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diff --git a/19388.txt b/19388.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..55ba19e --- /dev/null +++ b/19388.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9623 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sagebrusher, by Emerson Hough + +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 www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Sagebrusher + A Story of the West + +Author: Emerson Hough + +Illustrator: J. Henry + +Release Date: September 26, 2006 [EBook #19388] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SAGEBRUSHER *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: "You're a good sport," said Major Barnes] + + + + + + +THE SAGEBRUSHER + +A STORY OF THE WEST + + + +BY + +EMERSON HOUGH + + + + +AUTHOR OF THE COVERED WAGON, THE BROKEN GATE, ETC. + + + + +ILLUSTRATED BY + +J. HENRY + + + + + + +NEW YORK + +GROSSET & DUNLAP + +PUBLISHERS + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY + +EMERSON HOUGH + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + I. SIM GAGE AT HOME + II. WANTED: A WIFE + III. FIFTY-FIFTY + IV. HEARTS AFLAME + V. BEGGAR MAN--THIEF + VI. RICH MAN--POOR MAN + VII. CHIVALROUS; AND OF ABUNDANT MEANS + VIII. RIVAL CONSCIENCES + IX. THE HALT AND THE BLIND + X. NEIGHBORS + XI. THE COMPANY DOCTOR + XII. LEFT ALONE + XIII. THE SABCAT CAMP + XIV. THE MAN TRAIL + XV. THE SPECIES + XVI. THE REBIRTH OF SIM GAGE + XVII. SAGEBRUSHERS + XVIII. DONNA QUIXOTE + XIX. THE PLEDGE + XX. MAJOR ALLEN BARNES, M.D., PH.D.--AND SIM GAGE + XXI. WITH THIS RING + XXII. MRS. GAGE + XXIII. THE OUTLOOK + XXIV. ANNIE MOVES IN + XXV. ANOTHER MAN'S WIFE + XXVI. THE WAYS OF MR. GARDNER + XXVII. DORENWALD, CHIEF + XXVIII. A CHANGE OF BASE + XXIX. MARTIAL LAW + XXX. BEFORE DAWN + XXXI. THE BLIND SEE + XXXII. THE ENEMY + XXXIII. THE DAM + XXXIV. AFTER THE DELUGE + XXXV. ANNIE ANSWERS + XXXVI. MRS. DAVIDSON'S CONSCIENCE + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"You're a good sport," said Major Barnes . . . _Frontispiece_ + +"You ought to hang!" said she + +"You say I shall be able to see him--my husband?" + +"Get a board, or something, boys" + + + + +THE SAGEBRUSHER + + +CHAPTER I + +SIM GAGE AT HOME + +"Sim," said Wid Gardner, as he cast a frowning glance around him, "take +it one way with another, and I expect this is a leetle the dirtiest +place in the Two-Forks Valley." + +The man accosted did no more than turn a mild blue eye toward the +speaker and resume his whittling. He smiled faintly, with a sort of +apology, as the other went on. + +"I'll say more'n that, Sim. It's the blamedest, dirtiest hole in the +whole state of Montany--yes, or in the whole wide world. Lookit!" + +He swept a hand around, indicating the interior of the single-room log +cabin in which they sat. + +"Well," commented Sim Gage after a time, taking a meditative but wholly +unagitated tobacco shot at the cook stove, "I ain't saying she is and I +ain't saying she ain't. But I never did say I was a perfessional +housekeeper, did I now?" + +"Well, some folks has more sense of what's right, anyways," grumbled +Wid Gardner, shifting his position on one of the two insecure cracker +boxes which made the only chairs, and resting an elbow on the oil cloth +table cover, where stood a few broken dishes, showing no signs of any +ablution in all their hopeless lives. "My own self, I'm a bachelor +man, too--been batching for twenty years, one place and another--but by +God! Sim, this here is the human limit. Look at that bed." + +He kicked a foot toward a heap of dirty fabrics which lay upon the +floor, a bed which might once have been devised for a man, but long +since had fallen below that rank. It had a breadth of dirty canvas +thrown across it, from under which the occupant had crawled out. +Beneath might be seen the edges of two or three worn and dirty cotton +quilts and a pair of blankets of like dinginess. Below this lay a worn +elk hide, and under all a lower-breadth of the over-lapping canvas. It +was such a bed as primarily a cow-puncher might have had, but fallen +into such condition that no cow camp would have tolerated it. + +Sim Gage looked at the heap of bedding for a time gravely and +carefully, as though trying to find some reason for his friend's +dissatisfaction. His mouth began to work as it always did when he was +engaged in some severe mental problem, but he frowned apologetically +once more as he spoke. + +"Well, Wid, I know, I know. It ain't maybe just the thing to sleep on +the floor all the time, noways. You see, I got a bunk frame made for +her over there, and it's all tight and strong--it was there when I took +this cabin over from the Swede. But I ain't never just got around to +moving my bed offen the floor onto the bedstead. I may do it some day. +Fact is, I was just a-going to do it anyways." + +"Just a-going to--like hell you was! You been a-going to move that bed +for four years, to my certain knowledge, and I know that in that time +you ain't shuk it out or aired it onct, or made it up." + +"How do you know I ain't made her up?" demanded Sim Gage, his knife +arrested in its labors. + +"Well, I know you ain't. It's just the way you've throwed it ever' +morning since I've knowed you here. Move it up on the bedstead?--First +thing you know you can't." + +"Well," said Sim, sighing, "some folks is always making other folks +feel bad. I ain't never found fault with the way you keep house when I +come over to your place, have I?" + +"You ain't got the same reason for to," replied Wid Gardner. "I ain't +no angel, but I sure try to make some sort of bluff like I was human. +This place ain't human." + +"Now you said something!" remarked Sim suddenly, after a time spent in +solemn thought. "She ain't human! That's right." + +He made no explanation for some time, and both men sat looking vaguely +out of the open door across the wide and pleasant valley above which a +blue and white-flecked sky bent amiably. A wide ridge of good grass +lands lay held in the river's bent arm. The wind blew steadily, +throwing up into a sheet of silver the leaves of the willows which +followed the water courses. A few quaking asps standing near the cabin +door likewise gave motion and brightness to the scene. The air was +brilliantly cool and keen. It was a pleasant spot, and at that season +of the year not an uncomfortable one. Sim Gage had lived here for some +years now, and his homestead, originally selected with the unconscious +sense for beauty so often exercised by rude men in rude lands, was +considered one of the best in the Two-Forks Valley. + +"Feller, he loses hope after a while," began the owner of the place +after a considerable silence. "Look at me, for instance. I come out +here from Ioway more'n twenty-five years ago, when I was only a boy. +When my pa died my ma, she moved back to Ioway. I stuck around here, +like you and lots of other fellers, and done like you all, just the +best I could. Some way the country sort of took a holt on me. It +does, ain't it the truth?" + +His friend nodded silently. + +"Well, so I stuck around and done about what I could, same as you, +ain't that so, Wid? I prospected some, but you know how hard it is to +get any money into a mine, no matter what you've found fer a prospect. +I got along somehow--seems like folks didn't use to pester so much, the +way they do to-day. And you know onct I was just on the point of +starting out fer Arizony with that old miner, Pop Haynes--do you +suppose I'd struck anything if I'd of went down there?" + +"Nobody can say if you would or you wouldn't," replied Wid. "Fact is, +you never got more'n half started." + +"Well, you see, this old feller, Pop Haynes, he'd been down in Arizony +twenty years before, and he said there was lots of gold out there in +the desert. Well, we got a team hooked up, and a little flour and +bacon, and we did start--now, I'll leave it to you, Wid, if we didn't. +We got as far as Big Springs, on the railroad. What did we hear then? +Why, news comes up from down in Arizony that a railroad has went out +into the desert, and that them mines has been discovered. What's the +use then fer us to start fer Arizony with a wagon and team? Like +enough all the good stakes would be took up before we could get there. +Old Pop and me, we just turned back, allowing it was the sensiblest +thing to do." + +"And you been in around here ever since." + +"Yes, sir; yes, sir, that's what I been. Been around here ever since. +I told you the country kind of takes a holt on a feller. Ain't it the +truth? Well, I trapped a little since then in the winters, and killed +elk for the market some, like you know, and fished through the ice over +on the lakes, like you know. Some days I'd make three or four dollars +a day fishing. So at last when that Swede, Big Aleck, got run out of +the county, I fell into his ranch. There ain't a better in the whole +valley. Look at that hay land, Wid. You got to admit that this here +is one of the best places in Montany." + +"Well, maybe it is," said his friend and neighbor. "Leastways, it's +good enough to run like you mean to run it." + +"I'm a-going to run her all right. She's all under wire--the Swede +done that before I bought his quit claim. Can't no sheep get in on me +here. I'll bet you all my clothes that I'll cut six hundred ton of hay +this season--leastways I would if my horse hadn't hurt hisself in the +wire the other day. Now, you figure up what six hundred ton of hay +comes to in the stack, at prices hay is bringing now." + +"Trouble is, your hay ain't in the stack, Sim. You'll just about cut +hay enough to buy yourself flour and bacon for next winter, and that'll +be about all. If you worked the place right you'd make plenty fer +to----" + +"Fer to be human?" + +"Well, yes, that's about it, Sim." + +"That's right hard--doing all your own work outside and doing all your +own cooking and everything all the time in your own house. Just living +along twenty years one day after another, all by your own self, and +never--never----" + +His voice trailed off faintly, and he left the sentence unfinished. +Wid Gardner completed it for him. + +"And never having a woman around?" said he. + +"Ain't it the truth?" said Sim Gage suddenly. His eyes ran furtively +around the room in which they sat, taking in, without noting or +feeling, the unutterable squalor of the place. + +"Well," said his friend after a time, rising, "it'd be a fine place to +fetch a woman to, wouldn't it? But now I got to be going--I got my +chores to do." + +"What's your hurry, Wid?" complained the occupant of the cabin. +"Cow'll wait." + +"Yours might," said the other sententiously. As he spoke he was making +his way to the door. + +The sun was sinking now behind the range, and as he stood for a moment +looking toward the west, he might himself have been seen to be a man of +some stature, rugged and bronzed, with scores of wrinkles on his +leathery cheeks. His garb was the rude one of the West, or rather of +that remnant of the Old West which has been consigned to the dry +farmers and hay ranchers in these modern polyglot days. + +Sim Gage, the man who followed him out and stood for a time in the +unsparing brilliance of the evening sunlight, did not compare too well +with his friend. He was a man of absolutely no presence, utterly +lacking attractiveness. Not so much pudgy as shapeless; he had been +shapeless originally. His squat figure showed, to be sure, a certain +hardiness and vigor gained in his outdoor life, but he had not even the +rude grace of a stalwart manhood about him. He sank apologetically +into a lax posture, even as he stood. His pale blue eyes lacked fire. +His hair, uneven, ragged and hay-colored, seemed dry, as though +hopeless, discouraged, done with life, fringing out as it did in gray +locks under the edge of the battered hat he wore. He had been unshaven +for days, perhaps weeks, and his beard, unreaped, showed divers colors, +as of a field partially ripening here and there. In general he was +undecided, unfinished--yes, surely nature must have been undecided as +he himself was about himself. + +His clothing was such as might have been predicted for the owner of the +nondescript bed resting on the cabin floor. His neck, grimed, red and +wrinkled as that of an ancient turtle, rose above his bare brown +shoulders and his upper chest, likewise exposed. His only body +covering was an undershirt, or two undershirts. Their flannel +over-covering had left them apparently some time since, and as for the +remnant, it had known such wear that his arms, brown as those of an +Indian, were bare to the elbows. He was always thus, so far as any +neighbor could have remembered him, save that in the winter time he +cast a sheepskin coat over all. His short legs were clad in blue +overalls, so far as their outside cover was concerned, or at least the +overalls once had been blue, though now much faded. Under these, as +might be seen by a glance at their bottoms, were two, three, or +possibly even more, pairs of trousers, all borne up and suspended at +the top by an intricate series of ropes and strings which crossed his +half-bare shoulders. One might have searched all of Sim Gage's cabin +and have found on the wall not one article of clothing--he wore all he +had, summer and winter. And as he was now, so he had been ever since +his nearest neighbor could remember. A picture of indifference, apathy +and hopelessness, he stood, every rag and wrinkle of him sharply +outlined in the clear air. + +He stood uncertainly now, his foot turned over, as he always stood, +there seeming never at any time any determination or even animation +about him. And yet he longed, apparently, for some sort of human +companionship, but still he argued with his friend and asked him not to +hurry away. + +None the less after a few moments Wid Gardner did turn away. He passed +out at the rail bars which fenced off the front yard from the +willow-covered banks of a creek which ran nearby. A half-dozen head of +mixed cattle followed him up to the gate, seeking a wider world. A +mule thrust out his long head from a window of the log stable where it +was imprisoned, and brayed at him anxiously, also seeking outlet. + +But Sim Gage, apathetic, one foot lopped over, showed no agitation and +no ambition. The wisp of grass which hung now from the corner of his +mouth seemed to suit him for the time. He stood chewing and looking at +his departing visitor. + +"Some folks is _too_ damn dirty," said Wid Gardner to himself as he +passed now along the edge of the willow bank toward the front gate of +his own ranch, a half-mile up the stream. "And him talking about a +woman!" He flung out his hand in disgust at the mere thought. + +That is to say, he did at first. Then he began to walk more slowly. A +touch of reflectiveness came upon his own face. + +"Still," said he to himself after a time--speaking aloud as men of the +wilderness sometimes learn to do--"I don't know!" + +He turned into his own gate, approached his own cabin, its exterior +much like that of the one which but now he had left. He paused for a +moment at the door as he looked in, regarding its somewhat neater +appearance. + +"Well, and even so," said he. "I don't know. Still and after all, +now, a woman----" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +WANTED: A WIFE + +"I couldn't have ate at Sim's place if he would of asked me to," +grumbled Wid Gardner aloud to himself as he busied himself about his +own household duties in his bachelor cabin. "He's too damn dirty, like +I said, and that's a fact." + +Wid's cabin itself was in general appearance no better, if no worse, +than the average in the Two Forks Valley. There was a bed on a rude +pole frame--little more than a heap of blankets as they had been thrown +aside that morning. The table still held the dishes which had been +used, but at least these had been washed, and there was thrown across +them what had served as a dish-towel, a washed and dried, fairly clean +flour sack which had been ripped out and turned into a towel. There +was a box nailed up behind the stove which served as a sort of store +room for the scant supplies, and this had a flap at the top, so that it +was partly curtained off. Another box nailed against the wall behind +the table served as book case and paper rack, holding, among a scant +array of ancient standard volumes, a few dog-eared paper-backed books +of cheap and dreadful sort, some illustrated journals showing pictures +of actresses and film celebrities--precisely the sort of literature +which may be found in most wilderness bachelor homes. + +At one end of the up-turned box which served as a sort of reading table +lay a pile of similar magazines, not of abundant folios, but apparently +valued, for they showed more care than any other of the owner's +treasures. It was, curiously enough, to this little heap of literature +that Wid Gardner presently turned. + +Forgetful of the hour and of his waiting cows, he sat down, a copy in +his hands, his face taking on a new sort of light as he read. At +times, as lone men will, he broke out into audible soliloquy. Now and +again his hand slapped his knee, his eye kindled, he grinned. The +pages were ill-printed, showing many paragraphs, apparently of +advertising nature, in fine type, sometimes marked with display lines. + +Wid turned page after page, grunting as he did so, until at last he +tossed the magazine upon the top of the box and so went about his +evening chores. Thus the title of the publication was left showing to +any observer. The headline was done in large black letters, advising +all who might have read that this was a copy of the magazine known as +_Hearts Aflame_. + +Curiously enough, on the front page the headline of a certain +advertisement showed plainly. It read, "Wanted: A Wife." + +From this it may be divined that here was one of those periodicals +printed no one knows where, circulated no one knows how, which none the +less after some fashion of their own do find their way out in all the +womanless regions of the world--Alaska, South Africa, the dry plains of +Canada and our Western States, mining camps far out in the outlying +districts beyond the edge of the homekeeping lands--it is in regions +such as these that periodicals such as the foregoing may be found. +Their circulation is among those who seek "acquaintance with a view to +matrimony." They are the official organs of Cupid himself--_or_ Cupid +commercialized, or Cupid much misnamed and sailing his craft upon a +wide and uncharted sea. In lands of the first pick or the first plow, +these half-illicit pages find their way for their own reasons; and men +and women both sometimes have read them. + +Wid Gardner finished his own brief work about the corral, came in, +washed his hands, and began to cook for himself his simple supper. +Then he washed his dishes, threw the towel above them as before, and +went to bed, since he had little else to do. + +Early the next morning Wid had finished his breakfast, and was at the +edge of the main valley road, which passed near to his own front gate. +He lighted a pipe and sat down to smoke, now and again glancing down +the road at a slowly approaching figure. + +It was the schoolma'am, Mrs. Davidson, who daily presided at the little +log schoolhouse a mile further on up the road, where some twenty +children found their way over varying distances from the surrounding +ranches. This lady was of much dignity and of much avoirdupois as +well. Her ruddy face was wrinkled up somewhat like an apple in the +late fall. She walked slowly and ponderously, and her gait being +somewhat restricted, it was needful that she make an early start each +day to her place of labor, since the only possible boarding place lay +almost a mile below Sim Gage's ranch. She had been the only applicant +for this school, and perhaps was the only living being who could have +contented herself in that capacity in this valley. Wid Gardner pulled +at the edge of his broken hat as he stepped down the narrow road to +meet her. + +"'Morning, Mis' Davidson," said he. + +"Good morning, Mr. Gar-r-r-dner," boomed out the great voice of Mrs. +Davidson. "It is apparently promising us fair weather, sir-r-r." + +Mrs. Davidson spoke with a certain singular rotund exactness, and hence +was held much in awe in all these parts. + +"Yes, ma'am," said Wid, "it looks like it would rain, but it won't." + +"Your hay in that case would not flourish so well, Mr. Gar-r-r-dner?" +said she. + +"Without rain, not worth a damn, ma'am, so to speak. But I'll get by +if any one can. This is one of the best locations in the valley. Me +and Sim Gage; and Sim, he says----" + +"Sim Gage!" The lady snorted her contempt of the very name. "That man! +Altogether impossible!" + +"He shore is. He certainly is," assented Wid Gardner. "He seems to be +getting impossible-er almost every year, now, don't he?" + +"I do not care to discuss Mr. Gage," replied the apostle of learning. +"I was in his abode once. I should never care to go there again." + +Already she was leaning partially forward, ponderously, as about to +resume her journey toward the school house. + +"Well, now, Sim Gage," began Wid, raising a restraining hand, "he ain't +so bad as you might think, ma'am. He's just kind of fell into this way +of living." + +"Mr. Gar-r-r-dner," said the lady positively, "I doubt if he has made a +bed or washed a dish in twenty years. His place is worse than an +Indian camp. I have taught schools among the savages myself, in +Government service, and therefore I may speak with authority." + +"Well, now, ma'am, I reckon that's all true. But you see, if more +women come out in here, now, things'd be different. I been thinking of +Sim Gage, ma'am. I wanted you to do something fer me, or him, ma'am." + +"Indeed?" demanded she. "And what may that be?" + +"I don't mean nothing in the world that ain't perfectly all right," +began Wid, hesitatingly. "I only wanted you to write something fer me. +I'm this kind of a man, that when he wants anything to be fixed up, he +wants it to be fixed up right. I kind of got out of practice writing. +I want you to write a ad fer me." + +"A what?" she demanded. "Oh, I see--you have something to sell?" + +"No, ma'am, I ain't got nothing to sell--not unlessen--well, I'll tell +you. I want to advertise fer a woman--fer a wife--that is to say, +really fer him, Sim Gage--a feller's got to have something to sort of +occupy his mind, hain't he?" + +Mrs. Davidson was too much astonished to speak, and he blundered on. + +"Folks has done such things," said he. + +"You offer me a somewhat difficult problem," rejoined the other, "since +I do not in the least understand what you desire to do." + +"Well, it's this away, ma'am. There's papers that prints these +ads--sometimes big dailies does, they tell me--where folks advertises +for acquaintances just fer to get acquainted, you know--'acquaintance +with a view to matrimony' is the way they usually say it--and that may +be a tip fer you--I mean about this here ad I want you to write. Why, +folks has got married that way, plenty of 'em--I'll bet there ain't +more'n half the homesteaders in this state out here, leastways in the +sagebrush country, that didn't get married just that way--it's the +onliest way they _can_ get married, ma'am, half the time. + +"Once, up in Helleny, years ago, right after the old Alder Gulch placer +mining days, there was eleven millionaires, each of 'em married to a +Injun woman, and not one of them women could set on a chair without +falling off. Now, there wasn't no papers then like this one here, or +them millionaires might of done better." + +She gasped, unable to speak, her lips rotund and pursed, and he went on +with more assertiveness. + +"They turn out just as good as any marriages there is," said he. "I've +knowed plenty of 'em. There's three in this valley--although they +don't say much about it now. _I_ know how they got acquainted, all +right." + +"And you desire me to aid you in your endeavor to entr-r-r-ap some +foolish woman?" + +"They don't have to answer. They don't have to get married if they +don't want to. You can't tell how things'll turn out." + +"Indeed! _Indeed_!" + +"Well, now, I was just hoping you would write the ad, that's all. Just +you write me a ad like you was a sagebrusher out here in this country, +and you was awful lonesome, and had a good ranch, and was +kind-hearted--and not too good-looking--and that you'd be kind to a +woman. Well, that's about as far as I can go. I was going to leave +the rest to you." + +Mrs. Davidson's lips still remained round, her forehead puckered. She +leaned ponderously, fell forward into her weighty walk. + +"I make no promise, sir-r-r!" said she, as she veered in passing. + +But still, human psychology being what it is, and woman's curiosity +what it also is, and Mrs. Davidson being after all woman, that evening +when Wid Gardner passed out to his gate, he found pinned to the +fastening stick an envelope which he opened curiously. He spelled out +the words: + + +"Wanted: A Wife. A well-to-do and chivalrous rancher of abundant means +and large holdings in a Western State wishes to correspond with a +respectable young woman who will be willing to appreciate a good home +and loving care. Object--matrimony." + + +Wid Gardner read this once, and he read it twice. "Good God A'mighty!" +said he to himself. "Sim Gage!" + +He turned back to his cabin, and managed to find a corroded pen and the +part of a bottle of thickened ink. With much labor he signed to the +text of his enclosure two initials, and added his own post office route +box for forwarding of any possible replies. Then he addressed a dirty +envelope to the street number of the eastern city which appeared on the +page of his matrimonial journal. Even he managed to fish out a curled +stamp from somewhere in the wall pocket. Then he sat down and looked +out the door over the willow bushes shivering in the evening air. + +"'Chi_val_erous!'" said he. "'Well-to-do! A good home--and loving +care!' If that can be put acrosst with any woman in the whole wide +world, I'll have faith again in prospectin'!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + +FIFTY-FIFTY + +It was late fall or early winter in the city of Cleveland. An icy +wind, steel-tipped, came in from the frozen shores of Lake Erie, +piercing the streets, dark with soot and fog commingled. It was +evening, and the walks were covered with crowded and hurrying human +beings seeking their own homes--men done with their office labors, +young women from factories and shops. These bent against the bitter +wind, some apathetically, some stoutly, some with the vigor of youth, +yet others with the slow gait of approaching age. + +Mary Warren and her room-mate, Annie Squires, met at a certain street +corner, as was their daily wont; the former coming from her place in +one of the great department stores, the other from her work in a +factory six blocks up the street. + +"'Lo, Mollie," said Annie; and her friend smiled, as she always did at +their chill corner rendezvous. They found some sort of standing room +together in a crowded car, swinging on the straps as it screeched its +way around the curves, through the crowded portions of the city. It +was long before they got seats, three-quarters of an hour, for they +lived far out. Ten dollars a week does not give much in the way of +quarters. It might have been guessed that these two were partners, +room-mates. + +"Gee! These cars is fierce," said Annie Squires, with a smile and a +wide glance into the eyes of a young man against whom she had been +flung, although she spoke to her companion. + +Mary Warren made no complaint. Her face, calm and gentle, carried +neither repining nor resignation, but a high and resolute courage. She +shrank far as she might, like a gentlewoman, from personal contact with +other human beings; the little droop beginning at the corners of her +mouth gave proof of her weariness, but there was a thoroughbred vigor, +a silken-strong fairness about her, which, with the self-respecting +erectness in her carriage, rather belied the common garb she wore. Her +frock was that of the sales-woman, her gloves were badly worn, her +boots began to show signs of breaking, her hat was of nondescript sort, +of small pretensions--yet Mary Warren's attitude, less of weariness +than of resistance, had something of the ivory-fine gentlewoman about +it, even here at the end of a rasping winter day. + +Annie Squires was dressed with a trifle more of the pretension which +ten dollars a week allows. She carried a sort of rude and frank +vitality about her, a healthful color in her face, not wholly uncomely. +She was a trifle younger than Mary Warren--the latter might have been +perhaps five and twenty; perhaps a little older, perhaps not quite so +old--but none the less seemed if not the more strong, at least the more +self-confident of the two. A great-heart, Annie Squires; out of +nothing, bound for nowhere. Two great-hearts, indeed, these two tired +girls, going home. + +"Well, the Dutch seems to be having their own troubles now," said Annie +after a time, when at length the two were able to find seats, a trifle +to themselves in a corner of the car. "Looks like they might learn how +the war thing goes the other way 'round. Gee! I wish't I was a man! +I'd show 'em peace!" + +She went on, passing from one headline to the next of the evening paper +which they took daily turns in buying. Mary Warren began to grow more +grave of face as she heard the news from the lands where not long ago +had swung and raged in their red grapple the great armies of the world. + +Then a sudden remorse came to Annie. She put out a hand to Mary +Warren's arm. "Don't mind, Sis," said she. "Plenty more besides your +brother is gone. Lookit here." + +"He was all I had," said Mary simply, her lips trembling. + +"Yes, I know. But what's up to-night, Mollie? You're still. Anything +gone wrong at the store?" She was looking at her room-mate keenly. +This was their regular time for mutual review and for the restoring +gossip of the day. + +"Well, you see, Annie, they told me that times were hard now after the +war, and more girls ready to work." Mary Warren only answered after a +long time. A passenger, sitting near, was just rising to leave the car. + +Annie also said nothing for a time. "It looks bad, Mollie," said she, +sagely. + +Mary Warren made no answer beyond nodding bravely, high-headed. Ten +dollars a week may be an enormous sum, even when countries but now have +been juggling billions carelessly. + +They were now near the end of their daily journey. Presently they +descended from the car and, bent against the icy wind, made their way +certain blocks toward the door which meant home for them. They clumped +up the stairs of the wooden building to the third floor, and opened the +door to their room. + +It was cold. There was no fire burning in the stove--they never left +one burning, for they furnished their own fuel; and in the morning, +even in the winter time, they rose and dressed in the cold. + +"Never mind, dear," said Annie again, and pushed Mary down into the +rocking chair as she would have busied herself with the kindling. "Let +me, now. I wish't coal wasn't so high. There's times I almost lose my +nerve." + +A blue and yellow flame at last began back of the mica-doored stove +which furnished heat for the room. The girls, too tired and cold to +take off their wraps, sat for a time, their hands against the slowly +heating door. Now and again they peered in to see how the fire was +doing. + +Mary Warren rose and laid aside her street garb. When she turned back +again she still had in her hands the long knitting needles, the ball of +yellowish yarn, the partially knitted garment, which of late had been +so common in America. + +"Aw, Sis, cut it out!" grumbled Annie, and reached to take the knitting +away from her friend. "The war's over, thank God! Give yourself a +chanct. Get warm first, anyways. You'll ruin your eyes--didn't the +doctor tell you so? You got one bum lamp right now." + +"Worse things than having trouble with your eyes, Annie." + +"Huh! It'll help you a lot to have your eyes go worse, won't it?" + +"But I can't forget. I--I can't seem to forget Dan, my brother." +Mary's voice trailed off vaguely. "He's the last kin I had. Well, I +was all he had, his next of kin, so they sent me his decoration. And +I'm the last of our family--and a woman--and--and not seeing very well. +Annie, he was my reliance--and I was his, poor boy, because of his +trouble, that made him a half-cripple, though he got into the flying +corps at last. I'm alone. And, Annie--that was what was the trouble +at the store. I'm--it's my _eyes_." + +They both sat for a long time in silence. Her room-mate fidgeted +about, walked away, fiddled with her hair before the dull little mirror +at the dresser. At length she turned. + +"Sis," said she, "it ain't no news. I know, and I've knew it. I got +to talk some sense to you." + +The dark glasses turned her way, unwaveringly, bravely. + +"You're going to lose your job, Sis, as soon as the Christmas rush is +over," Annie finished. She saw the sudden shudder which passed through +the straight figure beside the stove. + +"Oh, I know it's hard, but it's the truth. Now, listen. Your folks +are all dead. Your last one, Dan, your brother, is dead, and you got +no one else. It's just as well to face things. What I've got is +yours, of course, but how much have we got, together? What chanct has +a girl got? And a blind woman's a beggar, Sis. It's tough. But what +are you going to _do_? Girls is flocking back out of Washington. The +war factories is closing. There's thousands on the streets." + +"Annie, what do you _mean_?" + +"Oh, now, hush, Sis! Don't look at me that way, even through your +glasses. It hurts. We've just got to face things. You've got to +live. How?" + +"Well, then," said Mary Warren, suddenly rising, her hands to her hot +cheeks, "well, then--and what then? I can't be a burden on you--you've +done more than your half ever since I first had to go to the doctor +about my eyes." + +"Cut all that out, now," said Annie, her eyes ominous. "I done what +you'd a-done. But one girl can't earn enough for two, at ten per, and +be decent. Go out on the streets and see the boys still in their +uniforms. Every one's got a girl on his arm, and the best lookers, +too. What then? As for the love and marriage stuff--well----" + +"As though you didn't know better yourself than to talk the way you +do!" said Mary Warren. + +"I'm different from you, Mollie. I--I ain't so fine. You know why I +liked you? Because you was different; and I didn't come from much or +have much schooling. I've been to school to you--and you never knew +it. I owe you plenty, and you won't understand even that." + +Mary only kissed her, but Annie broke free and went on. + +"When they come to talk about the world going on, and folks marrying, +and raising children, after this war is over--you've got to hand it to +them that this duty stuff has got a strong punch behind it. Besides, +the kid idea makes a hit with me. But even if I did marry, I don't +know what a man would say, these times, about my bringing some one else +into his house. Men is funny." + +"Annie--Annie!" exclaimed Mary Warren once more. "Don't--oh, don't! +I'd die before I'd go into your own real home! Of course, I'll not be +a burden on you. I'm too proud for that, I hope." + +"Well, dope it out your own way, Sis," said her room-mate, sighing. +"It ain't true that I want to shake you. I don't. But I'm not talking +about Mary Warren when she had money her aunt left her--before she lost +it in Oil. I'm not talking about Mary Warren when she was eighteen, +and pretty as a picture. I ain't even talking about Mary a year ago, +wearing dark glasses, but still having a good chanct in the store. +What I'm talking about now is Mary Warren down and out, with not even +eyes to see with, and no money back of her, and no place to _go_. What +are you going to _do_, Sis? that's all. In my case--believe me, if I +lose my chanct at this man, Charlie Dorenwald, I'm going to find +another some time. + +"It's fifty-fifty if either of us, or any girl, would get along all +right with a husband if we _could_ get one--it's no cinch. And now, +women getting plentier and plentier, and men still scarcer and scarcer, +it's sure tough times for a girl that hasn't eyes nor anything to get +work with, or get married with." + +"Annie!" said her companion. "I wish you wouldn't!" + +"Well, I wasn't thinking how I talked, Sis," said Annie, reaching out a +hand to pat the white one on the chair arm. "But fifty-fifty, my +dear--that's all the bet ever was or will be for a woman, and now her +odds is a lot worse, they say, even for the well and strong ones. +Maybe part of the trouble with us women was we never looked on this +business of getting married with any kind of halfway business sense. +Along comes a man, and we get foolish. Lord! Oughtn't both of us to +know about bargain counters and basement sales?" + +"Well, let's eat, Mary," she concluded, seeing she had no answer. And +Mary Warren, broken-hearted, high-headed, silent, turned to the +remaining routine of the day. + +Annie busied herself at the little box behind the stove--a box with a +flap of white cloth, which served as cupboard. Here she found a coffee +pot, a half loaf of bread, some tinned goods, a pair of apples. She +put the coffee pot to boil upon the little stove, pushing back the +ornamental acorn which covered the lid at its top. Meantime Mary drew +out the little table which served them, spread upon it its white cloth, +and laid the knives and forks, scanty enough in their number. + +They ate as was their custom every evening. Not two girls in all +Cleveland led more frugal lives than these, nor cleaner, in every way. + +"Let me wash the dishes, Sis," said Annie Squires. "You needn't wipe +them--no, that's all right to-night. Let me, now." + +"You're fine, Annie, you're fine, that's what you are!" said Mary +Warren. "You're the best girl in the world. But we'll make it +fifty-fifty while we can. I'm going to do my share." + +"I suppose we'd better do the laundry, too, don't you think?" she +added. "We don't want the fire to get too low." + +They had used their single wash basin for their dish pan as well, and +now it was impressed to yet another use. Each girl found in her pocket +a cheap handkerchief or so. Annie now plunged these in the wash +basin's scanty suds, washed them, and, going to the mirror, pasted them +against the glass, flattening them out so that in the morning they +might be "ironed," as she called it. This done, each girl deliberately +sat down and removed her shoes and stockings. The stockings themselves +now came in for washing--an alternate daily practice with them both +since Mary had come hither. They hung the stockings over the back of +the solitary spare chair, just close enough to the stove to get some +warmth, and not close enough to burn--long experience had taught them +the exact distance. + +They huddled bare-footed closer to the stove, until Annie rose and +tiptoed across to get a pair each of cheap straw slippers which rested +below the bed. + +"Here's yours, Sis," said she. "You just sit still and get warm as you +can before we turn in--it's an awful night, and the fire's beginning to +peter out already. I wish't Mr. McAdoo, or whoever it is, 'd see about +this coal business. Gee, I hope these things'll get dry before +morning--there ain't anything in the world any colder than a pair of +wet stockings in the morning! Let's turn in--it'll be warmer, I +believe." + +The wind, steel-pointed, bored at the window casings all that night. +Degree after degree of frost would have registered in that room had +means of registration been present. The two young women huddled closer +under the scanty covering that they might find warmth. Ten dollars a +week. Two great-hearts, neither of them more than a helpless girl. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +HEARTS AFLAME + +They rose the next morning and dressed in the room without fire, +shivering now as they drew on their stockings, frozen stiff. They had +their morning coffee in a chilly room downstairs, where sometimes their +slatternly landlady appeared, lugubriously voluble. This morning they +ate alone, in silence, and none too happily. Even Annie's buoyant +spirits seemed inadequate. A trace of bitterness was in her tone when +she spoke. + +"I'm sick of it." + +"Yes, Annie," said Mary Warren. "And it's cold this morning, awfully." + +"Cotton vests, marked down--to what wool used to be. Huh! Call this +America?" + +"What's wrong, Annie?" suddenly asked Mary Warren, drawing her wrap +closer as she sat. + +"I'd go to the lake before I'd go to the streets, though you mightn't +think it. But how about it with only the discards in Derby hats and +false teeth left? If we two are going to get married, Mollie, we got +to look around among the remnants and bargains--we can't be too +particular when we're hunting bargains. Whether it's all off for you +at the store or not ain't for me to say, but you might do worse than +listen to me." + +Mary Warren looked at her in a sort of horror. "Annie, what do you +mean?" she demanded. + +The real reply came in the hard little laugh with which Annie Squires +drew from the pocket of her coat--in which she also was muffled at the +breakfast table--a meager little newspaper, close-folded. She spread +it out before she passed it to her companion. + +"_Hearts Aflame!_" said she. "While you have to dry your own socks, +while you break the ice in your coffee! Can't you feel your heart +flame? Anyway, here you are--bargains in husbands and wives! Take 'em +for the asking. Here's a lot of them advertised. Slightly damaged, +but serviceable--and marked down within the reach of all. + +"Why, us girls over at the shop, we read these things regular," she +rattled on in explanation, her mouth full. "Some of the girls answer +these ads--it's lots of fun. You ought to see what some of the men +write back. Look at this one, Sis!" said she, chuckling. "Some class +to it, eh?" She pointed to an advertisement a trifle larger than its +fellows, a trifle more boldly displayed in its black type. + + +"Wanted: A Wife. A well-to-do and chivalrous rancher of abundant means +and large holdings in a Western State wishes to correspond with a +respectable young woman who will appreciate a good home and loving +care. Object--Matrimony." + + +"How ridiculous," said Mary Warren simply. + +"Uh huh! Is it, though? I don't know. I put this thing to my ear, +and it sort of sounded as if there was something behind it. That +fellow wants a woman of his own to keep house for him. Out there women +are scarce. It's supply and demand, Sis, same as in your store. Well, +here's a man looking for goods. So'm I. I've been looking him over +for myself, because I ain't as strong for Charlie Dorenwald as I might +be, even if he's foreman. He talks so damn much Bolshevik, somehow. +Of course, the country's rotten, but it's ours! Still and all, I'll +tell you what I'll do, Sis, with you!" + +She pulled her chair up to the side of her companion, fumbling in her +little purse as she did so; drew out a copper coin and held it balanced +between her fingers. + +"'The one shall be taken and the other left,' Sis," said she. "Two +women, grinding at the mill, the same little old mill, as the Bible +said; and 'The one shall be taken and the other left.' Which one? One +throw, Mary. Heads or tails. It's got to hit the ceiling before it +falls." + +"Why, nonsense, Annie---- No, no!" + +"Heads or tails!" insisted Annie Squires; and as she spoke she flipped +the coin against the ceiling. It rolled toward the street window, +where neither of them at first could see it. + +"Tails!" called Mary Warren faintly, suddenly. It seemed to her she +heard some other voice, speaking for her, without her real volition. + +"You're on!" said Annie. They both rose and walked toward the darker +side of the room. + +"I can't see," said Mary. "Strike a match." + +Annie did so, and they both bent over the coin. + +"Tails--you win!" said Annie Squires. "Well, what do you know about +that?" + +She was half in earnest about her chagrin--half in earnest as she +spoke. "I'd saved him for myself. Sometimes, I say, I don't know +about this Charlie Dorenwald, even if he is crazy over me--I'm mostly +being beware of foremen, me. And here's a chivalrous and well-to-do +ranchman--out West! Gee! Congratulations, Sis!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + +BEGGAR MAN--THIEF + +They laughed like girls, each with slightly heightened color in spite +of all the make-believe. Then Annie ran to a vase of artificial +flowers which stood upon the mantel, and pulled out a draggled daisy. + +"What's he going to be, Kid--your man? Is he rich or poor? Listen! +'Lawyer--doctor--merchant--chief--rich man--poor man--beggar +man--thief----'" She stopped in a certain consternation, the last +petal in her hand--"A thief?----" + +"Why, Annie, you surely don't believe in such things," said Mary Warren +reprovingly. "And of course we oughtn't to have done anything foolish +as this. It's--it's awful." + +Annie, her mood suddenly changing, drew apart and sat down moodily. + +"You couldn't blame a fellow for trying to forget things, Sis," said +she. "Look at me. I'm on the street, you might say--they canned me +yesterday! Yes! that's the truth. I wasn't going to tell you--you +looked so cold last night, and you with your eyes what they are. +It--it looks like Charlie had a chance, eh?" + +Mary Warren looked at her for a time in silence. "You'll never have to +toss a copper for a husband, I'm sure of that. If I were handsome as +you----" + +"Oh, am I?" said her companion. "Men hang around--what does it get me? +Time passes. Where are we pretty soon? Men ain't all husbands that +make love." + +"How much money you got saved up, Mary?" she asked suddenly. + +"Just one hundred thirty-five dollars and eighty cents," said Mary, not +needing to consult her pass book. "I can pay for my bond now." + +"Got me beat. Best I can do for my life savings is fifty-eight dollars +and seventy-five cents. How long will that last you and me?" + +"You're despondent, Annie--you mustn't feel blue--why, to-morrow we'll +both go out and see what we can do." + +"About me? I like that! It's _you_ we got to bother about. My Lord! +It ain't so far off, this ad in _Hearts Aflame_! What you really _do_ +need is a man who'll be kind and chivalrous with you." + +"I haven't got to that yet," said Mary Warren, stoutly. Her color rose. + +"No? Funnier things have happened. You might do worse." + +"I'm not _bred_ that way, Annie," said Mary Warren slowly; but her +color rising yet more as she realized that perhaps she had been cruel. + +"You needn't explain anything to me," replied Annie. "I'm not sore. +You came of a better family, and so it'll be harder for you to get +through life than it is for me." + +As she spoke she had risen, and was buttoning her street wraps. Mary +Warren sat silent, the dark lenses of her glasses turned toward her +companion. + +"Beggar man--thief!" she said at last. "I'd be robbing him, even +then!" She smiled bitterly. "Who'd take _me_?" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +RICH MAN--POOR MAN + +When spring came above the icy shores of the inland seas, Mary Warren +had been out of work for more than three months. She was ill; ill of +body, ill of mind, ill of heart. Her splendid, resilient courage had +at last begun to break. She was facing the thought that she could not +carry her own weight in the world. + +She sat alone once more one evening in the little room which after all +thus far she and Annie had been able to retain. Her oculist had taken +much from her scanty store of money. She held in her hand his last +bill--unpaid; and though she had paid a score of his bills, yet her +eyesight now was nearly gone. Her doctor called it "retinal failure"; +and it had steadily advanced, whatever it was. Now she knew that there +was no hope. + +She greeted the homecoming of her room-mate each nightfall with +eagerness. Annie by this time had found harder and worse paid work in +another factory. She came in with her hands scarred and torn, her +nails broken and stained. She had grown more reticent of late. + +"Well, how are things coming along, Sis?" said she this evening on her +return, after she had thrown her wrap across a chair back. "How much +money have you got left? You look to me like you was counting it." + +"Not very much, Annie--not very much. The doctor--you see, I can't +take his time and not pay him." + +"You're too thin-skinned. What are doctors for?" + +"But, Annie, I don't know what to do. I'm scared. That's the truth +about it--I'm scared!" + +Her companion smiled, with her new slow and cynical smile. "Some of us +go to the lake--or to a man--or to men," said she, succinctly. "Look +over the stock of goods that's within your means. Bargains. Odds and +Ends." + +"What could I _do_?" + +"Suppose you got married to your gentle and chivalrous rancher out +West. Maybe you'd be able to stand it after a while, even if he dyed +his hair, or had his neck shaved round. Mostly they have false +teeth--before they'll advertise. Probably he's a widower. Object: +matrimony; that mostly is a widower's main object in life; and you +can't show 'em nothing except when you bury 'em." + +"I'd die before I'd answer that sort of a thing!" said Mary Warren +hotly. + +"You would," replied Annie. "I know that. I knew it all along. +That's why I had to take it into my own hands." Again the cynical +smile of Annie Squires, twenty-two. + +"Your own hands--what do you mean by that?" + +"I might as well tell you. I've been writing to him in your name! +I've sent him a _picture_ of you--I got it in the bureau drawer. And +he's crazy over you!" + +Mary Warren looked at her with wrath, humiliation and offended dignity +showing in her reddened cheeks. + +"You had the audacity to do that, Annie! How _dared_ you? How _could_ +you?" + +"Well, I was afraid of the lake for you, and I knew that something had +to be done, and you wouldn't do it. I've got quite a batch of letters +from him. He's got three hundred and twenty acres of land, eight cows, +a horse and a mule. He has a house which is all right except it lacks +the loving care of a woman! Well, stack that up against this room. +And we can't even keep this for very long. + +"Listen, Mary," she said, coming over and putting both her broken hands +on her friend's shoulders. "God knows, if I could keep us both going I +would, but I don't make money enough for myself, hardly, let alone you. +You don't belong where you've been--you wouldn't, even if you was well +and fit, which you ain't. Mollie, Mollie, my dear, what is there ahead +for you? We _got_ to do some thinking. It's up to us right now. +You're too good for the lake or the poor farm--or--why, you _belong_ in +a home. Keep house? I wish't I knew as much as you do about that." + +"I'll tell you," she resumed suddenly. "I'll tell you what let's do! +A stenographer down at our office does all these letters for me--she's +a bear, come to correspondence like that. Now, I'll have her get out a +letter from you to him that will sort of bring this thing to a head one +way or the other. We'll say that you can't think of going out there to +marry a man sight-unseen----" + +"No," said Mary Warren. "The lake, first." She was wringing her +hands, her cheeks hot. + +"But now, as a housekeeper----" After a long and perturbed silence +Annie spoke again. "That's the real live idea, Sis! That's the dope! +You might _think_ of going out there as a housekeeper, just to see how +things _looked_--just so that you could look things _over_, couldn't +you? You wouldn't marry any man in a hurry. You could say you'd only +do your best as a sincere, honest woman--why, I have to tell that +stenographer what to write, all the time. She's sloppy." + +"But _look_ at me, Annie--I wouldn't be worth anything as a +housekeeper." Mary Warren was arguing! "As to marrying that way----" + +--"Letter'll say you're not asking any pay at all. You don't promise +anything. You don't ask _him_ to promise anything. You don't want any +wages. You don't let him pay your railroad fare out--not at all! You +ain't taking any chances nor asking him to take any chances,--unless +she falls in love with you for fair. Which I wouldn't wonder if he +did. You're a sweet girl, Mollie. Put fifteen pounds on you, and +you'd be a honey. You are anyway. Men always look at you--it's your +figure, part, maybe. And you're so good--and you're a _lady_, Sis. +And if I----" + +"Tell him," said Mary Warren suddenly, pulling herself together with +the extremest effort of will and in the suddenest and sharpest decision +she had ever known in all her life, "tell him I'm square! Tell him +I'll be honest all the time--all the time!" + +"As though you could be anything else, you poor dear!" said Annie +Squires, coming over and throwing a strong arm about Mary Warren's +neck, as though they both had done nothing but agree about this after a +dozen conversations. And then she wept, for she knew what Mary +Warren's surrender had cost. "And game! Game and square both, you +sweet thing," sobbed Annie Squires. + +"Give me fifteen pounds on you," she wept, dabbing at her own eyes, +"and I wouldn't risk Charlie near you,--not a minute!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +CHIVALROUS; AND OF ABUNDANT MEANS + +Around the Two Forks Valley the snow still lay white and clean upon the +peaks, but the feet of the mountains were bathed in a rising flood of +green. On the bottom lands the grasses began to start, the willows +renewed their leafery. On the pools of the limpid stream the trout +left wrinkles and circles at midday now, as they rose to feed upon the +insects swarming in the warmth of the oncoming sun. + +On this particular morning Wid Gardner turned down the practically +untrod lane along Sim's wire fence. Now and again he glanced at +something which he held in his hand. + +When he entered Sim Gage's gate, the ancient mule, his head out of the +stable window, welcomed him, braying his discontent. Here lay the +ragged wood pile, showing the ax work of a winter. At the edge of a +gnawed hay stack stood the remnant of Sim's scant cattle herd, not half +of which had "wintered through." + +No smoke was rising from Sim Gage's chimney. "Feller's hopeless, +that's what," complained Wid Gardner to himself. "It gravels me +plenty." + +A muffled voice answered his knock, and he pushed open the door. Sim +Gage was still in bed, and his bed was still on the floor. + +"Come in," said he, thrusting a frowsy head out from under his +blankets. He used practically the same amount of covering about him in +winter and summer; and now, as usual, he had retired practically +without removing his daily clothing. His face, stubbled and unshaven, +swollen with sleep and surmounted by a tangled fringe of hair, might +not by any flight of imagination have been called admirable or +inviting, as he now looked out to greet his caller. + +"Oh, dang it! Git up, Sim," said Wid, irritated beyond expression. +"It's after ten o'clock." + +His words cut through the somewhat pachydermatous sensibilities of Sim +Gage, who frowned a trifle as, after a due pause, he crawled out and +sat down and reached for his broken boots. + +"Well, I dunno as it's anybody's damn business whether I git up a-tall +or not, except my own," said he. "I'll git up when I please, and not +afore." + +"Well, you might git up this morning, anyhow," said Wid. + +"Why?" + +"I got a letter for you." + +"Look-a-here," said Sim Gage, with sudden preciseness. "What you been +doing? Letter? What letter? And how come you by my letters?" + +"Well, I been talking with Mis' Davidson--she run the whole +correspondence, Sim. We--now--we allowed we'd ought to take care of it +fer you. And we done so, that's all." + +"Huh!" said Sim Gage. "Fine business, ain't it?" + +"Well, she's a-coming on out," said Wid Gardner, suddenly and +comprehensively. + +"_What's that_? Who's a-coming on out?" + +The face of Sim Gage went pale even under the cold water to which at +the moment he was treating his leathery skin in the basin on top the +stove. + +"Sim," said Wid Gardner, "it was understood that this thing was to run +in your name. Now, Mis' Davidson--when it comes to fixing up a love +correspondence, she's the ace! It all ain't my fault a-tall, Sim. We +advertised--and we got a answer, and we follered it up. And this here +letter is the _re_-sult. I allowed we'd ought to tell you too, by now." + +"What you been doing--fooling with me, you two?" demanded Sim. "That +whole thing was a joke." + +"It's one hell of a fine joke now," rejoined Wid Gardner. "She's +a-coming on out. Sim, it's up to you. _I_ ain't been advertising fer +no wife. This here letter is _yours_." + +"That's a fine thing you done, ain't it?" said Sim Gage, turning on to +his neighbor. "When you find the ford's too deep to git acrost, you +begin to holler fer help." + +"That's neither here nor there. That ain't the worst--I've got her +picture here, and her letters too. She's been plumb honest all along. +She says she's pretty much broke, and not too well. She says when she +sees you she hopes you won't think she's deceived you. She says she +knows you're everything you said you was--a gentle and chi_val_erous +ranchman of the West, sure to be kind to a woman. She's scared--she's +that honest. But she's a-coming. She's going to try housekeeping +though--no more'n that. Rest's all up to you, not her. She balked +from the jump on all marrying talk." + +"Mis' Davidson ought to take care of this thing," said Sim Gage, his +features now working, as usual, in his perplexity. + +"Mis' Davidson is due to pull her freight. She's going down on her own +homestead. I'm some scared too, Sim. You don't really _know_ how you +been making love to this woman. I didn't know Mis' Davidson had it in +her. You got to come through now, Sim." + +"Who says I got to come through?" + +"You got to go to town to-morrow." + +"So you're a-going to make me go in to town tomorrow and marry a woman +I never seen, whether I want to or not?" + +"No, it ain't right up to that--you needn't think she's coming out here +to hunt up a preacher and git married to you right away. Not a-tall, +Mr. Gage, not none a-tall! She never onct said she'd do any more'n +come out here and keep house fer you one season--that's all. Said she +wouldn't deceive you. God knows how you can keep from deceiving _her_. +Look at this place. And you got to bring her here--to-morrow. She'll +be at Two Forks station to-morrow morning at eight-thirty, on the Park +train. This here thing is up to you right now. You made such a holler +about needing a woman to make things human fer you. Well, here you +are. There's the cards--play 'em the way they lay. You be human now +if you can. You got the chance." + +"I ain't got no wagon, Wid," said Sim, weakly. "You know I ain't got +none." + +"You'll have to take my buckboard." + +"And you know I ain't got no team--my horse, he ain't right +strong--didn't winter none too well--and I couldn't go there with just +one mule, now could I?" + +"You'll have to take my team of broncs," said Wid. "You can start out +from my place." + +"But one thing, Sim Gage," he continued, "when you've started, I'm +a-coming down here with a pitch-fork and I'm a-going to clean out this +place! It ain't human. We'll do the best we can. Since there ain't +a-going to be no marrying right off, you'll have to sleep in your wall +tent outside. You'll have to git some wood cut up. You'll have to git +a clean bed here in the house,--this bed of yours is going to be burned +out in the yard. You'll have to git new blankets when you go to town." + +"As fer your clothes"--he turned a contemptuous glance upon Sim as he +stood--"they ain't _hardly_ fit fer a bridegroom! Go to the Golden +Eagle, and git yourself a full outfit, top to bottom--new shirts, new +underclothes, new pants, new hat, new socks, new gloves, new +everything. This girl can't come out here and see you the way you are, +and this place the way it's been. She'd start something." + +"Well, if you leave it to me," said Sim Gage mildly, "all this here +seems kind of sudden. You come in afore I'm up, and tell me to burn my +bed, and sleep in a tent, and borry a wagon and team and go to town fer +to marry a girl I never seen. That don't look reason'ble to me, +especial since I ain't had no hand in it." + +"It's up to you now." + +"How do I know whether I want that girl or not? I ain't read no +letters--nor wrote none. I ain't seen no picture of her----" + +"Well," said Wid, and reached a hand into his breast pocket, "here she +is." + +In a feeling more akin to awe than anything else, Sim Gage bent over, +looking down at the clear oval face, the piled dark hair, the tender +contour of cheek and chin of Mary Warren, as beautiful a young lady as +any man is apt ever to see; so beautiful that this man's inexperienced +heart stopped in his bosom. This picture once had been buttoned in the +tunic of an aviator who flew for the three flags; her brother; and +before his death and its return more than one of Dan Warren's army +friends had looked at it reverently as Sim Gage did now. + +"Wears glasses, don't she," said he, to conceal his confusion. "Reckon +she's a school ma'am?" + +"Ask me, and I'll say she's a lady. She says she's a working girl. +Says she's had trouble. Says she's up against it now. Says she ain't +well, and ain't happy, and--well, here she is." + +"My good God A'mighty!" said Sim Gage, his voice awed as he looked at +the high-bred, clear-featured face of Mary Warren. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +RIVAL CONSCIENCES + +The transcontinental train from the East rarely made its great climb up +the Two Forks divide on time, and to-day it was more than usually late. +A solitary figure long since had begun to pace the station platform, +looking anxiously up and down the track. + +It was Sim Gage; and this was the first time he ever had come to meet a +train at Two Forks. + +Sim Gage, but not the same. He now was in stiff, ill-fitting and +exclaimingly new clothing. A new dark hat oppressed his perspiring +brow, new and pointed shoes agonized his feet, a new white collar and a +tie tortured his neck. He had been owner of these things no longer +than overnight. He did not feel acquainted with himself. + +He was to meet a woman! Her picture was in his pocket, in his brain, +in his blood. A vast shyness, coming to consternation, seized him. He +felt a sense of personal guilt; and yet a feeling of indignity and +injustice claimed him. But all this and all his sullen anger was wiped +out in this great shyness of a man not used to facing women. Sim Gage +was product of a womanless land. This was the closest his orbit ever +had come to that of the great mystery. And he had been alone so long. +A sudden surging longing came to his heart. Sim Gage was shy always, +and he was frightened now; but now he felt a longing--a longing to be +human. + +Sim Gage never in all his life had seen a young woman looking back at +him over his shoulder. And now there came accession of all his ancient +dread, joined with this growing sense of guilt. A few passengers from +the resort hotel back in the town began to appear, lolling at the +ticket window or engaged at the baggage room. Sim Gage found a certain +comfort in the presence of other human beings. All the time he gazed +furtively down the railway tracks. + +A long-drawn scream of the laboring engines told of the approaching +train at last. Horses and men pricked up their ears. The blood of Sim +Gage's heart seemed to go to his brain. He was seized with a panic, +but, fascinated by some agency he could not resist, he stood +uncertainly until the train came in. He began to tremble in the +unadulterated agony of a shy man about to meet the woman to whom he has +made love only in his heart. + +Sim Gage's team of young and wild horses across the street began to +plunge now, and to entangle themselves dangerously, but he did not +cross the street to care for them. _She_ was coming! The woman from +the States was on this very train. In two minutes---- + +But the crowd thinned and dissipated at length, and Sim Gage had not +found her after all. He felt sudden relief that she had not come, +mingled with resentment that he had been made foolish. She was not +there--she had not come! + +But his gaze, passing from one to another of the early tourists, rested +at last upon a solitary figure which stood close to the burly train +conductor near the station door. The conductor held the young woman's +arm reassuringly, as they both looked questioningly from side to side. +She was in dark clothing. A dark veil was across her face. As she +pushed it back he saw her eyes protected by heavy black lenses. + +Sim Gage hesitated. The conductor spoke to him so loudly that he +jumped. + +"Say, are you Mr. Gage?" + +"That's me," said Sim. "I'm Mr. Gage." He could not recall that ever +in his life he had been so accosted before; he had never thought of +himself as being Mr. Gage, only Sim Gage. + +One redeeming quality he had--a pleasant speaking voice. A sudden turn +of the head of the young woman seemed to recognize this. She reached +out, groping for the arm of the conductor. Consternation urged her +also to seek protection. This was the man! + +"Lady for you, Mr. Gage," said the conductor. "This young woman caught +a cinder down the road. Better see a doctor soon as you can--bad eye. +She said she was to meet you here." + +"It's all right," said Sim Gage suddenly to him. "It's all right. You +can go if you want to." + +He saw that the young woman was looking at him, but she seemed to make +no sign of recognition. + +"I'm Mr. Gage, ma'am," said he, stepping up. "I'm sorry you got a +cinder in your eye. We'll go up and see the doctor. Why, I had a +cinder onct in my eye, time I was going down to Arizony, and it like to +of ruined me. I couldn't see nothing for nearly four days." + +He was lying now, rather fluently and beautifully. He had never been +in Arizona, and so little did he know of railway travel that he had not +noted that this young woman came not from a sleeping car, but from one +of the day coaches. The dust upon her garments seemed to him there +naturally enough. + +She did not answer, stood so much aloof from him that a sudden sense of +inferiority possessed him. He could not see that her throat was +fluttering, did not know that tears were coming from back of the heavy +glasses. He could not tell that Mary Warren had appraised him even +now, blind though she was; that she herself suffered by reason of that +wrong appraisal. + +The throng thinned, the tumult and shouting of the hotel men died away. +Sim Gage did not know what to do. A woman seemed to mean a sudden and +strangely overwhelming accession of problems. What should he do? +Where would he put her? What ought he to say? + +"If you'll excuse me," he ventured at last, "I'll go acrosst and git my +team. They're all tangled up, like you see." + +She spoke, her voice agitated; reached out a hand. "I--I can't see at +_all_, sir!" + +"That's too bad, ma'am," said Sim Gage, "but don't you worry none at +all. You set right down here on the aidge of the side walk, till I git +the horses fixed. They're scared of the cars. Is this your satchel, +ma'am?" + +"Yes--that's mine." + +"You got any trunk for me to git?" he asked, turning back, suddenly and +by miracle, recalling that people who traveled usually had trunks. + +He could not see the flush of her cheek as she replied, "No, I didn't +bring one. I thought--what I had would do." He could not know that +nearly all her worldly store was here in this battered cheap valise. + +"You ain't a-going to leave us so soon like that, are you?" + +She turned to him wistfully, a swift light upon her face. He had said, +"leave us"--not "leave me." And his voice was gentle. Surely he was +the kind-hearted and chivalrous rancher of his own simple letters. She +began to feel a woman's sense of superiority. On the defensive, she +replied: "I don't know yet. Suppose we--suppose----" + +"Suppose that we wait awhile, eh?" said Sim Gage, himself wistful. + +"Why--yes." + +"All right, ma'am. We'll do anything you like. You don't need no +trunk full of things out here--I hope you'll git along somehow." + +Knowing that he ought to assist her, he put out a hand to touch her +arm, withdrew it as though he had been stung, and then hastily stood as +he felt her hand rest upon his arm. He led her slowly to the edge of +the platform. Then she heard his footsteps passing, heard the voices +of two men--for now a bystander had gone across to do something for the +plunging horses, one of which had thrown itself under the buckboard +tongue. She heard the two men as they worked on. "Git up!" said one +voice. "Git around there!" Then came certain oaths on the part of +both men, and conversation whose import she did not know. + +Their voices were as though heard in a dream. There suddenly came an +overwhelming sense of guilt to Mary Warren. She had been unfair to +this man! He was a trifle crude, yes; but kind, gentle, unpresuming. +She felt safer and safer--guilty and more guilty. How could she ever +explain it all to him? + +"I reckon they're all right now," said Sim Gage, after a considerable +battle with his team. "Nothing busted much. Git up on the seat, won't +you, Bill, and drive acrosst--I got to help that lady git in." + +"Who is she?" demanded the other, who had not failed to note the +waiting figure. + +"It's none of your damn business," said Sim Gage. "That is, it's my +housekeeper--she's going to cook for the hay hands." + +"With a two months' start?" grinned the other. + +"Drive on acrosst now," said Sim Gage, in grim reply, which closed the +other's mouth at once. + +Mary Warren heard the crunch of wheels, heard the thump of her valise +as Sim Gage caught it up and threw it into the back of the buckboard. +Then he spoke again. She felt him standing close at hand. Once more, +trembling as in an ague, she placed a hand upon his arm. + +"Now, when I tell you," he said gently, "why, you put your foot up on +the hub of the wheel here, and grab the iron on the side, and climb in +quick--these horses is sort of uneasy." + +"I can't see the wheel," said Mary Warren, groping. + +She felt his hand steadying her--felt the rim of the wheel under her +hand, felt him gently if clumsily try to help her up. Her foot missed +the hub of the wheel, the horses started, and she almost fell--would +have done so had not he caught her in his arms. It was almost the +first time in his life, perhaps the only time, that he had felt the +full weight of a woman in his arms. She disengaged herself, apologized +for her clumsiness. + +"You didn't hurt yourself, any?" said he anxiously. + +"No," she said. "But I'm blind--_I'm blind_! Oh, don't you know?" + +He said nothing. How could she know that her words brought to Sim Gage +not regret, but--relief! + +He steadied her foot so that it might find the hub of the wheel, +steadied her arm, cared for her as she clambered into the seat. + +"All right," she heard him say, not to her; and then he replaced the +other man on the high seat. The horses plunged forward. She felt +herself helpless, alone, swept away. And she was blind. + +All the way across the Middle West, across the great plains, Mary +Warren had been able to see somewhat. Perhaps it was the +knitting--hour after hour of it, in spite of all, done in sheer +self-defense. But at the western edge of the great Plains, it had +come--what she had dreaded. Both eyes were gone! Since then she had +not seen at all, and having in mind her long warning, accepted her +blindness as a permanent thing. + +She passed now through a world of blackness. She could not see the man +who had written those letters to her. She could catch only the wine of +a high, clean air, the breath of pine trees, the feeling of space, +appreciable even by the blind. + +Suddenly she began to sob. Sim Gage by now had somewhat quieted his +wild team, and he looked at her, his face puckered into a perturbed +frown. + +"Now, now," he said, "don't you take on, little woman." He was abashed +at his daring, but himself felt almost like tears, as things now were. +"It'll all come right. Don't you worry none. Don't be scared of these +horses a-tall, ma'am; I can handle 'em all right. We got to see that +doctor." + +But when presently they had driven the half mile to the village, he +learned that the doctor was not in town. + +"We can't do anything," said she. "Drive on--we'll go. I don't think +the doctor could help me very much." + +All the time she knew she had in part been lying to him. It was not +merely a cinder in her eye--this was a helpless blindness, a permanent +thing. The retina of each eye now was ruined, gone. So she had been +warned. Again she reached out her hand in spite of all to touch his +arm. He remained silent. She cruelly misunderstood him. + +At last she turned fully towards him, and spoke suddenly. "Listen!" +said she. "I believe you're a good man. I'll not deceive you." + +"God knows I ain't no good man," said Sim Gage suddenly, "and God knows +I'm sorry I deceived you like I have. But I'll take care of you until +you can do something better, and until you want to go back home." + +"Home?" she said. "I haven't any home. I tell you I've deceived you. +I'm sorry--oh, it's all so terrible." + +"It shore is," said Sim Gage. "I didn't really write them letters--but +it's my fault you're here. You can blame me fer everything. Why, +almost I was a notion never to come near this here place this morning. +I felt guilty, like I'd shot somebody--I didn't know. I feel that way +now." + +"You're all your letters said you were," said Mary Warren, weeping now. +"Any woman who would deceive such a man----" + +"You ain't deceived me none," said Sim Gage. "But it's wrong of me to +fool a woman such as you, and I'm sorry. Only, just don't you git +scared too much. I'm a-going to take care of you the best I know how." + +"But it wasn't true!" she broke out--"what the conductor said! It +isn't just a cinder in my eye--it's worse. My eyes have been getting +bad right along. I couldn't see _anything_ to-day. You didn't know. +I lost my place. I have no relatives--there wasn't any place in the +world for me. I was afraid I was going blind--and yesterday I _did_ go +blind. I'll never see again. And you're kind to me. I wish--I +wish--why, what shall I _do_?" + +"Ma'am," said Sim Gage, "I didn't know, and you didn't know. Can you +ever forgive me fer what I've done to you?" + +"Forgive you--what do you mean?" she said. "Oh, my God, what shall I +do!" + +Sim Gage's face was frowning more than ever. + +"Now, you mustn't take on, ma'am," said he. "I'm sorry as I can be fer +you, but I got to drive these broncs. But fer as I'm concerned--it +ain't just what I want to say, neither--I _can't_ make it right plain +to you, ma'am. It ain't right fer me to say I'm almost _glad_ you +can't see--but somehow, that's right the way I do feel! It's +mercifuler to _you_ that way, ma'am." + +"What do you mean?" said Mary Warren. She caught emotion in this man's +voice. "Whatever can you _mean_?" + +"Well," said Sim Gage, "take me like I am, setting right here, I ain't +fitten to be setting here. But I don't _want_ you to see. I got that +advantage of you, ma'am. I can _see_ you, ma'am"; and he undertook a +laugh which made a wretched failure. + +"How far is it to your--our--the place where we're going?" she asked +after a time. + +"About twenty-three mile, ma'am," he answered cheerfully. "Road's +pretty fair now. I wish't you could see how pretty the hills +is--they're gitting green now some." + +"And the sky is blue?" Her eyes turned up, sensible of no more than a +feeling that light was somewhere. + +"Right blue, ma'am, with leetle white clouds, not very big. I wish't +you could see our sky." + +"And trees?" + +"Dark green, ma'am--pine trees always is." + +She heard the rumble of the wheels on planks, caught the sound of +rushing waters. + +"This is the bridge over the West Fork, ma'am," said her companion. +"It's right pretty here--the water runs over the rocks like." + +"And what is the country like on ahead, where--where we're going?" + +"It's in a valley like, ma'am," said Sim Gage. + +"There's mountains on each side--they come closest down to the other +fork, near in where I live. That fork's just as clean as glass, +ma'am--you can see right down into it, twenty feet----" Then suddenly +he caught himself. "That is, I wish't you could. Plenty of fish in +it--trout and grayling--I'll catch you all you want, ma'am. They're +fine to eat." + +"And are there things about the place--chickens or something?" + +"There's calves, ma'am," said Sim Gage. "Not many. I ain't got no +hens, but I'll git some if you want 'em. We'd ought to have some eggs, +oughtn't we? And I got several cattle--not many as I'd like, but some. +This ain't my wagon. These ain't my horses; I got one horse and a +mule." + +"What sort is it--the house?" + +Sim Gage spoke now like a man and a gentleman. + +"I ain't got no house fitten to call one, ma'am," said he, "and that's +the truth. I've got a log cabin with one room. I've slept there alone +fer a good many years, holding down my land." + +"But," he added quickly, "that's a-going to be your place. Me--I'm out +a leetle ways off, in the flat, beyond the first row of willers between +the house and the creek--I always sleep in a tent in the summer time. +I allow you'd feel safer in a house." + +"I've always read about western life," said she slowly, in her gentle +voice. "If only--I wish----" + +"So do I, ma'am," said Sim Gage. + +But neither really knew what was the wish in the other's heart. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE HALT AND THE BLIND + +The sweet valley, surrounded by its mountains, was now a sight to +quicken the pulse of any heart alive to beauty, as it lay in its long +vistas before them; but neither of these two saw the mountains or the +trees, or the green levels that lay between. Long silences fell, +broken only by the crackling clatter of the horses' hoofs on the hard +roadway. + +It was Mary Warren who at last spoke, after a deep breath, as though +summoning her resolution. "You're an honest man," said she. "I ought +to be honest with you." + +"I reckon that's so enough, ma'am," said Sim Gage. "But I just told +you I ain't been honest with you. I never wrote one of them letters +that you got--it was some one else." + +"But you came to meet me--you're here----" + +"Yes, but I didn't write them letters. That was all done by friends of +mine." + +"That's very strange. That's just the reason I wanted to tell _you_ +that I hadn't been honest--I never wrote the letters that _you_ got! +It was my room-mate, Annie Squires." + +"So? That's funny, ain't it? Some folks has funny idees of jokes. I +reckon they thought this was a joke. It ain't." + +"Your letters seemed like you seem now," she broke in. "It seems to me +you must have written every word." + +"Ma'am----" said Sim Gage; and broke down. + +"Yes, sir?" + +"Them is the finest words I ever heard in my life! I ain't been much. +If I could only live up to them words, now---- + +"Besides," he went on, a rising happiness in his tones, "seems like you +and me was one just as honest as the other, and both meaning fair. +That makes me feel a heap easier. If it does you, you're welcome." + +Blind as she was, Mary Warren knew now the gulf between this man's life +and hers. But his words were so kind. And she so much needed a friend. + +"You're a forgiving man, Mr. Gage," said she. + +"No, I ain't. I'm a awful man. When you learn more about me you'll +think I'm the worst man you ever seen." + +"We'll have to wait," was all that Mary Warren could think to say. But +after a time she turned her face toward him once more. + +"Do you know," said she, "I think you're a gentleman!" + +"Oh, my Lord!" said Sim Gage, his eyes going every which way. "Oh, my +good Lord!" + +"Well, it's true. Look--you haven't said a word or done a thing--you +haven't touched me--or laughed--or--or hinted--not once. That's being +a gentleman, in a time like this. This--this is a very hard place for +a woman." + +"It ain't so easy fer a man! But I couldn't have done no other way, +could I?" + +She made no answer. "Are there many other women in this valley, Mr. +Gage?" she asked after a time. "Who are they? What are they like?" + +"Five, in twenty-two miles between my place and town, ma'am," he +answered, "when they're home. The nearedest one to us is about couple +miles, unless you cut through the fields." + +"Who is she? What is she like?" + +"That is Mis' Davidson, our school ma'am-- She's the only woman I seen +a'most all last summer, unlessen onct in a while a woman would come out +with some fishing party in a automobile. Most of them crosses up above +on the bridge and comes down the other side of the creek from us. +Seems to me sometimes women has always been just acrosst the creek from +me, ma'am. I don't know much about them. Now, Wid--Wid Gardner--he's +the next rancher to me, this side--he sometimes has folks come there in +the fishing season." + +"Your log house is all painted and nice, isn't it?" + +"_Painted_, ma'am? Lord, no! You don't paint a log house none." + +"I never saw one in my life," said she contritely; then, sighing. "I +never will, now." + +"Do men come to your place very much, then?" she asked at length. + +"Why, Wid, he sometimes comes over." + +"And who is Wid?" + +"Like I said, he's got the next ranch to mine. He's maybe a forwarder +sort of man than me." + +"Did he have anything to do with--that advertisement?" + +"How can you guess things like that?" + +"He thought you were all alone?" + +"We did have some talk. But I want to tell you one thing, ma'am--if I +had ever thought onct that we'd a-brung a woman like _you_ here, I'd +never of been part nor party to it. I guess not!" + +"And yet you can't see why you're a gentleman!" said she again slowly. + +"You said you'd be going back home again before long?" It was the +first thing Sim Gage could say. + +"I haven't any home." + +"Nor no folks neither?" + +"There's not a soul in the world that I could go back to, Mr. Gage. So +now, I've told you the truth." + +"But there was oncet, maybe?" he said shrewdly. "How old are you?" He +flushed suddenly at this question, which he asked before he thought. + +"I'm twenty-five." + +"You don't look that old. Me, I'm thirty-seven. I'm too old to marry. +Now I never will." + +"How do you know?" she said. "What do you mean?" As she spoke she +felt the tears come again on her cheeks, felt her hands trembling. + +"Well, ma'am, I know mighty well I'll never marry now. Of course, if +one sort of woman had came out here--big and strong enough to be a +housekeeper and nothing else, and all that, and one thing with +another--I won't say what might have happened. Strange things has +happened that way--right out of them damn _Hearts Aflame_ ads--right +around along in here, in this here valley, too, I know. Well, of +course, a man can't get along so well, ranching, unless he has a +wife----" + +"Or a housekeeper?" + +"Why, yes. That's what we advertised fer. I didn't know it." + +Mary Warren pondered for a long time. + +"Look at me," she said at last. "There's no place for me back home, +and none here. What sort of housekeeper would I make--and what sort +of--of--wife? I'm disappointing you; and you're disappointing me. +What shall we both do?" + +"Why, how do you mean?" said Sim Gage, wonderingly. "Disappoint you? +Of course I couldn't marry a woman like you! You don't want me to do +_that_? That wouldn't be right." + +"Oh, I don't mean that! I don't know what I did mean!" + +Some sense of her perturbation must have come to him. "Now don't you +worry, ma'am. Don't you git troubled none a-tall. I'm a-goin' to take +care of you myself until everything gits all right." + +"I'm a thief! I'm a beggar!" was all she could say. + +"The same here, ma'am! You've got nothing on me," said Sim Gage. +"What I said is, we're in the same boat, and we got to go the best way +we can till things shapes out. It ain't very much I got to offer you. +Us sagebrushers has to take the leavings." + +"You've said the truth for me--the very truth. I'm of the discard--I +can't earn my living. Leavings! And I wanted to earn my living." + +"You've earned it now, ma'am," said Sim Gage; and perhaps made the +largest speech of all his life. + +"Well, anyways, we're going to come to my land right now," he added +after a time. "We've passed the school house, only couple mile from my +place. On ahead here is Wid Gardner's ranch, on the left hand side. I +don't reckon he's at home. I told you the school ma'am had maybe went +off to her homestead, didn't I? Maybe Nels Jensen, he's maybe driving +her to the Big Springs station down below. This here is Wid Gardner's +team and buckboard, ma'am. I ain't got around to fixing mine up this +spring. I've got to drive back after a while and take these things +back to Wid." + +Her situation grew more tense. They were coming now to the end of the +journey--to her home--to his home. She did not speak. To her ears the +sound of the horses' feet seemed less, as though they were passing on a +road not so much used. + +"This is a sort of alley, like, down along between the willers and the +rail fence," explained Sim Gage. "It's about half a mile of this. +Then we come to my gate." + +And presently they did come to his gate, where the silver-edged willows +came close on the one side and the wide hay meadows reached out on the +other toward the curving pathway of the river. He pulled up. + +"Could you hold these horses, ma'am, fer a minute? I got to open the +gate." + +He handed her the reins, it never occurring to him that there was any +one in the world who had never driven horses. She was frightened, but +resolved to appear brave and useful. + +Sim Gage began to untwist the short club which bound the wire gate +shut. He pulled it back, and clucked to the horses, seeing that she +did not start them. + +Mary Warren knew nothing of horses. It seemed to her that the correct +thing to do was to drop the reins loosely, shaking them a little. The +half wild horses, with their uncanny brute sense, knew the absence of a +master, and took instant advantage of the knowledge. With one will +they sprang, lunged, and started forward, plunging. Mary Warren +dropped the lines. + +"_Sit still there_!" she heard a voice call out imperatively. Then, +"Whoa! damn you, whoa now!" + +She could see nothing, but sensed combat. Sim Gage had sprung forward +and caught the cheek strap of the nearest horse. It reared and struck +out wildly. She heard an exclamation, as though of pain, but could not +see him as he swung across to the other horse and caught his fingers in +its nostrils, still calling out to them, imperiously, in the voice of a +commander. + +At length they halted, quieted. She heard his voice speaking brokenly. +"Set still where you are, ma'am. I'll tie 'em." + +"You're hurt!" she called out. "It was my fault." + +"I'm all right. Just you set still." + +Apparently he finished fastening the horses to something. She heard +him come to the end of the seat, knew that he was reaching up his arms +to help her down. But when she swung her weight from the seat she felt +him wince. + +"One of 'em caught me on the knee," he admitted. "It was my new pants, +too." + +She could not see his face, gray with pain now under the dust. + +"It's all my fault--I didn't dare tell you--I don't know anything about +horses. I don't know anything about anything out here!" + +"Take hold of my left hand coat sleeve," he answered to her confession. +"We'll walk on into the yard. Keep hold of me, and I'll keep hold of +them horses. I'll look out if they jump." + +For some reason of their own the team became less fractious. He limped +along the road, his hand at the bit of the more vicious. She could +feel him limp. + +"You're hurt--they did jump on you!" she reiterated. + +"Knee's busted some, but we'll git along. Don't you mind. Anyhow, +we're here. Now, you go off, a little ways--it's all level here--and +I'll unhitch these critters." + +"That's the barn over there," he added, pointing in a direction which +she could not see. "Plain trail between the house and the corral gate. +On beyond is my hay lands and the willers along the creek. There's a +sort of spring thataway"--again he pointed, invisibly to her--"and +along it runs a band of willers--say a hundred yards from the house. +It all ain't much. I never ought to of brought you here a-tall, but +like I said, we'll do the best we can. Please don't be afraid, or +nothing." + +Stripped of their harness, the wild team turned and made off at a run +down the road, through the gate and back to their own home. + +"Good riddance," said Sim Gage, stooping, his hands at his cut +knee-cap. "Wid can come over here fer his own buckboard, fer all of +me." + +"Take right a-holt of my arm tight, and go easy now," he added, turning +to Mary Warren. She felt his hand on her arm. + +They passed around the corner of the cabin. She reached out a hand to +touch the side post as she heard the door open. + +"It's a right small little place inside," said Sim Gage, "only one bunk +in it. I've got some new blankets and I'll fix it all up. Maybe +you'll want to lay down and rest a while before long. + +"Over at the left is the stove--when I git the fire going you can tell +where it is, all right. Between the stove and the bunk is the table, +where we eat--I mean where I used to eat. It all ain't so big. Pretty +soon you'll learn where the things all is. It's like learning where +things is in the dark, ma'am, I suppose?" + +"Yes. What time is it?" she asked suddenly. "You see, I can't tell." + +"Coming on evening, ma'am. I reckon it's around three or four o'clock. +You see, I ain't got a clock. I ain't got round to gitting one yet. +Mine's just got busted recent. + +"This here's a chair, ma'am," he said. "Jest set down and take it +right easy. Lay off your wraps, and I'll put 'em on the bunk. You +mustn't worry about nothing. We're here now." + +By and by she felt his hand touch her sleeve. + +"Here's a couple of poker sticks," said he. "I reckon maybe you'll +need to use one onct in a while to kind of feel around with. Well, +it's the same with me--I'm going to need something, kind of, my own +self. That knee's going to leave me lame a while, _I_ believe." + +A sudden feeling that they two were little better than lost children +came to her as she turned toward him. A strange, swift feeling of +companionship rose in her heart. Her vague fears began to vanish. + +"You're hurt," said she. "What can I do? Can't you put some witch +hazel on your knee?" + +"I ain't got none, ma'am." + +"Isn't there some alcohol, or anything, in the place?" + +"No, ma'am--why, yes, there is too! I got some whiskey left. Whiskey +is good fer most anything. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll just go +round the house, and I'll rub some of that whiskey on my knee." + +She heard him pass out of the door. She was alone. Absolutely she +welcomed the sound of his foot again. He might have seen her face +almost light up. + +"When you git kicked on a bone," he said, "it hurts worse. She's +swelled up some, but I reckon she'll get well in a few days or weeks. +I don't think she's busted much, though at first I thought he'd knocked +the knee cap plump off. There's a cut in above there. Cork of the +shoe must of hit me there." + +The gravity of her face was her answer. She could see nothing. + +"I reckon you can smell that whiskey," said he, "but I ain't drunk +none--it's just on my leg, that's all." + +"You're not a drinking man?" she asked. + +"Why, yes, of course I am. All of us people out here drinks more or +less when they can git it--this is a dry state. But I allow I'll cut +it out fer a while, now, ma'am." + +"Ain't you hungry now, ma'am?" he added. "We didn't have a bite to eat +all day." + +"Yes," said she. "But how can I help cook supper--what can I do?" + +"There ain't much you need to do, ma'am. If I've lived here alone all +this time, and lived alone everywhere else fer thirty-seven years, I +reckon I can cook one more meal." + +"For your housekeeper!" she said, smiling bitterly. + +"Well, yes," he replied. "You don't know where things is yet. I got +some bacon here, and aigs too. I brought out some oranges from +town--fer you." She did not see him color shyly. Oranges were +something Sim Gage never had brought to his ranch before. He had +bought them of the Park commissary at the station. + +"Then I got some canned tomatoes--they're always good with bacon. Out +under my straw pile I got some potatoes that ain't froze so very bad +anyways, and you know spuds is always good. I didn't bring no more +flour, because I had plenty. I can make all sorts of bread, +ma'am--flapjacks, or biscuits, or even sour dough--even dough-gods. I +ain't so strong when it comes to making the kind of bread you put in +the oven." + +"Why, I can make that--I know I can do that!" she said, pleased at the +thought. + +"We'll start in on that to-morrow," said he. "I'll just cook you one +meal--as bad as I can, ma'am--so as to show you how bad I needed a +housekeeper out here." + +The chuckle in his tones was contagious, so that she almost laughed +herself. "All right," said she. + +She heard him bustling around here and there, rattling pans, stumbling +over sticks of wood on the floor. + +"Haven't you any chickens?" she asked. + +"No, ma'am, I ain't got around to it. I was a-going to have some." + +"I'd like awfully well to have some chickens. Those little yellow +things, in my hands----" + +"We can get plenty, ma'am. I can drive out just a leetle ways, about +forty miles, to where the Mormons is at, and I can get plenty of 'em, +even them yeller ones." + +"Where is the dog? Haven't you got a dog?" + +"No, ma'am, I ain't. The wolves got mine last winter, and I ain't got +round to getting another one yet. What kind would you like?" + +"Why, a collie--aren't they nice?" + +"Yes, ma'am, I reckon. Only thing is, they might take me fer a sheep +man. I'd hate that." + +"Well--even a little dog?" + +"I'll get you one, any kind you want. I allow myself, a dog is a heap +of comfort. I'm about the only homesteader in this valley that ain't +got one right now. Some has sever'l." + +"I can make the coffee, I'm sure," she said, still endeavoring to be of +use. But she was skimpy in her measurement, and he reproached her. + +"That won't make it strong enough. Don't you like it right strong?" + +"Well, Annie and I," said she honestly, "couldn't afford to make it +very strong. Annie was my roommate, you see." + +"We can afford anything we want out here, ma'am. I got a credit at the +store. We're going to make six hundred tons of hay right out there in +them medders this summer. We're going to have plenty of money. Hay is +mighty high. I can get eight dollars a ton standing out there, and not +put a machine into it myself. Wheat is two dollars and twenty cents a +bushel, the lowest." + +"Why, that's fine, that's fine!" said she. "I'm so glad." She knew +nothing in the world about hay or wheat. + +The odors from the stove appealed pleasantly enough to the tired woman +who sat on the box chair, in the same place she originally had taken. +"Draw up," said Sim Gage. But it was clumsy work for her to eat, newly +blind. She was so sensitive that she made no pretence of concealing +her tears. + +"I wouldn't worry none, ma'am," said Sim Gage, "if I could help it. I +wouldn't worry any more'n I could help, anyways. I'll put things where +you can find 'em, and pretty soon you'll get used to it." + +"But at least I can wash the dishes." + +"That's so," said he. "That's so. I reckon you could do that. It +ain't hard." And indeed in due course he made arrangements for that on +the table in front of her, so that she might feel easier in being +useful. + +"Why, that isn't the dish pan," said she. + +Sim Gage flushed with great guiltiness. + +"No, ma'am, it ain't. It's only the wash pan. Fact is, some one has +been in this place since I been away, and they stole my dish pan, the +low-down pups. I didn't know as you'd notice the wash pan." + +"Well, it will do for once," she said dubiously, and so she went on, +making good shift, wiping the dishes carefully and placing them before +her on the table. Then she laughed. "It was the same with Annie and +me--we only had the one pan. Yours is much larger than ours was. I +always helped with the dishes." + +"That's fine," said he. "Do you know, that's the part of keeping house +I always hated more'n anything else, just washing dishes." + +"I almost always did that for Annie and me," said Mary Warren, feeling +out with her hands gently and trying to arrange the battered +earthenware upon the table. + +"Now," said Sim Gage, "I reckon I'd better get them new blankets in and +make up that bed. Come along, ma'am, and I'll show you." And in spite +of all he took her arm and led her to the side of the rude bunk. + +"I'm so tired," she said. "Do you know, I'm awfully scared out here." +Her lips were quivering. + +"Ain't a woman a funny thing, though?" said Sim Gage. "No use to be +scared, none a-tall. I'll show you how us folks makes a bed. There's +willer branches and pine underneath, and hay on top. Over that is the +tarp, and now I'm spreading down the blankets. You can feel 'em--soft +ones--_good_ blankets, I can tell you! Whole bed's kind of soft and +springy, ma'am. You reckon you can sleep?" + +Responsively she stretched out a hand and felt across the surface of +the soft new blankets. + +"Why, where are the sheets?" said she. + +"Sheets!" said Sim Gage in sudden consternation. "Now, look at that! +That ornery low-down pup that come and stole my dish pan must of took +all my sheets too! Fact is, I just made it up with blankets, like you +see. But you needn't mind--they're plumb new and clean. Besides, it +gets cold here along toward morning, even in the summer time. Blankets +is best, along toward morning." + +She stood hesitant as she heard his feet turning away. + +"I'm going away fer a hour or so," said he. "I got to take care of my +horse and things. Now, you feel around with your stick, sort of. I +reckon I better go over before long and make up my own bed--my tent is +beyond the willers yonder." + +She could not know that Sim Gage's bed that night would be composed of +nothing better than a pile of willow boughs. He had given her the last +of the new blankets--and his own old bed was missing now. Wid had +fulfilled his threat and burned it. + +She stood alone, her throat throbbing, hesitant, at the side of the +rude bunk. + +"He's a kind man," said she to herself, half aloud, after a time. "Oh, +if only I could see!" + +She began to feel her way about, stood at the door for a time, looking +out. Something told her that the darkness of night was coming on. She +turned, felt her way back to the edge of the bunk, and knelt down, her +head in her hands. Mary Warren prayed. + +She paused after a long time--half-standing, a hand upon the soft-piled +blankets, her eyes every way. Yes, she was sure it was dark. And +above all things she was sure that she was weary, unutterably, +unspeakably weary. The soft warmth of the blankets about her was +comforting. + +Sim Gage in his own place of rest was uneasy. Darkness came on late by +the clock in that latitude. Something was on Sim's mind. He had +forgotten to tell his new housekeeper how to make safe the door! He +wondered whether she had gone to bed or whether she was sitting there +in the dark--an added darkness all around her. He was sure that if he +told her how to fasten the door she would sleep better. + +Timidly, he got up out of his own comfortless couch, and groped for the +electric flash-light which sometimes may be seen in places such as his +to-day. He tiptoed along the path through the willows, across the +yard, and knocked timidly at the door. He heard no answer. A sudden +fear came to him. Had she in terror fled the place--was she wandering +hopelessly lost, somewhere out there in the night? He knocked more +loudly, pushed open the door, turned the flash light here and there in +the room. + +He saw her lying, the blankets piled up above her, a white arm thrown +out, her eyes closed, her face turned upon her other arm, deep in the +stupor of exhaustion. She was a woman, and very beautiful. + +Suddenly frightened, he cut off the light. But the glare had wakened +her. She started up, called out, "Who's there?" Her voice was vibrant +with terror. "Who's _there_?" she repeated. + +"It's only me, ma'am," said Sim Gage, his voice trembling. + +"You said you wouldn't come!--Go away!" + +"I wanted to tell you----" + +"Go away!" + +He went outside, but continued stubbornly, gently. + +"--I wanted to say to you, ma'am," said he, "you can lock this here +door on the inside. You come around, and you'll find a slat that drops +into the latch. Now, there's a nail on a string, fastened to that +latch. You can find that nail, and if you'll just drop that bar and +push the nail in the hole up above it--why, you'll be safe as can be, +and there can't _no_ one get in." + +He stood waiting, fumbling at the button of the flash light. By +accident it was turned on again. + +He saw her then sitting half upright in the bed, both her white arms +holding the clothing about her, the piled mass of her dark hair framing +a face which showed white against the background. Her eyes, unseeing, +were wide open, dark, beautiful. Sim Gage's heart stopped in his +bosom. She was a woman. She had come, of her own volition. They were +utterly alone. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +NEIGHBORS + +Sim Gage, hesitant at the door of his bare-floored tent in the cool +dawn, saw smoke arising from the chimney of Wid Gardner's house. From +a sense of need he determined to pay Wid a visit. His leg was doing +badly. He needed help, and knew it. He hobbled over to the cabin +door, where all was silent; knocked, and knocked again, more loudly. +She still slept--slept as she had not dreamed she could. + +"Who's there?" she demanded at length. "Oh yes; wait a minute." + +He waited several minutes, but at length heard her at the door. His +eyes fell upon her hungrily. She was fresher, her air was more eager, +less pitiful. + +"Good morning, ma'am," said he. "I've come to get the breakfast." All +she could do was to stand about, wistful, perplexed, dumb. + +"Now, ma'am," said he, after he had cooked the breakfast--like in all +ways to the supper of the night before--"I'm a-going to ask you to stay +here alone a little while to-day. You ain't afraid, are you?" + +"You'll not be gone long? It's lonesome to me all the time, of +course." In reality she was terrified beyond words at the thought of +being left alone. + +"I know that. But we got to get a dog and some hens for you. I just +thought I'd go over and see Wid Gardner, little while, and talk over +things." + +"How is your knee now?" she asked. "It seemed to me you sounded rather +limpy, Mr. Gage." + +"Is that what you want to call me, ma'am?" said he at last--"Mr. Gage? +It sounds sort of strange to me, but it makes me feel taller. Folks +always called me Sim." + +She heard him turn, hesitant. "You'll not be gone long?" said she. + +"I reckon not." + +"Then bring me the pan of potatoes in here, so that I can peel them." + +"You're mighty helpful, ma'am. I don't see how I kept house here at +all without you. + +"Ma'am," he went on, presently, hesitating, after his bashful fashion. +"This here is a right strange place, way you and me is throwed in here +together. I only wish't you wouldn't git scared about anything, and +you'd sort of--_believe_ in me, till we can shape things out somehow, +fairer to you. Don't be scared, please. I'll take care of you the +best I can. The only trouble is I'm afraid about folks, that's all." + +"What do you mean--about folks?" + +"If there was a woman within fifty miles of you knowed you wasn't +married to me, she'd raise hell sure. All women is that way, and some +men is, too. There ain't been no room for talk--yet." + +"Yet?" she said. "What do you mean?" + +But this was carrying Sim Gage into water too deep for him. He only +stepped closer to the door. "Don't you be scared to be alone a little +while. So long," he added, and so he left her. + +She heard his hobbling footfalls across the boards at the end of the +house, heard them pass into silence on the turf. What had he meant? +How long could she maintain her supremacy over him, here alone in the +wilderness, helpless, blind? And those other women? What, indeed, was +her status to be here? When would he tire of this? When would he +change? + +Questions came to Sim Gage's mind also. Now and again he paused and +leaned against the fence. He was in much pain alike of body and of +mind. + +He saw Wid himself turn out at his gate and approach him; dreaded the +grin on Wid's face even before he saw it. + +"Well, there, neighbor," said the oncomer. "You're out at last. How's +everything?" + +Sim looked down at his bandaged leg with a gesture. + +"How come that?" + +"One of them damn broncs cut me with his forefoot when I was +unhitching. Did you git track of them anywhere? They run off." + +"They're hanging around here," said Wid indifferently. He bent over +the wounded member. "So struck you with his front hoof? That's a bad +leg, Sim. It's getting black; and here's some red streaks." + +"I'm some scared about it," said Sim. "Seems to me I'd better get to a +doctor. I got to get me a dog first, and some hens." + +Wid Gardner took a hasty but careful inventory of his friend's +appearance, his shaven face, his clean hands, his new clothing. + +"How's your wife, Sim?" he said, grinning. + +"That lady, she's all right. Left her paring spuds. And I want to say +to you, Wid, while I'm away from there, everybody else stays away too." + +"What, not get to see the bride? That ain't very friendly, seems to +me." + +"Well, what I said goes." + +"You're a jealous sort of bridegroom?" said Wid, laughing openly. + +The dull color of Sim's face showed the anger in his heart. "That +lady, she's there at my house," said he, "and she's going to be left +alone there. She's sort of shy. This country's plumb new to her." + +"But honest, Sim"--and his neighbor's curiosity now was apparent--"what +sort of a looker is she?" + +"Prettier'n a spotted pup!" said Sim succinctly. + +"She like the country pretty well?" + +"Says it's the prettiest she ever seen," replied Sim. "That's what she +said." + +"And you owe all this to me, come to simmer it down." + +"I ain't simmering nothing down," said Sim. "Here's your gate. Down +there is mine. Don't none of you go in there until I tell you it's +time, that's all." + +"Well, I dunno as I care to," replied Wid. + +"Better not," said Sim Gage. "I ain't a-going to have that girl +bothered by nobody. Of course, you and me both knows we ain't married, +and won't never be. It was a housekeeper I was after, and I got one, +and a damn good one. But I don't want her bothered by no one fer a +while. I've played this game on the level with her so far, anyways, +and I allow to play it that way all the way through." + +"But now," he added, wincing with pain, "let's cut out all this sort of +thing. I believe I got to get to a doctor." + +"I'll tell you," said Wid Gardner, "I'll hitch up and take you down to +the doctor at the big dam, twenty-five miles below. He's taking care +of all the laborers down there--they're always getting into accidents; +dynamite, you know. He's got to be a good doctor. I'll take you down." + +"Wid," said Sim, "I wish't you would. I don't believe I'll go back +home first. She'll be all right there alone, won't she?" + +Wid still smiled at him understandingly. "Jealousest man I ever did +see! Well, have it your own way. It'll take just so much time +anyway--if we get back by nine or ten o'clock to-night we'll be lucky. +She'll have to begin sometime to get used to things." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE COMPANY DOCTOR + +The Two Forks, below their junction, make a mighty stream which has +burst through a mountain range. Across this narrow gorge which it has +rent for itself in time immemorial, the insect, Man, industrious and +persevering, has cast a great pile of rock and concrete, a hundred feet +high, for that good folk some hundreds of miles away one day may bless +the Company for electric lighting. In this labor toiled many +man-insects of divers breeds and races, many of them returned soldiers, +much as did the slaves of Pharaoh in earlier times. The work was on +one of the new government projects revived after the war, in large part +to offer employment to the returning men of the late Army. + +But Pharaoh had not dynamite or rack-rock or TNT; so that in the total +it were safer for an insect to have labored in Pharaoh's time. The +Company doctor--himself a returned major--stationed there by reason of +the eccentricities of dynamite, rack-rock and other high explosives, +was much given to the sport of the angle, and disposed to be irritable +when called from the allurements of the stream to attend some laboring +man who had undertaken to attach a fuse by means of his teeth, or some +such simple process. That is to say, Doctor Allen Barnes was irritable +until he had reeled up his line and climbed the bank below the dam +site, and betaken himself to the side of the last hospital cot where +lay the last victim of dynamic and dynamitical industry. After that he +was apt to forget angling and become an absorbed surgeon, and a very +able one. + +But on this particular day, when word came to him at the stream side +that a stranger not of the force had arrived in town with a "bum +leg"--so reported the messenger, Foreman Flaherty--Doctor Barnes was +wroth exceedingly, for at that moment he was fast in a noble trout that +was far out in the white water, and giving him, as he himself would +have phrased it, the time of his life. + +"Tell him I can't come, Flaherty!" he called over his shoulder. "I'm +busy." + +"I reckon that's so, Doc," said the foreman. "Why don't you haul him +in? That pole of yours ain't no good, it's too limber. If I had him +on mine I'd show you how to get him in." + +"Oh, you would, would you, dad burn you," remarked Doctor Barnes, who +had small love for the human race at many times, and less at this +moment. "I wouldn't put it past you. Well, this is my affair and not +yours. Who is the fellow, anyhow, and where did he come from, and what +does he want? Has he been trying to beat the shot?" + +"He ain't on our job," replied the foreman. "Come down from twenty +mile up the East Fork. Got kicked by a horse." + +"Huh! What's his name? Look at him jump!" remarked the doctor, with +mixed emotions and references. + +"Sim Gage. Come down with a feller name of Gardner that lives up in +there." + +"Oh, above on the East Fork? Say, how's the fishing up there?--Did +they say there were any grayling in there?" + +"I've saw Wid Gardner lots of times before, and he says a feller can +always get a sackful of grayling any time he wants to, in there, come +summer time." + +"Look at him go! Ain't that fine?" inquired Dr. Allen Barnes. "Did he +say they were coming good now, up there? Ain't he a peach?" + +"Yes, Wid said the grayling was risin' right good now," said Flaherty. +"But this feller, Sim Gage, his leg looks to me like you'd have to cut +it off. Can I help, Doc?--I never seen a man's leg cut off, not in my +whole life." + +"How do I know whether it's got to come off or not, I'd like to know. +See that?--Ain't he a darling, now, I'm asking you?" + +"He is. Like I was saying, this feller's leg is all swoll up. Leave +it to me, I'd say we ought to cut it off right now." + +"Well, you go tell him not to cut it off till I get this fish landed," +said Dr. Barnes. "Tell him I'll be up there in a few minutes. What's +the matter with it, anyhow?" + +"Been gone a couple of days," said Flaherty, breaking off twigs and +casting them on the current. "Blood poison, I reckon." + +"What's that?" The Doctor turned under the spur of his professional +conscience. "Oh, well, dang it! Here goes!" + +He began to lift up and reel in with all his might, so that his fish, +very much obliged, broke the gear and ran off with joy, a yard of +leader attached to his mouth. + +"That's the way it goes," said the Doctor. "Get fast to a six-pound +brown trout, and along comes a man with a leg that's got to be cut off. +Dang such a job anyhow--I will cut his leg off, too, just for this!" + +Fuming as usual, he climbed the steep bank below the white face of the +dam and crossed the street to his own raw shack, which was office and +home alike. He gazed resentfully at his parted leader as he hung up +the rod on the nails at the rear of the small porch, and sighing, +entered the office for his surgical case. + +"Where is that fellow?" he demanded of Flaherty, who had followed him +in. + +"That's him settin' on the wagon seat up with Wid Gardner, in the +road," replied the messenger. "He's got his foot up on the dash board +like it was sore, ain't he?" + +Grumblingly Dr. Allen Barnes passed on up the road to the wagon where +two passengers awaited his coming. + +"Are you the man that wants me?" he asked, looking up at Sim Gage. + +"Why, yep," said Sim Gage, his face puckered up into his usual frown of +perplexity. "I reckon so, Doc. I got my leg hurt." + +"Well, come on over to the hospital." + +"Hospital? I can't go to no hospital. I can't afford it, Doc." + +"Well, I can't cut your leg off right out here in the street, can I, +man? I'm offering you the hospital free--the Company takes care of +those things. Not that I've got any business taking care of you, but I +will." + +"Why, this ain't nothing," said Sim Gage, pointing a finger towards his +swollen knee, "just a leetle kick of a bronc, that's all. I got to be +getting right back, Doc--I ain't got much time." + +"It don't take much time to cut off a leg," said Dr. Barnes. "Do it in +three minutes." His face, professionally grim, showed no token of a +smile. + +"Well, I left my folks all alone up there," began Sim. + +"You did, eh? Well, they'll be there when you get back, won't they?" + +"I dunno, Doc----" + +"Well, I don't know anything about it, if you don't. But tell me, +how's the fishing up in there? Any grayling?" + +"All you want," said Sim Gage. "Come along up any time, and I'll take +you out. But no, I guess maybe----" + +Dr. Barnes looked at him curiously, and Wid Gardner went on to explain +for his neighbor. + +"You see, Doc, Sim, he's just newly married," said he, "or else he's +going to be right soon. Sim, he's kind of bashful about having you +around." + +"Thanks! But come--I haven't any time. Come into the office, and +we'll have a look at the leg." + +Wid drove after the stalking figure, which presently drew up in front +of the little office. In a few moments they had Sim Gage, the injured +member bared, sitting up in a white chair in a very white and clean +miniature hospital which Dr. Barnes had installed. + +"This wound hasn't been cleaned properly," commented the doctor at +once. "What did you put on it?" + +"Why, whiskey. I didn't have nothing else." + +"Try water the next time," said Dr. Barnes with sarcasm. "We'll have +to paint it up with iodine now. Lockjaw, blood poison and amputation +is the very least that will happen to you if you don't look out." + +"Amputation?" Sim turned with curiosity to his neighbor. + +"It's where they cut off your leg, Sim," said Wid, explaining. + +"Oh, well, maybe we'll save his leg," said Dr. Barnes, grinning at +last. "But don't let this occur again, my Christian friend. This will +lay you up for two or three weeks the best way it can happen, in all +likelihood. Well, I'll swab it out and tie it up, and give you some +iodine. Keep it painted. How big do the grayling go up in your +country?" + +"I've seen plenty over three pounds," said Sim Gage. + +"I don't like to doubt your word, my friend, but if you'll show me one +three-pound grayling, you won't ever owe me anything for fixing up your +leg." + +"I sure can, Doc," said Sim Gage. "Grasshoppers is best." + +"For you, maybe. If you please, I'll try Queen of the Waters, or +Professor, long-shanked, and about Number 8. And I say again, if +you'll put me up to a three-pound grayling I'll cut off your leg for +nothing any time you want it done!" + +"Well, now," said Sim Gage, his forehead puckering up, "I don't want to +put you under no obligations, Doc." + +"He won't, neither, Doc," interrupted Wid Gardner, while the surgical +dressing was going forward. "There's holes in there twenty feet deep, +and I've see two or three hundred grayling in there dang near as long +as your arm." + +"Ouch, Doc!" remarked Sim Gage, "that yellow stuff smarts." + +"It's got to, my man. A couple of days more and you might really have +lost that leg, sure enough. I've seen plenty of legs lost, my man. I +don't think it'll go much further up--I hope not. But blood poisoning +is something bad to have, and I'll tell you that." + +"You ain't been in this country long, have you, Doc?" queried Wid +Gardner. "You come on up and go fishing with us fellers. A few weeks +from now it'll be better. I ain't got no woman at my place, but I can +cook some. Sim's got a woman at his." + +"What's that?" inquired Dr. Barnes. "Oh, the woman that's waiting? +What do you mean about that?" + +"Well," replied his patient, his forehead furrowed, "that is, we ain't +rightly married yet. Just sort of studying things over, you know, Doc. +We're waiting for--well, until things kind of shapes up. You +understand, Doc?" + +"I don't know that I do," said the Doctor, looking at him straightly. +"You understand one thing--there can't any funny business go on in this +valley now. The administration's mighty keen. You know that." + +"There ain't, Doc. She's my housekeeper. I'd ask you in all right, +only she can't cook, nor nothing." + +"A housekeeper, and can't cook? How's that?" + +Sim Gage wiped off his face, finding the temperature high for him. +"Well," said he, "Wid there and me, we advertised fer a housekeeper. +This girl come on out. And when she come she was blind." + +"Blind!" + +"Blind as a bat. So she says she's fooled me. I sort of felt like +we'd all fooled _her_. She's a lady." + +"Why don't you send her back, man?" asked the doctor, with very visible +disgust. + +"I can't. How can I, when she's blind? She wasn't born that way, Doc, +far's I can tell, but she was blind when she come out here. Now, +leaving her setting there alone, it makes me feel kind of nervous. You +don't blame me, now, do you, Doc?" + +"No," said Dr. Barnes gravely, "I don't blame you. You people out here +get me guessing sometimes. But you make me tired." + +He swept a hand across his face and eyes, just because he was tired. +"That's all I'm going to do for you to-day, my man," said he in +conclusion. "Go on back home and fight out your own woman +problems--that isn't in my line." + +"She--I reckon she'd be glad to see you--if she could. You see, she's +a lady, Doc. She ain't like us people out here." + +The physician looked at him with curious appraisal in his eyes, +studying both the man and this peculiar problem which all at once had +been brought to view. + +"A lady?" said he at last, somewhat disgusted. "If she was any lady +she'd never have answered any advertisement such as you two people say +you have been fools enough to print." + +"Look here! That ain't so," said Sim Gage with sudden heat. "That +ain't so none a-tall. Now, she is a lady--I won't let nobody say no +different. Only thing, she's a blind lady, that's all. She falls over +things when she walks. She got her eyes plumb full of cinders on the +train, I expect. Cinders is awful. Why, one time when I was going out +to Arizony I got a cinder in my eye, and I want to tell _you_----" + +"Listen at him lie, Doc!" interrupted Wid Gardner. "He never was +nowhere near Arizony in his life. That's his favoright lie. But he's +telling you the truth, near as I know it, about that woman. She did +come out to be a housekeeper, and she did come out here blind. Now, +couldn't she be a lady and that be true?" + +"How can I tell?" said Dr. Barnes. "All I know; is that you people +came down here and made me break loose from the best fish I've seen +since I've been out here. My best fish of a lifetime--I'll never get +hold of a trout like that again." + +Sim Gage was experiencing at the moment mingled gratitude and +resentment, but nothing could quench his own hospitable impulses. "Aw, +come on up, Doc," said he, "won't you? We can figure out some way to +take care of you right at my place. You and me can sleep in the tent." + +"So you live in the tent?" inquired Dr. Barnes. + +"Why, of course. She stays in the house. And she's there all alone +this very minute." + +"Hit the trail, men," said Dr. Barnes. "Go on back home, and stay +there, you damn sagebrushers!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +LEFT ALONE + +Mary Warren, alone in the little cabin, found herself in a new world +whose existence she had never dreamed--that subjective and subconscious +land which bridges the forgotten genesis of things to the usual and +busy world of the senses, in which we pass our daily lives. Indeed, +never before had she known what human life really is, how far out of +perspective, how selfish, how distorted. Now, alone in the darkness, +back in the chaos and the beginning, she saw for the first time how +small a thing is life and how ill it is for the most part lived. A fly +buzzed loudly on the window pane--a bold, bronzed, lustrous fly, no +doubt, she said to herself, pompous and full of himself--buzzed again +and again, until the drone of his wings blurred, grew confused, ceased. +She wondered if he had found a web. + +The darkness oppressed her like a velvet pall. She strained her eyes, +trying in spite of all to pierce it, beat at it, picked at it, to get +it from around her head; and only paused at length, her face beaded, +because she knew that way madness lay. + +Time was a thing now quite out of her comprehension. Night and day, +all the natural and accustomed divisions of time, were gone for her. +She felt at the hands of her little watch, but found her mind +confused--she could not remember whether it was the stem or the hinge +which meant noon or midnight. + +A thousand new doubts and fears of her newly created world assailing +her, she felt rather than saw the flood of the sunlight when she +stepped to the door gropingly, and stood, stick in hand, looking out. +Yes, that was the sun. But it was hard to reason which way was north, +which way lay the east, which was her home. + +Home? She had no home! These years, she had known no home but the +single room which she had occupied with Annie Squires. And now even +that was gone. And even if it were not gone, she had no means of going +back to it--her money was almost exhausted. And this black world was +not the earth, this new covering of her soul was not life. Oh, small +enough seemed Mary Warren to her own self now. + +She stumbled back to her seat behind the table, near the bunk, and +tried to take up her knitting again. The silence seemed to her so +tremendous that she listened intently for some sound, any sound. Came +only the twitter of a little near-by bird, the metallic clank of a +meadow lark far off across the meadows. They at least were friendly, +these birds. She could have kissed them, held them close to her, these +new friends. + +But why did he not come back--the man? What was going to happen if he +did come back? How long would all this last? Must it come to death, +or to the acceptance of terror or of shame, as the price of life? + +She began to face her problem with a sort of stolid courage or +resolution--she knew not what to call it. She was at bay--that was the +truth of it. There must be some course of action upon which presently +she must determine. What could it be? How could she take arms against +her new, vast sea of troubles, so far more great than falls to the +average woman, no matter how ill, how afflicted, how unfit for the +vast, grim conflict which ends at last at the web? + +One way out would be to end life itself. Her instinct, her religious +training, her principles, her faith, rebelled against that thought. +No--no! That was not right. Her life, even her faint, pulsing, +crippled life, was a sacred trust to her. She must guard it, not +selfishly, but because it was right to do so. She could feel the +sunshine outside, could hear the birds singing. They said that life +still existed, that she also must live on, even if there were no sound +of singing in her own heart ever again. + +Then she must go back to the East, whence she had come?--Even if +great-hearted Annie would listen to that and take her back, where was +the money for the return passage? How could she ask this man for +money, this man whom she had so bitterly deceived? No, her bridges +were burned. + +What then was left? Only the man himself. And in what capacity? +Husband; or what? And if not a husband, what? + +. . . No, she resolved. She would accept duty as the price of life, +which also was a duty; but she would never relax what always to her had +meant life, had been a part of her, the principles ingrained in her +teachings and her practices, ever since she was a child. No, it was +husband or nothing. + +And surely he had been all that he had said he would be. He _was_ +kindly, he _was_ chivalrous, he had proved that. She wondered how he +looked. And what had she now to offer for perfection in a man? Was +she not reduced to the bargain counter, in the very basement of life? +If so, what must be her bargain here? + +And then she recalled the refusal of Sim Gage himself to think of +marriage. He had said he was not good enough for her. How could she +then marry him, even if she so wished? Must she woo him and persuade +him, argue with him? All her own virginal soul, all the sanctity of +her life, rebelled against that thought also. + +Object, matrimony! What a cruel jest it all had been. What a terrible +dilemma, this into which it all had resolved itself. Object, matrimony! + +So if this man--so she reasoned again, wearily--if this man who had +been kind at least, even if uncouth, was willing to take her with all +her stories told, and all shortcomings known and understood--if he was +willing to take chances and be content--was that indeed the only way +out for her, Mary Warren? + +What made it all most bitter, most difficult, most horrible for her was +the strength of her own soul. Was it the _right_ thing to do--was it +the courageous and valiant thing to do? Those were the two questions +which alone allowed her to face that way for an answer; and they were +the very two which drove her hardest. Could she not do much, if in the +line of duty? Sacrifice was no new thing for women. . . . And the +war! . . . This was not a time for little thoughts. + +Such are some of the questions a woman must ask and answer, because she +is a woman. They are asked and answered every day of the world; +perhaps not often so cruelly as here in this little cabin. + +She began, weakly, to try to resign herself to some frame of mind by +which she could entertain the bare, brutal thought of this alternative. +She had come more than a thousand miles to meet this man by plan, by +arrangement. Oh, no (so she argued), it could not be true that there +was but one man for one woman, one woman for a man, in all the world. +Annie must have been right. Propinquity did it--was that not why men +and women nearly always married in their own village, their own social +circle? Well, then, here was propinquity. Object, matrimony! Would +propinquity solve all this at last, as though this were a desert +island, they two alone remaining? God! + +Was it indeed true, asked Mary Warren, in her bitter darkness, that the +rude doctrine of material ideas alone must rule the world now in this +strange, new, inchoate, revolutionary age? Was it indeed true that +sentiment, the emotions, the tenderer things of life, a woman's +immeasurable inheritance--must all these things go also into the +discards of the world's vast bloody bargain counter? + +She remembered Annie's rude but well-meant words, back there where they +once crudely struggled with these great questions. "What's the use of +trying to change the world, Sis?" she had said. "Something's going +wrong every minute of the day and night--something's coming up all the +time that ought to be different. But we ain't got nothing to do with +running the world--just running our own two lives is enough for us." + +Hours or moments later--she could not have told which--she raised her +head suddenly. What was it that she had heard? There was a cough, a +footfall in the yard. + +Oh, then he was coming home! Why not have the whole thing out now, +over once and for all? Why not speak plainly and have it done? He had +not been so terrible. He was an ignorant man, but not unkind, not +brutal. + +She felt the light in the door darken, knew that some one was standing +there. But something, subconscious, out of her new, dark +world--something, she could not tell what--told her this was not Sim +Gage. + +She reached out her hand instinctively. By mere chance it fell upon +the heavy revolver in its holster which Sim had hung upon the pole at +the head of her bed. She caught it out, drew back into the room, +toward the head of the bed, and stumbling into her rude box chair, sat +there, the revolver held loosely in her hand. She knew little of its +action. + +She heard a heavy step on the floor, that did not sound familiar, a +clearing of the throat which was yet more unfamiliar, a laugh which was +the last thing needed. This man had no business there, else he would +not have laughed. + +"Who's there?" she called out, tremulously. "Who are you?" She turned +on him her sightless eyes, a vast terror in her soul. + +"Good morning," said a throaty voice. She could fairly hear him grin. +"How's everything this morning? Where's your man this morning?" + +"He's--just across in the meadows--he'll be back soon," said Mary +Warren. + +"Is that so? I seen him ten miles down the road just a while back. +Now, look here, woman----" + +He had come fully into the room, and now he saw in her lap the weapon. +Half unconsciously she raised it. + +"Look out!" he called. "It may be loaded. Drop it!" + +"Come a step further, and I'll shoot!" said Mary Warren. And then, +although he did not know that she was sightless, he saw on her face +that look which might well warn him. Any ruffian knows that a woman is +more apt to shoot than is a man. + +This ruffian paused now half way inside the door and looked about him. +A grin spread across his wide, high-cheeked face. He reached down +silently to the stout spruce stick, charred at one end, that stood +between him and the stove. Grasping it he advanced on tiptoe, silent +as a cat, toward the woman. He was convinced that her sight was poor, +almost convinced that she did not see at all, because she made no move +when he stopped, the stick drawn back. With a swift sweep he struck +the barrel of the revolver a blow so forceful that it was cast quite +across the room. He sprang upon it at once. + +Mary Warren cried out, drew back as far as she could. The impact of +the blow had crushed a finger of the hand that held the weapon. She +wrung her hands, held up the bloody finger. "Who are you--what do you +want?" she moaned. + +"That's what you get when you run against a real one," sneered the +voice of the man, who now stood fully within the little room. "Just +keep quiet now." + +"What do you mean? What are you going to do?" She felt about again +for some weapon, anything, but could find nothing. + +"That's a purty question to ask, ain't it now?" sneered her assailant. +She could catch the reek of raw spirits around him as he stood near by. +She shuddered. + +"Sim!" she called out aloud at last. "Sim! Sim!" + +The name caused a vast mirth in her captor. "Sim! Sim!" he mocked +her. "Lot o' help Sim'd be if he was here, wouldn't he? As though I +cared for that dirty loafer. He's going to git all that's comin' to +_him_. Aw, Sim! He'll leave us Soviet sabcats alone. We're thinkers. +We're free men. We run our own government, and we run our own selves, +too." + +The liquor had made the man loquacious. He must boast. She tried to +guess what he might mean. + +But something in the muddled brain of the man retained recollection of +an earlier purpose. "Stay inside, you!" he said. "I got work to do. +If you go outside I'll kill you. Do you hear me?" + +She heard his feet passing, heard them upon the scattered boards near +the door, then muffled in the grass. She could not guess what he was +about. + +He went to the edge of the standing grass beyond the dooryard, and +began sowing, broadcast, spikes, nails, bits of iron, intended to ruin +the sickle blades of the mowers when they came to work. Even he thrust +a spike or bolt here or there upright in the ground to catch a blade. + +Mary Warren where she sat knew none of this, but she heard a sound +presently which she could not mistake--the crackling of fire! The +scent of it came to her nostrils. The man had fired the meager +remnants of Sim Gage's hay stacks. + +She heard next a shot or two, but could not tell what they meant. She +could not know that he was firing into the dumb, gaunt cattle which +hung about the ricks. + +Then later she heard something which caused her very soul to shiver, +made her blood run ice--the shrieking scream of a horse in death +agony--the hoarser braying of a mule, both dying amid fire! She did +not understand it, could not have guessed it; but he had set fire also +to the stables. Brutal to the last extreme, he left the animals penned +to die in the flames, and laughed at their agony. + +Again and again the awful sounds came to her. She was hysterical when +she heard his footstep approach once more, shrieked aloud for mercy. +He mocked her. + +"Stop it! Cut it out, I say. Come on now--do you want to stay here +and burn up in the house?" + +"I can't see--I'm blind," was all she could manage to say. + +"Blind, huh?" He laughed now uproariously. "Well, it's a good thing +you was blind, or else you might of seen Sim Gage! Did you ever see +Sim? What made you come here? What did you come for?" + +"I'm his housekeeper. He employed me----" + +"Employed you? For what?--for housekeeping? It looks like it, don't +it? Where did you come from, gal?" + +"East--Ohio--Cleveland," she spoke almost unconsciously and truthfully. + +"Cleveland? Plenty of our people there too still in the iron works. +Cleveland? And how come you out here?" + +"I'm ill--I'm a blind woman. Can't you leave me alone? Are you any +man at all?" + +He remained unmoved, phlegmatic. "So? Nice talk about you and Sim +Gage! Was you two married? I know you ain't. You come out to marry +him, though, didn't you?" + +"Yes." + +"When?" + +"Next week--he's gone for the minister to-day." She said anything, the +first thing. + +"That's a lie," said the coarse voice of the man she could not see. "I +seen him ten mile down toward the dam, I tell you, with Wid Gardner, +and Nels Jensen's folks, below, said they was going for a doctor, not a +preacher. He wouldn't marry no blind woman like you, no ways." + +She sank back, limp, her face in her bloody hands, as she lay against +the edge of the bed. + +"Come now," said he. "We got no time to waste. We'll see what the +other fellers think. Housekeeper--huh! You said you wasn't married to +him. You never will be, now." + +"You brute!" she cried, with the courage of the cornered thing, the +courage of the prisoner bound to the stake for torture. "You brute!" + +She could hear him chuckle throatily. "You don't know me--I'm Big +Aleck, general of the Soviet brothers in this county." He juggled +phrases he never had understood. + +"You ought to hang!" she panted. "You will hang, some day." + +[Illustration: "You ought to hang!" said she.] + +"You better look a little out, gal, I tell you that. You come along +out to the camp, and I'll see how you like that!" + +She felt his iron grasp fall upon her wrist. He dragged her across the +floor as though she weighed nothing. She had been wholly helpless, +even if in possession of all her faculties and all her senses. He +flung her from him upon the grass, laughing as she rose and tried to +run, bringing up in the willows, which she could not see. She could +hear the flames crackling at the hay ricks on beyond. By this time the +sounds from the burning barn mercifully had ceased, but she heard him +now at some further work. He was trying to light the battered edge of +the door with a match, but it would not burn. + +"Where's the oil, gal?" he demanded. + +"We've got none," said she, guessing his purpose of firing the house +now. + +He made no answer but a grunt, and finding the ax at the wood pile +nearby, began to hack at the jamb of the door, so that a series of +chips stood out from it, offering better food for flames. She heard +him again strike a match--caught the faint smell of burning pine. + +"Come on!" Again she felt his hand. He dragged her, her feet +stumbling in the grass. She could hear horses snorting, so there was +some vehicle here, she supposed. He flung her up to the seat, jerked +loose the halters, and climbed in as the team plunged forward. Had any +one seen the careening wagon, seen the upflung arm of a woman swaying +in the grasp of the man who sat beside her in the seat--had any one +heard the laugh of the man, the shrieks of the woman, struggling and +calling,--he must have thought that two drunken human beings instead of +one were endeavoring to show the astonished sky how bestial life may be +even here in America in an undone day. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE SABCAT CAMP + +To Mary Warren's ears, had she struggled in her captor's arms less +violently, the sound of the wheels might have changed from the loam of +the lane to the gravel of the highway as they passed. But she heard +nothing, noted nothing, did not understand why, after a time, the +driver pulled up, and with much profanity for his team, descended from +his seat. Apparently he fastened the horses near the road. He came +back. "Git down, and hurry," said he. "Here's where we change cars." + +She heard the grind of a motor's starting crank, the chug of an engine. +As its strident whirring continued her captor came again to her side, +and with rudeness aided her to the seat of what she took to be a small +car. She felt the leap of the car under his rude driving as he turned +the gas on full, felt it sway as it set to its pace. She now knew that +they were on some highway. + +"Now we go better," laughed Big Aleck, his face at her ear. "They +can't catch us now. These Johns 'll find what's what, heh? Look +yonder--five fires in sight, besides plenty stock bumped off. They'll +learn how the free brothers work. If you can't see, you can't tell. +All the better!" + +She shrank back into the seat, undertaking no reply to his maudlin +boastings. She was passing away from the only place in all the world +that meant shelter for her now, and already it felt like home, this +place that she was leaving. + +The car shifted and slowed down, apparently on a less used +thoroughfare. "Where are you going?" she cried. "You've left the +road!" + +Big Aleck laughed uproariously after his fashion. "I should say we +have," said he. "But any road's good enough just so it gets us up to +our jungle. You don't know what iss a jungle? Well, it's where the +sabcat brothers meets all by theirselves on the Reserve." + +"Reserve?" asked Mary Warren. "What do you mean?" + +"Where the timber is that them army scum is cutting for the Government. +Pine, some spruce. This road was made to get timber out. I ought to +know about it--I was foreman of the road gang! I know every tree +that's marked for the Government. My old bunch of bundle stiffs and +before-the-war wobblies is in there now. What chance has them +Government cockroaches got against my bullies? Wait till the wheat +clocks[1] get started and the clothes[2] begins. We ain't forgot what +we knew when they tried to draft us. We're free men now, same as in +Russia and Germany." + +He laughed again and again at the vast humor of this situation as it +lay before him, exulting in the mystification his thieves' jargon would +create. His liquor made him reckless. + +"It's a rough road, up Tepee Creek," said he, "but nobody comes. This +is a Government car--the Cossacks would think I'm going up to work. +They got to mark some trees. I'll mark 'em--so they can tell, when +they come to saw 'em, heh?" + +He said little more, but one hand cast over her shoulder was his answer +to her panting silence, every time she edged over in the impulse to +fling herself out of the car. He was a man of enormous strength. + +Continually the jolting of the car grew worse and worse. She began to +hear the rush of water. Twice she felt the logs of a rude bridge under +the wheels as they crossed some stream. They were winding their way up +the valley of a stream, into a higher country? Yes. As they climbed +now, she could catch the scent of the forest as the wind changed from +time to time. The profanity of her captor grew as the difficulty of +the trail increased. They were climbing at a gradient as steep as the +laboring car could negotiate. + +At last, after interminable time, they seemed to strike a sandier soil, +more level country--indeed, the trail was following the contour of a +high sandy ridge among the pines. + +On ahead she heard a shout. "Halt! Stop there! Who are you?" + +"Don't shoot, John," replied the driver of the car, laughing. "It's +Aleck." + +"Well, I'll be damned!" was the reply. "Time you was back, Aleck. +Who's that with you?" + +"That's a friend of mine I brought along! She's come up to see how us +wobblies lives!" + +Again his coarse laugh, which made her shudder. Then more broken +laughs, whispered words. She was obliged to take the arm of her rough +captor to descend from the car. + +"She don't see very well," said Aleck in explanation. "Maybe just as +well she don't, heh?" + +She stood looking about her vaguely, helpless. She could hear the high +moaning of the wind above her, in the tops of pine trees. Some one led +her to the front of a tent--she could hear the flapping of the fly in +the wind. She sank down by chance upon a blanket roll. Her captor +threw down the front flap of the tent. She heard voices of other men. +They paid not too much attention to her at first. Big Aleck, their +leader, went on with hurried orders. + +"We got to get out of here in not more'n an hour or so," said he. "The +Johns'll come. I fixed a couple dozen stacks of hay for them." + +"See anybody down below, Aleck?" asked a voice which Mary Warren +recognized as different from the others she had heard. And then some +low question was asked, to which Big Aleck replied. + +"Well, I'll take her along with me, when I go out, far as that's +concerned," said he. "She says she's Sim Gage's housekeeper! Huh!" + +"But suppose she gets away and squeals on us?" spoke a voice. + +"She can't get away. Let's go eat." + +She was close enough to where they sat eating and drinking to hear all +that was said, and they spoke with utter disregard of her presence. +She never had heard such language in her life, nor known that such men +lived. Never yet had she so fully taken home to herself the actual +presence of a Government, of a country, never before known what threats +against that country actually might mean. An enemy? Why, here was the +enemy still, entrenched inside the lines of victorious and +peace-abiding America--trusting, foolish, blind America, which had +accepted anything a human riff-raff sneeringly and cynically had +offered her in return for her own rich generosity! Mary Warren began +to see, suddenly, the tremendous burden of duty laid on every man and +every woman of America--the lasting and enduring and continuous duty of +a post-bellum patriotism, that new and terrible thing; that sweet and +splendid thing which alone could safeguard the country that had fought +for liberty so splendidly, so unselfishly. + +"If they ever run across us in here with the goods on us--good-night!" +hesitated a voice. "I don't like to carry this here cyanide--we got +enough for all the sheep and cattle in Montana." + +"Our lawyers'll take care of us if we get arrested," said Big Aleck +indifferently. + +"Yes, but we mightn't get arrested--these here ranch Johns is handy +with rope and lead." + +"Ach, no danger," argued Aleck. "It's safer than to blow up a armory +or a powder mill, or even a public building--and we done all that, +while the war was on. We'll give 'em Force! This Republic be +damned--there is no republic but the republic of Man!" + +These familiar doctrines seemed to excite the applause usual among +hearers of this sort. There was a chorus of approval, so that their +orator went on, much inspired. + +"People in Gallatin offered a thousand dollars for one man catched +putting matches in a threshing machine. Other ranchers was willing to +give a thousand if they found out what made their hay get a-fire! Hah! +They don't know how we set a bomb so the sun'll start it! They don't +think that the very fellers running the threshing machine is the ones +that drops the matches in! They don't think that the man running the +mowing machine is the one that fixes the sickle bar! They don't think +that the man in charge of this here road gang is the one that's +a-doctoring trees! + +"They're still eating all sorts of things for bread now," he resumed. +"Folks in the cities pays more and more. Wheat'll go to four dollars +before we're through. We're the farmer's friends, huh? Hay'll be +worth fifty dollars a ton in this valley before we're through--but +there won't be no horses left to haul it to town! There's thousands of +right boes all across the country now. If fourteen thousand iron and +steel people was out at one time in Cleveland, what couldn't we do, if +we once got a good strike started all across the country, now the war +is done? We've made 'em raise wages time and again, haven't we? I +tell you, freedom's coming to its own." + +Cleveland! Mary Warren pricked up her ears. She had reason; for now +the voice went on, mentioning a name which Annie Squires had made +familiar--Dorenwald, Charlie Dorenwald, the foreman in the rolling +rooms! + +"Charlie Dorenwald's the head of that bunch. He's a good man. You +know what he pulled in Youngstown." + +"Well, I don't know," said one voice, "they lynched a man in Illinois. +America's getting lawless! Think about lynching people! It ain't +right!" + +"There's nothing they won't do," said Big Aleck's voice, virtuously. +"They ask us we shall have respect for a Government that lets people +lynch folks!" + +"You didn't see any one when you was down in the road, Aleck?" asked +some one again, uneasily. + +"I told you, no. Well, we got to get to work." + +Mary Warren heard them rising from their places. Footfalls passed here +and there, shuffling. The woman could not repress her shuddering. +This was Force--unrestrained, ignorant, unleashed, brute Force, that +same aftermath Force which was rending apart the world back of the +new-dried battlefields of Europe! Order and law, comfort, love, +affection, trust--all these things were gone! + +What then was her footing here--a woman? Was God indeed asleep? She +heard her own soul begging for alleviating death. + +Then came silence, except for the airs high up in the sobbing trees. +They were gone on their errand. After that,--what? + +After a time she heard a sound of dread--the sliddering of a footfall +in the sand. She recognized the heavy, dragging stride of the man who +had brought her here. He had come back--alone. + +Terror seized her, keen and clarifying terror. She screamed, again and +again, called aloud the only name that came to her mind. + +"_Sim_!" she cried aloud again and again--"_Sim_! _Sim_!" + + + +[1] Wheat clocks: Phosphorus bombs left in wheat or haystacks and fired +by the sun. + +[2] Clothes: Argot terms for phosphorus, cyanide and other chemicals +used in destruction of property or life. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE MAN TRAIL + +"What do you think of him, Wid?" asked Sim Gage after a time, when they +were well on their way homeward in the late afternoon. + +"Looks like a good doctor, all right," replied Wid. "Clean-cut and +strictly on to his game. I reckon he got plenty practice in the war. +I'm sorry neither of us was young enough to git into that war. Your +leg hurt much now?" + +"Say yes!" replied Sim. "You know, I reckon we didn't get there any +too soon with that leg. Fine lot of us, up to my house, huh? Me laid +up, and her can't see a wink on earth." + +"And yet you said I couldn't come over and see her. So there you are, +both alone." + +"Well, it's this way, Wid, and you know it," insisted his friend. "The +girl is right strange there yet--it's a plumb hard thing to figure out. +We got to get her gentled down some. There's been a hell of a +misunderstanding all around, Wid, we got to admit that. And we're all +to blame for it." + +"Well, she's to blame too, ain't she?" + +"No, she _ain't_! I won't let no man say that. She's just done the +best she knew how. Women sometimes don't know which way to jump." + +"She didn't make none too good a jump out here," commented his friend. +"Has she ever told you anything about herself yet?" + +"Not to speak of none, no. She sets and cries a good deal. Says she's +broke and blind and all alone. She's got one friend back home--girl +she used to room with, but she's going to get married, and so she, this +lady, Miss Warren, comes out here plumb desperate, not knowing what +kind of a feller I am, or what kind of a place this is--which is both a +damn shame, Wid, and you know it. I say I'm up against it right now." + +"The real question, Sim, is what are folks going to say? There's +people in this valley that ain't a-going to stand it for you and that +girl to live there unless you're married. You know that." + +"Of course I know that. But do you suppose I'd marry that girl even if +she was willing? No, sir, I wouldn't--not a-tall. It wouldn't be +right." + +"Now listen, Sim. Leave it to me. I'd say that if you ever do want to +get married, Sim--and you got to if she stays here--why, here's the one +and only chancet of your whole life. Of course, if the girl wasn't +blind, she wouldn't never marry you. I don't believe any woman would, +real. The way she is, and can't see, maybe she will, after a while, +like, when she's gentled down, as you say. It looks like a act of +Providence to me." + +"Well," said Sim, pondering, "I hadn't just thought of it that way. Do +you believe in them things--acts of Providence?" + +"I don't believe in nothing much except we're going to get into camp +mighty late to-night. It's getting sundown, and I ain't keen to cut +wood in the dark." + +"I'll tell you what, Wid," said Sim suddenly relenting. "You come on +down to our house to-night. I'll introduce you to her after all--Miss +Warren. It ain't no more'n fair, after all." + +Wid only nodded. They pushed along up the road until finally they +arrived, within a few miles of their own homesteads, at the little +roadside store and postoffice kept by old Pop Bentley. They would have +pulled up here, but as they approached the dusty figure of the mail +carrier of that route came out, and held up a hand. + +"Hold on, Sim," said he. "I heard at Nels Jensen's place that you had +gone down the river. Well, it's time you was gettin' back." + +Sim Gage smiled with a sense of his own importance as he took the +letter, turning it over in his hand. "What's it say, Wid?" said he. + +His neighbor looked at the inscription. "It's for her," said he. +"Miss Mary Warren, in care of Sim Gage, Two Forks, Montany." + +"Who's it from?" said Sim. "Here's some writing on the back." + +"From Annie B. Squires, 9527 Oakford Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio. But +listen----" + +"That's the girl that Miss Warren told me about!" said Sim. "That's a +letter from her. I'd better be getting back." + +"I just told you you had," said the mail driver, something of pity in +his tone. "I'm trying to tell you _why_ you had. Why I brought this +letter down is, you ain't _got_ no place to get back _to_." + +"What you mean?" said Wid Gardner suddenly. + +"Hell's loose in this valley to-day," said the mail carrier. "Five +fires, when I come through before noon. Wid, your house is gone, and +your barn, too. Sim, somebody's burned your hay and your barn, and +shot your stock, and set your house afire--it would of burned plumb +down if Nels Jensen hadn't got there just in time. They saved the +house. It wasn't burned very much anyways, so Nels told me." + +Sim Gage and his companion, stupefied, sat looking at the bearer of +this news. + +"Who done it?" asked Wid Gardner grimly after a time. "That ain't no +accident." + +"Pop Bentley in here said Big Aleck, the squatter, come up the valley +this morning right early----" + +"That hellion!" exclaimed Sim. "He's always made trouble in this +valley. We seen him down below here, driving a broad-tire wagon." + +"Yes, a Company wagon, and a Company team. We found that wagon hitched +above your lane, Sim. Your mail box was busted down. There wasn't no +Big Aleck around, nor no one else." + +"Not no one else?--_No one in the house_?" + +"Nels said there wasn't." + +"Light down, Sim," said Wid. "Let's go in and talk to Pop Bentley." + +Pop Bentley, the keeper of the meager grocery store and little-used +post-office, met them with gravity on his whiskered face. He was a +tall and thin man, much stooped, who, as far as the memory of man, had +always lived here in Two-Forks Valley. + +"Well, you heard the news, I reckon," said he to his neighbors. Both +men nodded. + +"Big Aleck told me he was working on the Government job. He said he +was going on up with his team to help finish some roads." + +"Well, if it was him," said Wid Gardner, "or any one else, we're +a-goin' to find out who it was done this. We been hearing a long while +about the free Industrials, whatever the damned Bolsheviks call +theirselves. They wander around now and won't settle. Hobos, I call +them, no more, but crazy ones. They threatened to burn all the hay in +the settlements below, and to wipe out all the wheat crop. Why? They +been busting up threshing machines acrosst the range--the paper's been +full of it. Why? They've got in here, and that's all about it. Well, +fellers, you reckon we're goin' to stand fer this sort of Bolshevik +business on the Two-Forks?" + +"I say, Pop," broke in Sim Gage to the postmaster, with singular +irrelevance at this time, "haven't you got a litter of pups around here +somewheres, and a couple hens I can buy? I'm lookin' fer a dog, and +things." + +"Yard's full of pups, man. If you want one help yourself. But hens, +now----" + +"Sell me two or three hens and a rooster or so. I promised I'd take +'em home, and I plumb forgot." + +Pop Bentley threw up his hands at his feckless neighbor. "You'd better +be getting a _place_ fer your hens and dogs, seems like." + +Sim put a forefinger to his puckered lip. "I don't know as I want to +take more'n about one pup now, and three or four hens. I'll fix up the +price with you sometime. Yes, I got to be getting home now." + +The mail carrier, the postmaster and Sim's friend looked at one another +as these details went forward. + +"Well," said Pop Bentley, shrugging his bent shoulders, "if you would +go away and leave a woman alone in a place like that----" + +"What do you mean?" said Sim Gage suddenly. + +"Why, that woman ain't _there_ no more, you fool. She's gone!" + +"Gone? What do you mean?" + +"Whoever set fire to your place took her away, or else she's got lost +somewheres." + +"Gone?" said Sim Gage. "Blind! You, Wid!"--he turned upon his friend +half-savagely--"you was talking to me about acts of Providence. There +ain't no such thing as Providence if this here's true. Come on--I got +to get home." + +They did start home, at a gallop, Sim half unconscious of what he did, +carrying in his arm an excited puppy, impetuously licking his new +master's hands and face. In the bottom of the wagon lay a disregarded +sack with a half-dozen fowl, their heads protruding through holes cut +for that purpose. Sim never knew how or when they got into the wagon. + +At the next gate, that of Nels Jensen's homestead, Sim's neighbor +below, the woman of the place came running. "You heard about +it?--You're all burned out, both of you." + +"Yes, we know," said Wid, nodding. "Tell Nels to come on up to Sim's +place early in the morning. We're going to get the neighbors +together." Again the tired team was forced into a dull gallop. + +They had not far to go. A turn of the road freed them of the screen of +willows. There lay before them in the evening light, long prolonged at +this season in that latitude, that portion of the valley which these +two neighbors owned. For a moment they sat silent. + +"Mine's gone," said Wid succinctly. "Not a thing left." + +Sim sat clasping the puppy in his arms as he turned to look at his own +homestead. + +"Mine's gone too," said he. "Barn's burned, and all the hay. House is +there, anyhow. Lemme out, Wid." + +"No, hold on," said his neighbor. "There's no hurry for me to go home, +now that's sure. Your leg's bad, Sim. I'll take you down." + +So they drove down Sim Gage's lane between the wire fence and the +willows. Sim was looking eagerly ahead. Continually he moaned to +himself low, as if in pain. But the hard-faced man on the seat beside +him knew it was not in physical pain. + +They fastened the team and hurried on about, searching the premises. +The barn was gone, and the hay. Two or three head of slaughtered stock +lay partially consumed, close to the hay stack. The house still stood, +for the dirt roof had stopped the flames which were struggling up from +the door frame along the heavy logs. + +"The damn, murdering thieves," said Wid Gardner. "Look, Sim--your +horse and mule was both killed in there." He pointed to the burned +barn. "What _made_ them? What do they gain by this? _I_ know!" + +But Sim Gage was hobbling to his half-burnt home. Gasping, he looked +in. It was empty! + +"Where's she gone, Wid?" said he, when he could speak. "You reckon Big +Aleck--? No. No!" + +"Nothing's too low down for him," said Wid Gardner. + +There were footprints in the path where the neighbors had stood, but +Sim's eye caught others not trampled out, in the strip of sand toward +the willows--two footprints, large, and beside them two others, small. +The two, old big-game hunters as they were, began to puzzle out this +double trail. + +"He was a-leading her out this way, Sim," said Wid, pointing. "Look +a-yonder, where we come in--them wheel tracks wasn't yours nor mine. +Now, look-a-here, in this little open place where the ants has ate it +clean--here's her footprints, right here. No use to hunt the creek or +the willers, Sim--she's went off in a wagon." + +"He took my six-shooter," said Sim, who had hurriedly examined the +interior of his home. "Nothing else is gone. Wait while I go git my +rifle. It's in the tent." + +When he had returned with rifle and belt, Wid turned towards him. +"I'll tell you, Sim," said he, "we'll run over to my place and look +around, and come back here and eat before it gets plumb dark. I'll +saddle up and pass the word." + +They climbed back into the wagon seat and once more passed out along +Sim Gage's little lane. At the end, where it joined the main road, Wid +pulled up. + +"Look yonder, Sim!" said he. "There's where that broad-tire wagon was +tied." + +"The road's full of all sorts of tracks," said Sim, looking down, rifle +in hand, from his seat. He carried the puppy again in his arms, and +the hens still were expostulating in the bottom of the wagon. "Is them +car tracks?" + +"A car could be a hundred and fifty miles away by now," said Wid. + +They passed on to Wid Gardner's gate. It was wide open. There were +wheel tracks there, also, of some sort. + +The ruin of this homestead also was complete. The last stack of hay, +the barn, house, all, were burned to the ground. + +"Well, that's all I want here," said Wid, sighing. "We'll stop at your +place for a spell, Sim--that's the best thing we can do." + +"But look here!" he went on, his eyes running along the ground. "Been +a car in here--this wasn't a wagon--it was a car! There must of been +more'n one of 'em." + +"Uh huh," said Sim, climbing down stiffly from the wagon seat now and +joining him in the task of puzzling out the trail. They followed it to +a place where some ashes had been trodden in the yard. Here the wheels +of the car had left their clearest record. + +"Not a big one," said Wid. "Ragged tire on the nigh hind wheel. See +this?" + +They ran the trail on out to the gate, picking it up here and there, +catching it plain in the loose sand which covered the gravel road bed. + +"Whoever done the work at my place," said Sim, "was drunk. Look how he +busted down my mail box." + +"Look how this car was running here," assented Wid. "You set here by +the gate, Sim, and hold the team. I want to run up the road a piece to +where the timber trail turns up the canyon." + +"Sure, Wid," said Sim. "I can't walk good." + +It was half an hour or more before his friend had returned from his +hasty scout further along the road, and by that time it was dark. + +"That's where they went, Sim," said Wid Gardner. "I seen the track of +that busted tire plain in the half-dried mud, little ways up the trail. +Whoever it was done this, has went right up there. When we get a few +of the fellers together we'll start. To-morrow morning, early." + +"To-morrow!" said Sim. "Why, Wid----" + +Wid Gardner laid a hand on his friend's shoulder. "It's the best we +can do, Sim," said he. + +Without more speech they drove once more along Sim Gage's lane. As +they approached the entrance, Sim turned. "Hold up a minute, Wid," +said he, "while I look over here where the wagon was tied." + +He limped across the road, bent to examine the marks dimly visible in +the half darkness. + +"Look-a-here," said he, "there's been a car here too--the same car, +with the busted tire! They come up in that wagon from my place after +they burned me out. They must of taken her out of the wagon and put +her in the car, and like you say, they're maybe a couple of hundred +miles away by now. Oh, my God A'mighty, Wid, what has you and me done +to that pore girl!" + +Wid only laid the large hand again on his shoulder. "It'll be +squared," said he. + +Their rude meal was prepared in silence, and eaten in silence. Sim +Gage felt in his pocket, and drawing out the letter he had received, +smoothed out the envelope on the table top. + +"It's addressed to her, Wid," said he after a time, "and she ain't +here." + +"I don't see why we oughtn't to open it and read it," said Wid. "Some +one'd have to anyhow, if she was here, for she couldn't read, herself." + +Sim, by means of a table knife, opened the envelope. + +"You read it, Wid," said he. "You can read better'n I can." And so +Wid accepted Sim's conventional fiction, knowing he could neither read +nor write. + + +"Dear Mary," said Anne's letter, "I got to write to you. I wisht you +hadn't went away when you did and how you did, for, Mary, I feel so +much alone. + +"You know when you started out I was joking you about Charlie +Dorenwald. I told you, even if you did have an inside chance you maybe +might not be married any sooner than I was. That was just a little +while ago. So far as it's all concerned you can come right on back. +There's nothing doing now between Charlie and I. + +"You know he was foreman in the factory. He ought to of had money laid +up but he didn't. On Installments I'd soon have got a place fixed up, +though Charlie and me was going to fix it up on Installments. But I +got to talking with him, right away after you had left, it was all +about the war and I said to him, 'Charlie, why didn't you go over?' He +says one thing and he says another. Well you know that sort of got me +started and at last we had it, and do you know when he got rattled he +began to talk Dutch to me? Well, I talked turkey to him. One thing +and another went on and Charlie and me we split up right there. + +"'I couldn't join the army noways,' he says, 'they wouldn't take me. I +had flat feet.' + +"'You got a flat tire, that's what ails you,' I says to him, 'Well now +I wouldn't marry you at all, not if you was the last man, which you +look to me like you was.' + +"Well, the way he talked, Mary, I wouldn't be surprised if he was +married already anyhow. One of the girls said he'd been living with +another woman not four blocks off. He ain't hurt none and I don't know +as I am neither although of course a girl feels mortified that people +think she's going to get married and then she ain't. + +"But I'm thinking of you. I've gone back in our old room where it's +cheaper and let them take back the Installment furniture. I ain't got +a thing to do after hours except read the papers. The country's all +stirred up. But anyhow I'm rid of my Dutch patriot. That's why I'm +writing to you now. + +"I wonder what you're doing out there. Are you married yet? What did +he look like, Mary? I know he's a good man after all, kind and +chivalrous like he said. If he wasn't you'd be wiring me telling me +when you was coming home. I guess you're too happy to write to anybody +like me. You'll have a Home of your own. + +"And all the time I thought I was stronger than you was and abler to +get on and here you are married and happy and me back in the old room! +But don't worry none about me--I'll get another job. The most is I +miss you so much and you haven't wrote me a word I suppose. When a +girl gets married all the girls is crazy to hear all about her and her +husband and I haven't heard a word from you. + +"Respectfully your friend, + +"Annie Squires." + + +The two men sat for a time. Wid reached in his pocket for his pipe. + +"By God! she come out here maybe to get married, on the level and +honest, after a while!" said he. "She'll have to, now!" + +"That's what I was thinking, Wid," said Sim Gage. "It's--it's +chivalerous. We got to find her, now." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE SPECIES + +"Well, pretty one, you got lonesome here all by yourself? So you +holler for 'Sim! Sim!'" Big Aleck's voice was close to her as she sat +in the tent. + +Mary Warren felt about her, back of her on the blankets, stealthily +seeking some weapon of defense. She paused. Under her fingers was +something which felt like leather. She made no sudden movement, but +temporized. + +"How could I help it?" she asked. + +Always her hand was feeling behind her on the blankets. Yes, there was +a holster. It felt familiar--it might be Sim Gage's gun, taken from +her at the house. She waited. + +"Well, that's too bad you can't see," said Aleck. "You can't see what +a fine feller I'd make for you! I'm chief. I'm a big man." + +"You're a big coward," said Mary Warren calmly. "What's a blind woman +to you? Why don't you let me go?" + +"Well, even a blind woman can tell what she's heard," said he +thoughtfully. "And then," his coarse voice undertaking a softness +foreign to it, "I'm just as tired as Sim Gage was of keeping house +alone. I'm a better man than Sim Gage. I'm making plenty of money." + +She made no reply, leaned back upon the blanket roll. + +"Now, then, gal, listen. I like you. You're handsome--the handsomest +gal ever come in this valley. A pretty girl as you shouldn't stay +single, and as good a man as me neither. I work on my ranch, but I'm a +big man, miss. I'm a thinker, you can see that. I'm a leader of the +laboring men. I begun with nothing; and look at me!" + +"Well, look at you!" She taunted him. "What would you have been if +you hadn't come to America? You'd be shoveling dirt over there at half +a dollar a day, or else you'd be dead. You think this is Russia? You +call this Germany?" + +Pretending to rest her weight on her arm back of her, she felt the +touch of leather, felt the stock of the pistol in the holster. + +Her tormentor went on. "We don't need no army--we free men can fight +the way we are. We'll spoil ten million feet of timber in here before +we're through." + +"I despise you--I hate you!" she cried suddenly, almost forgetful of +herself. "Why do you come to this country, if you don't like it? If +you hate America, why don't you go back to your own country and live +there? You ought to be hung--I hope to God you will be!" + +He only laughed. "That's fine talk for you, ain't it? You'd better +listen to what I tell you." He reached out a hand and touched her arm. + +With one movement, of sheer instinct, with a primal half-snarl, she +swung the revolver out of the scabbard behind her, flung it almost into +his face. He cowered, but not soon enough. The shot struck him. He +dropped, tried to escape. She heard him scuffling on the sand, fired +again and missed--fired yet again and heard him cry out, gasping, +begging for mercy. + +The range was too short for her to hear the impact of the bullets; she +did not know she had struck him with two shots, the second of which had +broken his leg and left him disabled. She had shot a man. He was +there in front of her, about to die. + +"Are you hurt?" she demanded, staring, the revolver in both her hands. +"Keep away. I'll kill you!" + +"You---- Don't shoot again," he cried, as she moved. She could not +tell what he meant, what really had happened, except that he was +helpless. She rose and fled, groping, stumbling, falling. She could +hear him crying out. He did not follow her. + +In the forest growth at this altitude the trees stood large, straight +and tall, not very close together. The earth was covered with a dense +floor of pine needles. As she ran she felt her feet slipping, sinking. +Now and again she brought up against a tree. Still she kept on, +sobbing, her hands outstretched, getting away farther than would have +been possible in denser cover. She felt the sand of the roadway under +her feet as her course curved back toward the road, endeavored to +follow the trail for a time, but found herself again on the pine +needles, running she knew not where or how. She had no hope. She knew +she was fleeing death and facing death. Very well, she would meet it +further on and in a better guise. + +She felt that she was passing down, along the mountain side, advanced +more rapidly, stumbling, tripping--and so at last fell full length over +a log which lay across her course. Stunned by the impact of her fall +beyond and below the unseen barrier, she lay prone and quite +unconscious. + +At a length of unknown moments, she gained her senses. She sat up, +felt about her, listened. There was no sound of pursuit. Only the +high wailing of the pines came to her ears. + +She could not know it, but the men were not following her. When they +heard the sound of three shots ring out, every man busy in his work of +sabotage stopped where he was. Was it a surprise? Were officers or +the ranchers coming? They scattered, hiding among the trees. + +They could hear the bellowing of Big Aleck, beseeching aid. They +advanced cautiously, to spy out what had happened and saw him rolling +from side to side, striving to rise, falling back. The woman was +nowhere visible. + +"Who done it, Aleck?" demanded the man next in command, when he had +ventured closer. "Did she shoot you?" + +Aleck groaned as he rolled over, his face upward. A nod showed his +crippled shoulder. His other hand Big Aleck feebly placed upon his +hip. They bent over him. + +"By God, she got you fair that time!" said one investigator. "She's +plugged you twice. She wasn't blind. Where did she go?" + +"I don't know where--I heard her run. God, that leg! What will I do? +I can't stay here alone!" + +"I tell you, you'll have to! If that girl's not blind she'll get out +and give this snap away." + +"But you can take me out with you, fellers. I can ride." Aleck was +pleading, his face gray with pain. + +"Worst thing we could do, either for you or for us," replied the other, +coldly. "If we got you down to the settlements what could we say? If +you was shot once we could call it an accident, but shot twice, and +once through the hip from behind--how would that be explained, I'd like +to know? Folks would begin to ask too many questions. Besides, they'd +ask where that girl was. Then there's the fires you set. No, sir, you +stay right here. We other fellers'll get out of here as fast as we +can." + +"And leave me here?" The terror in Big Aleck's voice had been piteous +for any men but these. + +"Listen! Before midnight I'll be at the Company dam. I'll tell that +new doctor there's been an accident up here in the timber camp. I'll +tell him to come up here to-morrow morning sure. When he gets here, +you tell him how the accident happened. It's up to you, then. You'll +have to pay him pretty well, of course." + +"And that reminds me," he went on, "we fellers has got to have the +funds, Aleck. We'll need money more'n you will now. Here!" + +He stooped over and began to feel in Aleck's coat, drew out a heavy +wallet, and began to transfer the bills to his own pocket. + +"I'll leave you a hundred and fifty. That's enough," said he. "No +telling what we fellers'll have to do before we get out of this. Your +getting shot here is apt to blow the whole thing. Did she take the gun +away with her?" + +Aleck groaned and rolled his head. "I don't know," he said. + +Jim Denny was the new leader of the brigand party. "Hell's bells!" +said he, impatiently now. "We can't be fooling around--this don't look +good to me. Noon to-morrow, anyways, the Doctor ought to be here. As +for us, we got to beat it now." + +The wolf pack knew no mercy nor unselfishness. Aleck got no more +attention from them. There were two cars beside the one which had +brought Aleck and Mary Warren up the day before. This last one they +left, seeing that the tire was in bad condition. Not one of them +turned to say good-by to Aleck as he lay in the tent where he had been +dragged. + +"Got it right on top the hip bone," said one man. "She busted him +plenty with that soft-nose." + +"And served him right," said Jim Denny, the new leader, grumbling. +"Aleck has never been looking for the worst of it, any way of the game. +If he had left that woman down below where she belonged, we wouldn't be +in this fix. I tell you them ranchers'll be out in a pack after us, +and the only thing we can do is to pull our freight good and plenty +right now." + +The whir of the engine drowned conversation. An instant later the two +carloads of banditti were passing down around curve after curve of the +sandy road. Mary Warren, still dazed, and dull where she lay, heard +them go by. Yonder then, lay the trail--but could she know which way? +If she turned her head she would lose the direction. She kept her eyes +fixed upon the last point of the compass from which she had heard the +car distinctly, and taking the muzzle of the revolver in her hand, +endeavored to scratch a mark in the sand to give her the direction +later by the sense of touch. She laid the pistol itself at the upper +end of the little furrow, pointing toward the road which she had left. +Sinking down, she resigned herself to what she felt must soon be the +end. + +The chill of the mountain night was coming on. The whispering in the +pines grew less. Vaguely she sensed that the sun was low, that soon +twilight would come. She had no means of making a fire, had no +covering, no food. Simply a lost unit of one of the many species +inhabiting the earth, surviving each as it may, she cowered alone and +helpless in the wilderness. + +The hush of the evening came. The pines were silent. There was only +one little faint sound above her--in some tree, she thought. It was +made by a worm boring under the bark, seeking place for the larvae +which presently it would leave, in order that its species might endure. +A small sound, of no great carrying power. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE REBIRTH OF SIM GAGE + +Neither Sim Gage nor his neighbor slept to any worth that night. At +times one would speak, but they held no discussion. Wid Gardner, in an +iron wrath, was thinking much. + +Sim Gage lay with his eyes opened toward the rude ceiling. In his +heart was something new. Hitherto in all his life he had never +quarreled with fate, but smiled at it as something beyond his making or +his mending. He was one of the world's lost sheep, one of the army of +the unhoping. The mountains, the valleys, the trees, had been enough +for him, the glint of the sun on the silver gray of the sage yonder on +the plains. He had been content to spend his life here where chance +had thrown him. But now--and Sim Gage himself knew it--something new +had been born in Sim Gage's heart. It troubled him. He lay there and +bent his mind upon the puzzle, intensely, wonderingly. + +It had been bravado with him up to the time that he knew this girl was +coming out. After that, curiosity and a sense of fair play, mingled, +had ensued. Then a new feeling had come after he had met the girl +herself--pity, and remorse in regard to a helpless woman. Sim Gage did +not know the dangerous kinship that pity holds. He knew no proverbs +and no poetry. + +But now, mixed also with his feeling of vague loss, his sense of rage, +there was now, as Sim Gage realized perfectly well, a new and yet more +powerful emotion in his soul. He was not the same man, now; he never +again would be. Pity and propinquity and the great law had done their +work! For the first and only time in all his life Sim Gage was in love! + +Love dareth and endureth all things, magnifies and lessens, softens and +hardens, loosens and binds, establishes for itself new worlds, +fabricates for itself new values, chastens, humbles, makes weak, makes +strong. Sim Gage never before had known how merciless, how cruel all +this may be. He was in love. With all his heart and life and soul he +loved _her_, right or wrong. There had been a miracle in Two-Forks +Valley. + +The two men were astir long before dawn. Wid Gardner first kicked off +his blankets. "I'll find me a horse," said he. "You git breakfast, +Sim, if you can." He went into the darkness of the starlit morning. + +Sim Gage, his wounded leg stiff and painful enough, crawled out of his +bunk--the same where She but now had slept--and made some sort of a +light by means of matches and a stub of candle; found a stick and made +some shavings; made shift to start a fire. With a hatchet he found on +the floor he hacked off more of the charred woodwork of his own +door-frame, seeing that it must be ruined altogether. It was nothing +to him what became of this house. The only question in his mind was, +Where was She? What had happened to Her? + +His breakfast was that of the solitary man in such surroundings. He +got a little bacon into a pan, chipped up some potatoes which he +managed to pare--old potatoes now, and ready to sprout long since. He +mixed up some flour and water with salt and baking powder and cooked +that in a pan. + +The odors of the cooking brought new life into the otherwise silent +interior of Sim Gage's cabin. Sim felt something at his feet, at his +leg. It was the Airedale puppy which he had left curled up all night +at the foot of his bed. The scent of the meat now had awakened him, +and he was begging his new master for attention. + +Sim leaned down stiffly to pat him on the head, gave him a bit of food. +Then he bethought him of the sack of fowls which he had entirely +forgotten--found them luckily still alive in the wagon bed, cut off the +sacking around them, and drove them out into the open to shift for +themselves as best they might. But the little dog would not be cast +off. He followed Sim wherever he went, licked his hand. That made him +think how She would have petted the puppy had She been there. He had +got the dog for Her. + +By the time he had the meal ready Wid Gardner was back leading a horse. +There was no saddle at either ranch now, but Wid searched around and +found a bit of discarded sack, a piece of rope near the burned barn. + +"I'll ride down the valley," said he after the two had eaten in +silence. "Wait till I ride down to Jensen's. He'll come along." + +"Well, hurry back," said the new Sim, with a resolution and decision in +his voice which surprised his neighbor. "I can't very well go off +alone. Send word down to the dam. We got to clean out this gang." + +"Yes," replied Wid, "they'd better look out who's working on the dam. +It ain't all soldiers. You can't tell a thing about where this is +going to run to--they might blow out the dam, for all you can tell. +They ain't up in there for no good,--after the timber, likely. I +wonder how many there is of them." + +"I don't care how many there is," said Sim Gage simply. + +Early as Gardner was, he was not the only traveler on the road. As he +approached Nels Jensen's gate he saw below that place on the road the +light of a car traveling at speed. + +He slid off his horse, tied the animal, and stood, rifle in hand, +directly in front of the approaching vehicle. + +"Halt!" he cried, and flung up his left hand high, the rifle held in +his right, under his arm pit. + +It was no enemy who now slowed down the car and cut out the lights. A +voice not unfamiliar called out, "What's wrong with you, man? What do +you want? You trying to hold me up?" + +"Is that you, Doc? No one passes here. What are you doing up here?" +Wid walked up to the edge of the car. + +"I'm on a call, that's what I'm doing up here," replied Doctor Barnes. +"Have you heard anything about an accident up on the Reserve?" + +"Accidents a-plenty, right around here. I don't know nothing about the +Reserve. Who told you?" + +"A man, last night late. Said there was a man hurt up in the timber +camp, for me to go up fast as I could. Tree fell on him. They left +him up there alone, because they couldn't bring him out." + +"That so?" commented Wid Gardner grimly. + +--"So that elected me, you see. Every time I try to get a night's +sleep, here comes some damn sagebrusher and wants me to come out and +cure his sick cow, or else mamma's got a baby, or a horse has got in +the wire, or papa's broke a leg, or something. Damn the country +anyhow! I wish I'd never seen it. I'm a doctor, yes, but I'm the +Company doctor, and I don't have to run on these fool trips. But of +course I do," he added, smiling sunnily after his usual fashion. "So I +come along here. And you hold me up. What do _you_ want?" + +"I want you to wait and come in and see Nels Jensen with me, Doc," said +Wid Gardner. "Hell's to pay." + +"What's wrong?" Doctor Barnes' face grew graver. + +"We don't know what. When Sim and me come home, some one had been here +when we was gone. Sim's barn is burned, and all his hay, and all mine, +and my house--I haven't got lock, stock nor barrel left of my ranch, +and nothing to make a crop with." + +"What do you think?" asked Doctor Barnes gravely. + +"We don't know what to think. It's like enough a hold-on from that old +Industrial work--they been threatening all down the valley, since times +are hard and wages fell a little after the war work shut down. There +was some hay burned down below there. Folks said it was spontaneous +combustion, or something--said it got hot workin' in the stacks. I +ain't so sure now. It's them old ways. As if they ever got anything +by that!" + +Dr. Barnes puckered his lips into a long whistle. "I wonder if there's +any two and two to put together in _this_ thing!" said he. "I came up +here to get that poor devil out of the woods. But who can tell what in +the merry hell has really happened up there?" + +"We got to go and see," said Wid Gardner. "You know that woman?" + +The doctor nodded. + +"She's gone too. Whoever it was took her off in a car from up at the +head of Sim Gage's lane." + +Doctor Barnes got down out of the car, and the two walked through Nels +Jensen's gate. Jensen was afoot, ready for the day's work. He agreed +that one of his boys would carry the news to the Company dam. + +"Better give us a little something to eat along with us, Karen," he +said to his wife. He took down his rifle, and looked inquiringly at +Doctor Barnes. "Have you got an extra gun?" asked the latter. Jensen +nodded, finding the spare piece near at hand. + +Very little more was said. They all walked out into the morning, when +the red ball of the sun was coming up above the misty valley. + +"Go on ahead in the car," said Wid. "I'll bring my horse." + +They met at Sim Gage's half-burned home. Sim himself hobbled out, +rifle under one arm and the little Airedale under the other, the latter +wriggling and barking in his delight. The purr of a good motor was +soon under them. In a few moments they were out of Sim Gage's lane and +along the highway as far as the point where the Tepee Creek trail +turned off into the mountains. + +"Wait here, Doc," said Wid, "Sim and me want to have a look--we know +the track of that car that done the work down here." + +But when they bent over the trail, they saw that it was different +from what it had been when they left it the night before! Wid cursed +aloud, and Sim Gage joined him heartily. + +"It's wiped out," said Sim. "Some one's been over this trail since +last night. This car ain't got no busted tire." + +"That may be the very man that came down and called me!" exclaimed +Doctor Barnes. + +"I heard him when he went down the road," nodded Nels Jensen--"last +night. I'll bet that's the same car. I'll bet it come down out of the +mountains." + +They passed on up the creek valley toward the Reserve far more rapidly +than the weaker car of Big Aleck had climbed the same grade the day +previous, but the main body of the forest lay three thousand feet above +the valley floor, and the ascent was so sharp that at times they were +obliged to stop in order to allow the engine to cool. + +"What's that?" said Sim Gage after a time, when they had been on their +way perhaps an hour up the winding canon, and had paused for the time. +"Smoke? That ain't no camp fire--it's more." + +They made one or two more curves of the road and then got confirmation. +A long, low blanket of smoke was drifting off down the valley to the +right, settling in a gray-blue cloud along the mountain side. The wind +was from left to right, so that the smoke carried free of the trail. + +"She's a-fire, boys!" exclaimed Wid. "We better git out of here while +we can." + +"We ain't a-going to do nothing of the sort," said a quiet voice. Wid +Gardner turned to look into the face of Sim Gage. "We're a-going right +on up ahead." + +Wid Gardner looked at Doctor Barnes. The latter made his answer by +starting the car once more. Although they did not know it, they now +were approaching their journey's end. They could not as yet see the +swift advance of the fire from tree to tree, because the wind as yet +was no stronger than the gentle air of morning; could not as yet hear +any roar of the flames. But they saw that now, on these mountain +slopes before them, one of the most valuable timber bodies in the state +was passing into destruction. + +"God damn their souls!" said Wid Gardner fervently. "Wasn't it enough +what they done to us already?" + +"Go on, Doc." It was Sim's voice. Wid Gardner knew perfectly well +what drove Sim Gage on. + +But the car soon came to a sudden halt. A couple of hundred yards on +ahead lay an open glade. At the left of the trail stood a great wall +tent. + +In an instant, every man was out of the car, the three ranchmen, like +hounds on the scent, silently trotting off, taking cover from tree to +tree. A few moments, and the four of them, rifles at a ready, had +surrounded the tent. As they closed in, they all heard a high, clear +voice--one they would not have suspected Sim Gage to have +owned--calling out: "Throw up your hands, in there!" Actually, Sim +Gage was leader! + +There came an exclamation in a hoarse and broken voice. "Who are you? +Don't shoot--I surrender." + +"How many are there of you?" inquired Doctor Barnes. + +"It's me--Big Aleck--I'm shot--I'm dying-- Help!--Who is it?" + +"Come out, Aleck!" called the high and resolute voice of Sim +Gage--"Come on out!" + +"I can't come out. I'm shot, I tell you." + +Then Sim Gage did what ordinarily might not have been a wise thing to +do. Without pause he swept aside the tent flap with the barrel of his +rifle, and stepped in, quickly covering the prostrate figure that lay +on the bloody blankets before him. + +Big Aleck was able to do more than move. He raised one hand, feebly, +imploring mercy. + +"Come out, damn you!" said Sim Gage, his hand at the dollar of the +crippled man. He dragged his prisoner out into the light and threw him +full length,--mercilessly--upon the needle-covered sand. + +The crippled man began to weep, to beg. It was small mercy he saw as +he looked from face to face. + +"That's my man," exclaimed Doctor Barnes. "But it's not any accident +with a tree. That's gun shot!" + +"Who done that work down below?" demanded Sim of the prostrate man. +"Where is she? Tell me!" His voice still rang high and imperative. + +Big Aleck shivered where he lay. Now he too saw the flames on ahead in +the woods. + +"Who set that fire?" demanded the Doctor suddenly. "Whose work was +that?" + +"It was sabcats!" said Big Aleck, frightened into an ingenious lie. +"They was in here. I'm the government foreman. I don't know how they +got in or got out. They must of set a 'clock' somewhere for to start +it." + +"Who do you mean--sabcats?" demanded Doctor Barnes. The other three +stood coldly and implacably staring at the crippled man. + +"I caught them in here--I'm in charge of this work, you see. I tried +to stop them. They shot me and left me here. They said they'd send a +doctor." + +"I'm the doctor," replied the medical man, who stood looking at him. +"Where is that woman?" + +Big Aleck rolled his head. "I don't know. I don't know nothing. I'm +shot--I'm going to die." + +"We've got to get out," said Doctor Barnes. "Boys, shall we get him +into the car?" + +"No!" said Sim Gage, sharply. "I won't ride with him. _Where is +she_?" He stepped close up to Big Aleck, pushing in front of the +others. "You know. Damn you, tell me!" + +"Keep him away!" yelled Big Aleck. "He's going to kill me!" He tried +to get on his elbows, his hands and knees, but could not, broken down +as he was. He was abject--an evil man overtaken by an evil fate. + +"Where is she?" repeated Sim Gage. "Tell me!" + +"I tell you I don't know. She ran off, that way." + +"That's the car that brung her up!" said Wid Gardner, motioning toward +the ragged tire of the rear wheel. "See that tire, Sim? That's the +car! She's been here." + +"Go see if you can git the trail, Wid," said Sim Gage to his friend. +"Quick!" + +Sim himself passed for a moment, hurriedly, to the car which had +brought his party up. He had left the little dog tied there, but now +heard it whining, and stopped to loosen it. It ran about, barking. +Head down, Sim Gage stumbled off, following a trail which he half +thought he saw, but he lost it on the pine needles, and came back, +bitter of heart, once more to face the man who lay helpless on the +ground--the man who now he knew was his enemy, not to be forgiven or +spared. + +"Where is she?" he said to Aleck once more. "It was her trail, I know +it. Tell me the truth now, while you can talk." + +"You was follering right the way she went, far as I know," moaned +Aleck. "How kin I tell where she went, after I was shot?" + +"After you was shot? Who shot you? _Did she_?" + +"I told you who shot me. It was them fellers." + +"Then why didn't they kill you, if they wanted to? They _could_ of +finished you, couldn't they? Where's my six-shooter, Aleck--you took +it outen my house, and you know you did." + +He stepped back into the tent and began to kick around among the +blankets. "There's nothing here excepting your own rifle." He came +out, unloaded the gun, smashed the lever against the nearest tree. + +"You won't never need no gun no more," said he. + +"I'll have to look after him, now," said Doctor Barnes, stepping +forward. He had stood looking at the crippled man, his own hands on +his hips. "He's bad off." + +"Keep away--don't you touch him!" It was still the new voice of Sim +Gage that was talking now, and there was something in his tone which +made the others all fall back. All the time Sim Gage's rifle was +covering the writhing man. + +"I tried to save her," whimpered Big Aleck now. + +"You lie! Why did you bring her up here then? Why didn't you leave +her there--she didn't have to come." Sim Gage still was talking now +sharp, decisive. "Where is she now?" + +"Good God, man, I told you I didn't know. How do I know which way +she'd run? She said she was blind--but I don't believe she was." + +"_Why_ don't you?" demanded Sim Gage. "_Because she could shoot +you_?--Because she _did_ shoot you, twice? What made her? Where's my +gun? Did she take it with her after she shot you?" + +The sweat broke out now on the gray and grimed forehead of the +suffering man. "I won't tell you nothing more!" he broke out. "What +right you got to arrest me? I ain't committed no crime, and you ain't +got no warrant. I want a lawyer. I want this doctor to take care of +me. I got money to get a lawyer. I don't have to answer no questions +you ask me." + +"You say she went over that way?" Sim's finger was pointing across the +road in the direction of the fire. + +"I told you, yes," nodded Big Aleck. And Sim Gage's own knowledge +gained from the last direction of the footprints confirmed this. + +"Blind--and out all night in these mountains!" he said, his voice +shaking for the first time. "And then comes that fire. You done that, +Aleck--you know you done it." + +"I told you I didn't know nothing," protested the crippled man, who now +had turned again upon his back. "I ain't a-goin' to talk. It was them +fellers." + +"Some things you'd better know," said Sim Gage, suddenly judge in this +court, suddenly assembled. "Some things I know now. You come down to +my house your own self. It was you set my barn a-fire and burned my +house and my hay, and killed my stock. It was you carried that girl +off. I know why you done it, too. You wasn't fighting that bunch in +here--they was with you. You was all on the same business, and you +know it. You made trouble before the war, and you're making it now, +when we're all trying to settle down in the peace." + +He was beginning to tremble now as he talked. "Didn't she shoot +you?--Now, tell me the truth." + +"Yes!" said the prisoner suddenly, seeing that in the other's eyes +which demanded the truth. "She did shoot me, and then ran away. She +took your gun. But I didn't set the fire. Honest to God, I don't know +how it got out. I swear--oh, my God--have mercy!" + +But what he afterward would have sworn no man ever knew. There was a +rifle shot--from whose rifle none of the four ever could tell. It +struck Big Aleck fair below the eyes, and blew his head well apart. He +fell backward at the door of the tent. + +They turned away slowly. Just for an instant they stood looking at the +sweeping blanket of smoke. They walked to the car, paying no further +attention to the figure which lay motionless behind them. The fire +might come and make its winding sheet. + +It was coming. Wid Gardner lifted his head. "Wind's changing," said +he. "Hurry!" + +They headed down the trail as fast as might be. + +"_Wait_, now, Doc!" said Sim Gage, a moment after they started. "Wait +now!" + +"What's up?" said Doctor Barnes. "Look at that smoke." + +"Where's that little dog, now? We've forgot him." + +He sprang out of the car, began stumbling back up the trail, his own +leg dragging. + +"Cut off the car!" he called back. "I can't hear a thing." + +As he stood there came up to him from the mountain side a sound which +made him turn and plunge down in that direction himself. It was a +shot. Then the bark of the Airedale, baying "treed." + +The dog itself, keen of nose, and of the instinct to run almost any +sort of trail, even so very faint as this on which it was set, had in +part followed out the winding course of the fleeing girl after Sim Gage +himself had abandoned it, thinking it had been laid on that trail. And +now what Sim saw on ahead, down the hill, below the trail, was the +figure of Mary Warren herself, sitting up weakly, gropingly, on the log +over which she had fallen the night before--beneath which, like some +animal, she had cowered all that awful night on the heap of pine +needles which she had swept up for herself! + +A cry broke from Sim Gage's lips. She heard him and herself called out +aloud, "Sim! Sim! Is it you? I knew it was you when the dog came!" + +And then, still shivering and trembling with fear and cold and +exhaustion, Mary Warren once more lost all sense of things, and dropped +limp. The little dog stood licking at her hands and face. + +Here was work for Doctor Barnes after all. He took charge. The four +of them carried the woman up the hill to the car. He had restoratives +which served in good stead now. + +"Poor thing!" said he. "Out all night! It's just a God's mercy she +didn't freeze to death, that's all." + +He himself was wondering at the extraordinary beauty of this woman. +Who was she--what was there in this talk that two ranchmen had made, +down there at the dam? Why, this was no ordinary ranchwoman at all, +but a woman of distinction, one to attract notice anywhere. + +Mary Warren at last began to talk,--before the smoke cloud drove them +down the trail. "I heard a shot," said she, turning a face toward +them. "Who was it? I didn't signal then, for I didn't know. I +waited. Then the dog came." + +No one answered her. + +"That must have been what brought me to. It sounded up the hill. +Where--where is he?" + +They did not answer even yet, and she went on. + +"Who are you all?" she demanded. "I don't see you, of course." She +was looking into the face of Doctor Barnes who bent above her, his hand +on her pulse. + +"I'm Doctor Barnes," said he. "I work down at the Company's plant at +the big dam. You are Miss Mary Warren, are you not?" + +She nodded. "Yes." + +"I won't introduce these others, but they're all friends--we all are." + +She was recognizing the voice, the diction of a gentleman. The thought +gave her comfort. + +"What's that smoke?" she said suddenly, herself catching the scent +pervading the air. + +"The whole mountain's afire," said Sim Gage. "We got to hurry if we +get out of here." + +"I know--it was those people!--Where is that man? You found him?" + +The voice of Doctor Barnes broke in quickly. "He'd been hurt by a +tree--we had to leave him because he was too far gone, Miss Warren," +said he. "We couldn't save him. He couldn't answer any questions--not +even a hypothetical question--when we tried him. But now, don't try to +talk. He's got what he had coming, and he'll never trouble you again." + +"Whose little dog is this?" she asked suddenly, reaching out a hand +which the young Airedale kissed fervently. "If it hadn't been for that +little dog, you'd never have found me, would you? You couldn't have +heard me call. I would not have dared to shoot. Whose little dog?" + +"It's yours, ma'am," said Sim Gage. "And I got four hens." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +SAGEBRUSHERS + +Nels Jensen reached his home late in the afternoon, his face grave and +his tongue more than usually tight. His wife, Karen, looked at him for +some time before she spoke. + +"Find anything, up in?" + +He nodded quietly. + +"Doctor get to that sick man?" + +"He wasn't sick," rejoined Nels. "Tree fell on him." + +"What you do with him?" + +"Died before we come out. Whole woods was afire up in there." + +"I see the smoke a while back," said she unemotionally, nodding and +gazing out of the window toward the distant landscape. "Died, did he? +Did you bring him down?" + +"The wind has changed," said Nels sententiously. "Before night, won't +be nothing to bring down. We left him in his tent." + +"Who set that fire, Nels?" she demanded of her husband after a time. + +"The same people that burned out Sim Gage and Wid Gardner. All of 'em +had cleared out but that one." + +"How about that woman, Nels?" + +"We brung her down with us. She'd spent the night in the woods alone. +Doctor's got her in bed over at Sim's place now." He turned his heavy +face upon her frowningly, apparently passing upon some question they +earlier had discussed. "I say it's all right, Karen, about her." + +"Well, are they going to be married?" she demanded of him. "That's the +question. Because if they ain't----" + +"If they are or they ain't," said Nels Jensen, "she's not no common +folks like us." + +"A lady--huh!" + +"Yes, if I can tell one. Such being so, best thing you can do, Karen, +is to get some eggs together, and like enough a loaf of bread, and go +over there right soon." + +"If they wasn't _going_ to be married," began Karen, "people in here +wouldn't let that run along." + +"Karen," said her husband succinctly, "sometimes you women folks make +me tired. Go on and get the eggs." + +"Oh, all right," said his wife; and already she was reaching for her +sunbonnet. When she and her sturdy spouse had made their way by a +short cut across the fields to Sim Gage's house, Karen Jensen had +melted, and was no longer righteous judge, but simply neighbor. + +"Where is she?" she demanded imperiously of Wid Gardner, whom she found +standing outside the door. + +Wid nodded toward the interior of the half-ruined cabin. As she passed +in she saw Doctor Barnes, sitting on a box, quietly watching the pale +face of a woman, young, dark-haired, flushed, her eyes heavy, her hands +spread out piteously upon the blanket covering of the rude bunk bed. +Karen's first quick glance assured her that this young woman was all +that Nels Jensen had called her--a lady. She looked so helpless now +that the big ranchwoman's heart went out to her in spite of all. + +"You'd better get right out, Doctor," said she; and that gentleman +followed her orders, exceeding glad to welcome a woman in this +womanless wreck of a home. + +Doctor Barnes stood outside, hands in pocket, for a time looking across +the meadows lined with their banks of willows, silvering as usual in +the evening breeze. "Come here," said he at length to the three men. +They all followed him to one side. + +"Now, Gage," said he, "I want you to tell me the truth about how this +woman came out here." + +Wid Gardner, taking pity on his friend, told him instead, going into +all the details of the conspiracy that had now proved so disastrous. +Doctor Barnes frowned in resentment when he heard. + +"She's got to go back East," said he, "as soon as she's able to travel." + +"That's what I think," said Sim Gage slowly. "It's what I told her. +But she always said she didn't have no place to go back to. She could +stay here as long as she liked, but now I ain't got much." + +"But it can't run on this way, Gage," said Doctor Barnes. "That girl's +clean as wheat. Something's got to be done about this." + +"Well, good God A'mighty!" said Sim Gage, "ain't that what I know? If +only you'll tell me what's right to do, I sure will do it. In one way +it ain't just only my fault she come out here, nor it ain't my fault if +she don't go back." + +Doctor Barnes engaged for some time in breaking up bits of bark and +casting them from his thumb nail. "Have you ever had any talk with her +about this?" said he. + +"Some," said Sim honestly; "yes, some." + +"What was it?" + +"She told me, when she answered that ad, she was getting plumb +desperate, account of her eyes. She was out of work, and she was +broke, and she didn't have no folks on earth, and she'd lost all her +money--her folks used to be rich, I reckon, like enough. That's the +only reason she answered that fool ad about me being in the market, so +to speak, fer a wife. That's how she come out. She must of been +locoed. You cain't blame _her_. She was all alone in the whole world, +but just one girl that knowed her. We got a letter from that girl--I +got it here in my pocket. We opened it and read it, Wid and me did, +yesterday. Her name's Annie Squires. But she's broke too, I reckon. +Now what are we a-goin' to do?" + +"Have you ever talked the whole business over--you two--since she came +out?" + +"Doc," said Sim Gage, "I told you, I tried my damnedest, and I just +couldn't. I says to myself, lady like she was, it wouldn't be right +fer a man like me to marry her noways on earth." + +"And what did she say?" + +Sim Gage began to stammer painfully. "I don't know what she would +say," said he. "I ain't never asked her none yet." + +"Well, I reckon you'll have to," said Doctor Barnes slowly, after a +long time in thought; "if she lives." + +"Lives? Doc, you don't mean to tell me she's that sick?" + +"She isn't trying to fight very hard. When your patient would rather +die than live, you've got hard lines, as a doctor. It's hard lines +here more ways than one." + +"Die--her!--What would _I_ do then, Doc?" asked Sim Gage, so simply +that Doctor Barnes looked at him keenly, gravely. + +"It's not a question about you, you damn sagebrusher," said he at last, +gently. "Question is, what's best for her. If I didn't feel such a +woman was too good to be wasted I'd say, let her go; ethics be damned +out here. If she gets well she'll have to decide some time what's to +do about this whole business. That brings you into the question again. +It was a bad bet, but deceived as she was, she's put herself under your +protection. And mine!" + +"You see," he added, "that's something that really doesn't come under +my profession, but it's something that's up to every decent man." + +Mrs. Jensen came to the door, broom in hand. "You, Sim," said she, +"come in here!" She accosted him in hoarse whispers when he had obeyed. + +"Look-a-here at this place!" said she. "Is this where a hog or a human +has been living? I've got things straightened around now, and don't +you dare muss 'em up. When that pore girl is able to get around again +I'm a-going to take her and show her where everything is--she'll keep +this house better blind than you did with your both eyes open. I've +got a aunt been blind twenty year, and she cooks and sweeps and sews +and knits as good as anybody. She'll do the same way. She's a good +knitter, I know. The pore child." + +Sim reached out a hand gently to the work which he found lying, needles +still in place, on the table where Mary Warren had left it the day +before. + +"She'll learn soon," said Karen Jensen. "Ain't she pretty enough to +make you cry, laying there the way she is." The keen gray eyes of +Karen Jensen softened. "She's asleep," she whispered. "Doctor doped +her." + +"If only now," said Sim Gage, frowning as usual in thought, "if only I +could get some sort of woman to come here and stay a while, until she +gets well. It ain't right she should be in a place like this all +alone." + +"You pore fool," said Karen Jensen, "did you think for a minute I'd go +away and leave that girl alone with you? Go out and get some wood! +I'm a-going to get supper here. Tell Nels he can go back home after +supper, and him and Minna and Theodore 'll have to keep house until I +get back. The pore thing--you said she was right blind?" she concluded. + +"Plumb blind," said Sim Gage. "What's more, she can't see none a-tall. +It ain't no wonder she's scared sick." + +"I'm mighty glad you're a-goin' to get supper here to-night," he +continued. "I'm that rattled, like, I couldn't make bread worth a +damn." + +He edged out of the cabin and communicated his news. "Mrs. Jensen says +she'll take care of her till she gets better," he said. + +"That's the best thing I've heard," commented Doctor Barnes. "That'll +help. I'll stay here to-night myself. Gardner, can you run my car +down to the dam?" + +"I might," said Wid. "I never did drive a car much, but I think I +could. Mormons does; and I've had a lot to do with mowing machines, +like them." + +"Well, get down to the dam and tell the people I can't be back until +to-morrow afternoon. Here's where I belong just now. Where do I +sleep, Gage?" + +"Out here in the tent, I reckon," replied Sim, "though most all my +blankets is in there on the bed. Maybe I kin find a slicker +somewheres. Wid, he ain't got nothing left over to his place, neither." + +"Don't bother about things," said Nels Jensen. "I'll go over and bring +some blankets from my place. The woman'll take care of that girl until +she gets in better shape." + +Doctor Barnes looked at them all for a time, frowning in his own way. +"You damn worthless people," said he with sudden sheer affection. "God +has been good to you, hasn't he?" + +"Now, ain't that the truth?" said Sim Gage, perhaps not quite fully +understanding. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +DONNA QUIXOTE + +At ten of the following morning Mrs. Jensen had finished "redding up," +as she called it, and had gone out into the yard. Doctor Barnes, alone +at the bedside of his patient, was not professionally surprised when +she opened her eyes. + +"Well, how's everything this morning?" he said quietly. "Better, eh?" + +She did not speak for some time, but turned toward him. "Who are you?" +she asked presently. + +"Nobody in particular," he answered. "Only the doctor person. I was +up in the mountains with you yesterday." + +"Was it yesterday?" said she. "Yes, I remember!" + +"What became of him?" she asked after a time. "That awful man--I had +it in my heart to kill him!" + +Doctor Barnes made no comment, and after a while she went on, speaking +slowly. + +"He said so many things. Why, those men would do anything?" + +"He'll not do any more treason," said Doctor Barnes. + +"What do you mean?" + +"A tree fell on him. I got there too late to be of any use." + +"He's dead?" + +"Yes. Don't let's talk of that." + +"I've got to live?" + +"Yes." + +"Who are you?" she inquired after a time. "You're a doctor?" + +"I'm your sort, yes, Miss Warren," said he. + +"A gentleman." + +"Relative term!" + +"You've been very good. Where do you live?" + +"Down at the Government dam, below here. I'm the Company doctor." + +"Well, why don't you go? Am I going to live, or can I die?" + +"What brought you out here, Miss Warren," said he at last. "You don't +belong in a place like this." + +"Where then do I belong?" she asked. "Food and a bed--that's more than +I can earn." + +"Maybe we can fix up a way for you to be useful, if you don't go away." +He spoke so gently, she began to trust him. + +"But I'm not going away. I have no place to go to." She smiled +bitterly. "I haven't money enough to buy my ticket back home if I had +a home to go to. That's the truth. Why didn't you let me die?" + +"You ought to want to live," said Doctor Barnes. "The lane turns, +sometimes." + +"Not for me. Worse and worse, that's all. . . . I'll have to tell +you-- I don't like to tell strangers, about myself. But, you see, my +brother was killed in the war. We had some money once, my brother and +I. Our banker lost it for us. I had to work, and then, after he went +away, I began to--to lose my eyes." + +"How long was that coming on?" + +"Two years--about. The last part came all at once, on the cars, when I +was coming out. I've never seen--him--Mr. Gage, you know. I don't +know what he looks like." + +"They call him Sim Gage." + +She remained silent, and he thought best to add a word or so, but could +not, though he tried. Mary Warren's face had colored painfully. + +"I suppose they've told you--I suppose everybody knows all about +that--that insane thing I did, coming out here. Well, I was desperate, +that's all. Yet it seems there are good people left in the world. You +are all good people. If only I could see; so I could tell what to do. +Then maybe I could earn my living, someway--if I have to live. + +"Good-hearted, isn't he--Mr. Gage?" She nodded with a woman's +confident intuition as she went on. "He didn't cast me out. What can +I do to repay him?" + +He could make no answer. + +"Little to give him, Doctor--but of course, if he could--in any sort of +justice--accept--accept----" + +Doctor Barnes suddenly reached out a hand and pushed her hair back from +her forehead. "I wouldn't," said he. "Please don't. Take things easy +for a little while." + +She turned her dark and sightless eyes upon him. "No!" said she. +"That isn't the way we do in my family. We don't take things easy." + +"Has he said anything to you?" asked Doctor Barnes after a long time. +"I have very much reluctance to ask." + +"He's too much of a man," she said. "No, not yet. It was a sort of +bargain, even if we didn't say so outright. 'Object, matrimony!' I +came out here with my eyes open. But now God has closed them. . . . +Will you tell me the truth?" + +"Yes." + +"Does he--do you think he----" + +"Cares for you?" + +"Yes!" + +Doctor Barnes replied with extreme difficulty. "We'll say he does +care--that he cares immensely." + +She nodded. "I wanted to be fair," said she. "I'm glad I can talk to +some one I can trust." + +"What makes you think you can trust me?" blustered Doctor Barnes. "And +you're so Puritan foolish, you're going to marry this man? You think +that is right?" + +"He took me in, when I deceived him. I owe my life to him. He's never +once hinted or laughed since I came here. Why, he's a gentleman." + +She turned her head away. "Perhaps he would never know," she added. + +"Something to take on," commented Doctor Barnes grimly. + +"I'd try very hard," she went on. "I'd try to do my best. Mrs. Jensen +says I could learn a great many things. She has an aunt that's--that +has lost her eyesight. It may be my place in the world--here. I want +to carry my own weight in the world--or else I want to die." + +"He seems hard to understand--Mr. Gage," she went on slowly, the damp +of sheer anguish on her forehead now at speaking as she never could +wish to speak, thus to a stranger, and of the most intimate things of a +gentlewoman's life. "As though I didn't know he couldn't ever really +love a woman like me! Of course it isn't right either way. It's +awful. . . . But I'd do my best. Life is more of a compromise than I +used to think it was. But someway, out here--I'd be shut in forever +here in this Valley. No one would ever know. It--it wouldn't seem so +wicked, some way? It's the end of the world, isn't it, to-day? Well, +then----" + +"I'm trying my best," said Doctor Barnes after a time, "to get at the +inside of your mind." + +She lay for a time picking at the nap of the rough blanket--there were +no pillow slips and no pillows. At length she turned to him, her eyes +wet. + +"It's rather hard for a man to understand things like these--hard for a +woman to explain them to a stranger she's never seen," said she. "But +there wasn't ever any other man. I'm not here on any rebound. It's +reason--it's duty. That's all. They keep telling us women we must +reason. My brother was all I had left. You see, he didn't have a good +foot--he was lame. That was why we lived together so long, and--and +there was no one else. And then--you know about my eyes? Of course I +didn't know I was going to be quite blind when I started out here. If +I had, I should have ended it all." + +"You're a good man, Doctor," said she presently, since he made no +answer. "You didn't tell me your name?" + +"My name is Allen Barnes. I've been down at the dam for quite a while. +I'm only around thirty yet myself. I don't know a lot." + +"Tell me about the country--it's very beautiful, isn't it?" + +"Yes, very beautiful." + +"And the people?" + +"If you don't marry Sim Gage they'll tar and feather you. If you do, +they'll back-bite and hate you. If you get in trouble they'll work +their fingers to the bone to take care of you." + +"There was another thing," she resumed irrelevantly, "I thought it was +a _sacrifice_, my coming out here to work. I thought I ought to make +it. You see, I'm the only one left of all my family. I couldn't count +much anyway." + +"Donna Quixote!" broke out Allen Barnes. + +"Oh, I suppose," said she, smiling bitterly. "I suppose that, of +course." + +"This is a terrible thing! I don't believe I can make you change." + +"No, I suppose not," said she. "My brother went to France, crippled as +he was. Do you suppose my duty's going to frighten me? You were in +the army?" + +"Yes," said he. "Mustered out a major. Medical Corps. In over a +year--I saw the last days--before Metz and the armistice. I'm a +doctor, but they crowd me into the service again now, because they +think I'll be safe and useful here. But from what you know about +things going on in this country, you know there's danger for any big +public work like that plant. Our country's not mopped up, yet--though +it's going to be! There must be some reason for suspicion at +Headquarters--I think we all might guess why from the doings of the +last day or so in here. + +"I'm glad," said she. "That makes me feel much better. I shall be +sorry to have you go away. But you'll not be so far. And you were in +the war?" + +"A little." He laughed, and Mary Warren tried to laugh. Then, hands +in pockets, and frowning, he left her, and walked apart in the yard for +a time. + +Sim Gage, his face puckered up, was wandering aimlessly, shovel in +hand, in the vicinity of the burned barn, engaged in burying his dead +cattle. He had relapsed as to his clothing, and was clad once more in +his ancient nether garments. His arms were bare, his brick-red +shoulders showed above a collarless and ragged flannel shirt. His +face, unreaped, was not lovable to look on. When Doctor Allen Barnes +saw him, he walked away, his head forward and shaking from side to +side. He did not want to talk with Sim Gage or any one else. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE PLEDGE + +Wid Gardner, by some miracle of self-confidence, did prove able to +drive a car in some fashion, for he made the round trip to the dam in +good enough time. But he had had his trip for nothing; for Doctor +Barnes now made sudden and unexplained resolution not to remain longer +at Sim Gage's ranch. After his departure in his own car, Wid Gardner +approached Sim as he stood, hands in pockets, in his door yard. + +"Well," said he. And Sim, in the succinct fashion of the land, replied +likewise, "Well"; which left honors even conversationally. + +"How's things down below?" asked Sim presently. + +"Sort of uneasylike," replied Wid. "News had got down there that +something's wrong. Company of soldiers is expected any day from +Kansas. This here Doc Barnes is the main guy down there, a Major or +something. They're watching the head engineer for the Company, I +believe. No one knows who's who. A heap of things has happened that +oughtn't to happen, but looks like Washington was getting on the game. + +"Well, I got to go over home and look around," he concluded. "We've +got to do some building before long--you got to get up another house +and barn, and so have I." + +"I don't see why," said Sim Gage bitterly. "I ain't got nothing to put +into a barn, ner I ain't got no cows to feed no hay to neither. I +could of sold the Government plenty hay this fall if I'd had any, but +now how could I, without no horses and no money to get none? I'm run +down mighty low, Wid, and that's the truth. Mrs. Jensen can't stay +along here always, though Lord knows what we would a-done if she hadn't +come now. One thing's sure--_She_ ain't a-goin' to stay here lessen +things straightens out. You know who I mean." + +Wid nodded, his face grave under its grizzled stubble. "Yes," said he. + +"Say," he added, suddenly. "You know that letter we got fer her? Now, +if that girl that wrote it, that Annie Squires, could come out here and +get into this here game, why, how would that be? You reckon she would?" + +"Naw, she wouldn't come," said Sim Gage. "But, say, that reminds me--I +never did tell _her_ about that letter." + +"Better take it in to her," said Wid, turning away. + +He walked towards the gate. After Sim had seen him safely in the +distance he went with laggard step toward the door of his own home. + +Mary Warren was not asleep. It was her voice, not loud, which greeted +his timid tapping at the half-burned door frame. + +"Come in. Who is it?" + +"It's me, ma'am," said he; and entered a little at a time. + +He might have seen the faint color rise to her cheek as she drew +herself up in bed, to talk with him. Her face, turned full toward him, +was a thing upon which he could not gaze direct. It terrified him with +its high born beauty, even as he now resolved to "look right into her +eyes." + +"You've not been in to see me, Mr. Gage," said she at length, bravely. +"Why didn't you come? I get awfully lonesome." + +"Is that so?" said he. "That's just the way I do." + +"It's too bad, all this awful trouble," said she. "I've been what they +call a Jonah, don't you think, Mr. Gage?" + +"Oh, no, ma'am!" + +"It was very noble of you--up there," she began, on another tack. "You +saved my life. Not worth much." + +She was smiling cheerily as she could. Sim Gage looked carefully at +her face to see how much she knew. + +"Doctor Barnes told me that that man, the one that took me away, was +hurt by a tree; that you got there too late to save him. But to think, +I'd have shot that man. I _did_ try to shoot him, Mr. Gage!" + +"Why, _did_ you, ma'am?" said Sim Gage. "But then, it would of been a +miracle if you had a-hit him, your eyes being poor, like. I reckon +it's just as well you didn't." + +"Won't you sit down?" She motioned her hand vaguely. "There's a box +right there." + +"How do you know, ma'am?" + +"Oh, I know where everything is now. I'm going to learn all about this +place. I can do all sorts of things after a while--cook and sweep and +wash dishes and feed the chickens, and--oh, a lot of things." It was +well enough that he did not see her face as she turned it away, anxious +to be brave, not succeeding. + +"That there looks, now, like you'd moved in," said Sim Gage. "Looks +like you'd come to stay, as the feller says." He tried to laugh, but +did not make much of it; nor did she. + +"Oh, I forgot," he resumed suddenly, bethinking himself of the errand +which had brought him hither. "I got a letter fer you, ma'am." + +"A letter? Why, that's strange--I didn't know of any one----" + +"Sure, it's fer you, ma'am. It's from Annie Squires." + +"Annie! Oh! what does she say? Tell me!" + +Sim had the letter opened now, his face puckered. + +"Why, nothing very much, ma'am," said he. "I can't exactly see what it +says--light's rather poor in here just now. But Wid, he read it. And +she said it was all right with her, and that she was back in her little +room again. I reckon it's the room where you both used to live?" + +"She isn't married! What did she say?" + +"No'm, not married. That's all off. Her feller throwed her down. But +she says she wants you to write to her right away and tell +her--now--tell her about things--you know----" + +"What does she say?--Tell me _exactly_ what she said." + +"One thing-"--he plunged desperately--"she said she was sure you was +happily married. And she wanted you to tell her all about your +husband. But then, good God A'mighty! she didn't know!" + +"Well," said Mary Warren, her blood high in her face, "I'll have to +tell her all about that, won't I? I'll write to her at once." + +"You'll write to her? What?" + +--"And tell her how happy I am, how fortunate I've been. I'll tell her +how you took me in even though I was blind; how you saved my life; how +kind and gentle you've been all along, where you might have been so +different! I'll tell her how fine and splendid it's been of you to +take care of a sick, blind, helpless girl like me; and to--to--give her +a man's protection." + +He was speechless. She struggled on, red to the hair. + +"You don't know women, how much they want a strong man to depend on, +Mr. Gage; a man like you. Chivalrous? Why, yes, you've been all of +that and more. I'll write to Annie and tell her that I'm very happy, +and that I've got the very best--the very best--_husband_--in all the +world. I'll tell her that? I'll say that--that my _husband_----" + +He heard her sobbing. He could endure no more. Suddenly he reached +out a hand and touched hers very gently. + +"Don't, ma'am," said he. "Fer God's sake don't cry." + +It was some time after that--neither could have told how long--that he +managed to go on, his voice trembling. "Do you _mean_ that, ma'am? Do +you mean that, real and for sure? You wouldn't joke with a feller like +over a thing like that?" + +"I'm not joking," said she. "My God! Yes, I mean it." + +His hand, broad, coarse, thick-fingered, patted hers a hundred times as +it lay upon the blankets, until she got nervous over his nervousness. + +"It's too bad I ain't got no linen sheets," said he suddenly. "But +them blankets is eleven-pound four-points, at that. Of course, you +know, ma'am," said he, turning towards her, his voice broken, his own +vague eyes wet all at once, "you _do_ know I only want to do whatever +is the best fer you, now don't you?" + +"Of course. I do believe that." + +"And it _couldn't_ run on this way very long. Even Mrs. Jensen +wouldn't stay very long. Nobody would come. They'd like enough tar +and feather you and me, people in this Valley, if we _wasn't_ married. +And yet you say you've got no place to go back to. You talk like you +was going to tell her, Annie Squires, that you was married. She +supposes it _now_, like enough. If there was any way, shape or manner +you could get out of marrying me, why of course I wouldn't let you. +But what else is there we can do?" + +"Some time it would come to that," said Mary Warren, trying to dry her +eyes. "It's the only way fair to us both." + +"Putting it that way, now!" said Sim Gage, wisely, "putting it _that_ +way, I'm here to say I ain't a-scared to do _nothing_ that's best fer +you. And I want to say right now and here, I didn't mean no harm to +you. I swear, neither Wid nor me ever did dream that a woman like +you'd come out here--I never knew such a woman as you was in the whole +_world_. I just didn't _know_--that was all. You won't blame me too +much fer gettin' you here into this awful place, will you?" + +"No, I understand," said she gently. "I think I know more about you +now than I did at first." + +"I ain't much to know, ma'am. But you--why, if I studied all my life, +I wouldn't begin to know you hardly none at all." She could not doubt +the reverence of his tone, could not miss the sweetness of it. No; nor +the sureness of the anchorage that it offered. + +"If this is the way you want it," he went on, "I'll promise you never +to bother you, no way in the world. I'll be on the square with you, so +help me God! I'll take care of you the best way I can, so help me God! +I'll work, I'll do the best I can fer you; so help me God!" + +"And I promise to be faithful to you, Sim Gage," said she, using his +common name unconsciously now. "I swear to be true to you, and to help +you all I can, every way I can. I'll do my duty--my _duty_. Do you +understand?" + +She was pale again by now, and trembling all through her body. Her +hands trembled on the blankets. It was a woman's pledge she was +giving. And no man's hands or lips touched hers. It was terrible. It +was terrible, but had it not been thus she could not have endured it. +She must wait. + +"I understand a heap of things I can't say nothing about, ma'am," said +Sim Gage. "I'm that sort of man, that can't talk very much. But I +understand a heap more'n I'm going to try to say. Sometimes it's that +way." + +"Sometimes it's that way," said Mary Warren, "yes. Then that's our +promise!" + +"Yes, it's a promise, so fer as I'm concerned," said Sim Gage. + +"Then there isn't much left," said she after a time, her throat +fluttering. She patted his great hand bravely as it lay upon the +blankets, afraid to touch her own. "The rest will be--I think the rest +will be easier than this." + +"A heap easier," said he. "I dreaded this more'n I would to be shot. +I wanted to do the right thing, but I didn't know what _was_ right. +Won't you _say_ you knowed I wanted to do right all the time, and that +I just didn't _know_? Can't you see that I'm sorry I made you marry +me, because it wasn't no way right? Can't you see it's only just to +get you some sort of a home?" + +"I said _yes_, Sim Gage," said Mary Warren. + +"Yes?" A certain exultation was in his voice. "To _me_? All my life +everything's been _no_ to me!" + +She laid her hand on his, pity rising in her own heart. "I'll take +care of you," said she. + +"I was scared from the first of any woman coming out here," said Sim +Gage truthfully. "But whatever you say goes. But our gettin' married! +When?" + +"The sooner the better." + +They both nodded assent to this, neither seeing the other, for he dared +not look her way now. + +"I'll go down to the Company dam right soon," said he. "Ministers +comes in down there sometimes. Up here we ain't got no church. I +ain't been to church--well, scarcely in my whole life, but sure not fer +ten years. You want to have it over with, don't you, ma'am?" + +"Yes." + +"That's just the way I feel! It may take a week or so before I can get +any minister up here. But I hope you ain't a-goin' to change?" + +"I don't change," said Mary Warren. "If I promise, I promise. I have +said--yes." + +"How is your bad knee?" she asked after a time, with an attempt to be +of service to him. "You've never told me." + +"Swoll up twict as big as it ought to be, ma'am. But how come you to +think of that? _You_ mustn't mind about me. You mustn't never think +of me a-tall." + +"Now," he continued a little later, the place seeming insufferably +small to him all at once, "I think I've got to get out in the air." He +pushed over his box seat with much clatter as he rose, agony in every +fiber of his soul. + +"I suppose you could kiss me," said Mary Warren, hesitatingly. +"It's--usual." She tried to smile as she turned her face toward him. +It was a piteous thing, a terrible thing. + +"No, ma'am, thank you. I don't think I will, now, but I thank you just +the same. You see, this ain't a usual case." + +"Good-by!" said Mary Warren to him with a sudden wondering joy. "Go +out and look at the mountains for me. Look out over the valley. I +wish I could see them. And you'll come in and see me when you can, +won't you?" + +She was talking to the empty room, weeping to an empty world. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +MAJOR ALLEN BARNES, M.D., PH.D.--AND SIM GAGE + +Sim Gage's reflections kept him wandering about for the space of an +hour or two in the open air. + +"I'll tell you," said he, after a time to Mrs. Jensen, who once more +had cared for their household needs, "I reckon I'll go on down to the +dam, on the mail coach this evening. You go in and tell her, won't +you? Say I can't noways get back before to-morrow. I got to see about +one thing and another. She'll understand." + +Therefore, when the mail wagon came down the valley an hour later, Sim +Gage was waiting for it at the end of his own lane. He had meantime +arrayed himself cap-a-pie in all the new apparel he recently had +purchased, so that he stood now reeking of discomfort, in his new hat, +his new shoes, his tight collar. Evidently something of formal +character was in his plans. + +It was well toward midnight when the leisurely mail wagon arrived at +the end of its semi-weekly round and put up at the Company works. At +that hour the company doctor was not visible, so Sim found quarters +elsewhere. It was a due time after breakfast on the following morning +before he ventured to the doctor's office. + +Doctor Barnes himself was engaged in bringing up his correspondence. +He was his own typist, and at the time was engaged in picking out +letter after letter upon a small typewriter with which he had not yet +acquired familiarity. He was occupied with two letters of importance. +One was going to a certain medical authority of the University from +which he himself had received his degree. It contained a certain +hypothetical question regarding diseases of the eye, upon which he +himself at the time did not feel competent to pass. + +The second letter was one to his new Chief, an officer of the +reclamation engineers, at Washington. He wore again to-day the uniform +of a Major of the Army. The wheels of officialdom were revolving. The +public quality of this enterprise was well understood. That lawless +elements were afoot in that region was a fact also well recognized. To +have this dam go out now would be an injury to the peace measures of +the country. Soldiers were coming to protect it, and the soldiers must +have a commander. In the hurried times of war, when there was not +opportunity always for exactness, majors were made overnight when +needful out of such material as the Government found at hand. It might +have used worse than that of Allen Barnes to-day and here. + +"Oh, there _you_ are," said he at length, turning around and finding +Sim Gage standing in the door. "What brought you down here? Anything +gone wrong?" + +"Well, I ain't sure, Doc," said Sim Gage, "but like enough. One thing, +my knee hurts me considerable." In reality he was sparring for time. +"But you're dressed up for a soldier?" + +"Yes. Sit down there on the operating chair," said Doctor Barnes, +tersely. "We'll look it over. Anything happen to it?" + +"Why, nothing much," said Sim. "I hurt it a little when I was getting +in the mail wagon yesterday evening--busted her open. So last night, +when I was going to bed, I took a needle and thread and sewed her up +again." + +"What's that? Sewed it up?" + +"Yes, I got a needle and some black patent thread. Do you reckon +she'll hold all right now, Doctor?" + +Doctor Barnes was standing, scissors in hand, about to rip open the +trouser leg. + +"No, you don't!" said Sim. "Them's my best pants. You just go easy +now, and don't you cut them none a-tall. Wait till I take 'em off." + +The doctor bent over the wounded member. "You put in a regular +button-hole stitch," said he, grinning, "didn't you? About three +stitches would have been plenty. You put in about two dozen--and with +black thread! Like enough poisoned again." + +"Well," said Sim, "I didn't want to take no chances of her breaking +open again." + +The doctor was busy, removing the stitches, and with no gentle hand +this time made the proper surgical suture. "Leave it alone this way," +said he, "and mind what I tell you. Seems like you can't kill a man +out in this country. You can do things in surgery out here that you +wouldn't dare tackle back in France, or in the States. I suppose, +maybe, I could cut your head off, for instance." + +"I wish't you would," said Sim Gage. "She bothers me sometimes." + +After a pause he continued, "I been thinking over a heap of things. +You see, I'm busted about flat. If I could go on and put up some hay, +way prices is, I could make some money this fall, but them damn robbers +has cleaned me, and I can't start with nothing. And I ain't got +nothing. So there I am." + +He vouchsafed nothing more, but had already said so much that Doctor +Barnes sat regarding him quietly. + +"Gage," said he after a time, "things might be better in this valley. +I know that you'll stick with the Government. Now, listen. I'm going +to have practical command here from this time on. This is under Army +control. I'm going to run a telephone wire up the valley as far as +your settlement. I'll appoint you a government special scout, to watch +that road. If these ruffians are in this valley again we want to catch +them." + +"You think I could be any use that way, Doc?" said Sim. + +"Yes, I've got to have some of the settlers with me that I can depend +on, besides the regular detail ordered in here." + +"Would I be some sort of soldier, too, like?" demanded Sim Gage. "I +tried to get in. They wouldn't take me. I'm--I'm past forty-five." + +"You'd be under orders just like a soldier." + +"Would I have any sort of uniform, like, now?" + +Doctor Barnes sat thinking for some time. "No," said he. "You have to +pass an examination before you really get into the Army; and you're +over age, you and Wid, both of you. But I'll tell you--I'll give you a +hat--you shall have a hat with a cord on it, so you'll be like a +soldier. We'll have a green service cord on it,--say green with a +little white in it, Sim Gage? Don't that make you feel as if you were +in a uniform?" + +"Now that'd sure be fine, Doc, a hat like that," said Sim. "I sure +would like that. And I certainly would try to do what was right." + +Doctor Barnes, still sitting before the little white operating table +where his surgical instruments lay, was looking thoughtful. "In all +likelihood I shall have to put a corporal and four men up at your +place. That means they'll have to have a house. I can commandeer some +of the teams down here, and some men, and they'll all throw in together +and help you build an extra cabin. You and they can live in that, I +suppose?" + +"I reckon we could," said Sim Gage. "That'd be fine, wouldn't it?" + +"And as those men would need horses for their own transport, they'd +need hay. We'd pay you for hay. I don't see why we couldn't leave one +wagon and a team at least up there, to get in supplies. That would +help you in getting things started around on your place again, wouldn't +it?" + +"Would it, Doc?" said Sim Gage, brightening immensely. "It would raise +a _load_ offen me, that's what it would! Right now, especial." He +cleared his throat. + +"That there brings me right around to what I come down here to talk +about," said he with sudden resolution. "For instance, there was a +letter come to her up there--from back where she lived--from Annie +Squires. So her and me got to talking over that letter, you see." + +"What did Annie Squires say, if it's any of my business?" said the +Doctor, looking at him steadily. + +"Well, I was just talking things over, that way, and we allowed that +maybe Annie Squires could come out here--after--well, after the +_wedding_, you see." + +It was out! Sim Gage wiped off his brow. + +"The wedding?" + +"Why, one thing and other, her and me got to talking things over. +Things couldn't run on; so we--we fixed it up." + +"Gage," said Doctor Barnes suddenly, "I've got to talk to you." + +"Well, all right, all right, Doc. That'll be all right. I wish't you +would." + +"See here, man. Don't you realize what that woman is? She's too good +for men like you and me." + +"Yes, Doc. But I wouldn't never raise hand nor voice to her, the least +way in the world. I allowed she could live along as my housekeeper, +but seems not. You can shoot me, Doc, if you don't think I'm a-doing +the right thing by her in every way, shape and manner." + +"She's too _good_--it's an impossible thing." + +Sim Gage's face was lifted, seriously. "Doc, you know mighty well +that's true, and so do I--she's plumb too good for me. But it ain't me +done all the thinking." + +"Didn't you ask her about it?" + +"It kind of come around." + +Doctor Barnes rose and paced rapidly up and down within the narrow +confines of his office. "You _do_ love her, don't you?" + +Sim Gage for the first time in his life felt the secret quick of his +simple, sensitive soul cut open and exposed to gaze. Not even the +medical man before him could fail of sudden pity at witnessing what was +written on his face---all the dignity, the simplicity, the reticence, +all the bashfulness of a man brought up helplessly against the knife. +He could not--or perhaps would not--answer such a question even from +the man before him, whom he suddenly had come to trust and respect as a +being superior to himself. + +But Allen Barnes was the pitiless surgeon now. "I don't care a damn +about you, of course, Gage. You're not fit for her to wipe her shoes +on, and you know it. But _she_ can't see it and doesn't know it. If +she could see you--what do you suppose she'd think? Gage--_she mustn't +ever know_!" + +Sim Gage looked at him quietly. "Every one of them words you said to +me, Doc, is plumb true, and it ain't enough. I told her my own self, +that first day, and since then, it was a blessing she was blind. But +look-a-here, I reckon you don't understand how things is. You say +you're going to build a house up there, and help me get a start. +That's fine. Because hers is the other one, my old house. I wish't I +could get some sheets and pillow cases down here while I'm right here +now--I'd like to fix her up in there better'n what she is. I'd even +like to have a tablecloth, like. But you understand, that's for _her_, +not me. That's _her_ house, and not mine. She can't see. It's a +God's blessing she can't. And what you said is so--she mustn't _ever_ +know, not now ner no time, what--Sim Gage really is." + +Doctor Barnes' voice was out of control. He turned once more to this +newly revealed Sim Gage, a man whom he had not hitherto understood. + +"Marriage means all sorts of things. It covers up things, begins +things, ends things. That's true." + +"It ends things for her, Doc--it don't begin nothing fer me, you +understand. It is, but it isn't. I'd never step a foot across that +door sill, night or day--you understand that, don't you? You didn't +think _that_ for one minute, did you? You didn't think I was so +low-down I couldn't understand a thing like _that_, did you? It's +because she's blind and don't know the truth; and because she's plumb +up against it. That's why." + +"Oh, damn you!" said Doctor Barnes savagely. "You understand me better +than I did you. Yes--it's the only way." + +"It sure is funny how funny things get mixed up sometimes, ain't it, +Doc?" remarked Sim Gage. "But now, part of my coming down here was +about a minister." + +"Well," said Doctor Barnes, desperately, feeling that he was party to a +crime, "it's priest day next Sunday. We have five or six different +sorts of priests and ministers that come in here once a month, and they +all come the same Sunday, so they can watch each other--every fellow is +afraid the other fellow will get some souls saved the wrong way if he +isn't there on the job too. Listen, Gage--I'll bring one of these +chaps--Church of England man, I reckon, for he hasn't got much to do +down here--up to your ranch next Sunday morning. We've got to get this +over with, or we'll all be crazy--I will, anyhow. When I show up, you +two be ready to be married. + +"Does that go, Sim Gage?" he concluded, looking into the haggard and +stubbly face of the squalid-figured man before him. + +"It goes," said Sim Gage. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +WITH THIS RING + +It was the Sabbath, and the summer sun was casting its southering light +even with the eaves of Sim Gage's half-ruined house. It was high noon. + +High noon for a wedding. But this was a wedding of no pomp or +splendor. No bell summoned any hither. There was no organ peal, nor +maids with flowers and serious faces to wait upon the bride; no +processional; no aisles fenced off with bride's ribbon; no audience to +crane. In the little room stood only a surpliced priest of the Church +of England. The witnesses were Nels Jensen and Karen, his wife, back +of whom was Wid Gardner, near to him Doctor Barnes. Those made all +present, now at high noon. And Sim Gage, trembling very much, stood at +the side of a bed where Mary Warren lay propped up in the blankets to +speak her wedding words. + +"Dearly beloved, we are gathered together," began the holy man; and so +the ceremony went on in the lofty words which some inspired man has +written for the most solemn of all ceremonies. + +"Dearly beloved . . . Dearly beloved! + +"Who giveth this woman in marriage?" went on the deep voice of the +minister at last, himself strangely moved. Indeed, it had only been +after a long consultation with Doctor Barnes that he had been willing +to go on with this ceremony. "Who giveth this woman in marriage?" + +Sim Gage had no idea of the marriage ceremony of the Church of England +or of any other church. As for Doctor Barnes, the matter had been too +serious for him to plan details. But now, seeing the exigency, he +stepped forward quickly and offered himself as the next friend of Mary +Warren, orphaned and friendless. + +The ceremony went on until it came to that portion having to do with +the ring--for this was Church of England, and full ceremony was used. + +"With what token?" began the voice of the man of God. Sim Gage's eyes +were raised in sudden question. Neither he nor Doctor Barnes, quasi +best man, had ever given thought to this matter of the ring. But again +Doctor Barnes was able to serve. Quickly he slipped off the seal ring +from his own finger and passed it to Sim Gage. The gentle hand of the +churchly official showed him how to place it upon the finger of Mary +Warren, who raised her own hand in his. + +So finally it was over, and those solemn ofttimes mocking words were +said: "Whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder!" And then +the surpliced minister of the church prayed God to witness and to bless +this wedding of this man and this woman; that prayer which sometimes is +a mockery before God. + +There was at least one woman to weep, and Karen Jensen wept. She left +the place and ran out the door into the open sunlight, followed soon by +her husband and Wid Gardner. + +Sim stood for a moment undecided. He did not stoop even now to greet +his wife with that salutation usual at this moment. The group at the +bedside broke apart. The bride, white as a ghost, dropped back on her +blankets. It was a godsend that at this instant Tim, the little dog, +broke in the door, barking and overjoyed, welcoming the company, and +making a diversion, which saved the moment. + +Sim bent and picked up the little animal. + +"He's glad," said he. With a vague and gentle pat of the blankets in +the general direction of Mary Gage, his wife, he turned, head bent, and +tip-toed out into the sunlight. + +Karen Jensen interrupted any conversation, having dried her tears. +"Come on back in five or ten minutes," she said. "I'll have the +wedding breakfast ready. I've baked a cake." + +When they had eaten of the cake, which they all agreed was marvelous, +the minister gladly repacked his vestments in his traveling bag +preparatory to his journey back with Doctor Barnes. He turned, after a +gentle handshake, saying: "Good-by, Mrs. Gage." Sim Gage, bridegroom, +suddenly flushed dark under his brick-red skin at hearing these words. + +Karen Jensen finished her labors attendant upon the wedding breakfast, +and made ready for her own departure. Wid Gardner likewise found +reason for a visit to his own homestead. Mary Gage was left alone, and +ah! how white a bride she was. + +Sim Gage stood outside his own door, looking at the departing figures +of Nels and Karen Jensen crossing the meadow toward their home; turning +to catch sight of Wid, though the latter was no longer visible. In +desperation he looked upon a sky, a landscape, which for the first time +in all his life seemed to him ominous. For the first time in his life +Sim Gage, sagebrusher, man of the outlands, felt himself alone. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +MRS. GAGE + +Ten days after the wedding at Sim Gage's ranch, the mistress of that +establishment, sitting alone, heard the excited barking of the little +dog in the yard, and the sound of a motor passing through the gate. +Instinctively she turned toward the window, as the car stopped. She +heard a voice certainly familiar and welcome as well. + +"Well, how do you do this morning? And how is everything?" It was +Doctor Barnes saluting her. He came up to the unscreened window where +she stood, and stood there for a time with one or other like remark, +before he passed around the house and came in at the door. + +"You're alone?" said he. + +"Why, yes, Mr. Gage has gone over to Mr. Gardner's. They're getting +out some building material." + +"Mrs. Jensen gone home too?" + +"Oh, yes. I'm mistress of the house. I wonder how it looks?" + +"You'd be surprised!" said Doctor Barnes, cryptically. + +He sat down, hat on knee, silent for a time, musing, looking at the +pathetically beautiful face of the woman before him. + +"You'd never get any of your own philosophy second hand," said he at +length. + +She smiled faintly. "No, I'm not given to hysteria, if that's what you +want to say." + +"Women do strange things. But not your sort--no." + +"You don't call this strange--what I've done?" + +"No, it was inevitable--for you." + +She seated herself on the bed, hands in lap. How fine it was to hear a +voice like his, to meet a brain like his, keen, broad, educated, here +in this place! + +"No, you've not read books to get your own philosophy of life. So you +can reason about things." + +"I don't think you're very merciful to me," said Mary Gage. + +"Why, yes. God has shut your eyes to our new and distracted world. +This new world?--you ought to be thankful that you cannot see it. I +wish I did not have to see it. But you don't want to hear me talk? +You don't want philosophizing? I'm afraid I'm not very happy in my +philosophy after all." + +He rose, hands in pockets, and tried to pace up and down the narrow +little room. + +"Don't move the chairs, please," said she. "I know where they all are +now." + +He laughed, and again seated himself. + +"You know why I've come up? I suppose Sim has told you that we're +going to have a soldier post here in your yard?" + +"Yes, I was glad of that--it seemed like company." + +"It will make you feel a great deal safer. And did your husband tell +you that I'm going to be a person of consequence now? I'm a Major +again, not just plain doctor." + +"There must have been reason. The Government is alarmed?" + +"Yes. Our chief engineer Waldhorn--well, he's still a German-American, +to put it mildly. Told me three times he had bought fifteen thousand +dollars' worth of Liberty Bonds. I fear German-Americans buying bonds! +And I know Waldhorn's a red Socialist--Bolshevik--if they make them." + +"If they doubt him, why don't they remove him?" + +"If he knew he was suspected--bang! up might go the dam. I hardly need +say that you're to keep absolutely quiet about all this. I tell you +because I can trust you. As for me, I'm a pretty busy little doctor +right now--cook and the captain bold, and the mate of the Nancy brig. +Within a week we'll have a telephone line strung up here. My men will +be here to-morrow morning to begin work with the building. Suppose I +had a chance to get you a woman companion out here. Would you be glad?" + +"Please don't jest." + +"Well, I've sent for your old friend, Annie Squires!" said she. + +"Annie! Why--no! She wrote to me----" + +"Yes, I know. And I wired her. She's coming on out. She has left +Cleveland to-day. I'm going to meet her myself at the station, and +bring her out. If she can cook she can get on the pay roll. Odd, how +you two came to meet----" + +--"Why, cook?--work?--of course Annie could! Of course--she'd be +happy. She's alone, like myself--but not married." + +"And she'll find you happily married, as she said in the letter. You +are happily married? I beg your pardon, but he's--he's been +considerate?" + +"More. Chivalrous. He wrote me at first that I might expect to find a +'chivalrous ranchman, of ample means.' That's true, isn't it?" + +For a long time he sat silent. "Yes," said he, "I believe I'll say +that's true! + +"You think this Annie person can cook?" he added. + +"Of course! Oh, do you suppose she _really_ is coming?" + +"If I'm going to be a Major again I'm going to have plenary powers!" + +"Well, Major," she smiled slowly at last, "you seem to have a way of +ordering things! Tell me about yourself. I mean about you, yourself, +personally. I've no way of getting the commonest notion of people any +more. It's very, very hard." + +He went on quickly, warned by the quiver of her lips. "All right," +said he. "I'll fill out my questionnaire. This registrant is Barnes, +Major Allen, age thirty-one, Medical Corps, assigned to special service +Engineers' detail, power dam of the Transcontinental Light and Power +Company; graduate of Johns Hopkins; height eleven feet five inches--you +see, I've felt all of that tall ever since I got to be a Major. Eyes, +gray; hair, sandy. Mobility of chest, four and a half inches. +Features, clean-cut and classical. Good muscular development. +Stature, erect and robust. Blood pressure, 128. Pulse, full and +regular. Habits, very bad. Three freckles on left hand." + +"Dear me!" she said, smiling in spite of all, and thus evincing +definitely a certain dimple in her left cheek which now he noticed in +confirmation of his earlier suspicion. "Bad habits?" + +"Well, I smoke, and everything, you know. Majors have to be regular +fellows." + +"You're rather pleasant to talk to!" + +"Very!" + +"You know, you seem rather a manny sort of man to me--do you know what +I mean?" + +"I'm glad you think so." + +"And I owe you a great deal, Major--or--Doctor." + +"Please don't make yourself a continuous trial balance all the time. +Don't be thinking of sacrifices and duties--isn't there some way we can +plan just to get some plain joy out of life as we go along? I believe +that's my religion, if I've got any." + +"I often wish I could see the mountains," said she, vaguely. + +He rose suddenly. "Come with me, then! I'll take you out into the +sunlight. I'll tell you all about the mountains. I'll show you +something of the world. I couldn't live out here if it wasn't for the +sheer beauty of this country. It's wonderful--it's so beautiful." + +"What was it you put down by the door as you came in?" she asked of him +curiously. + +He turned to her with like curiosity. "How do you know?" said he. +"Are you shamming? That was my fishing rod and my fish basket I put +down there; but I didn't think you'd know anything about it." + +"I'm beginning to have abnormally acute senses, I suppose. That's +necessity." + +"Nature is a very wonderful old girl," said Doctor Barnes. "But come +now, I'm going to ask you to go down to the stream with me and have a +try about those grayling. I told Sim Gage I was going to some time, +and this will be about my last chance. If we have any luck I'll show +you there's something in this country beside bacon and beans." + +"I'd love to," said Mary, eagerly. "Why, that'll be fine!" + +She rose and went directly to her sunbonnet, which hung upon a nail in +the wall--the sunbonnet which Mrs. Jensen had fashioned for her and +promised her to be of much utility. But she stumbled as she turned. + +"I can tell where the window is, and the door," said she, breathlessly. +"I miss the reading most of all--and friends. I can't see my friends." + +"Well, your friends can see you, and that's much of a consolation," +said Major Allen Barnes. "I stare shamelessly, and you never know. +Come along now, and we'll go fishing and have a bully time." + +He took her arm and led her out into the brilliant sunlight, across the +yard, across the little rivulet which made down from the spring through +the thin fringe of willows, out across the edge of the hay lands to the +high, unbroken ridges covered with stubby sage brush which lay beyond +between the meadows and the river. The little Airedale, Tim, went with +them, bounding and barking, running in a hundred circles, finding a +score of things of which he tried to tell them. + +It was no long walk, no more than a half mile in all, but he stopped +frequently to tell her about the country, to explain how blue the sky +was with its small white clouds, how inviting the long line of the +mountains across the valley, how sweet the green of the meadows and the +blue-gray of the sage. She was eager as a child. + +"The river is that way," said she after a while. + +"How do you know?" + +"I can feel it--I can feel the water. It's cooler along the stream, I +suppose." + +"Well, you've guessed it right," said he. "There's going to be quite a +world for you, so don't be discouraged. Yes, that's the river just +ahead of us--my word! it's the prettiest river that ever lay out of +doors in all the world." + +"I can hear it," said she, pausing and listening. + +"Yes--that's where it breaks over a little gravel bed up yonder, fifty +yards from us. And here, right in front of us, we are at the corner of +the bend, and it's deep--twelve feet deep at least. And then it bends +off to the left again, with willows on this side and grassy banks on +the other side. And the water is as clear as the air itself. You can +see straight down into it. + +"And look--look!" he said, as he stood with her, catching her by the +wrist at the brink. "Down in this hole, right before us, there's more +than a million grayling--there's four hundred billion of them right +down in there, and every one of them is eight feet long! Sim Gage was +right--I'll bet some of them do weigh three pounds. It must be right +in the height of the summer run. What a wonderful country!" + +"Here, now," he went on, "sit right here on the grass on my coat. Lie +down, you Tim! That's right, boy--I can't stand this any longer--I've +got to get busy." + +Hurriedly he went about jointing his rod, putting on the reel, +threading the line through the guides, while she sat, her hand on the +dog's shaggy head. + +She felt something placed in her lap. "That's my fly hook," said he. +"I'm asking you to look at it. Hundreds of them, and no two alike, and +all the nineteen colors of the rainbow. I'm going to put on this +one--see--it's dressed long and light, to look like a grasshopper. +Queen of the Waters, they call it." + +"Listen!" said she suddenly, raising a finger. "What was that?" + +"What was it? Nothing in the world except the biggest grayling I ever +saw! He broke up there just at the head of the pool where the water +runs deep under the willows, just off the bar. If I can get this fly +just above him--wait now--sit perfectly still where you are." + +He passed up the stream a few paces and began to cast, measuring the +distance with the fly still in the air. She could hear the faint +whistle of the line, and some idea of what he was doing came to her. +And then she heard an exclamation, synchronous with a splash in the +pool. + +"Got him!" said he. "And he's one sockdollager, believe me! We've got +hold of old Grandpa Grayling now--and if things just hold----" + +"Here," said he after a while. She felt the rod placed in her hand, +felt a strenuous tugging and pulling that almost wrenched it away. + +"Hold tight!" said he. "Take the line in your left hand, this way. +Now, if he pulls hard, ease off. Pull in when you can--not too +hard--he's got a tender mouth. Let him run! I want you to see what +fun it is. Can't you see him out there now, jumping?" + +Tim, eager for any sport, sprang up and began to bark excitedly. Her +lips parted, her eyes shining, sightless as they were, Mary faced +toward the splashing which she heard. She spoke low, in a whisper, as +though afraid of alarming the fish. "Where is he?" she said. "Where +did he go?" + +"He's out there," responded her companion, chuckling. "He's getting +rattled now. Don't hold him too tight--that's the idea--work him along +easy now. Now shorten up your line a little bit, and sit right where +you are. I'm going to net him. Lift the tip of the rod a little, +please, and bring him in toward you." + +She obeyed as best she could. Suddenly she heard a splash, and felt a +flopping object placed, net and all, directly in her lap. With +eagerness she caught it in her hands, meeting Tim's towsley head, +engaged in the same errand, and much disposed to claim the fish as all +his own. + +"There's Grandpa!" said Doctor Barnes. "I've lost my bet to Sim +Gage--that fellow will go over three pounds. I didn't know there was +such a grayling in the world." + +"And now tell me," said he, as she felt him lift the fish from her lap, +and with woman's instinct brushed away the drops of water from her +frock, "isn't life worth living after all, when you have a day like +this, and a sky such as we have, and sport like this?" + +He looked at her face. There was less droop to the corners of her +mouth than he ever had seen. There was a certain light that came to +her features which he had not yet recognized. She drew a long breath +and sighed as she dropped her hands into her lap. "Do you suppose we +could get another one?" said she. + +He laughed exultantly. "I should say we could! Just sit still where +you are, and we'll load up again." + +As a matter of fact the grayling were rising freely, and in a moment or +so he had fastened another which he added to the one in the basket. +This one she insisted that he land alone, so that he might have all the +sport. And thus, he generously sharing with her, they placed six of +the splendid fish in the basket, and he declared they had enough for +the time. + +"Come," said he, "we'll go back now." + +She reached out a hand. "I want to carry the fish," said she. "Let +me, please. I want to do something." + +He passed the basket strap over her shoulder for her, Tim following on +behind, panting, as guardian of the spoils. "You're a good sport," +said Major Barnes. "One of the best I ever saw, and I saw a lot of +them over there." + +She was stumbling forward through the sage as best she might, tripping +here and there, sweeping her skirts now and again from the ragged +branches which caught against them. He took her hand in his to lead +her. It lay light and warm in his own--astonishingly light and warm, +as suddenly he realized. She had pushed the sunbonnet back from her +forehead as she would have done had she been desirous of seeing better. +He noted the color of her cheeks, the regularity of her features, the +evenness of her dark brows, the wholly pleasing contour of her figure, +as she stumbled bravely along at his side. + +"You're fine!" he repeated, suddenly. "You're fine! I expect to see +you live to bless the day you came here. I expect to hear you say yet +that you're _glad_ you're alive--not alive just because it was your +duty to live. Don't talk to me any more about duty." + +He was striding along excitedly. "Not too fast!" she panted, holding +fast to his hand. + +And so they came presently to the cabin door again, and saw Sim Gage +perched high on a load of logs, coming down the lane. + +"I'm going to put the new cabin for the men right over there," said +Doctor Barnes. "And when Annie Squires comes--why, we're going to have +the grandest little ranch here you ever saw. And, of course, I can +telephone up every once in a while." + +"Telephone?" said she vaguely. "Then you won't be coming up yourself?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE OUTLOOK + +Doctor Barnes was making ready to depart when Sim Gage came in at the +gate with his load of logs. They exchanged greetings, Sim regarding +his visitor rather closely. + +"We've just got back from fishing," said Doctor Barnes. + +"Yes, I seen you both, down in the medders." + +"We had one grand time, brother. Look here." He opened the lid of his +basket. + +"All right," said Sim. "We'll cook 'em for supper. Some folks like +'em. There's need for about everything we can get. I reckon God's +forgot us all right." + +"Cheer up!" rejoined his guest. "I was just thinking God was in His +heaven to-day. Well, thank you, old man, for that fishing. That's the +finest grayling water in the whole world. I've lost my bet with you. +May I come up again some time?" + +"Yes," said Sim Sage, "sometimes,--when you know I'm around. Come +again," he added, somewhat formally, as they shook hands. "I'll be +around." + +He turned toward his house as soon as he saw the car well off in the +lane. He found his wife sitting with her face turned toward the window. + +"He's just about going around the corner now," said she, following the +sound of the car. And then, presently, "And how are you, sir? You've +been gone a long while." + +Sim had seated himself awkwardly on a chair, his hat on his knee. +"Have a good time down in the medder?" he asked presently. "He told me +you was fishing." + +"Oh, yes, and we caught some whoppers too. They'll be good to eat, I'm +sure." + +"Yes, I expect you'll like them." He seemed for some reason less than +ordinarily loquacious, and suddenly she felt it. + +"Tell me," said she, turning squarely towards him with a summoning of +her own courage. "Why are you away all the time? It's been more than +a week, and I've hardly seen you. You're away all the time. Am I +doing wrong in any way?" + +"Why, no." + +"I don't mean to cry--it's just because I'm not used to things yet. +It's hard to be blind. But--I meant all I said--then. Don't you +believe me?" + +"I know you did," said he, simply. But still the awkward silence, and +still her attempt to set things more at ease. + +"Why don't you come over here close to me?" said she, with an attempt +dutiful at least. "How can I tell anything about you? You've never +even touched me yet, nor I you. You've never even--I've never had any +real notion of how you look, what you are like. I never saw your +picture. It was an awful thing of me to do." + +"Are you sorry?" + +"But any woman wants to see her husband, to know what he is, what he +looks like. I can't tell you how I wonder. And I don't seem to +know--and can't learn. Tell me _about_ yourself, won't you? What sort +of looking man are you? What are you like?" + +"I ain't like nothing much," said Sim Gage. "I ain't much for looks. +Of course, I suppose women do kind of want to know what men folks is +like, that way. I hadn't thought of that, me being so busy--and me +being so pleased just to look at you, and not even thinking of your +looking at me." He struggled in saying these words, so brave for Sim +Gage to venture. + +"Yes? Can't you go on?" + +"I ain't so tall as some, but I'm rather broad out, and right strong at +that. My eyes is sort of dark, like, with long lashes, now, and I got +dark hair, in a way of speaking--and I got good features. I dunno as I +can say much more." Surely he had been guilty of falsehood enough for +one effort. But he did not know he lied, so eager was he to have favor +in her eyes. + +"That's fine!" said she. "I knew all along you were a fine-looking +man--the Western type. We women all admire it, don't you know? And +I'd like to see you in the Western dress too. I always liked that. +But, tell me, what can you do? What do you do? Do you read out here +much? Do you have anything in the way of music? I used to play the +piano a little." + +Sim moved about awkwardly on his chair. "I ain't got around to getting +another pianny since I moved in here. Maybe we can, some day, after +the hay gets turned. I used to play the fiddle some, but I ain't got +no fiddle now, neither. Some play the fiddle better'n what I do. A +mouth harp's a good thing when you're alone a good deal. Most any one +can play a mouth harp some. Lots of fellers do out here, nights, of +winters." + +"Is there anything else you can do?" she asked, bravely, now. The +utter bleak barrenness of the man and his life came home to her, +struggling with her gratitude, her sense of duty. + +He thought for a time before he spoke. "Why, yes, several things, and +I'm sorry you can't see them things, too. For instance, I can tie a +strong string around my arm, and bust it, just doubling up my muscle. +I'm right strong." + +"That's fine!" said she. "Isn't it odd? What else, then?" She smiled +so bravely that he did not suspect. "Mayn't I feel the muscle on your +arm?" + +Hesitatingly, groping, she did put out her hand. By chance, as he +shifted back, afraid of her hand, it touched the coarse fabric of his +shirt sleeve. Had it fallen further she might have felt his arm, bare; +might have discovered the sleeve itself to be ragged and fringed with +long-continued use. But she did not know. + +"Oh, you're just in your working clothes, aren't you?" she said. "So +this is the West I used to read about," she said musing. "Everything +Western--even the way you talk. Not like the people back East that I +used to know. Is every one out here like you?" + +"No, not exactly, maybe," said he. "Like I said, you'd get tired of +looking at me if that's all there was to do." + +She broke out into laughter, wholly hysterical, which he did not in the +least understand. He knew the tragedy of her blindness, but did not +know that he himself was tragic. + +"You are odd," said she. "You've made me laugh." She both laughed and +wept. + +"You see, it's this way," he went on eagerly. "It's all right in the +summer time, when you can get out of doors, and the weather is +pleasant, like it is now. But in the winter time--_that's_ when it +gets lonesome! The snow'll be eight feet deep all around here. We +have to go on snow shoes all the winter through. Now, if we was shut +in here alone together--or if you was shut in here all by yourself, and +still lonesomer, me being over in the other house mostly--the evenings +would seem awful long. They always used to, to me." + +She could not answer at all. A terrible picture was coming before her. +He struggled on. + +"If that Annie Squires girl came out here, she'd be a lot of help. But +how can you tell whether she'd stay all winter? That's the trouble +with women folks--you can't tell what they'll do. She wouldn't want to +stay here long unless she was settled down some way, would she? She +ain't married, like you, ma'am. She might get restless, like enough, +wouldn't she?" + +"I don't know," said Mary Gage, suddenly turning away. She felt a vast +cloud settling down upon her. Ten days? She had been married ten +days! What would ten years mean? + +"I wish I didn't have to think at all," said she, her lips trembling. + +"So do I, ma'am," said Sim Gage to his lawful wedded wife with engaging +candor. "I sure do wish that." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +ANNIE MOVES IN + +The hum of a motor at the gate brought Mary Gage to the window once +more, the third morning after Doctor Barnes' visit. It was Doctor +Barnes now, she knew. She could not see that he now helped out of the +car a passenger who looked about her curiously, more especially at the +figure of Sim Gage who, hands in pockets, stood gazing at them as they +drove into the yard. + +"Listen," said Doctor Barnes under his breath to the young woman, +"that's the man--that's Sim Gage. Don't show surprise, and don't talk. +Remember what I've told you. For God's sake, play the game!" + +Sim Gage slowly approached the car, and the doctor accosted him. "This +is Miss Squires, Mr. Gage," said he, "the young woman we have been +expecting." + +"Pleased to meet you," said Sim, after the fashion of his extremest +social formality. And then, in a burst of welcome, "How'd you like it, +coming out?" + +"Fine!" said Annie, dusting off her frock. "Lovely." + +She paid no attention to Sim Gage's words, "Go right on in. She's +anxious to see you," but hurried on, muttering to herself, "Ain't it +the limit? And her blind!" + +She stopped for an instant at the door, staring into the dim interior, +then with a cry rushed in. Mary, stone blind, stood staring, +trembling. The two met in swift embrace, mingled their tears. + +"Oh, Mary, it can't be!" said Annie after a time. "It will get well, +won't it? Say, now--your eyes will come back, won't they? How did you +get here--what did you do? And you're married!" + +"Yes," said Mary Gage, "that's true." + +"Oh, then," said Annie Squires, pulling herself together with +resourcefulness, "that was your husband out in the yard, that +fine-looking man! I was in such a hurry. You lucky thing! Why didn't +you tell me more about him, Mary? He has such a pleasant way. I don't +mind men being light complected, or even bald. He's fine!" + +"I think so," said Mary. "You like him?" + +"Why, how could any one help liking him, Sis?" demanded Annie, choking. +"Of course. So this is where you live?" + +"Yes, this is my home," said Mary Gage. "And then you're not +disappointed in him? I'm so glad! I've never seen him--my husband. +You're joking about the color of his hair, of course." + +"You'll have to help yourself, Annie," she went on, having no reply. +"I'm not of much use. I've learned a few things and I help a little. +You can see about everything there is, I suppose, at one look. Isn't +it nice?" + +"Couldn't be better," said Annie Squires, again choking back her tears. +"You certain are the lucky kid. And he--he married you after he saw +you was blind?" + +"It was a strange thing for a man to do," said Mary Gage, slowly. +"Yes,--but fine." + +"I'm glad you've done so well. This will settle a heap of things, +won't it, Mary?" + +"Some things." + +The step of Doctor Barnes was heard at the door. Mary Gage called out, +asking him to come in. Some talk then followed about the domestic +resources of the place, in which Annie was immediately interested. + +"But I've got four hens," said Mary Gage, smiling. + +"Well, it seems to be a right cheerful, friendly sort of place, don't +it?" said Annie after a while, "where they come in and kill the cattle +and horses and burn the house, and run away with people!" She was +looking at the burned door jamb of Sim Gage's cabin as she spoke. +Doctor Barnes had told her the story of the raid. + +"Who's _that_ coming in?" she remarked after a time, having caught +sight through the window of an approaching figure. + +"That's your neighbor, Wid Gardner," said Doctor Barnes. + +"He's taller than some," said Annie after a time. "Gee, ain't he +plain! And ain't he sunburned!" + +Wid Gardner himself presently approached the door, to be suddenly taken +aback when he met the somewhat robust and blooming young person who had +just arrived. + +"You've knew Mrs. Gage for some time?" he managed to say at last, to +make conversation, after he also had declared himself pleased to meet +the newcomer. + +"Lived together for years," said Annie. "Only real pal I ever had. I +took care of her the best I knew how. I'm going to keep on." A +certain truculence was in her tone. + +Wid Gardner and Annie Squires soon found themselves together and +somewhat apart, for she beckoned him to meet her outside the cabin. + +"Say, Mister," said she to him suddenly, "tell me,--are you the man +that wrote them letters to us girls? I know he never done nothing like +that." She indicated Sim Gage, who stood staring vacuously at her +trunk, which still stood upon the ground near the car. + +Wid Gardner flushed deeply. "I ain't saying one way or the other," +said he. "But I know the letters went, all right. Like enough we both +ought to of been shot for it." + +"You know it, and you said it!" + +"But now, Miss Squires," he went on, "we didn't ever really suppose +that anybody would answer our fool letters. We never did realize that +a girl would actual be so foolish, way that one was." + +"Fine business, wasn't it, you men--to treat a good clean girl like +that! Look at that!" Again she indicated Sim Gage, withering contempt +in her tone. + +"Who's going to run this place?" she demanded. "She can't." + +"I dunno," said Wid Gardner vaguely. "You won't be going back right +away, will you?"' + +"Not any quicker'n God'll let me!" said Annie Squires. Which struck +poor Wid silent. + +Doctor Barnes and Sim had passed to the other side of the premises, +where the little group of men who had come in the day previous, and had +pitched their tent in the yard, were engaged in laying up the logs of +the cabin which was to be the quarters of the men stationed here. +There were a half dozen of them in all, a corporal, four privates, and +a carpenter impressed from the Company forces to supervise the building. + +"In a week you won't know the place, Sim," said the doctor. "They'll +run this house up in jig time. With two bunk rooms and a dining room +and a kitchen, there'll be plenty of room. I'll see that it's +furnished. Gardner can stay here until he gets time to build on his +own place. That girl that came out with me is a good sort, as +big-hearted as they make them. It's a godsend, her coming out. She +told me she could cook, and would be glad to have a job. If your wife +can keep busy, it will be all the better for them both." + +"But now, I told you I'd put you on the pay roll, Gage," he concluded. +"I want you to act as a scout here, to keep watch on this road and the +cross road into the Reserve. When I was in town I got you a +hat--regulation O. D.,--with a green cord around it, as I told you. Go +on over to the car and get it--it's yours." + +Sim walked slowly over to the car and peered in at the new head gear. +He took it up gingerly by the rim, regarding the green cord with +curiosity. Half reverently he placed it on his head. A vast new pride +came to him at that moment. Never before had he taken on any badge of +authority, known any sort of singling out or distinction in all his +drab, vague life. No power ever had sent to him a parchment engraved +"placing special confidence in your loyalty and discretion." But even +his mind divined that now in some way he did represent the authority +and government of his country, that some one had placed confidence in +his loyalty and discretion. If not, why this green cord on his hat? + +"When you wear that, Gage," said Doctor Barnes sharply to him, "you +button up your shirt and roll down your sleeves, do you understand? +You shave and you wash clean every morning. You comb your hair and +keep it combed. If I'm cast away as Major of this desert island out +here I'm going to be the law and the gospel. And the first thing, Sim +Gage, that a soldier learns is to be neat. Think of that cord on your +hat!" + +"Doc," said Sim Gage, "that's just what I am a-thinking of." + +"Well, I've got to go on back to the dam. I suppose those two women +can take care of themselves somehow now." + +"I wish't you wouldn't go away," said Sim uneasily. "One woman is bad +enough--but now there's two of them." + +"Two won't be as much trouble as one," said Doctor Barnes. + +As he turned he saw standing in the door a figure which to him suddenly +seemed pathetic. It was Mary Gage. She was looking out now vaguely. +He did not even go over to say good-by. + +In the meantime Annie Squires, not backward in her relations with +mankind, again engaged Wid Gardner in conversation as they stood at the +edge of the yard, and Wid's downcast head bespoke his lack of happiness +at what he heard. + +"I never in all my born days saw a joint like this," said Annie, her +dark eyes snapping. "It ain't fit for cowboys--it ain't fit for +nobody. Her _married_ to him! And how on earth are we going to keep +it from her? If she ever knew--my God! it would break her +heart--she'd kill herself now if she knew the truth. Man, you don't +know that girl--you just think she's a common, ordinary woman, don't +you? You can't understand a woman like that, you people. She just +thought it was her duty to get married. Her _duty_--do you get +me?--her _duty_! It's a crime when a woman like that gets that sort of +bugs in their nut. Well, what could I do? I figured if she could +marry and get a good home it would be the best thing for her. Do you +know what us two girls done?--we flipped a copper to see which one of +us should have the chance. Wasn't that a fine thing to do? Well, she +won--and look at that!" + +She again pointed to Sim Gage, who stood hands in pocket, looking after +Doctor Barnes' departing car. "Look at him! Is he human or ain't he? +He ain't got but one gallus, and I bet he ain't been shaved for a week. +His clothes may fall off him any minute. He's past forty-eight if he's +a day. Say, man, leave me take the ax and go kill that thing right +away! I got to do it sometime. Do you get me?" + +"Yes," said Wid Gardner, somewhat agitated, "yes, there's a heap of +truth in what you say. There ain't no use in me denying not a single +thing. All I got to say is we didn't never mean to do what this here +has turned out to be. But now you've come out here, too, and in some +ways it makes it harder to keep things quiet. You don't look to me +like you was easy to be right quiet. What are you going to do about it +your own self?" + +"I've told you what I'm going to do about it. Just as soon as the +Lord'll let us, I'm going to take her out of here. Do you think I'm +one of them sort that'll set down and let the world walk over me, and +say I like it? Oh, no, not sister Annie! I ain't blind." + +"Say, Mister," said she a moment later as he maintained disconsolate +silence, "they call you Wid. What's your real name?" + +"My name is Henry," remarked her companion. "They only call me Wid for +short." + +"Huh! Well, now, Henry, go get some wood for supper. Cut it short +enough so the door'll shut tight. And fetch in another pail of +water--water's apt to get bad, standing around that way. And while +you're out along this little creek pull some of this water cress and +bring it in--didn't you know it's good to eat? And, Henry, if you've +got any cows, you see that one of them is brought over here, and a +churn--we got to have some butter. We got to get a garden started even +if it is a little bit late. And, Henry, listen, them hens got to have +some kind of a door to their coop--they're just walking around aimless. +And I want you to get a collar for that little dog--I'm going to see if +I can learn it to lead Mary around. There's a heap of things have got +to be done here. How long you been living here yourself?" + +"Why, I don't live here a-tall," said Wid, aghast at the new duties +which seemed to be crowding upon him. "That's my place over there +acrosst the fence. I just strolled over in here to-day. They burned +me out." + +"You two was neighbors, huh? And I suppose you both set around and +figured out that fine little game about advertising for a wife? Well, +you got one, anyway, didn't you?" + +"Well, this ain't my place--Sim lives here." + +"You don't suppose I'd ask him to do anything, do you?" said Annie +Squires. "He's no good. I tell you he'll be playing in luck if I +don't break loose and read the law to him." + +"Well, now," said Wid, apologetically, "I wouldn't start any too strong +right at first. There ain't nothing he wouldn't do for her--nothing in +the whole, wide world." + +"But now, about you," he added--"I'm glad you've come. It looks sort +of like you was going to move in, don't it?" + +"You've said it," said Annie. + +Wid Gardner looked at her curiously, and meekly went about his new +duties regarding wood and water. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +ANOTHER MAN'S WIFE + +Revolution, and not less, had occurred within a month at Sim Gage's +ranch. This was not so much evidenced by the presence of a hard-bitten +corporal and his little army of four men; nor so much more by the +advent of Annie Squires; neither was it proved by the new buildings +that had risen so quickly; nor by the appearance of new equipment. It +was not so much in the material as in the intangible things of life +that greatest change had come. + +Karen Jensen smiled now as she talked with her new friend, Annie +Squires. Even Mary Gage, for some reason, had ceased to weep. But the +main miracle was in the instance of Sim Gage himself. + +Perhaps it was the hat which did it, with its brave cord of green, +humblest of all the insignia of those who stand at the threshold of the +Army. To Sim's vague soul it carried a purpose in life, knowledge that +there was such a thing as service in the world. Daily his face now was +new-reaped, his hands made clean. He imitated the erectness and +alertness of these young soldiers whom he saw, learned the jerk of the +elbow in their smart salute. Enriched by a pair of cast-off breeches, +and the worn leggins thereto, he rode now with both feet in the +stirrups and looked square between his horse's ears. Strong as are +many lazy men, not cowardly, and therefore like many timid men, he rode +straight, with his campaign hat a trifle at one side, like to the +fashion of these others. + +And he wished that She might see him now, in his new uniform. He +wondered if she knew how much larger and more important a man he was +now. Into the pleached garden of his life came a new vision of the +procession of the days; and he was no longer content. He saw the +vision of a world holding the cares and duties of a man. + +That this revolution had come to pass was by reason of the presence of +this blind woman who walked tap-tapping, led by a little dog; a blind +woman who for some reason had begun to smile again. + +As for Doctor Barnes, he had been the actual agent, to be sure. This +new order of things was the product of his affirmative and initiating +mind. Mary Gage, consciously or unconsciously, within a few weeks, +learned his step as surely as his voice, could have told you which was +his car had a dozen come into the yard at the same time. Therefore, on +this certain morning, she knew his voice, when, after stopping his car +in the dooryard, he called out to the men before he approached the door +of her own home. It was then that Mary Gage did something which she +never yet had done when she had heard the step and voice of her lawful +lord and master--something she had not done since her arrival here. +Blind, she turned unconsciously to the mirror which she knew Annie had +hung on the wall! She smoothed back her hair, felt for the corners of +her collar to make it neat. She really did not know that she did these +things. + +She was young. Life was still buoyant in her bosom, after all, and far +more now than at any time in her life. New graciousness of face and +figure began to come to her. Well-being appeared in her eye and her +cheek. The clean air of this new world had done its work, the actinic +sun had painted her with the colors of the luckier woman, who expects +to live and to be loved. It was a lovely face she might have seen in +yonder mirror--a face flushed as she heard this step at the door. + +"Greetings and salutations!" said he as he entered. "Of course you +know who I am." + +"I'm trained in hide-and-seek," said she. "Sit down, won't you?" + +He tossed his hat on the table. "Alone?" he asked. + +"I always am. Annie is busy almost all day, over at the soldier house, +you know." + +"I suppose he is up in the hills to-day?" + +She knew whom he meant. "Yes. Annie tells me he goes up every other +day to look around. I should think he would be afraid." + +"Annie told you?--doesn't he tell you what he does?" + +"No. Sometimes in the evening he comes in for a moment." + +"Well, of course," he went on, "in my capacity as Pooh Bah, Major and +doctor too, I've got to be part medico to take care of the poor devils +who blow off their hands or drop things on their feet, or eat too much +cheap candy at the store. How is Sim's knee by this time?" + +"He limps a little--I can hear it when he walks on the boards. Annie +says that Wid Gardner says that Sim says that his leg's all right." +She smiled, and he laughed with her. + +"That's fine. And how about Madam herself, Mrs. Gage?" + +She shivered. "I wish you wouldn't call me that. It--well, don't, +please. Let's not ever joke." + +"What shall I call you?" + +"I don't know. What's _wrong_ here, Doctor?" She faced him now. + +He evaded. "I was wondering about your health." + +"Oh, I'm very well. Sometimes my eyes hurt me a little, as though I +felt more of the light. Subjective, I suppose." + +She could not feel him look at her. At length, he spoke, quietly. +"I've some news for you, or possible news. It has very much to do with +your happiness. Tell me, if it were in my power to give you back your +eyes, would you tell me to do that?" + +"My eyes? What do you mean? To see again?" + +"If I gave you back your sight, I would be giving you back the truth; +and that would be very, very cruel." + +He saw the fluttering of her throat, the twitching of the hands in her +lap, and so hurried on. + +"Listen! There's a chance in a hundred that your sight can be +restored. My old preceptor writes me, from what I've told him, that +there is about that chance. If it did succeed----" + +"Then I'd see again!" + +"Yes. So you would be very unhappy." + +"You say a thing like that!" + +He winced, flushed. + +"You come here now with hopes that you ought not to offer, and you +qualify even that! Fine--fine! You think I can stand much more than I +have?" + +Still the trembling of her hands, the fluttering at her throat. He +endured it for a time, but broke out savagely at last. "You'd be +perfect then--as lovely as ever any woman--why, you're perfect now! +And yet without that one flaw where would you be? You'd not be married +then, though you are now." + +"Go on!" she said at length, coldly. + +"You don't know one of us here except that girl, Annie, as different +from you as night is from day. You don't know about the rest of us. +You only think about us, imagine us--you don't see us, don't know us. +Ah, God! If you only could! But--if you did!" + +The last words broke from him unconsciously. He sat chilled with +horror at his own speech, but knew he had to go on. + +"I am going to do what shall leave us both unhappy as long as we live. +I'll give you back your eyes if I can." + +"I am helpless." She spoke simply. + +"Yes! Why, if I even look at you, I feel I'm an eavesdropper, I'm +stealing. You can't see in my face what your face puts there--you +can't see my eyes with yours. You can't understand how you've made me +know things I never did know until I saw you. Why, cruel? yes! And +now you're asking me to be still more cruel. And I'm going to be." + +"Don't!" she broke out. "Oh, God! Don't! Please--you must not talk. +I thought you were different from this." + +"And yet you have asked me a dozen times what's wrong here. Why, +everything's wrong! That man loves you because he can see you--any man +would--but you don't love him, because you _haven't_ seen him. You're +not a woman to him at all, but an abstraction. He's not a man to you +at all, but an imagination. _That's_ not love of man and woman. But +when you have back your eyes,--_then_ you're in shape to compete with +the best women in the world for the best man in the world. That's +love! That's marriage! That's right! Nothing else is." + +He paused horrified. Her voice was icy. "I asked you what was wrong +here. I begin to see now. You spoke the truth--everything is wrong." + +"You'll hate me all your life and I hate myself now as I never have +before in my life--despise myself. What a mockery we've made of it +all. God help those who see!" + +She sat silent for a very long time. "You say I shall be able to see +him--my husband?" + +[Illustration: "You say I shall be able to see him--my husband?"] + +"Yes, I think so," he said. + +"And you also?" + +"No! Him, but not me. You never will. I'll be an imagination +forever. You'll never see me at all." + +"Under what star of sadness was I born?" said Mary Gage, simply. "What +a problem!" + +"Good-by," he replied. "I don't need to wait." + +She held out her hands to him, gropingly. "Going?" + +"Yes. I'm coming back, week after next, to get you. I'll not talk +this way ever again. Don't forgive me--you can't. + +"You'll have to go down to our hospital, perhaps for a couple of +weeks," he concluded. + +He stepped from the room so silently, passed so quickly on the turf, +that she was not sure he had gone. He never saw her hands reach out, +did not hear her voice: "No, no! I'll not go! Let me be as I am!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE WAYS OF MR. GARDNER + +Two figures stood regarding Doctor Barnes as his car turned into the +willow lane out-bound for the highway. + +"Why didn't he say good-by, anyways, when he left?" commented Wid, +turning to Annie Squires. "Went off like he'd forgot something." + +"That's his way," replied Annie, rolling down her sleeves. They had +met as she was passing from the barracks cabin. "He's a live wire, +anyways. God knows this country needs them." + +"Why, what's the matter with this country?" demanded Wid mildly. +"Ain't it all right?" + +"No, it ain't. Till I come here it was inhabited exclusively with +corpses." + +"Well, then?" + +"And since then, if it wouldn't of been for the Doctor yonder, you and +Sim Gage would be setting down here yet and looking at the burned +places and saying, 'Well, I wonder how that happened?'" + +"Well, if you didn't like this here country, now what made you come +here?" demanded Wid calmly and without resentment. + +"You know why I come. That lamb in there was needing me. A fine sight +you'd be, to come a thousand miles to look at! You and him! Say, +hanging would be too good for him, and drowning too expensive for you." + +"Oh, come now--that's making it a little strong, now, Miss Annie, ain't +it? What have I done to you to make you feel that way? _I_ ain't ever +advertised for no wife, have I? Comes to that, I can make just as good +bread as you kin." + +"Huh! Is that so!" + +"Yes, and cook apricots and bacon, and fry ham as good as you can if +there was any to fry. Me, I'd be happy if they wasn't no women in the +whole wide world. They're a damn nuisance, anyways, ask me about it." + +He was looking out of the corner of his eye at Annie, witnessing her +wrath. + +"The gall of you!" exclaimed Annie, red of face and with snapping eye. +"Oh, they're damn nuisances, are they? Well, then, I'll tell you. I +fixed your socks up last night for you. Holes? Gee! Me setting in +there by a bum lamp that you had to strike a match to see where it was. +Never again! You can go plumb to, for all of me, henceforth and +forever." + +"I ain't never going to wear them socks again," said Wid calmly. "I'm +a-going to keep them socks for soovenirs. Such darning I never have +saw in my born days. If I couldn't darn better'n that I'd go jump in +the creek. I didn't ask you to darn them socks noways. Spoiled a +perfectly good pair of socks for me, that's what you done." + +The war light grew strong in Annie's eyes. "You never did need but one +pair anyways, all summer. Souvenirs! Why, one pair'd last you your +whole life. I suppose you wrop things around your feet in the winter +time, like the Rooshians in the factory. Say, you're every way the +grandest little man that ever lived alone by hisself! Well, here's +where you'll get your chance to be left alone again." + +"You ain't gone yet," said Wid calmly. + +"What's the reason I ain't, or won't be?" + +"Well," said Wid Gardner, reaching down for a straw and moving slowly +over toward a saw horse that stood in the yard, "like enough I won't +let you go." + +"What's that you say?" demanded Annie scoffingly. None the less she +slowly drew over to the end of another saw horse and seated herself. +"I'll go when I get good and ready." + +"Of course, you can't tell much about a woman first few weeks. They +put on their best airs then. But anyways, I've sort of got reconciled +to seeing you around here. I had a po'try book in my house. Like it +says, I first endured seeing you, and then felt sorry for you, and +then----" + +"Cut out the poetry stuff," said Annie. "It ain't past noon yet." + +"I ain't had time to build my own house over yet. Pianny and all gone +now, though." + +"Gee, but you do lie easy," said Annie. "You're the smoothest running +liar I ever did see." + +"And all my books and things, and pictures and dishes." + +"All of your both two tin plates, huh?" + +"And my other suits of clothes, and my bedstead, and my dewingport, and +everything--all, all gone, Miss Squires!" + +"Is that so! Oh, sad! sad! You must of been reading some of them mail +order catalogues in your dreams." + +"And my cook stove too. I've just been cooking out in the open air +when I couldn't stand your cooking here no more--out of doors, like I +was camping out." + +"If any sheep herder was ever worse than you two, God help him! You +wasn't one of you fit for her to wipe a foot on,--that doctor least of +all, that got me out here under pretences that she was married happy. +And I find her married to that! I wish to God she could see all this, +and see you all, for just one minute. Just once, that's all!" + +"Yes," said Wid Gardner, suddenly serious. "I know. There ain't +nothing I can do to square it. But all I've got or expect to +have--why, it's free for you to take along and do anything you can for +her and your own self, Miss Annie, if you want to, even if you do go +away and leave us. + +"But look at my land over there." He swept a long arm toward the +waving grasses of the valley. "I've got my land all clear. She's +worth fifty a acre as she lays, and'll be worth a hundred and fifty +when I get water out of the creek on to her. I got three hundred and +twenty acres under fence. I been saving the money the Doc's paying me +here. + +"Say," he added, presently, "what kind of a place is that Niagry place +I been reading about? Is it far from Cleveland?" + +"Not so very," replied Annie to his sudden and irrelevant query. + +"It's a great place for young married folks to go and visit, I reckon? +I was reading about in a book onct, before my books was burned up. +Seems like it was called 'A Chanct Acquaintance.' Ever since, I +allowed I'd go to Niagry on my wedding journey." + +"Well," said Annie, judicially, "I been around some, what with +floor-walkers and foremen and men in the factory, but I'm going to say +that when it comes to chanct acquaintances, this here place has got 'em +faded for suddenness! Go on over home and rub your eyes and wake up, +man! You're dopy." + +"No, I ain't," said Wid. "I'm in a perfectly sane, sound and disposin' +mind. You're getting awful sun-burned, but it only makes you +good-lookinger, Miss Annie. + +"But now lemme tell you one thing," he went on, "I don't want to see +you making no more eyes at that corporal in there. Plenty of men in +the Army has run away and left three, four wives at home." + +"I don't care nothing about no man's past," said Annie. "They all look +alike to me." + +"Well, I can't say that about you. Some ways you're a powerful homely +girl. Your hair's gettin' sunburned around the ends like Karen +Jensen's. And your eyes--turn around, won't you, so I kin remember +what color your eyes is. I sort of forgot, but they ain't much. Not +that I care about it. Women is nothing in my young life." + +"Huh! you're eighty if you're a day." + +"It's the way I got my hair combed." + +Extending a strong right arm she pushed him off the end of the saw +horse. He rose, dusting his trousers calmly. "Oh, dear, I didn't +think so much sinfulness could be packed in so young a life! But say, +Annie, what's the use of fooling? I got to tell you the truth about it +sometime. Like on my flour sack: 'Eventual, why not now?' And the +plain, plumb truth is, you're the best as well as the pertiest girl +that ever set a foot on Montana dirt." + +Annie's face was turned away now. + +"Your hair and eyes and teeth, and your way of talking, and your way of +taking hold of things and making a home--haven't you been making a home +fer all of us people here? I told you I'd have to tell the truth at +last. Besides, I said I was to blame for everything that's gone wrong +here. I was. But I'll give you all I am and all I got to square it, +anyways you like." + +"Well, anyways," said Annie Squires, drawing a long breath, "I think if +you took on something, you'd see it through; and you wouldn't pass the +buck if you fell down." + +"That's me," said Wid. + +"I get you," said Annie. + +"You said that to me right out here in broad daylight, in presence of +witnesses, four hens and a dog." + +"I said I understood you. That was all." + +Wid Gardner turned to her and looked her squarely, in the eyes. "Not +appropry to nothing, neither here nor there, ner bragging none, I'm +able to put up as much hay in a day as any two Mormons in the Two Forks +Valley. In the hay fields of life, it's deeds and not words that +counts. I read that in a book somewheres." + +"Say," he went on, suddenly, "have you noticed how perty the moonlight +is on the medders these nights? You reckon it shines that same way +over at Niagry?" + +Annie did not answer at the instant. "Well," said she at last, "in +some ways this country is a lot like Cleveland. Go on over to your own +house, if you've got one, and don't you never speak to me again, so +long as you live." + +"Well, anyways," said Wid, chuckling, "you didn't really call me a +sheep man. But listen--I've told you almost the truth about +everything. Now I got to be going." + +"I was _afraid_ you'd be making some break," said Annie Squires. "I +was _expecting_ you'd do some fool thing or other. I almost _knew_ +you'd do it. But then----" + +"Yes; and but then?" + +"But then----" concluded Annie. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +DORENWALD, CHIEF + +Mary Gage, sitting alone in her cabin, could hear the hum of voices as +Wid Gardner and Annie Squires talked together in the open sunlight. +Presently she heard the footfall of Annie as she came to the door. + +"Well, Sis," said that cheerful individual, "how are you getting on?" + +"Couldn't you come in for a while, Annie? I'm very lonesome. What +were you talking about?" + +"I just told that man out there I'm going to take you back home." + +Mary Gage sat silent for a time. "We'll have to get a better solution +than that." + +"It's a fine little solution you've got so far, ain't it now?" +commented Annie. "Highbrows always have to lean on the lowbrows, more +or less. You listen to me." + +"Sometime, I suppose," she went on after a moment's pause, "I'll have +to talk right out with you. For instance, you being a farmer's wife! +Now, as for me, I was raised on a farm. When I was ten years old I was +milking five cows every day. When I was twelve I was sitting up at +night knitting socks for the other kids. That was before I got the +idea of going to the white lights after my career. Well, it's lucky I +met you, like enough. But me once talking of getting married to +Charlie Dorenwald! I should admire to see him, me handy to a flat +iron." + +"But, Annie, I'd die if it wasn't for some one to help me all the time. +Some pay for that with money. How can I pay for it at all? Tell me, +Annie." She turned suddenly. "If I--if I could get my eyesight back +again, what ought I to do?" + +"I wouldn't talk about that, Sis, if I was you. But just wait, there's +some one coming--it's him." + +Mary could hear Sim Gage's rapid step as he came around to the door, +pausing no more than to throw down his horse's bridle over its head. + +Sim Gage was excited. "Where's the Doc?--he been here this morning?" + +"He went away less than an hour ago," replied Mary Gage. "How long was +it, Annie? Why?" + +"Well, I got to go down to the dam. Something up in the hills I don't +like." + +"Not those same men?" Mary Gage's face showed terror. + +"I don't know yet. Two cars was in camp on the creek, half way up +towards the Reserve. I seen 'em and sneaked back." + +"Telephone down, why don't you?" + +"I hadn't thought of that," said Sim. "I ain't used to them things. +Say, Miss Squires, supposin' you see if you can get the doctor down at +the dam?" + +But when Annie tried to use the telephone her ring sounded idle and +vacant in the box. The instrument was dead. + +"Out of order!" said Annie, "right when you want it. When you want to +make a date the girls says, 'Party's line's out of order.' Of course +it is!" + +"Well, then I'll have to start down right away. I got to see the Doc +about this. I hate to leave you alone." + +"Let him go," said Annie to Mary Gage. "The soldiers 'll be back for +supper pretty soon." + +"I've got to go over to Wid's," said Sim; "got to get another horse." + +He turned and left the room without more word of parting than he had +shown of greeting. He walked more alertly than ever he had in his life. + +He found Wid Gardner and told his news. His neighbor listened to him +gravely. + +"It may be only some people in there fishing," said Wid, "but it's no +time to take chances. You say the wire's down? That looks so bad, I +reckon you'd better ride on down. How far have you rode today?" + +"Round thirty, forty miles." + +"Forty more won't hurt you none," said Wid. "The roan bronc can stand +it. I'll go on over and tell the women folks not to be afraid." + +"Gee, but this is some quiet place!" said Annie Squires, as the two +women sat alone in nervous silence. "You can cut it with a knife, +can't you?" + +"Did you say Mr. Gardner was coming over here before long?" asked Mary. +"Annie, I'm so afraid!" + +"Hush, Sis! It's like enough only a scare. I wish't that doctor man +had stayed. But tell me, was he saying anything to you about your +eyes?" + +"Yes." + +"What?" + +"He said he was coming up here in a week or two to take me down to the +hospital. He said he thought perhaps he could save my eyes! Oh, +Annie, Annie!" + +"Hush, Sis! I told you to forget it. You mustn't hope--remember, you +_mustn't_ hope, Mary, whatever you do." + +"No, I mustn't hope. I told him I wouldn't go." + +"Some folks is grand little jokers. Women can't help stringing a man +along, can they? Of course you'll go." + +She cast her arms about Mary Gage, and held her tight. "You poor kid!" +said she. "You get your eyes first, and let's figure out the rest +after that. You make me tired. Cut out all that duty and sacrifice +stuff. Live and get yours. That's the idea!" + +"Now, you sit here." She rose and placed a comforting hand on Mary's +shoulder. "Just keep quiet here, and I'll go out and see if I can call +Henry Gardner. He seems to me like a man that wouldn't scare easy. +I'll go as far as the fence and yoo-hoo at him. I'll be right back." + +But Annie Squires did not come back for almost an hour. Wid Gardner, +coming across lots by the creek path, found Mary Gage alone, and sat +with her there in an uneasiness he could not himself conceal, wondering +over the girl's absence. Mary was well-nigh beside herself when at +length they heard Annie coming rapidly, saw her at the door. + +"Get back in!" she said. "Sit down, both of you! Wait, now--Listen! +Who do you think I found right out here, almost in our very yard, Mary?" + +Panting, she seated herself, and after a time began more coherently. +"I'll tell you. I just walked out to the gate, and says I to myself, +I'll yoo-hoo so that Mr. Gardner can hear over there and come on down. +So I yoo-hooed. Did you hear me?" + +Wid shook his head. "I didn't hear nothing." + +"Well, I heard some one holler back, soft-like, 'Yoo-hoo!' It didn't +sound just right, so I walked on a little more. 'Yoo-hoo!' says I. +Then I seen a man come out of the bushes. I seen it wasn't you, all +right. He come on right fast, and Mary--I couldn't of believed it, but +it's the truth. It was Charlie--Charlie Dorenwald! I couldn't make no +mistake about them legs. + +"When I seen who it was I turned around to run. I was scared he'd +shoot me. He hollered at me to stop, and I stopped. He come after me +and caught me by the arm, and he laughs. I was scared silly--silly, I +tell you. He laughs some more, and then he sobers down to solid talk. + +"'Why, Charlie,' says I, 'it can't be you. I'm so glad.' I allowed +the best thing was to jolly him along. I knew he'd make trouble. I +wanted a chance to think. + +"We stood out there so close I could see the cabin all the time--and we +talked. That fellow couldn't help bragging about himself. He was half +loaded. Says I to him, 'What made you come out here, Charlie? To find +me?' + +"'Yes,' says he. 'I knew you was here.'" + +"'How did you know it?' I asked him. + +"'That's a good question,' says he. 'Haven't I got plenty people +working for me that could tell me where you was, or anything else I +wanted to know? The free brothers work together.'" + +Wid Gardner's eyes were full on her. He did not speak. + +"So we turned and moved further up the lane then," went on Annie. "I +kept on asking him how he come here. I told him I'd been too proud to +send for him. But now he'd come, how could I help loving him all over +again!" + +"You didn't mean that," said Wid quietly. + +"How much do you think I'd mean it? That Dutch snake! Listen-- He +told me more than the papers ever told. He told me he'd been a sort of +chief there in Cleveland right along, along in the war, and after peace +was signed. He pulled off some good things, so he said, so they sent +him out here. He was after me. Folks, that man took himself apart for +me. He made me promise to go along with him, all dolled up, and in our +own car!" + +"You ain't going," said Wid, quietly. + +"One guess! But there'll be trouble. I've only told you a little part +of it that that fellow spilled to me. Dorenwald's nutty over these +things. He tells what the German Socialists will do when they get to +America. He says this is the world revolution,--whatever he means. +Oh, my God!" + +Annie began to weep in a sudden hysteria. + +"Which way did that man go from here?" she heard Wid Gardner's voice at +length. + +"I don't know. He said he had a man with him, a 'brainy-cat,' he +called him, to lecture in halls. He made me promise to be out there at +the gate at sun-up to-morrow morning to go away with him. I'd have +promised him anything. I'm awful scared. Why don't the men come back?" + +Annie Squires was sobbing now. "And this was our country. We let them +people in. I know it's true, what he said. And I told him that at +sun-up----" + +"Don't bother about that," said Wid Gardner quietly. "Now you two set +right here in the house," he added, as he rose and picked up the rifle +he saw hanging on its nails. "I'm going out and lay in the willers +along the lane a little while, near the gate. I can hear you if you +holler. I think it's best for me to go out there and keep a watch till +the fellers come back. Don't be a-scared, because I'll be right there, +not far from the gate." + +He stepped out, rifle in hand. The two women sat alone, shivering in +nervous terror, starting at every little sound. + +They sat they knew not how long, before the clear air of the moonlight +night was rent by sharp sounds. A single piercing shot echoed close at +hand; scattering shots sounded farther up the lane; then many shots; +and then came the sound of a car passing rapidly on the distant highway. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +A CHANGE OF BASE + +The roan horse which Sim Gage rode was in no downcast frame of mind, +but he himself, engrossed with his errand, did not at first notice that +it was the same half wild animal with which he had had combat at an +earlier time. He fought it for half an hour or more down a half dozen +miles of the road, but at length the brute made matters worse by +picking up a stone, and going dead lame, so that any great speed was +out of the question. + +Night was falling now across the winding trail which passed along the +valley lands and over the shoulders of the mountains. It was wild +country even yet, but beautiful as it lay in the light of the fading +day. Sim Gage had no time to note the play of light or shadow on the +hills. He rode. It was past midnight when he swung off his now meek +and wet-sided horse, cast down the bridle rein, and went in search of +Doctor Barnes. + +The latter met his caller with the point of an electric torch at the +door. + +"Oh, it's you, Gage?" said he. "Come in." + +Sim Gage entered and seated himself, his hurt leg stiffly before him on +the floor. Briefly as he could, he told the reason of his errand and +the reason for his delay. + +"Leave your horse here," said Doctor Barnes, already preparing for his +journey. "We'll take my car." + +A half hour later the two were again en route. The head light of the +car, swinging from side to side around the steep and unprotected curves +of the mountain slopes, showed the rude passageway, in places risky +enough at that hour and that speed. At that latitude the summer nights +are short, and their journey was unfinished when the gray dawn began to +turn to pink upon the mountain tops. In the clearer light Doctor +Barnes saw something which caused him to pull up. + +"There's the wire break," he exclaimed. "Look here." + +They both left the car and approached the nearest pole. It bore the +fresh marks of a linesman's climbing irons. "Professional work. And +that's a cut with nippers--not a break. Keep away from the free end, +Gage's, it's probably a live wire. You're right. That gang is back in +here again. But tell me, what's that?--Do you smell anything?" + +Sim Gage nodded. "Smoke," said he. + +As the light grew stronger so that the far slopes of the mountain were +visible they saw the proof. Smoke, a heavy, rolling blanket of smoke, +lay high over the farther summits. + +"Damn their souls!" said Doctor Barnes fervently and tersely. "They've +set the forest afire again." + +A half hour later they swung into the ranch yard. The call of "Halt!" +came, backed by a tousled head nestled against the stock of a +Springfield which protruded from a window. + +"Advance, friend!" exclaimed the corporal when he got his countersign, +and a moment later met his Major in the dooryard. They were joined by +Wid Gardner, who rose from the place where he had sat, rifle across his +knees, most of the night crouched against the end of the cabin. + +"We've got him in here," said the Sergeant, leading the way to the +barracks door. + +"Got what?" + +"The one we shot. He's deader'n hell, but I thought you might like to +look through his pockets." + +Wid Gardner unemotionally accompanied them into the room of the +barracks where, on a couple of boards, between two carpenter's +trestles, lay a long figure covered with a blanket. + +"Scout Gardner got him last night about nine o'clock, sir," said the +Sergeant; "out in the lane behind the gate. Called to him to halt, and +he didn't stop." + +"He didn't have no chanct to halt," said Wid Gardner calmly. "I +hollered that to him after I had dropped him. He wasn't the one I was +after, neither." + +"The rest of them got away," went on the Sergeant. "We heard the shot +when we was just coming down the road. We come on to the head of the +lane and heard brush breaking. They was trying to get to their car, +down a little further. They whirled and came back through us in the +car, and we shot into them, but I don't know if we got any of 'em, the +horses was pitching so. They went back up the trail, or maybe up on +the Reserve road--I dunno. We come on down here to get orders." + +Doctor Barnes slipped back the blanket. There was revealed the thin, +aquiline face of a man dressed in rather dandified clothing. There +were rings on both hands, a rather showy but valuable stickpin in the +scarf. The hands were not those of a laboring man. At the bridge of +the nose a faint depression showed that he wore eyeglasses. His +complexion was blond, and his eyes, open now only to a slit, might also +have been light in color. There was on his features, indefinably +foreign, the stamp not to say of birth so much as of education. The +man apparently once was used to easy if not gentle ways of life. + +"Tell me how it happened," said Doctor Barnes to Gardner, who stood by. + +"She can tell you more'n I can," said Wid--"Miss Squires. This ain't +the feller. The real one that I want she used to work with--he was +foreman back East in the shops where she worked. His name was +Dorenwald. She promised to meet him out there at sun-up this morning. +I went out last night to see what I could see. I found this feller. +He was coming down the trail. I waited till he got clost enough--about +forty yard. Onct was enough." + +"How many cars did you see?" Doctor Barnes demanded of the sergeant. + +"One." + +"Gage says he saw two." + +"The other may be back in the hills yet." + +"Well, here's work! Tell me, Gardner, is there any way those people +can get out on the other side of the Reserve, down the West Fork? You +know the backwater above the little dam, two miles below the big dam? +Most of the timber we intended to float out that way, to the mill at +the little dam. They may have gone on across in there. + +"Now, Corporal, leave McQueston and two men here. I want the rest of +you with me--we'll go up in the hills with my car. McQueston, take one +man and go and fix the break in the line three miles down the road. +We'll either come back in my car or send it back to you somehow. The +fire may block us. Get your men ready. March!" + +It was anxious enough waiting at the ranch, but the wait might have +been longer. It was not yet eleven o'clock when the two women heard +the hum of the heavily loaded car and saw the men climb out again. It +was Doctor Barnes who came to the cabin. + +"It's no use," said he. "The fire has cut off the Tepee Creek trail. +The best fir is gone, and there's no hope of stopping the fire now. If +they took their car up, they must have left it in there--some of them +went back up the trail. They may be over on the West Fork; and if +they've got there, they've got a shorter route down to the dams than +around by the Valley road." + +He turned now to Mary Gage more specifically. "We've got a company of +troops down there to guard the big dam. It's safer there than it is +here. What do you think of going back now, to stop until this row is +over? We can take better care of you there than we can here." + +She sat for a moment, her face turned away. + +"Will you come?" he repeated. + +"One guess!" said Annie Squires for her. "In a minute!" And by that +time she was throwing things into the valises. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +MARTIAL LAW + +The entire flow of the greater of the Two Forks streams lay harnessed +at last, after years of labor and an expenditure of millions. For +twenty miles there lay a lake where once a clear, gravel-bottomed +stream had flowed above the gorge of the mountain canyon. The gray +face of a man-made wall rose sheer a hundred feet above the original +bed of the stream, leaving it in part revealed; and this barrier +checked and stayed the once resistless flood against which an entire +mountain range had proved inefficient. Presently for hundreds of miles +each way the transmission lines would carry out power to those seeking +light, to those employing labor; and the used water would irrigate +lands far below. + +Allied with this unit of the great dam was a lesser dam operating a +mill plant on the other Fork. Down this stream ship timbers once had +come. The camp of the reclamation engineers and construction men lay +upon a bench or plateau which once formed the bank of the stream upon +that side, now about half way up to the top of the great dam. The road +running up and down the valley ascended from this plateau to a +sufficient elevation to surmount the permanent water level above the +upper dam. On the opposite side rose a sheer and bare rock running +two-thirds up to the top of the mountain peak which here had shouldered +its way down as though in curiosity to look at the bottom of the gorge +itself. The great dam was anchored to the rock face on that side, and +it was there that the chutes and wells for the turbines were located, +as well as the spill gates which now were in temporary service. A wide +roadway of cement, with vast buttresses on each side, ran along the top +of the dam and looked down upon the abrupt surface of its lower face. +Here, and there, at either side of the dam, and at the original stream +level, stood low buildings of stone, to house the vast dynamos or care +for other phases of the tremendous industrial installation of the +National Government. + +Here and there were stationed the armed guards, in the uniform of the +Army. They did sentry-go along the dam-top, and patrolled or watched +the lower levels of the works below the dam. They patrolled also the +street and the road above and below the camp. + +Well paid human labor had erected this great dam, mixed with the +returned soldiers and a small per cent of labor sometimes sullen, with +no affection for its work. In time among such as these came agents of +a new and vast discontent, some who spoke of a "rule of reason," +meaning thereby the crazed European rule of ignorant selfishness, +others who spoke of "violence" as the only remedy for labor against +capital. With what promises they deluded labor, with what hopes of any +change, with what possibilities of later benefits, with what chimeras +of an easier, unearned day, it matters not. They found listeners. + +Against these covert forces working for the destruction of our +civilization, our Government developed an unsuspected efficiency, +sometimes through its department of justice, sometimes through a vast +and silent civilian body of detectives working all over the country and +again through its franker agencies of the military arm. Thus that able +engineer who had built the great power dam here at the Two Forks--a man +who had built a half score of railroads and laid piers for bridges +without number, and planned city monuments, with the boldest and most +fertile of imaginations, Friedrich Waldhorn his name, was a graduate of +our best institutions and those of Germany--long since had been watched +as closely as many another of less importance in charge of work +remotely or intimately concerned with the country's public resources. + +Waldhorn--before the war an outspoken Socialist and free-thinker--may +have known that he was watched--must have known it when a young medical +officer given military duties quite outside his own profession, was put +over him in authority at the scene of his engineering triumph, and at +precisely the time of its climax. But the situation for Waldhorn was +this, that if he resigned and left the place he would only come the +more closely under immediate espionage. Whatever his motives, he +remained, sullen and uncommunicative. + +Meanwhile the little camp sprawled in the sun, scattered along the +plateau on the side of the mountain gorge. Crude, unpainted, built of +logs or raw boards, it lay in the shadow for the greater part of the +day, deep down in the narrow cleft of the mountains, far out in the +wilderness. The great forest deepened and thickened, back of it, forty +miles into the high country. + +Those who lived here in the canyon could not as yet understand the +nature of the thin blue veil which today obscured their scanty +sunlight, did not know that each minute of day was destroying trees +which had cost a thousand years to grow, which never in the knowledge +of man might be replaced. But when the party of Major Barnes came down +from Sim Gage's ranch, questions were answered. The forest had been +fired again. The soldiers swore the silent soldier oath of revenge. + +Doctor Barnes did not pause even to help the women out of the car. He +hurried to the long, screened gallery in front of the residence and +office of Waldhorn, chief engineer. + +Waldhorn met him at the door, well-fed, suave, polite, a burly man, +well-clad and bearing the marks of alertness and success. Always of +few words, he scarcely more than spoke at present, his mildly elevated +eyebrows making inquiry of the dusty man before him. + +"Yes, Doctor, or--ah, Major?" he said, smilingly, insulting. + +"Call it Major!" snapped Barnes. "I've come to tell you that I want +your house." + +"Yes? When?" + +"In two minutes." + +"Why?" + +"I want it for Government uses. A patient of mine has come down here +to stay a while--wife of one of my scouts." + +"Well, now, my dear Major, I would not like to interfere with your +private graft in the practice of medicine in any way. But I'm engineer +in charge of this work, I fancy." + +"Fancy something else while the fancying's good. Go on over to that +little log house, Waldhorn. You'll live there until we send you out." + +"Send me out! What do you mean, sir?" + +"This camp is under martial law. You're under arrest, if you like to +call it that way." + +"You're going to arrest me? Why--what do you mean?" + +"Call it what you like. But move, now, and don't waste my time." + +"I beg pardon," drawled Waldhorn, smiling with a well-concealed sneer, +"but isn't this a trifle sudden? I'm willing to give up my place to +the ladies, of course, my dear Major, but I must ask some sort of +explanation as to this other procedure. Martial law? What is your +authority?" + +"Call it Jehovah and the Continental Congress, my dear chap," said +Doctor Barnes, likewise drawling. "I'll take that up after a while. +I'm in charge here. If you go over there quietly to that other house +it may look like an act of courtesy. If you don't--it might be called +an act of God. Come, hurry--I can't talk here any longer." + +Waldhorn saw two troopers coming at a fast walk from across the street, +saw that the eyes of Doctor Barnes watched his hand carefully. +Therefore, as though easily and naturally, he leaned with both his own +hands above his head resting against the jamb of the door. + +"I suppose I'll have to charge this up to the fact that I'm of German +descent," said he. "I can't help that. I've lived here thirty years. +I'm as good a citizen as you, but I'll have to submit. Be sure I'm +going to take this up in the courts." + +"Old stuff. Take it up where you damn please," said Barnes sharply. +"I'm as good an American as you are, too, even if my parents were _not_ +born in Germany. Step outside." + +He motioned to his men. "McQueston," he said, "watch him until I come +out." + +"You're not going into my private rooms?--I forbid that. I'll never +forget that, you upstart!" + +Doctor Barnes smiled. "I'll try to fix it so you won't." He stepped +on in across the gallery. + +Waldhorn looked from the face of one to that of the other private +soldier who stood before him, and saw the cold mask not only of +discipline, but of more. Under their charge he marched over to the log +building indicated, and slammed the door behind him. The men stood one +on each side, out of range of the window. + +Doctor Barnes was angry and frowning when he went back to the car to +drive it down to the door of the new quarters which had just been +vacated. + +"Gee, Doc, you look sore," said Annie Squires casually. "Say, where do +you get the stuff you're pulling in here, anyway?" + +"Never mind! You go in there and clean up the rooms and make a place +for Mrs. Gage. You'll find everything for cooking and housekeeping. +Don't touch anything else. I'm taking his Chink over to my place." + +"Are you going there with the women?" he inquired, turning to Sim Gage. + +Sim colored. "No. Wid and me'll be over with the soldiers. We're +going to stick together." + +"Better bunk in my shack, then. Go over to the barracks, both of you, +and get rifles and an extra pistol each. I want both of you on patrol." + +"You see," he explained, as he drew the two apart, "we don't know what +those anarchist ruffians up there may do. They may drop down here by +either fork any time, day or night." + +He spoke briefly also to Mary Gage before he handed her in at the door +of her new domicile: + +"Sim and Wid both think that only one car went back up the road above +the ranch. That means that the other car is up in the mountains +between the Two Forks, probably in the Reserve. For a time there +probably won't anything happen. You mustn't be scared--we're just +taking the proper precautions now. This is very valuable Government +property." + +"Are we at the dam here?" asked Mary Gage. "I can hear the water--it's +very heavy, isn't it?" + +"It never stops. We don't hear it, because we're used to it--I don't +think it will bother you very long. We'll try to make you comfortable." + +He turned, offering her his arm, on which he placed her hand. He was a +trifle surprised to see that Sim Gage without a word had passed to the +other side of his wife, also giving her an arm. He walked along slowly +and gravely, limping, silent as he had been all the afternoon, but made +no sign of his own discomfort, indeed did not speak at all. + +"Both of you are fit for the hospital. Well, all right, it may be a +good place for you after all." As he spoke, frowning, Doctor Barnes +stood back and allowed Annie to lead Mary Gage into the vacated rooms +of the chief engineer. + +"Doc, what did you mean when you said that there just now?" asked Sim +Gage, when they turned back from the door. "About her and the +hospital?" + +"I've brought her down here, Sim," said Doctor Barnes directly, +"principally because, with her consent and yours, I want to see if I +can't do something for her eyes." + +"Her eyes! Why--what do you mean?" + +"There's one chance in a hundred that she'll see again." + +Doctor Allen Barnes, his face unshaven, dirty, haggard, a man looking +neither major nor physician now, turned squarely to the man whom he +addressed. "I don't know for sure," said he, "but then, it may be +true." + +"Her eyes?-- Her eyes!" + +Doctor Barnes felt on his arm as savage a grip as he ever had known. +Sim Gage's face changed as he turned away. + +"Good God A'mighty! If she could _see_!" His own face seemed suddenly +pale beneath its grime. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +BEFORE DAWN + +A day passed, two, and three. Nothing came to break the monotony at +the big dam. Donkey engines screamed intermittently. Workmen still +passed here or there with their barrows. Teams strained at heavy loads +of gravel and cement. The general labor in the way of finishing +touches on the undertaking still went on under the care of the foremen, +monotonously regular. No one knew that Waldhorn, chief engineer, was a +prisoner under guard. + +Mary Gage was more ignorant than any prisoner of what went on about +her. A hard lot, that of waiting at any time, but the waiting of the +newly blind--there is no human misery to equal it. It seemed at times +to her she must go mad. + +She recognized the footfall of Doctor Barnes when one morning she heard +it on the gallery floor inside the slamming screen door. "Come in," +she said, meeting him. "What is it?" + +He entered without any speech, cast himself into a chair. She knew he +was looking at her steadfastly. + +"Well," said she, feeling herself color slightly. Still he did not +answer. She shifted uneasily. + +"What are you doing?" she demanded, just a trace of the personal in her +tone. + +"Eavesdropping again. Staring. This is the day when I say good-by to +you. I've come to say my good-by now." + +"Why should it be like that?" she asked after a time. + +"Will you be happy?" + +She did not answer, and he leaned forward as he spoke. + +"You left a happy world behind you. Do you want to see this world now, +this sordid, bloody, torn and worn old world, so full of everything but +joy and justice? Do you want to see it any more? Why?" + +"It is my right to see the world," said Mary Gage simply. "I want to +see life. There's not much risk left for me. But you talk as though +things were final." + +"I'm going away. Let's not talk at all." + +For a long time she sat silent. + +"Don't you think that in time we forget things?" + +"I suppose in ten years I will forget things--in part." + +"Nonsense! In five years--two--you'll be married." + +"So you think that of me?" said he after a time. "Fine!" + +"But you have always told me that life is life, you know." + +"Yes, sometimes I have tried my hand at scientific reasoning. But when +I say ten years for forgetting anything, that's pathological diagnosis, +and not personal. I try to reason that time will cure any inorganic +disease just as time cures the sting of death. Otherwise the world +could not carry its grief and do its work. The world is sick, near to +death. It must have time. So must I. I can't stay here and work any +more. If you can see--if you get well and normal again--I'll be here." + +She looked at him steadily. He wanted to take her face between his +hands. + +"Oh, I'll not leave here until everything is right with your case. +There's good excuse for me to go out. It will be for you the same as +though we had never met at all." + +"That's fine of you! So you believe that of me?" + +"Why not? I must. You're married. That's outside my province now. +I've just come to tell you now that I don't think we ought to wait any +longer about your eyes. We'll try this afternoon, in our little +hospital here. I wish my old preceptor were here; but Annie will help +me all she can, and I'll do my very best." + +"I'm quite ready." + +"I don't know whether or not to be glad that you have no curiosity +about your own case," he said presently. + +"That only shows you how helpless I am. I have no choice. I have lost +my own identity." + +"Didn't your doctor back in Cleveland tell you anything about what was +wrong with your eyes?" + +"He said at first it was retinal; then he said it was iritis. He +didn't like to answer any questions." + +"The old way--adding to all the old mummeries of the most mumming of +all professions--medicine! That dates back to bats' wings and toads' +livers as cure for the spleen. But at least and at last he said it was +iritis?" + +"Yes. He told me that I might gradually lose one eye--which was true. +He thought the trouble might advance to the other eye. It came out +that way. He must have known." + +"Perhaps he knew part," said Doctor Barnes. "You had some pain?" + +"Unbearable pain part of the time--over the eyes, in the front of the +head." + +"Didn't your doctor tell you what iritis meant?" + +"No. I suppose inflammation of the eyes--the iris." + +"Precisely. Now, just because you're a woman of intelligence I'm going +to try to give you a little explanation of your trouble, so you will +know what you are facing." + +"I wish you would." + +"Very well. Now, you must think of the eye as a lens, but one made up +of cells, of tissues. It can know inflammation. As a result of many +inflammations there is what we call an exudation--a liquid passes from +the tissues. This may be thin or serum-like, or it may be heavier, +something like granulations. The tissues are weak--they exude +something in their distress, in their attempt to correct this condition +when they have been inflamed. + +"The pupil of your eye is the aperture, the stop of the lens. That is +the hole through which the light passes. Around it lie the tissues of +the iris. In the back of the eye is the retina, which acts as a film +for the eye's picture. + +"Now, it was the part of the eye around that opening which got inflamed +and began to exude. Such inflammation may come from eye-strain, +sometimes from glare like furnace heat, or the reflection of the sun on +the snow. Snow-blindness is sometimes painful. Why? Iritis. + +"In any case, a chronic irritation came into your case some time. +Little by little there came a heavy exudation around the edges of the +inflamed iris. It was so heavy that we call it a 'plastic' exudation. +Now, that was what was the technical trouble of your eye--plastic +exudation. + +"This exudation, or growth, as we might call it, went on from the edges +of the iris until it met in the middle of the pupil. Then there was +spread across the aperture of your lens an opaque granulated curtain +through which light could not pass. Therefore you could not see. The +plastic exudation had done its evil work as the result of the +iritis--that is to say, of the sufferings of the iris." + +"I begin to understand," said Mary Gage. "That covers what seemed to +happen." + +"It covers it precisely, for that is precisely what did happen. It was +not cataract. I knew, or thought I knew, that it was not from retinal +scars due to inflammation in the back of the eye. It was just a +filling up of the opening of the eye. + +"So I know you lost sight in that last eye little by little, as you did +in the other. You kept on knitting all the time. On your way out you +struck the glare from the white sands of the plains in the dry country. +At once the inflammation finished its exudation--and you were blind." + +She sat motionless. + +"Sometimes we take off the film of a cataract from the eye; sometimes +even we can take out the crystalline lens and substitute a heavy lens +in glasses to be worn by the patient." + +"But in my case you intend to cut out that exudation from the pupil?" + +"No. I wish we could. What we do is to cut a little key-hole +aperture, not through the pupil, but at one side the pupil. In other +words, I've got to make an artificial pupil--it will be just a little +at one side of the middle of the eye. You will hardly notice it." + +"But that will mean I cannot see!" + +"On the contrary, it will mean that you can see. Remember, your eye is +a lens. Suppose you put a piece of black paper over a part of your +lens--paste it there. You will find that you can still make pictures +with that lens, and that they will not be distorted. Not quite so much +illumination will get into the lens, but the picture will be the same. +Therefore you will see, and see finely. + +"Now, you must not be uneasy, and you must not think of this merely as +an interesting experiment just because you have not heard of it before. +My old preceptor, Fuller of Johns Hopkins, did this operation often, +and almost always with success. He could do it better than I, but I am +the best that offers, and it must be done now. + +"There is a very general human shrinking from the thought of any +operation on the eye--it is so delicate, so sensitive in every way, but +as a matter of fact, science can do many things by way of operation +upon the eye. If I did not think I could give you back your sight, you +may be sure I should never undertake this work to-day. The operation +is known technically as iridectomy. That would mean nothing to you if +I had not tried to explain it. + +"Of course there will be wounds in the tissues of the iris which must +be healed. There must not be any more inflammation. That means that +for some time after the operation your eyes must be bandaged, and you +will remain in absolute darkness. You will have to keep on the +bandages for a week or more--you understand that. If after hearing +this explanation you do not wish to go forward, this is the time to let +me know." + +"I am quite ready," said Mary Gage. "As though I could ever thank you +enough!" + +"Let me remain in your memory, as a picturesque and noble figure, my +dear lady! Think of me as a Sir Galahad, which I am not. Picture me +of lofty carriage and beautiful countenance, which is not true. +Imagine me as a pleasing and masterful personality in every way--which +I am not. You will not meet me face to face." + +"I've been praying for my sight when it didn't seem to be any use to +have faith in God any more. If I should get back my eyes I would +always have faith in prayer. But--the other day you told me I'd not be +married, then! May not a blind woman be a married woman also?" + +"No! Not if she never saw her husband. How could she ever have +chosen, have selected? How could either her body or her soul ever have +seen?" + +She rose before him suddenly. "You say that!" She choked. "You say +that, who helped put me where I am! And now you say you are going +away--and you say that's all wrong, my being married! What do you +mean?" + +"If I gave you back your eyes and your life, isn't that something?" + +"Why, no! A fight which isn't fought is worse than defeat. But you're +talking as though you really meant to go away and leave me--always!" + +"Yes. I've come to say good-by--and then to operate. Two this +afternoon. Annie will come for you. I have told her what to do." + +"And my husband?" + +"Said he couldn't stand it to see you hurt. Said he would stand +outside the door, but that he couldn't come in. Said he would be right +there all the time. There's a great man, Mrs. Gage." + +"And you are a very wise man, are you not!" said she suddenly, smiling +at him slowly, her dark eyes full upon him. + +"What do you mean?" + +"Oh, so much you know about life and duty and the rights of everybody +else! If I had my eyes, I'd not be married! Did you ever stop to +think what you have been taking into your own hands here?" + +"Go on," said he. "I've got it coming." + +"Well, one thing you've forgotten. I've been a problem and a trouble +and a nuisance--yes. But I'm a woman! You treat me as though I were a +pawn, a doll. I'm tired of it. I ought to tell you something, for +fear you'll really go away, and give me no chance." + +"I ought to have as much courage as you're showing now." He smiled, +wryly. + +"Then, if you have courage, you ought to stay here and see things +through. You tell me this is right and this is not right--how do you +know? I owe you very much--but ought you to decide everything for me? +Let me also be the judge. If there's any problem in these matters, +anything unsaid, let's face it _all_. Cut into my eyes, but don't cut +into my soul any more. If you gave me back my sight, and did not give +me back every unsettled problem, with all the facts before me to settle +it at last, you would leave me with unhappiness hanging over me as long +as ever I lived. Not even my eyes would pay me for it." + +She rose, stumbling, reaching out a hand to save herself; and he dared +not touch her hand even to aid her now. + +"Oh, fine of you all," she said bitterly. "Did the Emperor of Prussia +ever do more? You, whom I have never seen in all my life! Any +situation that is hard here for you--take it. Haven't I done as much? +If there's any other fight on ahead unsettled for you, can't you fight +it out? Can't you give me the privilege--since you've been talking of +a woman's rights and privileges--to fight out my own battles too--to +fight out all of life's fights, even to take all of its losses? I'd +rather have it that way. That means I want to see you, who you are, +what you are, whether you are good, whether you are just, whether you +are light, whether----" + +"You have a keen mind," said he slowly. "You're telling me to stay +here. If we could meet face to face as though you never had been +blind--why, then--I might say something or do something which would +make you feel that I believed you never had been married. I have told +you that already." + +"Yes! Then surely you will not go away. Because you have brought up a +problem between you and me---- Aren't we big enough to fight that out +between us? Ought we not? Give me my eyes! Give me my rights! + +"Why, listen," she went on more gently, less argumentatively, "just the +other day, when we were talking over this question about my eyes, I +called out to you when you went away, and you did not hear me. I said +No; I would not take my eyes from you and pay the price. I said it +would be sweeter to be blind and remain deceived. But that's gone by. +I've been thinking since then. Now I want it all--all! I want all the +fight of it, all the risk of it. Then, after I've taken my chance and +made my fight, I want all the joy of it or all the sorrow of it at the +end! I want life! Don't you? I've always had the feeling that you +were a strong man. I don't want anything I haven't earned. I'll never +give what hasn't been earned. I won't ever pray for what isn't mine." + +"Now I'm ready," she repeated simply. "I can't talk any more, and you +mustn't. Good-by." + +She felt her hand caught tight in both of his, but he could not speak +to his hand clasp. "At two!" was all he managed to say. + +And so, in this far-off spot in the wilderness, the science of to-day, +not long after two by the clock, had done what it might to remedy +nature's unkindness, and to make Mary Gage as other women. When the +sun had dropped back of its shielding mountain wall, Mary Gage lay +still asleep, her eyes bandaged, in her darkened room. Whether at +length she would awaken to darkness or to light, none could tell. +Allen Barnes only knew that, tried as never he had been in all his life +before, he had done his surgeon's work unfalteringly. + +"Doc," said Sim Gage tremblingly, when they met upon the gravel street +in the straggling little camp, each white-faced from fatigue, "tell me +how long before we'll know." + +"Three or four days at least. We'll have to wait." + +"You're sure she'll see?" + +"I hope so. I think so." + +"What'll she see first?" + +"Light." + +"Who'll she see first, Doc--Annie, you reckon?" + +"If she asks for you, let her see you first," said Doctor Barnes. +"That's your right." + +"No," said Sim Gage, "no, I don't think so. I think she'd ought to see +you first, because you're the doctor. A doctor, now, he ain't like +folks, you know. He's just the doctor." + +"Yes, he's just the doctor, Gage, that's all." + +He left Sim Gage standing in the road, looking steadfastly at the door. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +THE BLIND SEE + +To those waiting for the threatened attack upon the power dam, the mere +torment of continued inaction became intolerable, but as to material +danger, nothing definite came. The keen-eyed young soldiers on their +beat night after night, day after day, caught no sight or sound of any +lurking enemy, and began to feel resentment at the arduous hours asked +of them. Once in a while one trooper would say to another that he saw +no sense in people getting scared at nothing out in No Man's Land. The +laborers of the camp were more or less incurious. They did their +allotted hours of labor each day, passed at night to the bunk house, +and fell into a snake-like torpor. Life seemed quiet and innocuous. +Liquor was prohibited. The regime was military. Soon after the bugle +had sounded Retreat each evening the raw little settlement became +silent, save for the unending requiem to hope which the great waters +chafing through the turbines continually moaned. It was apparently a +place of peace. + +Doctor Barnes felt reasonably sure that the attack, if any, would come +through the valley at the lower dam, for that would be the only +practical entry point of the marauders marooned somewhere back in the +hills. The trail between these two dams lay almost wholly above the +rocky river bed. It would have been difficult if not impossible to +patrol the bed of the river itself, for close to the water's edge there +were places where no foothold could have been obtained even now, low as +the water was. Therefore it seemed most needful to watch the main +wagon trail along the canyon shelf. + +It was sun-fall of the third day after Doctor Barnes had left Mary Gage +for her long wait in the dark. The men had finished their work about +the great dam, and were on their way to their quarters. Sim Gage, +scout, beginning his night's work and having ended his own attempt at +sleep during the daytime, was passing, hatted and belted, rifle in +hand, to the barracks, where he was to speak with the lieutenant in +charge. The two men of the color guard stood at the foot of the great +staff, dressed out of a tall mountain spruce, at whose top fluttered +the flag of this republic. The shrilling of the bugle's beautiful +salute to the flag was ringing far and near along the canyon walls. +The flag began to drop, slowly, into the arms of the waiting man who +had given oath of his life to protect it always, and to keep it still +full high advanced. It must never touch the earth at all, but remain a +creature of the air--that is the tradition of our Army and all the +Army's proud color guards. + +Sim Gage stopped now, as every man in that encampment, soldier or +laborer, had been trained punctiliously to do, at the evening gun. He +stood at attention, like these others; for Sim Gage was a soldier, or +thought he was. His eyes were fixed on this strange thing, this +creature called the Flag. A strange, fierce jealousy arose in his +heart for it, a savage love, as though it were a thing that belonged to +him. His chest heaved now in the feeling that he was identified with +this guard, waiting for the colors to come to rest and shelter after +the day of duty. It stirred him in a way which he did not understand. +A simple, unintelligent man, of no great shrewdness, though free of any +maudlin sentiment, he stood fast in the mid-street and saluted the +flag, not because he was obliged to do so, but because he passionately +craved to do so. + +He turned to meet Annie Squires, who was hurrying away from her own +quarters. She held in her hand a letter which she waved at him as she +approach. + +"Look-it here!" she exclaimed. "Look what I found. Where's the Doc? +I want to see him right away." + +"He's like enough down at the lower dam by now," said Sim. + +"Well, he'd ought to see this." + +"What is it?" asked Sim, looking at it questioningly. "Who's it to?" + +"Who's it to?" said Annie Squires. "Why, it's to Charlie Dorenwald, +that's who it's to!" + +"What? That feller that was up there--one you said you knew before you +come out here?" + +"Yes. But how does this Waldhorn chump in there know anything about +Charlie Dorenwald? That's what I want to know." + +"What chump? Mr. Waldhorn?" + +"I found this in his desk. Well, I wasn't rummaging in his desk, but I +had to slick things up, and saw it. I only run on it by accident." + +"What's in it?" said Sim Gage. + +"Well, now," said Annie, naively, "I only just steamed it a little. It +rolled open easy with a pen-holder." + +"Huh. What you find in it?" + +"Why, nothing but nonsense, that's what I found. Listen here. 'Price +wheat next year two-nineteen sharp signal general satisfaction.' Now, +what does that mean? That's foolishness. That man's a nut! I bet he +gets alone up in here and smokes hop, that's what he does, all by +himself. No one but a dope fiend would pull stuff like that. + +"But still," she added, a finger at chin, "what bothers me is, how does +Charlie know Waldhorn? Unless----" + +"Unless what?" asked Sim Gage, his brows suddenly contracting. + +"Unless they're both in on this deal! What do you suppose the Doc +thinks? What makes him keep this Waldhorn close as he does? Is he a +prisoner?" + +"No, I reckon not. We all just got orders to shoot him if he tries to +get away. I think Doc's holding him until he gets word in from +outside. Things seems to me to move mighty slow." + +"Well, this letter's addressed to Charlie Dorenwald, and anything +that's got Charlie Dorenwald's name on it is crooked, and you can +gamble on that. Can't you find the Doc?" + +As it happened, Doctor Barnes had not yet left his quarters for his +nightly trip to the lower canyon. He had been trying to sleep. He +rose now, full-clad and all awake, when he caught sight of Sim Gage's +face at his door. + +"What's up?" he said. + +"This here," said Sim, "is a letter that Annie brung me out of the +house where them two is living. She says she found it in there. We +can't make nothing out of it. Seems like this Waldhorn here had +something to say to Charlie Dorenwald. Annie says it's the same +Dorenwald that was up above, at the ranch, the one Wid didn't get. +Well, how come him and Waldhorn to know each other, that's what I want +to know. So does Annie." + +"What I want to know, too!" said Doctor Barnes, reaching out his hand. + +"Annie says it's plumb nutty, the stuff in it," commented Sim. The +other looked at him quizzically. + +"She read it then?" + +He read it now, himself, and stood stiff and straight at reading. +"This is a cypher--code stuff! They know what it means, and we don't. +'Two-nineteen sharp'--I wonder what that means! This is the nineteenth +day of the month, isn't it? 'Signal general satisfaction'--Lord! I'd +give anything for a good night's sleep. Gage, go on over and tell all +the men to keep full dressed, and with equipment handy all night long. +I don't have any clear guess what this is all about, but we can't take +any chances." + +"Wid, he thinks them fellers ain't coming down here a-tall," said Sim +confidentially. + +"He doesn't know anything more about it than I do or you do," said +Doctor Barnes somewhat testily. "You go and tell Annie to shut that +desk up, and see that she keeps it shut. I'm coming over to seal it +up." + +Annie Squires meantime had hastened back to discuss these matters with +her patient in the hospital room. It only added more to the nervous +strain that already tormented Mary Gage. + +"Annie, I'm scared!" she whispered. "Oh! if I could only take care of +myself. Tell me, Annie--I'll get well, won't I?" + +"Sure thing, Kid--it's a cinch." + +"Where is he?" Mary demanded after some hesitation. + +"Who? Him?" Annie employed her usual fashion of indicating the +identity of Sim Gage. + +"No, I mean Doctor Barnes." + +"He'll be going down below pretty soon. He don't know anything more +than I do about what that fool stuff in the letter means." + +"But say," she added after a time, "I been kind of looking around in +desks and places, you know--I have to red things up--and I run across +another thing, some more writing." + +"You mustn't do these things, Annie! It may be private." + +"Oh, no, it ain't. It's only some writing copied from a magazine, like +enough. It was on one of the desks in this house--just in there." + +"Copied?--What is it?" + +"I don't know. Poetry stuff--sounds mushy. I didn't know men would do +things like copying out poetry from magazines. Never heard of Mr. +Symonds--did you?" + +"How can I tell, Annie?" + +"I'll read it for you if you'll let me. It's dark, in here--I'll just +go outside the door and read it through the crack at you, so's the +light won't hurt you anyways." + +And so, faintly, as from a detached intelligence, there came into Mary +Gage's darkened room, her darkened life, some words well-written, +ill-read, which it seemed to her she might have dreamed: + + "As a perfume doth remain + In the folds where it hath lain, + So the thought of you, remaining + Deeply folded in my brain, + Will not leave me; all things leave me: + You remain. + + "Other thoughts may come and go, + Other moments I may know + That shall waft me, in their going, + As a breath blown to and fro. + Fragrant memories; fragrant memories + Come and go. + + "Only thoughts of you remain + In my heart where they have lain, + Perfumed thoughts of you, remaining, + A hid sweetness, in my brain. + Others leave me; all things leave me: + You remain." + + +"Read them over again!" said Mary Gage, sitting upon her couch. "Read +them again, Annie! I want to learn it all by heart." + +And Annie, patient as ever, read the words over to her. The keen +senses of Mary Gage recorded them. + +"I can say them now!" said she, as much to herself as to her friend. +And she did say them, over and over again. + +"Annie," she cried, as she sat up suddenly. "I can't stand it any +more! I can see! I can see!" + +She was tearing at the bandages about her head when Annie entered and +put down her hands, terrified at this disobedience of orders. + +"Annie, I _know_ I can see! It was light--at the door there! I can +see. I can _see_!" She began to weep, trembling. + +"Hush!" said Annie, frightened. "It ain't possible! It can't be true! +_What_ did you see?" + +"Nothing!" said Mary Gage, half sobbing. "Just the light. Don't tell +him. Put back the bandage. But, oh, Annie, Annie, I can _see_!" + +"You're talking foolish, Sis," said Annie, pinning the bandages all the +tighter about the piled brown hair of Mary Gage's head. + +"But say now," she added after that was done, "if I was a girl and a +fellow felt that way about me--couldn't remember nobody but me that +way--why, me for him! Mushy--but times comes when a girl falls strong +for the mushy, huh? + +"Now you lay down again and cover up your eyes and rest, or you'll +never be seeing things again, sure enough. I ain't going to read no +more of that strong-arm writing at all." + +Mary Gage heard the door close, heard the footsteps of her friend +passing down the little hall. She was alone again. Her heart was +throbbing high. + +What she first had seen was the soul of a man; a man's confession; his +recessional as well. Now she knew that he was indeed going away from +her life forever. Which had been more cruel, blindness or vision? + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +THE ENEMY + +The night wore on slowly. Midnight struck, and the cold of the +mountain night had reached its maximum chill. To the ears of the weary +patrols there came no sound save the continuous complaint of the +waters, a note rising and falling, increasing and decreasing in volume, +after the strange fashion of waters carried by the chance vagaries of +the air. At times the sound of the river rose to great volume, again +it died down to a low murmur, the voice of a beaten giant protesting +against his shackles. Came two o'clock in the morning, and the guards +walked their beats with the weariness of men who have fought off sleep +for hours. Sim Gage, sleepless so long, was very weary, but he kept +about his work. + +At intervals of half an hour he crunched down the gravel-faced slope of +the bank which ran from the bench level to the foot of the dam. Here +he walked along the level of the great eddy, along the rocky shore, +examining the face of the vast concrete wall itself, gazing also as he +always did, with no special purpose, at the face of the wide and long +apron where the waters foamed over, a few inches deep, white as milk, +day and night. + +Any attempt at the use of dynamite by any enemy naturally would be made +on this lower side of the dam. There were different places which might +naturally be used by a criminal who had opportunity. One of these, +concealed from the chance glance of any officer, was back under the +apron, behind the half-completed side columns of the spill gate, where +a great buttress came out to flank the apron. A charge exploded here +would get at the very heart of the dam, for it would open the turbine +wells and the spillway passage which had been provided for the +controlled outlet. + +Ragged heaps of native rock lay along the foot of the dam, flanking the +edge of the great eddy eastward of the apron. Here often the laborers +stood and cast their lines for the leaping trout, which, wearied by +their fruitless fight at the apron, that carried them only up to the +insurmountable obstacle which reached a hundred feet above them, +sometimes were swept back to seek relief in the gentler waters of the +deep eddy, that swung inshore from the lower end of the apron. + +Sim Gage saw all these scenes, so familiar by this time, as they lay +half revealed under the blaze of the great searchlight. It all seemed +safe now, as it always had before. + +But when at length he turned back to ascend to the upper level, he saw +something which caused him to stop for just an instant, and then to +spring into action. + +The power plant proper of the dam was not yet wholly installed, only +the dam and turbine-ways being completed. In the power house itself, a +sturdy building of rock which caught hold of the immemorial mountain +foot beneath it, only a single unit of the dynamos had been installed. +This unit had been hooked on, as the engineers phrased it, in order to +furnish electric light to the camp itself, for the telephone service of +the valley and for the minor machinery which was operated by this or +that machine shop along the side of the mountain. A cable from the +power house ran up to another house known as the lighting plant, which +stood in the angle between the street level and the dam itself. Here +was installed a giant searchlight which could be played at will along +the face of the dam, to make its examination the more easy and exact by +night. The steady stream of this light was a fixed factor, being held +at such a position as would cover the greatest amount of the dam face. + +Now, as Sim Gage topped the grade, gravel crunching under his feet, a +trifle out of breath with his climb, since the incline itself was a +thing of magnificent distances, he saw the searchlight of the power dam +begin a performance altogether new in his own experience. + +The great shaft of light rose up abruptly to a position vertical, a +beam of light reaching up into the sky. An instant, and it began to +swing from side to side. It swung sharply clear against the bald face +of the mountain at the farther end of the dam. It swept down the +canyon itself, or to its first great bend. It rose again and swept +across the dark-fringed summit of the mountains on the hither side of +the stream. Not once, but twice, this was done. + +It was a splendid and magnificent thing itself, this giant eye, +illuminating and revealing, fit factor in a wild and imposing panorama +of the night. But why? No one ever had known the searchlight to be +used in this way. What orders had been given? What did these zig-zag +beams up and down the surface of the sky indicate? Was it a signal, or +was some one playing with the property of the Company, there in the +cupola of the light station? + +Sim Gage reached the side of the plant just as the light came down to +its original duty of watching the face of the dam. At first there was +not any sound. + +"Who's there?" he called out. No answer came. It seemed to him that +he heard some sort of movement in the little rock house. + +"Halt! Who goes there?" he called out in a formula he had learned. + +He got no answer, but he heard a thud as of a body dropping out of the +window of the further side of the house, against the slope of the dam +which lay above it. + +He ran around the corner of the little building, rifle at the ready, +only to see a scrambling figure, bent over, endeavoring to reach the +top of the dam, where the smooth roadway ran from side to side of the +great gorge. That way lay no escape. The sentry was across yonder, +and would soon return. This way, toward the east, a fugitive must go +if he would seek any point of emergence from these surroundings. + +"Halt! Halt there! Halt, or I'll fire!" cried Gage. "Halt!" He +called it out again, once, twice, three times. But the figure, whoever +or whatever it was, ran on. It now had reached the top of the dam, and +could be seen with more or less distinctness, sky-lined against the +starlight and the gray sky behind it. + +Sim Gage, old-time hunter, used all his life to firearms, was used also +to firing at running game. He drew down now deep into the rear sight +of his Springfield, allowing for the faint light, and held at the front +edge of the running figure as nearly as he could tell. He fired once, +twice and three times--rap!--rap!--rap!--the echo came from the +concrete--at the figure as it crouched and stumbled on. Then it +stopped. There came a scrambling and a sliding of the object, which +fell at the top of the dam. It slipped off the dam top and rolled and +slid almost at his feet. He dragged it down into the edge of the beams +of the searchlight itself. + +Up to this time he had not known or suspected who the man might be. At +first he now thought it was a woman. In reality it was a Chinaman, the +cook and body-servant of Waldhorn, engineer at the power operations! +He was dead. + +Sim stood looking down at what he had done, trying in his slow fashion +of mind to puzzle out what this man had been doing here, and why he had +come. He heard the sound of running feet above him, heard challenges, +shouts, every way. Others had heard the shot. "This way, fellers---- +Come along!" he heard Wid Gardner call out, high and clear; for that +night Wid also was of the upper guard. + +But they were not running in his direction. They seemed to be back on +the street. All at once Sim Gage solved his little problem. This +Chinaman had been sent to do this work--sent by the owner of that house +yonder, the engineer, Waldhorn. That prisoner must not escape now. He +knew! It was he who had given the searchlight signal! Waldhorn--and +Dorenwald! He coupled both names now again. + +Sim Gage himself, having a shorter distance to go than his comrades, +left his dead Chinaman, and started after the man higher up. He +reached the Waldhorn quarters slightly before the others. + +He heard the screen door of the log house slam, saw a stout and burly +man step out, satchel in hand. The man walked hurriedly toward a car +which Sim Gage had not noticed, since there was so much unused +machinery about, wheel scrapers, wagons, plows and the like. Now he +saw that it was Waldhorn and Waldhorn's car. He was taking advantage +of this confusion to make his own escape. + +This hurrying figure halted for a half instant in the dim light, for he +heard footsteps on each side of him. He knew the guard was coming. + +Sim Gage's summons rang high and clear. Yonder was the man--he was +going to escape. He must not escape. All these things came to Sim +Gage's mind as he half raised his weapon to his shoulder, challenging +again, "Halt! Who goes there? Halt!" The bolt of his Springfield +clinked home once more. + +The man turned away, toward the sound of the greater number of his +enemies, weapon in hand. The patrol was closing in. But before he +turned he both gave and received death in the last act he might offer +in treachery to this country, which had been generous and kind to him. + +Sim Gage fired with close, sure aim, and cut his man through with the +blow of the Spitzer bullet of the Springfield piece. But even as he +did so Waldhorn himself had fired with the heavy automatic pistol which +he carried. The bullet caught Sim Gage high in the chest, and passed +through, missing the spine by but little. He sprawled forward. + +Waldhorn's body was no better than a sieve, for he received the fire of +the entire squad of riflemen who had approached from the other side, +and so many bullets struck him, again and again, that they actually +held him up from falling for an instant. + +Now the entire street filled. Foreign or half-foreign laboring folk +came out, soldiers and sailor boys came, jabbering in a score of +tongues. None knew the plot of the drama which had been finished now. +All they knew was that the chief engineer had been killed by the guard. +Very well, but who had shot Scout Gage? + +Sim Gage, looking up at the sky, felt the great arm of Flaherty, the +foreman, under his head. + +"Easy now, lad," said the big man. "Easy. Lay down a bit, till I have +a look. Where's the Docther, boys?--Get him quick." + +"What's the matter?" said Sim Gage. "Lemme up. I fell down--Who hit +me?" + +He felt something at his chest, raised a hand, and in turn passed it +before his face in wonderment. + +"Well, look at that!" said he. "Did that feller shoot me? Say, did I +get him?" + +"Sure, boy!" said Flaherty. "You got him. And so did a dozen more of +the fellies. He's deader'n hell this minute, so don't you worry none +over that. Don't worry over nothing," he added gently, folding his +coat to put under Sim's head. He had seen gun shot wounds before in +his life on the rough jobs, and he knew. + +"Get a board, or something, boys," he said. So presently they brought +a plank, and eased Sim Gage gently to it, men at each end lifting him, +others steadying him as he was carried. They took him into the house +which Waldhorn had just now left. + +[Illustration: "Get a board, or something, boys"] + +It was the turn of dawn now. The soft light of day was filtering +through the air from somewhere up above, somewhere beyond the edge of +the canyon. + +"Better tell those women to stay away," said Flaherty to the young +lieutenant. The latter met Annie Squires at the door of her house, +ejaculating, demanding, questioning, weeping, all at once. It was with +difficulty that she was induced to obey the general orders of getting +inside and keeping quiet. + +Other men came now, telling of the discovery of the dead Chinaman near +the lighting station. The bits of information were pieced together +hurriedly, this and that to the other. + +Doctor Barnes had seen the light's play on the sky, had heard echoes in +the mountains. He now reached the scene, coming at top speed up the +canyon trail in his car. He met answers already formed for his +questions. + +"They got Sim," said Wid Gardner. "Waldhorn----" + +He hurried into the room where they had carried the wounded man. "Why, +of course," said Sim Gage dully, "I'll be all right. After breakfast +I'll be out again all right. I've got to go over and see--I've got to +go over to her house and see----" But he never told what he planned. + +Doctor Barnes shook his head to Flaherty after a time, when the latter +turned to him in the outer room. The big foreman compressed his lips. + +"He's done good work, the lad!" said Flaherty; and Wid Gardner, still +standing by, nodded his head. + +"Mighty good. It was him got the Chink all right--hit him twict out of +three, and creased him onct; and like enough this Dutchman first, too. +Tell me, Doc, ain't he got a chanct to come through? Can't you make it +out that way for pore old Sim?" + +"I'm afraid not," said Doctor Barnes. "The shot's close to an artery, +and like enough he's bleeding internally, because he's coughing. His +pulse is jumpy. It's too bad--too damn bad. He was--a good man, Sim +Gage!" + +"What was it, Annie?" asked Mary Gage, over in their house. "There was +shooting. Was anybody hurt?" + +"Some of the hands got to mixing it, like enough," said Annie, herself +pale and shaking. "I don't know." + +"Was anybody hurt?" + +"I haven't had time to find out. Oh, my God! Sis, I wish't we'd never +come out here to this country at all. I want my mother, that's what I +want! I'm sick with all this." She began to cry, sobbing openly. +Mary Gage, now the stronger, drew the girl's head down into her own +arms. + +"You mustn't cry," said she. "Annie, we've got to pull together." + +"I guess so," said Annie, sobbing, "both of us. But I'm so +lonesome--I'm so awful scared." + +The morning came slowly, at length fully, cool and softly luminous. +The friends of Sim Gage, all men, stood near his bedside. His eyes +opened sometimes, looking with curious languor around him, as though +some problem were troubling him. At length he turned toward Wid, who +stood close to him. + +"Hit!" said he.--"I know, now." + +No one said anything to this. After a time he reached out a hand and +touched almost timidly the arm of his friend. His voice was laboring +and not strong. + +"Where's--where's my hat?" he whispered at length. + +"Your hat?" said Wid. "Your hat?--Now, why--I reckon it's hanging +around somewheres here. What makes you want it?" + +But some one had heard the request and came through the little hallway +with Sim Gage's hat, brave green cord and all. + +The wounded man looked at it and smiled, as sweet a smile as may come +to a man's face--the smile of a boy. Indeed, he had lived a life that +had left him scarce more than a boy, all these years alone on outskirts +of the world. + +He motioned to them to put the hat on the bed side him. "I want it +here," he said after a time, moving restlessly when they undertook to +take it from him. + +He touched it with his hand. At length he reached out and dropped it +on the chair at the head of his bed, now and again turning and looking +at it the best he might, laboring as he did with his torn lungs; +looking at it with some strange sort of reverence in his gaze, some +tremendous significance. + +"Ain't she _fine_?" he asked of his friend, again with his +astonishingly winsome smile; a smile they found hard to look upon. + +A half hour later some man down the road said to another that the +sagebrusher had croaked too. + +That is to say, Sim Gage, gentleman, soldier and patriot, had passed on +to the place where men find reward for doing the very best they know +with what God has seen fit to give them as their own. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +THE DAM + +Doctor Allen Barnes turned slowly toward the house where the wife of +Sim Gage still lay. His heart was heavy with the hardest duty he had +ever known in all his life. + +But as he reached a point half way between the two houses he suddenly +stopped. At that moment every man on the little street stopped also. + +The routine of the patrol had been relaxed in the excitement of these +late events. Indeed, it seemed tacitly agreed that the climax had +come, so that there was no need now for further guardianship of the +property. It was not so. + +The sound was a short, heavy moan, as nearly as it may be described, +and not a sharp rending note; a vast, deep groan, somewhere deep in the +earth, as though a volcano were about to erupt. It was not over in an +instant, but went on, like the suppressed lamentations of some creature +trying to break its chains. It might have been some prehistoric, +tremendous creature, unknown to man, unknown to these times. But it +was our creature. It was of our day. Else it could never have been. + +Then the ground under the feet of every man on the little street +lifted, gently, slowly, and sank down again. As it did so a tremendous +reverberation gathered and broke out, ran up and down the canyon, up +the opposite cliff face, echoing and rising as dense and thick as smoke +does. The rack-rock charge, of no one may know how many hundreds of +pounds, had done its work. + +And then all earth went back to chaos. A new world was in the making. +There arose in that narrow, iron-sided gorge a havoc such as belike +surpassed that of the original breaking through of the waters. That +first slow work of nature might have been done drop by drop, a little +at a time. But now all the outraged river was venting itself in one +epochal instant. Its accumulated power was rushing through the wall +that held it back from the seas--the vast vengeance of the waters, +which they had sought covertly all this time, now was theirs. + +An uncontrollable and immeasurable force was set loose. No man may +measure the actual horse power that lay above the great dam of the Two +Forks--it never was a comprehensible thing. A hundred Johnstown +reservoirs lay penned there. That there was so little actual loss of +life was due to the fact that there were few settlements in the sixty +miles below the mouth of the great canyon itself. A few scattered dry +farms, edging up close to the river in the valley far below, were +caught and buried. Hours later, under the advancing flood, all the +live stock of the valley was swept away, all the houses and all the +fences and roads and bridges were wiped out as though they had never +been. But this was fifty, sixty, seventy miles away, and much later in +the morning. Those below could only guess what had happened far up in +the great Two Forks canyon. The big dam was broken! + +The face of the giant dam, more solidly coherent than granite itself, +slowly, grandiose even in its ruin, passed out and down in a hundred +foot crevasse where the spill gates were widened by the high explosive. +A vast land slip, jarred from the cut-face mountain side above, +thundered down and aided in the crumbling of the dam. A disintegrated +mass of powdered concrete fell out, was blown apart. The face of the +dam on that part slowly settled down into a vast U. Then the waters +came through, leaping--a solid face of water such as no man may +comprehend. + +An instant, and the canyon below the dam was fifty feet deep with a +substance which seemed not water, but a mass of shrieking and screaming +demons set loose under the name of no known element. There came a vast +roar, but with it a number of smaller sounds, as of voices deep down +under the flood, glass splintering, rocks rumbling. The gorge seemed +inhabited by furies. And back of this came the pressure of twenty +miles of water, a hundred feet deep, which would come through. The +river had its way again, raving and roaring in an anvil chorus of its +own, knocking the great bowlders together, shrieking its glee. The Two +Forks river came through the Two Forks canyon once more! Against it +there stood only the fragmental ruin of the great, gray face, +buttressed with concrete more coherent than granite itself, but all +useless here. + +The tide rose very rapidly. The canyon was too crooked to carry off +the flood. The lower part of the town, where the street grade sank +rapidly, went under water almost at once. Horses, cows, sheep, +chickens, the odds and ends of such an encampment, gathered by vagrant +laborers, were swept down before opportunity could be found to save +them. Men and the few women in that part of town, employees of the +cook camp, abandoned their possessions and ran straight up the mountain +side, seeking only to get above the tide. Their houses were swept away +like cheese boxes. Logs were crushed together like straws. The sound +of it all made human speech inaudible anywhere close to the water's +edge. + +The east half of the dam, that closer to the camp, still held. The +buildings here were still under the dam--a mass of water fifty feet in +height rose above them, would come through if that portion of the dam +broke. But at the time only the suction of the farther U, where the +break was made, caused a gentle current to be visible at this side of +the backwater. If the dam held, it would be quite a time before the +level of the lake above would be appreciably altered. Slowly, inch by +inch, each inch representing none might say how much in power of ruin, +it would sink, and in time reveal the ancient bed of the river. If the +remnant of the dam held, that would be true. Happy the human race +aspiring to erect such a barrier, that so few suffered in this rebirth +of the wilderness. Had the settlements been thick below, all must have +perished. The telephone was out, there was no way for a messenger to +get out ahead of the flood. Only the quick widening of the valley, +below the canyon's lower end, eased down the volume of the flood so +that it was less destructive. There was no settlement at all in the +canyon proper. + +After the first pause of horror men here at the broken dam began to +bestir themselves. Discipline was a thing forgotten, and _sauve qui +peut_ was the law. It was some time before Doctor Barnes pulled +himself together and began to try to get his men in hand. He ordered +them to the lower end of the street, to drive the people out of their +houses without an instant's delay; for none might say at what time the +break in the dam would increase, in which case it soon would be too +late for any hope. He himself hastened at last to the house where the +two women were, Wid Gardner with him, after he had issued general +orders for all the men to get up the trail above the dam as soon as +possible. + +"Come out!" he cried as he opened the door. Mary Gage and Annie came +arm in arm, both of them hysterical now. + +"It's all gone," said Doctor Barnes, not even bitterly, but calmly +after all. "It's out. The dam's gone." + +"Gone? What does it mean? Where shall we go? Is there danger?" +These questions came all at once from the two women. The roar of the +waters drowned their voices. + +"Come quick! Get into my car. It's only a step up the grade--we'll be +safe on the upper level." + +They came, Mary Gage still with her bandages in place, stumbling, +terrified, but leading the little dog, Tim, who cringed down in curious +terror of his own. Doctor Barnes hurried them, guided them, and the +little car quickly carried them up the incline above the top of the dam. + +They paused here at the first sharp curve under the lee of the cut +bank, where they might take breath and look down. There came up and +grouped themselves near them and beyond them now several of the people +of the camp, and practically all of the soldiers from the barracks, who +fell into a stiff, silent line, looking down. It was a scene singular +enough which lay before them, this wild remaking of the wilderness. + +There came another cosmic cry from the chaos below them, more +terrifying than anything yet had been. Two Forks was throwing in the +reserves. The enemy was breaking! Doctor Barnes knew what this meant. +The break was widening. He stood looking down. And then he heard a +human voice cry out, a voice he knew. + +He turned--and saw Mary Gage fall as though in a faint upon the ground. +Her eye-bandages were off, her eyes wholly uncovered to the light. + +"Well, it's over now," said he quietly to Annie Squires. "One way or +the other, it's done." + +He lifted her gently, attended her until at length she moved, +stood--until at length he knew that she saw! + +She turned her face back from the ruin which had been her first vision +of her new world, and looked into the eyes of the man who had given +back to her eyes with which to see. And he looked deep, deep into her +own, grave and unsmiling. + +She spoke to him at last. "I can see," said she simply. + +"I'm very glad," said he, trying to be as simple. But he turned her +away, giving her into Annie's arms. + +"Look!" cried other voices. + +A section of the side of the great U, running clear back to a seam +which had formed in the dam face, slowly broke out and went down. The +water rose like a tide now, very rapidly, because the canyon itself, so +narrow and so full of abrupt curves, made no adequate outlet for this +augmented flood. The entire lower part of the camp was covered, and +the flood, eddying back from the mountain wall, came creeping up toward +the top of the grade, covering now this and now that portion of the +settlement. One house after another was swept away before their eyes. + +Doctor Barnes stood looking out over it all moodily. He did not go +back to Mary Gage. Back beyond a few of the soldiers were chattering +idly, but no one paid attention to them, for not even they themselves +knew that they were talking. But at length a voice, clear and +distinct, did come to Doctor Barnes' ears. + +"Where is my husband!" cried Mary Gage, breaking away from Annie. +"Which is he?" + +He turned to her silently. He shook his head. + +"I want to see him! I've got to see him. Who's that man?" She +pointed. + +"That's Wid Gardner," said Doctor Barnes, slowly and gently as he could. + +"Those men yonder--those soldiers--is one of them my husband? You said +he was a soldier." + +"Yes," said Doctor Barnes, "he was a soldier." + +Then she guessed at last. + +"He _was_ a soldier? Where is he _now_?" She turned upon him, laying +her hands upon his arms. "Where is he now?" she demanded. + +But Doctor Barnes was looking at the foam-flecked surface of the water, +eddying against the mountain side, crawling up and up. The little log +house where Sim Gage's soul had passed was no more to be seen. It had +gone. The house where the women had stopped was swept down but a short +time later. Doctor Barnes could not speak the cruel truth. + +"Annie!" called out Mary Gage, sobbing openly, imploringly. "Tell me, +won't I _ever_ see him? You said he was a good soldier." + +"One of the best," said Doctor Barnes at last. "Listen to me, please. +Your husband died believing he had saved the dam. And so he had, so +far as his work was concerned. It was he who discovered their work +last night. He took care of two of them--it makes three for him. It +was he that killed Big Aleck, up on the reserve, and avenged you, and +never told you. He was shot--you heard the firing. He died before we +came up here. I couldn't bring his body till you were cared for. Now +it's too late. He's gone. Well, it's as good a way for a good man to +go." + +"Blow 'Taps,'" he ordered of the bugler near by. It was done. And +then, at his order, the rifles spoke in unison over a soldier's grave. + +"But I've never _seen_ him!" she said to him piteously, after the +echoes of the salutes had passed. It was as though she was unable to +comprehend. + +"No," said Allen Barnes. "But keep this picture of him--think that he +died like a gentleman and a soldier. A good man, Sim Gage." + +He turned away and walked down the grade apart from them, hardly seeing +what lay before him, hardly hearing the rush of the waters down the +canyon. + +When men began to question as to the cause of the disaster, it became +plain that some man, whose name no one will ever know, must have crept +along the side of the river bank below the road grade, and have fired +the fuse of a heavy charge of rack-rock, which, none might know how +long, had been hid between the buttresses and back of the apron of the +dam. + +Doctor Barnes reasoned now that that man in all likelihood had come +from below. If so, in all likelihood he was one of the Dorenwald +party. His face lighted grimly. There were but few places where they +could have found a place in the canyon for an encampment. If they had +found one of these places--where were they now? Their fate could now +be read in this flood forcing its way down through the crooked gorge of +the mountain range. The flag staff had not been swept down--the flag +still fluttered now, triumphant over the attempted ruin--the answer of +America to Anarchy! And the flag had been avenged. Dorenwald and his +"free brothers," leaders of the "world's revolt," would revolt no more. +The sponge of the slate had wiped off their little marks. No one would +ever trace them. They would find no confessional and no shriving, for +their way back to that underworld of devil-fed minds, out of which they +had emerged to do ruin in a country which had never harmed them, but +which on the contrary had welcomed them and fed them in their want. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +AFTER THE DELUGE + +In one elemental instant there was loosed in the soul of Mary Gage a +pent flood of emotion. She let her heart go, let in the wilderness of +primitive things again. She was alive! She could see! She could be +as other women! + +The flood of relief, of joy, of yearning, was a thing cosmic, so strong +that regret and grief were for the time swept on and buried in the +welter of emotions running free. + +It was as though she had stepped absolutely from one world into +another. Suddenly, the people of her old world were gone. There had +been a shadow, a strange, magnified shadow of a soul, this man who had +been called her husband. But now with astonishing swiftness and +clarity of vision she knew that he never had been a husband to her. +What another had told her was the truth. He never had allowed her to +touch his hand, his face, he never had laid a hand on hers, never had +called her by any name of love, never had kissed her or sought to do +so. And he was gone now, so absolutely that not even the image of him +could remain had she ever owned an image of him. She never had known +him, and now never could. + +Alas! Sim Gage, shall we say? By no means. Happy Sim Gage! For he +passed at the climax of his life and took with him forever all he ever +could have gained of delight and comfort. Happy Sim Gage! to have a +woman like Mary, his wife, stand and weep for him now. He had lost her +had she ever seen his face, and now, at least, he owned her tears. A +vast and noble flood carried happy Sim Gage out to the ocean at the end +of all, to the rest and the absorption and the peace. + +Mary Gage pushed back the bandage from her eyes furtively, unable to +obey longer any command which cut her off from this new world to which +she had come. Before she dropped the bandage once more she had caught +sight of a figure not looking toward her at the moment. + +Allen Barnes was standing with his head up, his eyes looking out over +the abysmal scene below. Behind his back he had gripped tight together +his long and sinewy hands. He was a lean and broad man, so she +thought. He stood in the uniform of his country, made for manly men, +and beseeming only such. The neatness of good rearing even now was +apparent in every line of him. Dust seemed not to have touched him. +He was clean and trim and fine, a picture of an officer and a gentleman. + +Light, and the new music of the spheres--to whom did she owe those +things? It was to this man standing yonder. + +"McQueston," she heard a sharp voice command, "take your men and go +down to the lower dam--any way you can get across the mountains. Bring +your report up by one of these cars when you get back here. I'll go up +above to the upper station with these people. It's going to rain. +That will end the fire." + +He saluted sharply in return, and turned again to those under his +personal charge. + +"Get into the car," he said. Mary Gage felt his hand steadying her +arm. He took his place at the steering wheel, Wid Gardner alongside, +Annie and herself being left to the rear seat of the tonneau. It was +reckless driving that Doctor Allen Barnes did once more. They out-ran +the approaching valley storm, and so presently came into the gate of +that place where once had lived Sim Gage. They dismounted from the car +and stood, a forlorn group, looking at the scene before them as funeral +mourners returning, not liking the thought of going into a deserted +home from which a man is gone never to return. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +ANNIE ANSWERS + +All at once Annie Squires, usually stolid, now overstrained, gave way +to a wild sobbing. "I can't go in there," said she. "I'm scared. I +want to go home! I want my mother, that's what I want." + +"Where is your mother?" asked Wid Gardner. He had come over near to +her when Doctor Barnes was helping Mary into the house. + +"Dead--dead long ago," wept Annie. "When I was a little girl. Like +her, Mary, there--we didn't neither of us ever have a mother. We done +just the best we could, both of us. We've tried and tried to find some +sort of place where we belonged, and we couldn't. We haven't got any +place to go to. I haven't got a place on earth to call my home. + +"And it's something a woman wants sometimes," she added after a while, +dabbing her wet handkerchief against her eyes. "That's the Gawd's +truth." + +Wid approached more closely the weeping girl, touching her arm with a +brown hand now gentle as a child's. + +"Now look-a-here," said he. "I can't stand to hear you go on that way. +Do you reckon you was ever any lonesomer fer a home than what I am, +living out here all my life?" + +"And now I'm worse off than I ever was before," he went on frowningly. +"I didn't know nothing before you come out here. But now I do. I +can't think of your going back, Annie." + +She did not answer him, but went on weeping. + +"What's more, I ain't _a-going_ to stand it," he added savagely. "I +ain't _a-going_ to let you go back a-tall. Talk about home!--there's a +home right acrosst the fence. We can make it any way we like. It'll +do to start with, anyhow. Here's where you belong--you don't belong +back there in them dirty cities. You belong right out here--with me." + +"I couldn't--I can't," said Annie. "I couldn't let her go back alone. +I got to take care of that kid." + +"She ain't blind no more," said Wid. "But she don't have to go back! +This here place where we stand is hers, ain't it? What more does she +want? And we'd be right here, too, all the time, to help her and watch +her, wouldn't we, now?" + +"You don't know her," said Annie Squires. "I do." + +"But, Annie," he went on, "you'd ought to see this out here in the +valley when the spring comes! It's green, all green! The sage has got +five different colors of green in it--you wouldn't think that, would +you? And some blue. And you ain't seen the mountains yet when they're +white with snow on them--that's something you got to see fer to know +what a mountain is. And look at that little creek--it's plumb gentle +up here, ain't it? It's pretty, here. You ought to see the moonlight +on the meadows when the moon is full,--I was telling you about that, +Annie." + +"I ain't never been married in my life," he went on, arguing now. "I +ain't never seen a woman that I loved or looked at twicet but you. I +was too damn lazy to care anyway about anything till I seen you. I +just been drifting and fooling along. But now I ain't. I want to go +to work. I want to be somebody. Why, Annie, I reckon all the time I +was homesick, and didn't know it. But I tell you it wouldn't be no +home unless you was in it with me. I ain't fit to ask you to run it +fer me. But I do!" + +It was the ancient story, even told direct in the open, unwhispered, +even told now, at such an hour and place. She did not answer at all, +but her sobbing had ceased. He stood still frowning, looking at her, +his hat pushed back from his forehead. + +"I can't say no more'n I have," he concluded. "Years and years, Annie. +Wouldn't it settle a heap of things?" + +"I got to have some sort of time to think things over, haven't I, +then?" She spoke with apparent venom, as though this were an affront +that had been offered her. + +"All you want," said Wid Gardner gently. "I've done my own thinking. +I know." + +"I've got to go in and get them folks something to eat, haven't I?" +said Annie, using her apron on her eyes. "It's going to be about the +last time all of us'll ever eat together any more." + +"Well, we can invite them over, sometimes, can't we, Annie?" said Wid +Gardner calmly. And he kissed her brazenly and in the open. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +MRS. DAVIDSON'S CONSCIENCE + +It was fall, and the flame of the frost had fallen on the aspen and the +cottonwoods, and shorn the willows of most of their leaves. A hundred +thousand wild fowl honked their way across the meadows toward the black +flats where once had been a lake, and where now was immeasurable food +for them. Up in the mountains the elk were braying. The voice of the +coyotes at the pink of dawn seemed shriller now, as speaking of the +coming days of want. But the sun still was kind, the midday hour still +was one of warmth. A strange, keen value, immeasurably exalting, was +in the air. All nature was afoot, questioning of what was to come. + +Mary Gage came in from the stream side that afternoon, the strap of her +trout creel cutting deep into the shoulder of her sweater. She placed +the basket down under the shadow of the willow trees, and hung up a +certain rod on certain nails under the eaves of the cabin. Her little +dog, Tim, soberly marched in front of her, still guiding her, as he +supposed; but she no longer had a cord upon his neck, a staff in her +hand. A hundred chickens, well grown now, followed her about, vocal of +their desire for attention. She turned to them, taking down the little +sack which contained the leavings of the wheat that had been threshed +not so long ago here. + +"Chick, chick, chick!" she called gently--"_chick_ee, _chick_ee!" So +she stood, Lady Bountiful for them as they swarmed about her feet in +the dooryard. + +She heard the clang of the new gate, and turned, her hand shading her +eyes to see who was coming. + +As she stood she made a splendid picture of young womanhood, ruddy and +brown, clear of skin and eye, very fair indeed to look upon. The droop +of the corners of her mouth was gone. Her gaze was direct and free. +She walked easily, strong and straight and deep of bosom, erect of +head, flat of back, as fit for love as any woman of ancient Greece. +Such had been the ministrations of the sagebrush land for Mary Gage, +that once was the weakling, Mary Warren. + +She saw two figures coming slowly along the well-worn track from the +gate. She could not hear the comment the one made to the other as they +both advanced slowly, leaning together as gossiping women will, like +two tired oxen returning from the field. + +"Is that her?" asked one of the newcomers, a ponderous sort of woman, +whose feet turned out alarmingly as she walked. + +"Sure it's her," said Karen Jensen. "Who's it going to be if it ain't +her? Ain't she nice-looking, sort of, after all? And to think she can +see now as good as anybody! Yes, that's her. + +"How do you do, Mis' Gage?" + +She spoke now aloud as Mary came toward them smiling. The dimples in +her cheek, resurrected of late, gave a girlishness and tenderness to +her face that it once had lacked in her illness. + +"I'm well, thank you, Mrs. Jensen. It's a glorious day, isn't it? +I've got some fish for you. I was going to tell Minna to take them +down to you when she went home. She's a dear, your Minna." + +"Well, it's right fine you should catch fish for us now," said Mrs. +Jensen. "I'll be obliged for some--my man don't seem to get time to go +fishing." + +"Make you acquainted with Mis' Davidson, Mis' Gage," she continued. +"This is the school teacher. She comes every fall to teach up above, +when she's done living on her Idaho homestead, summers." + +"How do you do, Miss--Mrs. Davidson," began Mary, offering her hand. +"If you know Mrs. Jensen I ought to know you--she's been very good to +me. Come in, won't you? Sit down on the gallery." + +"Yes, this new porch is about as good as anywheres right now," +commented Mrs. Jensen. "It's a little hot, ain't it?" They found +seats of boxes and ends of logs. + +Mrs. Davidson cast a glance into the open door. It included the +spectacle of a neat, white-covered bed, a table with a clean white +oil-cloth cover, a series of covered and screened receptacles such as +the place might best afford out of its resources. She saw a floor +immaculately clean. She spoke after a time ending a silence which was +unusual with her. + +"The latter title that you gave me, Mrs. Gage, is correct," said she. +"I am a widow, having never encountered the oppor-r-r-tunity but once." +It was worth going miles out of one's way to hear her say +"opportunity"--or to see her wide-mouthed smile. + +"As a widow," she resumed with orotundity not lessened by her absence +from her own accustomed dais, "as a widow yourself, you are arranged +here with a fair degree of comfort, as I am disposed to believe, Mrs. +Gage." + +"I cannot complain," said Mary Gage simply. + +"A great trait in life, my dear madam; resignation! I endeavor to +inculcate in my pupils the virtue of stoicism. I tell them of the +Spartan boy, Mrs. Gage. Perhaps you have heard of the Spartan boy?" + +"Yes," said Mary. "I know something about stoicism, I hope. But now +I'm going to get you some berries--I picked some, up beyond, on the +meadows." She rose now and passed into that part of her cabin which +constituted the kitchen. + +"An extr-r-r-aordinary young woman!" said Mrs. Davidson to Karen +Jensen. "An extra_or_dinary person to be here. Why, she is a person +of culture, like myself. And once married--married to that man!" + +Mrs. Davidson's lips were tight pursed now. + +"I don't reckon she ever was, real," said Karen Jensen, simply. "I +don't hardly believe they _was_." + +Mrs. Davidson showed herself disposed to regard all the proprieties, +hence she but coughed ponderously and shook her head ponderously, +turning from side to side two or three times in her chair ponderously +also. + +"For what has happened here," said she at last, "I thank God. If +things had happened worse it would have been my fault. Never again +shall I address myself to the task of writing advertisements for men in +search of wives. Great Providence! An extraordinary woman like this! +To-night I shall pray on my two knees for forgiveness for what I did, +and what it might have meant. When I consider how near I came +to--to----" + +"To raising hell?" inquired Karen Jensen sympathetically, seeing that +her companion lacked the proper word at the time. + +The other woman nodded in emphatic though unconscious assent. Always +there was present before her mind her own part in the little drama of +this place. It was she who had helped to bring this woman here--who +had helped to deceive her. She thanked Providence that perhaps fate +itself sometimes saves us from the full fruit of our follies, after all. + +"Just a little sugar, thank you, Mrs. Gage," said she as Mary offered +her some of the fresh whortle berries. "And these little cakes--you +made them?" + +"Oh, yes--I do most of my cooking, when I can keep Annie away. You +know about Annie, of course. And Minna, Mrs. Jensen's little, girl, +who is my companion here most of the time--as I said, she's a dear. +I've been teaching her to read all summer--spoiling your work, Mrs. +Davidson!" + +"I wish more and more that I might have aid in that undertaking in this +valley," said Sarah Davidson, herself a great soul in her way, and +Covenanter when it came to duty. "It is perhaps primitive here, more +so than elsewhere, but the people--the people--they need so much, and +they--they----" + +"They _are_ so much," said Mary Gage gently. "They _are_ so much. I +never knew before what real people were. I'm so glad." + +Mrs. Davidson's face worked strangely, very strangely, Mary thought, so +that she believed her to be afflicted with some nervous disease of the +facial muscles. But in truth Sarah Davidson was only endeavoring to +get under control her own emotions, which, like all else about her, +were ponderous and slow. + +"Then, my dear--you will let me say 'my dear,' won't you? It's +becoming such a habit with me at my time of life--you will permit me to +inquire if that is an actual expression of your attitude toward the +people here? You say you are glad? Do you mean that, or is it a mere +conventionality with you?" + +Mary turned toward her with that gravity which quite commonly marked +her face when all her features were at rest. + +"I quite mean it all, Mrs. Davidson," said she. "I'm thankful with all +my heart that I came out here. It's a great place to fight things out. +I'd never have been happy in all my life if I had not come here. I'm +really glad, and you may believe that, because I do--now." + +"You would forgive--you would cherish no malice against any who acted +as the ah--instigators--of your original journey here?" + +A sudden question arose in Mrs. Davidson's mind as to whether or not +any of Mary Gage's associates and neighbors ever had told her all the +story of that original endeavor, whose object was matrimony. Whereupon +she concluded now to let sleeping dogs lie, and not to urge the matter. +Nor was Mary herself the more disposed at the moment to speak of the +past. She only looked out across the valley, as was her custom. + +They passed on to some talk of the peace news, and demobilization plans +for the men still abroad, for the visitors had brought the latest paper +with them. + +"Our men!" exclaimed Mary Gage as she read the headlines. "They're +fine. They are always fine, everywhere, all of them. I'd have liked +to see them in the great parades, in the cities." + +"'Twould be a gr-r-r-and sight," said Mrs. Davidson, "for women who +have had no oppor-r-r-tunity!" + +"Ah? Women who haven't had what women wish?" said Mary Gage, a strange +confidence in her own tones. "Don't you suppose God knows the way? +Why be trying to change----" The word did not come at first. + +"The plan?" suggested Mrs. Davidson. + +"The plan!" said Mary. + +"I must be going before long," said Karen Jensen, having finished her +saucer of berries, and caring little for philosophizing. "I've got to +milk seven cows yet." + +"I will come often, if I may, Mrs. Gage, now that I am again located in +this valley," said her companion, rising also. + +"Oh, won't you, please!" said Mary Gage. "And--won't you do me a +little favor now? I have a letter--I was just going up to the corner +to put it in the box. If you're going that way, will you drop it in +for me?" + +Karen Jensen hesitated, looking across at the shortcut across the +fields, but Mrs. Davidson, not being well organized for barbed wire +entanglements, offered for the errand, which would take her around by +the road. + +"Surely, I shall be most happy," said she. "I will walk around by the +box and drop your letter very gladly. No, no, don't mind coming. It's +nothing--I always go home that way." + +But Sarah Davidson after all was the school teacher when she had passed +beyond the gate in the willow lane. She felt that in her were +represented all the privileges of what priesthood might be claimed in +this valley. She felt that her judgment was large enough to be +infallible, since she so long had been arbiter here in all mooted +matters. It was, therefore, surely her right to have intelligence as +to the plans, the emotions, the mental process of all these people, +including all newcomers. Were they not indeed in her charge? + +Her right? Indeed, was it not her duty to know what there was in this +letter from the woman whom she herself had brought out here not so long +ago? It caused her vast perturbation, for she had a conscience which +dated back to ages of Scottish blood, but she was not one to deviate +from her duty once she had established it! This letter--to Major Allen +Barnes, in yonder city--what was in it? + +It was a letter going to that outer world, from the very person whom +she, Sarah Davidson, had brought into this sagebrush world and had set +down among these neighbors. Just now she had confessed herself to be +happy here. Why? Could it be a violation of confidence--an +eavesdropping--opening this letter? Not in the least! It was only +oppor-r-r-tunity! As to that, who did not know that for years every +letter to a soldier was opened and censored? Obviously it was her duty +as social censor of Two Forks also to open and read this letter. + +Therefore, looking behind her cautiously to see she was not observed, +she stepped behind the cover of the willows and ran the point of her +pencil along the edge of the sealed envelope--it had been sealed +thoroughly. Still, she tore it but very little in the process. + +There came out into her hand a single sheet of paper. It bore no +address and no signature. It showed a handwriting evidently that of a +lady of culture, of education. There was nothing to show that it was +an answer--an answer long deferred but not now to be changed, a woman's +answer to the great question. + +Mrs. Davidson was standing in a sort of consternation, the two parts of +the letter in her two hands, when she nearly sprang into the wire fence +at the sudden voice she heard, the voice of a man speaking close at +hand. + +"Good Lord, Mr. Gardner!" said she, "you gave me a turn. I wasn't +thinking of you." + +"What was you thinking of, Mis' Davidson?" asked Wid, smiling. "You +was all in a trance. Something on your mind, huh? I bet I know. +You're sending out a ad on your own account--'object, matrimony!'" + +"Sir-r-r!" said Sarah Davidson, flushing red for the first time Wid +Gardner had ever seen it occur, "such conver-r-r-sation is not welcome +on your part, not in the least! I prefer-r-r that you shall not again +mention that act which I have so long regretted. The past is past. A +woman's real love is for to-day and to-morrow, when with her own eyes +and her own hear-r-rt she has chosen honorably, sir-r--honor-r-ably! I +bid you good evening, Mr. Gar-r-r-dner. I request you never to speak +of that incident again!" + +Nor did he, so far as known. + +But when Wid himself, chuckling innocently, had passed on down toward +the gate with the loaf of bread which Annie was sending over to Mary +Gage for her evening meal, Sarah Davidson was passing up the road +toward the school house--entirely forgetting to turn to the left toward +Nels Jensen's, where she boarded. + +She was wiping away large, ponderous tears--tears of joy that the world +had in it love of men and women--that God, after all, did know--that +the world still was as it was in the beginning, incapable of +destruction even by war, incapable of diversion from the plan of peace +and hope. She guessed so much--and guessed the future of Mary Gage's +life--from data meager enough, but which may have served. + +What she saw on the single, unsigned page, and what opened all the +fountains of emotion in her own really gentle soul, was a part of what +Mary once had heard come to her in a world of darkness. The words now +were written by herself in a world of light. + +She had promised him when he went away that, if ever everything was +clear in her own mind regarding what was past, she might write to him +one day. So now she had written: + + "Only thoughts of you remain + In my heart where they have lain; + Perfumed thoughts of you, remaining, + A hid sweetness, in my brain. + Others leave me; all things leave me: + You remain." + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sagebrusher, by Emerson Hough + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SAGEBRUSHER *** + +***** This file should be named 19388.txt or 19388.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/3/8/19388/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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