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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Moccasin Ranch, by Hamlin Garland
+
+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 Moccasin Ranch
+       A Story of Dakota
+
+Author: Hamlin Garland
+
+Release Date: November 11, 2006 [EBook #19764]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOCCASIN RANCH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "STAND OUT O' MY WAY, OR I'LL KILL YOU!" See page 104]
+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+THE MOCCASIN RANCH
+
+A STORY OF DAKOTA
+BY
+HAMLIN GARLAND
+
+AUTHOR OF
+"THE CAPTAIN OF THE GRAY-HORSE TROOP"
+"MAIN-TRAVELLED ROADS" etc.
+
+NEW YORK AND LONDON
+HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+MCMIX
+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Copyright, 1909, by Hamlin Garland.
+
+All rights reserved.
+
+Published September, 1909.
+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+CONTENTS
+
+   CHAP.                             PAGE
+
+       I. MARCH                         1
+      II. MAY                          24
+     III. JUNE                         33
+      IV. AUGUST                       49
+       V. NOVEMBER                     67
+      VI. DECEMBER                     86
+     VII. CONCLUSION                  128
+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+THE MOCCASIN RANCH
+
+I
+
+MARCH
+
+
+Early in the gray and red dawn of a March morning in 1883, two wagons
+moved slowly out of Boomtown, the two-year-old "giant of the plains." As
+the teams drew past the last house, the strangeness of the scene
+appealed irresistibly to the newly arrived immigrants. The town lay
+behind them on the level, treeless plain like a handful of blocks
+pitched upon a russet robe. Its houses were mainly shanties of pine,
+one-story in height, while here and there actual tents gleamed in the
+half-light with infinite suggestion of America's restless pioneers.
+
+The wind blew fresh and chill from the west. The sun rose swiftly, and
+the thin scarf of morning cloud melted away, leaving an illimitable
+sweep of sky arching an almost equally majestic plain. There was a
+poignant charm in the air--a smell of freshly uncovered sod, a width and
+splendor in the view which exalted the movers beyond words.
+
+The prairie was ridged here and there with ice, and the swales were full
+of posh and water. Geese were slowly winging their way against the wind,
+and ducks were sitting here and there on the ice-rimmed ponds. The sod
+was burned black and bare, and so firm with frost that the wagon
+chuckled noisily as it passed over it. The whistle of the driver called
+afar, startling the ducks from their all-night resting-places.
+
+One of the teams drew a load of material for a house, together with a
+few household utensils. The driver, a thin-faced, blue-eyed man of
+thirty, walked beside his horses. His eyes were full of wonder, but he
+walked in silence.
+
+The second wagon was piled high with boxes and barrels of groceries and
+hardware, and was driven by a handsome young fellow with a large brown
+mustache. His name was Bailey, and he seemed to be pointing the way for
+his companion, whom he called Burke.
+
+As the sun rose, a kind of transformation-scene took place. The whole
+level land lifted at the horizon till the teams seemed crawling forever
+at bottom of an enormous bowl. Mystical forms came into
+view--grotesquely elongated, unrecognizable. Hills twenty, thirty miles
+away rose like apparitions, astonishingly magnified. Willows became
+elms, a settler's shanty rose like a shot-tower--towns hitherto unseen
+swam and palpitated in the yellow flood of light like shaken banners
+low-hung on unseen flagstaffs.
+
+Burke marched with uplifted face. He was like one suddenly wakened in a
+new world, where nothing was familiar. Not a tree or shrub was in sight.
+Not a mark of plough or harrow--everything was wild, and to him mystical
+and glorious. His eyes were like those of a man who sees a world at its
+birth.
+
+Hour after hour they moved across the swelling land. Hour after hour,
+while the yellow sun rolled up the slope, putting to flight the morning
+shapes on the horizon--striking the plain into level prose again, and
+warming the air into genial March. Hour after hour the horses toiled on
+till the last cabin fell away to the east, like a sail at sea, till the
+road faded into a trail almost imperceptible on the firm sod.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And so at last they came to the land of "the straddle-bug"--the
+squatters' watch dog--three boards nailed together (like a stack of army
+muskets) to mark a claim. Burke resembled a man taking his first
+sea-voyage. His eyes searched the plain restlessly, and his brain
+dreamed. Bailey, an old settler--of two years' experience--whistled and
+sang and shouted lustily to his tired beasts.
+
+It drew toward noon. Bailey's clear voice shouted back, "When we reach
+that swell we'll see the Western Coteaux." The Western Coteaux! To
+Burke, the man from Illinois, this was like discovering a new range of
+mountains.
+
+"There they rise," Bailey called, a little later.
+
+Burke looked away to the west. Low down on the horizon lay a long, blue
+bank, hardly more substantial than a line of cloud. "How far off are
+they?" he asked, in awe.
+
+"About twenty-five miles. Our claims are just about in line with that
+gap." Bailey pointed with his whip. "And about twelve miles from here.
+We're on the unsurveyed land now."
+
+Burke experienced a thrill of exultation as he looked around him. In the
+distance, other carriages were crawling like beetles. A couple of
+shanties, newly built on a near-by ridge, glittered like gold in the
+sun, and the piles of yellow lumber and the straddle-bugs increased in
+number as they left the surveyed land and emerged into the finer tract
+which lay as yet unmapped. At noon they stopped and fed their animals,
+eating their own food on the ground beside their wagons.
+
+While they rested, Bailey kept his eyes on their backward trail,
+watching for his partner, Rivers. "It's about time Jim showed up," he
+said, once again.
+
+Burke seemed anxious. "They won't get off the track, will they?"
+
+Bailey laughed at his innocence. "Jim Rivers has located about
+seventy-five claims out here this spring. I guess he won't lose his
+bearings."
+
+"I'm afraid Blanche'll get nervous."
+
+"Oh, Jim will take care of her. She won't be lonesome, either. He's a
+great favorite with the women, always gassin'--Well, this won't feed the
+baby," he ended, leaping to his feet.
+
+They were about to start on when a swift team came into sight. The
+carriage was a platform-spring wagon, with a man and woman in the front
+seat, and in the rear a couple of alert young fellows sat holding rifles
+in their hands and eyeing the plain for game.
+
+"Hello!" said the driver, in a pleasant shout. "How you getting on?"
+
+"Pretty well," replied Bailey.
+
+"Should say you were. I didn't know but we'd fail to overhaul you."
+
+Burke went up to the wagon. "Well, Blanche, what do you think of
+it--far's you've got?"
+
+"Not very much," replied his wife, candidly. She was a handsome woman,
+but looked tired and a little cross, at the moment. "I guess I'll get
+out and ride with you," she added.
+
+"Why, no! What for?" asked Rivers, hastily. "Why not go right along out
+to the store with us?"
+
+"Why, yes; that's the thing to do, Blanche. We'll be along soon," said
+Burke. "Stay where you are."
+
+She sat down again, as if ashamed to give her reason for not going on
+with these strange men.
+
+"I was just in the middle of a story, too," added Rivers, humorously.
+"Well, so long." And, cracking his whip, he started on. "We'll have
+supper ready when you arrive!" he shouted back.
+
+Burke could not forget the look in his wife's eyes. She was right. It
+would have been pleasanter if she had stayed with him. They had been
+married several years, but his love for her had not grown less. Perhaps
+for the reason that she dominated him.
+
+She was a fine, powerful girl, while he was a plain man, slightly
+stooping, with thin face and prominent larynx. She had brought a little
+property to him, which was unusual enough to give her a sense of
+importance in all business transactions of the firm.
+
+She had consented to the sale of their farm in Illinois with great
+reluctance, and, as Burke rode along on his load of furniture, he
+recalled it all very vividly, and it made him anxious to know her
+impression of his claim. As he took her position for a moment, he got a
+sudden sense of the loneliness and rawness of this new land which he had
+not felt before. The woman's point of view was so different from that of
+the adventurous man.
+
+Twice they were forced to partly unload in order to cross ravines where
+the frost had fallen out, and it was growing dark as they rose over the
+low swell, from which they could see a dim, red star, which Burke
+guessed to be the shanty light, even before Bailey called, exultantly:
+
+"There she blows!"
+
+The wind had grown chill and moist, the quacking ducks were thickening
+on the pools, and strange noises came from ghostly swells and hidden
+creeks. The tired horses moved forward with soundless feet upon the sod,
+which had softened during the day. They quickened their steps when they
+saw the lantern shine from the pole before the building.
+
+The light of the lamp, and the sight of Blanche standing in the doorway
+of the cabin at the back of the store-room, was a beautiful sight to
+Burke. Set over against the wet, dark prairie, with its boundless sweep
+of unknown soil, the shanty seemed a radiant palace.
+
+"Supper's all ready, Willard!" called Blanche, and the tired man's heart
+leaped with joy to hear the tender, familiar cadence of her voice. It
+was her happy voice, and when she used it men were her slaves.
+
+Bailey came out with one of the land-seekers.
+
+"Go in to supper, boys; we'll take care of the teams," was his hearty
+command.
+
+The tired freighters gladly did as they were bid, and, scooping up some
+water from a near-by hollow on the sod, hurriedly washed their faces and
+sat down to a supper of chopped potatoes, bacon and eggs, and tea (which
+Blanche placed steaming hot upon the table), in such joy as only the
+weary worker knows.
+
+Mrs. Burke was in high spirits. The novelty of the trip, the rude
+shanty, with its litter of shavings, and its boxes for chairs, the
+bundles of hay for beds, gave her something like the same pleasure a
+picnic might have done. It appealed to the primeval in her. She forgot
+her homesickness and her vague regrets, and her smiles filled her
+husband with content.
+
+Rivers and the others soon came in, and after supper there was a great
+deal of energetic talk. The young land-seekers were garrulous with
+delight over their claims, which they proudly exalted above the stumps
+and stones of the farms "back home."
+
+"Why, it took three generations of my folks to clear off forty acres of
+land," said one of them. "They just wore themselves out on it. I told
+Hank he could have it, and I'd go West and see if there wasn't some land
+out there which wouldn't take a man's lifetime to grub out and smooth
+down. And I've found it."
+
+Rivers had plainly won the friendship of Mrs. Burke, for they were
+having a jolly time together over by the table, where he was helping to
+wash the dishes. He had laughing, brown eyes, and a pleasant voice, and
+was one of the most popular of the lawyers and land-agents in Boomtown.
+There was a boyish quality in him which kept him giving and taking
+jocular remarks.
+
+Bailey sometimes said: "Rivers would shine up to a seventy-year-old
+Sioux squaw if she was the only woman handy, but he don't mean anything
+by it--it's just his way. He's one o' the best-hearted fellers that ever
+lived." Others took a less favorable view of the land-agent, and refused
+to trust him.
+
+Bailey assumed command. "Now, fellers," he said, "we'll vamoose the
+ranch while Mrs. Burke turns in." He opened the way to the store-room,
+and the men filed out, all but Burke, who remained to put up the calico
+curtain with which his wife had planned to shield her bed.
+
+Blanche was a little disturbed at the prospect of sleeping behind such a
+thin barrier.
+
+"Oh, it's no worse than the sleeping-car," her husband argued.
+
+A little later he stuck his head in at the store-room door. "All ready,
+Bailey."
+
+Bailey was to sleep on the rickety lounge, which served as bedstead and
+chair, and the other men were to make down as best they could in the
+grocery.
+
+Bailey went out to the front of the shanty to look at the lantern he had
+set up on a scantling. Rivers followed him.
+
+"Going to leave that up there all night?"
+
+"Yes. May keep some poor devil from wandering around all night on the
+prairie."
+
+Rivers said, with an abrupt change in his voice:
+
+"Mrs. Burke is a hummer, isn't she? How'd his flat-chested nibs manage
+to secure a 'queen' like that? I must get married, Bailey--no use."
+
+Bailey took his friend's declaration more lightly than it deserved. He
+laughed. "Wish you would, Jim, and relieve me of the cookin'."
+
+Blanche could hardly compose herself to sleep. "Isn't it wonderful," she
+whispered. "It's all so strange, like being out of the world, someway."
+
+Burke heard the ducks quacking down in the "Moggason," and he, too,
+_felt_ the silence and immensity of the plain outside. It was enormous,
+incredible in its wildness. "I believe we're going to like it out here,
+Blanche," he said.
+
+Blanche Burke rose to a beautiful and busy day. The breakfast which she
+cooked in the early dawn was savory, and Rivers, who helped her by
+bringing water and building the fire, was full of life and humor. He
+seemed to have no other business than to "wait and tend" on her.
+
+He called her out to see the sunrise. "Isn't this great!" he called,
+exultantly. Flights of geese were passing, and the noise of ducks came
+to them from every direction. He pointed out the distant hills, and
+called her attention to a solemn row of sand-hill cranes down by the
+swale, causing her to see the wonder and beauty of this new world.
+
+"You're going to like it out here," he said, with conviction. "It is a
+glorious climate, and you'll soon have more neighbors than you want."
+
+After breakfast Bailey and Burke left the "Moggason Ranch"--as Bailey
+called the store and shanty--to carry the lumber and furniture belonging
+to Burke on to his claim, two or three miles away. Rivers remained to
+work in the store, and to meet some other land-seekers, and Mrs. Burke
+agreed to stay and get dinner for them all.
+
+During this long forenoon, Rivers exerted himself to prevent her from
+being lonely. He was busy about the store, but he found time to keep her
+fire going and to bring water and to tell her of his bachelor life with
+Bailey. She had never had anything like this swift and smiling service,
+and she felt very grateful to him. He encouraged her to make some pies
+and to prepare a "thumping dinner." "It will seem like being married
+again," he said, with a chuckle.
+
+Burke and Bailey returned at noon to dinner.
+
+"Mrs. Burke, you can sleep in your own ranch to-night," announced
+Bailey.
+
+"I guess it will be a ranch."
+
+"It'll be new, anyhow," her husband said, with a timid smile.
+
+After dinner she straightened things up a little, and as she got into
+the wagon she said: "Well, there, Mr. Rivers. _You'll_ have to take care
+o' things now."
+
+Rivers leered comically, sighed, and looked at his partner. "Bailey, I
+didn't know what we needed before; I know now. We need a woman."
+
+Bailey smiled. "Go get one. Don't ask a clumsy old farmer like me to
+provide a cook."
+
+"I'll get married to-morrow," said Rivers, with a droll inflection. They
+all laughed, and Burke clucked at the team. "Well, good-bye, boys; see
+you later."
+
+After leaving the ranch they struck out over the prairie where no
+wagon-wheel but theirs had ever passed. Here were the buffalo trails,
+deep-worn ruts all running from northwest to southeast. Here lay the
+white bones of elk in shining crates, ghastly on the fire-blackened sod.
+Beside the shallow pools, buffalo horns, in testimony of the tragic
+past, lay scattered thickly. Everywhere could be seen the signs of the
+swarming herds of bison which once swept to and fro from north to south
+over the plain, all so silent and empty now.
+
+A few antelope scurried away out of the path, and a wolf sitting on a
+height gravely watched the teams as if marvelling at their coming. The
+wind swept out of the west clear and cold. The sky held no shred of
+cloud. The air was like some all-powerful intoxicant, and when Bailey
+pointed out a row of little stakes and said, "There's the railroad,"
+their imagination supplied the trains, the wheat, the houses, the towns
+which were to come.
+
+At the claim Blanche sat on a box and watched the two men as they
+swiftly built the little cabin which was to be her home. Their hammers
+rang merrily, and soon she was permitted to go inside and look up at the
+great sky which roofed it in. This was an emotional moment to her. As
+she sat there listening to the voices of the men who were drawing this
+fragile shelter around her, a great awe fell upon her. It seemed as if
+she had drawn a little nearer to the Almighty Creator of the universe.
+Here, where no white man had ever set foot, she was watching the
+founding of her own house. Was it a home? Could it ever be a home?
+
+Swiftly the roof closed over her head, and the floor crept under her
+feet. The stove came in, and the flour-barrel, and the few household
+articles which they had brought followed, and as the sun was setting
+they all sat down to supper in her new home.
+
+The smell of the fresh pine was round them. Geese were flying over.
+Cranes were dancing down by the ponds, prairie-chickens were _booming_.
+The open doorway--doorless yet--looked out on the sea-like plain
+glorified by the red sun just sinking over the purple line of treeless
+hills to the west. It was the bare, raw materials of a State, and they
+were in at the beginning of it.
+
+After Bailey left them the husband and wife sat in silence. When they
+spoke it was in low voices. It seemed as if God could hear what they
+said--that He was just there behind the glory of the western clouds.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+MAY
+
+
+Day by day the plain thickened with life. Each noon a crowd of
+land-seekers swarmed about the Moggason Ranch asking for food and
+shelter, and Blanche, responding to Rivers' entreaties, went down to
+cook, returning each night to her bed. Rivers professed to be very
+grateful for her aid.
+
+All ages and sexes came to take claims. Old men, alone and feeble,
+school teachers from the East, young girls from the towns of the older
+counties, boys not yet of age--everywhere incoming claimants were
+setting stakes upon the green and beautiful sod.
+
+Each day the grass grew more velvety green. Each day the sky waxed
+warmer. The snow disappeared from the ravines. The ice broke up on the
+Moggason. The ponds disappeared. Plover flew over with wailing cry.
+Buffalo birds, prairie pigeons, larks, blackbirds, sparrows, joined
+their voices to those of the cranes and geese and ducks, and the prairie
+piped and twittered and clacked and chuckled with life. The gophers
+emerged from their winter-quarters, the foxes barked on the hills, the
+skunk hobbled along the ravines, and the badger raised mounds of fresh
+soil as if to aid the boomer by showing how deep the black loam was.
+
+Everybody was in holiday mood. Men whistled and sang and shouted and
+toiled--toiled terribly--and yet it did not seem like toil! They sank
+wells and ploughed gardens and built barns and planted seeds, and yet
+the whole settlement continued to present the care-free manners of a
+great pleasure party. It seemed as if no one needed to work, and,
+therefore, those first months were months of gay and swift progress.
+
+It was the most beautiful spring Blanche and Willard Burke had spent
+since their marriage nine years before. Blanche forgot to be petulant or
+moody. She was in superb health, and carried herself like a girl of
+eighteen. She appeared to have lost all her regrets.
+
+She laughed heartily when Rivers came over one afternoon and boldly
+declared:
+
+"Burke, I've c'me to borrow your wife. We've got a lot o' tenderfoots
+over there to-night, and I'm a little shy of Bailey's biscuits. I'm
+going to carry your cook away."
+
+"All right; only bring her back."
+
+Blanche was a little embarrassed when Rivers replied: "I don't like to
+agree to do that. Mebbe you'd better come over to make sure I do."
+
+"All right. I'll come over in time for supper." Burke's simple, good
+face glowed with enjoyment of the fun. He smilingly went back to beating
+his plough-share with hammer and wedge as Rivers drove away with
+Blanche. The clink of his steel rang through the golden light that
+flooded the prairie, keeping time to his whistled song.
+
+In the months of April and May the world sent a skirmish-line into this
+echoless land to take possession of a belt of territory six hundred
+miles long and one hundred miles broad. The settlers came like locusts;
+they sang like larks. From Alsace and Lorraine, from the North Sea, from
+Russia, from the Alps, they came, and their faces shone as if they had
+happened upon the spring-time of the world. Tyranny was behind them, the
+majesty of God's wilderness before them, a mystic joy within them.
+
+Under their hands the straddle-bug multiplied. He is short-lived, this
+prairie insect. He usually dies in thirty days--by courtesy alone he
+lives. He expresses the settlers' hope and sense of justice. In these
+spring days of good cheer he lived at times to sixty days--but only on
+stony ground or fire-scarred, peaty lowlands.
+
+He withered--this strange, three-legged, voiceless insect--but in his
+stead arose a beetle. This beetle sheltered human beings, and was called
+a shack.
+
+They were all alike, these shacks. They had roofs of one slant. They
+were built of rough lumber, and roofed with tarred paper, which made all
+food taste of tar.
+
+They were dens but little higher than a man's head, and yet they
+sheltered the most joyous people that ever set foot to earth. In one
+cabin lived a girl and a canary-bird, all alone. In the next a man who
+cooked his own food when he did not share his rations with the girl, all
+in frank and honorable companionship. On the next claim were two
+school-teachers, busy as magpies, using the saw and hammer with deft
+accuracy. In the next was a bank-clerk out for his health--and these
+clean and self-contained people lived in free intercourse without
+slander and without fear. Only the Alsatians settled in groups, alien
+and unapproachable. All others met at odd times and places, breathing
+in the promiseful air of the clean sod, resolute to put the world of
+hopeless failure behind them.
+
+Spring merged magnificently into summer. The grass upthrust. The
+waterfowl passed on to the northern lake-region. The morning symphony of
+the prairie-chickens died out, but the whistle of the larks, the chatter
+of the sparrows, and the wailing cry of the nesting plover came to take
+its place.
+
+The gophers whistled and trilled, the foxes barked from the hills, and
+an occasional startled antelope or curious wolf passed through the line
+of settlement as if to see what lay behind this strange phalanx of
+ploughmen guarding their yellow shanties.
+
+Week after week passed away, and the government surveyors did not
+appear. The Boomtown _Spike_ told in each issue how the men of the
+chain and compass were pushing westward; but still they did not come,
+and the settlers' hopes of getting their claims filed before winter grew
+fainter. The mass of them had planned to take claims in the spring, live
+on them the required six months, "prove up," and return East for the
+winter.
+
+In spite of these disappointments, all continued to be merry. No one
+took any part of it very seriously. The young men went out and ploughed
+when they pleased, and came in and sat on the door-step and talked with
+the women when they were weary. The shanties were hot and crowded, but
+no one minded that; by-and-by they were to build bigger.
+
+And, then, all was so new and beautiful, and the sky was so clear. Oh,
+that marvellous, lofty sky with just clouds enough to make the blue more
+intense! Oh, the wonder of the wind from the wild, mysterious green sea
+to the west! With the change and sheen of the prairie, incessant and
+magical life was made marvellous and the winter put far away.
+
+Merry parties drove here and there visiting. Formalities counted for
+little, and yet with all this freedom of intercourse, this close
+companionship, no one pointed the finger of gossip toward any woman. The
+girls in their one-room huts received calls from their bachelor
+neighbors with the confidence that comes from purity of purpose, both
+felt and understood. Life was strangely idyllic during these spring
+days. Envy and hate and suspicion seemed exorcised from the world.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+JUNE
+
+
+The centre of the social life was Bailey's store. There stood the
+post-office, which connected the settlers with the world they had left
+behind. There they assembled each day when the flag ran up the long pole
+which stood before the door as a signal for the mail. On the treeless,
+shrubless prairie one could see the flag miles away, as it rose like a
+faint fleck of pink against the green of the prairie beyond or the blue
+sky above.
+
+Twice a week Rivers drove out with supplies. These were the eventful
+days of the week, and it was significant to observe with what tasteful
+care the young women thought it proper to dress on this day. Hats,
+dainty and fresh, cool muslins, spotless cuffs, ribbons. They came out
+of their cabins with all the little airs and graces of their Eastern
+homes. Bailey shared their good opinion, but he was always silent and a
+little timid in their presence, and usually disappeared as soon as
+Rivers came. "The social responsibilities belong to you, partner," he
+was accustomed to say.
+
+As the summer wore on, the number of those pathetically eager for
+letters increased. The sun-bright plain, the beautiful, almost cloudless
+sky, and the ever-flooding light wore upon them. They began to recall
+wistfully the cool streams of New England, the wooded slopes of
+Wisconsin, the comfortable homesteads and meadows of Illinois, and they
+came for their mail with shining eyes--and when forced to say "Nothing
+to-day," Bailey always suffered a keen pang of sympathetic pain.
+
+He himself watched the eastern horizon, incessantly and unconsciously,
+hours before the wagon was due, and, when it came in sight at last, ran
+his flag up along its mast joyously.
+
+It was a great pleasure to him to sit and talk with his partner, and he
+looked forward to his visits eagerly. To Jim he could utter himself
+freely. They had known each other so long, and he believed he understood
+his partner to the centre of his heart.
+
+He usually had supper ready--often he had help from the girls or Mrs.
+Burke, and while a dozen hands volunteered at the team and with the
+mail-bag, Rivers was free to hurry to his table, whereat he fared like a
+pasha attended by the flower of his harem. The girls pretended it was
+all on account of his office as mail-carrier, but they deceived no one,
+much less an experienced beau like Rivers. He accepted it all with
+shameless egotism.
+
+To Bailey's mind Jim was too well attended. He seemed to see less and
+less of his partner as the season wore on. They seldom sat down to talk
+in the good old fashion, wearing out half the night smoking, listening
+to the slumber-song of the night plain, for Rivers got into the habit of
+walking home with some of the girls after the mail was distributed,
+leaving his partner to do the trading. Sometimes he went away with Mrs.
+Burke, if she were alone; sometimes with Estelle Clayton, whom Bailey
+thought the finest woman in the world. He secretly resented Rivers'
+attention to Estelle, for he had come to look upon her as under his
+protection. Her coming raised mail-days to the level of a national
+holiday.
+
+She scared him, and yet he rejoiced to see her coming down over the sod
+so strong, so erect, so clear-eyed. She wore her hair like a matron, and
+that pleased him, and she looked at him so frankly and unwaveringly. She
+had been a school-teacher in some middle Western State, and had been
+swept into this movement by her desire to go to an Eastern college.
+
+Bailey contrived to look very stern and very busy whenever she came in,
+but she was wise in ways of men, and treated him as if he were a good
+comrade, and so gradually he came to talk to her almost as freely as
+with Blanche Burke.
+
+He did not know that Jim almost invariably went over to Burke's
+shanty--even when he walked home with Miss Clayton. Rivers did not
+impress Estelle favorably. She was not one to be moved by flattery, nor
+by dimples in male cheeks. She accepted his company pleasantly, but
+there were well-defined bounds to her friendship, as Rivers discovered
+one evening as they were walking over the plain toward her home.
+
+On every side the vivid green stretched away, smooth as the rounded
+flesh of a woman, velvet in texture, glorified by the saffron and orange
+of the sunset sky.
+
+At the cabin they met Carrie, for whom Estelle was both sister and
+mother. The little shanty slanted on the side of a swell like a little
+boat sliding up a monstrous mid-ocean wave. Around it lay a little
+garden inhabited by a colony of chicken-coops--"All my own making,"
+Estelle said. "Oh, of course, sister held the nails and bossed, but I
+did it. I like it, too. It's more fun than working red poppies on
+tidies--that's about all they'll let you do back East."
+
+"It doesn't matter much what you do out here," said Rivers, meaningly.
+
+"Oh yes, it does. Some things are wrong anywhere; but there are other
+things which people _think_ are wrong that are only unusual," she
+answered, and he knew she knew what he meant.
+
+The talk moved on to lighter themes, and then died away as the three sat
+in the doorway and saw the light fade out of the sky.
+
+Carrie's thin, eager face shone with angelic light. She seemed to hold
+her breath as flame after flame of the marvellous light was withdrawn.
+
+"Oh, the sky is so big out here," she whispered. Estelle locked hands
+with her and sat in silence. Rivers, awkward and constrained, respected
+their emotion. At last he rose.
+
+"I'm going over to Burke's a little while, so I'll have to be moving."
+
+"Mrs. Burke is very strange," said Estelle; "I can't seem to get on with
+her. She seems very lonely and restless. Her husband is away a great
+deal, but I can't get her to talk, when I call, and she never returns my
+call."
+
+"She never seemed that way to me," Rivers said, having nothing better in
+mind at the moment.
+
+"I think she's homesick. I wish I knew how to help her, but I don't."
+
+Rivers walked away with two thoughts in his mind. One was the girl's
+sentence about things that were wrong and things which people thought
+were wrong, and the other was the question about Blanche--was she
+homesick? That puzzled him. Had he only seen her in her joyous moods? It
+was not pleasant to think of her growing sad--perhaps on his account.
+
+Burke sat on a bench outside the door, smoking silently in the dusk.
+Blanche was stirring about inside.
+
+"Hello, Rivers!" Burke called. "Take a seat." He pointed at a
+vinegar-keg.
+
+Blanche hurried to meet her visitor, a beautiful smile on her face.
+"Come inside," she said. "I've got some work to do, and I want to hear
+you men talk." They obediently complied, and she lighted a lamp. "I like
+to see you when you talk," she added, flashing a smile at Rivers.
+
+He saw the change in her for the first time. She certainly was paler,
+her face less boyish, and a deeper shadow hovered about her eyes.
+
+"I came over to see if you wouldn't come down and help us get up a
+jollification at the store on the Fourth," he said.
+
+"Why, of course. What shall I do?"
+
+"Oh, stir up a cake--and make some ice-cream. Can you make ice-cream?"
+
+"You bet I can--with ice. Bring on your ice."
+
+"Ice is easy to get. Cook is what bothered me."
+
+"That ought to be easy," said Burke. "Marry one."
+
+"That's what I'm telling Bailey."
+
+"Why don't you set the example. 'Stelle Clayton--now."
+
+Rivers laughed, but his eyes, directed above Burke's head, met the
+unsmiling gaze of Blanche and sobered.
+
+"Miss Clayton and I don't seem to get along first-rate," he said, and
+her face lighted again.
+
+"Well, there are lots of others 'round here--lonesome girls. Blanche,
+can't you help Jim find a woman?"
+
+Blanche did not answer lightly. She turned to her work. "I guess he can
+find one if he tries hard."
+
+She was alluring as she kneaded the bread at the table. The flex of her
+waist and the swing of her skirts affected Rivers powerfully. He watched
+her in silence. Once she looked around, and the penetrative glance of
+his eyes filled her face with a rush of blood, and her eyes misted. A
+few minutes later he said "good-night" in an absent-minded way and went
+home.
+
+Burke talked on, attempting to retain the cheery atmosphere which Rivers
+had brought in, but Blanche refused to answer, a sombre look on her
+sullen face. She seemed falling back into her old petulant, moody ways,
+and her husband suffered a corresponding dejection.
+
+The elation was passing out of his heart. Their picnic was at an end.
+
+As the summer came on he was forced to go out ploughing for other
+settlers, and she was left alone a great deal. This was hard to bear.
+There was so little to do in her little sun-smit cabin, and her trip to
+the post-office to get the mail and to meet the other settlers came to
+be a necessity. Like the other women, she put on her best hat and gown
+when she went to the store, and a low word of compliment from Rivers, as
+he handed out the mail, put a color into her face and a joy in her
+heart which her husband had never been able to arouse--indeed, it was
+after these visits that she was most cruel to Willard.
+
+Sometimes she went with him to visit the neighbors, but not often. One
+day he said:
+
+"I'm goin' to work f'r Jim Bradley to-day--want 'o go 'long?"
+
+"I can't this mornin'. Perhaps I'll come over after dinner and walk home
+with you."
+
+"I think you'll like Mrs. Bradley. She's got the purtiest little baby
+you ever saw." He did not look at her as he slung his pick and shovel on
+his shoulder. "Well, I'll tell her you'll be over about three o'clock."
+
+"All right, tell her. Mebbe I'll come and mebbe I won't," she answered,
+ungraciously.
+
+All that forenoon she went about her little cabin moodily, or sat
+silently by the open door watching the buffalo birds or larks as they
+came up about the barn for food. The green plain was all a-shimmer with
+pleasant heat. The plover, nesting in the grass, were nearly ready to
+bring forth their young--and the mother fox had already begun to lead
+her litter out upon the sunny hillside; only this childless woman seemed
+unhappy--sad.
+
+As she came to the cabin of the Bradleys, Willard, sunk to his topknot
+in the ground, was burrowing like a badger in the clay, quite oblivious
+to the world above him. Some one was singing in the cabin, and,
+approaching the door, Blanche saw a picture which thrilled her with a
+strange, hungry, envious passion.
+
+A young woman was seated in the tiny room with her back to the door,
+her hand on a cradle, and as she rocked she sang softly. She was a plain
+little woman, the cradle was cheap and common, and her singing was only
+a monotonous chant; but the scene had a sort of sublimity--it was so
+old, so typical, and so beautiful.
+
+The woman without the threshold stood for a long time staring straight
+before her, then turned and walked away homeward--past the weary,
+patient, heroic man toiling deep in the earth for her sake--leaving him
+without a glance or a word.
+
+"You didn't get over to Mrs. Bradley's this afternoon, then?" Burke
+said, at supper.
+
+"No," she replied, shortly, "I had some sewin' to do."
+
+"Wal, go to-morrow. That's an awfully cute little chap--that baby," he
+went on, after a little. "Mrs. Bradley let him set on my knee to-day."
+Then he sighed. "I wisht we had one like 'im, Blanche." After a pause,
+he said, "Mebbe God will send one some day."
+
+She didn't appear to hear, and her face was dark with passion.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+AUGUST
+
+
+Now the settlers began to long for rain. Day after day vast clouds rose
+above the horizon, swift and portentous, domed like aerial mountains,
+only to pass with a swoop like the flight of silent, great eagles,
+followed by a trailing garment of dust. Often they lifted in the west
+with fine promise, only to go muttering and bellowing by to the north or
+south, leaving the sky and plain as beautiful, as placid, and as dry as
+before. The people grew anxious, and some of them became bitter, but the
+most of them kept up good courage, feeling certain that this was an
+unusual season.
+
+One sultry day, while Rivers was on his way out to the store, he fell to
+studying the sky and air. On the prairie, as on the sea, one studies
+little else. There was something formidable in every sign. In the west a
+prodigious dome of blue-black cloud was rising, ragged at the edge, but
+dense and compact at the horizon.
+
+"That means business," Rivers said to himself, and chirped to his team.
+
+The air was close and hot. The southern wind had died away. There was
+scarcely a sound in all the landscape save the regular clucking of the
+wagon-wheels, the soft, rhythmical tread of the horses' feet, and the
+snapping buzz of the grasshoppers rising from the weeds. Far away to the
+west lay the blue Coteaux, thirty miles distant, long, low, without
+break, like a wall. The sun was hidden by the cloud, and as he passed a
+shanty Rivers saw the family eating their supper outside the door to
+escape the smothering heat.
+
+He smiled as he saw the gleam of white dresses about the door of the
+store. As he drove up, a swarm of impatient folk came out to meet him.
+The girls waved their handkerchiefs at him, and the men raised a shout.
+
+"You're late, old man."
+
+"I know it, but that makes me all the more welcome." He heaved the
+mail-bag to Bailey. "There's a letter for every girl in the crowd, I
+know, for I wrote 'em."
+
+"We'll believe that when we see the letters," the girls replied.
+
+He dismounted heavily. "Somebody put my team up. I'm hungry as a wolf
+and dry as a biscuit."
+
+"The poor thing," said one of the girls. "He means a cracker."
+
+Estelle Clayton came out of the store. "Supper's all ready for you, Mr.
+Mail-Carrier. Come right in and sit down."
+
+"I'm a-coming--now watch me," he replied, with intent to be funny.
+
+The girls accompanied him into the little living-room.
+
+"Oh, my, don't some folks live genteel? See the canned peaches!"
+
+"And the canned lobster!"
+
+"And the hot biscuit!"
+
+"Sit down, Jim, and we'll pour the tea and dip out the peaches."
+
+Rivers seated himself at the little pine table. "I guess you'd better
+whistle while you're dipping the peaches," he said, pointedly.
+
+Miss Thompson dropped the spoon. "What impudence!"
+
+"Oh, let him go on--don't mind him," said Estelle. "Let's desert him; I
+guess that will make him sorry."
+
+Upon the word they all withdrew, and Rivers smiled. "Good riddance,"
+said he.
+
+Miss Baker presently opened the door, and, shaking a letter, said,
+"Don't you wish you knew?"
+
+He pretended to hurl a biscuit at her, and she shut the door with a
+shriek of laughter.
+
+Mrs. Burke slipped in. Her voice was low and timid, her face sombre.
+
+"I cooked the supper, Jim."
+
+"You did? Well, it's good. The biscuits are delicious." He looked at her
+as only a husband should look--intimate, unwaveringly, secure. "You're
+looking fine!"
+
+She flushed with pleasure. As she passed him with the tea, he put his
+arm about her waist.
+
+"Be careful, Jim," she said, gently, and with a revealing, familiar, sad
+cadence in her voice.
+
+He smiled at her boyishly. He was beautiful to her in this mood. "I was
+hoping you'd come over and stew something up for me. Hello, there's the
+thunder! It's going to rain!"
+
+Another sudden boom, like a cannon-shot, silenced the noise inside for
+an instant, and then a sudden movement took place, the movement of feet
+passing hurriedly about, and at last only one or two persons could be
+heard. When Rivers re-entered the store Bailey was alone, standing in
+the door, intently watching the coming storm. It was growing dusk on the
+plain, and the lightning was beginning to play rapidly, low down toward
+the horizon.
+
+"We're in for it!" Bailey remarked, very quietly. "Cyclone!"
+
+"Think so?" said Rivers, carelessly.
+
+"Sure of it, Jim. That cloud's too wide in the wings to miss us this
+time."
+
+A peculiar, branching flash of lightning lay along the sky, like a vast
+elm-tree, followed by a crashing roar.
+
+Blanche cried out in alarm.
+
+"Now, don't be scared. It's only a shower and will soon be over," said
+Bailey. "Here's a letter for you."
+
+She took the letter and read it hastily, looking often at the coming
+storm. She seemed pale and distraught.
+
+"Do you s'pose I've got time to get home now?" she asked, as she
+finished reading.
+
+"No," said Rivers, so decidedly that Bailey looked up in surprise.
+
+"Can't you take me home?"
+
+Rivers looked out of the door. "By the time we get this wagon unloaded
+and the team hitched up, the storm will be upon us. No. I guess you're
+safest right here."
+
+There was a peculiar tone, a note of authority, in his voice which
+puzzled Bailey quite as much as her submission.
+
+They worked silently and swiftly, getting the barrels of pork and oil
+and flour into the store, and by the time they had emptied the wagon the
+room was dark, so dark that the white face of the awed woman could be
+seen only as a blotch of gray against the shadow.
+
+They lighted the oil lamps, which hung in brackets on the wall, and then
+Rivers said to Blanche: "Won't you go into the other room? We must stay
+here and look after the goods."
+
+"No, no! I'd rather be here with you; it's going to be terrible."
+
+"Hark!" said Bailey, with lifted hands; "there she comes!"
+
+Far away was heard a continuous, steady, low-keyed, advancing hum, like
+the rushing of wild horses, their hoofbeats lost in one mighty,
+throbbing, tumultuous roar; then a deeper darkness fell upon the scene,
+and swift as the swoop of an eagle the tornado was upon them.
+
+The advancing wall of rain struck the building with terrific force. The
+lightning broke forth, savage as the roar of siege-guns. The noise of
+the wind and thunder was deafening. The plain grew black as night, save
+when the lightning flamed in countless streams across the clouds. The
+cabin shook like a frightened hound. Bailey looked around.
+
+"We must move the goods!" he shouted above the tumult. "See, the rain is
+beating in!"
+
+Rivers, with Blanche encircled by his arm, pressed her to his side
+reassuringly. "Don't be afraid. It can't blow down," he repeated.
+
+He then leaped to Bailey's assistance, and, while the thunder crashed in
+their ears and the lightning blinded their eyes, they worked like
+frantic insects to move the goods away from the western wall, through
+which the rain was beating. There was a pleasure in this assault which
+the woman could not share. It was battle, absorbing and exalting. Their
+shouts were full of joyous excitement.
+
+Once, when the structure trembled and groaned with the shock of a
+frightful blast, Rivers again put his arm around Blanche, saying: "It
+can't blow over. See those heavy barrels? If this store blows down,
+there won't be a shanty standing in the county."
+
+She pushed to the window to get a glimpse of the sod when the lightning
+flamed. She imagined the plain as it would look with every cabin
+flattened to earth, its inmates scattered, unhoused in the scant,
+water-weighted grass.
+
+As they all stood staring out, Rivers pointed and shouted to Bailey,
+"See that flag-pole!"
+
+It was made of hard pine, tough and supple, but it bent in the force of
+the wind like a willow twig. Again and again it bowed, rose with a
+fling, only to be borne down again. At last it broke with a crash; the
+upper half, whirling down, struck the roof, opening a ragged hole
+through which the rain streamed in torrents.
+
+Rivers cried, in battle alarm, "The roof is going!"
+
+"No, it ain't!" trumpeted Bailey, sturdily; "swing a tub up here to
+catch the water!"
+
+The woman forgot her fears and aided the two men as they toiled to cover
+the more perishable goods with bolts of cotton cloth, while the
+appalling wind tore at the eaves and lashed the roof with broadsides of
+rain and hail, which fell in constantly increasing force, raising the
+roar of the storm in key, till it crackled viciously. The tempest had
+the voice of a ravenous beast, cheated and angry. Outside the water lay
+in sheets. The whole land was a river, and the shanty was like a boat
+beached on a bar in the swash of it.
+
+Nothing more could be done, and so they waited, Bailey watching at the
+window, Blanche and Rivers standing in the centre of the room. Bailey
+came back once to say: "This beats anything I ever saw. There will be
+ruin to many a shanty out of this," he added, as the roar began to
+diminish. "Nothing saved us but our ballast of pork and oil."
+
+"As soon as it stops, Bob, I wish you'd hitch up for me. I want to take
+Mrs. Burke home."
+
+"All right, Jim; it's letting up now. I wonder if the storm was as bad
+over where the Clayton girls are?" His voice betrayed anxiety greater
+than he knew. Rivers looked at him indulgently and smiled at Blanche.
+"You'd better go and see," he said.
+
+As soon as it became possible to carry a light, Bailey went to the barn
+and brought the team to the door. Rivers helped Blanche to a seat in
+the wagon and drove off across the plain, leaving Bailey alone in the
+water-soaked store-room. After a half-hour's work he, too, set out on a
+tour of exploration. The moon was shining on the plain as serenely as if
+only a dew had fallen. Water stood in shallow basins here and there, but
+the land was unmarked of the passion of lightning and of wind. Bailey
+walked across the level waste, straining his eyes ahead to see if the
+homes of his neighbors were still standing. He saw lights gleaming here
+and there like warning lamps of distant schooners, and when the
+infrequent, silent lightning flamed over the level waste, he caught
+glimpses of familiar shanties standing on the low swells.
+
+He hurried forward, his feet splashing in water, too intent to turn
+aside. Wherever a lamp burned steadily he knew a roof still remained,
+and his heart grew lighter. He came at last to the object of his search.
+It was only a small hut, but it was to him most sacred. He knocked
+timidly at the door.
+
+"Who's there?" was the quick and startled reply.
+
+"It's Bailey. I'm here to see how you came through the storm."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Bailey!" replied Estelle. She opened the door. "Come in. We're
+all right, but wet. Don't step in the pans."
+
+As he entered, with eyes a little dazzled by the candle, Carrie, wrapped
+in a shawl, rose from the bed. "Oh, I'm glad to see a man! Wasn't it
+terrible?" Pans were set about the room to catch the dripping water. The
+little shanty, usually so orderly and cheerful, looked dishevelled and
+desolate.
+
+Estelle laughed and said, "I tried to save the chickens, and I nearly
+blew away myself."
+
+Her cheeks were flushed, and her wet hair streamed down her back. She
+was barefooted, a fact which she tried to conceal by leaning forward a
+little.
+
+"It was very good of you to come over," she went on, more soberly, in
+the pause which followed. "We were scared; no use denying that, but we
+were too busy to dwell upon it. The wind took the tarred paper off the
+roof and let the rain through everywhere. It was the most exciting
+experience of our lives."
+
+She was more breathless and girlish than she had ever been in his
+presence, and he grew correspondingly secure. A subtle charm came from
+her streaming hair and her uncorseted and graceful figure. He offered
+assistance, but she sturdily replied:
+
+"Oh no, thank you. There's nothing to do till morning, anyway. We kept
+the bed dry, and so we can sleep." She smiled on him with something
+happy hidden in the tones of her voice. She was embarrassed, but not
+afraid. She trusted him perfectly, and he was exalted by that trust.
+
+"Well, I'll be over in the morning and see how badly damaged you are. I
+couldn't go to bed till I knew you were all right."
+
+"Thank you. You're very kind."
+
+He went out with a feeling that Carrie was trying hard not to laugh at
+him. He was sure he heard a smothered giggle as he went down the slope.
+He glowed with admiration for Estelle, so frank, so womanly. They
+seemed to have drawn closer to each other in that fifteen minutes' talk
+than in all the preceding months. In the joy of this deepening
+friendship he splashed contentedly back to the store, unheeding the
+pools beneath his feet.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+NOVEMBER
+
+
+September and October passed before the surveyors, long looked for, came
+through, and three months dragged out their slow length before the
+pre-emptors could file and escape from their claims.
+
+By the first of November the wonder had gone out of the life of the
+settlers. One by one the novelties and beauties of the plain had passed
+away or grown familiar. The plover and blackbird fell silent. The
+prairie-chicken's piping cry ceased as the flocks grew toward maturity,
+and the lark and cricket alone possessed the russet plain, which seemed
+to snap and crackle in the midnight frost, and to wither away in the
+bright midday sun.
+
+Many of the squatters by this time had spent their last dollar, and
+there was little work for them to do. Each man, like his neighbor, was
+waiting to "prove up." They had all lived on canned beans and crackers
+since March, and they now faced three months more of this fare. Some of
+them had no fuel, and winter was rapidly approaching.
+
+The vast, treeless level, so alluring in May and June, had become an
+oppressive weight to those most sensitive to the weather, and as the air
+grew chill and the skies overcast, the women turned with apprehensive
+faces to the untracked northwest, out of which the winds swept
+pitilessly cold and keen. The land of the straddle-bug was gray and sad.
+
+One day a cold rain mixed with sleet came on, and when the sun set,
+partly clear, the Coteaux to the west rose like a marble wall,
+crenelated and shadowed in violet, radiant as the bulwarks of some
+celestial city; but it made the thoughtful husband look keenly at the
+thin walls of his cabin and wonder where his fuel was to come from. In
+this unsheltered land, where coal was high and doctors far away, winter
+was a dreaded enemy.
+
+The depopulation of the newly claimed land began. Some of the girls went
+back never to return; others settled in Boomtown, with intent to visit
+their claims once a month through the winter; but a few, like the
+Burkes, remained in their little shanties, which looked still more like
+dens when sodded to the eaves. The Clayton girls flitted away to
+Wheatland, leaving the plain desolately lonely to Bailey. One by one the
+huts grew smokeless and silent, until at last the only English-speaking
+woman within three miles was old Mrs. Bussy, who swore and smoked a
+pipe, and talked like a man with bronchitis. She was not an attractive
+personality, and Mrs. Burke derived little comfort from her presence.
+
+Willard was away a great deal teaming, working desperately to get
+something laid up for the winter. The summer excursion, with its
+laughter, its careless irresponsibility, had become a deadly grapple
+with the implacable forces of winter. The land of the straddle-bug had
+become a menacing desert, hard as iron, pitiless as ice.
+
+Now the wind had dominion over the lonely women, wearing out their
+souls with its melancholy moanings and its vast and wordless sighs. Its
+voices seemed to enter Blanche Burke's soul, filling it with hunger
+never felt before. Day after day it moaned in her ears and wailed about
+the little cabin, rousing within her formless desires and bitter
+despairs. Obscure emotions, unused powers of reason and recollection
+came to her. She developed swiftly in sombre womanhood.
+
+Sometimes Mrs. Bussy came across the prairie, sometimes a load of
+land-seekers asked for dinner, but mainly she was alone all the long,
+long days. She spent hours by the window watching, waiting, gazing at
+the moveless sod, listening to the wind-voices, companioned only by her
+memories. She began to perceive that their emigration had been a bitter
+mistake, but her husband had not yet acknowledged it, and she honestly
+tried not to reproach him for it. Nevertheless, she had moments of
+bitterness when she raged fiercely against him.
+
+Little things gave her opportunity. He came home late one day. She
+greeted him sullenly. He began to apologize:
+
+"I didn't intend to stay to supper, but Mrs. Bradley--"
+
+"Mrs. Bradley! Yes, you can go and have a good time with Mrs. Bradley,
+and leave me here all alone to rot. It'd serve you right if I left you
+to enjoy this fine home alone."
+
+He trembled with agony and weakness.
+
+"Oh, you don't mean that, Blanche--"
+
+"For Heaven's sake, don't call me pet names. I'm not a child. If I'd had
+any sense I'd never have come out here. There's nothing left for us but
+just freeze or starve. What did we ever leave Illinois for, anyway?"
+
+He sank back into a corner in gentle, sorrowful patience, waiting for
+her anger to wear itself out.
+
+While they sat there in silence they heard the sound of hoofs on the
+frozen ground, and a moment later Bailey's pleasant voice arose: "Hullo,
+the house!" Burke went to the door, and Blanche rose to meet the visitor
+with a smile, the knot in her forehead smoothed out. There was no alloy
+in her pure respect and friendship for Bailey.
+
+He came in cheerily, his hearty voice ringing with health and good-will.
+He took her hand in his with a quick, strong grip, and the light of his
+brown eyes brought a glow to her heart.
+
+"I've come over to see if you don't want to go to the city to-morrow?
+I've got Joe Pease to stay in the store, and so I thought I'd take an
+outing."
+
+Burke looked at his wife; she replied, eagerly:
+
+"I should like to go, Mr. Bailey, very much. Our old team is so feeble
+we daren't drive so far. I'm afraid every time old Dick stumbles he'll
+fall down on the road."
+
+"We'll have to get back to-morrow night," Burke said.
+
+"Oh, we'll do that all right," replied Bailey.
+
+As she planned the trip with tremulous eagerness, Bailey studied her.
+She was paler than he had ever seen her, and more refined and
+thoughtful, scarcely recognizable as the high-colored, powerful woman
+for whom he had helped build the shanty in March. There were times now
+when it seemed as if she were appealing to him, and his heart ached
+with undefined sorrow as he looked about her prison-like home.
+
+For half an hour she chatted with something of her old-time vivacity,
+but when he went out her face resumed its gloomy lines, and she silenced
+her husband with a glance when he attempted to keep up the cheerful
+conversation.
+
+The next morning, as she was dressing, she turned sick and faint for a
+moment. Her breath seemed to fail her, and she sat down, dizzy and weak.
+She was alone, but the red blood came swelling back into her face as she
+waited.
+
+She grew better soon, and rose and went about her work. Then the
+excitement and pleasure of her trip, the expectation of meeting Rivers,
+helped her to put her weakness away.
+
+Bailey called for the Clayton girls, who were making their monthly visit
+to their claim, and Mrs. Burke, seeing the shine of a lover's joy in
+Bailey's face, and the clear, unwavering trust of a pure, good girl in
+Estelle's gray eyes, fell silent, and the shadow of her own sorrow came
+back upon her face.
+
+The ride seemed short, and the town at the end wondrously exciting.
+Rivers met them at the hotel, and insisted on their being his guests
+during their stay. They had a jolly supper together, after which they
+all went to the little town-hall to see a play. Blanche sat beside
+Rivers, and as she laughed at Si Peasley and his misadventures in the
+city she was girlishly happy. It was not very much of an entertainment,
+but in contrast with life in a sod shanty it was all very exciting for
+her.
+
+"Oh, I wish we could live in town this winter!" she sighed in Rivers'
+ear.
+
+"You can," he answered, with significant inflection.
+
+Altogether, the evening was one of deep pleasure for Blanche. She
+enjoyed the companionship of the Clayton girls, who had never been so
+friendly and sympathetic with her before. They invited her to spend the
+night with them, which pleased her very much, and they all sat up till
+one o'clock, talking upon all sorts of tremendously interesting feminine
+subjects.
+
+Next morning Estelle went with her while she did a little
+shopping--pitifully little, for she only had a dollar or two to
+spend--while Bailey loaded up his team. At last, and all too soon, her
+outing ended, and she faced the west with heavy heart.
+
+Poor Willard also felt the menace of the desolate, wild prairie, but he
+had no conception of the tumult of regret and despair which filled his
+wife's mind as she climbed into the wagon for their return journey. She
+was like a prisoner whose parole had ended.
+
+The Clayton girls said good-bye with pity in their voices, and Rivers
+sought opportunity to say, privately: "I hate to see you back out there
+on the border. If you need anything, let me know."
+
+"All aboard!" called Bailey, as he took his reins in hand.
+
+A bitter blast and a gray sky confronted them as they drove out of the
+town, and not even Bailey's abounding vitality and good-humor could keep
+Blanche from sinking back into gloomy silence. The wind was keen,
+strong, prophetic of the snows which were already gathering far in the
+north, and the journey seemed endless; and when late in the afternoon
+they drew up before the squat, low hovel in which she was to spend a
+long and desolate winter, Blanche was shivering violently, and so
+depressed that she could not coherently thank the kindly young fellow
+who had afforded her this brief respite from her care. She staggered
+into the house, so stiff she could scarcely walk, and sank into a chair
+to sob out her loneliness and despair, while Willard pottered about
+building a fire on their icy hearth.
+
+Willard Burke had a question to ask, and that night, as they were
+sitting at their poor little table, he plucked up courage to begin:
+
+"Blanche, I want to ask you something--that is, I've been kind o'
+noticin' you--" Here he paused, intending to be sly and suggestive.
+"Seems to me this climate ain't so bad, after all; you complain a good
+deal, but seems to me you hadn't ought to." He trembled while he smiled.
+"It's done a lot for you."
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked, her face flushing with confusion.
+
+"I mean"--he tried to laugh--"your best dress seems pretty tight for
+you. Oh, if it only should be--"
+
+"Don't be a fool," she angrily replied. "If anything like that happens,
+I'll let you know."
+
+His face lengthened, and the smile went out of his eyes. He accepted her
+tone as final, too loyal to doubt her word. "Don't be mad; I was only in
+hopes." He rose after a silence and went out with downcast head.
+
+She sat rigidly, feeling as if the blood were freezing in her hands and
+feet. The crisis was upon her. The time of her judgment was coming--and
+she was alone! She burned with anger against Rivers. Why had he waited
+and waited? "_He_ can put things off--he is a man, but I am the woman--I
+must suffer it all." The pain, the shame, the deadly danger--all were
+hers.
+
+Burke returned, noisily, stamping his feet like a boy.
+
+"It's snowin' like all git out," he said, "and I've got to rig up some
+kind of a sled. I reckon winter has come in earnest now, and our
+coal-pile is low."
+
+He went to sleep with the readiness of a child, and as she lay listening
+to his quiet breath she remembered how easy it had once been for her to
+sleep. She had the same agony of pity for him that she would have felt
+for a child she had wronged malevolently.
+
+The next day Mrs. Bussy came over. At her rap Blanche called, "Come in,"
+but remained seated by the fire.
+
+The old woman entered, knocking the snow off her feet like a man.
+
+"How de do, neighbor?"
+
+Blanche drew her shawl a little closer around her. "Not very well; sit
+down, won't you?"
+
+"Can't stop. You don't seem very peart. I want to know what seems to be
+the trouble." Her keen eyes had never seemed so penetrating before.
+Blanche flushed and moved uneasily. She was afraid of the old creature,
+who seemed half-man, half-woman.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. Rheumatism, I guess."
+
+"That so? Well, this weather is 'nough to give anybody rheumatiz. I
+tell Ed--that's my boy--I tell Ed we made holy fools of ourselves comin'
+out here. I never see such a damn country f'r wind." She rambled on
+about the weather for some time, and at last rose. "Well, I wanted to
+borrow your wash-boiler; mine leaks like an infernal old sieve, and I
+dasen't go to town to get it mended for fear of a blow. What's trouble?"
+
+Blanche suddenly put her hand to her side and grew white and rigid. Then
+the blood flamed into her cheeks, and the perspiration stood out on her
+forehead. She clinched her lips between her teeth and lay back in her
+chair.
+
+"Ye look kind o' faint. Can't I do something for ye? Got any
+pain-killer? That's good, well rubbed in," volunteered the old woman.
+
+"No, no, I--I'm all right now, it was just a sharp twinge, that's
+all--you'll find the boiler in the shed; I don't need it." Her tone was
+one of dismissal.
+
+The old woman rose. "All right, I'll find it. Set still." As she went
+out she grinned--a mocking, sly, aggravating grin. "It's all
+right--nothin' to be ashamed of. I've had ten. I called _my_ first one
+pleurisy. It didn't fool any one, though." She cackled and creaked with
+laughter as she shut the door.
+
+Blanche sat motionless, staring straight before her, while the fire died
+out and the room grew cold.
+
+Her terror and shame gave way at last, and she allowed herself to dream
+of the mystical joy of maternity. She permitted herself to fancy the
+life of a mother in a sheltered and prosperous home. She felt in
+imagination the touch of little lips, the thrust of little hands, the
+cling of little arms. "My baby should come into a lovely, sun-lit room.
+It should have a warm, pretty cradle. It should--"
+
+The door opened and her husband entered.
+
+"Why, Blanche--what's the matter? You've let the fire go out. It's cold
+as blixen in here. You'll take cold, first you know."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+DECEMBER
+
+
+Winter came late, but with a fury which appalled the strong hearts of
+the settlers. Most of them were from the wooded lands of the East, and
+the sweep of the wind across this level sod had a terror which made them
+quake and cower. The month of December was incredibly severe.
+
+Day after day the thermometer fell so far below zero that no living
+thing moved on the wide, white waste. The snows seemed never at rest.
+One storm followed another, till the drifting, icy sands were worn as
+fine as flour. The house was like a cave. Its windows, thick with frost,
+let in only a pallid light at midday. There was little for Blanche to
+do, and there was nothing for her to say to Willard, who came and went
+aimlessly between the barn and house. His poor old team could no longer
+face the cold wind without danger of freezing, and so he walked to the
+store for the mail and the groceries. They lived on boiled potatoes and
+bacon, suffering like prisoners--jailed innocently. He hovered about the
+stove, feeding it twisted bundles of hay till he grew yellow with the
+tanning effect of the smoke, while Blanche cowered in her chair,
+petulant and ungenerous.
+
+The winter deepened. There were many days when the sun shone, but the
+snow slid across the plain with a menacing, hissing sound, and the sky
+was milky with flying frost, and the horizon looked cold and wild; but
+these were merely the pauses between storms. The utter dryness of the
+flakes and the never-resting progress of the winds kept the drifts
+shifting, shifting.
+
+"This is what you've dragged me into!" Blanche burst out, one desolate
+day after a week's confinement to the house. "This is your fine
+home--this dug-out! This is the climate you bragged about. I can't stay
+here any longer. Oh, my God, if I was only back home again!" She rose,
+and walked back and forth, her shawl trailing after her. "If I'd had any
+word to say about it, we never'd 'a' been out in this God-forsaken
+country."
+
+He bowed his head to her passion and sat in silence, while she raged on.
+
+"Do you know we haven't got ten pounds of flour in the house? And
+another blizzard likely? And no butter, either? What y' goin' to do? Let
+me starve?"
+
+"I _did_ intend to go over to Bussy's and get back the flour they
+borrowed of us, but I'm a little afraid to go out to-day; it looks like
+another norther. The wind's rising, and old Tom--"
+
+"But that's just the reason why you've got to go. We can't run such
+risks. We've got to eat or die--you ought to know that."
+
+Burke rose, and began putting on his wraps. "I'll go over and see what I
+can squeeze out of old lady Bussy."
+
+"Oh, this wind will drive me crazy!" she cried out. "Oh, I wish somebody
+would come!" She dropped upon the bed, sobbing with a hysterical
+catching of the breath. The wind was piping a high-keyed, mourning note
+on the chimney-top, a sound that rang echoing down through every hidden
+recess of her brain, shaking her, weakening her, till at last she turned
+upon her husband with wild eyes.
+
+"Take me with you! I can't stay here any longer--I shall go crazy!" She
+turned her head to listen. "Isn't some one coming? Look out and see! I
+hear bells!"
+
+Burke tried to soothe her in his timid, clumsy fashion.
+
+"There, there, now--sit down. You ain't well, Blanche. I'll ask Mrs.
+Bussy to come--"
+
+She suddenly seemed to remember something. "Don't talk to her. Go to
+Craig's. Don't go to Bussy's--please don't! I hate her. I won't be in
+her debt."
+
+This pleading tone puzzled him, but he promised; and, hitching up his
+thin, old horses, drove around to the door of the shanty. Blanche came
+out, dressed to go with him, but when she felt the edge of the wind she
+shrank. Her lips turned blue and she cowered back against the side of
+the cabin, holding her shawl like a shield before her bosom. "I can't do
+it! It's too cold! I'd freeze to death. You'll have to go alone."
+
+Burke was relieved. "Yes, you'd better stay," he said, and drove off.
+
+Blanche crept back into the shanty and bent above the stove, shivering
+violently. She drew a long breath now and then like a grieving child.
+Life was over for her. She had reached the point where nothing mattered.
+She sat there until the sound of bells aroused her. "It's Jim!" she
+called, and rose to her feet, her face radiant with relief. Rivers came
+rushing up to the door in a two-horse sleigh and leaped out with a shout
+of greeting, though he could not see her at the frosted window.
+
+A moment later he burst in, vigorous, smiling, defiant of the cold.
+
+"Hello! All alone? How are you?"
+
+A quick warmth ran through her chilled limbs, and she lifted her hands
+to him.
+
+"Oh, Jim, I'm so glad you came!"
+
+"Keep away--I'm all snow," he warningly called, as he threw off his cap
+and buffalo coat. "Now come to me," he said, and took her in his arms.
+"How are you, sweetheart? I can't kiss you--my mustache is all ice.
+Where's Burke?"
+
+"Gone to Craig's."
+
+He winked jovially while pulling the icicles from his long mustache.
+
+"I thought I saw him driving across the ridge. I was on my way to the
+store, but when I saw his old rack-a-bone team I turned off to see you.
+How are you?" he asked, tenderly, and his voice swept away all her
+reserve.
+
+"Oh, Jim, I'm not well. You must take me away, _right off_. I can't stay
+here another day--_not a day_."
+
+He looked at her keenly.
+
+"Why? What's the matter?"
+
+She evaded his eyes.
+
+"It's so lonesome here--" Then she dropped all evasion: "You know
+why--Jim, take me away. I can't live without you _now_. I'm going to be
+sick."
+
+He understood her very well. His eyes fell and his face knotted in
+sudden gravity. "I was afraid of that--that's why I came. Yes, you must
+get out of here at once."
+
+She understood him. "Oh, Jim, you won't leave me now, will you?"
+
+"No. I didn't say anything about leaving you." He put his arm around
+her. "I'm not that kind of a man. You and I were built for each other--I
+felt that on that first ride. I guess it's up to me to take you out of
+this." He broke off his emotional utterance and grew keen and alert.
+
+"I've been planning to go, and I'm almost ready--in fact, I could leave
+now without much loss, but I didn't come prepared for anything so
+sudden. My office furniture don't amount to much, and this team is
+Bailey's"--he mused a moment. "_Come!_" he said, with sudden resolution,
+"it's go now--we'll never have a better chance."
+
+She turned white with dread--now that she neared the actual deed.
+
+"Oh, Jim! I _wish_ there was some other way."
+
+He was a little rough. Her feminine hesitation he could not sympathize
+with.
+
+"Well, there isn't. We've got to get right out of this. Hurry on your
+things. The wind is rising, and we must make Wheatland by five o'clock.
+I came out to hold down my claim, but it ain't worth it. I reckon I've
+squeezed all the juice out of this lemon. This climate is a little
+boisterous for me."
+
+He brought in a blanket and warmed it at the fire while she wrapped
+herself in cloak and shawl.
+
+"I'd better write a little note to--him."
+
+"What for? I've got nothing against him, except that he saw you first.
+But I guess he's out of the running now. It's you and me from this day
+on."
+
+"I hate to go without saying good-bye," she said, tremulously. "He's
+always been good to me," she added, smitten with sudden realization of
+her husband's kindness.
+
+He perceived that she was in earnest. "All right--only it does no good,
+and delays us. Every minute is valuable now. The outlook is owly."
+
+The plain was getting gray as they came out of the door, and the woman
+shrank and shivered with an instant chill, but Rivers tenderly tucked
+the robe about her and leaped into the sleigh.
+
+"Now boys, git!" he shouted to the humped and wind-ruffled team, and
+they sprang away into the currents of powdered snow, which were running
+along the ground in streams as smooth as oil and almost as silent.
+
+The sleigh rose and fell over the ridges like a ship. Off in the west
+the sun was shining through a peculiar smoky cloud, gray-white, vapory,
+with glittering edges where it lay against the cold, yellow sky. Every
+sign was ominous, and the long drive seemed a desperate venture to the
+woman, but she trusted her lover as a child depends upon a father. She
+nestled close down under his left arm, clothed in its shaggy
+buffalo-skin coat, a splendid elation in her heart. She was at last with
+the strong man to whom she belonged.
+
+This elation did not last long. Her sense of safety died slowly out,
+just as the blood chilled in her veins. She was not properly clothed,
+and her feet soon ached with cold, and she drew her breath through her
+teeth to prevent the utterance of moans of pain. She was never free now
+from the feeling of guardianship which is the delight and the haunting
+uneasiness of motherhood. "I must be warm," she thought, "for _its_
+sake."
+
+She heard his voice above.
+
+"I never'll settle in a prairie country again--not but what I've done
+well enough as a land-agent, but there's no big thing here for
+anybody--nothing for the land-agent now."
+
+"Oh, Jim, I'm so cold! I'm afraid I can't stand it!" she broke out,
+desperately.
+
+"There, there!" he said, as if she were a child. "Cuddle down on my
+knees. Be brave. You'll get warmer soon as we turn south."
+
+Nevertheless, he was alarmed as he looked about him. He gathered her
+close in his arm, holding the robe about her, and urged on his brave
+team. They were hardly five miles from the shanty, and yet the storm
+was becoming frightful, even to his resolute and experienced brain. The
+circle of his vision had narrowed till it was impossible at times to see
+fifty rods away. The push of the wind grew each moment mightier. A
+multitudinous, soft, rushing, whispering roar was rising round them,
+mixed with a hissing, rustling sound like the passing of invisible,
+winged hosts. He could feel his woman shake with cold, but she spoke no
+further word of complaint.
+
+He turned the horses suddenly to the left, speaking through his teeth.
+
+"We must make the store," he said. "We must have more wraps. We'll stop
+at the Ranch and get warm, and then go on. The wind may lull--anyway, it
+will be at our backs."
+
+As the team turned to the south the air seemed a little less savage, but
+Blanche still writhed with pain. Her hands suffered most; her feet had
+grown numb.
+
+"We'll be there in a few minutes," Rivers cheerily repeated, but he
+began to understand her desperate condition.
+
+A quarter of an hour later his team drew up before the door of the
+ranch-house. It seemed deliciously warm in the lee of the long walls.
+
+"Well, here we are. Now we'll go in and get warm."
+
+"What if Mr. Bailey is there?" she stammered, with stiff lips.
+
+"No matter, you must not freeze."
+
+He shouted, "Hello, Bailey!" There was no reply, and he leaped out.
+"Come, you must go in." He took her in his arms and carried her into the
+room, dim, yet gloriously warm by contrast with the outside air. "Feels
+good here, doesn't it? Now, while I roll up some blankets, you warm--We
+must be quick. I'll find you some overshoes."
+
+Blanche staggered on her numb feet, which felt like clods. She was weak
+with cold, and everything grew dark before her.
+
+"Oh, Jim, I can't go on. I'll freeze. I'll die--I know I shall. My feet
+are frozen solid."
+
+He dragged a chair to the hearth of the stove, in which a coal fire lay.
+His action was bold and confident.
+
+"No, you won't. I'll have you all right in a jiffy. Trouble is, you're
+not half dressed. You need woollen underclothing and a new fur cloak.
+We'll make it sealskin to pay for this."
+
+He unlaced her shoes and slipped them off, and, while she sobbed with
+agony, he rolled her stockings down and took her cold, white feet in his
+warm, swift hands. In a few minutes the wrinkles of pain on her face
+smoothed out, and a flush came into her cheeks. The tears stood on her
+eyelashes. She was like a sorrowing child who forgets its grief in a
+quick return of happiness.
+
+Suddenly Rivers stopped and listened. His face grew set and dark with
+apprehension. "Here, put your veil back, quick! It's Bailey! Don't
+answer him, unless I tell you to."
+
+Outside a clear voice pierced through the wind. It was Bailey speaking
+to the horses.
+
+Rivers went on, angrily: "If you'd been half dressed, this wouldn't have
+happened. There'll be hell to pay unless I can convince him--"
+
+A hand was laid on the knob and Bailey entered.
+
+"Hello, Jim! I didn't think you'd come out to-day." He eyed the muffled
+woman sharply. "Who've you got with you--Mrs. Burke?"
+
+"It don't concern you," Rivers replied. He saw his mistake instantly,
+and changed his tone. "Yes, I'm taking her home. Come, Mrs. Burke, we
+must be going."
+
+"Wait a minute, Jim," said Bailey. He studied them both carefully.
+"Something's wrong here. I feel that. Where are you going, Jim?"
+
+Rivers' wrath flamed out. "None o' your business. Come, Blanche." He
+turned to her. His tones betrayed him again.
+
+Bailey faced him, with his back to the door.
+
+"Wait a minute, Jim."
+
+"Get out o' my way."
+
+There was a silence, and in that silence the two men faced each other as
+if under some strange light. They seemed alien to each other, yet
+familiar, too. Bailey spoke first:
+
+"Jim, I know all about it. You're stealing another man's wife--and, by
+God, I won't let you do it!" His voice shook so that he hardly uttered
+his sentence intelligibly. The sweat of shame broke out on his face, but
+he did not falter. "I've seen this coming on all summer. I ought to have
+interfered before--"
+
+Rivers laid a hand on him. "Stand out o' my way, or I'll kill you."
+
+The quiver went out of Bailey's voice. He took his partner's hand down
+from his shoulder, and when he dropped it there was a bracelet of
+whitened flesh where his fingers had circled it. "You'll stay right
+here, Jim, till I say 'go.'"
+
+Rivers reached for a weapon. "Will I?" he asked. "I wonder if I will?"
+
+Blanche burst out: "Oh, Jim, don't! Please don't!"
+
+The men did not hear her. They saw no one, heard no one. They were
+facing each other in utter disregard of time or place.
+
+Bailey's tone grew sad and tender, but he did not move: "All right, Jim.
+If you want to go to hell as the murderer of your best friend, as well
+as for stealing another man's wife, do it. But you sha'n't go out of
+this door with that woman _while I live_. Now, that's final." His voice
+was low, and his words came slowly, but not from weakness.
+
+For a moment hell looked from the other man's eyes. He was like a tiger
+intercepted in his leap upon his prey. The laugh had vanished from his
+hazel eyes--they were gray and cold and savage, but there was something
+equally forceful in Bailey's gaze.
+
+Rivers could not shoot. He was infuriate, but he was not insane. He
+turned away, cursing his luck. His face, twitching and white, was
+terrible to look upon, but the crisis was over.
+
+Bailey's eyes lightened. "Come, old man, you can't afford to do this. Go
+out and put up the team, and to-morrow we'll take Mrs. Burke home--I'll
+explain that she came over after the mail and couldn't get back."
+
+Rivers turned on him again with a sneer. "You cussed fool, can't you see
+that she _can't_ go back to Burke? I've made her mine--you understand?"
+
+Bailey's hands fell slack. He suddenly remembered something. He brushed
+his hand over his brow as if to clear his vision:
+
+"Jim, Jim, I--good God!--how could you do such a thing?" He was
+helpless as a boy, in face of this hideous complication.
+
+Rivers pushed his advantage. He developed a species of swagger:
+
+"Never mind about that. It's done. Now what are you going to do? Can you
+fix up such a thing as that?" Bailey was still silent. "It simply means
+that I'm her husband from this time on. Sit down, Blanche--I'm going to
+put up the team, but to-morrow morning we go. We couldn't make it now,
+anyway," he added. "There's nothing for it but to stay here all night."
+
+Bailey stood aside to let him go out, then went to the stove and
+mechanically stirred it up and put some water heating. This finished, he
+sat down and leaned his head in his hands in confused thought.
+
+To his clear sense his partner's act seemed monstrous. He had been
+brought up to respect the marriage bond, and to protect and honor
+women. The illicit was impossible to his candid soul. All the men he had
+associated with had been respecters of marriage, though some of them
+were obscene--thoughtlessly, he always believed--and now Jim, his chum,
+had come between a man and his wife! With Estelle in his mind as the
+type of purity, he could not understand how a wife could be the
+faithless creature Blanche Burke seemed. Her weakness opened a new world
+to him. He could not trust himself to speak to her.
+
+The bubbling of the kettle aroused him, and he rose and went about
+getting supper. After a few moments he felt able to ask, with formal
+politeness:
+
+"Won't you lay off your things, Mrs. Burke?"
+
+She made no reply, but sat like an old gypsy, crouched low, with
+brooding face. She, too, was wordless. She had made the curious mistake
+of looking to Bailey for justification. She had felt that he would
+understand and pity her, and his accusing eyes hurt her sorely. "If I
+could only speak? If I could only find words to tell him my thought, he
+would at least not despise me," she thought. Her face turned toward him
+piteously, but she dared not lift her eyes to his. He typified the world
+to her, and, furthermore, he was kindly and just; and yet he was about
+to condemn her because she could not make him understand.
+
+Trained to laugh when she should weep, how could she plead overmastering
+desire, the pressure of loneliness and poverty, and, last of all, the
+power of a man who stood, in her fancy, among the most brilliant of her
+world. She felt herself in the grasp of forces as vast, as impersonal,
+and as illimitable as the wind and the sky, but, reduced to words, her
+poor plea for mercy would have been, "I could not help it."
+
+Her maternity, which should have been her glory and her pride, was at
+this hour an insupportable shame. She had experienced her moments of
+emotional exaltation wherein she was lifted above self-abasement, but
+now she crouched in the lowest depths of self-suspicion. The rising
+storm seemed the approach of the remorseless judgment-day, the howl of
+the wind, the voice of devils, exulting in her fall.
+
+She did not trouble herself about her husband. At times she flamed out
+in anger against his weakness, his business failures, his boyish
+gullibility. Sometimes she pitied him, sometimes she hated him.
+
+She watched Bailey furtively. The firm lines of his face, his sturdy
+figure, and his frank, brusque manner were as familiar to her as the
+face of Rivers, and almost as dear--but she could not speak!
+
+At last she gave up all thought of speaking, and drew her shawl about
+her with an air of final reserve. She resembled an old crone as she
+crouched there.
+
+Rivers returned soon and took off his overcoat without looking at
+Bailey, who bustled about getting the supper, his resolute cheerfulness
+once more aglow.
+
+Rivers sat down beside Blanche. "It would be death to attempt Wheatland
+to-night," he said. "I could make it all right, but it would be the end
+of you."
+
+Bailey could not hear the words she spoke in reply. "Supper's ready,"
+said he. "We all have to eat, no matter what comes."
+
+Something in his voice and manner affected Blanche deeply. She buried
+her face in her hands and wept while Rivers sat helplessly looking at
+her. She could not rise and walk before him yet. The shame of her sin
+weighed her down.
+
+Bailey poured some tea and gave it to Rivers.
+
+"Take this to her while I toast her some bread."
+
+She drank the tea but refused food, and Rivers sat down again still
+wearing an air of defiance, though Bailey did not appear to notice it.
+He ate a hearty supper, making a commonplace remark now and again.
+
+Once he said, "We're in for a hard winter."
+
+"It's hell on the squatters," Rivers replied, for want of other words.
+"I don't know what they'll do. No money and no work for most of them.
+They'll have to burn hay. If it hadn't been for the price on buffalo
+bones, I guess some of them would starve."
+
+Rising from the table, Bailey moved about doing up the work. He was very
+thoughtful, and the constraint increased in tension.
+
+The storm steadily increased. Its lashings of sleet grew each hour more
+furious. The cabin did not reel, for it sat close in a socket of
+sods--it endured in the rush of snow like a rock set in the swash of
+savage seas. The icy dust came in around the stovepipe and fell in a
+fine shower down upon Bailey's hands, fell with a faintly stinging
+touch, and the circle of warmth about the fire grew less wide each hour.
+"If the horses don't all freeze we'll be in luck," said he.
+
+The stove roared as a chained leopard might do in answer to a lion
+outside. Slender mice came from their dark corners and skittered across
+the floor before the silent men, their sleek sides palpitating with
+timorous excitement.
+
+Bailey hovered over the stove, trying to figure up some accounts. Rivers
+sat beside Blanche. With watchful care he kept her shawl upon her
+shoulders and her feet wrapped in a blanket. He spoke to her now and
+then in a voice inaudible to Bailey, who studied them with an occasional
+keen glance.
+
+"Well, now," he said, at last, "no use sitting here like images; we
+might as well turn in. Jim, you take the bunk over there; and, Mrs.
+Burke, you occupy the bed. I'll make up a shake-down here by the stove
+and keep the fire going."
+
+Rivers sullenly acquiesced, and Blanche lay down without removing her
+outside garments, in the same bed in which she had slept that first
+night in this wild land--that beautiful, buoyant spring night. How far
+away it all was now!
+
+Rivers heaped blankets upon her and tenderly tucked her in, whispered
+good-night, and without a word to Bailey rolled himself in a fur robe and
+stretched himself on his creaking, narrow couch.
+
+So, in the darkness, while the storm intensified with shrieking, wild
+voices, with whistling roar and fluttering tumult, Bailey gave his whole
+thought to the elemental war within. His mind went out first to Burke,
+who seemed some way to be the wronged man and chief sufferer, cut off
+from help, alone in the cold and snow. By contrast, Rivers seemed
+lustful and savage and treacherous.
+
+Such a drama had never before come into Bailey's life. He had read of
+somewhat similar cases in the papers, and had passed harsh judgment on
+the man and woman. He had called the woman wanton and the man a villain,
+but here the verdict was less easy to render. He liked Mrs. Burke, and
+he loved his friend. He had looked into their faces many times during
+the last six months without detecting any signs of degradation; on the
+contrary, Blanche had apparently grown in womanly qualities; and as for
+Jim, he had never been more manly, more generous and kind. If their acts
+were crimes, why could they remain so clear of eye?
+
+Without reaching a conclusion, he put the question from him and willed
+himself to sleep.
+
+When he awoke it was morning, but there was no change in the wind,
+except in an increase of its ferocity. The roar was still steady,
+high-keyed, relentless. A myriad new voices seemed to have joined the
+screaming tumult. The cold was still intense.
+
+He looked at his watch and found it marking the hour of sunrise, but
+there was no light. The world was only a gray waste. He renewed the
+fire, and began preparations for breakfast, his sturdy heart undismayed
+by the demons without. Rivers, awakened by the clatter of dishes, rose
+and scraped a peep-hole in a window-pane. Nothing could be seen but a
+chaos of snow.
+
+"No moving out of here to-day," he muttered, with a sullen curse.
+
+Bailey assumed a cheerful tone.
+
+"No; we're in for another day of it."
+
+Inwardly he was appalled at the thought of what the long hours might
+bring to him. To spend twenty-four hours more in this terrible
+constraint would be ghastly. He set about the attempt to break it up.
+He whistled and sang at his work, calling out to his partner as if there
+were no evil passions between them.
+
+"This is the fourth blizzard this month. Good thing they didn't come
+last winter. This land wouldn't have been settled at all. What do you
+suppose these poor squatters will do?"
+
+Rivers did not respond.
+
+Blanche tried to rise, but turned white and dizzy, and fell back upon
+the bed, seized with a sudden weakness. Rivers brought her some tea and
+sat by her side, while Bailey again toasted some bread for her. She
+looked very weak and ill.
+
+Bailey went out to feed the horses, glad of the chance to escape his
+problem for a moment. Finding Rivers still sullen upon his return, he
+got out some old magazines and read them aloud. Rivers swore under his
+breath, but Blanche listened to the reading with relief. The stories
+dealt mostly with young people who wished to marry, but were prevented
+by somebody who wished them to "wed according to their station." They
+were innocent creatures who had not known any other attachment, and
+their bliss was always complete and unalloyed at the end.
+
+Bailey read the tender passages in the same prosaic tone with which he
+described the shipwreck, and his elocution would have been funny to any
+other group of persons; as it was, neither of his hearers smiled.
+
+Blanche's heart was filled with rebellion. Why could she not have known
+Jim in the days when she, too, was young and innocent like the heroines
+of these stories?
+
+At noon, when Rivers went out to feed the team, Bailey went over toward
+the wretched woman. His face was kind but firm:
+
+"Mrs. Burke, I hope you've decided not to do this thing."
+
+She looked at him with shrinking eyes.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean you can't afford to go away with Jim this way."
+
+"What else can I do? I can't live without him, and I can't go back."
+
+"Well, then, go away alone. Go back to your folks."
+
+"Oh, I can't do that! Can't you see," she said, finding words with
+effort--"can't you see, I _must_ go? Jim is my real husband. I must be
+true to him now. My folks can't help me--nobody can help me but Jim--If
+he stands by me, I can live." She stopped, feeling sure she had
+explained nothing. It was so hard to find words.
+
+"There must be some way out of it," he replied, and his hesitation
+helped her. She saw that he was thinking upon the problem, and found it
+not at all a clear case against her.
+
+After Rivers came back they resumed their seats about the fire, talking
+about the storm--at least, Bailey talked, and Rivers had the grace to
+listen. He really seemed less sullen and more thoughtful.
+
+Outside the warring winds howled on. The eye could not penetrate the
+veils of snow which streamed through the air on level lines. The
+powdered ice rose from the ground in waves which buffeted one another
+and fell in spray, only to rise again in ceaseless, tumultuous action.
+There was no sky and no earth. Everything slid, sifted, drifted, or
+madly swirled.
+
+The three prisoners fell at last into silence. They sat in the dim,
+yellow-gray dusk and stared gloomily at the stove, growing each moment
+more repellent to one another. They met one another's eyes at intervals
+with surprise and horror. The world without seemed utterly lost. Wailing
+voices sobbed in the pipe and at the windows. Sudden agonized shrieks
+came out of the blur of sound. The hours drew out to enormous length,
+though the day was short. The windows were furred deep with frost. At
+four o'clock it was dark, and, as he placed the lamp on the table,
+Bailey said,
+
+"Well, Jim, we're in for another night of it."
+
+Rivers leaped up as if he had been struck.
+
+"Yes, curse it. It looks as if it would never let up again." He raged up
+and down the room with the spirit of blasphemy burning in his eyes. "I
+wish I'd never seen the accursed country."
+
+"Will you go feed the team, or shall I?" Bailey quietly interrupted.
+
+"I'll go." And he went out into the storm with savage resolution, while
+Bailey prepared supper.
+
+"The storm is sure to end to-night," he said, as they were preparing for
+sleep. As before, Blanche lay down upon the bed, Rivers took the bunk,
+and Bailey camped upon the floor, content to see his partner well
+bestowed.
+
+Blanche, unable to sleep, lay for a long time listening to the storm,
+thinking disconnectedly on the past and the morrow. The strain upon her
+was twisting her toward insanity. The never-resting wind appalled her.
+It was like the iron resolution of the two men. She saw no end to this
+elemental strife. It was the cyclone of July frozen into snow, only more
+relentless, more persistent--a tornado of frost. It filled her with such
+awe as she had never felt before. It seemed as if she _must not
+sleep_--that she must keep awake for the sake of the little heart of
+which she had been made the guardian.
+
+As she lay thus a sudden mysterious exaltation came upon her, and she
+grew warm and happy. She cared no longer for any man's opinion of her.
+She was a mother, and God said to her, "Be peaceful and hopeful." Light
+fell around her, and the pleasant odors of flowers. She looked through
+sunny vistas of oaks and apple-trees. Bees hummed in the clover, and
+she began to sing with them, and her low, humming song melted into the
+roar of the storm. She saw birds flying like butterflies over fields of
+daisies, and her song grew louder. It became sweet and maternal--full of
+lullaby cadences. As she lay thus, lovely and careless and sinless as a
+prattling babe, her eyes fixed upon the gleam of lights in the dark, a
+shaking hand was laid on her shoulder, and Rivers spoke in anxious
+voice:
+
+"What is it, Blanche?--are you sick?"
+
+She looked at him drowsily, and at last slowly said: "No, Jim--I am
+happy. See my baby there, in the sunshine! Isn't she lovely?"
+
+The man grew rigid with fear, and the hair of his head moved. He thought
+her delirious--dying, perhaps, of cold. He gathered her hands in his
+and fell upon his knees.
+
+"What is it, dear? What do you mean?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing," she murmured.
+
+"You're sure you're not worse? Can't I help you?"
+
+She did not reply, and he knelt there holding her hands until she sank
+into unmistakably quiet sleep.
+
+He feared the unspeakable. He imagined her taken in premature
+childbirth, brought on by exposure and excitement, and, for the first
+time, he took upon himself the burden of his guilt. The thought of
+danger to her had not hitherto troubled him. For the poor, weak fool of
+a husband he cared nothing; but this woman was his, and the child to
+come was his. Birth--of which many men make a jest--suddenly took on
+majesty and terror, and the little life seemed about to enter a world
+of storm which filled him with a sense of duty new to him.
+
+He bent down and laid his cheek against his woman's hands, and his
+throat choked with a passionate resolution. He put his merry, careless
+young manhood behind him at that moment and assumed the responsibilities
+of a husband.
+
+"May God strike me dead if I don't make you happy!" he whispered.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+Bailey woke in the night, chilled. The fire was low, and as he rose to
+add some coal to the stove he looked about him in his way. Rivers' bunk
+was empty. He glanced toward the bed, and saw him wrapped in his buffalo
+coat kneeling beside Blanche's pillow. He seemed asleep, as his cheek
+rested upon his right hand, which was clasped in both of hers.
+
+The young pioneer sat for several minutes thinking, staring straight at
+his friend. There was something here that made all the difference in
+the world. Suppose these people really loved each other as he loved
+Estelle? Then he softly fed the fire and lay down again.
+
+His brain whirled as if some sharp blow had dazzled him. Outside the
+implacable winds still rushed and warred, and beat and clamored,
+shrieking, wailing, like voices from hell. The snow dashed like surf
+against the walls. It seemed to cut off the little cabin from the rest
+of the world and to dwarf all human action like the sea. It made social
+conventions of no value, and narrowed the question of morality to the
+relationship of these three human souls.
+
+Lying there in the dark, with the elemental war of wind and snow filling
+the illimitable arch of sky, he came to feel, in a dim, wordless way,
+that this tragedy was born of conventions largely. Also, it appeared
+infinitesimal, like the activities of insects battling, breeding, dying.
+He came also to feel that the force which moved these animalculae was
+akin to the ungovernable sweep of the wind and snow--all inexplicable,
+elemental, unmoral.
+
+His thought came always back to the man kneeling there, and the clasp of
+the woman's hands--that baffled him, subdued him.
+
+When he awoke it was light. The roar of the wind continued, but faint,
+far away, like the humming of a wire with the cold. He lay bewildered,
+half dreaming, not knowing what it was that had impressed him with this
+unwonted feeling of doubt and weariness. At last he heard a movement in
+the room and rose on his elbow. Rivers was awake and was peering out at
+the window.
+
+Blanche replied to his words of greeting with a low murmur--"I feel very
+weak."
+
+She seemed calmer, also, and her eyes had lost something of their
+tension of appeal.
+
+Bailey looked at her closely, and his heart softened with pity. He
+waited upon her and tried by his cheerful smiles to comfort her,
+nevertheless.
+
+They ate breakfast in silence, as if apprehending the struggle which was
+still to come.
+
+At last Rivers rose with abrupt resolution.
+
+"Well, now, I'll bring the team around, and we'll get away."
+
+"Wait a minute, Jim," Bailey said. "I want to say something to you."
+There was a note of pleading in his voice. "Wait a little. I've been
+thinking this thing over. I don't want you to go away feeling hard
+toward me." His throat choked up and his eyes grew dim. "I don't want to
+be hard on you, Jim. It's a mighty big question, and I'm not one to be
+unjust, specially toward a woman. Of course, somebody's got to suffer,
+but it hadn't ought to be the woman--I've made up my mind on that. Seems
+like the woman always does get the worst of it, and I want you to think
+of her. What is to become of her?"
+
+Blanche turned toward him with a wondrous look--a look which made him
+shiver with emotion. He looked down a moment, and his struggle to speak
+made him seem very boyish and gentle.
+
+"I can't exactly justify this trade, Jim, but I guess it all depends on
+the _mother_. She ought to be happy anyway, whether you are or not; so
+if she thinks she'd better go with you, why, I ain't got a word to
+say."
+
+Blanche gave a low cry, a cry such as no woman had ever uttered in his
+presence, and fell upon her knees before him.
+
+The cadence of her moan cut deep into his heart. He realized for the
+first time some part of her suffering, her temptations. Her eyes shone
+with a marvellous beauty. He was awed by the rapt expression of her
+face.
+
+"Don't do that," he stammered. "Please get up."
+
+"You're so good!" she breathed.
+
+"Oh no, I'm not. I don't know--I don't pretend to judge--that's all.
+Yesterday I did, but now--well, I leave the whole business with you and
+God. Please stand up."
+
+She rose, but stood looking upon him with a fixed, devouring look. He
+had never seen tears in her eyes before. She had been gay and sullen
+and tense and sad, but now she was transfigured with some emotion he
+could not follow. Her eyes were soft and dark, and her pale face, sad
+and sweet, was instinct with the tenderness of her coming maternity. The
+sturdy plainsman thrilled with unutterable pity as he looked down upon
+her.
+
+There was a silence, and then Rivers came to Bailey's side, and said,
+brokenly,
+
+"Rob, old man, you've done me good--you always _have_ done me good--I'll
+be faithful to her, so help me God!"
+
+Bailey understood him, and shook his hand. They stood for a moment, palm
+to palm, as if this were in some sense a marriage ceremony. Bailey broke
+the tension by saying:
+
+"Well, now get your team--I wouldn't let you take her out into the cold
+only I know she ought to be where a doctor can be reached. The quicker
+you go the better."
+
+While Rivers was gone he turned to her and helped her with her cloak and
+shawl. His heart went out toward her with a brother's love. He talked
+with cheerful irrelevancy and bustled about, heating a bowlder for her
+feet and warming her overshoes.
+
+"Now it's all right. Jim will take care of you. Don't worry about Will;
+I'll go over and see him." He wrapped her in every available blanket and
+shawl, and at last helped her outside and into the sleigh. He tucked the
+robe around her while Rivers held the restless horses. His voice
+trembled as he said:
+
+"Now, Jim, get her under shelter as quick as you can. Leave the team at
+Wheatland. I'll come after it in a day or two. I want to see somebody in
+town, anyway."
+
+The woman turned toward him. He saw her eyes shine through her veil. She
+bared her hand and extended it toward him. "I hope you and Estelle will
+be happy."
+
+He covered her hand with both of his. The gesture was swift and tender.
+It seemed to shield and forgive. Then drawing the robe over it without a
+word, he briskly said, "Well, Jim, I guess this is the fork in the
+road," and he looked at his chum with misty eyes. Rivers turned away,
+and they again clasped hands without looking at each other.
+
+"Good-bye, old man," said Rivers.
+
+"Good-bye, Jim, and _good luck_!"
+
+Bailey saw his partner draw the woman close down under the shelter of
+his shoulder, while his powerful hand whirled the team to the south.
+
+He stood in the lee of the shanty until the swift sleigh was a slowly
+moving speck on the plain, then he went in and sat down to muse on the
+wondrous last look in the woman's eyes. "I wonder what Estelle will
+say?" he asked himself, and a sense of loneliness, of longing to see
+her, filled his heart with dreams.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Moccasin Ranch, by Hamlin Garland
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