pb n="105" />
+<anchor id="Pg105" />
+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
+<pb n="106" />
+<anchor id="Pg106" />
+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
+<pb n="107" />
+<anchor id="Pg107" />
+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
+<pb n="108" />
+<anchor id="Pg108" />
+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
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">dramatis persona</hi> 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, <hi rend="font-style: italic">née</hi> Tumlin—she who
+had been the heroine of the romance lately recorded.</p>
+<pb n="109" />
+<anchor id="Pg109" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="110" />
+<anchor id="Pg110" />
+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
+<pb n="111" />
+<anchor id="Pg111" />
+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,
+<pb n="112" />
+<anchor id="Pg112" />
+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 <hi rend="font-style: italic">grande
+dame</hi> of the family. Eudora had now divested herself
+of the greasy, flour-smeared apron, flinging it
+<pb n="113" />
+<anchor id="Pg113" />
+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
+<pb n="114" />
+<anchor id="Pg114" />
+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 Fremont,
+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
+<pb n="115" />
+<anchor id="Pg115" />
+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
+<pb n="116" />
+<anchor id="Pg116" />
+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>
+<pb n="117" />
+<anchor id="Pg117" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="118" />
+<anchor id="Pg118" />
+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>
+<pb n="119" />
+<anchor id="Pg119" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="120" />
+<anchor id="Pg120" />
+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
+<pb n="121" />
+<anchor id="Pg121" />
+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
+<pb n="122" />
+<anchor id="Pg122" />
+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>
+<pb n="123" />
+<anchor id="Pg123" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="124" />
+<anchor id="Pg124" />
+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
+<pb n="125" />
+<anchor id="Pg125" />
+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
+<pb n="126" />
+<anchor id="Pg126" />
+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>
+<pb n="127" />
+<anchor id="Pg127" />
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<head>IX</head>
+<index index="pdf" /><index index="toc" level1="Mrs. Yellett And Her "Gov'ment"" />
+<head type="sub">Mrs. Yellett And Her "Gov'ment"</head>
+
+<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
+<pb n="128" />
+<anchor id="Pg128" />
+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>
+<pb n="129" />
+<anchor id="Pg129" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="130" />
+<anchor id="Pg130" />
+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,
+<pb n="131" />
+<anchor id="Pg131" />
+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-<hi rend="font-style: italic">ply</hi>-narian, maw."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that's it—a dis-a-<hi rend="font-style: italic">ply</hi>-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
+<pb n="132" />
+<anchor id="Pg132" />
+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>
+<pb n="133" />
+<anchor id="Pg133" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="134" />
+<anchor id="Pg134" />
+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>
+<pb n="135" />
+<anchor id="Pg135" />
+
+<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'
+<pb n="136" />
+<anchor id="Pg136" />
+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
+<pb n="137" />
+<anchor id="Pg137" />
+he 'lowed that Cactus was a boy's name an' Cacta
+was for girls—called it a <hi rend="font-style: italic">fee</hi>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
+<pb n="138" />
+<anchor id="Pg138" />
+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
+<pb n="139" />
+<anchor id="Pg139" />
+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,
+<pb n="140" />
+<anchor id="Pg140" />
+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>
+<pb n="141" />
+<anchor id="Pg141" />
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<head>X</head>
+<index index="pdf" /><index index="toc" level1="On Horse-thief Trail" />
+<head type="sub">On Horse-thief Trail</head>
+
+<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
+<pb n="142" />
+<anchor id="Pg142" />
+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
+<pb n="143" />
+<anchor id="Pg143" />
+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
+<pb n="144" />
+<anchor id="Pg144" />
+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
+<pb n="145" />
+<anchor id="Pg145" />
+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
+<pb n="146" />
+<anchor id="Pg146" />
+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
+<pb n="147" />
+<anchor id="Pg147" />
+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
+<pb n="148" />
+<anchor id="Pg148" />
+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
+<pb n="149" />
+<anchor id="Pg149" />
+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,
+<pb n="150" />
+<anchor id="Pg150" />
+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,
+<pb n="151" />
+<anchor id="Pg151" />
+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
+<pb n="152" />
+<anchor id="Pg152" />
+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
+<pb n="153" />
+<anchor id="Pg153" />
+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>
+<pb n="154" />
+<anchor id="Pg154" />
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<head>XI</head>
+<index index="pdf" /><index index="toc" level1="The Cabin In The Valley" />
+<head type="sub">The Cabin In The Valley</head>
+
+<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.
+<pb n="155" />
+<anchor id="Pg155" />
+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>
+
+<lg>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">"Somewhere in desolate, wind-swept space,</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 4">In twilight land—no man's land—</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">Two hurrying shapes met face to face</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 4">And bade each other stand.</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">"'And who are you?' cried one, agape,</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 4">Shuddering in the gloaming light.</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">I know not,' said the other shape,</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">'I only died last night.'"</l>
+</lg>
+
+<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
+<pb n="156" />
+<anchor id="Pg156" />
+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
+<pb n="157" />
+<anchor id="Pg157" />
+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,
+<pb n="158" />
+<anchor id="Pg158" />
+the sort of smile one would give to a "nice boy"
+when his manoeuvres 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
+<pb n="159" />
+<anchor id="Pg159" />
+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>
+<pb n="160" />
+<anchor id="Pg160" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="161" />
+<anchor id="Pg161" />
+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
+<pb n="162" />
+<anchor id="Pg162" />
+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
+<pb n="163" />
+<anchor id="Pg163" />
+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
+<pb n="164" />
+<anchor id="Pg164" />
+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
+<pb n="165" />
+<anchor id="Pg165" />
+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>
+<pb n="166" />
+<anchor id="Pg166" />
+
+<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 <hi rend="font-style: italic">cul-de-sac</hi> 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
+<pb n="167" />
+<anchor id="Pg167" />
+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
+<pb n="168" />
+<anchor id="Pg168" />
+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
+<pb n="169" />
+<anchor id="Pg169" />
+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
+<pb n="170" />
+<anchor id="Pg170" />
+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
+<pb n="171" />
+<anchor id="Pg171" />
+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>
+<pb n="172" />
+<anchor id="Pg172" />
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<head>XII</head>
+<index index="pdf" /><index index="toc" level1="The Round-up" />
+<head type="sub">The Round-up</head>
+
+<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
+<pb n="173" />
+<anchor id="Pg173" />
+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
+<pb n="174" />
+<anchor id="Pg174" />
+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>
+<pb n="175" />
+<anchor id="Pg175" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="176" />
+<anchor id="Pg176" />
+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
+<pb n="177" />
+<anchor id="Pg177" />
+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
+<pb n="178" />
+<anchor id="Pg178" />
+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
+<pb n="179" />
+<anchor id="Pg179" />
+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,
+<pb n="180" />
+<anchor id="Pg180" />
+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
+<pb n="181" />
+<anchor id="Pg181" />
+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 <hi rend="font-style: italic">billet-doux</hi>. 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,
+<pb n="182" />
+<anchor id="Pg182" />
+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
+<pb n="183" />
+<anchor id="Pg183" />
+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>
+<pb n="184" />
+<anchor id="Pg184" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="185" />
+<anchor id="Pg185" />
+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
+<pb n="186" />
+<anchor id="Pg186" />
+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>
+
+<lg>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">"'Who'll weep for me, on the gallows tree,</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 4">As I sway in the wind and swing?</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">Is there never a tear to be shed for me,</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 4">As I swing by a hempen string?</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">Who'll weep, who'll keep</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">Watch, as I'm rocked to sleep,</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 4">Rocked by a hempen string?'"</l>
+</lg>
+
+<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
+<pb n="187" />
+<anchor id="Pg187" />
+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
+<pb n="188" />
+<anchor id="Pg188" />
+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
+<pb n="189" />
+<anchor id="Pg189" />
+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
+<pb n="190" />
+<anchor id="Pg190" />
+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.
+<pb n="191" />
+<anchor id="Pg191" />
+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
+<pb n="192" />
+<anchor id="Pg192" />
+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>
+<pb n="193" />
+<anchor id="Pg193" />
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<head>XIII</head>
+<index index="pdf" /><index index="toc" level1="Mary's First Day In Camp" />
+<head type="sub">Mary's First Day In Camp</head>
+
+<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
+<pb n="194" />
+<anchor id="Pg194" />
+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
+<pb n="195" />
+<anchor id="Pg195" />
+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
+<pb n="196" />
+<anchor id="Pg196" />
+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>
+<pb n="197" />
+<anchor id="Pg197" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="198" />
+<anchor id="Pg198" />
+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 <hi rend="font-style: italic">May-flower</hi>
+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>
+<pb n="199" />
+<anchor id="Pg199" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="200" />
+<anchor id="Pg200" />
+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
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">al fresco</hi> 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
+<pb n="201" />
+<anchor id="Pg201" />
+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
+<pb n="202" />
+<anchor id="Pg202" />
+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
+<pb n="203" />
+<anchor id="Pg203" />
+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,
+<pb n="204" />
+<anchor id="Pg204" />
+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
+<pb n="205" />
+<anchor id="Pg205" />
+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,
+<pb n="206" />
+<anchor id="Pg206" />
+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
+<pb n="207" />
+<anchor id="Pg207" />
+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,
+<pb n="208" />
+<anchor id="Pg208" />
+"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 <hi rend="font-style: italic">Childhood of the World</hi>, two of that
+excellent series of <hi rend="font-style: italic">History Primers</hi>, and <hi rend="font-style: italic">The Young
+Geologist</hi>, 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>
+<pb n="209" />
+<anchor id="Pg209" />
+
+<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>
+<pb n="210" />
+<anchor id="Pg210" />
+
+<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>
+<pb n="211" />
+<anchor id="Pg211" />
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<head>XIV</head>
+<index index="pdf" /><index index="toc" level1="Judith Adjusts The Situation" />
+<head type="sub">Judith Adjusts The Situation</head>
+
+<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
+<pb n="212" />
+<anchor id="Pg212" />
+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
+<pb n="213" />
+<anchor id="Pg213" />
+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
+<pb n="214" />
+<anchor id="Pg214" />
+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
+<pb n="215" />
+<anchor id="Pg215" />
+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
+<pb n="216" />
+<anchor id="Pg216" />
+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
+<pb n="217" />
+<anchor id="Pg217" />
+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>
+<pb n="218" />
+<anchor id="Pg218" />
+
+<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>
+<pb n="219" />
+<anchor id="Pg219" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="220" />
+<anchor id="Pg220" />
+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
+<pb n="221" />
+<anchor id="Pg221" />
+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>
+<pb n="222" />
+<anchor id="Pg222" />
+
+<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 <hi rend="font-style: italic">The Bride of the Tomb</hi>. 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
+<pb n="223" />
+<anchor id="Pg223" />
+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
+<pb n="224" />
+<anchor id="Pg224" />
+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?
+<pb n="225" />
+<anchor id="Pg225" />
+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.
+<pb n="226" />
+<anchor id="Pg226" />
+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>
+<pb n="227" />
+<anchor id="Pg227" />
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<head>XV</head>
+<index index="pdf" /><index index="toc" level1="The Wolf-hunt" />
+<head type="sub">The Wolf-hunt</head>
+
+<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
+<pb n="228" />
+<anchor id="Pg228" />
+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
+<pb n="229" />
+<anchor id="Pg229" />
+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
+<pb n="230" />
+<anchor id="Pg230" />
+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
+<pb n="231" />
+<anchor id="Pg231" />
+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
+<pb n="232" />
+<anchor id="Pg232" />
+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;
+<pb n="233" />
+<anchor id="Pg233" />
+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.
+<pb n="234" />
+<anchor id="Pg234" />
+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.
+<pb n="235" />
+<anchor id="Pg235" />
+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>
+
+<lb />
+
+<p>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,
+<pb n="236" />
+<anchor id="Pg236" />
+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.
+<pb n="237" />
+<anchor id="Pg237" />
+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 <hi rend="font-style: italic">littérateuse</hi>
+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
+<pb n="238" />
+<anchor id="Pg238" />
+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
+<pb n="239" />
+<anchor id="Pg239" />
+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
+<pb n="240" />
+<anchor id="Pg240" />
+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
+<pb n="241" />
+<anchor id="Pg241" />
+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>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
+<pb n="242" />
+<anchor id="Pg242" />
+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,
+<pb n="243" />
+<anchor id="Pg243" />
+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>
+<pb n="244" />
+<anchor id="Pg244" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="245" />
+<anchor id="Pg245" />
+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
+<pb n="246" />
+<anchor id="Pg246" />
+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
+<pb n="247" />
+<anchor id="Pg247" />
+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
+<pb n="248" />
+<anchor id="Pg248" />
+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>
+<pb n="249" />
+<anchor id="Pg249" />
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<head>XVI</head>
+<index index="pdf" /><index index="toc" level1="In The Land Of The Red Silence" />
+<head type="sub">In The Land Of The Red Silence</head>
+
+<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
+<pb n="250" />
+<anchor id="Pg250" />
+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
+<pb n="251" />
+<anchor id="Pg251" />
+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
+<pb n="252" />
+<anchor id="Pg252" />
+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
+<pb n="253" />
+<anchor id="Pg253" />
+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
+<pb n="254" />
+<anchor id="Pg254" />
+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
+<pb n="255" />
+<anchor id="Pg255" />
+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
+<pb n="256" />
+<anchor id="Pg256" />
+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>
+<pb n="257" />
+<anchor id="Pg257" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="258" />
+<anchor id="Pg258" />
+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>
+<pb n="259" />
+<anchor id="Pg259" />
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<head>XVII</head>
+<index index="pdf" /><index index="toc" level1="Mrs. Yellett Contends With A Cloudburst" />
+<head type="sub">Mrs. Yellett Contends With A Cloudburst</head>
+
+<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>
+<pb n="260" />
+<anchor id="Pg260" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="261" />
+<anchor id="Pg261" />
+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'.
+<pb n="262" />
+<anchor id="Pg262" />
+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
+<pb n="263" />
+<anchor id="Pg263" />
+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,
+<pb n="264" />
+<anchor id="Pg264" />
+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
+<pb n="265" />
+<anchor id="Pg265" />
+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
+<pb n="266" />
+<anchor id="Pg266" />
+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
+<pb n="267" />
+<anchor id="Pg267" />
+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
+<pb n="268" />
+<anchor id="Pg268" />
+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>
+<pb n="269" />
+<anchor id="Pg269" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="270" />
+<anchor id="Pg270" />
+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
+<pb n="271" />
+<anchor id="Pg271" />
+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
+<pb n="272" />
+<anchor id="Pg272" />
+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' <hi rend="font-style: italic">him</hi>! 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
+<pb n="273" />
+<anchor id="Pg273" />
+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>
+<pb n="274" />
+<anchor id="Pg274" />
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<head>XVIII</head>
+<index index="pdf" /><index index="toc" level1="Foreshadowed" />
+<head type="sub">Foreshadowed</head>
+
+<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
+<pb n="275" />
+<anchor id="Pg275" />
+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
+<pb n="276" />
+<anchor id="Pg276" />
+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>
+<pb n="277" />
+<anchor id="Pg277" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="278" />
+<anchor id="Pg278" />
+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>
+<pb n="279" />
+<anchor id="Pg279" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="280" />
+<anchor id="Pg280" />
+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>
+<pb n="281" />
+<anchor id="Pg281" />
+
+<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>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
+<pb n="282" />
+<anchor id="Pg282" />
+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
+<pb n="283" />
+<anchor id="Pg283" />
+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>
+<pb n="284" />
+<anchor id="Pg284" />
+
+<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>
+<pb n="285" />
+<anchor id="Pg285" />
+
+<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.
+<pb n="286" />
+<anchor id="Pg286" />
+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>
+<pb n="287" />
+<anchor id="Pg287" />
+
+<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.
+<pb n="288" />
+<anchor id="Pg288" />
+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
+<pb n="289" />
+<anchor id="Pg289" />
+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
+<pb n="290" />
+<anchor id="Pg290" />
+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>
+<pb n="291" />
+<anchor id="Pg291" />
+
+<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,
+<pb n="292" />
+<anchor id="Pg292" />
+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
+<pb n="293" />
+<anchor id="Pg293" />
+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
+<pb n="294" />
+<anchor id="Pg294" />
+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
+<pb n="295" />
+<anchor id="Pg295" />
+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>
+<pb n="296" />
+<anchor id="Pg296" />
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<head>XIX</head>
+<index index="pdf" /><index index="toc" level1=""Rocked By A Hempen String"" />
+<head type="sub">"Rocked By A Hempen String"</head>
+
+<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>
+<pb n="297" />
+<anchor id="Pg297" />
+
+<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>
+
+<lg>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">"'The gray wolves are coming fast over the hill,</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 4">Run fast, little lamb, do not baa, do not bleat,</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">For the gray wolves are hungry, they come here to kill,</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 4">And the lambs shall be scattered—'</l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>"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,
+<pb n="298" />
+<anchor id="Pg298" />
+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.
+<pb n="299" />
+<anchor id="Pg299" />
+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
+<pb n="300" />
+<anchor id="Pg300" />
+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
+<pb n="301" />
+<anchor id="Pg301" />
+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.
+<pb n="302" />
+<anchor id="Pg302" />
+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
+<pb n="303" />
+<anchor id="Pg303" />
+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>
+<pb n="304" />
+<anchor id="Pg304" />
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<head>XX</head>
+<index index="pdf" /><index index="toc" level1="The Ball" />
+<head type="sub">The Ball</head>
+
+<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
+<pb n="305" />
+<anchor id="Pg305" />
+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
+<pb n="306" />
+<anchor id="Pg306" />
+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
+<pb n="307" />
+<anchor id="Pg307" />
+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
+<pb n="308" />
+<anchor id="Pg308" />
+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>
+<pb n="309" />
+<anchor id="Pg309" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="310" />
+<anchor id="Pg310" />
+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>
+
+<lg>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">"Hawk hop out and the crow hop in,</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">Three hands round and go it ag'in.</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">Allemane left, back to the missus,</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">Grande right and left and sneak a few kisses."</l>
+</lg>
+
+<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
+<pb n="311" />
+<anchor id="Pg311" />
+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>
+<pb n="312" />
+<anchor id="Pg312" />
+
+<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>
+<pb n="313" />
+<anchor id="Pg313" />
+
+<lg>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">"All dance as pretty as you can,</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">Turn your toes and left alleman;</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 4">First gent sashay to the right,</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">Now swing the girl you last swung about,</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">And now the one that's cut her out,</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 4">And now the one that's dressed in white,</l>
+<l rend="margin-left: 2">And now the belle of the ball."</l>
+</lg>
+
+<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,
+<pb n="314" />
+<anchor id="Pg314" />
+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
+<pb n="315" />
+<anchor id="Pg315" />
+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
+<pb n="316" />
+<anchor id="Pg316" />
+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
+<pb n="317" />
+<anchor id="Pg317" />
+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,
+<pb n="318" />
+<anchor id="Pg318" />
+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,
+<pb n="319" />
+<anchor id="Pg319" />
+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.
+<pb n="320" />
+<anchor id="Pg320" />
+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>
+<pb n="321" />
+<anchor id="Pg321" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="322" />
+<anchor id="Pg322" />
+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
+<pb n="323" />
+<anchor id="Pg323" />
+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>
+<pb n="324" />
+<anchor id="Pg324" />
+
+<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
+<pb n="325" />
+<anchor id="Pg325" />
+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
+<pb n="326" />
+<anchor id="Pg326" />
+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
+<pb n="327" />
+<anchor id="Pg327" />
+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
+<pb n="328" />
+<anchor id="Pg328" />
+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 <hi rend="font-style: italic">you</hi> 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 <hi rend="font-style: italic">my</hi> 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
+<pb n="329" />
+<anchor id="Pg329" />
+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
+<pb n="330" />
+<anchor id="Pg330" />
+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
+<pb n="331" />
+<anchor id="Pg331" />
+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 rend="text-align: center"><hi rend="font-weight: bold">THE END</hi></p>
+</div>
+</body>
+<back> +
+<div rend="page-break-before: right">
+ <divGen type="pgfooter" /> +</div>
+</back>
+</text>
+</TEI.2>
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