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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/36625-8.txt b/36625-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b55e4d8 --- /dev/null +++ b/36625-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6332 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cup of Trembling and Other Stories, by +Mary Hallock Foote + +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 Cup of Trembling and Other Stories + +Author: Mary Hallock Foote + +Release Date: July 5, 2011 [EBook #36625] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CUP *** + + + + +Produced by Katherine Ward, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + THE CUP OF TREMBLING + + AND OTHER STORIES + + BY MARY HALLOCK FOOTE + + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY + The Riverside Press, Cambridge + 1895 + + Copyright, 1895, + BY MARY HALLOCK FOOTE. + + _All rights reserved._ + + _The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._ + Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +THE CUP OF TREMBLING + +MAVERICK + +ON A SIDE-TRACK + +THE TRUMPETER + + + + +THE CUP OF TREMBLING + + +I + +A miner of the Coeur d'Alęne was returning alone on foot, one winter +evening, from the town in the gulch to his solitary claim far up on the +timbered mountain-side. + +His nearest way was by an unfrequented road that led to the Dreadnaught, +a lofty and now abandoned mine that had struck the vein three thousand +feet above the valley, but the ore, being low-grade, could never be made +to pay the cost of transportation. + +He had cached his snow-shoes, going down, at the Bruce boys' cabin, the +only habitation on the Dreadnaught road, which from there was still open +to town. + +The snows that camp all summer on the highest peaks of the Coeur +d'Alęne were steadily working downward, driving the game before them; +but traffic had not ceased in the mountains. Supplies were still +delivered by pack-train at outlying claims and distant cabins in the +standing timber. The miner was therefore traveling light, encumbered +with no heavier load than his personal requisition of tobacco and whisky +and the latest newspapers, which he circulated in exchange for the +wayside hospitalities of that thinly peopled but neighborly region. + +His homeward halt at the cabin was well timed. The Bruce boys were just +sitting down to supper; and the moon, that would light his lonelier way +across the white slopes of the forest, would not be visible for an hour +or more. The boys threw wood upon their low cooking-fire of coals, which +flamed up gloriously, spreading its immemorial welcome over that poor, +chance suggestion of a home. The supper was served upon a board, or +literally two boards, nailed shelf-wise across the lighted end of the +cabin, beneath a small window where, crossed by the squares of a dusty +sash, the austere winter twilight looked in: a sky of stained-glass +colors above the clear heights of snow; an atmosphere as cold and pure +as the air of a fireless church; a hushed multitude of trees disguised +in vestments of snow, a mute recessional after the benediction has been +said. + +Each man dragged his seat to the table, and placed himself sidewise, +that his legs might find room beneath the narrow board. Each dark face +was illumined on one side by the fitful fire-glow, on the other by the +constant though fading ray from the window; and, as they talked, the +boisterous fire applauded, and the twilight, like a pale listener, laid +its cold finger on the pane. + +They talked of the price of silver, of the mines shutting down, of the +bad times East and West, and the signs of a corrupt generation; and this +brought them to the latest ill rumor from town--a sensation that had +transpired only a few hours before the miner's departure, and which +friends of the persons discussed were trying to keep as quiet as +possible. + +The name of a young woman was mentioned, hitherto a rather disdainful +favorite with society in the Coeur d'Alęne--the wife of one of the +richest mine-owners in the State. + +The "Old Man," as the miners called him, had been absent for three +months in London, detained from week to week on the tedious but +paramount business of selling his mine. The mine, with its fatalistic +millions (which, it was surmised, had spoken for their owner in marriage +more eloquently than the man could have spoken for himself), had been +closed down pending negotiations for its sale, and left in charge of the +engineer, who was also the superintendent. This young man, whose +personal qualities were in somewhat formidable contrast to those of his +employer, nevertheless, in business ways, enjoyed a high measure of his +confidence, and had indeed deserved it. The present outlook was somewhat +different. Persons who were fond of Waring were saying in town that +"Jack must be off his head," as the most charitable way of accounting +for his late eccentricity. The husband was reported to be on shipboard, +expected in New York in a week or less; but the wife, without +explanation, had suddenly left her home. Her disappearance was generally +accounted a flight. On the same night of the young woman's evanishment, +Superintendent Waring had relieved himself of his duties and +responsibilities, and taken himself off, with the same irrevocable +frankness, leaving upon his friends the burden of his excuses, his +motives, his whereabouts, and his reputation. + +Since news of the double desertion had got abroad, tongues had been +busy, and a vigorous search was afoot for evidence of the generally +assumed fact of an elopement, but with trifling results. + +The fugitives, it was easily learned, had not gone out by the railroad; +but Clarkson's best team, without bells, and a bob-sleigh with two seats +in it had been driven into the stable yard before daylight on the +morning of the discovery, the horses rough and jaded, and white with +frozen steam; and Clarkson himself had been the driver on this hard +night trip. As he was not in the habit of serving his patrons in this +capacity, and as he would give none but frivolous, evasive answers to +the many questions that were asked him, he was supposed to be accessory +to Waring in his crime against the morals of the camp. + +While the visitor enlarged upon the evidence furnished by Clarkson's +night ride, the condition of his horses, and his own frank lying, the +Bruce boys glanced at each other significantly, and each man spat into +the fire in silence. + +The traveler's halt was over. He slipped his feet into the straps of his +snow-shoes, and took his pole in hand; for now the moon had risen to +light his path; faint boreal shadows began to appear on the glistening +slopes. He shuffled away, and his shape was soon lost in the white +depths of the forest. + +The brothers sat and smoked by their sinking fire, before covering its +embers for the night; and again the small window, whitening in the +growing moonlight, was like the blanched face of a troubled listener. + +"That must have been them last night, you recollect. I looked out about +two o'clock, and it _was_ a bob-sleigh, crawlin' up the grade, and the +horses hadn't any bells on. The driver was a thick-set man like +Clarkson, in a buffaler coat. There was two on the back seat, a man and +woman plain enough, all muffled up, with their heads down. It was so +still in the woods I could have heard if they'd been talkin' no louder +than I be now; but not a word was spoke all the way up the hill. I says +to myself, 'Them folks must be pretty well acquainted, 'less they 're +all asleep, goin' along through the woods the prettiest kind of a night, +walkin' their horses, and not a word in the whole dumb outfit.'" + +"I'm glad you didn't open your head about it," said the elder brother. +"We don't know for certain it was them, and it's none of our funeral, +anyhow. Where, think, could they have been going to, supposin' you was +right? Would Jack be likely to harbor up there at the mine?" + +"Where else could they get to, with a team, by this road? Where else +could they be safer? Jack's inside of his own lines up there, and come +another big snow the road'll be closed till spring; and who'd bother +about them, anyway, exceptin' it might be the Old Man? And a man that +leaves his wife around loose the way he done ain't likely to be huntin' +her on snow-shoes up to another man's mine." + +"I don't believe Jack's got the coin to be meanderin' very far just +about now," said the practical elder brother. "He's staked out with a +pretty short rope, unless he's realized on some of his claims. I heard +he was tryin' to dig up a trade with a man who's got a mine over in the +Slocan country. That would be convenient, over the line among the +Kanucks. I wouldn't wonder if he's hidin' out for a spell till he +gathers his senses, and gets a little more room to turn in. He can't fly +far with a woman like her, unless his pockets are pretty well lined. +Them easy-comers easy-goers ain't the kind that likes to rough it. I'll +bet she don't bile his shirts or cook his dinners, not much." + +"It's a wild old nest up there," said the younger and more imaginative +as well as more sympathetic of the brothers--"a wild road to nowhere, +only the dropping-off place." + +"What gets me is that talk of Jack's last fall, when you was in the +Kootenai, about his intentions to bach it up there this winter, if he +could coax his brother out from Manitoba to bach with him. I wouldn't +like to think it of Jack, that he'd lie that way, just to turn folks off +the scent. But he did, sure, pack a lot of his books and stuff up to +the mine; grub, too, a lot of it; and done some work on the cabin. Think +he was fixin' up for a hide-out, in case he should need one? Or wa'n't +it anything but a bluff?" + +"Naw," the other drawled impatiently. "Jack's no such a deep schemer as +all that comes to. More'n likely he seen he was workin' the wrong lead, +and concluded 't was about time for him to be driftin' in another +direction. 'T ain't likely he give in to such foolishness without one +fight with himself. And about when he had made up his mind to fire +himself out, and quit the whole business, the Old Man puts out for +London, stuck on sellin' his mine, and can't leave unless Jack stays +with it. And Jack says to himself, 'Well, damn it all, I done what I +could! What is to be will be.' That's about the way I put it up." + +"I wouldn't be surprised," the other assented; "but what's become of the +brother, if there ever was a brother in it at all?" + +"Why, Lord! a man can change his mind. But I guess he didn't tell his +brother about this young madam he was lookin' after along with the rest +of the Old Man's goods. I hain't got nothin' against Jack Waring; he's +always been square with me, and he's an awful good minin' man. I'd trust +him with my pile, if it was millions, but I wouldn't trust him, nor any +other man, with my wife." + +"Sho! she was poor stuff; she was light, I tell ye. Think of some of the +women we've known! Did they need watchin'? No, sir; it ain't the man, +it's the woman, when it's between a young man and a married woman. It's +her foolishness that gits away with them both. Girls is different. I'd +skin a man alive that set the town talkin' about my sister like _she's_ +bein' talked about, now." + +The brothers stepped outside and stood awhile in silence, regarding the +night and breathing the pure, frosty air of the forest. A commiserating +thankfulness swelled in their breasts with each deep, clean inspiration. +They were poor men, but they were free men--free, compared with Jack. +There was no need to bar their door, or watch suspiciously, or skulk +away and hide their direction, choosing the defense of winter and the +deathlike silence of the snows to the observation of their kind. + +They stared with awe up the white, blank road that led to the deserted +mine, and they marveled in homely thinking: "Will it pay?" It was "the +wrong lead this time, sure." + +The brothers watched the road from day to day, and took note that not a +fresh track had been seen upon it; not a team, or a traveler on +snow-shoes, had gone up or down since the night when the bob-sleigh with +its silent passengers had creaked up it in the moonlight. Since that +night of the full moon of January not another footprint had broken the +smoothness of that hidden track. The snow-tides of midwinter flowed over +it. They filled the gulch and softly mounting, snow on snow, rose to the +eaves of the little cabin by the buried road. The Bruce boys dug out +their window; the hooded roof protected their door. They walked about on +top of the frozen tide, and entered their house, as if it were a cellar, +by steps cut in a seven-foot wall of snow. + +One gray day in February a black dog, with a long nose and bloodshot +eyes, leaped down into the trench and pawed upon the cabin door. +Opening to the sound, the Bruce boys gave him a boisterous welcome, +calling their visitor by name. The dog was Tip, Jack Waring's clever +shepherd spaniel, a character as well known in the mountains as his +master. Indeed, he was too well known, and too social in his habits, for +a safe member of a household cultivating strict seclusion; therefore, +when Tip's master went away with his neighbor's wife, Tip had been left +behind. His reappearance on this road was regarded by the Bruce boys as +highly suggestive. + +Tip was a dog that never forgave an injury or forgot a kindness. Many a +good bone he had set down to the Bruce boys' credit in the days when his +master's mine was supposed to be booming, and his own busy feet were +better acquainted with the Dreadnaught road. He would not come in, but +stood at the door, wagging his tail inquiringly. The boys were about to +haul him into the cabin by the hair of his neck, or shut him out in the +cold, when a shout was heard from the direction of the road above. +Looking out, they saw a strange young man on snow-shoes, who hailed +them a second time, and stood still, awaiting their response. Tip +appeared to be satisfied now; he briskly led the way, the boys +following, up the frozen steps cut in their moat-wall of snow, and stood +close by, assisting, with all the eloquence his honest, ugly phiz was +capable of, at the conference that ensued. He showed himself +particularly anxious that his old friends should take his word for the +stranger whom he had introduced and appeared to have adopted. + +Pointing up the mountain, the young man asked, "Is that the way to the +Dreadnaught mine?" + +"There ain't anybody workin' up there now," Jim Bruce replied +indirectly, after a pause in which he had been studying the stranger's +appearance. His countenance was exceedingly fresh and pleasing, his age +about twenty years. He was buttoned to the chin in a reefing-jacket of +iron-gray Irish frieze. His smooth, girlish face was all over one pure, +deep blush from exertion in the cold. He wore Canadian snow-shoes +strapped upon his feet, instead of the long Norwegian skier on which the +men of the Coeur d'Alęne make their winter journeys in the mountains; +and this difference alone would have marked him for a stranger from over +the line. After he had spoken, he wiped away the icy moisture of his +breath that frosted his upper lip, stuck a short pipe between his teeth, +drew off one mitten and fumbled in his clothing for a match. The Bruce +boys supplied him with a light, and as the fresh, pungent smoke +ascended, he raised his head and smiled his thanks. + +"Is this the road to the Waring mine--the Dreadnaught?" he asked again, +deliberately, after a pull or two at his pipe. + +And again came the evasive answer: "Mine's shut down. Ain't nobody +workin' up there now." + +The youngster laughed aloud. "Most uncommunicative population I ever +struck," he remarked, in a sort of humorous despair. "That's the way +they answered me in town. I say, is this a hoodoo? If my brother isn't +up there, where in the devil is he? All I ask is a straight answer to a +straight question." + +The Bruce boys grinned their embarrassment. "You'll have to ask us +somethin' easier," they said. + +"This is the road to the mine, ain't it?" + +"Oh, that's the road all right enough," the boys admitted; "but you can +see yourself how much it's been traveled lately." + +The stranger declined to be put off with such casual evidence as this. +"The wind would wipe out any snow-shoe track; and a snow-shoer would as +soon take across the woods as keep the road, if he knew the way." + +"Wal," said Jim Bruce, conclusively, "most of the boys, when they are +humpin' themselves to town, stops in here for a spell to limber up their +shins by our fire; but Jack Waring hain't fetched his bones this way for +two months and better. Looks mighty queer that we hain't seen track nor +trace of him if he's been livin' up there since winter set in. Are you +the brother he was talkin' of sending for to come out and bach it with +him?" + +The boys were conscious of their own uneasy looks as the frank eyes of +the stranger met theirs at the question. + +"I'm the only brother he's got. He wrote me last August that he'd taken +a fit of the sulks, and wanted me to come and help him work it off up +here at his mine. I was coming, only a good job took me in tow; and +after a month or so the work went back on me, and I wrote to Jack two +weeks ago to look out for me; and here I am. And the people in town, +where he's been doing business these six years, act as if they distantly +remembered him. 'Oh, yes,' they say, 'Jack Waring; but he's gone away, +don't you know? Snowed under somewhere; don't know where.' I asked them +if he'd left no address. Apparently not. Asked if he'd seemed to be +clothed in his proper senses when last seen. They thought so. I went to +the post-office, expecting to find his mail piled up there. Every scrap +had been cleaned up since Friday last; but not the letter I wrote him, +so he can't be looking for me. The P. M. squirmed, like everybody else, +when I mentioned my brother; but he owned that a man's mail can't leave +the box without hands, and that the hands belonged usually to some of +the boys at the Mule Deer mine. Now, the Mule Deer is next neighbor to +the Dreadnaught, across the divide. It's a friendly power, I know; and +that confirms me that my brother has done just what he said he was +going to do. The tone of his letter showed that he was feeling a bit +seedy. He seemed to have soured on the town for some reason, which might +mean that the town has soured on him. I don't ask what it is, and I +don't care to know, but something has queered him with the whole crowd. +I asked Clarkson to let me have a man to show me the way to the +Dreadnaught. He calmly lied to me a blue streak, and he knew that I knew +he was lying. And then Tip, here, looked me in the eye, with his head on +one side, and I saw that he was on to the whole business." + +"Smartest dog that ever lived!" Jim Bruce ejaculated. "I wouldn't wonder +if he knew you was Jack's brother." + +"I won't swear that he could name the connection; but he knows I'm +looking for his master, and he's looking for him too; but he's afraid to +trail after him without a good excuse. See? I don't know what Tip's been +up to, that he should be left with a man like Clarkson; but whatever +he's done, he's a good dog now. Ain't you, Tip?" + +"_He_ done!" Jim Bruce interrupted sternly. "Tip never done nothing to +be punished for. Got more sense of what's right than most humans, and +lives up to it straight along. I'd quar'l with any man that looked cross +at that dog. You old brute, you rascal! What you doin' up here? Ain't +you 'shamed, totin' folks 'way up here on a wild-goose chase? What you +doin' it fer, eh? Pertendin' you're so smart! You know Jack ain't up +here; Jack ain't up here, I say. Go along with ye, tryin' to fool a +stranger!" + +Tip was not only unconvinced by these unblushing assertions on the part +of a friend whose word he had never doubted: he was terribly abashed and +troubled by their manifest disingenuousness. From a dog's point of view +it was a poor thing for the Bruce boys to do, trying to pass upon him +like this. He blinked apologetically, and licked his chaps, and wagged +the end of his tail, which had sunk a trifle from distress and +embarrassment at his position. + +The three men stood and watched the workings of his mind, expressed in +his humble, doggish countenance; and a final admission of the truth that +he had been trying to conceal escaped Jim Bruce in a burst of +admiration for his favorite's unswerving sagacity. + +"Smartest dog that ever lived!" he repeated, triumphant in defeat; and +the brothers wasted no more lies upon the stranger. + +There was something uncanny, thought the young man, in this mystery +about his brother, that grew upon him and waxed formidable, and pursued +him even into the depths of the snow-buried wilderness. The breath of +gossip should have died on so clean an air, unless there had been more +than gossip in it. + +The Bruce boys ceased to argue with him on the question of his brother's +occupancy of the mine. They urged other considerations by way of +delaying him. They spoke of the weather; of the look of snow in the sky, +the feeling of snow in the air, the yellow stillness of the forest, the +creeping cold. They tried to keep him over night, on the offer of their +company up the mountain in the morning, if the weather should prove fit. +But he was confident, though graver in manner than at first, that he was +going to a supper and a bed at his brother's camp, to say nothing of a +brother's welcome. + +"I'm positive he's up there. I froze on to it from the first," he +persisted. "And why should I sleep at the foot of the hill when my +brother sleeps at the top?" + +The Bruce boys were forced to let him go on, with the promise, merely +allowing for the chance of disappointment, that if he found nobody above +he would not attempt to return after nightfall by the Dreadnaught road, +which hugs the peak at a height above the valley where there is always a +stiff gale blowing, and the combing drifts in midwinter are forty feet +high. + +"Trust Tip," they said; "he'll show you the trail across the mountain to +the Mule Deer"--a longer but far safer way to shelter for the night. + +"Tip is fly; he'll see me through," said Jack's brother. "I'd trust him +with my life. I'll be back this way possibly in the morning; but if you +don't see me, come up and pay us a visit. We'll teach the Dreadnaught to +be more neighborly. Here's hoping," he cried, and the three drank in +turn out of the young fellow's flask, the Bruce boys almost solemnly as +they thought of the meeting between the brothers, the sequel to that +innocent hope. Unhappy brother, unhappy Jack! + +He turned his face to the snows again, and toiled on up the mountain, +with Tip's little figure trotting on ahead. + +"Think of Jack's leavin' a dog like that, and takin' up with a woman!" +said Jim Bruce, as he squared his shoulders to the fire, yawning and +shuddering with the chill he had brought with him from outside. "And +such a woman!" he added. "I'd want the straight thing, or else I'd +manage to git along without. Anything decent would have taken the dog +too." + +"'Twas mortal cute, though, of the youngster to freeze on to Tip, and +pay no attention to the talk. He knows a dog, that's sure. And Tip +knowed him. But I wish we could 'a' blocked that little rascal's game. +'Twas too bad to let him go on." + +"I never see anybody so stuck on goin' to a place," said the elder +Bruce. "We'll see him back in the morning: but I'll bet he don't jaw +much about brother Jack." + + * * * * * + +The manager's house at the Dreadnaught had been built in the time of +the mine's supposititious prosperity, and was the ideal log cabin of +the Coeur d'Alęne. A thick-waisted chimney of country rock buttressed +the long side-wall of peeled logs chinked with mud. The front room was +twenty feet across, and had a stone hearth and a floor of dressed pine. +Back of it were a small bedroom and a kitchen into which water was piped +from a spring higher up on the mountain. The roof of cedar shakes +projected over the gable, shading the low-browed entrance from the sun +in summer, and protecting it in winter from the high-piled snows. + +Like a swallow's nest it clung in the hollow of the peak, which slopes +in vast, grand contours to the valley, as if it were the inside of a +bowl, the rim half broken away. The valley is the bottom of the bowl, +and the broken rim is the lower range of hills that completes its +boundary. Great trees, growing beside its hidden streams far below, to +the eye of a dweller in the cabin are dwarfed to the size of junipers, +and the call of those unseen waters comes dreamily in a distant, +inconstant murmur, except when the wind beats up the peak, which it +seldom does, as may be seen by the warp of the pines and tamaracks, and +the drifting of the snows in winter. + +To secure level space for the passage of teams in front of the house, an +embankment had been thrown up, faced with a heavy retaining-wall of +stone. This bench, or terrace, was now all one with the mountain-side, +heaped up and smoothed over with snow. + +Jack, in his winter nest-building, had cleared a little space for air +and light in front of each of the side windows, and with unceasing labor +he shoveled out the snow which the wind as constantly sifted into these +pits, and into the trench beneath the hooded roof that sheltered the +gable entrance. + +The snow walls of this sunken gallery rose to the height of the +door-frame, cutting out all view from without or within. A perpetual +white twilight, warmed by the glow of their hearth-fire, was all that +the fugitives ever saw of the day. Sun, or stars were alike to them. One +link they had with humanity, however, without which they might have +suffered hardship, or even have been forced to succumb to their savage +isolation. + +The friendly Mule Deer across the mountain was in a state of winter +siege, like the Dreadnaught, but had not severed its connections with +the world. It was a working mine, with a force of fifty or more men on +its pay-roll, and regular communication on snow-shoes was had with the +town. The mine was well stocked as well as garrisoned, and Jack was +indebted to the friendship of the manager for many accustomed luxuries +which Esmée would have missed in the new life that she had rashly +welcomed for his sake. No woman could have been less fitted than she, by +previous circumstances and training, to take her share of its hardships, +or to contribute to its slender possibilities in the way of comfort. A +servant was not to be thought of. No servant but a Chinaman would have +been impersonal enough for the situation, and all heathen labor has been +ostracized by Christian white labor from the Coeur d'Alęne. + +So Jack waited upon his love, and was inside man and outside man, and as +he expressed it, "general dog around the place." He was a clever cook, +which goes without saying in one who has known good living, and has +lived eight years a bachelor on the frontier: but he cleaned his own +kitchen and washed his own skillets, which does not go without saying, +sooner than see Esmée's delicate hands defiled with such grimy tasks. He +even swept, as a man sweeps; but what man was ever known to dust? The +house, for all his ardent, unremitting toil, did not look particularly +tidy. + +Its great, dark front room was a man's room, big, undraped and +uncurtained, strongly framed,--the framework much exposed in +places,--heavy in color, hard in texture, yet a stronghold, and a place +of absolute reserve: a very safe place in which to lodge such a secret +as Esmée. And there she was, in her exotic beauty, shivering close to a +roaring fire, scorching her cheeks that her silk-clad shoulders might be +warm. She had never before lived in a house where the fires went out at +night, and water froze beside her bed, and the floors were carpetless +and cold as the world's indifference to her fate. She was absolutely +without clothing suited to such a change, nor would she listen to +sensible, if somewhat unattractive, suggestions from Jack. Now, least of +all times, could she afford to disguise her picturesque beauty for the +sake of mere comfort and common sense, or even to spare Jack his worries +about her health. + +It was noon, and the breakfast-table still stood in front of the fire. +Jack, who since eight o'clock had been chopping wood and "packing" it +out of the tunneled snow-drift which was the woodshed into the kitchen, +and cooking breakfast, and shoveling snow out of the trenches, sat +glowing on his side of the table, farthest from the fire, while Esmée, +her chair drawn close to the hearth, was sipping her coffee and holding +a fan spread between her face and the flames. + +"Jack, I wish you had a fire-screen--one that would stand of itself, and +not have to be held." + +"Bless you! I'd be your fire-screen, only I think I'm rather hotter than +the fire itself. I insist that you take some exercise, Esmée. Come, walk +the trench with me ten rounds before I start." + +"Why do you start so early?" + +"Do you call this early? Besides, it looks like snow." + +"Then, why go at all?" + +"You know why I go, dearest. The boys went to town yesterday. I've had +no mail for a week." + +"And can't you exist without your mail?" + +"Existence is just the hitch with us at present. It's for your sake I +cannot afford to be overlooked. If I fall out of step in my work, it may +take years to get into line again. I can't say like those ballad +fellows: + + 'Arise! my love, and fearless be, + For o'er the southern moors I have a home for thee.' + +"I wish I had. We'll put some money in our purse, and then we'll make +ourselves a home where we please. Money is the first thing with us now. +You must see that yourself." + +"I see it, of course; but it doesn't seem the nearest way to a fortune, +going twice a week on snow-shoes to play solo at the Mule Deer mine. +Confess, Jack dear, you do not come straight away as soon as you get +your mail." + +"I do not, of course. I must be civil, after a fashion, to Wilfrid +Knight, considering all that he is doing for me." + +"What is he doing for you?" + +"He's working as hard as he can for me in certain directions. It's best +not to say too much about these things till they've materialized; but he +has as strong a backing as any man in the Coeur d'Alęne. To tell you +the truth, I can't afford _not_ to be civil to him, if it meant solo +every day in the week." + +Esmée smiled a little, but remained silent. Jack went around to the +chimney-piece and filled his pipe, and began to stalk about the room, +talking in brief sentences as he smoked. + +"And by the way, dearest, would you mind if he should drop in on us some +day?" Jack laughed at his own phrase, so literally close to the only +mode of gaining access to their cellarage in the snow. + +Esmée looked up quickly. "What in the world does he want to come here +for? Doesn't he see enough of you as it is?" + +"He wants to see something of you; and it's howling lonesome at the Mule +Deer. Won't you let him come, Esmée?" + +"Why, do you want him, Jack?" + +"I want him! What should I want him for? But we have to be decent to a +man who's doing everything in the world for us. We couldn't have made it +here, at all, without the aid and comfort of the Mule Deer." + +"I'd rather have done without his aid and comfort, if it must be paid +for at his own price. + +"Everything has got to be paid for. Even that inordinate fire, which you +won't be parted from, has to be paid for with a burning cheek." + +"Not if you had a fire-screen, Jack," Esmée reminded him sweetly. + +"We will have one--an incandescent fire-screen on two legs. Will two be +enough? A Mule Deer miner shall pack it in on his back from town. But we +shall have to thank Wilfrid Knight for sending him. Well, if you won't +have him here, he can't come, of course; but it's a mistake, I think. We +can't afford, in my opinion, not to see the first hand that is held out +to us in a social way--a hand that can help us if it will, but one that +is quite as strong to injure us." + +"Have him, then, if he's so dangerous. But is he nice, do you think?" + +"He's nice enough, as men go. We're not any of us any too nice." + +"Some of you are at least considerate, and I think it very inconsiderate +of Mr. Wilfrid Knight to wish to intrude himself on me now." + +"Dearest, he has been kindness itself, and delicacy, in a way. Twice he +has sent a special man to town to hunt up little dainties and comforts +for you when my prison fare"-- + +"Jack, what do you mean? Has Wilfrid Knight been putting his hand in his +pocket for things for me to eat and drink?" + +"His pocket's not much hurt. Don't let that disturb you; but it is +something to send a man fifteen miles down the mountain to pack the +stuff. You might very properly recognize that, if you chose." + +"I recognize nothing of it. Why did you not tell me how it was? I +thought that you were sending for those things." + +"How can I send Knight's men on my errands, if you please? I don't show +up very largely at the mine in person. You don't seem to realize the +situation. Did you suppose that the Mule Deer men, when they fetch these +things from town, know whom they are for? They may, but they are not +supposed to." + +"Arrange it as you like, but I will not take presents from the manager +of the Mule Deer." + +"He has dined at your table, Esmée." + +"Not at _my_ table," said Esmée, haughtily averting her face. + +"But you have been nice to him; he remembers you with distinct +pleasure." + +"Very likely. It is my rôle to be nice to people. I should be nice to +him if he came here now; but I should hate him for coming. If _he_ were +nice, he would not dream of your asking him or allowing him to come." + +"Darling, darling, we can't keep it up like this. We are not lords of +fate to that extent. Fellows will pay you attention; they always have +and they always will: but you must not, dearest, imply that I am not +sensitive on the point of what you may or may not receive in that way. I +should make myself a laughing-stock before all men if I should begin by +resenting things. I could not insult you so. I will resent nothing that +a husband does not resent." + +"Jack, don't you understand? I could have taken it lightly once; I +always used to. I can't take it lightly now. I cannot have him come +here--the first to see us in this _solitude ā deux_, the most intimate, +the most awful--" + +"Of course, of course," murmured Jack. "It is awful, I admit it, for +you. But it always will be. Ours is a double solitude for life, with the +world always eying us askance, scoring us, or secretly envying us, or +merely wondering coarsely about us. It takes tremendous courage in a +woman; but you will have the courage of your honesty, your surpassing +generosity to me." + +"Generosity!" Esmée repeated. "We shall see. I give myself just five +years of this 'generosity.' After that, the beginning of the end. I +shall have to eliminate myself from the problem, to be finally generous. +But five years is a good while," she whispered, "to dare to love my love +in, if my love loves me." + +There could be no doubt of this as yet. Esmée could afford to toy +sentimentally with the thought of future despair and final +self-elimination. + +"Come, come," said Waring; "this will never do; we must get some fresh +air on this." He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, pocketed it, and +marched into an inner room whence he fetched a warm, loose cloak and a +pair of carriage boots. + +"Fresh air and exercise!" + +Esmée, seeing there was to be no escape from Jack's favorite specific +for every earthly ill, put out her foot, in its foolish little slipper, +and Jack drew on the fur-lined boots, and laced them around the silken +ankles. + +He followed her out into the snow-walled fosse, and fell into step +beside her. + +"May I smoke?" + +"What affectation! As if you didn't always smoke." + +"Well, hardly, when I have a lady with me, in such a public place." + + * * * * * + +"Oh me, oh me!" Esmée suddenly broke forth, "why did I not meet you when +you were in New York the winter before! Well, it would have settled one +or two things. And we might be walking like this now, before all the +world, and every one would say we were exactly suited to each other. And +so we are--fearfully and wonderfully. Why did that fact wait to force +itself upon us when to admit it was a crime? And we were so helpless +_not_ to admit it. What resources had I against it?" + +"God knows. Perhaps I ought to have made a better fight, for your sake. +But the fight was over for me the moment I saw that you were unhappy. If +you had seemed reasonably content with your life, or even resigned, I +hope I should have been man enough to have taken myself off and had it +out alone." + +"I had no life that was not all a pretense and a lie. I began by +thinking I could pretend to you. But you know how all that broke down. +Oh, Jack, _you_ know the man!" + +"I wouldn't go on with that, Esmée." + +"But I must. I must explain to you just once, if I can." + +"You need not explain, I should hope, to me." + +"But this is something that rankles fearfully. I must tell you that I +never, never would have given in if I hadn't thought there was something +in him, really. Even his peculiarities at first seemed rather +picturesque; at least they were different from other men's. And we +thought him a great original, a force, a man of such power and capacity. +His very success was supposed to mean that. It was not his gross money +that appealed to me. You could not think that I would have let myself be +literally sold. But the money seemed to show what he had done. I thought +that at least my husband would be a man among men, and especially in the +West. But"-- + +"Darling, need we go into all this? Say it to yourself, if it must be +said. You need not say it to me." + +"_I_ am saying it, not you. It is not you who have a monstrous, +incredible marriage to explain. I must explain it as far as I can. Do +you think I can afford to be without your respect and comprehension +simply because you love me?" + +"But love includes the rest." + +"Not after a while. Now let me speak. It was when he brought me out +here that I saw him as he is. I measured him by the standards of the +life that had made him. I saw that he was just a rough Western man, like +hundreds of others; not half so picturesque as a good many who passed +the window every day. And all his great success, which I had taken as a +proof of ability, meant nothing but a stroke of brutal luck that might +happen to the commonest miner any day. I saw how you pretended to +respect his judgment while privately you managed in spite of it. I could +not help seeing that he was laughed at for his pretensions in the +community that knew him best. It was tearing away the last rag of +self-respect in which I had been trying to dress up my shameful bargain. +I knew what you all thought of him, and I knew what you must think of +me. I could not force myself to act my wretched part before you; it +seemed a deeper degradation when you were there to see. How could I let +you think that _that_ was my idea of happiness! But from the first I +never could be anything with you but just myself--for better or for +worse. It was such a rest, such a perilous rest, to be with you, just +because I knew it was no use to pretend. You always seemed to understand +everything without a word." + +"I understood _you_ because I gave my whole mind to the business. You +were in my thoughts night and day, from the moment I first saw you." + +"Yes," said Esmée, passing over this confession as a thing of course in +a young man's relations with his employer's wife. "It was as if we had +been dear friends once, before memory began, before anything began; and +all the rest came of the miserable accident of our being born--mis-born, +since we could not meet until it was too late. Oh, it was cruel! I can +never forgive life, fate, society--whatever it was that played us this +trick. I had the strangest forebodings when they talked about you, +before I saw you--a premonition of a crisis, a danger ahead. There was a +fascination in the commonest reports about you. And then your perfectly +reckless naturalness, of a man who has nothing to hide and nothing to +fear. Who on earth could resist it?" + +"I was the one who ought to have resisted it, perhaps. I don't deny that +I was 'natural.' We're neither of us exactly humbugs--not now. If the +law that we've broken is hunting for us, there will be plenty of good +people to point us out. All that we shall have to face by and by. I wish +I could take your share and mine too; but you will always have it the +harder. That, too, is part of the law, I suppose." + +"I must not be too proud," said Esmée. "I must remember what I am in the +eyes of the world. But, Jack dear, if Wilfrid Knight does come, do not +let him come without telling me first. Don't let him 'drop in on us,' as +you said." + +"He shall not come at all if it bothers you to think of it. I am not +such a politic fellow. It's for your sake, dearest one, that I am +cringing to luck in this way. I never pestered myself much about making +friends and connections; but _I_ must not be too proud, either. It's a +handicap, there's no doubt about that; it's wiser to accept the fact, +and go softly. Great heavens! haven't I got you?" + +"I suppose Wilfrid Knight is a man of the world? He'll know how to spare +the situation?" + +"Quite so," said Jack, with a faint smile. "You needn't be uneasy about +him." Then, more gravely, he added:-- + +"He knows this is no light thing with either of us. He must respect your +courage--the courage so rare in a woman--to face a cruel mistake that +all the world says she must cover up, and right it at any cost." + +"That is nonsense," said Esmée, with the violence of acute +sensitiveness. "You need not try to doctor up the truth to me. You know +that men do not admire that kind of courage in women--not in their own +women. Let us be plain with each other. I don't pretend that I came here +with you for the sake of courage, or even of honesty." + +Esmée stopped, and turned herself about, with her shoulders against the +wall of snow, crushing the back of her head deep into its soft, cold +resistance. In this way she gained a glimpse of the sky. + +"Jack, it does look like a storm. It's all over gray, is it not? and the +air is so raw and chilly. I wish you would not go to-day." + +"I'll get off at once, and be back before dark. There shall be no solo +this afternoon. But leave those dishes for me. I despise to have you +wash dishes." + +"I hate it myself. If I do do it, it will be to preserve my +self-respect, and partly because you are so slow, Jack dear, and there's +no comfort in life till you get through. What a ridiculous, blissful, +squalid time it is! Shall we ever do anything natural and restful again, +I wonder?" + +"Yes; when we get some money." + +"I can't bear to hear you talk so much about money. Have I not had +enough of money in my life?" + +"Life is more of a problem with us than it is with most people." + +"Let us go where nature solves the problem. There was an old song one of +my nurses used to sing to me-- + + 'Oh, islands there are, in the midst of the deep, + Where the leaves never fade, and the skies never weep.' + +"Can't we go, Jack dear? Let us be South Sea Islanders. Let's be +anything where there will be no dishes to wash, or somebody to wash them +for us." + +"We will go when we get some money," Jack persisted hauntingly. + +"Oh, hush about the money! It's so uncomplimentary of you. I shall begin +to think"-- + +"You must not think. Thinking, after a thing is done, is no use. You +must 'sleep, dear, sleep.' I shall be back before dark; but if I am not, +don't think it strange. One never knows what may happen." + +When he was gone Esmée was seized with a profound fit of dawdling. She +sat for an hour in Jack's deep leather chair by the fire, her cloak +thrown back, her feet, in the fur boots, extended to the blaze. For the +first time that day she felt completely warm. She sat an hour dreaming, +in perfect physical content. + +Where did those words that Jack had quoted come from, she mused, and +repeated them to herself, trying their sound by ear. + + "Then sleep, dear, sleep!" + +They gathered meaning from some fragmentary connection in her memory. + + "If thou wilt ease thine heart + Of love, and all its smart-- + Then sleep, dear, sleep!" + + "And not a sorrow"-- + +She could recall no more. The lines had an echo of Keats. She looked +across the room toward the low shelves where Jack's books were crammed +in dusty banishment. It was not likely that Keats would be in that +company; yet Jack, by fits and starts, had been a passionate reader of +everybody, even of the poets. + +She was too utterly comfortable to be willing to move merely to lay the +ghost of a vanished song. And now another verse awoke to haunt her:-- + + "But wilt thou cure thine heart + Of love, and all its smart-- + Then die, dear, die!" + + "'T is deeper, sweeter"-- + +Than what? She could not remember. She had read the verses long ago, as +a girl of twenty measures time, when the sentiment had had for her the +palest meaning. Now she thought it not extravagant, but simply true. + + "Then die, dear, die!" + +She repeated, pillowing her head in the satin lining of her cloak. A +tear of self-forgiving pity stole down her cheek. Love,--of her own +fair, sensitive self; love of the one who could best express her to +herself, and magnify her day by day, on the highest key of modern poetic +sympathy and primal passion and mediæval romance,--this was the whole of +life to her. She desired no other revelation concerning the mission of +woman. In no other sense would she have held it worth while to be a +woman. Yet she, of Beauty's daughters, had been chosen for that +stupidest of all the dull old world's experiments in what it calls +success--a loveless marriage! + +When at length the fire went down, and the air of the draughty room grew +cool, Esmée languidly bestirred herself. The confusion that Jack had +left behind him in his belated departure began to afflict her--the +unwashed dishes on the table, the crumbs on the floor, the half-emptied +pipe and ashes on the mantel, the dust everywhere. She pitied herself +that she had no one at her command to set things right. At length she +rose, reluctantly dispensing with her cloak, but keeping the fur boots +on her feet, and began to pile up the breakfast dishes, and carry them +by separate journeys to the kitchen. + +The fire had long been out in the cook-stove; the bare little place was +distressingly cold; neither was it particularly clean, and the nature of +its disorder was even more objectionable than that of the sitting-room. +Poor Jack! Esmée had profoundly admired and pitied his struggles with +the kitchen. What man of Jack's type and breeding had ever stood such a +test of devotion? Even young Sir Gareth, who had done the same sort of +thing, had done it for knighthood's sake, and had taken pride in the +ordeal. With Jack such service counted for nothing except as a +preposterous proof of his love for her. + +Suppose she should surprise him in house-wifely fashion, and treat him +to a clean kitchen, a bright fire, and a hot supper on his return? The +fancy was a pleasing one; but when she came to reckon up the unavoidable +steps to its accomplishment, the details were too hopelessly repellent. +She did not know, in fact, where or how to begin. She mused forlornly on +their present situation, which, of course, could not last; but what +would come next? Surely, without money, plucked of the world's respect +and charity, they were a helpless pair. Jack was right; money they must +have; and she must learn to keep her scruples out of his way; he was +sufficiently handicapped already. She hovered about the scene of his +labors for a while, mourning over him, and over herself for being so +helpless to help him. By this time the sitting-room fire had gone quite +down; she put on a pair of gloves before raking out the coals and laying +the wood to rebuild it. The room had still a comfortless air, now that +she was alone to observe it. She could have wept as she went about, +moving chairs, lifting heavy bearskins, and finding dirt, ever more +dirt, that had accumulated under Jack's superficial housekeeping. + +Her timid attempt at sweeping raised a hideous dust. When she tried to +open the windows every one was frozen fast, and when she opened the door +the cold air cut her like a knife. + +She gave up trying to overhaul Jack's back accounts, and contented +herself with smoothing things over on the surface. She possessed in +perfection the decorative touch that lends an outward grace to the +aspect of a room which may be inwardly unclean, and therefore +unwholesome, for those who live in it. + +It had never been required of her that she should be anything but +beautiful and amiable, or do anything but contribute her beauty and +amiability to the indulgent world around her. The hard work was for +those who had nothing else to bestow. She laid Jack's slippers by the +fire, and, with fond coquetry, placed a pair of her own little +mouse-colored suedes, sparkling with silver embroidery, close beside +them. Her velvet wrap with its collar of ostrich plumes she disposed +effectively over the back of the hardwood settle, where the shimmering +satin lining caught a red gleam from the fire. Then she locked the outer +door, and prepared to take Jack's advice, and "sleep, dear, sleep." + +At the door of her bedroom she turned for a last survey of the empty +room--the room that would live in her memory as the scene of this most +fateful chapter of her life. That day, she suddenly remembered, was her +younger sister's wedding-day. She would not permit the thoughts to come. +All weddings, since her own, were hateful to her. "Hush!" she inwardly +breathed, to quell her heart. "The thing was done. All that was left was +dishonor, either way. This is my plea, O God! There was no escape from +shame! And Jack loved me so!" + +About five o'clock of that dark winter day Esmée was awakened from her +warm sleep by a loud knocking on the outside door. It could not be Jack, +for he had carried with him the key of the kitchen door, by which way he +always entered on his return. It was understood between them that in his +absences no stranger could be admitted to the house. Guests they did not +look for; as to friends, they knew not who their friends were, or if, +indeed, they had any friends remaining since their flight. + +The knocking continued, with pauses during which Esmée could fancy the +knocker outside listening for sounds within the house. Her heart beat +hard and fast. She had half risen in her bed; at intervals she drew a +deep breath, and shifted her weight on its supporting arm. + +Footsteps could be heard passing and repassing the length of the trench +in front of the house. They ceased, and presently a man jumped down +into the pit outside her bedroom window; the window was curtained, but +she was aware that he was there, trying to look in. He laid his hand on +the window-frame, and leaped upon the sill, and shook the sash, +endeavoring to raise it; but the blessed frost held it fast. The man had +a dog with him, that trotted after him, back and forth, and seconded his +efforts to gain entrance by leaping against the door, and whining, and +scratching at the lock. + +The girl was unspeakably alarmed, there was something so imperative in +the stranger's demand. It had for her startled ear an awful assurance, +as who should say, "I have a right to enter here." Who was it, what was +it, knocking at the door of that guilty house? + +It seemed to Esmée that this unappeasable presence had haunted the place +for an hour or more, trying windows, and going from door to door. At +length came silence so prolonged and complete that she thought herself +alone at last. + +But Jack's brother had not gone. He was standing close to the window of +the outer room, studying its interior in the strong light and shadow of +a pitch-pine fire. The room was confiding its history to one who was no +stranger to its earlier chapters, and was keen for knowledge of the +rest. + +This was Jack's house, beyond a doubt, and Jack was its tenant at this +present time, its daily intimate inhabitant. In this sense the man and +his house were one. + +The Dreadnaught had been Jack's first important mining venture. In it he +had sunk his share of his father's estate, considerable time and +reputation, and the best work he was capable of; and he still +maintained, in accordance with his temperament, that the mine was a good +mine, only present conditions would not admit of the fact being +demonstrated. The impregnable nature of its isolation made it a +convenient cache for personal properties that he had no room for in his +quarters in town, the beloved impedimenta that every man of fads and +enthusiasms accumulates even in a rolling-stone existence. He was all +there: it was Jack so frankly depicted in his belongings that his young +brother, who adored him, sighed restlessly, and a blush of mingled +emotions rose in his snow-chilled cheek. + +What reminder is so characteristic of a man as the shoes he has lately +put off his feet? And, by token, there were Jack's old pumps waiting for +him by the fire. + +But now suspicion laid its finger on that very unnamed dread which had +been lurking in the young man's thoughts. Jack, the silent room +confessed, was not living here alone. This could hardly be called +"baching it," with a pair of frail little feminine slippers moored close +beside his own. Where had Jack's feet been straying lately,--on what +forbidden ground,--that his own brother must be kept in ignorance of +such a step as this? If he had been mad enough to fetch a bride to such +an inhuman solitude as this,--if this were Jack's lawful honeymoon, why +should his bliss be hedged about with an awkward conspiracy of silence +on the part of all his friends? + +The silent room summoned its witnesses; one by one each mute, inanimate +object told its story. The firelight questioned them in scornful +flashes; the defensive shadows tried to confuse the evidence, and cover +it up. + +But there were the conscious slippers reddening by the hearth. The +costly Paris wrap displayed itself over the back of Jack's honest +hardwood settle. On the rough table, covered with a blanket wrought by +the hands of an Indian squaw, glimpsed a gilded fan, half-open, showing +court ladies, dressed as shepherdesses, blowing kisses to their +ephemeral swains. Faded hot-house roses were hanging their +heads--shriveled packets of sweetness--against the brown sides of a +pot-bellied tobacco-jar, the lid of which, turned upside down, was doing +duty as an ash-receiver. A box of rich confectionery imported from the +East had been emptied into a Dresden bowl of a delicate, frigid pattern, +reminding one of such pure-bred gentlewomen as Jack's little mother, +from whom he had coaxed this bit of the family china on his last home +visit. + +We do not dress up our brother's obliquity in euphemistic phrases; Jack +might call it what he pleased; but not the commonest man that knew him +had been willing to state in plain words the manner of his life at +present, snowed in at the top of the Dreadnaught road. Behold how that +life spoke for itself: how his books were covered with dust; how the +fine, manly rigor of the room had been debased by contact with the +habits of a luxurious dependent woman! + +Here Jack was wasting life in idleness, in self-banishment, in +inordinate affections and deceits of the flesh. The brother who loved +him too well to be lenient to his weakness turned away with a groan of +such indignant heartbreak as only the young can know. Only the young and +the pure in heart can have such faith in anything human as Jack's +brother had had in Jack. + +Esmée, reassured by the long-continued silence, had ventured out, and +now stepped cautiously forward into the broad, low light in the middle +of the room. The fireshine touched her upraised chin, her parted lips, +and a spark floated in each of her large, dark, startled eyes. Tip had +been watching as breathless and as motionless as his companion, but now +at sight of Esmée he bounded against the sash, and squealed his +impatience to be let in. Esmée shrank back with a cry; her hands went up +to her breast and clasped themselves. She had seen the face at the +window. Her attitude was the instinctive expression of her convicted +presence in that house. And the excluded pair who watched her were her +natural judges: Fidelity that she had outraged, and Family Affection +that she had wronged. + +Tip made further demonstrations at the window, but Esmée had dragged +herself away out of sight into her own room. + +The steps of the knocker were heard, a few minutes later, wandering +irresolutely up and down the trench. For the last time they paused at +the door. + +"Shall we knock once more, Tip? Shall we give her one more chance? She +has seen that I am no ruffian; she knows that you are a friend. Now if +she is an honest woman let her show herself! For the last time, then!" + +A terrific peal of knocking shocked the silence. Esmée could have +screamed, there was an accent so scornfully accusative in this last +ironical summons. No answer was possible. The footsteps turned away from +the door, and did not come back. + + +II + +The snow that had began to fall softly and quietly about the middle of +the afternoon had steadily increased until now in the thickening dusk it +spread a white blindness everywhere. From her bedroom window Esmée +looked out, and though she could not see the sky, there were signs +enough to tell her what the coming night would be. Fresh snow lay piled +in the trench, and snow was whirling in. The blast outside wailed in the +chimney, and shook the house, and sifted snow in beneath the outer door. + +Esmée was not surprised that Jack, when he came home, should be as +dismal and quiet as she was herself; but it did surprise her that he +should not at once perceive that something had happened in his absence. + +At first there was supper to cook, and she could not talk to him then. +Later, when they were seated together at the table, she tried to speak +of that ghostly knocking; but Jack seemed preoccupied and not inclined +to talk, and she was glad of an excuse to postpone a subject that had +for her a peculiar terror in its suggestions. + +It was nine o'clock before all the little house tasks were done, and +they drew up to the fire, seeking in each other's eyes the assurance +that both were in need of, that nothing of their dear-bought treasure of +companionship had altered since they had sat that way before. But it was +not quite the same Esmée, nor the same Jack. They were not thinking +exclusively of each other. + +"Why don't you read your letters, dear?" + +"I can't read them," said Esmée. "They were not written to me--the woman +I am now." + +These were the home letters, telling of her sister's coming wedding +festivities, that Esmée could not read, especially that one from +Lilla--her last letter as a girl to the sister who had been a bride +herself, and would know what a girl's feelings at such a time must be. + +"I have tried to write to mama," said Esmée; "but it's impossible. +Anything I could say by way of defense sounds as if I were trying to lay +the blame on some one else; and if I say nothing, but just state the +facts, it is harsh, as if I were brazening it out. And she has never +seen you, Jack. You are my only real defense. By what you are, by what +you will be to me, I am willing to be judged." + +"Dearest, you make me ashamed, but I can say the same of you. Still, to +a mother, I'm afraid it will make little difference whether it's +'Launcelot or another.'" + +"It certainly made little difference to her when she made her choice of +a husband for me," said Esmée, bitterly. One by one she dropped the +sheets of her letters in the fire, and watched them burn to ashes. + +"When they know--if they ever write to me after that, I will read those +letters. These have no meaning." They had too much meaning, was what +Esmée should have said. + +After a silence Jack spoke somewhat hoarsely: "It's a beastly long time +since I have written to any of my people. It's a pity I didn't write and +tell them something; it might have saved trouble. But how can a fellow +write? I got a letter to-day from my brother Sid. Says he's thinking of +coming out here." + +"Heaven save us!" cried Esmée. "Do write at once--anything--say +anything you like." + +Jack smiled drearily. "I'm afraid it's too late. In fact, the letter was +written the day before he was to start, and it's dated January 25. +There's a rumor that some one is in town, now, looking for me. I +shouldn't be surprised if it were Sid." + +"What if it were?" asked Esmée. "What could you do?" + +"I don't know, indeed," said Jack. "I'm awfully cut up about it. The +worst of it is, I asked him to come." + +"You asked him!" + +"Some time ago, dearest, when everything was different. I thought I must +make the fight for both our sakes, and I sent for Sid, thinking it might +help to have him here with me." + +"Did you indeed," said Esmée, coldly. "What a pity he did not come +before it was too late; he might have saved us both. How long ago was +it, please?" + +"Esmée, don't speak to me like that." + +"But do you realize what you are saying?" + +"You should not mind what I say. Think--what shall we do if it should +be Sid? It rests with you, Esmée. Could you bear to meet him?" + +"What is he like?" said Esmée, trembling. + +"Oh, he's a lovely fellow. There's nobody like Sid." + +"What does he look like?" + +"He's good-looking, of course, being my brother," said Jack, with a +wretched attempt at pleasantry, which met with no response. Esmée was +staring at him, a strange terror in her eyes. "But there is more to his +looks, somehow, than to most pretty boys. People who are up in such +things say he's like the Saint George, or Saint Somebody, by Donatello. +He's blond, you know; he's as fresh as a girl, but he has an uncommonly +set look at times, when he's serious or a bit disgusted about something. +He has a set in his temper, too. I should not care to have Sid hear our +story--not till after he had seen you, Esmée. Perhaps even then he could +not understand. He has never loved a woman, except his mother. He +doesn't know what a man's full-grown passion means. At least, I don't +think he knows. He was rather fiercely moral on some points when I +talked to him last; a little bit inhuman--what is it, Esmée?" + +"There is that dog again!" + +Jack looked at her in surprise at her shocked expression. Every trace of +color had left her face. Her eyes were fixed upon the door. + +"What dog? Why, it's Tip." + +A creature as white as the storm sprang into the room as he opened the +door, threw himself upon Jack, and whimpered and groaned and shivered, +and seemed to weep with joy. Jack hugged him, laughing, and then threw +him off, and dusted the snow from his clothing. + +Tip shook himself, and came back excitedly for more recognition from his +master. He took no notice at all of Esmée. + +"Speak to him, won't you, dear? It's only manners, even if you don't +care for him," Jack prompted gently. But Tip refused to accept Esmée's +sad, perfunctory greeting; his countenance changed, he held aloof, +glancing at her with an unpleasant gleam in his bloodshot eyes. + +He had satisfied the cravings of affection, and now made it plain that +his visit was on business that demanded his master's attention outside +of the house. Jack knew the creature's intelligent ways so well that +speech was hardly needed between them. "What's the racket, Tip? What's +wrong out there? No, sir; I don't go back to town with you to-night, +sir. Not much. Lie down! Be quiet, idiot!" + +But Tip stood at the door, and began to whine, fixing his eyes on his +master's face. As nothing came of this, he went back and stood in front +of him, wagging his tail heavily and slowly; troubled wrinkles stood out +over his beseeching eyes. + +"What under heaven's the matter with you, dog? You're a regular funeral +procession." Jack shoved the creature from him, and again he took up his +station at the door. Jack rose, and opened it, and playfully tried to +push him out. Tip stood his ground, always with his eyes on his master's +face, and whimpered under his breath with almost tearful meaning. + +"He's on duty to-night," said Jack. "He's got something on his mind, and +he wants me to help him out with it. I say, old chap, we don't keep a +life-saving station up here. Get out with your nonsense." + +"There was some one with him when he was here this afternoon," Esmée +forced herself to say. + +"Has Tip been here before?" + +"Yes, Jack. But a man was with him--a young, strange man. It was about +four o'clock, perhaps five; it was getting dusk. I had been asleep, and +I was so frightened. He knocked and knocked. I thought he would never +stop knocking. He came to my window, and tried to get in, but the sash +was frozen fast." Esmée paused, and caught her breath. "And I heard a +dog scratching and whining." + +"Did you not see the man?" + +"I did. I saw him," gasped Esmée. "It was all quiet after a while. I +thought he had gone. I came out into the room, and there he stood close +by that window, staring in; and the dog was with him. It was Tip." + +"And you did not open the door to Tip?" + +"Jack dear, have you not told me that I was never to open the door when +you were away?" + +"But didn't you speak to the man? Didn't you ask him who he was or what +he wanted?" + +"How could I? He did not speak to me. He stared at me as if I were a +ghost, and then he went away." + +"I would have questioned any man that came here with Tip. Tip doesn't +take up with toughs and hobos. What was he like?" + +Esmée had retreated under this cross-questioning, and stood at some +distance from Jack, pale, and trembling with an ague of the nerves. + +"What was he like?" Jack repeated. + +"He was most awfully beautiful. He had a face like--like a death-angel." + +Jack rejected this phrase with an impatient gesture. "Was he fair, with +blue eyes, and a little blond mustache?" + +"I don't know. The light was not good. He stood close to the window, or +I could not have seen him. What have I done? Was it wrong not to open +the door?" + +"Never mind about that, Esmée. I want you to describe the man." + +"I can't describe him. I don't need to. I know--I know it was your +brother." + +"It must have been; and we have been sitting here--how many hours?" + +"I did not know there could be anybody--who--had a right to come in." + +"Such a night as this? Get away, Tip!" + +Jack had risen, and thrown off his coat. Esmée saw him get down his +snow-shoe rig. He pulled on a thick woolen jersey, and buttoned his +reefer over that. His foot-gear was drying by the fire; he put on a pair +of German stockings, and fastened them below the knee, and over these +the India-rubber buskins which a snow-shoer wears. + +"Tip had better have something to eat before we start," he suggested. He +did not look at Esmée, but his manner to her was very gentle and +forbearing; it cut her more than harsh words and unreasonable reproaches +would have done. + +"He seems to think that I have done it," she said to herself, with the +instinct of self-defense which will always come first with timid +natures. + +Tip would not touch the food she brought him. She followed him about the +room meekly, with the plate in her hand; but he shrunk away, lifting +his lip, and showing the whites of his blood-rimmed eyes. + +Except for this defect, the sequel of distemper or some other of the +ills of puppyhood, Tip had been a good-looking dog. But this accident of +his appearance had prejudiced Esmée against him at the first sight. +Later he had made her dislike and fear him by a habit he had of dogging +his master to her door, and waiting there, outside, like Jack's +discarded conscience. If chidden, or invited to come in, the +unaccountable creature would skulk away, only to return and take up his +post of dumb witness as before; so that no one who watched the movements +of Jack's dog could fail to know how Jack bestowed his time. In this +manner Esmée had come almost to hate the dog, and Tip returned her +feeling in his heart, though he was restrained from showing it. But +to-night there was a new accusation in his gruesome eye. + +"He will not eat for me," said Esmée, humbly. + +"He must eat," said Jack. "Here, down with it!" The dog clapped his jaws +on the meat his master threw to him, and stood ready, without a change +of countenance, at the door. + +"Can't you say that you forgive me?" Esmée pleaded. + +"Forgive you? Who am I, to be forgiving people?" Jack answered hoarsely. + +"But say it--say it! It was your brother. If it had been mine, I could +forgive you." + +"Esmée, you don't see it as it is." + +"I do see it; but, Jack, you said that I was not to open the door." + +"Well, you didn't open it, did you? So it's all right. But there's a man +out in the snow, somewhere, that I have got to find, if Tip can show me +where he is. Come, Tip!" + +"Oh, Jack! You will not go without"--Jack turned his back to the door, +and held out his arms. Esmée cast herself into them, and he kissed her +in bitter silence, and went out. + + * * * * * + +These two were seated together again by the fire in the same room. It +was four o'clock in the morning, but as dark as midnight. The floor in +spots was wet with melted snow. They spoke seldom, in low, tired +voices; it was generally Esmée who spoke. They had not been weeping, but +their faces were changed and grown old. Jack shivered, and kept feeding +the fire. On the bed in the adjoining room, cold as the snow in a +deserted nest, lay their first guest, whom no house fire would ever +warm. + +"I cannot believe it. I cannot take it in. Are you sure there is nothing +more we could do that a doctor would do if we had one?" + +"We have done everything. It was too late when I found him." + +"How is it possible? I have heard of persons lost for days--and this was +only such a few hours." + +"A few hours! Good God, Esmée! Come out with me, and stand five minutes +in this storm, if you can. And he had been on snow-shoes all day; he had +come all the way up-hill from town. He had had no rest, and nothing to +eat. And then to turn about, and take it worse than ever!" + +"It is an impossible thing," she reiterated. "I am crazy when I think of +it." + +Tip lifted his head uneasily, rose, and tapped about the room, his +long-nailed toes rattling on the uncarpeted floor. He paused, and licked +up one of the pools of melted snow. "Stop that!" Jack commanded. There +was dead silence. Then Tip began again his restless march about the +room, pausing at the bedroom door to whine his questioning distress. + +"Can't you make him stay in the kitchen?" Esmée suggested timidly. + +"It is cold in the kitchen. Tip has earned his place by my fire as long +as I shall have one," said Jack, emphatically. + +Down fell some crashing object, and was shivered on the floor. The dog +sprang up, and howled; Esmée trembled like a leaf. + +"It's only your little looking-glass," she whispered. There was no +mystery in its having fallen in such a wind from the projecting log +where Esmée, with more confidence than judgment, had propped it. + +In silence both recalled the light words that had passed when Jack had +taken it down from its high nail, saying that the mirrors in his +establishment had not been hung with reference to persons of her size; +and Esmée could see the picture they had made, putting their heads +together before it, Jack stooping, with his hands on her shoulders, to +bring his face in line with hers. Those laughing faces! All smiles, all +tremulous mirth in that house had vanished as the reflections in a +shattered mirror. + +Jack got up, and fetched a broom, and swept the clinking fragments into +the fire. The frame he broke in two and tossed after them. + +"Call me as soon as it is light enough to start," he said to Esmée. + +"But not unless it has stopped snowing?" + +"Call me as soon as it is light, please," Jack repeated. He stumbled as +he walked, like an old man. Esmée followed him into the drear little +kitchen, where a single candle on the table was guttering in the draft. +The windows were blank with frost, the boards cracked with the cold. +Esmée helped prepare him a bed on a rude bunk against the wall, and Jack +threw himself down on his pallet, and closed his eyes, without speaking. +Esmée stood watching him in silence a moment; then she fell on her knees +beside him on the floor. + +"Say that you can forgive me! How shall I bear it all alone!" + +At first Jack made no answer; he could not speak; his breath came deep +and hard. Then he rose on one elbow, and looked at her with great stern +eyes. + +"Have I accused you? You did not do it. I did not do it. It happened--to +show us what we are. We have broken with all the ties of family. We can +have no brother or sister--our brothers and sisters are the rebels like +ourselves; every man and woman whom society has branded and cast out. +Sooner or later we shall embrace them all. Nothing healthy can come near +us and not take harm from us. We are contamination to women and +destruction to men. Poor Sid had better have come to a den of thieves +and murderers than to his own brother's house last night; yet we might +have done him worse harm if we had let him in. Now he is only +dead--clean and true, as he lived. He is dead through my sin. Do you +see, now, what this means to me?" + +"I see," said Esmée, rising from her knees. She went out of the room, +closing the door gently between them. + +Jack lay stretching his aching muscles in one position after another, +and every way he turned his thoughts pursued him. The brutality of his +speech to Esmée wrought its anguish equally upon him, now that it was +too late to get back a single word. Still, she must understand,--she +would understand, when she came to think--how broken up he was in mind +and body, how crazed for want of rest after that horrible night's work. +This feeling of irresponsibility to himself satisfied him that she could +not hold him responsible for his words at such a time. The strain he was +supporting, mentally and physically, must absolve him if she had any +consideration for him left. + +So at length he slept. Esmée was careful not to disturb him. She had no +need of bodily rest, and the beating of her heart and the ceaseless +thinking went on and on. + +"I am to be left here alone with _it_"--she glanced toward the room +where the body lay--"while he goes for help to take it to town. He has +not asked me if I can go through with this. If I should say to him, +'Spare me this awful trial,' he would answer,--and of course he would be +right,--'There are only us two; one to go and one to stay. Is it so +much to ask of you after what has happened?' + +"He does not ask it; he expects it. He is not my tender, remorseful +lover now, dreading for me, every day, what his happiness must cost me. +He is counting what I have cost him in other possessions which he might +have had if he had not paid too great a price for one." + +So these two had come to judge each other in the common misery that +drove them apart. Toward daylight the snow ceased and the wind went +down. Jack had forgotten to provide wood for Esmée's fire; the room was +growing cold, and the wood supply was in the kitchen, where he slept. +She sat still and suffered mutely, rather than waken him before the +time. This was not altogether consideration for him. It was partly +wounded pride, inflicting its own suffering on the flesh after a moral +scourging, either through one's own or another's conscience. + +When the late morning slowly dawned, she went to waken him, obedient to +orders. She made every effort to arouse him, but in vain. His sleep was +like a trance. She had heard of cases of extreme mental and physical +strain where a sleep like this, bordering on unconsciousness, had been +nature's cure. She let him sleep. + +Seeing that her movements did not disturb him, she went cautiously about +the room, trying, now in forlorn sincerity, to adapt herself to the +necessities of the situation. She did her best to make ready something +in the nature of a breakfast for Jack when he should at length awaken. +It promised to be a poor substitute, but the effort did her good. + +It was after noon before Jack came to himself. He had been awake some +little time, watching her, before she was aware of it. He could see for +himself what she had been trying to accomplish, and he was greatly +touched. + +"Poor child!" he said, and held out his arms. + +She remained at a distance, slightly smiling, her eyes on the floor. + +He did not press the moment of reconciliation. He got upon his feet, +and, in the soldierly fashion of men who live in camps and narrow +quarters, began to fold his blankets, and straighten things in his +corner of the room. + +"If you will go into the sitting-room, I will bring in the breakfast, +such as it is," said Esmée. Jack obeyed her meekly. The sitting-room +fire had been relighted, and was burning brightly. It was strange to him +to sit and see her wait upon him. Stranger still was her silence. Here +was a new distress. He tried to pretend unconsciousness of the change in +her. + +"It is two o'clock," he said, looking at his watch. "I'm afraid I shall +be late getting back; but you must not worry. The storm is over, and I +know every foot of the way." + +"Did I do wrong," Esmée questioned nervously, "not to call you? I tried +very hard, but you could not wake. You must have needed to sleep, I +think." + +"Do you expect me to scold you every time I speak, Esmée? I have said +enough, I think. Come here, dear girl. _I_ need to be forgiven now. It +cuts me to the heart to see you so humble. May God humble me for those +words I said!" + +"You spoke the truth. Only we had not been telling each other the truth +before." + +"No. And we must stop it. We shall learn the truth fast enough. We need +not make whips of it to lash each other with. Come here." + +"I can't," said Esmée in a choking whisper. + +"Yes, you can. You shall forgive me." + +She shook her head. "That is not the question. You did not do it. I did +not do it. God has done it--as you said." + +"Did I say that? Did I presume to preach to you?" + +"If I have done what you say--if I have cut you off from all human +relations, and made your house worse than a den of thieves and +murderers, how can anything be too bad for me to hear? What does it +matter from whom I hear it?" + +"I was beside myself. I was drunk with sorrow and fatigue." + +"That is when people speak the truth, they say. I don't blame you, Jack. +How should I? But you know it can never be the same, after this, with +you or with me." + +"Esmée," said Jack, after a long and bitter silence, holding out his +shaking hand, "will you come with me in there, and look at him? He knows +the truth--the whole truth. If you can see in his face anything like +scorn or reproach, anything but peace,--peace beyond all +conception,--then I will agree that we part this day, forever. Will you +come?" + +"Oh, Jack, you _are_ beside yourself, now. Do you think that I would go +in there, in the presence of _that_ peace, and call on it for my +justification, and begin this thing again? I should expect that peace +would come to me--the peace of instant death--for such awful +presumption." + +"I didn't mean that--not to excuse ourselves; only to bring back the +trust that was between us. Does this bitterness cure the past? Have we +not hurt each other enough already?" + +"I think so. It is sufficient for me. But men, they say, get over such +things, and their lives go on, and they take their places as before. I +want you to"-- + +"There is nothing for me--will you believe it?--more than there is for +you. Will you not do me that much justice, not to treat this one +passion of my life as--what shall I say? It is not possible that you can +think such things. We must make up to each other for what we have each +cost the other. Come. Let us go and stand beside him--you and I, before +the others get here. It will do us good. Then we will follow him out, on +his way home, as far as we can; and if there is any one in town who has +an account with me, he can settle it there and then. Perhaps my mother +will have both her sons shipped home to her on the same train." + +Jack had not miscounted on the effect of these words. They broke down +Esmée's purer resolution with their human appeal. Yet he was not +altogether selfish. + +He held out his hand to her. She took it, and they went together, +shrinkingly, into the presence of the dead. When they came out, the eyes +of both were wet. + +Late as it was, it was inevitable that Jack must start. Esmée watched +him prepare once more for the journey. When he was ready to set out, she +said to him, with an extreme effort: + +"If any one should come while you are gone, I am to let him in?" + +"Do as you think best, dear; but I am afraid that no one will disturb +you. It will be a lonely watch. I wish I could help you through with +it." + +"It is my watch," said Esmée. "I must keep it." + +She would have been thankful for the company even of Tip, to answer for +something living, if not human, in the house; but the dog insisted so +savagely on following his master that she was forced to set him free. +She closed the door after him, and locked it mechanically, hardly aware +of what she did. + + * * * * * + +There is a growth of the spirit which is gradual, progressive, +healthful, and therefore permanent. There are other psychical births +that are forced, convulsive, agonizing in their suddenness. They may be +premature, brought on by the shock of a great sorrow, or a sin perhaps +committed without full knowledge of its nature, or realization of its +consequences. Such births are perilous and unsure. Of these was the +spiritual crisis through which Esmée was now passing. + +She had made her choice: human love was satisfied according to the +natural law. Now, in the hours of her solitary watch, that irrevocable +choice confronted her. It was as a cup of trembling held to her lips by +the mystery of the Invisible, which says: Whoever will drink of this cup +of his desire, be it soon, be it late, shall drain it to the dregs, and +"wring them out." Esmée had come very soon to the dregs of her cup of +trembling. + +In such anguish and abasement her new life of the spirit began. Will she +have strength to sustain it, or must it pass like a shaken light into +the keeping of a steadier hand? + +She was but dimly aware of outward changes as the ordeal wore on. It had +been pale daylight in the cabin, and now it was dusk. It had been as +still as death outside after the night of storm, the cold relenting, the +frost trickling like tears down the pane; but now there was a rising +stir. The soft, wild gale, the chinook of the Northwest, came roaring up +the peak--the breath of May, but the voice of March. The forest began to +murmur and moan, and strip its white boughs of their burden, and all +its fairy frost-work melted like a dream. At intervals in the deep +timber a strange sound was heard, the rush and thump of some soft, heavy +mass into the snow. Esmée had never heard the sound before; it filled +her with a creeping dread. Every separate distinct pounce--they came at +intervals, near or far, but with no regularity--was a shock to her +overwrought nerves. These sounds had taken sole possession of her ear. +It was hence a double shock, at about the same hour of early twilight +when her visitor had come the night before, to hear again a man's feet +in the trench outside, and again a loud knock upon the door. + +Her heart with its panting answered in her breast. There was a pause +while outside the knocker seemed to listen, as he had done before. Then +the new-born will of the woman fearfully took command of her cowering +senses. Something that was beyond herself forced her to the door. Pale, +and weak in every limb, she dragged herself to meet whatever it was that +summoned her. This time she opened the door. + +There stood a mild-faced man, in the dress of a miner, smiling +apologetically. Esmée simply stared at him, and held the door wide. The +man stepped hesitatingly inside, taking off his hat to the pale girl who +looked at him so strangely. + +David Bruce modestly attempted to give an incidental character to his +visit by inventing an errand in that neighborhood. + +"Excuse me, ma'am," he said. "I was going along over to the Mule Deer, +but I thought I'd just ask if Mr. Waring's brother got through all right +yesterday evenin'. It was so ugly outside." + +The girl parted her lips to speak, but no sound came. The light shone in +her ashy face. Her eyes were losing their expression. Bruce saw that she +was fainting, and caught her as she fell. + +The interview begun in this unpromising manner proved of the utmost +comfort to Esmée. There was nothing in Bruce's manner to herself, +nothing in his references to Jack, that implied any curiosity on his +part as to the relation between them, or the least surprise at their +being together at the Dreadnaught. He had "spared the situation" with an +instinct that does not come from knowledge of the world. + +He listened to her story of the night's tragedy, which she told with +helpless severity, almost with indifference, as if it had happened to +another. + +He appeared to be greatly moved by it personally; its moral significance +he did not seem to see. He sat helplessly repeating himself, in his +efforts to give words to his sorrow for the "kid." His vocabulary being +limited, and chiefly composed of words which he could not use before a +lady, he was put to great inconvenience to do justice to his feelings. + +He blamed himself and his brother for letting the young man go by their +cabin on such a threatening day. + +"Why, Jim and me we couldn't get to sleep for thinkin' about him, 't was +blowin' such a blizzard. Seemed like we could hear him a-yellin' to us, +'Is this the way to the Dreadnaught mine?' Wisht the Lord we'd 'a' said +it wa'n't. Well, sir, we don't want no more such foolishness. And that's +partly why I come. We never thought but what he _had_ got through, for +all we was pestered about it, or else me and Jim would 'a' turned out +last night. But what we was a-sayin' this morning was this: Them folks +up there ain't acquainted with this country like we be--not in the +winter-time. This here is what we call snow-slide weather. Hain't you +been hearing how things is lettin' go? The snow slumpin' off the +trees--you must have heard that. It's lettin' go up above us, too. +There's a million ton of snow up there a-settlin' and a-crawlin' in this +chinook, just a-gettin' ready to start to slide. We fellers in the +mountains know how 'tis. This cabin has stood all right so far, but the +woods above was cut last summer. Now, I want you to come along with me +right now. I've got a hand-sleigh here. You can tuck yourself up on it, +and we'll pull out for the Mule Deer, and likely meet with Mr. Waring on +the way. And if there's a snow-slide here before morning, it'll bury the +dead, and not the living and the dead." + +At these words the blood rushed to Esmée's cheek, and then dropped back +to her heart, leaving her as white as snow. + +"I don't remember that I have ever seen you before," she said; "but I +thank you more than I ever thanked anybody in all my life." + +David Bruce thought of course that she was going with him. But that was +not what she meant. Her face shone. God, in his great mercy, had given +her this one opportunity. + +"This is my watch, you know. I cannot leave this house. But I don't +think there will be a snow-slide. Things do not happen so simply as +that. You don't know what I mean? But think a moment. You know, do you +not, who I am? Should you think really that death is a thing that any +friend of mine would wish to save me from? Life is what I am afraid +of--long life to the end. I don't think there will be a snow-slide, not +in time for me. But I thank you so much. You have made me feel so +human--so like other people. You don't understand that, either? Well, no +matter. I am just as grateful. I shall remember your visit all my life; +and even if I live long, I doubt if I shall ever have a kinder visitor. +I am much better for your coming, though you may think you have come for +nothing. Now you must go before it gets too dark. You will go to the +Mule Deer, will you not, and carry this same message to--there?" + +"I'm goin' to stop right here till Jack Waring gets back." + +"Oh, no, you're not. You are going this instant." She rose, and held out +her hand. She had that power over him that one so much in earnest as she +will always have over one who is amazed and in doubt. + +"Won't you shake hands with me?" Her thrilling voice made a sort of +music of the common words. + +He took her hand, and wagged it clumsily in a dazed way, and she almost +pushed him out of the house. + + * * * * * + +"Well, I'll be hanged if that ain't the meanest trick since I was +born--to leave a little lone woman watchin' with a dead man in a cabin, +with snow-slides startin' all over the mountains! What's the matter with +me, anyhow? Seem to be knocked silly with her blamed queer talk. Heap of +sense in it, too. Wouldn't think one of her kind would see it that way, +though. Durned if I know which kind she is. B'lieve I'll go back now. +Why, Lord! I must go back! What'll I say to Jim?" + +David Bruce had gained the top of the road leading away from the mine +before he came to himself in a burst of unconscious profanity. He could +hear the howling of the wind around the horn of the peak. He looked up +and down, and considered a second. + +In another second it was too late--too late to add his life to hers, +that instant buried beneath the avalanche. + +A stroke out of a clear sky; a roar that filled the air; a burst of +light snow mounting over the tree-tops like steam condensed above a +rushing train; a concussion of wind that felled trees in the valley a +hundred yards from the spot where the plunging mass shot down--then the +chinook eddied back, across the track of the snow-slide, and went +storming up the peak. + + + + +MAVERICK + + +Traveling Buttes is a lone stage-station on the road, largely speaking, +from Blackfoot to Boise. I do not know whether the stages take that road +now, but ten years ago they did, and the man who kept the stage-house +was a person of primitive habits and corresponding appearance named +Gilroy. + +The stage-house is perhaps half a mile from the foot of the largest +butte, one of three that loom on the horizon, and appear to "travel" +from you, as you approach them from the plains. A day's ride with the +Buttes as a landmark is like a stern chase, in that you seem never to +gain upon them. + +From the stage-house the plain slopes up to the foot of the Big Butte, +which rises suddenly in the form of an enormous tepee, as if Gitche +Manito, the mighty, had here descended and pitched his tent for a +council of the nations. + +The country is destitute of water. To say that it is "thirsty" is to +mock with vain imagery that dead and mummied land on the borders of the +Black Lava. The people at the stage-house had located a precious spring, +four miles up, in a cleft near the top of the Big Butte; they piped the +water down to the house and they sold it to travelers on that Jericho +road at so much per horse. The man was thrown in, but the man usually +drank whisky. + +Our guide commented unfavorably on this species of husbandry, which is +common enough in the arid West, and as legitimate as selling oats or +hay; but he chose to resent it in the case of Gilroy, and to look upon +it as an instance of individual and exceptional meanness. + +"Any man that will jump God's water in a place like this, and sell it +the same as drinks--he'd sell water to his own father in hell!" + +This was our guide's opinion of Gilroy. He was equally frank, and much +more explicit, in regard to Gilroy's sons. "But," he concluded, with a +philosopher's acceptance of existing facts, "it ain't likely that any of +that outfit will ever git into trouble, so long as Maverick is sheriff +of Lemhi County." + +We were about to ask why, when we drove up to the stage-house, and +Maverick himself stepped out and took our horses. + +"What the--infernal has happened to the man?" my companion, Ferris, +exclaimed; and our guide answered indifferently, as if he were speaking +of the weather,-- + +"Some Injuns caught him alone in an out-o'-the-way ranch, when he was a +kid, and took a notion to play with him. This is what was left when they +got through. I never see but one worse-looking man," he added, speaking +low, as Maverick passed us with the team: "him a bear wiped over the +head with its paw. 'Twas quicker over with, I expect, but he lived, and +_he_ looked worse than Maverick." + +"Then I hope to the Lord I may never see him!" Ferris ejaculated; and I +noticed that he left his dinner untasted, though he had boasted of a +hunter's appetite. + +We were two college friends on a hunting trip, but we had not got into +the country of game. In two days more we expected to make Jackson's +Hole, and I may mention that "hole," in this region, signifies any +small, deep valley, well hidden amidst high mountains, where moisture +is perennial, and grass abounds. In these pockets of plenty, herds of +elk gather and feed as tame as park pets; and other hunted creatures, as +wild but less innocent, often find sanctuary here, and cache their +stolen stock and other spoil of the road and the range. + +We did not forget to put our question concerning Maverick, that unhappy +man, in his character of legalized protector of the Gilroy gang. What +did our free-spoken guide mean by that insinuation? + +We were told that Gilroy, in his rough-handed way, had been as a father +to the lad, after the savages wreaked their pleasure on him: and his +people being dead or scattered, Maverick had made himself useful in +various humble capacities at the stage-house, and had finally become a +sort of factotum there and a member of the family. And though perfectly +square himself, and much respected on account of his personal courage +and singular misfortunes, he could never see the old man's crookedness, +nor the more than crookedness of his sons. He was like a son of the +house, himself; but most persons agreed that it was not as a brother he +felt toward Rose Gilroy. And a tough lookout it was for the girl; for +Maverick was one whom no man would lightly cross, and in her case he was +acting as "general dog around the place," as our guide called it. The +young fellows were shy of the house, notwithstanding the attraction it +held. It was likely to be Maverick or nobody for Rose. + +We did not see Rose Gilroy, but we heard her step in the stage-house +kitchen, and her voice, as clear as a lark's, giving orders to the tall, +stooping, fair young Swede, who waited on us at table, and did other +work of a menial character in that singular establishment. + +"How is it the watch-dog allows such a pretty sprig as that around the +place?" Ferris questioned, eying our knight of the trencher, who blushed +to feel himself remarked. + +"He won't stay," our guide pronounced; "they don't none of 'em stay when +they're good-lookin'. The old man he's failin' considerable these +days,--gettin' kind o' silly,--and the boys are away the heft of the +time. Maverick pretty much runs the place. I don't justly blame the +critter. He's watched that little Rose grow up from a baby. How's he +goin' to quit being fond of her now she's a woman? I dare say he'd a +heap sooner she'd stayed a little girl. And these yere boys around here +they're a triflin' set, not half so able to take care of her as +Maverick. He's got the sense and he's got the sand; but there's that +awful head on him! I don't blame him much, lookin' the way he does, and +feelin' the same as any other man." + +We left Traveling Buttes and its cruel little love-story, but we had not +gone a mile when a horseman overtook us with a message for Ferris from +his new foreman at the ranch, a summons which called him back for a day +at the least. Ferris was exceedingly annoyed: a day at the ranch meant +four days on the road; but the business was imperative. We held a brief +council, and decided that, with Ferris returning, our guide should push +on with the animals and camp outfit into a country of grass, and look up +a good camping-spot (which might not be the first place he struck) this +side of Jackson's Hole. It remained for me to choose between going with +the stuff, or staying for a longer look at the phenomenal Black Lava +fields at Arco; Arco being another name for desolation on the very edge +of that weird stone sea. This was my ostensible reason for choosing to +remain at Arco; but I will not say the reflection did not cross me that +Arco is only sixteen miles from Traveling Buttes--not an insurmountable +distance between geology and a pretty girl, when one is five and twenty, +and has not seen a pretty face for a month of Sundays. + +Arco, at that time, consisted of the stage-house, a store, and one or +two cabins--a poor little seed of civilization dropped by the wayside, +between the Black Lava and the hills where Lost River comes down and +"sinks" on the edge of the lava. The station is somewhat back from the +road, with its face--a very grimy, unwashed countenance--to the lava. +Quaking asps and mountain birches follow the water, pausing a little way +up the gulch behind the house, but the eager grass tracks it all the way +till it vanishes; and the dry bed of the stream goes on and spreads in a +mass of coarse sand and gravel, beaten flat, flailed by the feet of +countless driven sheep that have gathered here. For this road is on the +great overland sheep-trail from Oregon eastward--the march of the +million mouths, and what the mouths do not devour the feet tramp down. + +The staple topic of conversation at Arco was one very common in the far +west, when a tenderfoot is of the company. The poorest place can boast +of some distinction, and Arco, though hardly on the highroad of fashion +and commerce, had frequently been named in print in connection with +crime of a highly sensational and picturesque character. Scarcely +another fifty miles of stage-road could boast of so many and such +successful road-jobs; and although these affairs were of almost monthly +occurrence, and might be looked for to come off always within that noted +danger-limit, yet it was a fact that the law had never yet laid finger +on a man of the gang, nor gained the smallest clew to their hide-out. It +was a difficult country around Arco, one that lent itself to secrecy. +The road-agents came, and took, and vanished as if the hills were their +co-partners as well as the receivers of their goods. As for the lava, +which was its front dooryard, so to speak, for a hundred miles, the man +did not live who could say he had crossed it. What it held or was +capable of hiding, in life or in death, no man knew. + +The day after Ferris left me I rode out upon that arrested tide--those +silent breakers which for ages have threatened, but never reached, the +shore. I tried to fancy it as it must once have been, a sluggish, +vitreous flood, filling the great valley, and stiffening as it slowly +pushed toward the bases of the hills. It climbed and spread, as dough +rises and crawls over the edge of the pan. The Black Lava is always +called a sea--that image is inevitable; yet its movement had never in +the least the character of water. "This is where hell pops," an old +plains-man feelingly described it, and the suggestion is perfect. The +colors of the rock are those produced by fire: its texture is that of +slag from a furnace. One sees how the lava hardened into a crust, which +cracked and sank in places, mingling its tumbled edges with the creeping +flood not cooled beneath. After all movement had ceased and the mass was +still, time began upon its tortured configurations, crumbled and wore +and broke, and sifted a little earth here and there, and sealed the +burnt rock with fairy print of lichens, serpent-green and orange and +rust-red. The spring rains left shallow pools which the summer dried. +Across it, a few dim trails wander a little way and give out, like the +water. + +For a hundred miles to the Snake River this Plutonian gulf obliterates +the land--holds it against occupation or travel. The shoes of a marching +army would be cut from their feet before they had gone a dozen miles +across it; horses would have no feet left; and water would have to be +packed as on an ocean, or a desert, cruise. + +I rode over places where the rock rang beneath my horse's hoofs like the +iron cover of a manhole. I followed the hollow ridges that mounted often +forty feet above my head, but always with that gruesome effect of +thickening movement--that sluggish, atomic crawl; and I thought how one +man pursuing another into this frozen hell might lose himself, but never +find the object of his quest. If he took the wrong furrow, he could not +cross from one blind gut into another, nor hope to meet the fugitive at +any future turning. + +I don't know why the fancy of a flight and pursuit should so have +haunted me, in connection with the Black Lava; probably the desperate +and lawless character of our conversation at the stage-house gave rise +to it. + +I had fallen completely under the spell of that skeleton flood. I +watched the sun sink, as it sinks at sea, beyond its utmost ragged +ridges; I sat on the borders of it, and stared across it in the gray +moonlight; I rode out upon it when the Buttes, in their delusive +nearness, were as blue as the gates of amethyst, and the morning was as +fair as one great pearl; but no peace or radiance of heaven or earth +could change its aspect more than that of a mound of skulls. When I +began to dream about it, I thought I must be getting morbid. This is +worse than Gilroy's, I said; and I promised myself I would ride up there +next day and see if by chance one might get a peep at the Rose that all +were praising, but none dared put forth a hand to pluck. Was it indeed +so hard a case for the Rose? There are women who can love a man for the +perils he has passed. Alas, Maverick! could any one get used to a face +like that? + +Here, surely, was the story of Beauty and her poor Beast humbly +awaiting, in the mask of a brutish deformity, the recognition of Love +pure enough to divine the soul beneath, and unselfish enough to deliver +it. Was there such love as that at Gilroy's? However, I did not make +that ride. + + * * * * * + +It was the fourth night of clear, desert moonlight since Ferris had left +me: I was sleepless, and so I heard the first faint throb of a horse's +feet approaching from the east, coming on at a great pace, and making +the turn to the stage-house. I looked out, and on the trodden space in +front I saw Maverick dismounting from a badly blown horse. + +"Halloo! what's up?" I called from the open window of my bedroom on the +ground-floor. + +"Did two men pass here on horseback since dark?" + +"Yes," I said; "about twelve o'clock: a tall man and a little short +fellow." + +"Did they stop to water?" + +"No, they did not; and they seemed in such a tearing hurry that I +watched them down the road"-- + +"I am after those men, and I want a fresh horse," he cut in. "Call up +somebody quick!" + +"Shall you take one of the boys along?" I inquired, with half an eye to +myself, after I had obeyed his command. + +He shook his head. "Only one horse here that's good for anything: I want +that myself." + +"There is my horse," I suggested; "but I'd rather be the one who rides +her. She belongs to a friend." + +"Take her, and come on, then, but understand--this ain't a Sunday-school +picnic." + +"I'm with you, if you'll have me." + +"I'd sooner have your horse," he remarked, shifting the quid of tobacco +in his cheek. + +"You can't have her without me, unless you steal her," I said. + +"Git your gun, then, and shove some grub into your pockets: I can't wait +for nobody." He swung himself into the saddle. + +"What road do you take?" + +"There ain't but one," he shouted, and pointed straight ahead. + +I overtook him easily within the hour; he was saving his horse, for +this was his last chance to change until Champagne Station, fifty miles +away. + +He gave me rather a cynical smile of recognition as I ranged alongside, +as if to say, "You'll probably get enough of this before we are +through." The horses settled down to their work, and they "humped +theirselves," as Maverick put it, in the cool hours before sunrise. + +At daybreak his awful face struck me all afresh, as inscrutable in its +strange distortion as some stone god in the desert, from whose graven +hideousness a thousand years of mornings have silently drawn the veil. + +"What do you want those fellows for?" I asked, as we rode. I had taken +for granted that we were hunting suspects of the road-agent persuasion. + +"I want 'em on general principles," he answered shortly. + +"Do you think you know them?" + +"I think they'll know me. All depends on how they act when we get within +range. If they don't pay no attention to us, we'll send a shot across +their bows. But more likely they'll speak first." + +He was very gloomy, and would keep silence for an hour at a time. Once +he turned on me as with a sudden misgiving. + +"See here, don't you git excited; and whatever happens, don't you meddle +with the little one. If the big fellow cuts up rough, he'll take his +chances, but you leave the little one to me. I want him--I want him for +State's evidence," he finished hoarsely. + +"The little one must be the Benjamin of the family," I thought--"one of +the bad young Gilroys, whose time has come at last; and sheriff Maverick +finds his duty hard." + +I could not say whether I really wished the men to be overtaken, but the +spirit of the chase had undoubtedly entered into my blood. I felt as +most men do, who are not saints or cowards, when such work as this is to +be done. But I knew I had no business to be along. It was one thing for +Maverick, but the part of an amateur in a man-hunt is not one to boast +of. + +The sun was now high, and the fresh tracks ahead of us were plain in the +dust. Once they left the road and strayed off into the lava, +incomprehensibly to me; but Maverick understood, and pressed forward. +"We'll strike them again further on. D---- fool!" he muttered, and I +observed that he alluded but to one, "huntin' water-holes in the lava in +the tail end of August!" + +They could not have found water, for at Belgian Flat they had stopped +and dug for it in the gravel, where a little stream in freshet time +comes down the gulch from the snow-fields higher up, and sinks, as at +Arco, on the lip of the lava. They had dug, and found it, and saved us +the trouble, as Maverick remarked. + +Considerable water had gathered since the flight had paused here and +lost precious time. We drank our fill, refreshed our horses, and shifted +the saddle-girths; and I managed to stow away my lunch during the next +mile or so, after offering to share it with Maverick, who refused it as +if the notion of food made him sick. He had considerable whisky aboard, +but he was, I judged, one of those men on whom drink has little effect; +else some counter-flame of excitement was fighting it in his blood. + +I looked for the development of the personal complication whenever we +should come up with the chase, for the man's eye burned, and had his +branded countenance been capable of any expression that was not cruelly +travestied, he would have looked the impersonation of wild justice. + +It was now high noon, and our horses were beginning to feel the steady +work; yet we had not ridden as they brought the good news from Ghent: +that is the pace of a great lyric; but it's not the pace at which +justice, or even vengeance, travels in the far West. Even the furies +take it coolly when they pursue a man over these roads, and on these +poor brutes of horses, in fifty-mile stages, with drought thrown in. + +Maverick had had no mercy on the pony that brought him sixteen miles; +but this piece of horse-flesh he now bestrode must last him through at +least to Champagne Station, should we not overhaul our men before. He +knew well when to press and when to spare the pace, a species of purely +practical consideration which seemed habitual with him; he rode like an +automaton, his baleful face borne straight before him--the Gorgon's +head. + +Beyond Belgian Flat--how far beyond I do not remember, for I was +beginning to feel the work, too, and the country looked all alike to me +as we made it, mile by mile--the road follows close along by the lava, +but the hills recede, and a little trail cuts across, meeting the road +again at Deadman's Flat. Here we could not trust to the track, which +from the nature of the ground was indistinct. So we divided our forces, +Maverick taking the trail,--which I was quite willing he should do, for +it had a look of most sinister invitation,--while I continued by the +longer road. Our little discussion, or some atmospheric change,--some +breath of coolness from the hills,--had brought me up out of my stupor +of weariness. I began to feel both alert and nervous; my heart was +beating fast. The still sunshine lay all around us, but where Maverick's +white horse was climbing, the shadows were turning eastward, and the +deep gulches, with their patches of aspen, were purple instead of brown. +The aspens were left shaking where he broke through them and passed out +of sight. + +I kept on at a good pace, and about three o'clock I, being then as much +as half a mile away, saw the spot which I knew must be Deadman's Flat; +and there were our men, the tall one and his boyish mate, standing +quietly by their horses in broad sunlight, as if there were no one +within a hundred miles. Their horses had drunk, and were cropping the +thin grass, which had set its tooth in the gravel where, as at the other +places, a living stream had perished. I spurred forward, with my heart +thumping, but before they saw me I saw Maverick coming down the little +gulch; and from the way he came I knew that he had seen them. + +The scene was awful in its treacherous peacefulness. Their shadows slept +on the broad bed of sunlight, and the gulch was as cool and still as a +lady's chamber. The great dead desert received the silence like a +secret. + +Tenderfoot as I was, I knew quite well what must happen now; yet I was +not prepared--could not realize it--even when the tall one put his hand +quickly behind him and stepped ahead of his horse. There was the flash +of his pistol, and the loud crack echoing in the hill; a second shot, +and then Maverick replied deliberately, and the tall one was down, with +his face in the grass. + +I heard a scream that sounded strangely like a woman's; but there were +only the three, the little one, acting wildly, and Maverick bending over +him who lay with his face in the grass. I saw him turn the body over, +and the little fellow seemed to protest, and to try to push him away. I +thought it strange he made no more of a fight, but I was not near enough +to hear what those two said to each other. + +Still, the tragedy did not come home to me. It was all like a scene, and +I was without feeling in it except for that nervous trembling which I +could not control. + +Maverick stood up at length, and came slowly toward me, wiping his face. +He kept his hat in his hand, and, looking down at it, said huskily:-- + +"I gave that man his life when I found him last spring runnin' loose +like a wild thing in the mountains, and now I've took it; and God above +knows I had no grudge ag'in' him, if he had stayed in his place. But he +would have it so." + +"Maverick, I saw it all, and I can swear it was self-defense." + +His face drew into the tortured grimace which was his smile. "This here +will never come before a jury," he said. "It's a family affair. Did ye +see how he acted? Steppin' up to me like he was a first-class shot, or +else a fool. He ain't nary one; he's a poor silly tool, the whip-hand of +a girl that's boltin' from her friends like they was her mortal enemies. +Go and take a look at him; then maybe you'll understand." + +He paused, and uttered the name of Jesus Christ, but not as such men +often use it, with an inconsequence dreadful to hear: he was not idly +swearing, but calling that name to witness solemnly in a case that would +never come before a jury. + +I began to understand. + +"Is it--is the girl"-- + +"Yes; it's our poor little Rose--that's the little one, in the gray hat. +She'll give herself away if I don't. She don't care for nothin' nor +nobody. She was runnin' away with that fellow--that dish-washin' Swede +what I found in the mountings eatin' roots like a ground-hog, with the +ends of his feet froze off. Now you know all I know--and more than she +knows, for she thinks she was fond of him. She wa'n't, never--for I +watched 'em, and I know. She was crazy to git away, and she took him for +the chance." + +His excitement passed, and we sat apart and watched the pair at a +distance. She--the little one--sat as passively by her dead as Maverick +pondering his cruel deed; but with both it was a hopeless quiet. + +"Come," he said at length, "I've got to bury him. You look after her, +and keep her with you till I git through. I'm givin' you the hardest +part," he added wistfully, as if he fully realized how he had cut +himself off from all such duties, henceforth, to the girl he was +consigning to a stranger's care. + +I told him I thought that the funeral had more need of me than the +mourner, and I shrank from intruding myself. + +"I dassent leave her by herself--see? I don't know what notion she may +take next, and she won't let me come within a rope's len'th of her." + +I will not go over again that miserable hour in the willows, where I +made her stay with me, out of sight of what Maverick was doing. Ours +were the tender mercies of the wicked, I fear; but she must have felt +that sympathy at least was near her, if not help. I will not say that +her youth and distressful loveliness did not sharpen my perception of a +sweet life wasted, gone utterly astray, which might have brought God's +blessing into some man's home--perhaps Maverick's, had he not been so +hardly dealt with. She was not of that great disposition of heart which +can love best that which has sorest need of love; but she was all woman, +and helpless and distraught with her tangle of grief and despair, the +nature of which I could only half comprehend. + +We sat there by the sunken stream, on the hot gravel where the sun had +lain, the willows sifting their inconstant shadows over us; and I +thought how other things as precious as "God's water" go astray on the +Jericho road, or are captured and sold for a price, while dry hearts +ache with the thirst that asks a "draught divine." + +The man's felt hat she wore, pulled down over her face, was pinned to +her coil of braids which had slipped from the crown of her head. The hat +was no longer even a protection; she cast it off, and the blond braids, +that had not been smoothed for a day and night, fell like ropes down her +back. The sun had burned her cheeks and neck to a clear crimson; her +blue eyes were as wild with weeping as a child's. She was a rose, but a +rose that had been trampled in the dust; and her prayer was to be left +there, rather than that we should take her home. + +I suppose I must have had some influence over her, for she allowed me to +help her to arrange her forlorn disguise, and put her on her horse, +which was more than could have been expected from the way she had +received me. And so, about four o'clock, we started back. + +There was a scene when we headed the horses to the west; she protesting +with wild sobs that she would not, could not, go home, that she would +rather die, that we should never get her back alive, and so on. Maverick +stood aside bitterly, and left her to me, and I was aware of a grotesque +touch of jealousy--which, after all, was perhaps natural--in his dour +face whenever he looked back at us. He kept some distance ahead, and +waited for us when we fell too far in the rear. + +This would happen when from time to time her situation seemed to +overpower her, and she would stop in the road, and wring her hands, and +try to throw herself out of the saddle, and pray me to let her go. + +"Go where?" I would ask. "Where do you wish to go? Have you any plan, or +suggestion, that I could help you to carry out?" But I said it only to +show her how hopeless her resistance was. This she would own piteously, +and say: "Nobody can help me. There ain't nowhere for me to go. But I +can't go back. You won't let him make me, will you?" + +"Why cannot you go back to your father and your brothers?" + +This would usually silence her, and, setting her teeth upon her trouble, +she would ride on, while I reproached myself, I knew not why. + +After one of these struggles--when she had given in to the force of +circumstances, but still unconsenting and rebellious--Maverick fell +back, and ranged his horse by her other side. + +"I know partly what's troubling you, and I'd rid you of that part quick +enough," he said, with a kind of dogged patience in his hard voice; +"but you can't get on there without me. You know that, don't you? You +don't blame me for staying?" + +"I don't blame you for anything but what you've done to-day. You've +broke my heart, and ruined me, and took away my last chance, and I don't +care what becomes of me, so I don't have to go back." + +"You don't have to any more than you have to live. Dyin' is a good deal +easier, but we can't always die when we want to. Suppose I found a +little lost child on the road, and it cried to go home, and I didn't +know where 'home' was, would I leave it there just because it cried and +hung back? I'd take you to a better home if I knew of one; but I don't. +And there's the old man. I suppose we could get some doctor to certify +that he's out of his mind, and get him sent up to Blackfoot; but I guess +we'd have to buy the doctor first." + +"Oh, hush, do, and leave me alone," she said. + +Maverick dug his spurs into his horse, and plunged ahead. + +"There," she cried, "now you know part of it; but it's the least +part--the least, the least! Poor father, he's awful queer. He don't more +than half the time know who I am," she whispered. "But it ain't him I'm +running away from. It's myself--my own life." + +"What is it--can't you tell me?" + +She shook her head, but she kept on telling, as if she were talking to +herself. + +"Father he's like I told you, and the boys--oh, that's worse! I can't +get a decent woman to come there and live, and the women at Arco won't +speak to me because I'm livin' there alone. They say--they think I ought +to get married--to Maverick or somebody. I'll die first. I _will_ die, +if there's any way to, before I'll marry him!" + +This may not sound like tragedy as I tell it, but I think it was tragedy +to her. I tried to persuade her that it must be her imagination about +the women at Arco; or, if some of them did talk,--as indeed I myself had +heard, to my shame and disgust,--I told her I had never known that place +where there was not one woman, at least, who could understand and help +another in her trouble. + +"_I_ don't know of any," she said simply. + +There was no more to do but ride on, feeling like her executioner; but + + "Ride hooly, ride hooly, now, gentlemen, + Ride hooly now wi' me," + +came into my mind; and no man ever kept beside a "wearier burd," on a +sadder journey. + +At dusk we came to Belgian Flat, and here Maverick, dismounting, mixed a +little whisky in his flask with water which he dipped from the pool. She +must have recalled who dug the well, and with whom she had drunk in the +morning. He held it to her lips. She rejected it with a strong shudder +of disgust. + +"Drink it!" he commanded. "You'll kill yourself, carryin' on like this." +He pressed it on her, but she turned away her face like a sick and +rebellious child. + +"Maybe she'll drink it for you," said Maverick, with bitter patience, +handing me the cup. + +"Will you?" I asked her gently. She shook her head, but at the same time +she let me take her hand, and put it down from her face, and I held the +cup to her lips. She drank it, every drop. It made her deathly sick, +and I took her off her horse, and made a pillow of my coat, so that she +could lie down. In ten minutes she was asleep. Maverick covered her with +his coat after she was no longer conscious. + +We built a fire on the edge of the lava, for we were both chilled and +both miserable, each for his own part in that day's work. + +The flat is a little cup-shaped valley formed by high hills, like dark +walls, shutting it in. The lava creeps up to it in front. + +We hovered over the fire, and Maverick fed it, savagely, in silence. He +did not recognize my presence by a word--not so much as if I had been a +strange dog. I relieved him of it after a while, and went out a little +way on the lava. At first all was blackness after the strong glare of +the fire; but gradually the desolation took shape, and I stumbled about +in it, with my shadow mocking me in derisive beckonings, or crouching +close at my heels, as the red flames towered or fell. I stayed out there +till I was chilled to the bone, and then went back defiantly. Maverick +sat as if he had not moved, his elbows on his knees, his face in his +hands. I wondered if he were thinking of that other sleeper under the +birches of Deadman's Gulch, victim of an unhappy girl's revolt. Had she +loved him? Had she deceived him as well as herself? It seemed to me they +were all like children who had lost their way home. + +By midnight the moon had risen high enough to look at us coldly over the +tops of the great hills. Their shadows crept forth upon the lava. The +fire had died down. Maverick rose, and scattered the winking brands with +his boot-heel. + +"We must pull out," he said. "I'll saddle up, if you will"--The +hoarseness in his voice choked him, and he nodded toward the sleeper. + +I dreaded to waken the poor Rose. She was very meek and quiet after the +brief respite sleep had given her. She sat quite still, and watched me +while I shook the sand from my coat, put it on, and buttoned it to the +chin, and drew my hat down more firmly. There was a kind of magnetism in +her gaze; I felt it creep over me like the touch of a soft hand. + +When her horse was ready, Maverick brought it, and left it standing +near, and went back to his own, without looking toward us. + +"Come, you poor, tired little girl," I said, holding out my hand. She +could not find her way at first in the uncertain light, and she seemed +half asleep still, so I kept her hand in mine, and guided her to her +horse. "Now, once more up," I encouraged her; and suddenly she was +clinging to me, and whispering passionately: + +"Can't you take me somewhere? Where are those women that you know?" she +cried, shaking from head to foot. + +"Dear little soul, all the women I know are two thousand miles away," I +answered. + +"But can't you take me _somewhere_? There must be some place. I know you +would be good to me; and you could go away afterward, and I wouldn't +trouble you any more." + +"My child, there is not a place under the heavens where I could take +you. You must go on like a brave girl, and trust to your friends. Keep +up your heart, and the way will open. God will not forget you," I said, +and may He forgive me for talking cant to that poor soul in her bitter +extremity. + +She stood perfectly still one moment while I held her by the hands. I +think she could have heard my heart beat; but there was nothing I could +do. Even now I wake in the night, and wonder if there was any other +way--but one; the way that for one wild moment I was half tempted to +take. + +"Yes; the way will open," she said very low. She cast off my hands, and +in a second she was in the saddle, and off up the road, riding for her +life. And we two men knew no better than to follow her. + +I knew better, or I think, now, that I did. I told Maverick we had +pushed her far enough. I begged him to hold up and at least not to let +her see us on her track. He never answered a word, but kept straight on, +as if possessed. I don't think he knew what he was doing. At least there +was only one thing _he_ was capable of doing--following that girl till +he dropped. + +Two miles beyond the Flat there is another turn, where the shoulder of a +hill comes down and crowds the road, which passes out of sight. She saw +us hard upon her, as she reached this bend. Maverick was ahead. Her +horse was doing all he could, but it was plain he could not do much +more. She looked back, and flung out her hand in the man's sleeve that +half covered it. She gave a little whimpering cry, the most dreadful +sound I ever heard from any hunted thing. + +We made the turn after her; and there lay the road white in the +moonlight, and as bare as my hand. She had escaped us. + +We pulled up the horses, and listened. Not a sound came from the hills +or the dark gulches, where the wind was stirring the quaking asps; the +lonesome hush-sh made the silence deeper. But we heard a horse's step go +clink, clinking--a loose, uncertain step wandering away in the lava. + +"Look! look there! My God!" groaned Maverick. + +There was her horse limping along one of the hollow ridges, but the +saddle was empty. + +"She has taken to the lava!" + +I had no need to be told what that meant; but if I had needed, I learned +what it meant before the night was through. I think that if I were a +poet, I could add another "dolorous circle" to the wailing-place for +lost souls. + +But she had found a way. Somewhere in that stony-hearted wilderness she +is at rest. We shall see her again when the sea--the stupid, cruel sea +that crawls upon the land--gives up its dead. + + + + +ON A SIDE-TRACK + + +I + +It was the second week in February, but winter had taken a fresh hold: +the stockmen were grumbling; freight was dull, and travel light on the +white Northwestern lines. In the Portland car from Omaha there were but +four passengers: father and daughter,--a gentle, unsophisticated +pair,--and two strong-faced men, fellow-travelers also, keeping each +other's company in a silent but close and conspicuous proximity. They +shared the same section, the younger man sleeping above, going to bed +before, and rising later than, his companion; and whenever he changed +his seat or made an unexpected movement, the eyes of the elder man +followed him, and they were never far from him at any time. + +The elder was a plain farmer type of man, with a clean-shaven, straight +upper lip, a grizzled beard covering the lower half of his face, and +humorous wrinkles spreading from the corners of his keen gray eyes. + +The younger showed in his striking person that union of good blood with +hard conditions so often seen in the old-young graduates of the life +schools of the West. His hands and face were dark with exposure to the +sun, not of parks and club-grounds and seaside piazzas, but the dry +untempered light of the desert and the plains. His dark eye was +distinctively masculine,--if there be such a thing as gender in +features,--bold, ardent, and possessive; but now it was clouded with +sadness that did not pass like a mood, though he looked capable of +moods. + +He was dressed in the demi-toilet which answers for dinners in the West, +on occasions where a dress-coat is not required. In itself the costume +was correct, even fastidious, in its details, but on board an overland +train there was a foppish unsuitability in it that "gave the wearer +away," as another man would have said--put him at a disadvantage, +notwithstanding his splendid physique, and the sad, rather fine +preoccupation of his manner. He looked like a very real person dressed +for a trifling part, which he lays aside between the scenes while he +thinks about his sick child, or his debts, or his friend with whom he +has quarreled. + +But these incongruities, especially the one of dress, might easily have +escaped a pair of eyes so confiding and unworldly as those of the young +girl in the opposite section; they had escaped her, but not the +incongruity of youth with so much sadness. The girl and her father had +boarded the car at Omaha, escorted by the porter of one of the forward +sleepers on the same train. They had come from farther East. The old +gentleman appeared to be an invalid; but they gave little trouble. The +porter had much leisure on his hands, which he bestowed in arrears of +sleep on the end seat forward. The conductor made up his accounts in the +empty drawing-room, or looked at himself in the mirrors, or stretched +his legs on the velvet sofas. He was a young fellow, with a tendency to +jokes and snatches of song and talk of a light character when not on +duty. He talked sometimes with the porter in low tones, and then both +looked at the pair of travelers in No. 8, and the younger man seemed +moodily aware of their observation. + +On the first morning out from Omaha the old gentleman kept his berth +until nine or ten o'clock. At eight his daughter brought him a cup of +chocolate and a sandwich, and sat between his curtains, chatting with +him cozily. In speaking together they used the language of the Society +of Friends. + +The young man opposite listened attentively to the girl's voice; it was +as sweet as the piping of birds at daybreak. Phebe her father called +her. + +Afterward Phebe sat in the empty section next her father's. The table +before her was spread with a fresh napkin, and a few pieces of old +household silver and china which she had taken from her lunch-basket. + +She and her father were economical travelers, but in all their +belongings there was the refinement of modest suitability and an +exquisite cleanliness. Her own order for breakfast was confined to a cup +of coffee, which the porter was preparing in the buffet-kitchen. + +"Would you mind changing places with me?" + +The young man in No. 8 spoke to his companion, who sat opposite reading +a newspaper. They changed seats, and by this arrangement the younger +could look at Phebe, who innocently gave him every advantage to study +her sober and delicate profile against the white snow-light, as she sat +watching the dreary cattle-ranges of Wyoming swim past the car window. + +Her hair had been brushed, and her face washed in the bitter alkaline +waters of the plains, with the uncompromising severity of one whose +standards of personal adornment are limited to the sternest ideals of +neatness and purity. Yet her fair face bloomed, like a winter sunrise, +with tints of rose and pearl and sapphire blue, and the pale gold of +winter sunshine was in her satin-smooth hair. + +The young man did not fail to include in his study of Phebe the modest +breakfast equipment set out before her. He perfectly recalled the +pattern of the white-and-gold china, the touch, the very taste, of the +thin, bright old silver spoons; they were like his grandmother's +tea-things in the family homestead in the country, where he had spent +his summers as a boy. The look of them touched him nearly, but not +happily, it would seem, from his expression. + +The porter came with the cup of coffee, and offered a number of +patronizing suggestions in the line of his service, which the young girl +declined. She set forth a meek choice of food, blushing faintly in +deprecation of the young man's eyes, of which she began to be aware. +Evidently she was not yet hardened to the practice of eating in public. + +He took the hint, and retired to his corner, opening a newspaper between +himself and Phebe. + +Presently he heard her call the porter in a small, ineffectual voice. +The porter did not come. She waited a little, and called again, with no +better result. He put down his newspaper. + +"If you will press the button at your left," he suggested. + +"The button!" she repeated, looking at him helplessly. + +He sprang to assist her. As he did so his companion flung down his +paper, and jumped in front of him. The eyes of the two met. A hot flush +rose to the young man's eyebrows. + +"I am calling the porter for her." + +"Oh!" said the other, and he sat down again; but he kept an eye upon the +angry youth, who leaned across Phebe's seat, and touched the electric +button. + +"Little girl hadn't got on to it, eh?" the grizzled man remarked +pleasantly, when his companion had resumed his seat. + +There was no answer. + +"Nice folks; from the country, somewheres back East, I should guess," +the imperturbable one continued. "Old man seems sort of sickly. Making a +move on account of his health, likely. Great mistake--old folks turning +out in winter huntin' a climate." + +The young man remained silent, and the elder returned to his paper. + +At Cheyenne, where the train halts for dinner, the young girl helped her +father into his outer garments, buttoned herself hastily into her +homespun jacket bordered with gray fur, pinned her little hat firmly to +her crown of golden braids, hid her hands in her muff,--she did not wait +to put on gloves,--and led the way to the dining-room. + +The travelers in No. 8 disposed of their meal rapidly, in their usual +close but silent conjunction, and returned at once to the car. + +The old gentleman and his daughter walked the windy platform, and cast +rather forlorn glances at the crowd bustling about in the bleak winter +sunlight. When they took their seats again, the father's pale blue eyes +were still paler, his face looked white and drawn with the cold; but +Phebe was like a rose: with her wonderful, pure color the girl was +beautiful. The young man of No. 8 looked at her with a startled +reluctance, as if her sweetness wounded him. + +Then he seemed to have resolved to look at her no more. He leaned his +head back in his corner, and closed his eyes; the train shook him +slightly as he sat in moody preoccupation with his thoughts, and the +miles of track flew by. + +At Green River, at midnight, the Portland car was dropped by its convoy +of the Union Pacific, and was coupled with a train making up for the +Oregon Short Line. There was hooting and backing of engines, slamming +of car doors, flashing of conductors' lanterns, voices calling across +the tracks. One of these voices could be heard, in the wakeful silence +within the car, as an engine from the west steamed past in the glare of +its snow-wreathed headlight. + +"No. 10 stuck this side of Squaw Creek. Bet you don't make it before +Sunday!" + +The outbound conductor's retort was lost in the clank of couplings as +the train lurched forward on the slippery rails. + +"Phebe, is thee awake?" the old gentleman softly called to his daughter, +about the small hours. + +"Yes, father. Want anything?" + +"Are those ventilators shut? I feel a cold draft in the back of my +berth." + +The ventilators were all shut, but the train was now climbing the Wind +River divide, the cold bitterly increasing, and the wind dead ahead. +Cinders tinkled on the roaring stovepipes, the blast swept the car +roofs, pelting the window panes with fine, dry snow, and searching every +joint and crevice defended by the company's upholstery. + +Phebe slipped down behind the berth-curtain, and tucked a shawl in at +her father's back. Her low voice could be heard, and the old man's +self-pitying tones in answer to her tender questionings. He coughed at +intervals till daybreak, when there was silence in section No. 7. + +In No. 8, across the aisle, the young man lay awake in the strength of +his thoughts, and made up passionate sentences which he fancied himself +speaking to persons he might never be brought face to face with again. +They were people mixed in with his life in various relations, past and +present, whose opinions had weighed with him. When he heard Phebe +talking to her father, he muttered, with a sort of anguish:-- + +"Oh, you precious lamb!" + +He and his companion made their toilet early, and breakfasted and smoked +together, and their taciturn relation continued as before. Snow filled +the air, and blotted out the distance, but there were few stationary +dark objects outside by which to gauge its fall. They were across the +border now, between Wyoming and Idaho, in a featureless white region, a +country of small Mormon ranches, far from any considerable town. + +The old man slept behind his curtains. Phebe went through the morning +routine by which women travelers make themselves at home and pass the +time, but obviously her day did not begin until her father had reported +himself. She had found a hole in one of her gloves, which she was +mending, choosing critically the needle and the silk for the purpose +from a very complete housewife in brown linen bound with a brown silk +galloon. Again the young man was reminded of his boyhood, and of certain +kind old ladies of precise habits who had contributed to his happiness, +and occasionally had eked out the fond measure of paternal discipline. + +The snow continued; about noon the train halted at a small water +station, waited awhile as if in consideration of difficulties ahead, and +then quietly backed down upon a side-track. A shock of silence followed. +Every least personal movement in the thinly peopled car, before lost in +the drumming of the wheels, asserted itself against this new medium. The +passengers looked up and at one another; the Pullman conductor stepped +out to make inquiries. + +The silence continued, and became embarrassing. Phebe dropped her +scissors. This time the young man sat still, but the flush rose to his +forehead as before. The old gentleman's breathing could be heard behind +his curtains; the porter rattling plates in the cooking-closet; the soft +rustling of the snow outside. Phebe stepped to her father's berth, and +peeped between his curtains; he was still sleeping. Her voice was hushed +to the note of a sick-room as she asked,-- + +"Where are we now, do you know?" + +The young man was looking at her, and to him she addressed the question. + +With a glance at his companion, he crossed to her side of the car, and +took the seat in front of her. + +"We are in the Bear Lake valley, just over the border of Idaho, about +fifteen miles from the Squaw Creek divide," he answered, sinking his +voice. + +"Did you hear what that person said in the night, when a train passed +us, about our not getting through?" + +"I wondered if you heard that." He smiled. "You did not rest well, I'm +afraid." + +"I was anxious about father. This weather is a great surprise to us. We +were told the winters were short in southern Idaho--almost like +Virginia; but look at this!" + +"We have nearly eight thousand feet of altitude here, you must remember. +In the valleys it is warmer. There the winter does break usually about +this time. Are you going on much farther?" + +"To a place called Volney." + +"Volney is pretty high; but there is Boise, farther down. Strangers +moving into a new country very seldom strike it right the first time." + +"Oh, we shall stay at Volney, even if we do not like it; that is, if we +_can_ stay. I have a married sister living there. She thought the +climate would be better for father." + +After a pause she asked, "Do you know why we are stopping here so long?" + +"Probably because we have had orders not to go any farther." + +"Do you mean that we are blocked?" + +"The train ahead of us is. We shall stay here until that gets through." + +"You seem very cheerful about it," she said, observing his expression. + +"Ah, I should think so!" + +His short lip curled in the first smile she had seen upon his strong, +brooding face. She could not help smiling in response, but she felt +bound to protest against his irresponsible view of the situation. + +"Have you so much time to spend upon the road? I thought the men of this +country were always in a hurry." + +"It makes a difference where a man is going, and on what errand, and +what fortune he meets with on the way. _I_ am not going to Volney." + +She did not understand his emphasis, nor the bearing of his words. His +eyes dropped to her hands lying in her lap, still holding the glove she +had been mending. + +"How nicely you do it! How can you take such little stitches without +pricking yourself, when the train is going?" + +"It is my business to take little stitches. I don't know how to do +anything else." + +"Do you mean it literally? It is your business to sew?" + +The notion seemed to surprise him. + +"No; I mean in a general sense. Some of us can do only small things, a +stitch at a time,--take little steps, and not know always where they are +going." + +"Is this a little step--to Volney?" + +"Oh, no; it is a very long one, and rather a wild one, I'm afraid. I +suppose everybody does a wild thing once in a lifetime?" + +"How should _you_ know that?" + +"I only said so. I don't say that it is true." + +"People who take little steps are sometimes picked up and carried off +their feet by those who take long, wild ones." + +"Why, what are we talking about?" she asked herself, in surprise. + +"About going to Volney, was it not?" he suggested. + +"What is there about Volney, please tell me, that you harp upon the +name? I am a stranger, you know; I don't know the country allusions. Is +there anything peculiar about Volney?" + +"She is a deep little innocent," he said within himself; "but oh, so +innocent!" And again he appeared to gather himself in pained resistance +to some thought that jarred with the thought of Phebe. He rose and +bowed, and so took leave of her, and settled himself back into his +corner, shading his eyes with his hand. + +He ate no luncheon, Phebe noticed, and he sat so long in a dogged +silence that she began to cast wistful glances across the aisle, +wondering if he were ill, or if she had unwittingly been rude to him. +Any one could have shaken her confidence in her own behavior; moreover, +she reminded herself, she did not know the etiquette of an overland +train. She had heard that the Western people were very friendly; no +doubt they expected a frank response in others. She resolved to be more +careful the next time, if the moody young man should speak to her again. + +Her father was awake now, dressed and sitting up. He was very chipper, +but Phebe knew that his color was not natural, nor his breathing right. +He was much inclined to talk, in a rambling, childish, excited manner +that increased her anxiety. + +The young man in No. 8 had evidently taken his fancy; his formal, +old-fashioned advances were modestly but promptly met. + +"I suppose it is not usual, in these parts, for travelers to inquire +each other's names?" the old gentleman remarked to his new acquaintance; +"but we seem to have plenty of time on our hands; we might as well +improve it socially. My name is David Underhill, and this is my daughter +Phebe. Now what might thy name be, friend?" + +"My name is Ludovic," said the youth, looking a half-apology at Phebe, +who saw no reason for it. + +"First or family name?" + +"Ludovic is my family name." + +"And a very good name it is," said the old gentleman. "Not a common name +in these parts, I should say, but one very well and highly known to me," +he added, with pleased emphasis. "Phebe, thee remembers a visit we had +from Martin Ludovic when we were living at New Rochelle?" + +"Thee knows I was not born when you lived at New Rochelle, father dear." + +"True, true! It was thy mother I was thinking of. She had a great esteem +for Martin Ludovic. He was one of the world's people, as we say--in the +world, but not of the world. Yet he made a great success in life. He +was her father's junior partner--rose from a clerk's stool in his +counting-room; and a great success he made of it. But that was after +Friend Lawrence's time. My wife was Phebe Lawrence." + +Young Ludovic smiled brightly in reply to this information, and seemed +about to speak, but the old gentleman forestalled him. + +"Friend Lawrence had made what was considered a competence in those +days--a very small one it would be called now; but he was satisfied. +Thee may not be aware that it is a recommendation among the Friends, and +it used to be a common practice, that when a merchant had made a +sufficiency for himself and those depending on him, he should show his +sense of the favor of Providence by stepping out and leaving his chance +to the younger men. Friend Lawrence did so--not to his own benefit +ultimately, though that was no one's fault that ever I heard; and Martin +Ludovic was his successor, and a great and honorable business was the +outcome of his efforts. Now does thee happen to recall if Martin is a +name in thy branch?" + +"My grandfather was Martin Ludovic of the old New York house of Lawrence +and Ludovic," said the cadet of that name; but as he gave these +credentials a profound melancholy subdued his just and natural pride. + +"Is it possible!" Friend Underhill exulted, more pleased than if he had +recovered a lost bank-note for many hundreds. There are no people who +hold by the ties of blood and family more strongly than the Friends; and +Friend Underhill, on this long journey, had felt himself sadly insolvent +in those sureties that cannot be packed in a trunk or invested in +irrigable lands. It was as if on the wild, cold seas he had crossed the +path of a bark from home. He yearned to have speech with this graciously +favored young man, whose grandfather had been his Phebe's grandfather's +partner and dearest friend. The memory of that connection had been +cherished with ungrudging pride through the succeeding generations in +which the Ludovics had gone up in the world and the Lawrences had come +down. Friend Underhill did not recall--nor would he have thought it of +the least importance--that a Lawrence had been the benefactor in the +first place, and had set Martin Ludovic's feet upon the ladder of +success. He took the young man's hand affectionately in his own, and +studied the favor of his countenance. + +"Thee has the family look," he said in a satisfied tone; "and they had +no cause, as a rule, to be discontented with their looks." + +Young Ludovic's eyes fell, and he blushed like a girl; the dark-red +blood dyed his face with the color almost of shame. Phebe moved uneasily +in her seat. + +"Make room beside thee, Phebe," said her father; "or, no, friend +Ludovic; sit thee here beside me. If the train should start, I could +hear thee better. And thy name--let me see--thee must be a Charles +Ludovic. In thy family there was always a Martin, and then an Aloys, and +then a Charles; and it was said--though a foolish superstition, no +doubt--that the king's name brought ill luck. The Ludovic whose turn it +was to bear the name of the unhappy Stuart took with it the misfortunes +of three generations." + +"A very unjust superstition I should call it," pronounced Phebe. + +"Surely, and a very idle one," her father acquiesced, smiling at her +warmth. "I trust, friend Charles, it has been given thee happily to +disprove it in thy own person." + +"On the contrary," said Charles Ludovic, "if I am not the unluckiest of +my name, I hope there may never be another." + +He spoke with such conviction, such energy of sadness, only silence +could follow the words. Then the old gentleman said, most gently and +ruefully:-- + +"If it be indeed as thee says, I trust it will not seem an intrusion, in +one who knew thy family's great worth, to ask the nature of thy +trouble--if by chance it might be my privilege to assist thee. I feel of +rather less than my usual small importance--cast loose, as it were, +between the old and the new; but if my small remedies should happen to +suit with thy complaint, it would not matter that they were +trifling--like Phebe's drops and pellets she puts such faith in," he +added, with a glance at his daughter's downcast face. + +"Dear sir, you _have_ helped me, by the gift of the outstretched hand. +Between strangers, as we are, that implies a faith as generous as it is +rare." + +"Nay, we are not strangers; no one of thy name shall call himself +stranger to one of ours. Shall he, Phebe? Still, I would not importune +thee"-- + +"I thank you far more than you can know; but we need not talk of my +troubles. It was a graceless speech of mine to obtrude them." + +"As thee will. But I deny the lack of grace. The gracelessness was mine +to bring up a foolish saying, more honored in the forgetting." + +Here Phebe interposed with a spoonful of the medicine her father had +referred to so disparagingly. "I would not talk any more now, if I were +thee, father. Thee sees how it makes thee cough." + +At this, Ludovic rose to leave them; but Phebe detained him, shyly doing +the honors of their quarters in the common caravan. He stayed, but a +constrained silence had come upon him. The old gentleman closed his +eyes, and sometimes smiled to himself as he sat so, beside the younger +man, and Phebe had strange thoughts as she looked at them both. Her +imagination was greatly stirred. She talked easily and with perfect +unconsciousness to Ludovic, and told him little things she could +remember having heard about the one generation of his family that had +formerly been connected with her own. She knew more about it, it +appeared, than he did. And more and more he seemed to lose himself in +her eyes, rather than to be listening to her voice. He sat with his back +to his companion across the aisle; at length the latter rose, and +touched him on the shoulder. He turned instantly, and Phebe, looking up, +caught the hard, roused expression that altered him into the likeness of +another man. + +"I am going outside." No more was said, but Ludovic rose, bowed to +Phebe, and followed his curt fellow-passenger. + +"What can be the connection between them?" thought the girl. "They seem +inseparable, yet not friends precisely. How could they be friends?" And +in her prompt mental comparison the elder man inevitably suffered. She +began to think of all the tragedies with which young lives are +fatalistically bound up; but it was significant that none of her +speculations included the possibility of anything in the nature of error +in respect to this Charles Ludovic who called himself unhappy. + + +II + +"Stop a moment. I want to speak to you," said Ludovic. The two men were +passing through the gentlemen's toilet-room; Ludovic turned his back to +the marble washstand, and waited, with his head up, and the tips of his +long hands resting in his trousers' pockets. "I have a favor to ask of +you, Mr. Burke." + +"Well, sir, what's the size of it?" + +"You must have heard some of our talk in there; you see how it is? They +will never, of themselves, suspect the reason of your fondness for my +company. Is it worth while, for the time we shall be together, to put +them on to it? It's not very easy, you see; make it as easy as you can." + +"Have I tried to make it hard, Mr. Ludovic?" + +"Not at all. I don't mean that." + +"Am I giving you away most of the time?" + +"Of course not. You have been most awfully good. But you're--you're +damnably in my way. I see you out of the corner of my eye always, when +you aren't square in front of me. I can't make a move but you jump. Do +you think I am such a fool as to make a break now? No, sir; I am going +through with this; I'm in it most of the time. Now see here, I give you +my word--and there are no liars of my name--that you will find me with +you at Pocatello. Till then let me alone, will you? Keep your eyes off +me. Keep out of range of my talk. I would like to say a word now and +then without knowing there's a running comment in the mind of a man +across the car, who thinks he knows me better than the people I am +talking to--understand?" + +"Maybe I do, maybe I don't," said Mr. Burke, deliberately. "I don't know +as it's any of my business what you say to your friends, or what they +think of you. All I'm responsible for is your person." + +"Precisely. At Pocatello you will have my person." + +"And have I got your word for the road between?" + +"My word, and my thanks--if the thanks of a man in my situation are +worth anything." + +"I'm dum sorry for you, Mr. Ludovic, and I don't mind doing what little +I can to make things easy"--Mr. Burke paused, seeing his companion +smile. "Well, yes, I know it's hard--it's dooced almighty hard; and it +looks like there was a big mistake somewheres, but it's no business of +mine to say so. Have a cigar?" + +Young Mr. Ludovic had accepted a number of Mr. Burke's palliative offers +of cigars during their journey together; he accepted the courtesy, but +he did not smoke the cigars. He usually gave them to the porter. He had +an expensive taste in cigars, as in many other things. He paid for his +high-priced preferences, or he went without. He was never willing to +accept any substitute for the thing he really wanted; and it was very +hard for him, when he had set his heart upon a thing, not to approach it +in the attitude that an all-wise Providence had intended it for him. + +About dusk the snow-plow engines from above came down for coal and +water. They brought no positive word, only that the plows and shovelers +were at work at both ends of the big cut, and they hoped the track would +be free by daybreak. But the snow was still falling as night set in. + +Ludovic and Phebe sat in the shadowed corner behind the curtains of No. +7. Phebe's father had gone to bed early; his cough was worse, and Phebe +was treating him for that and for the fever which had developed as an +attendant symptom. She was a devotee in her chosen school of medicine; +she knew her remedies, within the limits of her household experience, +and used them with the courage and constancy that are of no school, but +which better the wisdom of them all. + +Ludovic observed that she never lost count of the time through all her +talk, which was growing more and more absorbing; he was jealous of the +interruption when she said, "Excuse me," and looked at her watch, or +rose and carried her tumblers of medicine alternately to the patient, +and woke him gently; for it was now a case for strenuous treatment, and +she purposed to watch out the night, and give the medicines regularly +every hour. + +Mr. Burke was as good as his word; he kept several seats distant from +the young people. He had a private understanding, though, with the car +officials: not that he put no faith in the word of a Ludovic, but +business is business. + +When he went to his berth about eleven o'clock he noticed that his +prisoner was still keeping the little Quaker girl company, and neither +of them seemed to be sleepy. The table where they had taken supper +together was still between them, with Phebe's watch and the medicine +tumblers upon it. The panel of looking-glass reflected the young man's +profile, touched with gleams of lamplight, as he leaned forward with his +arms upon the table. + +Phebe sat far back in her corner, pale and grave; but when her eyes were +lifted to his face they were as bright as winter stars. + +It was Ludovic's intention, before he parted with Phebe, to tell her his +story--his own story; the newspaper account of him she would read, with +all the world, after she had reached Volney. Meantime he wished to lose +himself in a dream of how it might have been could he have met this +little Phebe, not on a side-track, his chance already spoiled, but on +the main line, with a long ticket, and the road clear before them to the +Golden Gate. + +Under other circumstances she might not have had the same overmastering +fascination for him; he did not argue that question with himself. He +talked to her all night long as a man talks to the woman he has chosen +and is free to win, with but a single day in which to win her; and +underneath his impassioned tones, shading and deepening them with tragic +meaning, was the truth he was withholding. There was no one to stand +between Phebe and this peril, and how should she know whither they were +drifting? + +He told her stories of his life of danger and excitement and contrasts, +East and West; he told her of his work, his ambitions, his +disappointments; he carried her from city to city, from camp to camp. He +spoke to sparkling eyes, to fresh, thrilling sympathies, to a warm +heart, a large comprehension, and a narrow experience. Every word went +home; for with this girl he was strangely sure of himself, as indeed he +might have been. + +And still the low music of his voice went on; for he did not lack that +charm, among many others--a voice for sustained and moving speech. +Perhaps he did not know his own power; at all events, he was unsparing +of an influence the most deliberate and enthralling to which the girl +had ever been subjected. + +He was a Ludovic of that family her own had ever held in highest +consideration. He was that Charles Ludovic who had called himself +unhappiest of his name. Phebe never forgot this fact, and in his pauses, +and often in his words, she felt the tug of that strong undertow of +unspoken feeling pulling him back into depths where even in thought she +could not follow him. + +And so they sat face to face, with the watch between them ticking away +the fateful moments. For Ludovic, life ended at Pocatello, but not for +Phebe. + +What had he done with that faith they had given him--the gentle, +generous pair! He had resisted, he thought that he was resisting, his +mad attraction to this girl--of all girls the most impossible to him +now, yet the one, his soul averred, most obviously designed for him. His +wild, sick fancy had clung to her from the moment her face had startled +him, as he took his last backward look upon the world he had forfeited. + +His prayer was that he might win from Phebe, before he left her at +Pocatello, some sure token of her remembrance that he might dwell upon +and dream over in the years of his buried life. + +It would not have been wonderful, as the hours of that strange night +flew by, if Phebe had lost a moment, now and then, had sometimes +wandered from the purpose of her vigil. Her thoughts strayed, but they +came back duly, and she was constant to her charge. Through all that +unwholesome enchantment her hold upon herself was firm, through her +faithfulness to the simple duties in which she had been bred. + +Meanwhile the train lay still in the darkness, and Ludovic thanked God, +shamelessly, for the snow. How the dream outwore the night and +strengthened as morning broke gray and cold, and quiet with the +stillness of the desert, we need not follow. More and more it possessed +him, and began to seem the only truth that mattered. + +He took to himself all the privileges of her protector; the rights, +indeed--as if he could have rights such as belong to other men, now, in +regard to any woman. + +If the powers that are named of good or evil, according to the will of +the wisher, had conspired to help him on, the dream could not have drawn +closer to the dearest facts of life; but no spells were needed beyond +those which the reckless conjurer himself possessed--his youth, his +implied misfortunes, his unlikeness to any person she had known, his +passion, "meek, but wild," which he neither spoke nor attempted to +conceal. + +And Phebe sat like a charmed thing while he wove the dream about her. +She could not think; she had nothing to do while her father slept; she +had nowhere to go, away from this new friend of her father's choosing. +She was exhausted with watching, and nervously unstrung. Her hands were +ice; her color went and came; her heart was in a wild alarm. She blushed +almost as she breathed, with his eyes always upon her; and blushing, +could have wept, but for the pride that still was left her in this +strange, unwholesome excitement. + +It was an ordeal that should have had no witnesses but the angels; yet +it was seen of the porter and the conductor and Mr. Burke. The last was +not a person finely cognizant of situations like this one; but he felt +it and resented it in every fibre of his honest manhood. + +"What's Ludovic doing?" he asked himself in heated soliloquy. "He's out +of the running, and the old man's sick abed, and no better than an old +woman when he's well. What's the fellow thinking of?" + +Mr. Burke took occasion to ask him, when they were alone +together--Ludovic putting the finishing touches to a shave; the time was +not the happiest, but the words were honest and to the point. + +"I didn't understand," said Mr. Burke, "that the little girl was in it. +Now, do you call it quite on the square, Mr. Ludovic, between you and +her? I don't like it, myself; I don't want to be a party to it. I've got +girls of my own." + +Ludovic held his chin up high; his hands shook as he worked at his +collar-button. + +"Have you got any boys?" he flung out in the tone of a retort. + +"Yes; one about your age, I should guess." + +"How would you like to see him in the fix I'm in?" + +"I couldn't suppose it, Mr. Ludovic. My boy and you ain't one bit +alike." + +"Are your girls like her?" + +"No, sir; they are not. I ain't worrying about them any, nor wouldn't if +they was in her place. But there's points about this thing"-- + +"We'll leave the points. Suppose, I say, your boy was in my fix: would +you grudge him any little kindness he might be able to cheat heaven, +we'll say, out of between here and Pocatello?" + +"Heaven can take care of itself; that little girl is not in heaven yet. +And there's kindnesses and kindnesses, Mr. Ludovic. There are some that +cost like the mischief. I expect you're willing to bid high on kindness +from a nice girl, about now; but how about her? Has kindness gone up in +her market? I guess not. That little creetur's goods can wait; she'd be +on top in any market. I guess it ain't quite a square deal between her +and you." + +Ludovic sat down, and buried his hands in his pockets. His face was a +dark red; his lips twitched. + +"Are you going to stick to your bargain, or are you not?" he asked, +fixing his eyes on a spot just above Mr. Burke's head. + +"You've got the cheek to call it a bargain! But say it was a bargain. I +didn't know, I say, that the little girl was in it. Your bank's broke, +Mr. Ludovic. You ought to quit business. You've got no right to keep +your doors open, taking in money like hers, clean gold fresh from the +mint." + +"O Lord!" murmured Ludovic; and he may have added a prayer for patience +with this common man who was so pitilessly in the right. A week ago, and +the right had been easy to him. But now he was off the track; every turn +of the wheels tore something to pieces. + +"There are just two subjects I cannot discuss with you," he said, +sinking his voice. "One is that young lady. Her father knows my people. +She shall know me before I leave her. They say we shall go through +to-night. You must think I am the devil if you think that, without the +right even to dispense with your company, I can have much to answer for +between here and Pocatello." + +"You are as selfish as the devil, that's what I think; and the worst of +it is, you look as white as other folks." + +"Then leave me alone, or else put the irons on me. Do one thing or the +other. I won't be dogged and watched and hammered with your infernal +jaw! You can put a ball through me, you can handcuff me before her face; +but my eyes are my own, and my tongue is my own, and I will use them as +I please." + +Mr. Burke said no more. He had said a good deal; he had covered the +ground, he thought. And possibly he had some sympathy, even when he +thought of his girls, with the young fellow who had looked too late in +the face of joy and gone clean wild over his mischance. + +It was his opinion that Ludovic would "get" not less than twenty-five +years. There were likely to be Populists on that jury; the prisoner's +friends belonged to a clique of big monopolists; it would go harder +with him than if he had been an honest miner, or a playful cow-boy on +one of his monthly "tears." + +When Ludovic returned to his section, Phebe had gone to sleep in the +corner opposite, her muff tucked under one flushed cheek; the other +cheek was pale. Shadows as delicate as the tinted reflections in the +hollow of a snow-drift slept beneath her chin, and in the curves around +her pathetic eyelids, and in the small incision that defined her pure +red under lip. Again the angels, whom we used to believe in, were far +from this their child. + +Ludovic drew down all the blinds to keep out the glare, and sat in his +own place, and watched her, and fed his aching dream. He did not care +what he did, nor who saw him, nor what anybody thought. + +In the afternoon he took her out for a walk. The snow had stopped; her +father was up and dressed, and very much better, and Phebe was radiant. +Her sky was clearing all at once. She charged the porter to call her in +"just twenty minutes," for then she must give the medicine again. On +their way out of the car Ludovic slipped a dollar into the porter's +hand. Somehow that clever but corrupted functionary let the time slip +by, to Phebe's innocent amazement. Could he have gone to sleep? Surely +it must be more than twenty minutes since they had left the car. + +"He's probably given the dose himself," said Ludovic. "A good porter is +always three parts nurse." + +"But he doesn't know which medicine to give." + +"Oh, let them be," he said impatiently. "He's talking to your father, +and making him laugh. He'll brace him up better than any medicine. They +will call you fast enough if you are needed." + +They walked the platform up and down in front of the section-house. They +were watched, but Ludovic did not care for that now. + +"Will you take my arm?" + +She hesitated, in amused consideration of her own inexperience. + +"Why, I never _did_ take any one's arm that I remember. I don't think I +could keep step with thee." + +The intimate pronoun slipped out unawares. + +"I will keep step with _thee_." + +"I don't know that I quite like to hear you use that word." + +"But you used it, just now, to me." + +"It was an accident, then." + +"Your father says 'thee' to me." + +"He is of an older generation; my mother wore the Friends' dress. But +those customs had a religious meaning for them to which I cannot +pretend. With me it is a sort of instinct; I can't explain it, nor yet +quite ignore it." + +"Have I offended that particular instinct of yours which attaches to the +word 'thee'?" + +He seemed deeply chagrined. He was one who did not like to make +mistakes, and he had no time to waste in apologizing and recovering lost +ground. + +"People do say it to us sometimes in fun, not knowing what the word +means to us," said Phebe. + +In the fresh winter air she was regaining her tone--escaping from him, +Ludovic felt, into her own sweet, calm self-possession. + +"Then you distinctly refuse me whatever--the least--that word implies? I +am one of those who 'rush in'?" + +"Oh, no; but you are much too serious. It is partly a habit of speech; +we cannot lose the habit of speaking to each other as strangers in three +days." + +"You were never a stranger to me. I knew you from the first moment I saw +you; yet each moment since you have been a fresh surprise." + +"I cannot keep up with you," she said, slipping her hand out of his arm. +In the grasp of his passionate dream he was striding along regardless, +not of her, but of her steps. + +"Oh, little steps," he groaned within himself--"oh, little doubting +steps, why did we not meet before?" + +Oh, blessed hampering steps, how much safer would his have gone beside +them! + +"What a charming pair!" cried a lady passenger from the forward sleeper. +She too was walking, with her husband, and her eye had been instantly +taken by the gentle girl with the delicate wild-rose color, halting on +the arm of a splendid youth with dare-devil eyes, who did not look as +happy as he ought with that sweet creature on his arm. + +"Isn't it good to know that the old stories are going on all the same?" +said the sentimental traveler. "What do you say--will that story end in +happiness?" + +"I say that he isn't good enough for her," the husband replied. + +"Then he'll be sure to win her," laughed the lady. "He has won her, I +believe," she added more seriously, watching the pair where they stood +together at the far end of the platform; "but something is wrong." + +"Something usually is at that stage, if I remember. Come, let us get +aboard." + +The sun was setting clear in the pale saffron west. The train from the +buried cut had been released, and now came sliding down the track, +welcomed by boisterous salutations. Behind were the mighty snow-plow +engines, backing down, enwreathed and garlanded with snow. + +"A-a-all aboard!" the conductor drawled in a colloquial tone to the +small waiting group upon the platform. + +Slowly they crept back upon the main track, and heavily the motion +increased, till the old chant of the rails began again, and they were +thundering westward down the line. + + +III + +Phebe was much occupied with her father, perhaps purposely so, until his +bed-time. She made him her innocent refuge. Ludovic kept subtly away, +lest the friendly old gentleman should be led into conversation, which +might delay the hour of his retiring. He went cheerfully to rest about +the time the lamps were lighted, and Phebe sought once more her corner +in the empty section, shaded by her father's curtains. + +Ludovic, dropping his voice below the roar of the train, asked if he +might take the seat beside her. + +He took it, and turned his back upon the car. He looked at his watch. He +had just three hours before Pocatello. The train was making great speed; +they would get in, the conductor said, by eleven o'clock. But he need +not tell her yet. Half an hour passed, and his thoughts in the silence +were no longer to be borne. + +She was aware of his intense excitement, his restlessness, the nervous +action of his hands. She shrank from the burning misery in his +questioning eyes. Once she heard him whisper under his breath; but the +words she heard were, "_My love! my love!_" and she thought she could +not have heard aright. Her trouble increased with her sense of some +involuntary strangeness in her companion, some recklessness impending +which she might not know how to meet. She rose in her place, and said +tremulously that she must go. + +"Go!" He sprang up. "Go where, in Heaven's name? Stay," he implored, +"and be kind to me! We get off at Pocatello." + +"We?" she asked with her eyes in his. + +"That man and I. I am his prisoner." + +She sank down again, and stared at him mutely. + +"He is the sheriff of Bingham County, and I am his prisoner," he +repeated. "Do the words mean nothing to you?" He paused for some sign +that she understood him. She dropped her eyes; her face had become as +white as a snowdrop. + +"He is taking me to Pocatello for the preliminary examination--oh, must +I tell you this? If I thought you would never read it in the ghastly +type"-- + +"Go on," she whispered. + +"Examination," he choked, "for--for homicide. I don't know what the +judge will call it; but the other man is dead, and I am left to answer +for the passion of a moment with my life. And you will not speak to me?" + +But now she did speak. Leaning forward so that she could look him in the +eyes, she said:-- + +"I thought when I saw that man always with you, watching you, that he +might be taking you, with your consent, to one of those places where +they treat persons for--for unsoundness of the mind. I knew you had some +trouble that was beyond help. I could think of nothing worse than that. +It haunted me till we began to speak together; then I knew it could not +be; now I wish it had been." + +"I do not," said Ludovic. "I thank God I am not mad. There is passion in +my blood, and folly, perhaps, but not insanity. No; I am responsible." + +She remained silent, and he continued defensively:-- + +"But I am not the only one responsible. Can you listen? Can you hear the +particulars? One always feels that one's own case is peculiar; one is +never the common sinner, you know. + +"I have a friend at Pocatello; he is my partner in business. Two years +ago he married a New York girl, and brought her out there to live. If +you knew Pocatello, you would know what a privilege it was to have their +house to go to. They made me free of it, as people do in the West. There +is nothing they could not have asked of me in return for such +hospitality; it was an obligation not less sacred on my part than that +of family. + +"When my friend went away on long journeys, on our common business, it +was my place in his absence to care for all that was his. There are many +little things a woman needs a man to do for her in a place like +Pocatello; it was my pride and privilege to be at all times at the +service of this lady. She was needlessly grateful, but she liked me +besides: she was one who showed her likes and dislikes frankly. She had +grown up in a small, exclusive set of persons who knew one anther's +grandfathers, and were accustomed to say what they pleased inside; what +outsiders thought did not matter. She had not learned to be careful; she +despised the need of it. She thought Pocatello and the people there were +a joke. But there is a serious side even to Pocatello: you cannot joke +with rattlesnakes and vitriol and slow mines. She made enemies by her +gay little sallies, and she would never condescend to explain. When +people said things that showed they had interpreted her words or actions +in a stupid or a vulgar way, she gave the thing up. It was not her +business to adapt herself to such people; it was theirs to understand +her. If they could not, then it did not matter what they thought. That +was her theory of life in Pocatello. + +"One night I was in a place--not for my pleasure--a place where a lady's +name is never spoken by a gentleman. I heard her name spoken by a fool; +he coupled it with mine, and laughed. I walked out of the place, and +forgot what I was there for till I found myself down the street with my +heart jumping. That time I did right, you would say. + +"But I met him again. It was at the depot at Pocatello. I was seeing a +man off--a stranger in the place, but a friend of my friends; we had +dined at their house together. This other--I think he had been +drinking--I suppose he must have included me in his stupid spite against +the lady. He made his fool speech again. The man who was with me heard +him, and looked astounded. I stepped up to him. I said--I don't know +what. I ordered him to leave that name alone. He repeated it, and I +struck him. He pulled a pistol on me. I grabbed him, and twisted it out +of his hand. How it happened I cannot tell, but there in the smoke he +lay at my feet. The train was moving out. My friend pulled me aboard. +The papers said I ran away. I did not. I waited at Omaha for Mr. Burke. + +"And there I met you, three days ago; and all I care for now is just to +know that you will not think of me always by that word." + +"What word?" + +"Never mind; spare me the word. Look at me! Do I seem to you at all the +same man?" + +Phebe slowly lifted her eyes. + +"Is there nothing left of me? Answer me the truth. I have a right to be +answered." + +"You are the same; but all the rest of it is strange. I do not see how +such a thing could be." + +"Can you not conceive of one wild act in a man not inevitably always a +sinner?" + +"Oh, yes; but not that act. I cannot understand the impulse to take a +life." + +"I did not think of his miserable life; I only meant to stop his +talking. He tried to take mine. I wish he had. But no, no; I should have +missed this glimpse of you. Just when it is too late I learn what life +is worth." + +"Do men truly do those things for the sake of women? Were you thinking +of your friend's wife when you struck him?" + +"I was thinking of the man--what a foul-mouthed fool he was--not fit +to"--He stopped, seeing the look on Phebe's face. + +"Oh, I'm impossible, I know, to one like you! It's rather hard I should +have to be compared, in your mind, to a race of men like your father. +Have you never known any other men?" + +"I have read of all the men other people read of. I have some +imagination." + +"I suppose you read your Bible." + +"Yes: the men in the Bible were not all of the Spirit; but they +worshiped the Spirit--they were humble when they did wrong." + +"Did women ever love them?" + +Phebe was silent. + +"Do not talk to me of the Spirit," Ludovic pleaded. "I am a long way +from that. At least I am not a hypocrite--not yet. Wait till I am a +'trusty,' scheming for a pardon. Can you not give me one word of simple +human comfort? There are just forty minutes more." + +"What can I say?" + +"Tell me this--and oh, be careful! Could you, if it were permitted a +criminal like me to expiate his sin in the world among living men, in +human relations with them--could we ever meet? Could you say 'thee' to +me, not as to an afflicted person or a child? Am I to be only a text, +another instance"-- + +"Many would not blame you. Neither do I blame you, not knowing that +life or those people," said Phebe. "But there was One who turned away +from the evil-speakers, and wrote upon the sand." + +"But those evil-speakers spoke the truth." + +"Can a lie be stopped by a pistol-shot? But we need not argue." + +"No; I see how it is. I shall be to you only another of the wretched +sons of Cain." + +"I am thy sister," she said, and gave him her hand. + +He held it in his strong, cold, trembling clasp. + +"Darling, do you know where I am going? I shall never see you, never +again--unless you are like the sainted women of your faith who walked +the prisons, and preached to them in bonds." + +"Thy bonds are mine: but I am no preacher." + +The drowsy lights swayed and twinkled, the wheels rang on the frozen +rails as the wild, white wastes flew by. + +"Father shall never know it," Phebe murmured. "He shall never know, if I +can help it, why you called yourself unhappy." + +"Is it such an unspeakable horror to you?" He winced. + +"He has not many years to live; it would only be one disappointment +more." She was leaning back in her seat; her eyes were closed; she +looked dead weary, but patient, as if this too were life, and not more +than her share. + +"Has your father any money, dear?" + +She smiled: "Do we look like people with money?" + +"If they would only let me have my hands!" he groaned. "To think of +shutting up a great strong fellow like me"-- + +It was useless to go on. He sat, bitterly forecasting the fortunes of +those two lambs who had strayed so far from the green pastures and still +waters, when he heard Phebe say softly, as if to herself,-- + +"We are almost there." + +Mr. Burke began to fold his newspapers and get his bags in order. His +hands rested upon the implements of his office--he carried them always +in his pockets--while he stood balancing himself in the rocking car, and +the porter dusted his hat and coat. + +The train dashed past the first scattered lights of the town. + +"Po-catello!" the brakeman roared in a voice of triumph, for they were +"in" at last. + +The porter came, and touched Ludovic on the shoulder. + +"Gen'leman says he's ready, sir." + +He rose and bent over Phebe. If she had been like any other girl he must +have kissed her, but he dared not. He had prayed for a sign, and he had +won it--that look of dumb and lasting anguish in her childlike eyes. + +Yet, strange passion of the man's nature, he was not sorry for what he +had done. + +Mr. Burke took his arm in silence, and steered him out of the car; both +doors were guarded, for he had feared there might be trouble. He was +surprised at Ludovic's behavior. + +"What's the matter with him?" the car-conductor asked, looking after the +pair as they walked up the platform together. "Is he sick?" + +"Mashed," said the porter, gloomily; for Ludovic had forgotten the +parting fee. "Regular girl mash, the worst I ever saw." + +"He's late about it, if he expects to have any fun," said the conductor; +and he began to dance, with his hands in his great-coat pockets, for the +night air was raw. He was at the end of his run, and was going home to +his own girl, whom he had married the week before. + + * * * * * + +Friends and family influence mustered strong for Ludovic at the trial +six weeks later. His lawyer's speech was the finest effort, it was said, +ever listened to by an Idaho jury. The ladies went to hear it, and to +look at the handsome prisoner, who seemed to grow visibly old as the +days of the trial went by. + +But those who are acquainted with the average Western jury need not be +told that it was not influence that did it, nor the lawyer's eloquence, +nor the court's fine-spun legal definitions, nor even the women's tears. +They looked at the boy, and thought of their own boys, or they looked +inside, and thought of themselves; and they concluded that society might +take its chances with that young man at large. They stayed out an hour, +out of respect to their oath, and then brought in a verdict of "Not +guilty;" and the audience had to be suppressed. + +But after the jury's verdict there is society, and all the tongues that +will talk, long after the tears are dry. And then comes God in the +silence--and Phebe. + + * * * * * + +The men all say she is too good for him, whose name has been in +everybody's mouth. They say it, even though they do not know the cruel +way in which he won her love. But the women say that Phebe, though +undeniably a saint (and "the sweetest thing that ever lived"), is yet a +woman, incapable of inflicting judgment upon the man she loves. + +The case is in her hands now. She may punish, she may avenge, if she +will; for Ludovic is the slave of his own remorseless conquest. But +Phebe has never discovered that she was wronged. There is something in +faith, after all; and there is a good deal in blood, Friend Underhill +thinks. "Doubtless the grandson of Martin Ludovic must have had great +provocation." + + + + +THE TRUMPETER + + +I + +When the trumpets at Bisuka barracks sound retreat, the girls in the +Meadows cottage, on the edge of the Reservation, begin to hurry with the +supper things, and Mrs. Meadows, who has been young herself, says to her +eldest daughter, "You go now, Callie; the girls and I can finish." Which +means that Callie's colors go up as the colors on the hill come down; +for soon the tidy infantrymen and the troopers with their yellow stripes +will be seen, in the first blush of the afterglow, tramping along the +paths that thread the sagebrush common between the barracks and the +town; and Callie's young man will be among them, and he will turn off at +the bridge that crosses the acéquia, and make for the cottage gate by a +path which he ought to know pretty well by this time. + +Callie's young man is Henniker, one of the trumpeters of K troop, --th +cavalry; _the_ trumpeter, Callie would say, for though there are two of +the infantry and two of the cavalry who stand forth at sunset, in front +of the adjutant's office, and blow as one man the brazen call that +throbs against the hill, it is only Henniker whom Callie hears. That +trumpet blare, most masculine of all musical utterances, goes straight +from his big blue-clad chest to the heart of his girl, across the +clear-lit evening; but not to hers alone. There is only one Henniker, +but there is more than one girl in the cottage on the common. + +At this hour, nightly, a small dark head, not so high above the sage as +Callie's auburn one, pursues its dreaming way, in the wake of two cows +and a half-grown heifer, towards the hills where the town herd pastures. +Punctually at the first call it starts out behind the cows from the home +corral; by the second it has passed, very slowly, the foot-bridge, and +is nearly to the corner post of the Reservation; but when "sound off" is +heard, the slow-moving head stops still. The cheek turns. A listening +eye is raised; it is black, heavily lashed; the tip of a silken eyebrow +shows against the narrow temple. The cheek is round and young, of a +smooth clear brown, richly under-tinted with rose,--a native wild flower +of the Northwest. As the trumpets cease, and the gun fires, and the +brief echo dies in the hill, the liquid eyes grow sad. + +"Sweet, sweet! too sweet to be so short and so strong!" The dumb +childish heart swells in the constriction of a new and keener sense of +joy, an unspeakable new longing. + +What that note of the deep-colored summer twilight means to her she +hardly understands. It awakens no thought of expectation for herself, no +definite desire. She knows that the trumpeter's sunset call is his +good-by to duty on the eve of joy; it is the pæan of his love for +Callie. Wonderful to be like Callie; who after all is just like any +other girl,--like herself, just as she was a year ago, before she had +ever spoken to Henniker. + +Henniker was not only a trumpeter, one of four who made music for the +small two-company garrison; he was an artist with a personality. The +others blew according to tactics, and sometimes made mistakes; Henniker +never made mistakes, except that he sometimes blew too well. Nobody with +an ear, listening nightly for taps, could mistake when it was Henniker's +turn, as orderly trumpeter, to sound the calls. He had the temperament +of the joyous art: and with it the vanity, the passion, the +forgetfulness, the unconscious cruelty, the love of beauty, and the love +of being loved that made him the flirt constitutional as well as the +flirt military,--which not all soldiers are, but which all soldiers are +accused of being. He flirted not only with his fine gait and figure, and +bold roving glances from under his cap-peak with the gold sabres crossed +above it; he flirted in a particular and personal as well as promiscuous +manner, and was ever new to the dangers he incurred, not to mention +those to which his willing victims exposed themselves. For up to this +time in all his life Henniker had never yet pursued a girl. There had +been no need, and as yet no inducement, for him to take the offensive. +The girls all felt his irresponsible gift of pleasing, and forgot to be +afraid. Not one of the class of girls he met but envied Callie Meadows, +and showed it by pretending to wonder what he could see in her. + +It was himself Henniker saw, so no wonder he was satisfied, until he +should see himself in a more flattering mirror still. The very first +night he met her, Callie had informed him, with the courage of her +bright eyes, that she thought him magnificent fun; and he had laughed in +his heart, and said, "Go ahead, my dear!" And ahead they went headlong, +and were engaged within a week. + +Mother Meadows did not like it much, but it was the youthful way, in +pastoral frontier circles like their own; and Callie would do as she +pleased,--that was Callie's way. Father Meadows said it was the women's +business; if Callie and her mother were satisfied, so was he. + +But he made inquiries at the post, and learned that Henniker's record +was good in a military sense. He stood well with his officers, had no +loose, unsoldierly habits, and never was drunk on duty. He did not save +his pay; but how much "pay" had Meadows ever saved when he was a single +man? And within two years, if he wanted it, the trumpeter was entitled +to his discharge. So he prospered in this as in former love affairs that +had stopped short of the conclusive step of marriage. + +Meta, the little cow-girl, the youngest and fairest, though many shades +the darkest, of the Meadows household, was not of the Meadows blood. On +her father's side, her ancestry, doubtless, was uncertain; some said +carelessly, "Canada French." Her mother was pure squaw of the Bannock +breed. But Mother Meadows, whose warm Scotch-Irish heart nourished a +vein of romance together with a feudal love of family, upheld that Meta +was no chance slip of the murky half-bloods, neither clean wild nor +clean tame. Her father, she claimed to know, had been a man of education +and of honor, on the white side of his life, a well-born Scottish +gentleman, exiled to the wilderness of the Northwest in the service of +the Hudson's Bay Company. And Meta's mother had broken no law of her +rudimentary conscience. She had not swerved in her own wild allegiance, +nor suffered desertion by her white chief. He had been killed in some +obscure frontier fight, and his goods, including the woman and child, +were the stake for which he had perished. But Father Josette, who knew +all things and all people of those parts, and had baptized the infant by +the sainted name of Margaret, had traced his lost plant of grace and +conveyed it out of the forest shades into the sunshine of a Christian +white woman's home. Father Josette--so Mrs. Meadows maintained--had +known that the babe would prove worthy of transplantation. + +She made room for the little black-headed stranger, with soft eyes like +a mouse (by the blessing of God she had never lost a child, and the nest +was full,) in the midst of her own fat, fair-haired brood, and cherished +her in her place, and gave her a daughter's privilege. + +In a wild, woodlandish way Meta was a bit of an heiress in her own +right. She had inherited through her mother a share in the yearly +increase of a band of Bannock ponies down on the Salmon meadows; and +every season, after grand round-up, the settlement was made,--always +with distinct fairness, though it took some time, and a good deal of +eating, drinking, and diplomacy, before the business could be +accomplished. + +"What is a matter of a field worth forty shekels betwixt thee and me?" +was the etiquette of the transaction, but the outcome was practically +the same as in the days of patriarchal transfers of real estate. + +Father Meadows would say that it cost him twice over what the maiden's +claim was worth to have her cousins the Bannocks, with their wives and +children and horses, camped on his borders every summer; for Meta's +dark-skinned brethren never sent her the worth of her share in money, +but came themselves with her ponies in the flesh, and spare ponies of +their own, for sale in the town; and on Father Meadows was the burden of +keeping them all good-natured, of satisfying their primitive ideas of +hospitality, and of pasturing Meta's ponies until they could finally be +sold for her benefit. No account was kept, in this simple, generous +household, of what was done for Meta, but strict account was kept of +what was Meta's own. + +The Bannock brethren were very proud of their fair kinswoman who dwelt +in the tents of Jacob. They called her, amongst themselves, by the name +they give to the mariposa lily, the closed bud of which is pure white as +the whitest garden lily; but as each Psyche-wing petal opens it is +mooned at the base with a dark, purplish stain which marks the flower +with startling beauty, yet to some eyes seems to mar it as well. With +every new bud the immaculate promise is renewed; but the leopard cannot +change his spots nor the wild hill lily her natal stain. + +This year the sale of pony flesh amounted to nearly a hundred dollars, +which Father Meadows put away for Meta's future benefit,--all but one +gold piece, which the mother showed her, telling her that it represented +a new dress. + +"You need a new white one for your best, and I shall have it made long. +You're filling out so, I don't believe you'll grow much taller." + +Meta smiled sedately. In spite of the yearly object lesson her dark +kinsfolk presented, she never classed herself among the hybrids. She +accepted homage and tribute from the tribe, but in her consciousness, at +this time, she was all white. This was due partly to Mother Meadows's +large-hearted and romantic theories of training, and partly to an +accident of heredity. The woman who looks the squaw is the squaw, when +it comes to the flowering time of her life. To Meta had succeeded the +temperament of her mother expressed in the features of her father; +whether Canadian trapper or Scotch grandee, he had owned an admirable +profile. + +A great social and musical event took place that summer in the town, and +Meta's first long dress was finished in time to play its part, as such +trifles will, in the simple fates of girlhood. It was by far the +prettiest dress she had ever put over her head: the work of a +professional, to begin with. Then its length persuaded one that she was +taller than nature had made her. Its short waist suited her youthful +bust and flat back and narrow shoulders. The sleeves were puffed and +stood out like wings, and were gathered on a ribbon which tied in a bow +just above the bend of her elbow. Her arms were round and soft as satin, +and pinkish-pale inside, like the palms of her small hands. All her +skin, though dark, was as clear as wine in a colored glass. The neck was +cut down in a circle below her throat, which she shyly clasped with her +hands, not being accustomed to feel it bare. And as naturally as a bird +would open its beak for a worm, she exclaimed to Mother Meadows, "Oh, +how I wish I had some beads!" And before night she had strung herself a +necklace of the gold-colored pom-pons with silver-gray stems that +spangle the dry hills in June,--"butter-balls" the Western children call +them,--and, in spite of the laughter and gibes of the other girls, she +wore her sylvan ornament on the gala night, and its amazing becomingness +was its best defense. + +So Meta's first long dress went, in company with three other unenvious +white dresses and Father Meadows's best coat, to hear the "Coonville +Minstrels," a company of amateur performers representing the best +musical talent in the town, who would appear "for one night only," for +the benefit of the free circulating library fund. + +Henniker was not in attendance on his girl as usual. + +"What a pity," the sisters said, "that he should have to be on guard +to-night!" But Meta remembered, though she did not say so, that +Henniker had been on guard only two nights before, so it could not be +his turn again, and that could not explain his absence. + +But Callie was as gay as ever, and did not seem put out, even at her +father's bantering insinuations about some other possible girl who might +be scoring in her place. + +The sisters were enraptured over every number on the programme. The +performers had endeavored to conceal their identity under burnt cork and +names that were fictitious and humorous, but everybody was comparing +guesses as to which was which, and who was who. The house was packed, +and "society" was there. The feminine half of it did not wear its best +frock to the show and its head uncovered, but what of that! A girl knows +when she is looking her prettiest, and the young Meadowses were in no +way concerned for the propriety of their own appearance. Father Meadows, +looking along the row of smiling faces belonging to him, was as well +satisfied as any man in the house. His eyes rested longer than usual on +little Meta to-night. He saw for the first time that the child was a +beauty; not going to be,--she was one then and there. Her hair, which +she was accustomed to wear in two tightly braided pigtails down her +back, had been released and brushed out all its stately maiden length, +"crisped like a war steed's encolure." It fell below her waist, and made +her face and throat look pale against its blackness. A spot of white +electric light touched her chest where it rose and fell beneath the +chain of golden blossom balls,--orange gold, the cavalry color. She +looked like no other girl in the house, though nearly every girl in town +was there. + +Part I. of the programme was finished; a brief wait,--the curtain rose, +and behold the colored gentlemen from Coonville had vanished. Only the +interlocutor remained, scratching his white wool wig over a letter which +he begged to read in apology for his predicament. His minstrelsy had +decamped, and spoilt his show. They wrote to inform him of the obvious +fact, and advised him facetiously to throw himself upon the indulgence +of the house, but "by no means to refund the money." + +Poor little Meta believed that she was listening to the deplorable +truth, and wondered how Father Meadows and the girls could laugh. + +"Oh, won't there be any second part, after all?" she despaired; at which +Father Meadows laughed still more, and pinched her cheek, and some +persons in the row of chairs in front half turned and smiled. + +"Goosey," whispered Callie, "don't you see he's only gassing? This is +part of the fun." + +"Oh, is it?" sighed Meta, and she waited for the secret of the fun to +develop. + +"Look at your programme," Callie instructed her. "See, this is the +Impressario's Predicament. The Wandering Minstrel comes next. He will be +splendid, I can tell you." + +"Mr. Piper Hide-and-Seek," murmured Meta, studying her programme. "What +a funny name!" + +"Oh, you child!" Callie laughed aloud, but as suddenly hushed, for the +sensation of the evening, to the Meadows party, had begun. + +A very handsome man, in the gala dress of a stage peasant, of the +Bavarian Highlands possibly, came forward with a short, military step, +and bowed impressively. There was a burst of applause from the bluecoats +in the gallery, and much whistling and stamping from the boys. + +"Who is it?" the lady in front whispered to her neighbor. + +"One of the soldiers from the post," was the answer. + +"Really!" + +But the lady's accent of surprise conveyed nothing, beside the +speechless admiration of the Meadows family. Callie, who had been in the +exciting secret all along, whispered violently with the other girls, but +Meta had become quite cold and shivery. She could not have uttered a +word. + +Henniker made a little speech in an assumed accent which astonished his +friends almost more than his theatrical dress and bearing. He said he +was a stranger, piping his way through a foreign land, but he could +"spik ze Engleesh a leetle." Would the ladies and gentlemen permit him, +in the embarrassing absence of better performers, to present them with a +specimen of his poor skill upon a very simple instrument? Behold! + +He flung back his short cloak, and filled his chest, standing lightly on +his feet, with his elbows raised. + +No rattling trumpet blast from the artist's lips to-night, but, still +and small, sustained and clear, the pure reed note trilled forth. Willow +whistles piping in spring-time in the stillness of deep meadow lands +before the grass is long, or in flickering wood paths before the full +leaves darken the boughs--such was the pastoral simplicity of the +instrument with which Henniker beguiled his audience. Such was the +quality of sound, but the ingenuity, caprice, delicacy, and precision of +its management were quite his own. They procured him a wild encore. + +Henniker had been nervous at the first time of playing; it would have +embarrassed him less to come before a strange house; for there were the +captain and the captain's lady, and the lieutenants with their best +girls; and forty men he knew were nudging and winking at one another; +and there were the bonny Meadowses, with their eyes upon him and their +faces all aglow. But who was she, the little big-eyed dark one in their +midst? He took her in more coolly as he came before the house the second +time; and this time he knew her, but not as he ever had known her +before. + +Is it one of nature's revenges that in the beauty of their women lurks +the venom of the dark races which the white man has put beneath his +feet? The bruised serpent has its sting; and we know how, from Moab and +Midian down, the daughters of the heathen have been the unhappy +instruments of proud Israel's fall; but the shaft of his punishment +reaches him through the body of the woman who cleaves to his breast. + +That one look of Henniker's at Meta, in her strange yet familiar beauty, +sitting captive to his spell, went through his flattered senses like the +intoxication of strong drink. He did not take his eyes off her again. +His face was pale with the complex excitement of a full house that was +all one girl and all hushed through joy of him. She sat so close to +Callie, his reckless glances might have been meant for either of them; +Callie thought at first they were for her, but she did not think so +long. + +Something followed on the programme at which everybody laughed, but it +meant nothing at all to Meta. She thought the supreme moment had come +and gone, when a big Zouave in his barbaric reds and blues marched out +and took his stand, back from the footlights, between the wings, and +began that amazing performance with a rifle which is known as the +"Zouave drill." + +The dress was less of a disguise than the minstrel's had been, and it +was a sterner, manlier transformation. It brought out the fighting look +in Henniker. The footlights were lowered, a smoke arose behind the +wings, strange lurid colors were cast upon the figure of the soldier +magician. + +"The stage is burning!" gasped Meta, clutching Collie's arm. + +"It's nothing but red fire. You mustn't give yourself away so, Meta; +folks will take us for a lot of sagebrushers." + +Meta settled back in her place with a fluttering sigh, and poured her +soul into this new wonder. + +But Henniker was not doing himself justice to-night, his comrades +thought. No one present was so critical of him or so proud of him as +they. A hundred times he had put himself through this drill before a +barrack audience, and it had seemed as if he could not make a break. But +to-night his nerve was not good. Once he actually dropped his piece, and +a groan escaped the row of uniforms in the gallery. This made him angry; +he pulled himself up and did some good work for a moment, and +then--"Great Scott! he's lost it again! No, he hasn't. Brace up, man!" +The rifle swerves, but Henniker's knee flies up to catch it; the sound +of the blow on the bone makes the women shiver; but he has his piece, +and sends it savagely whirling, and that miss was his last. His head was +like the centre of a spinning top or the hub of a flying wheel. He felt +ugly from the pain of his knee, but he made a dogged finish, and only +those who had seen him at his best would have said that his drill was a +failure. + +Henniker knew, if no one else did, what had lost him his grip in the +rifle act. His eyes, which should have been glued to his work, had been +straying for another and yet one more look at Meta. Where she sat so +still was the storm centre of emotion in the house, and when his eyes +approached her they caught the nerve shock that shook his whole system +and spoiled his fine work. He cared nothing for the success of his +piping when he thought of the failure of his drill. The failure had come +last, and, with other things, it left its sting. + +On the way home to barracks, the boys were all talking, in their free +way, about Meta Meadows,--the little broncho, they called her, in +allusion to her great mane of hair,--which made Henniker very hot. + +He would not own that his knee pained him; he would not have it referred +to, and was ready, next day, to join the riders in squad drill, a new +feature of which was the hurdles and ditch-jumping and the mounted +exercises, in which as usual, Henniker had distinguished himself. + +The Reservation is bounded on the south-east side, next the town, by an +irrigation ditch, which is crossed by as many little bridges as there +are streets that open out upon the common. (All this part of the town is +laid out in "additions," and is sparsely built up.) Close to this +division line, at right angles with it, are the dry ditches and hurdle +embankments over which the stern young corporals put their squads, under +the eye of the captain. + +Out in the centre of the plain other squads are engaged in the athletics +of horsemanship,--a series of problems in action which embraces every +sort of emergency a mounted man may encounter in the rush and throng of +battle, and the means of instantly meeting it, and of saving his own +life or that of a comrade. So much more is made in these days of the +individual powers of the man and horse that it is wonderful to see what +an exact yet intelligently obedient combination they have become; no +less effective in a charge, as so many pounds of live momentum to be +hurled on the bayonet points, but much more self-reliant on scout +service, or when scattered singly, in defeat, over a wide, strange field +of danger. + +On the regular afternoons for squad and troop drill, the ditch bank on +the town side would be lined with spectators: ladies in light cotton +dresses and beflowered hats, small bare-legged boys and muddy dogs, the +small boys' sisters dragging bonnetless babies by the hand, and +sometimes a tired mother who has come in a hurry to see where her little +truants have strayed to, or a cow-boy lounging sideways on his peaked +saddle, condescending to look on at the riding of Uncle Sam's boys. The +crowd assorts itself as the people do who line the barriers at a +bull-fight: those who have parasols, to the shadow; those who have +barely a hat, to the sun. + +Here, on the field of the gray-green plain, under the glaring tent roof +of the desert sky, the national free circus goes on,--to the screaming +delight of the small boys, the fear and exultation of the ladies, and +the alternate pride and disgust of the officers who have it in charge. + +A squad of the boldest riders are jumping, six in line. One can see by +the way they come that every man will go over: first the small ditch, +hardly a check in the pace; then a rush at the hurdle embankment, the +horses' heads very grand and Greek as they rear in a broken line to take +it. Their faces are as strong and wild as the faces of the men. Their +flanks are slippery with sweat. They clear the hurdles, and stretch out +for the wide ditch. + +"Keep in line! Don't crowd!" the corporal shouts. They are doing well, +he thinks. Over they all go; and the ladies breathe again, and say to +each other how much finer this sport is because it is work, and has a +purpose in it. + +Now the guidon comes, riding alone, and the whole troop is proud of him. +The signal flag flashes erect from the trooper's stirrup; the horse is +new to it, and fears it as if it were something pursuing him; but in the +face of horse and man is the same fixed expression, the sober +recklessness that goes straight to the finish. If these do not go over, +it will not be for want of the spur in the blood. + +Next comes a pale young cavalryman just out of the hospital. He has had +a fall at the hurdle week before and strained his back. His captain sees +that he is nervous and not yet fit for the work, yet cannot spare him +openly. He invents an order, and sends him off to another part of the +field where the other squads are manoeuvring. + +If it is not in the man to go over, it will not be in his horse, though +a poor horse may put a good rider to shame; but the measure of every man +and every horse is taken by those who have watched them day by day. + +The ladies are much concerned for the man who fails,--"so sorry" they +are for him, as his horse blunders over the hurdle, and slackens when he +ought to go free; and of course he jibs at the wide ditch, and the rider +saws on his mouth. + +"Give him his head! Where are your spurs, man?" the corporal shouts, and +adds something under his breath which cannot be said in the presence of +his captain. In they go, floundering, on their knees and noses, horse +and man, and the ladies cannot see, for the dust, which of them is on +top; but they come to the surface panting, and the man, whose uniform is +of the color of the ditch, climbs on again, and the corporal's disgust +is heard in his voice as he calls, "Ne-aaxt!" + +It need not be said that no corporal ever asked Henniker where were +_his_ spurs. To-day the fret in his temper fretted his horse, a young, +nervous animal who did not need to know where his rider's heels were +quite so often as Henniker's informed him. + +"Is that a non-commissioned officer who is off, and his horse scouring +away over the plain? What a dire mortification," the ladies say, "and +what a consolation to the bunglers!" + +No, it is the trumpeter. He was taking the hurdle in a rush of the whole +squad; his check-strap broke, and his horse went wild, and slammed +himself into another man's horse, and ground his rider's knee against +his comrade's carbine. It is Henniker who is down in the dust, cursing +the carbine, and cursing his knee, and cursing the mischief generally. + +The ladies strolled home through the heat, and said how glorious it was +and how awfully real, and how one man got badly hurt; and they described +in detail the sight of Henniker limping bareheaded in the sun, holding +on to a comrade's shoulder; how his face was a "ghastly brown white," +and his eyes were bloodshot, and his black head dun with dust. + +"It was the trumpeter who blew so beautifully the other night,--who hurt +his knee in the rifle drill," they said. "It was his knee that was hurt +to-day. I wonder if it was the same knee?" + +It was the same knee, and this time Henniker went to hospital and stayed +there; and being no malingerer, his confinement was bitterly irksome and +a hurt to his physical pride. + +The post surgeon's house is the last one on the line. Then comes the +hospital, but lower down the hill. The officer's walk reaches it by a +pair of steps that end in a slope of grass. There are moisture and shade +where the hospital stands, and a clump of box-elder trees is a boon to +the convalescents there. The road between barracks and canteen passes +the angle of the whitewashed fence; a wild syringa bush grows on the +hospital side, and thrusts its blossoms over the wall. There is a broken +board in the fence which the syringa partly hides. + +After three o'clock in the afternoon this is the coolest corner of the +hospital grounds; and here, on the grass, Henniker was lying, one day of +the second week of his confinement. + +He had been half asleep when a soft, light thump on the grass aroused +him. A stray kitten had crawled through the hole in the fence, and, +feeling her way down with her forepaws, had leaped to the ground beside +him. + +"Hey, pussy!" Henniker welcomed her pleasantly, and then was silent. A +hand had followed the kitten through the hole in the fence,--a smooth +brown hand no bigger than a child's, but perfect in shape as a woman's. +The small fingers moved and curled enticingly. + +"Pussy, pussy? Come, pussy!" a soft voice cooed. "Puss, puss, puss? +Come, pussy!" The fingers groped about in empty air. "Where are you, +pussy?" + +Henniker had quietly possessed himself of the kitten, which, moved by +these siren tones, began to squirm a little and meekly to "miew." He +reached forth his hand and took the small questing one prisoner; then he +let the kitten go. There was a brief speechless struggle, quite a +useless one. + +"Let me go! Who is it? Oh _dear_!" + +Another pull. Plainly, from the tone, this last was feminine profanity. + +Silence again, the hand struggling persistently, but in vain. The soft +bare arm, working against the fence, became an angry red. + +"Softly now. It's only me. Didn't you know I was in hospital, Meta?" + +"Is it you, Henniker?" + +"Indeed it is. You wouldn't begrudge me a small shake of your hand, +after all these days?" + +"But you are not in hospital now?" + +"That's what I am. I'm not in bed, but I'm going on three legs when I'm +going at all. I'm a house-bound man." A heavy sigh from Henniker. + +"Haven't you shaken hands enough now, Henniker?" beseechingly from the +other side. "I only wanted kitty; please put her through the fence." + +"What's your hurry?" + +"Have you got her there? Callie left her with me. I mustn't lose her. +Please?" + +"Has Callie gone away?" + +"Why, yes, didn't you know? She has gone to stay with Tim's wife." (Tim +Meadows was the eldest, the married son of the family.) "She has a +little baby, and they can't get any help, and father wouldn't let +mother go down because it's bad for her to be over a cook stove, you +know." + +"Yes, I know the old lady feels the heat." + +"We are quite busy at the house. I came of an errand to the +quartermaster-sergeant's, and kitty followed me, and the children chased +her. I must go home now," urged Meta. "Really, I did not think you would +be so foolish, Henniker. I can't see what fun there is in this!" + +"Yes, but Meta, I've made a discovery,--here in your hand." + +"In my hand? What is it? Let me see." A violent determined pull, and a +sound like a smothered explosion of laughter from Henniker. + +"Softly, softly now. You'll hurt yourself, my dear." + +"Is my hand dirty? It was the kitten, then; her paws were all over +sand." + +"Oh, no. Great sign! It's worse than that. It'll not come off." + +"I _will_ see what it is!" + +"But you can't see unless I was to tell you. I'm a hand reader, did you +know it? I can tell your fortune by the lines on your palm. I'm reading +them off here just like a book." + +"Good gracious! what do you see?" + +"Why, it's a most extraordinary thing! Your head line is that mixed up +with your heart line, 'pon me word I can't tell which is which. Which is +it, Meta? Do you choose your friends with your head entirely, or is it +the other way with you, dear?" + +"Oh, is that all? I thought you could tell fortunes really. I don't care +what I _am_; I want to know what I'm going to _do_. Don't you see +anything that's going to happen to me?" + +"Lots of things. I see something that's going to happen to you right +now. I wonder did it ever happen to you before?" + +"What is it? When is it coming?" + +"It has come. I will put it right here in your hand. But I shall want it +back again, remember; and don't be giving it away, now, to anybody +else." + +A mysterious pause. Meta felt a breath upon her wrist, and a kiss from a +mustached lip was pressed into the hollow of her hand. + +"Keep that till I ask you for it," said Henniker quite sternly, and +closed her hand tight with his own. The hand became an expressive little +fist. + +"I think you are just as mean and silly as you can be! I'll never +believe a word you say again." + +"Pussy," remarked Henniker, in a mournful aside, "go ask your mistress +will she please forgive me. Tell her I'm not exactly sorry, but I +couldn't help it. Faith, I couldn't." + +"I'm not her mistress," said Meta. + +It was a keen reminder, but Henniker did not seem to feel it much. + +"Go tell Meta," he corrected. "Ask her please to forgive me, and I'll +take it back,--the kiss, I mean." + +"I'm going now," said Meta. "Keep the kitten, if you want her. She isn't +mine, anyway." + +But now the kitten was softly crowded through the fence by Henniker, and +Meta, relenting, gathered her into her arms and carried her home. + +It was certainly not his absence from Callie's side that put Henniker in +such a bad humor with his confinement. He grew morbid, and fell into +treacherous dreaming, and wondered jealously about the other boys, and +what they were doing with themselves these summer evenings, while he was +loafing on crutches under the hospital trees. He was frankly pining for +his freedom before Callie should return. He wanted a few evenings which +he need not account for to anybody but himself; and he got his freedom, +unhappily, in time to do the mischief of his dream,--to put vain, +selfish longings into the simple heart of Meta, and to spoil his own +conscience toward his promised wife. + +Henniker knew the ways of the Meadows cottage as well as if he had been +one of the family. He knew that Meta, having less skill about the house +than the older girls, took the part of chore-boy, and fetched and drove +away the cows. + +It were simple enough to cross her evening track through the pale +sagebrush, which betrayed every bit of contrasting color, the colors of +Meta's hair-ribbon and her evening frock; it were simple enough, had she +been willing to meet him. But Meta had lost confidence in the hero of +the household. She had seen Henniker in a new light; and whatever her +heart line said, her head line told her that she had best keep a good +breadth of sagebrush between herself and that particular pair of broad +blue shoulders that moved so fast above it. So as Henniker advanced the +girl retreated, obscurely, with shy doublings and turnings, carefully +managed not to reveal that she was running away; for that might vex +Henniker, and she was still too loyal to the family bond to wish to show +her sister's lover an open discourtesy. She did not dream of the +possibility of his becoming her own lover, but she thought him capable +of going great lengths in his very peculiar method of teasing. + +As soon as he understood her tactics Henniker changed his own. Without +another glance in her direction he made off for the hills, but not too +far from the trail the cows were taking; and choosing a secluded spot, +behind a thick-set clump of sage, he took out his rustic pipe and +waited, and when he saw her he began to play. + +Meta's heart jumped at the first note. She stole along, drinking in the +sounds, no one molesting or making her afraid. Ahead of her, as she +climbed, the first range of hills cast a glowing reflection in her +face; but the hills beyond were darker, cooler, and the blue-black pines +stood out against the sky-like trees of a far cloud-country cut off by +some aerial gulf from the most venturesome of living feet. + +Henniker saw the girl coming, her face alight in the primrose glow, and +he threw away all moments but the present. His breath stopped; then he +took a deep inspiration, laid his lips to the pipe, and played, softly, +subtly, as one who thinks himself alone. + +She had discovered him, but she could not drag herself very far away +from those sounds. At last she sat down upon the ground, and gave +herself up to listening. A springy sagebush supported her as she let +herself sink back; one arm was behind her head, to protect it from the +prickly shoots. + +"Meta," said Henniker, "are you listening? I'm talking to you now." + +It was all the same: his voice was like another phrase of music. He went +on playing, and Meta did not stir. + +Another pause. "Are you there still, Meta? I was lonesome to-night, but +you ran away from me. Was that friendly? You like my music; then why +don't you like me? Well, here's for you again, ungrateful!" He went on +playing. + +The cows were wandering wide of the trail, towards the upper valley. +Meta began to feel herself constrained, and not in the direction of her +duty. She rose, cast her long braids over her shoulder, and moved +resolutely away. + +Henniker was absorbed in what he was saying to her with his pipe. When +he had made a most seductive finish he paused, and spoke. He rose and +looked about him. Meta was a long way off, down the valley, walking +fast. He bounded after her, and caught her rudely around the waist. + +"See here, little girl, I won't be made game of like this! I was playing +to you, and you ran off and left me tooting like a fool. Was that +right?" + +"I had to go; it is getting late. The music was too sweet. It made me +feel like I could cry." She lifted her long-lashed eyes swimming in +liquid brightness. Henniker caught her hand in his. + +"I was playing to you, Meta, as I play to no one else. Does a person +steal away and leave another person discoursin' to the empty air? I +didn't think you would want to make a fool of me." + +Meta drew away her hand and pressed it in silence on her heart. No woman +of Anglo-Saxon blood, without a vast amount of training, could have said +so much and said it so naturally with a gesture so hackneyed. + +Henniker looked at her from under his eyebrows, biting his mustache. He +took a few steps away from her, and then came back. + +"Meta," he said, in a different voice, "what was that thing you wore +around your neck, the other night, at the minstrels,--that filigree gold +thing, eh?" + +The girl looked up, astonished; then her eyes fell, and she colored +angrily. No Indian or dog could hate to be laughed at more than Meta; +and she had been so teased about her innocent make-believe necklace! Had +the girls been spreading the joke? She had suddenly outgrown the +childish good faith that had made it possible for her to deck herself in +it, and she wished never to hear the thing mentioned again. She hung +her head and would not speak. + +Henniker's suspicions were characteristic. Of course a girl like that +must have a lover. Her face confessed that he had touched upon a tender +spot. + +"It was a pretty thing," he said coldly. "I wonder if I could get one +like it for Callie?" + +"I don't think Callie would wear one even if you gave it to her," Meta +answered with spirit. + +"I say, won't you tell me which of the boys it is, Meta?--Won't I wear +the life out of him, just!" he added to himself. + +"Is what?" + +"Your best fellah; the one who gave you that." + +"There isn't any. It was nothing. I won't tell you what it was! I made +it myself, there! It was only 'butter-balls.'" + +"Oh, good Lord!" laughed Henniker. + +Meta thought he was laughing at her. It was too much! The sweetness of +his music was all jangled in her nerves. Tears would come, and then more +tears because of the first. + +Had Meta been the child of her father, she might have been sitting that +night in one of the vine-shaded porches of the houses on the line, with +a brace of young lieutenants at her feet, and in her wildest follies +with them she would have been protected by all the traditions and +safeguards of her class. As she was the child of her mother, instead, +she was out on the hills with Henniker. And how should the squaw's +daughter know the difference between protection and pursuit? + +When Henniker put his arm around her and kissed the tears from her eyes, +she would not have changed places with the proudest lady of the +line,--captain's wife, lieutenant's sweetheart, or colonel's daughter of +them all. Her chief, who blew the trumpet, was as great a man in Meta's +eyes as the officer who buckled on his sabre in obedience to the call. + +As for Henniker, no girl's head against his breast had ever looked so +womanly dear as Meta's; no shut eyelids that he had ever kissed had +covered such wild, sweet eyes. He did not think of her at all in words, +any more than of the twilight afterglow in which they parted, with its +peculiar intensity, its pang of color. He simply felt her; and it was +nearest to the poetic passion of any emotion that he had ever known. + +That night Meta deceived her foster-mother, and lying awake beside +Callie's empty cot, in the room which the two girls shared together, she +treacherously prayed that it might be long before her sister's return. +The wild white lily had opened, and behold the stain! + +It had been a hard summer for Tim Meadows's family,--the second summer +on a sagebrush ranch, their small capital all in the ground, the first +hay crop ungathered, and the men to board as well as to pay. The +boarding was Mrs. Tim's part; yet many a young wife would have thought +that she had enough to do with her own family to cook and wash for, and +her first baby to take care of. + +"You'll get along all right," the older mothers encouraged her. "A +summer baby is no trouble at all." + +No trouble when the trouble is twenty years behind us, among the joys of +the past. But Tim's wife was wondering if she could hold out till cool +weather came, when the rush of the farm work would be over, and her +"summer baby" would be in short clothes and able to sit alone. The heat +in their four-roomed cabin, in the midst of the treeless land, was an +ordeal alone. To sleep in the house was impossible; the rooms and the +windows were too small to admit enough air. They moved their beds +outside, and slept like tramps under the stars; and the broad light +awoke them at earliest dawn, and the baby would never sleep till after +ten at night, when the dry Plains wind began to fan the face of the +weary land. Even Callie, whose part in the work was subsidiary, lost +flesh, and the roses in her cheeks turned sallow, in the month she +stayed on the ranch; but she would have been ashamed to complain, though +she was heartsick for a word from Henniker. He had written to her only +once. + +It was Mrs. Meadows who thought it high time that Callie should come +home. She had found a good woman to take her daughter's place, and +arranged the matter of pay herself. Tim had said they could get no help, +but his mother knew what that meant; such help as they could afford to +pay for was worse than none. + +It seemed a poor return to Callie, for her sisterly service in the +valley, to come home and find her lover a changed man. Mrs. Meadows said +he was like all the soldiers she had ever known,--light come, light go. +But this did not comfort Callie much, nor more to be reminded what a +good thing it was she had found him out in time. + +Henniker was not scoundrel enough to make love to two girls at once, two +semi-sisters, who slept in the same room and watched each other's +movements in the same looking-glass. It was no use pretending that he +and Callie could "heat their broth over again;" so the coolness came +speedily to a breach, and Henniker no longer openly, in fair daylight, +took the path to the cottage gate. But there were other paths. + +He had found a way to talk to Meta with his trumpet. He sent her +messages at guard-mounting, as the guard was forming, when, as senior +trumpeter, he was allowed a choice in the airs he played; and when he +was orderly trumpeter, and could not come himself to say it, he sent +her his good-night in the plaintive notes of taps. + +This was the climax of Henniker's flirtations: all that went before had +been as nothing, all that came after was not much worse than nothing. It +was the one sincere as it was the one poetic passion of his life; and +had it not cost him his self-respect through his baseness to Callie, and +the treachery and dissimulation he was teaching to an innocent child, it +might have made him a faithful man. As it was, his soldier's honor +slept; it was the undisciplined part of him that spoke to the elemental +nature of the girl; and it was fit that a trumpet's reckless summons, or +its brief inarticulate call, like the note of a wild bird to its mate, +should be the language of his love. + + * * * * * + +Retreat had sounded, one evening in October, but it made no stir any +more in the cottage where the girls had been so gay. Callie, putting the +tea on the table, remembered, as she heard the gun fire, how in the the +spring Henniker had said that when "sound off" was at six he would drop +in to supper some night, and show her how to make _chili con carne_, a +dish that every soldier knows who has served on the Mexican border. Her +face grew hard, for these foolish, unsleeping reminders were as constant +as the bugle calls. + +The women waited for the head of the house; but as he did not come, they +sat down and ate quickly, saving the best dish hot for him. + +They had finished, and the room was growing dusk, when he came in +breezily, and called at once, as a man will, for a light. Meta rose to +fetch it. The door stood open between the fore-room and the kitchen, +where she was groping for a lamp. Mr. Meadows spoke in a voice too big +for the room. He had just been conversing across the common with the +quartermaster-sergeant, as the two men's footsteps diverged by separate +paths to their homes. + +"I hear there's going to be a change at the post;" he shouted. "The --th +is going to leave this department, and C troop of the Second is coming +from Custer. Sergeant says they are looking for orders any day now." + +Mrs. Meadows, before she thought, glanced at Callie. The girl winced, +for she hated to be looked at like that. She held up her head and began +to sing audaciously, drumming with her fingers on the table:-- + + "'When my mother comes to know + That I love the soldiers so, + She will lock me up all day, + Till the soldiers march away.'" + +"What sort of a song is that?" asked her father sharply. + +Callie looked him in the eyes. "Don't you know that tune?" said she. +"Henniker plays that at guard-mount; and sometimes he plays this:-- + + 'Oh, whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad, + Though father and mither and a' should go mad.'" + +"Let him play what he likes," said the father angrily. "His saucy jig +tunes are nothing to us. I'm thankful no girl of mine is following after +the army. It's a hard life for a woman, I can tell you, in the ranks." + +Callie pushed her chair back, and looked out of the window as if she had +not heard. + +"Where's Meta with that lamp? Go and see what's keeping her." + +"Sit still," said Mrs. Meadows. She went herself into the kitchen, but +no one heard her speak a word; yet the kitchen was not empty. + +There was a calico-covered lounge that stood across the end of the room; +Meta sat there, quite still, her back against the wall. Mrs. Meadows +took one look at her; then she lighted the lamp and carried it into the +dining-room, and went back and shut herself in with Meta. + + "'When my mother comes to know,'" + +hummed Callie. Her face was pale. She hardly knew that she was singing. + +"Stop that song!" her father shouted. "Go and see what's the matter with +your sister." + +"Sister?" repeated Callie. "Meta is no sister of mine." + +"She's your tent-mate, then. Ye grew nest-ripe under the same mother's +wing." + +"Meta can use her own wings now, you will find. She grew nest-ripe very +young." + +Father Meadows knew that there was trouble inside of that closed door, +as there was trouble inside the white lips and shut heart of his frank +and joyous Callie, but it was "the women's business." He went out to +attend to his own. + +Irrigation on the scale of a small cottage garden is tedious work. It +has intervals of silence and leaning on a hoe while one little channel +fills or trickles into the next one; and the water must be stopped out +here, and floated longer there, like the bath over the surface of an +etcher's plate. Water was scarce and the rates were high that summer, +and there was a good deal of "dry-point" work with a hoe in Father +Meadows's garden. + +He had come to one of the discouraging places where the ground was +higher than the water could be made to reach without a deal of propping +and damming with shovelfuls of earth. This spot was close to the window +of the kitchen chamber, which was "mother's room." She was in there +talking to Meta. Her voice was deep with the maternal note of +remonstrance; Meta's was sharp and high with excitement and resistance. +Her faintness had passed, but Mother Meadows had been inquiring into +causes. + +"I am married to him, mother! He is my husband as much as he can be." + +"It was never Father Magrath married you, or I should be knowing to it +before now." + +"No; we went before a judge, or a justice, in the town." + +"In town! Well, that is something; but be sure there is a wrong or a +folly somewhere when a man takes a young girl out of her home and out of +her church to be married. If Henniker had taken you 'soberly, in the +fear of God'"-- + +"He _was_ sober!" cried Meta. "I never saw him any other way." + +"Mercy on us! I was not thinking of the man's habits. He's too good to +have done the way he has. That's what I have against him. I don't know +what I shall say to Father Josette. The disgrace of this is on me, too, +for not looking after my house better. 'Never let her be humbled through +her not being all white,' the father said when he brought you to me, and +God knows I never forgot that your little heart was white. I trusted you +as I would one of my own, and was easier on you for fear of a mother's +natural bias toward her own flesh and blood; and now to think that you +would lie to me, and take a man in secret that had deceived your sister +before you,--as if nothing mattered so that you got what you wanted! And +down in the town, without the priest's blessing or a kiss from any of us +belonging to you! It's one way to get married, but it's not the right +way." + +"Did no white girl ever do as I have?" asked Meta, with a touch of +sullenness. + +"Plenty of them, but they didn't make their mothers happy." + +Meta stirred restively on the bed. "Will Father Magrath have to talk to +me, and Father Josette, and _all_ the fathers?" she inquired. "He said +he never would have married Callie anyway,--not even if he couldn't +have had me." + +"And the more shame to him to say such a thing to one sister of another! +Callie is much the best off of you two." Mrs. Meadows rose and moved +heavily away from the bed. "Well," she said, "most marriages are just +one couple more. It's very little of a sacrament there is about the +common run of such things, but I hoped for something better when it came +to my girls' turn. However, sorrow is the sacrament God sends us, to +give us a chance to learn a little something before we die. I expect +you'll learn your lesson." + +She came back to the bed, and Meta moaned as she sat down again, to +signify that she had been talked to enough. But the mother had something +practical to say, though she could not say it without emotional +emphasis, for her outraged feelings were like a flood that has come +down, but has not yet subsided. + +"If there's any way for you to go with Henniker when the troop goes, +it's with him you ought to be; but if he has married without his +captain's consent, he'll get no help at barracks. Do you know how that +is, Meta?" + +Meta shook her head; but presently she forced herself to speak the +truth. She did know that Henniker had told no one at the post of his +marriage. She had never asked him why, nor had thought that it mattered. + +"Oh my! I was afraid of that," said Mrs. Meadows. "The colonel knows it +was Callie he was engaged to. Father went up to see him about Henniker, +and the colonel as good as gave his word for him that he was a man we +could have in the family. A commanding officer doesn't like such +goings-on with respectable neighbors." + +Mrs. Meadows possibly overestimated the post commandant's interest in +these matters, but she had gratefully remembered his civility to her +husband when he went to make fatherly inquiries. The colonel was a +father himself, and had seemed to appreciate their anxiety about +Callie's choice. It was just as well that Meta should know that none of +the constituted authorities were on the side of her lover's defection. + +Meta said nothing to all this. It did not touch her, only as it bore on +the one question, Was Henniker going to leave her behind him? + +"How long is it since you have seen him, that he hasn't told you this +news himself?" asked the mother. + +"Last night; but perhaps he did not know." + +Henniker had known, as Mrs. Meadows supposed, but having to shift for +himself in the matter of transportation for the wife he had never +acknowledged, and seeing no way of providing for her without +considerable inconvenience to himself, he had put off the pain of +breaking to her the parting that must come. In their later consultations +Meta had mentioned her "pony money," as she called it, and Henniker had +privately welcomed the existence of such a fund. It lightened the +pressure of his own responsibility in the future, in case--but he did +not formulate his doubts. There are more uncertainties than anything +else, except hard work, in the life of an enlisted man. + +Father Meadows purposely would not speak of Meta's resources. He felt +that Henniker had not earned his confidence in this or any other respect +where his girls were concerned. Till Meta should come of age,--she was +barely sixteen,--or until it could be known what sort of a husband she +had got in Henniker, her bit of money was safest in her guardian's +hands. + +So the orders came, and the transfer of troops was made; and now it was +the trumpeter of C troop that sounded the calls, and Henniker's bold +messages at guard-mounting and his tender good-night at taps called no +more across the plain. The summer lilies were all dead on the hills, and +the common was white with snow. But something in Meta's heart said,-- + + "'Weep no more! Oh, weep no more! + Young buds sleep in the root's white core.'" + +And she dried her eyes. The mother was very gentle with her; and Callie, +hard-eyed, saying nothing, watched her, and did her little cruel +kindnesses that cut to the quick of her soreness and her pride. + +When the Bannock brethren came, late in September, the next year, she +walked the sagebrush paths to their encampment with her young son in her +arms. They looked at the boy and said that it was good; but when they +asked after the father, and Meta told them that he had gone with his +troop to Fort Custer, and that she waited for word to join him, they +said it was not good, and they turned away their eyes in silence from +her shame. The men did, but the women looked at her in a silence that +said different things. Her heart went out to them, and their dumb soft +glances brought healing to her wounds. What sorrow, what humiliation, +was hers that they from all time had not known? The men took little +notice of her after that: she had lost caste both as maid and wife; she +was nothing now but a means of existence to her son. But between her +and her dark sisters the natural bond grew strong. Old lessons that had +lain dormant in her blood revived with the force of her keener +intelligence, and supplanted later teachings that were of no use now +except to make her suffer more. + +It was impossible that Mother Meadows should not resent the wrong and +insult to her own child; she felt it increasingly as she came to realize +the girl's unhappiness. It grew upon her, and she could not feel the +same towards Meta, who kept herself more and more proudly and silently +aloof. She was one alone in the house, where no one spoke of the past to +reproach her, where nothing but kindness was ever shown. The kindness +was like the hand of pardon held out to her. Why did they think she +wanted their forgiveness? She was not sorry for what she had done. She +wanted nothing, only Henniker. So she crept away with her child and sat +among the Bannock women, and was at peace with them whom she had never +injured; who beheld her unhappiness, but did not call it her shame. + +When she walked the paths across the common, her eyes were always on the +skyward range of hills that appeared to her farther away than +ever,--beyond a wider gulf, now that their tops were white, and the +clouds came low enough to hide them. Often yellow gleams shot out +beneath the clouds and turned the valleys green. It seemed to her that +Henniker was there; he was in the cold, bright north, and the trumpets +called her, but she could not go, for the way was very long. Such words +as these she would sometimes whisper to her dark sisters by the +camp-fire, and once they said to her, "Get strong and go; we will show +you the way." + + * * * * * + +Henniker was taking life as it comes to an enlisted man in barracks. He +thought of Meta many times, and of his boy, very tenderly and +shamefully; and if he could have whistled them to him, or if a wind of +luck could have blown them thither, he would have embraced them with +joy, and shared with them all that he had. There was the difficulty. He +had so little besides the very well fitting clothes on his back. His pay +seemed to melt away, month by month, and where it went to the mischief +only knew. Canteen got a good deal of it. Henniker was one of the +popular men in barracks, with his physical expertness, his piping and +singing and story-telling, and his high good humor at all times with +himself and everybody else. He did not drink much, except in the way of +comradeship, but he did a good deal of that. He was a model trumpeter, +and a very ornamental fellow when he rode behind his captain on +full-dress inspection, more bedight than the captain himself with gold +cords and tags and bullion; but he was not a domestic man, and the only +person in the world who might perhaps have made him one was a very +helpless, ignorant little person, and--she was not there. + +It was a bad season for selling ponies. The Indians had arrived late +with a larger band than usual, which partly represented an unwise +investment they had made on the strength of their good fortune the year +before. Certain big ditch enterprises had been starting then, creating a +brisk demand for horses at prices unusual, especially in the latter end +of summer. This year the big ditch had closed down, and was selling its +own horses, or turning them out upon the range, and unbroken Indian +ponies could hardly be given away. + +The disappointment of the Bannocks was very great, and their +comprehension of causes very slow. It took some time for them to satisfy +themselves that Father Meadows was telling them a straight tale. It took +still more time for consultations as to what should now be done with +their unsalable stock. The middle of October was near, and the grumbling +chiefs finally decided to accept their loss and go hunting. The squaws +and children were ordered home to the Reservation by rail, as wards of +the nation travel, to get permission of the agent for the hunt, and the +men, with ponies, were to ride overland and meet the women at Eagle +Rock. + +Thus Meta learned how an Indian woman may pass unchallenged from one +part of the country to another, clothed in the freedom of her poverty. +In this way the nation acknowledges a part of its ancient indebtedness +to her people. No word had come from Henniker, though he had said that +he should get his discharge in October. Meta's resolve was taken. The +Bannock women encouraged her, and she saw how simple it would be to copy +their dress and slip away with them as far as their roads lay together; +and thence, having gained practice in her part and become accustomed to +its disguises, to go on alone to Custer, where her chief, her beautiful +trumpeter, was sounding his last calls. She was wise in this +resolution--to see her husband, at whatever cost, before the time of his +freedom should come; but she was late in carrying it out. + +Long before, she had turned over fruitlessly in her mind every means of +getting money for this journey besides the obvious way of asking Father +Meadows for her own. She had guessed that her friends were suspicious of +Henniker's good faith, and believed that if they should come to know of +her intention of running away to follow him they would prevent her for +her own good,--which was quite the case. + +That was the point Father Meadows made with his wife, when she argued +that Meta, being a married woman now, ought to learn the purchasing +power of money and its limitations by experimenting with a little of her +own. + +"We shall do wrong if we keep her a child now," she said. + +"But if she has money, she'll lay it by till she gets enough to slip off +to her soldier with. There's that much Injun about her; she'll follow to +heel like a dog." + +Father Meadows could not have spoken in this way of Meta a year ago. She +had lost caste with him, also. + +"Don't, father," the mother said, with a hurt look. "She'll not follow +far with ten dollars in her pocket; but that much I want to try her +with. She's like a child about shopping. She'll take anything at all, if +it looks right and the man persuades her. And those Jew clerks will +charge whatever they think they can get." + +Mrs. Meadows had her way, and the trial sum was given to Meta one day, +and the next day she and the child were missing. + +At dusk, that evening, a group of Bannock squaws, more or less +encumbered with packs, and children, climbed upon one of the flat cars +of a freight train bound for Pocatello. The engine steamed out of the +station, and down the valley, and away upon the autumn plains. The next +morning the Bannocks broke camp, and vanished before the hoar frost had +melted from the sage. Their leave-taking had been sullen, and their +answers to questions about Meta, with which Father Meadows had routed +them out in the night, had been so unsatisfactory that he took the first +train to the Fort Hall Agency. There he waited for the party of squaws +from Bisuka; but when they came, Meta was not with them. They knew +nothing of her, they said; even the agent was deceived by their +counterfeit ignorance. They could tell nothing, and were allowed to join +their men at Eagle Rock, to go hunting into the wild country around +Jackson's Hole. + +Father Meadows went back and relieved his wife's worst fear,--that the +girl had fulfilled the wrong half of her destiny, and gone back to hide +her grief in the bosom of her tribe. + +"Then you'll find her at Custer," said she. "You must write to the +quartermaster-sergeant. And be sure you tell him she's married to him. +He may be carrying on with some one else by this time." + +Traveling as a ward of the nation travels; suffering as a white girl +would suffer, from exposure and squalor, weariness and dirt, but bearing +her misery like a squaw, Meta came at last to Custer station. In five +days, always on the outside of comforts that other travelers pay for, +she had passed from the lingering mildness of autumn in southern Idaho +into the early winter of the hard Montana north. + +She was fit only for a sick-bed when she came into the empty station at +Custer, and learned that she was still thirty miles away from the fort. +In her make-believe broken English, she asked a humble question about +transportation. The station-keeper was called away that moment by a +summons from the wire. It was while she stood listening to the tapping +of the message, and waiting to repeat her question, that she felt a +frightening pain, sharp, like a knife sticking in her breast. She could +take only short breaths, yet longed for deep ones to brace her lungs and +strengthen her sick heart. She stepped outside and spoke to a man who +was wheeling freight down the platform. She dared not throw off her +fated disguise and say, "I am the wife of Trumpeter Henniker. How shall +I get to the fort?" for she had stolen a ride of a thousand miles, and +she knew not what the penalty of discovery might be. She had borrowed a +squaw's wretched immunity, and she must pay the price for that which she +had rashly coveted. She pulled her blanket about her face and muttered, +"Which way--Fort Custer?" + +The freight man answered by pointing to the road. Dark wind clouds +rolled along the snow-white tops of the mountains. The plain was a +howling sea of dust. + +"No stage?" she gasped. + +The man laughed and shook his head. "There's the road. Injuns walk." He +went on with his baggage-truck, and did not look at her again. He had +not spoken unkindly: the fact and his blunt way of putting it were +equally a matter of course, Squaws who "beat" their way in on freight +trains do not go out by stage. + +Meta crept away in the lee of a pile of freight, and sat down to nurse +her child. The infant, like herself, had taken harm from exposure to the +cold; his head passages were stopped, and when he tried to nurse he had +to fight with suffocation and hunger both, and threw himself back in the +visible act of screaming, but his hoarse little pipe was muted to a +squeak. This, which sounds grotesque in the telling, was acute anguish +for the mother to see. She covered her face with her blanket and sobbed +and coughed, and the pain tore her like a knife. But she rose, and began +her journey. She had little conception of what she was under-taking, but +it would have made no difference; she must get there on her feet, since +there was no other way. + +She no longer carried her baby squaw fashion. She was out of sight of +the station, and she hugged it where the burden lay heaviest, on her +heart. Her hands were not free, but she had cast away her bundle of +food; she could eat no more; and the warmth of the child's nestling body +gave her all the strength she had,--that and her certainty of Henniker's +welcome. That he would be faithful to her presence she never doubted. He +would see her coming, perhaps, and he would run to catch her and the +child together in his arms. She could feel the thrill of his eyes upon +her, and the half groan of joy with which he would strain her to his +breast. Then she would take one deep, deep breath of happiness,--ah, +that pain!--and let the anguish of it kill her if it must. + +The snows on the mountains had come down and encompassed the whole +plain; the winter's siege had begun. The winds were iced to the teeth, +and they smote like armed men. They encountered Meta carrying some +hidden, precious thing to the garrison at Custer; they seized her and +searched her rudely, and left her, trembling and disheveled, sobbing +along with her silly treasure in her arms. The dust rose in columns, and +traveled with mocking becks and bows before her, or burst like a bomb in +her face, or circled about her like a band of wild horses lashed by the +hooting winds. + +Meantime, Henniker, in span-new civilian dress, was rattling across the +plain on the box seat of the ambulance, beside the soldier driver. The +ambulance was late to catch the east-bound train, and the pay-master was +inside; so the four stout mules laid back their ears and traveled, and +the heavy wheels bounded from stone to stone of the dust-buried road. +Henniker smoked hard in silence, and drew great breaths of cold air into +his splendid lungs. He was warm and clean and sound and fit, from top to +toe. He had been drinking bounteous farewells to a dozen good comrades, +and though sufficiently himself for all ordinary purposes, he was not +that self he would have wished to be had he known that one of the test +moments of his life was before him. It was a mood with him of headlong, +treacherous quiet, and the devil of all foolish desires was showing him +the pleasures of the world. He was in dangerously good health; he had +got his discharge, and was off duty and off guard, all at once. He was a +free man, though married. He was going to his wife, of course. Poor +little Meta! God bless the girl, how she loved him! Ah, those black-eyed +girls, with narrow temples and sallow, deep-fringed eyelids, they knew +how to love a man! He was going to her by way of Laramie, or perhaps the +coast. He might run upon a good thing over there, and start a bit of a +home before he sent for her or went to fetch her; it was all one. She +rested lightly on his mind, and he thought of her with a tender, +reminiscent sadness,--rather a curious feeling considering that he was +to see her now so soon. Why was she always "poor little Meta" in his +thoughts? + +Poor little Meta was toiling on, for "Injuns walk." The dreadful pain of +coughing was incessant. The dust blinded and choked her, and there was a +roaring in her ears which she confused with the night and day burden of +the trains. She was in a burning fever that was fever and chill in one, +and her mind was not clear, except on the point of keeping on; for once +down, she felt that she could never get up again. At times she fancied +she was clinging to the rocking, roaring platforms she had ridden on so +long. The dust swirled around her--when had she breathed anything but +dust! The ground swam like water under her feet. She swayed, and seemed +to be falling,--perhaps she did fall. But she was up and on her feet, +the blanket cast from her head, when the ambulance drove straight +towards her, and she saw him-- + +She had seen it coming, the ambulance, down the long, dizzy rise. The +hills above were white as death; a crooked gash of color rent the sky; +the toothed pines stood black against that gleam, and through the +ringing in her ears, loud and sweet, she heard the trumpets call. The +cloud of delirium lifted, and she saw the uniform she loved; and beside +the soldier driver sat her white chief, looking down at her who came so +late with joy, bringing her babe,--her sheaves, the harvest of that +year's wild sowing. But he did not seem to see her. She had not the +power to speak or cry. She took one step forward and held up the child. + +Then she fell down on her face in the road, for the beloved one had seen +her, and had not known her, and had passed her by. And God would not let +her make one sound. + +How in Heaven's name could it have happened! Could any man believe it of +himself? Henniker put it to his reason, not to speak of conscience or +affection, and never could explain, even to himself, that most unhappy +moment of his life. If he had not a heart for any helpless thing in +trouble, who had? He was the joke of the garrison for his softness about +dogs and women and children. Yet he had met his wife and baby on the +open road, and passed them by, and owned them not, and still he called +himself a man. + +What he had seen at first had been the abject figure of a little squaw +facing the wind, her bowed head shrouded in her blanket, carrying +something which her short arms could barely meet around,--a shapeless +bundle. He did not think it a child, for a squaw will pack her baby +always on her back. He had looked at her indifferently, but with +condescending pity; for the day was rough, and the road was long, even +for a squaw. Then, in all the disfigurement of her dirt and wretchedness +and wild attire, it broke upon him that this creature was his wife, the +rightful sharer of his life and freedom; and that animal-like thing she +held up, that wrung its face and squeaked like a blind kitten, was his +son. + +Good God! He clutched the driver's arm, and the man swore and jerked his +mules out of the road, for the woman had stopped right in the track +where the wheels were going. The driver looked back, but could not see +her; he knew that he had not touched her, only with the wind of his +pace, so he pulled the mules into the road again, and the ambulance +rolled on. + +"Stop; let me get off. That woman is my wife." Henniker heard himself +saying the words, but they were never spoken to the ear. "Stop; let me +get down," the inner voice prompted; but he did not make a sound, and +the curtains flapped and the wheels went bounding along. They were a +long way past the spot, and the station was in sight, when Henniker was +heard to say hoarsely, "Pick her up, as you go back, can't you?" + +"Pick up which?" asked the driver. + +"The--that woman we passed just now." + +"I'll see how she's making it," the man answered coolly. "I ain't much +stuck on squaws. Acted like she was drunk or crazy." + +Henniker's face flushed, but he shuddered as if he were cold. + +"Pick her up, for the child's sake, by God!" No man was ever more +ashamed of himself than he as he took out a gold piece and handed it to +the soldier. "Give her this, Billy,--from yourself, you know. I ain't in +it." + +Billy looked at Henniker, and then at the gold piece. It was a double +eagle; all that the husband had dared to offer as alms to his wife, but +more than enough to arouse the suspicions that he feared. + +"Ain't in it, eh?" thought the soldier. "You knew the woman, and she +knew you. This is conscience money." But aloud he said, "A fool and his +money are soon parted. How do you know but I'll blow it in at canteen?" + +"I'll trust you," said Henniker. + +The men did not speak to each other again. + +"She's one of them Bannocks that camped by old Pop Meadows's place, down +at Bisuka, I bet," said the soldier to himself. + +Henniker went on fighting his fight as if it had not been lost forever +in that instant's hesitation. A man cannot bethink himself: "By the way, +it strikes me that was my wife and child we passed on the road!" What he +had done could never be explained without grotesque lying which would +deceive nobody. + +It could not be undone; it must be lived down. Henniker was much better +at living things down than he was at explaining or trying to mend them. + +After all, it was the girl's own fault, putting up that wretched squaw +act on him. To follow him publicly, and shame him before all the +garrison, in that beastly Bannock rig! Had she turned Bannock altogether +and gone back to the tribe? In that case let the tribe look after her; +he could have no more to do with her, of course. + +He stepped into the smoking-car, and lost himself as quickly as possible +in the interest of new faces around him, and the agreeable impressions +of himself which he read in eyes that glanced and returned for another +look at so much magnificent health and color and virility. His spot of +turpitude did not show through. He was still good to look at; and to +look the man that one would be goes a long way toward feeling that one +is that man. + + +II + +It was at Laramie, between the mountains, and Henniker was celebrating +the present and drowning the past in a large, untrammeled style, when he +received a letter from the quartermaster-sergeant at Custer,--a plain +statement until the end, where Henniker read:-- + +"If you should happen at any time to wish for news of your son, Meadows +and his wife have taken the child. They came on here to get him, and +Meadows insisted on standing the expense of the funeral, which was the +best we could give her for the credit of the troop. He put a handsome +stone over her, with 'Meta, wife of Trumpeter Henniker, K Troop, --th U. +S. Cavalry,' on it; and there it stands to her memory, poor girl, and to +your shame, a false, cruel, and cowardly man in the way you treated her. +And so every one of us calls you, officers and men the same,--of your +old troop that walked behind her to her grave. And where were you, +Henniker, and what were you doing this day two weeks, when we were +burying your poor wife? The twenty dollars you sent her by Billy, +Meadows has, and says he will keep it till he sees you again. Which some +of us think it will be a good while he will be packing that Judas piece +around with him.--And so good-by, Henniker. I might have said less, or I +might have said nothing at all, but that the boy is a fine child, my +wife says, and must have a grand constitution to stand what he has +stood; and I have a fondness for you myself when all is said and done. + +"P. S. I would take a thought for that boy once in a while, if I was +you. A man doesn't care for the brats when he is young, but age cures us +of all wants but the want of a child." + +But Henniker was not ready to go back to the Meadows cottage and be +clothed in the robe of forgiveness, and receive his babe like a pledge +of penitence on his hand. + +The shock of the letter sobered him at first, and then the sting of it +drove him to drinking harder than ever. He did not run upon that "good +thing" at Laramie, nor in any of the cities westward, that one after +another beheld the progress of his deterioration. It does not take long +in the telling, but it was several years before he finally struck upon +the "Barbary Coast" in San Francisco, where so many mothers' sons who +never were heard of have gone down. He went ashore, but he did not quite +go to pieces. His constitution had matured under healthy conditions, and +could stand a good deal of ill-usage; but we are "no stronger than our +weakest part," and at the end of all he found himself in a hospital bed +under treatment for his knee,--the same that had been mulcted for him +twice before. + +He listened grimly to the doctor's explanations,--how the past sins of +his whole impenitent system were being vicariously reckoned for through +this one afflicted member. It was rough on his old knee, Henniker +remarked; but he had hopes of getting out all right again, and he made +the usual sick-bed promises to himself. He did get out, eventually, +without a penny in the world, and with a stiff knee to drag about for +the rest of his life. And he was just thirty-four years old. + +His splendid vitality, that had been wont to express itself in so many +attractive ways, now found its chief vent in talk--inexpensive, +inordinate, meddlesome discourse--wherever two or three were gathered +together in the name of idleness and discontent. The members of these +congregations were pessimists to a man. They disbelieved in everybody +and everything except themselves, and secretly, at times, they were even +a little shaken on that head; but all the louder they exclaimed upon +the world that had refused them the chance to be the great and +successful characters nature had intended them to be. + +It need hardly be said that when Henniker raved about the inequalities +of class, the helplessness of poverty, the tyranny of wealth, and the +curse of labor; and devoted in eloquent phrases the remainder of a +blighted existence to the cause of the Poor Man, he was thinking of but +one poor man, namely, himself. He classed himself with Labor only that +he might feel his superiority to the laboring masses. There were few +situations in which he could taste his superiority, in these days. The +"ego" in his Cosmos was very hungry; his memories were bitter, his hopes +unsatisfied; his vanity and artistic sense were crucified through +poverty, lameness, and bad clothes. Now all that was left him was the +conquests of the mind. For the smiles of women, give him the hoarse +plaudits of men. The dandy of the garrison began to shine in saloon +coteries and primaries of the most primary order. He was the star of +sidewalk convocations and vacant-lot meetings of the Unemployed. But he +despised the mob that echoed his perorations and paid for his drinks, +and was at heart the aristocrat that his old uniform had made him. + + * * * * * + +In the summer of 1894, a little black-eyed boy with chestnut curls used +to swing on the gate of the Meadows cottage that opens upon the common, +and chant some verses of domestic doggerel about Coxey's army, which was +then begging and bullying its way eastward, and demanding transportation +at the expense of the railroads and of the people at large. + +He sang his song to the well-marked tune of Pharaoh's Army, and thus the +verses ran:-- + + "The Coxeyites they gathered, + The Coxeyites they gathered, + And stole a train of freight-cars in the morn, + And stole a train of freight-cars in the morning, + And stole a train of freight-cars in the morn. + + "The engine left them standing, + The engine left them standing, + On the railroad-track at Caldwell in the morn. + Very sad it was for Caldwell in the morning + To feed that hungry army in the morn. + + "Where are all the U. S. marshals, + The deputy U. S. marshals, + To jail that Coxey army in the morn, + That 'industrious, law-abiding' Coxey's army + That stole a train of freight-cars in the morn?" + +Where indeed were all the U. S. marshals? The question was being asked +with anxiety in the town, for a posse of them had gone down to arrest +the defiant train-stealers, and it was rumored that the civil arm had +been disarmed, and the deputies carried on as prisoners to Pocatello, +where the Industrials, two hundred strong, were intrenched in the +sympathies of the town, and knocking the federal authorities about at +their law-abiding pleasure. Pocatello is a division town on the Union +Pacific Railroad; it is full of the company's shops and men, the latter +all in the American Railway Union or the Knights of Labor, and solid on +class issues, right or wrong; and it was said that the master workman +was expected at Pocatello to speak on the situation, and, if need arose, +to call out the trades all over the land in support of the principle +that tramp delegations shall not walk. Disquieting rumors were abroad, +and there was relief in the news that the regulars had been called on +to sustain the action of the federal court. + +The troops at Bisuka barracks were under marching orders. While the town +was alert to hear them go they tramped away one evening, just as a +shower was clearing that had emptied the streets of citizens; and before +the ladies could say "There they go," and call each other to the window, +they were gone. + +Then for a few days the remote little capital, with Coxeyites gathering +and threatening its mails and railroad service, waited in apprehensive +curiosity as to what was going to happen next. The party press on both +sides seized the occasion to point a moral on their own account, and +some said, "Behold the logic of McKinleyism," and others retorted, +"Behold the shadow of the Wilson Bill stalking abroad over the land. Let +us fall on our faces and pray!" But most people laughed instead, and +patted the Coxeyites on the back, preferring their backs to their faces. + +It seemed as if it might be time to stop laughing and gibing and +inviting the procession to move on, when a thousand or more men, +calling themselves American citizens, were parading their idleness +through the land as authority for lawlessness and crime, and when our +sober regulars had to be called out to quell a Falstaff's army. The +regulars, be sure, did not enjoy it. If there is a sort of service our +soldiers would like to be spared, doubtless it is disarming crazy +Indians: but they prefer even that to standing up to be stoned and +insulted and chunked with railroad iron by a mob which they are ordered +not to fire upon, or to entering a peaceful country which has been sown +with dynamite by patriotic labor unions, or prepared with cut-bridges by +sympathetic strikers. + +We are here to be hurt, so the strong ones tell us, and perhaps the best +apology the strong can make to the weak for the vast superiority that +training gives is to show how long they can hold their fire amidst a mob +of brute ignorances, and how much better they can bear their hurts when +the senseless missiles fly. We love the forbearance of our "unpitied +strong;" it is what we expect of them: but we trust also in their +firmness when the time for forbearance is past. + +Little Ross Henniker--named for that mythical great Scotchman, his +supposed grandfather--was deeply disappointed because he did not see the +soldiers go. To have lived next door to them all his life, seven whole +years, and watched them practicing and preparing to be fit and ready to +go, and then not to see them when they did march away for actual service +in the field, was hard indeed. + +Ross was not only one of those brightest boys of his age known to +parents and grand-parents by the million, but he was really a very +bright and handsome child. If Mother Meadows, now "granny," had ever had +any doubts at all about the Scottish chief of the Hudson's Bay Company, +the style and presence of that incomparable boy were proof enough. It +was a marked case of "throwing-back." There was none of the Bannock +here. Could he not be trusted like a man to do whatever things he liked +to do; as riding to fetch the cows and driving them hillward again, on +the weird little spotted pony, hardly bigger than a dog, with a huge +head and a furry cheek and a hanging under-lip, which the tributary +Bannocks had brought him? It was while he was on cow-duty far away, but +not out of sight of the post, that he saw the column move. "Great +Scott!" how he did ride! He broke his stick over the pony's back, and +kicked him with his bare heels, and slapped him with his hat, till the +pony bucked him off into a sagebush whence he picked himself up and flew +as fast as his own legs would spin; but he was too late. Then, for the +first time in six months at least, he howled. Aunt Callie comforted him +with fresh strawberry jam for supper, but the lump of grief remained, +until, as she was washing the dishes, she glanced at him, laughing out +of the corner of her eye, and began to make up the song about Coxey's +army. For some time Ross refused to smile, but when it came to the +chorus about the soldiers who were going + + "To turn back Coxey's army, hallelujah! + To turn back Coxey's army, halleloo!" + +he began to sing "hallelujah" too. Then gun-fire broke in with a +lonesome sound, as if the cavalry up on the hill missed its comrades of +the white stripes who were gone to "turn back" that ridiculous army. + +Mother Meadows wished "that man Coxey had never been born," so weary did +she get of the Coxey song. Coxeyism had taken complete possession of the +young lord of the house, now that his friends the soldiers had gone to +take a hand in the business. + +In a few days the soldiers came back escorting the Coxey prisoners. The +"presence of the troops" had sufficed. The two hundred Coxeyites were to +be tried at Bisuka for crimes committed within the State. They were +penned meanwhile in a field by the river, below the railroad track, and +at night they were shut into a rough barrack which had been hastily put +up for the purpose. A skirt of the town little known, except to the +Chinese vegetable gardeners and makers of hay on the river meadows and +small boys fishing along the shore, now became the centre of popular +regard; and "Have you been down to the Coxey camp?" was as common a +question as "Are you going to the Natatorium Saturday night?" or "Will +there be a mail from the west to-day?" + +One evening, Mother Meadows, with little Ross Henniker by the hand, +stood close to the dead-line of the Coxey field, watching the groups on +the prisoners' side. The woman looked at them with perplexed pity, but +the child swung himself away and cried, "Pooh! only a lot of dirty +hobos!" and turned to look at the soldiers. + +The tents of the guard of regulars stood in a row in front of a rank of +tall poplar-trees, their tops swinging slow in the last sunlight. Behind +the trees stretched the green river flats in the shadow. Frogs were +croaking; voices of girls could be heard in a tennis-court with a high +wall that ran back to the street of the railroad. + +Roll-call was proceeding in front of the tents, the men firing their +quick, harsh answers like scattering shots along the line. Under the +trees at a little distance the beautiful sleek cavalry horses were +grouped, unsaddled and calling for their supper. Ross Henniker gazed at +them with a look of joy; then he turned a contemptuous eye upon the +prisoners. + +"Which of them two kinds of animals looks most like what a man ought to +be?" he asked, pointing to the horses and then to the Coxeyites, who in +the cool of the evening were indulging in unbeautiful horse-play, not +without a suspicion of showing off before the eyes of visitors. The +horses in their free impatience were as unconscious as lords. + +"What are you saying, Ross?" asked Mrs. Meadows, rousing herself. + +"I say, suppose I'd just come down from the moon, or some place where +they don't know a man from a horse, and you said to me: 'Look at these +things, and then look at them things over there, and say which is boss +of t'other.' Why, I'd say _them_ things, every time." Ross pointed +without any prejudice to the horses. + +"My goodness!" cried Mrs. Meadows, "if these Coxeys had been taken care +of and coddled all their lives like them troop horses, they might not be +so handsome, but they'd look a good deal better than what they do. And +they'd have more sense," she added in a lower voice. "Very few poor +men's sons get the training those horses have had. They've learned to +mind, for one thing, and to be faithful to the hand that feeds them." + +"Not all of them don't," said Ross, shaking his head wisely. "There's +kickers and biters and shirks amongst them; but if they won't learn and +can't learn, they get 'condemned.'" + +"And what becomes of them then?" + +"Why, _you_ know," answered the boy, who began to suspect that there was +a moral looming in the distance of this bold generalization. + +"Yes," said Mother Meadows, "I know what becomes of some of them, +because I've seen; and I don't think a condemned horse looks much better +in the latter end of him than a condemned man." + +"But you can't leave them in the troop, for they'd spoil all the rest," +objected the boy. + +"It's too much for me, dear," replied the old woman humbly. "These +Coxeys are a kind of folks I don't understand." + +"I should think you might understand, when the troops have to go out and +run 'em in! I'm on the side of the soldiers, every time." + +"Well, that's simple enough," said Mrs. Meadows. She was a very mild +protagonist, for she could never confine herself to one side of a +question. "I'm on the side of the soldiers, too. A soldier has to do +what he's told, and pays with his life for it, right or wrong." + +"And I think it's a shame to send the beautiful clean soldiers to shove +a lot of dirty hobos back where they belong." + +"My goodness! Hush! you'd better talk less till you get more sense to +talk with," said Mrs. Meadows sternly. A man standing near, with his +back to them, had turned around quickly, and she saw by his angry eye +that he had overheard. She looked at him again, and knew the man. It was +the boy's father. Ross had bounded away to talk to his friend Corporal +Niles. + +"Henniker!" exclaimed Mrs. Meadows in a low voice of shocked amazement. +"It don't seem as if this could be you!" + +"Let that be!" said Henniker roughly. "I didn't enlist by that name in +this army. Who's that young son of a gun that's got so much lip on him?" + +"God help you! don't you know your own son?" + +"What? No! Has he got to be that size already?" The man's weather-beaten +face turned a darker red under the week-old beard that disfigured it. He +sat down on the ground, for suddenly he felt weak, and also to hide his +lameness from the woman who should have hated him, but who simply pitied +him instead. Her face showed a sort of motherly shame for the change +that she saw in him. It was very hard to bear. He had not fully realized +the change in himself till its effect upon her confronted him. He tried +to bluff it off carelessly. + +"Bring the boy here. I have a word to say to him." + +"You should have said it long ago, then." Mrs. Meadows was hurt and +indignant at his manner. "What has been said is said, for good and all. +It's too late to unsay it now." + +"What do you mean by that, Mrs. Meadows? Am I the boy's father or am I +not?" + +"You are not the father he knows. Do you think I have been teaching him +to be ashamed of the name he bears?" + +"Old lady," cried Henniker the Coxeyite, "have you been stuffing that +boy about his dad as you did the mother about hers?" + +"I have told him the truth, partly. The rest, if it wasn't the truth, it +ought to have been," answered Mrs. Meadows stoutly. "I have put the +story right, as an honest man would have lived it. Whatever you've been +doing with yourself these years, it's your own affair, not the boy's nor +mine. Keep it to yourself now. You were too good for them once,--the +mother and the child; they can do without you now." + +"That's all right," said Henniker, wincing; "but as a matter of +curiosity let me hear how you have put it up." + +"How I have what?" + +"How you have dressed up the story to the boy. I'd like to see myself +with a woman's eyes once more." + +Mrs. Meadows looked him over and hesitated; then her face kindled. "I've +told him that his father was a beautiful clean man," she said, using +unconsciously the boy's own words, "and rode a beautiful horse, and +saluted his captain so!" She pointed to the corporal of the guard who +was at that moment reporting. "I told him that when the troops went you +had to leave your young wife behind you, and she could not be kept from +following you with her child; and by a cruel mischance you passed each +other on the road, and you never knew till you had got to her old home +and heard she was dead and buried; and you were so broke up that you +couldn't bear your life in the place where you used to be with her; and +you were a sorrowful wandering man that he must pray for, and ask God to +bring you home. You never came near us, Henniker, nor thought of coming; +but could I tell your own child that? Indeed, I would be afraid to tell +him what did happen on that road from Custer station, for fear when he's +a man he'd go hunting you with a shotgun. Now where is the falsehood +here? Is it in me, or in you, who have made it as much as your own life +is worth to tell the truth about you to your son? _Was_ it the truth, +Henniker? Sure, man, you did love her! What did you want with her else? +Was it the truth that they told us at Custer? There are times when I +can't believe it myself. If there is a word you could say for +yourself,--say it, for the child's sake! You wouldn't mind speaking to +an old woman like me? There was a time when I would have been proud to +call you my son." + +"You are a good woman, Mrs. Meadows, but I cannot lie to you, even for +the child's sake. And it's not that I don't know how to lie, for God +knows I'm nothing but a lie this blessed minute! What do I care for such +cattle as these?" He had risen, and waved his hand contemptuously toward +his fellow-martyrs. "Well, I must be going. I see they're passin' around +the flesh-pots. We're livin' like fighting-cocks here, on a restaurant +contract. There'll be a big deal in it for the marshal, I suspect." +Henniker winked, and his face fell into the lowest of its demoralized +expressions. + +"There's no such a thing!" said Mrs. Meadows indignantly. "Some folks +are willing to work for very little these hard times, and give good +value for their money. You had better eat and be thankful, and leave +other folks alone!" + +Little Ross coming up heard but the last words, and saw his granny's +agitation and the familiar attitude of the strange Coxeyite. His quick +temper flashed out: "Get out with you! Go off where you belong, you +dirty man!" + +Mrs. Meadows caught the boy, and whirled him around and shook him. +"Never, never let me hear you speak like that to any man again!" + +"Why?" he demanded. + +"I'll tell you why, some day, if I have to. Pray God I may never need to +tell you!" + +"Why?" repeated the boy, wondering at her excitement. + +"Come away,--come away home!" she said, and Ross saw that her eyes were +red with unshed tears. He hung behind her and looked back. + +"He's lame," said he, half to himself. "I wouldn't have spoken that way +if I'd known he had a game leg." + +"Who's lame?" asked Mrs. Meadows. + +"The Coxeyite. See. He limps bad." + +"Didn't I tell you! We never know, when we call names, what sore spots +we may be hitting. You may have sore spots of your own some day." + +"I hope I sha'n't be lame," mused the boy. "And I hope I sha'n't be a +Coxey." + +The Coxeyites had been in camp a fortnight when their trial began. Twice +a day the prisoners were marched up the streets of Bisuka to the +courthouse, and back again to camp, till the citizens became accustomed +to the strange, unrepublican procession. The prisoners were herded along +the middle of the street; on either side of them walked the marshals, +and outside of the line of civil officers the guard of infantry or +cavalry, the officers riding and the men on foot. + +This was the last march of the Coxeyites. Many citizens looking on were +of the opinion that if these men desired to make themselves an +"object-lesson" to the nation, this was their best chance of being +useful in that capacity. + +For two weeks, day by day, in the prisoner's field, Henniker had been +confronted with the contrast of his old service with his present +demoralization. He had been a conspicuous figure among the Industrials +until they came in contact with the troops; then suddenly he subsided, +and was heard and seen as little as possible. Not for all that a +populist congress could vote, out of the pockets of the people into the +pockets of the tramp petitioners, would he have posed as one of them +before the eyes of an officer, or a man, of his old regiment, who might +remember him as Trumpeter Henniker of K troop. But the daily march to +the courthouse was the death-sickness of his pride. Once he had walked +these same streets with his head as high as any man's; and it had been, +"How are you, Henniker?" and "Step in, Henniker;" or Callie had been +laughing and falling out of step on his arm, or Meta--poor little +Meta--waiting for him when the darkness fell! + +Now the women ran to the windows and crowded the porches, and stared at +him and his ill-conditioned comrades as if they had been animals +belonging to a different species. + +But Henniker was mistaken here. The eyes of the pretty girls were for +the "pretty soldiers." It was all in the day's work for the soldiers, +who tramped indifferently along; but the officers looked bored, as if +they were neither proud of the duty nor of the display of it which the +times demanded. + +On the last day's march from the courthouse to the camp, there was a +clamor of voices that drowned the shuffling and tramping of the feet. +The prisoners were all talking at once, discussing the sentences which +the court had just announced: the leaders and those taken in acts of +violence to be imprisoned at hard labor for specified terms; the rank +and file to be put back on their stolen progress as far westward, whence +they came, as the borders of the State would allow; there to be staked +out, as it were, on the banks of the Snake River, and guarded for sixty +days by the marshals, supported by the inevitable "presence of the +troops." + +But the sentence that Henniker heard was that private one which his own +child had spoken: "Get out with you! Go back where you belong, you dirty +man!" He had wished at the time that he could make the proud youngster +feel the sting of his own lash: but that thought had passed entirely, +and been merged in the simple hurt of a father's longing for his son. +"If he were mine," he bitterly confessed, "if that little cock-a-hoop +rascal would own me and love me for his dad, I swear to God I could +begin my life again! But now, what next?" + +There had been a stoppage ahead, the feet pressing on had slackened +step, when there, with his back to the high iron gates of the +capitol-grounds, was the beautiful child again. A young woman stood +beside him, a fine, wholesome girl like a full-blown cottage rose, with +auburn hair, an ivory-white throat, and a back as flat as a trooper's. +It was Callie, of course, with Meta's child. The cup of Henniker's +humiliation was full. + +The boy stood with his chin up, his hat on the back of his head, his +plump hands spread on the hips of his white knickerbockers. He was +dressed in his best, as he had come from a children's fęte. Around his +neck hung a prize which he had won in the games, a silver dog-whistle on +a scarlet ribbon. He caught it to his lips and blew a long piercing +trill, his dark eyes smiling, the wind blowing the short curls across +his cheek. + +"There he is, the lame one! I made him look round," said Ross. + +Henniker had turned, for one long look--the last, he thought--at his +son. All the singleness and passion of the mother, the fire and grace +and daring of the father, were in the promise of his childish face and +form. He flushed, not a self-conscious, but an honest, generous blush, +and took his hat away off his head to the lame Coxeyite--"because I was +mean to him; and they are down and done for now, the Coxeys." + +"Whose kid is that?" asked the man who walked beside Henniker, seeing +the gesture and the look that passed between the man and the boy. "He's +as handsome as they make 'em," he added, smiling. + +Henniker did not reply in the proud word "Mine." A sudden heat rushed to +his eyes, his chest was tight to bursting. He pulled his hat down and +tramped along. The shuffling feet of the prisoners passed on down the +middle of the street; the double line of guards kept step on either +side. The dust arose and blended the moving shapes, prisoners and guards +together, and blotted them out in the distance. + +Callie had not seen her old lover at all. "Great is the recuperative +power of the human heart." She had been looking at Corporal Niles, who +could not turn his well-drilled head to look at her. But a side-spark +from his blue eye shot out in her direction, and made her blush and +cease to smile. Corporal Niles carried his head a little higher and +walked a little straighter after that; and Callie went slowly through +the gates, and sat a long while on one of the benches in the park, with +her elbow resting on the iron scroll and her cheek upon her hand. + +She was thinking about the Coxeyites' sentence, and wondering if the +cavalry would have to go down to the stockade prison on the Snake; for +in that case Corporal Niles would have to go, and the wedding be +postponed. Everybody knows it is bad luck to put off a wedding-day; and +besides, the yellow roses she had promised her corporal to wear would +all be out of bloom, and no other roses but those were the true cavalry +yellow. + +But the cavalry did not go down till after the wedding, which took place +on the evening appointed, at the Meadows cottage, between "Sound off" +and "Taps." The ring was duly blessed, and the father's and mother's +kiss was not wanting. The primrose radiance of the summer twilight shone +as strong as lamplight in the room, and Callie, in her white dress, with +her auburn braids gleaming through the wedding-veil and her lover's +colors in the roses on her breast, was as sweet and womanly a picture +as any mother could wish to behold. + +When little Ross came up to kiss the bride, he somehow forgot, and flung +his arms first around Corporal Niles's brown neck. + +"Corporal, I'm twice related to the cavalry now," said he. "I had a +father in it, and now I've got an uncle in it." + +"That's right," the corporal agreed; "and if you have any sort of luck +you'll be in it yourself some day." + +"But not in the ranks," said Ross firmly. "I'm going to West Point, you +know." + +"Bless his heart!" cried Callie, catching the boy in her arms; "and how +does he think he's going to get there?" + +"I shall manage it somehow," said Ross, struggling. He was very fond of +Aunt Callie, but a boy doesn't like to be hugged so before his military +acquaintances, and in Ross's opinion there had been a great deal too +much kissing and hugging, not to speak of crying, already. He did not +see why there should be all this fuss just because Aunt Callie was going +up to the barracks to live, in the jolliest little whitewashed cabin, +with a hop-vine hanging, like the veil on an old woman's bonnet, over +the front gable. He only wished that the corporal had asked him to go +too! + +A slight misgiving about his last speech was making Ross uncomfortable. +If there was a person whose feelings he would not have wished to hurt +for anything in the world, it was Corporal Niles. + +"Corporal," he amended affectionately, "if I should be a West Pointer, +and should be over you, I shouldn't put on any airs, you know. We should +be better friends than ever." + +"I expect we should, captain. I'm looking forward to the day." + + * * * * * + +A mild species of corvée had been put in force down on the Snake River +while the stockade prison was building. The prisoners as a body rebelled +against it, and were not constrained to work; but a few were willing, +and these were promptly stigmatized as "scabs," and ill treated by the +lordly idlers. Hence they were given a separate camp and treated as +trusties. + +When the work was done the trusties were rewarded with their freedom, +either to go independently, or to stay and eat government rations till +the sixty days of their sentence had expired. + +Henniker, in spite of his infirmity, had been one of the hardest +volunteer workers. But now the work was done, and the question returned, +What next? What comes after Coxeyism when Coxeyism fails? + +He sat one evening by the river, and again he was a free man. A dry +embankment, warm as an oven to the touch, sloped up to the railroad +track above his head; tufts of young sage and broken stone strewed the +face of it; there was not a tree in sight. He heard the river boiling +down over the rapids and thundering under the bridge. He heard the +trumpets calling the men to quarters. "Lights out" had sounded some time +before. He had been lying motionless, prone on his face, his head +resting on his crossed arms. The sound of the trumpets made him choke up +like a homesick boy. He lay there till, faintly in the distance, "Taps" +breathed its slow and sweet good-night. + +"Last call," he said. "Time to turn in." He rolled over and began to +pull off the rags in which his child had spurned him. + +"The next time I'm inspected," he muttered, "I shall be a clean man." +So, naked, he slipped into the black water under the bank. The river +bore him up and gave him one more chance, but he refused it: with two +strokes he was in the midst of the death current, and it seized him and +took him down. + + + + +_BOOKS OF FICTION._ + + +Books by Mary Hallock Foote. + + THE CHOSEN VALLEY. A Novel. + THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. Illustrated. + JOHN BODEWIN'S TESTIMONY. + THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL, and THE FATE OF A VOICE. + IN EXILE, AND OTHER STORIES. + COEUR D'ALÉNE. A Novel. + THE CUP OF TREMBLING, AND OTHER STORIES. + + +Clara Louise Burnham. + + Young Maids and Old. + Next Door. + Dearly Bought. + No Gentlemen. + A Sane Lunatic. + The Mistress of Beech Knoll. + Miss Bagg's Secretary. + Dr. Latimer. + Sweet Clover: A Romance of the White City. + The Wise Woman. + + +Edwin Lassetter Bynner. + + Zachary Phips. + Agnes Surriage. + The Begum's Daughter. + + These three Historical Novels: + Penelope's Suitors. + Damen's Ghost. + An Uncloseted Skeleton. (Written with Lucretia P. Hale.) + + +Rose Terry Cooke. + + Somebody's Neighbors. Stories. + Happy Dodd. + The Sphinx's Children. Stories. + Steadfast. + Huckleberries. Gathered from New England Hills. Short Stories. + + +Charles Egbert Craddock [Mary N. Murfree]. + + In the Tennessee Mountains. Short Stories. + Down the Ravine. For Young People. Illustrated. + The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains. + In the Clouds. + The Story of Keedon Bluffs. + The Despot of Broomsedge Cove. + Where the Battle was Fought. + His Vanished Star. + The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain, and Other Stories. + + +Oliver Wendell Holmes. + + Elsie Venner. + The Guardian Angel. + A Mortal Antipathy. + + +Augustus Hoppin. + + Recollections of Auton House. Illustrated by the Author. + A Fashionable Sufferer. Illustrated by the Author. + Two Compton Boys. Illustrated by the Author. + + +Henry James. + + Watch and Ward. + A Passionate Pilgrim, and other Tales. + Roderick Hudson. + The American. + The Europeans. + Confidence. + The Portrait of a Lady. + The Author of Beltraffio; Pandora; Georgina's Reasons; Four Meetings, + etc. + The Siege of London; The Pension Beaurepas; and The Point of View. + Tales of Three Cities (The Impressions of a Cousin; Lady Barberina; + A New England Winter) + Daisy Miller: A Comedy. + The Tragic Muse. + + +Sarah Orne Jewett. + + The King of Folly Island, and other People. + Tales of New England. In Riverside Aldine Series. + A White Heron, and Other Stories. + A Marsh Island. + A Country Doctor. + Deephaven. + Old Friends and New. + Country By-Ways. + The Mate of the Daylight, and Friends Ashore. + Betty Leicester. + Strangers and Wayfarers. + A Native of Winby. + The Life of Nancy, and Other Stories. + + +Ellen Olney Kirk. + + The Story of Lawrence Garthe. + Ciphers. + The Story of Margaret Kent. + Sons and Daughters. + Queen Money. + Better Times. Stories. + A Midsummer Madness. + A Lesson in Love. + A Daughter of Eve. + Walford. + + +Elizabeth Stuart Phelps [Mrs. Ward]. + + The Gates Ajar. + Beyond the Gates. + The Gates Between. + Men, Women, and Ghosts. Stories. + Hedged In. + The Silent Partner. + The Story of Avis. + Sealed Orders, and other Stories. + Friends: A Duet. + Dr. Zay. + An Old Maid's Paradise, and Burglars in Paradise. + The Master of the Magicians. Collaborated by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps + and Herbert D. Ward. + Come Forth. Collaborated by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Herbert D. + Ward. + Fourteen to One. Short Stories. + Donald Marcy. + The Madonna of the Tubs. With Illustrations. + Jack the Fisherman. Illustrated. + A Singular Life. + + +F. Hopkinson Smith. + + Colonel Carter of Cartersville. With Illustrations. + A Day at Laguerre's, and other Days. + A Gentleman Vagabond, and other Stories. + + +Octave Thanet. + + Knitters in the Sun. + Otto the Knight, and other Stories. + + +William Makepeace Thackeray. + + Complete Works. _Illustrated Library Edition._ + With Biographical and Bibliographical Introductions, + Portrait, and over 1600 Illustrations. + + +Gen. Lew Wallace. + + The Fair God; or, The Last of the 'Tzins. A Tale of the Conquest of + Mexico. + + +Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney. + + Faith Gartney's Girlhood. + Hitherto. + Patience Strong's Outings. + The Gayworthys. + A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. + We Girls. + Real Folks. + The Other Girls. + Sights and Insights. + Odd or Even? + Bonnyborough. + Homespun Yarns. Stories. + Ascutney Street. + A Golden Gossip. + Boys at Chequasset. + Mother Goose for Grown Folks. + + +Kate Douglas Wiggin. + + The Birds' Christmas Carol. With Illustrations. + The Story of Patsy. Illustrated. + Timothy's Quest. + A Summer in a Caņon. Illustrated. + A Cathedral Courtship, and Penelope's English Experiences. + Illustrated. + Polly Oliver's Problem. Illustrated. + The Story Hour. 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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 Cup of Trembling and Other Stories + +Author: Mary Hallock Foote + +Release Date: July 5, 2011 [EBook #36625] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CUP *** + + + + +Produced by Katherine Ward, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/tp.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h1>THE CUP OF TREMBLING</h1> + +<h2>AND OTHER STORIES</h2> + +<h2>BY MARY HALLOCK FOOTE</h2> + + +<h3>BOSTON AND NEW YORK<br /> +HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY<br /> +The Riverside Press, Cambridge<br /> +1895</h3> + +<h3>Copyright, 1895,<br /> +<span class="smcap">By</span> MARY HALLOCK FOOTE.</h3> + +<h3><i>All rights reserved.</i></h3> + +<h3><i>The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.</i><br /> +Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.</h3> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#THE_CUP_OF_TREMBLING"><span class="smcap">The Cup of Trembling</span></a><br /> +<a href="#MAVERICK"><span class="smcap">Maverick</span></a><br /> +<a href="#ON_A_SIDE-TRACK"><span class="smcap">On a Side-Track</span></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_TRUMPETER"><span class="smcap">The Trumpeter</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#BOOKS_OF_FICTION">BOOKS OF FICTION.</a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_CUP_OF_TREMBLING" id="THE_CUP_OF_TREMBLING"></a>THE CUP OF TREMBLING</h2> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>A miner of the Cœur d'Alęne was returning alone on foot, one winter +evening, from the town in the gulch to his solitary claim far up on the +timbered mountain-side.</p> + +<p>His nearest way was by an unfrequented road that led to the Dreadnaught, +a lofty and now abandoned mine that had struck the vein three thousand +feet above the valley, but the ore, being low-grade, could never be made +to pay the cost of transportation.</p> + +<p>He had cached his snow-shoes, going down, at the Bruce boys' cabin, the +only habitation on the Dreadnaught road, which from there was still open +to town.</p> + +<p>The snows that camp all summer on the highest peaks of the Cœur +d'Alęne were steadily working downward, driving the game before them; +but traffic had not ceased in the mountains. Supplies were still +delivered by pack-train at outlying claims and distant cabins in the +standing timber. The miner was therefore traveling light, encumbered +with no heavier load than his personal requisition of tobacco and whisky +and the latest newspapers, which he circulated in exchange for the +wayside hospitalities of that thinly peopled but neighborly region.</p> + +<p>His homeward halt at the cabin was well timed. The Bruce boys were just +sitting down to supper; and the moon, that would light his lonelier way +across the white slopes of the forest, would not be visible for an hour +or more. The boys threw wood upon their low cooking-fire of coals, which +flamed up gloriously, spreading its immemorial welcome over that poor, +chance suggestion of a home. The supper was served upon a board, or +literally two boards, nailed shelf-wise across the lighted end of the +cabin, beneath a small window where, crossed by the squares of a dusty +sash, the austere winter twilight looked in: a sky of stained-glass +colors above the clear heights of snow; an atmosphere as cold and pure +as the air of a fireless church; a hushed multitude of trees disguised +in vestments of snow, a mute recessional after the benediction has been +said.</p> + +<p>Each man dragged his seat to the table, and placed himself sidewise, +that his legs might find room beneath the narrow board. Each dark face +was illumined on one side by the fitful fire-glow, on the other by the +constant though fading ray from the window; and, as they talked, the +boisterous fire applauded, and the twilight, like a pale listener, laid +its cold finger on the pane.</p> + +<p>They talked of the price of silver, of the mines shutting down, of the +bad times East and West, and the signs of a corrupt generation; and this +brought them to the latest ill rumor from town—a sensation that had +transpired only a few hours before the miner's departure, and which +friends of the persons discussed were trying to keep as quiet as +possible.</p> + +<p>The name of a young woman was mentioned, hitherto a rather disdainful +favorite with society in the Cœur d'Alęne—the wife of one of the +richest mine-owners in the State.</p> + +<p>The "Old Man," as the miners called him, had been absent for three +months in London, detained from week to week on the tedious but +paramount business of selling his mine. The mine, with its fatalistic +millions (which, it was surmised, had spoken for their owner in marriage +more eloquently than the man could have spoken for himself), had been +closed down pending negotiations for its sale, and left in charge of the +engineer, who was also the superintendent. This young man, whose +personal qualities were in somewhat formidable contrast to those of his +employer, nevertheless, in business ways, enjoyed a high measure of his +confidence, and had indeed deserved it. The present outlook was somewhat +different. Persons who were fond of Waring were saying in town that +"Jack must be off his head," as the most charitable way of accounting +for his late eccentricity. The husband was reported to be on shipboard, +expected in New York in a week or less; but the wife, without +explanation, had suddenly left her home. Her disappearance was generally +accounted a flight. On the same night of the young woman's evanishment, +Superintendent Waring had relieved himself of his duties and +responsibilities, and taken himself off, with the same irrevocable +frankness, leaving upon his friends the burden of his excuses, his +motives, his whereabouts, and his reputation.</p> + +<p>Since news of the double desertion had got abroad, tongues had been +busy, and a vigorous search was afoot for evidence of the generally +assumed fact of an elopement, but with trifling results.</p> + +<p>The fugitives, it was easily learned, had not gone out by the railroad; +but Clarkson's best team, without bells, and a bob-sleigh with two seats +in it had been driven into the stable yard before daylight on the +morning of the discovery, the horses rough and jaded, and white with +frozen steam; and Clarkson himself had been the driver on this hard +night trip. As he was not in the habit of serving his patrons in this +capacity, and as he would give none but frivolous, evasive answers to +the many questions that were asked him, he was supposed to be accessory +to Waring in his crime against the morals of the camp.</p> + +<p>While the visitor enlarged upon the evidence furnished by Clarkson's +night ride, the condition of his horses, and his own frank lying, the +Bruce boys glanced at each other significantly, and each man spat into +the fire in silence.</p> + +<p>The traveler's halt was over. He slipped his feet into the straps of his +snow-shoes, and took his pole in hand; for now the moon had risen to +light his path; faint boreal shadows began to appear on the glistening +slopes. He shuffled away, and his shape was soon lost in the white +depths of the forest.</p> + +<p>The brothers sat and smoked by their sinking fire, before covering its +embers for the night; and again the small window, whitening in the +growing moonlight, was like the blanched face of a troubled listener.</p> + +<p>"That must have been them last night, you recollect. I looked out about +two o'clock, and it <i>was</i> a bob-sleigh, crawlin' up the grade, and the +horses hadn't any bells on. The driver was a thick-set man like +Clarkson, in a buffaler coat. There was two on the back seat, a man and +woman plain enough, all muffled up, with their heads down. It was so +still in the woods I could have heard if they'd been talkin' no louder +than I be now; but not a word was spoke all the way up the hill. I says +to myself, 'Them folks must be pretty well acquainted, 'less they 're +all asleep, goin' along through the woods the prettiest kind of a night, +walkin' their horses, and not a word in the whole dumb outfit.'"</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you didn't open your head about it," said the elder brother. +"We don't know for certain it was them, and it's none of our funeral, +anyhow. Where, think, could they have been going to, supposin' you was +right? Would Jack be likely to harbor up there at the mine?"</p> + +<p>"Where else could they get to, with a team, by this road? Where else +could they be safer? Jack's inside of his own lines up there, and come +another big snow the road'll be closed till spring; and who'd bother +about them, anyway, exceptin' it might be the Old Man? And a man that +leaves his wife around loose the way he done ain't likely to be huntin' +her on snow-shoes up to another man's mine."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe Jack's got the coin to be meanderin' very far just +about now," said the practical elder brother. "He's staked out with a +pretty short rope, unless he's realized on some of his claims. I heard +he was tryin' to dig up a trade with a man who's got a mine over in the +Slocan country. That would be convenient, over the line among the +Kanucks. I wouldn't wonder if he's hidin' out for a spell till he +gathers his senses, and gets a little more room to turn in. He can't fly +far with a woman like her, unless his pockets are pretty well lined. +Them easy-comers easy-goers ain't the kind that likes to rough it. I'll +bet she don't bile his shirts or cook his dinners, not much."</p> + +<p>"It's a wild old nest up there," said the younger and more imaginative +as well as more sympathetic of the brothers—"a wild road to nowhere, +only the dropping-off place."</p> + +<p>"What gets me is that talk of Jack's last fall, when you was in the +Kootenai, about his intentions to bach it up there this winter, if he +could coax his brother out from Manitoba to bach with him. I wouldn't +like to think it of Jack, that he'd lie that way, just to turn folks off +the scent. But he did, sure, pack a lot of his books and stuff up to +the mine; grub, too, a lot of it; and done some work on the cabin. Think +he was fixin' up for a hide-out, in case he should need one? Or wa'n't +it anything but a bluff?"</p> + +<p>"Naw," the other drawled impatiently. "Jack's no such a deep schemer as +all that comes to. More'n likely he seen he was workin' the wrong lead, +and concluded 't was about time for him to be driftin' in another +direction. 'T ain't likely he give in to such foolishness without one +fight with himself. And about when he had made up his mind to fire +himself out, and quit the whole business, the Old Man puts out for +London, stuck on sellin' his mine, and can't leave unless Jack stays +with it. And Jack says to himself, 'Well, damn it all, I done what I +could! What is to be will be.' That's about the way I put it up."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't be surprised," the other assented; "but what's become of the +brother, if there ever was a brother in it at all?"</p> + +<p>"Why, Lord! a man can change his mind. But I guess he didn't tell his +brother about this young madam he was lookin' after along with the rest +of the Old Man's goods. I hain't got nothin' against Jack Waring; he's +always been square with me, and he's an awful good minin' man. I'd trust +him with my pile, if it was millions, but I wouldn't trust him, nor any +other man, with my wife."</p> + +<p>"Sho! she was poor stuff; she was light, I tell ye. Think of some of the +women we've known! Did they need watchin'? No, sir; it ain't the man, +it's the woman, when it's between a young man and a married woman. It's +her foolishness that gits away with them both. Girls is different. I'd +skin a man alive that set the town talkin' about my sister like <i>she's</i> +bein' talked about, now."</p> + +<p>The brothers stepped outside and stood awhile in silence, regarding the +night and breathing the pure, frosty air of the forest. A commiserating +thankfulness swelled in their breasts with each deep, clean inspiration. +They were poor men, but they were free men—free, compared with Jack. +There was no need to bar their door, or watch suspiciously, or skulk +away and hide their direction, choosing the defense of winter and the +deathlike silence of the snows to the observation of their kind.</p> + +<p>They stared with awe up the white, blank road that led to the deserted +mine, and they marveled in homely thinking: "Will it pay?" It was "the +wrong lead this time, sure."</p> + +<p>The brothers watched the road from day to day, and took note that not a +fresh track had been seen upon it; not a team, or a traveler on +snow-shoes, had gone up or down since the night when the bob-sleigh with +its silent passengers had creaked up it in the moonlight. Since that +night of the full moon of January not another footprint had broken the +smoothness of that hidden track. The snow-tides of midwinter flowed over +it. They filled the gulch and softly mounting, snow on snow, rose to the +eaves of the little cabin by the buried road. The Bruce boys dug out +their window; the hooded roof protected their door. They walked about on +top of the frozen tide, and entered their house, as if it were a cellar, +by steps cut in a seven-foot wall of snow.</p> + +<p>One gray day in February a black dog, with a long nose and bloodshot +eyes, leaped down into the trench and pawed upon the cabin door. +Opening to the sound, the Bruce boys gave him a boisterous welcome, +calling their visitor by name. The dog was Tip, Jack Waring's clever +shepherd spaniel, a character as well known in the mountains as his +master. Indeed, he was too well known, and too social in his habits, for +a safe member of a household cultivating strict seclusion; therefore, +when Tip's master went away with his neighbor's wife, Tip had been left +behind. His reappearance on this road was regarded by the Bruce boys as +highly suggestive.</p> + +<p>Tip was a dog that never forgave an injury or forgot a kindness. Many a +good bone he had set down to the Bruce boys' credit in the days when his +master's mine was supposed to be booming, and his own busy feet were +better acquainted with the Dreadnaught road. He would not come in, but +stood at the door, wagging his tail inquiringly. The boys were about to +haul him into the cabin by the hair of his neck, or shut him out in the +cold, when a shout was heard from the direction of the road above. +Looking out, they saw a strange young man on snow-shoes, who hailed +them a second time, and stood still, awaiting their response. Tip +appeared to be satisfied now; he briskly led the way, the boys +following, up the frozen steps cut in their moat-wall of snow, and stood +close by, assisting, with all the eloquence his honest, ugly phiz was +capable of, at the conference that ensued. He showed himself +particularly anxious that his old friends should take his word for the +stranger whom he had introduced and appeared to have adopted.</p> + +<p>Pointing up the mountain, the young man asked, "Is that the way to the +Dreadnaught mine?"</p> + +<p>"There ain't anybody workin' up there now," Jim Bruce replied +indirectly, after a pause in which he had been studying the stranger's +appearance. His countenance was exceedingly fresh and pleasing, his age +about twenty years. He was buttoned to the chin in a reefing-jacket of +iron-gray Irish frieze. His smooth, girlish face was all over one pure, +deep blush from exertion in the cold. He wore Canadian snow-shoes +strapped upon his feet, instead of the long Norwegian skier on which the +men of the Cœur d'Alęne make their winter journeys in the mountains; +and this difference alone would have marked him for a stranger from over +the line. After he had spoken, he wiped away the icy moisture of his +breath that frosted his upper lip, stuck a short pipe between his teeth, +drew off one mitten and fumbled in his clothing for a match. The Bruce +boys supplied him with a light, and as the fresh, pungent smoke +ascended, he raised his head and smiled his thanks.</p> + +<p>"Is this the road to the Waring mine—the Dreadnaught?" he asked again, +deliberately, after a pull or two at his pipe.</p> + +<p>And again came the evasive answer: "Mine's shut down. Ain't nobody +workin' up there now."</p> + +<p>The youngster laughed aloud. "Most uncommunicative population I ever +struck," he remarked, in a sort of humorous despair. "That's the way +they answered me in town. I say, is this a hoodoo? If my brother isn't +up there, where in the devil is he? All I ask is a straight answer to a +straight question."</p> + +<p>The Bruce boys grinned their embarrassment. "You'll have to ask us +somethin' easier," they said.</p> + +<p>"This is the road to the mine, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's the road all right enough," the boys admitted; "but you can +see yourself how much it's been traveled lately."</p> + +<p>The stranger declined to be put off with such casual evidence as this. +"The wind would wipe out any snow-shoe track; and a snow-shoer would as +soon take across the woods as keep the road, if he knew the way."</p> + +<p>"Wal," said Jim Bruce, conclusively, "most of the boys, when they are +humpin' themselves to town, stops in here for a spell to limber up their +shins by our fire; but Jack Waring hain't fetched his bones this way for +two months and better. Looks mighty queer that we hain't seen track nor +trace of him if he's been livin' up there since winter set in. Are you +the brother he was talkin' of sending for to come out and bach it with +him?"</p> + +<p>The boys were conscious of their own uneasy looks as the frank eyes of +the stranger met theirs at the question.</p> + +<p>"I'm the only brother he's got. He wrote me last August that he'd taken +a fit of the sulks, and wanted me to come and help him work it off up +here at his mine. I was coming, only a good job took me in tow; and +after a month or so the work went back on me, and I wrote to Jack two +weeks ago to look out for me; and here I am. And the people in town, +where he's been doing business these six years, act as if they distantly +remembered him. 'Oh, yes,' they say, 'Jack Waring; but he's gone away, +don't you know? Snowed under somewhere; don't know where.' I asked them +if he'd left no address. Apparently not. Asked if he'd seemed to be +clothed in his proper senses when last seen. They thought so. I went to +the post-office, expecting to find his mail piled up there. Every scrap +had been cleaned up since Friday last; but not the letter I wrote him, +so he can't be looking for me. The P. M. squirmed, like everybody else, +when I mentioned my brother; but he owned that a man's mail can't leave +the box without hands, and that the hands belonged usually to some of +the boys at the Mule Deer mine. Now, the Mule Deer is next neighbor to +the Dreadnaught, across the divide. It's a friendly power, I know; and +that confirms me that my brother has done just what he said he was +going to do. The tone of his letter showed that he was feeling a bit +seedy. He seemed to have soured on the town for some reason, which might +mean that the town has soured on him. I don't ask what it is, and I +don't care to know, but something has queered him with the whole crowd. +I asked Clarkson to let me have a man to show me the way to the +Dreadnaught. He calmly lied to me a blue streak, and he knew that I knew +he was lying. And then Tip, here, looked me in the eye, with his head on +one side, and I saw that he was on to the whole business."</p> + +<p>"Smartest dog that ever lived!" Jim Bruce ejaculated. "I wouldn't wonder +if he knew you was Jack's brother."</p> + +<p>"I won't swear that he could name the connection; but he knows I'm +looking for his master, and he's looking for him too; but he's afraid to +trail after him without a good excuse. See? I don't know what Tip's been +up to, that he should be left with a man like Clarkson; but whatever +he's done, he's a good dog now. Ain't you, Tip?"</p> + +<p>"<i>He</i> done!" Jim Bruce interrupted sternly. "Tip never done nothing to +be punished for. Got more sense of what's right than most humans, and +lives up to it straight along. I'd quar'l with any man that looked cross +at that dog. You old brute, you rascal! What you doin' up here? Ain't +you 'shamed, totin' folks 'way up here on a wild-goose chase? What you +doin' it fer, eh? Pertendin' you're so smart! You know Jack ain't up +here; Jack ain't up here, I say. Go along with ye, tryin' to fool a +stranger!"</p> + +<p>Tip was not only unconvinced by these unblushing assertions on the part +of a friend whose word he had never doubted: he was terribly abashed and +troubled by their manifest disingenuousness. From a dog's point of view +it was a poor thing for the Bruce boys to do, trying to pass upon him +like this. He blinked apologetically, and licked his chaps, and wagged +the end of his tail, which had sunk a trifle from distress and +embarrassment at his position.</p> + +<p>The three men stood and watched the workings of his mind, expressed in +his humble, doggish countenance; and a final admission of the truth that +he had been trying to conceal escaped Jim Bruce in a burst of +admiration for his favorite's unswerving sagacity.</p> + +<p>"Smartest dog that ever lived!" he repeated, triumphant in defeat; and +the brothers wasted no more lies upon the stranger.</p> + +<p>There was something uncanny, thought the young man, in this mystery +about his brother, that grew upon him and waxed formidable, and pursued +him even into the depths of the snow-buried wilderness. The breath of +gossip should have died on so clean an air, unless there had been more +than gossip in it.</p> + +<p>The Bruce boys ceased to argue with him on the question of his brother's +occupancy of the mine. They urged other considerations by way of +delaying him. They spoke of the weather; of the look of snow in the sky, +the feeling of snow in the air, the yellow stillness of the forest, the +creeping cold. They tried to keep him over night, on the offer of their +company up the mountain in the morning, if the weather should prove fit. +But he was confident, though graver in manner than at first, that he was +going to a supper and a bed at his brother's camp, to say nothing of a +brother's welcome.</p> + +<p>"I'm positive he's up there. I froze on to it from the first," he +persisted. "And why should I sleep at the foot of the hill when my +brother sleeps at the top?"</p> + +<p>The Bruce boys were forced to let him go on, with the promise, merely +allowing for the chance of disappointment, that if he found nobody above +he would not attempt to return after nightfall by the Dreadnaught road, +which hugs the peak at a height above the valley where there is always a +stiff gale blowing, and the combing drifts in midwinter are forty feet +high.</p> + +<p>"Trust Tip," they said; "he'll show you the trail across the mountain to +the Mule Deer"—a longer but far safer way to shelter for the night.</p> + +<p>"Tip is fly; he'll see me through," said Jack's brother. "I'd trust him +with my life. I'll be back this way possibly in the morning; but if you +don't see me, come up and pay us a visit. We'll teach the Dreadnaught to +be more neighborly. Here's hoping," he cried, and the three drank in +turn out of the young fellow's flask, the Bruce boys almost solemnly as +they thought of the meeting between the brothers, the sequel to that +innocent hope. Unhappy brother, unhappy Jack!</p> + +<p>He turned his face to the snows again, and toiled on up the mountain, +with Tip's little figure trotting on ahead.</p> + +<p>"Think of Jack's leavin' a dog like that, and takin' up with a woman!" +said Jim Bruce, as he squared his shoulders to the fire, yawning and +shuddering with the chill he had brought with him from outside. "And +such a woman!" he added. "I'd want the straight thing, or else I'd +manage to git along without. Anything decent would have taken the dog +too."</p> + +<p>"'Twas mortal cute, though, of the youngster to freeze on to Tip, and +pay no attention to the talk. He knows a dog, that's sure. And Tip +knowed him. But I wish we could 'a' blocked that little rascal's game. +'Twas too bad to let him go on."</p> + +<p>"I never see anybody so stuck on goin' to a place," said the elder +Bruce. "We'll see him back in the morning: but I'll bet he don't jaw +much about brother Jack."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The manager's house at the Dreadnaught had been built in the time of +the mine's supposititious prosperity, and was the ideal log cabin of +the Cœur d'Alęne. A thick-waisted chimney of country rock buttressed +the long side-wall of peeled logs chinked with mud. The front room was +twenty feet across, and had a stone hearth and a floor of dressed pine. +Back of it were a small bedroom and a kitchen into which water was piped +from a spring higher up on the mountain. The roof of cedar shakes +projected over the gable, shading the low-browed entrance from the sun +in summer, and protecting it in winter from the high-piled snows.</p> + +<p>Like a swallow's nest it clung in the hollow of the peak, which slopes +in vast, grand contours to the valley, as if it were the inside of a +bowl, the rim half broken away. The valley is the bottom of the bowl, +and the broken rim is the lower range of hills that completes its +boundary. Great trees, growing beside its hidden streams far below, to +the eye of a dweller in the cabin are dwarfed to the size of junipers, +and the call of those unseen waters comes dreamily in a distant, +inconstant murmur, except when the wind beats up the peak, which it +seldom does, as may be seen by the warp of the pines and tamaracks, and +the drifting of the snows in winter.</p> + +<p>To secure level space for the passage of teams in front of the house, an +embankment had been thrown up, faced with a heavy retaining-wall of +stone. This bench, or terrace, was now all one with the mountain-side, +heaped up and smoothed over with snow.</p> + +<p>Jack, in his winter nest-building, had cleared a little space for air +and light in front of each of the side windows, and with unceasing labor +he shoveled out the snow which the wind as constantly sifted into these +pits, and into the trench beneath the hooded roof that sheltered the +gable entrance.</p> + +<p>The snow walls of this sunken gallery rose to the height of the +door-frame, cutting out all view from without or within. A perpetual +white twilight, warmed by the glow of their hearth-fire, was all that +the fugitives ever saw of the day. Sun, or stars were alike to them. One +link they had with humanity, however, without which they might have +suffered hardship, or even have been forced to succumb to their savage +isolation.</p> + +<p>The friendly Mule Deer across the mountain was in a state of winter +siege, like the Dreadnaught, but had not severed its connections with +the world. It was a working mine, with a force of fifty or more men on +its pay-roll, and regular communication on snow-shoes was had with the +town. The mine was well stocked as well as garrisoned, and Jack was +indebted to the friendship of the manager for many accustomed luxuries +which Esmée would have missed in the new life that she had rashly +welcomed for his sake. No woman could have been less fitted than she, by +previous circumstances and training, to take her share of its hardships, +or to contribute to its slender possibilities in the way of comfort. A +servant was not to be thought of. No servant but a Chinaman would have +been impersonal enough for the situation, and all heathen labor has been +ostracized by Christian white labor from the Cœur d'Alęne.</p> + +<p>So Jack waited upon his love, and was inside man and outside man, and as +he expressed it, "general dog around the place." He was a clever cook, +which goes without saying in one who has known good living, and has +lived eight years a bachelor on the frontier: but he cleaned his own +kitchen and washed his own skillets, which does not go without saying, +sooner than see Esmée's delicate hands defiled with such grimy tasks. He +even swept, as a man sweeps; but what man was ever known to dust? The +house, for all his ardent, unremitting toil, did not look particularly +tidy.</p> + +<p>Its great, dark front room was a man's room, big, undraped and +uncurtained, strongly framed,—the framework much exposed in +places,—heavy in color, hard in texture, yet a stronghold, and a place +of absolute reserve: a very safe place in which to lodge such a secret +as Esmée. And there she was, in her exotic beauty, shivering close to a +roaring fire, scorching her cheeks that her silk-clad shoulders might be +warm. She had never before lived in a house where the fires went out at +night, and water froze beside her bed, and the floors were carpetless +and cold as the world's indifference to her fate. She was absolutely +without clothing suited to such a change, nor would she listen to +sensible, if somewhat unattractive, suggestions from Jack. Now, least of +all times, could she afford to disguise her picturesque beauty for the +sake of mere comfort and common sense, or even to spare Jack his worries +about her health.</p> + +<p>It was noon, and the breakfast-table still stood in front of the fire. +Jack, who since eight o'clock had been chopping wood and "packing" it +out of the tunneled snow-drift which was the woodshed into the kitchen, +and cooking breakfast, and shoveling snow out of the trenches, sat +glowing on his side of the table, farthest from the fire, while Esmée, +her chair drawn close to the hearth, was sipping her coffee and holding +a fan spread between her face and the flames.</p> + +<p>"Jack, I wish you had a fire-screen—one that would stand of itself, and +not have to be held."</p> + +<p>"Bless you! I'd be your fire-screen, only I think I'm rather hotter than +the fire itself. I insist that you take some exercise, Esmée. Come, walk +the trench with me ten rounds before I start."</p> + +<p>"Why do you start so early?"</p> + +<p>"Do you call this early? Besides, it looks like snow."</p> + +<p>"Then, why go at all?"</p> + +<p>"You know why I go, dearest. The boys went to town yesterday. I've had +no mail for a week."</p> + +<p>"And can't you exist without your mail?"</p> + +<p>"Existence is just the hitch with us at present. It's for your sake I +cannot afford to be overlooked. If I fall out of step in my work, it may +take years to get into line again. I can't say like those ballad +fellows:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">'Arise! my love, and fearless be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For o'er the southern moors I have a home for thee.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"I wish I had. We'll put some money in our purse, and then we'll make +ourselves a home where we please. Money is the first thing with us now. +You must see that yourself."</p> + +<p>"I see it, of course; but it doesn't seem the nearest way to a fortune, +going twice a week on snow-shoes to play solo at the Mule Deer mine. +Confess, Jack dear, you do not come straight away as soon as you get +your mail."</p> + +<p>"I do not, of course. I must be civil, after a fashion, to Wilfrid +Knight, considering all that he is doing for me."</p> + +<p>"What is he doing for you?"</p> + +<p>"He's working as hard as he can for me in certain directions. It's best +not to say too much about these things till they've materialized; but he +has as strong a backing as any man in the Cœur d'Alęne. To tell you +the truth, I can't afford <i>not</i> to be civil to him, if it meant solo +every day in the week."</p> + +<p>Esmée smiled a little, but remained silent. Jack went around to the +chimney-piece and filled his pipe, and began to stalk about the room, +talking in brief sentences as he smoked.</p> + +<p>"And by the way, dearest, would you mind if he should drop in on us some +day?" Jack laughed at his own phrase, so literally close to the only +mode of gaining access to their cellarage in the snow.</p> + +<p>Esmée looked up quickly. "What in the world does he want to come here +for? Doesn't he see enough of you as it is?"</p> + +<p>"He wants to see something of you; and it's howling lonesome at the Mule +Deer. Won't you let him come, Esmée?"</p> + +<p>"Why, do you want him, Jack?"</p> + +<p>"I want him! What should I want him for? But we have to be decent to a +man who's doing everything in the world for us. We couldn't have made it +here, at all, without the aid and comfort of the Mule Deer."</p> + +<p>"I'd rather have done without his aid and comfort, if it must be paid +for at his own price.</p> + +<p>"Everything has got to be paid for. Even that inordinate fire, which you +won't be parted from, has to be paid for with a burning cheek."</p> + +<p>"Not if you had a fire-screen, Jack," Esmée reminded him sweetly.</p> + +<p>"We will have one—an incandescent fire-screen on two legs. Will two be +enough? A Mule Deer miner shall pack it in on his back from town. But we +shall have to thank Wilfrid Knight for sending him. Well, if you won't +have him here, he can't come, of course; but it's a mistake, I think. We +can't afford, in my opinion, not to see the first hand that is held out +to us in a social way—a hand that can help us if it will, but one that +is quite as strong to injure us."</p> + +<p>"Have him, then, if he's so dangerous. But is he nice, do you think?"</p> + +<p>"He's nice enough, as men go. We're not any of us any too nice."</p> + +<p>"Some of you are at least considerate, and I think it very inconsiderate +of Mr. Wilfrid Knight to wish to intrude himself on me now."</p> + +<p>"Dearest, he has been kindness itself, and delicacy, in a way. Twice he +has sent a special man to town to hunt up little dainties and comforts +for you when my prison fare"—</p> + +<p>"Jack, what do you mean? Has Wilfrid Knight been putting his hand in his +pocket for things for me to eat and drink?"</p> + +<p>"His pocket's not much hurt. Don't let that disturb you; but it is +something to send a man fifteen miles down the mountain to pack the +stuff. You might very properly recognize that, if you chose."</p> + +<p>"I recognize nothing of it. Why did you not tell me how it was? I +thought that you were sending for those things."</p> + +<p>"How can I send Knight's men on my errands, if you please? I don't show +up very largely at the mine in person. You don't seem to realize the +situation. Did you suppose that the Mule Deer men, when they fetch these +things from town, know whom they are for? They may, but they are not +supposed to."</p> + +<p>"Arrange it as you like, but I will not take presents from the manager +of the Mule Deer."</p> + +<p>"He has dined at your table, Esmée."</p> + +<p>"Not at <i>my</i> table," said Esmée, haughtily averting her face.</p> + +<p>"But you have been nice to him; he remembers you with distinct +pleasure."</p> + +<p>"Very likely. It is my rôle to be nice to people. I should be nice to +him if he came here now; but I should hate him for coming. If <i>he</i> were +nice, he would not dream of your asking him or allowing him to come."</p> + +<p>"Darling, darling, we can't keep it up like this. We are not lords of +fate to that extent. Fellows will pay you attention; they always have +and they always will: but you must not, dearest, imply that I am not +sensitive on the point of what you may or may not receive in that way. I +should make myself a laughing-stock before all men if I should begin by +resenting things. I could not insult you so. I will resent nothing that +a husband does not resent."</p> + +<p>"Jack, don't you understand? I could have taken it lightly once; I +always used to. I can't take it lightly now. I cannot have him come +here—the first to see us in this <i>solitude ā deux</i>, the most intimate, +the most awful—"</p> + +<p>"Of course, of course," murmured Jack. "It is awful, I admit it, for +you. But it always will be. Ours is a double solitude for life, with the +world always eying us askance, scoring us, or secretly envying us, or +merely wondering coarsely about us. It takes tremendous courage in a +woman; but you will have the courage of your honesty, your surpassing +generosity to me."</p> + +<p>"Generosity!" Esmée repeated. "We shall see. I give myself just five +years of this 'generosity.' After that, the beginning of the end. I +shall have to eliminate myself from the problem, to be finally generous. +But five years is a good while," she whispered, "to dare to love my love +in, if my love loves me."</p> + +<p>There could be no doubt of this as yet. Esmée could afford to toy +sentimentally with the thought of future despair and final +self-elimination.</p> + +<p>"Come, come," said Waring; "this will never do; we must get some fresh +air on this." He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, pocketed it, and +marched into an inner room whence he fetched a warm, loose cloak and a +pair of carriage boots.</p> + +<p>"Fresh air and exercise!"</p> + +<p>Esmée, seeing there was to be no escape from Jack's favorite specific +for every earthly ill, put out her foot, in its foolish little slipper, +and Jack drew on the fur-lined boots, and laced them around the silken +ankles.</p> + +<p>He followed her out into the snow-walled fosse, and fell into step +beside her.</p> + +<p>"May I smoke?"</p> + +<p>"What affectation! As if you didn't always smoke."</p> + +<p>"Well, hardly, when I have a lady with me, in such a public place."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Oh me, oh me!" Esmée suddenly broke forth, "why did I not meet you when +you were in New York the winter before! Well, it would have settled one +or two things. And we might be walking like this now, before all the +world, and every one would say we were exactly suited to each other. And +so we are—fearfully and wonderfully. Why did that fact wait to force +itself upon us when to admit it was a crime? And we were so helpless +<i>not</i> to admit it. What resources had I against it?"</p> + +<p>"God knows. Perhaps I ought to have made a better fight, for your sake. +But the fight was over for me the moment I saw that you were unhappy. If +you had seemed reasonably content with your life, or even resigned, I +hope I should have been man enough to have taken myself off and had it +out alone."</p> + +<p>"I had no life that was not all a pretense and a lie. I began by +thinking I could pretend to you. But you know how all that broke down. +Oh, Jack, <i>you</i> know the man!"</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't go on with that, Esmée."</p> + +<p>"But I must. I must explain to you just once, if I can."</p> + +<p>"You need not explain, I should hope, to me."</p> + +<p>"But this is something that rankles fearfully. I must tell you that I +never, never would have given in if I hadn't thought there was something +in him, really. Even his peculiarities at first seemed rather +picturesque; at least they were different from other men's. And we +thought him a great original, a force, a man of such power and capacity. +His very success was supposed to mean that. It was not his gross money +that appealed to me. You could not think that I would have let myself be +literally sold. But the money seemed to show what he had done. I thought +that at least my husband would be a man among men, and especially in the +West. But"—</p> + +<p>"Darling, need we go into all this? Say it to yourself, if it must be +said. You need not say it to me."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> am saying it, not you. It is not you who have a monstrous, +incredible marriage to explain. I must explain it as far as I can. Do +you think I can afford to be without your respect and comprehension +simply because you love me?"</p> + +<p>"But love includes the rest."</p> + +<p>"Not after a while. Now let me speak. It was when he brought me out +here that I saw him as he is. I measured him by the standards of the +life that had made him. I saw that he was just a rough Western man, like +hundreds of others; not half so picturesque as a good many who passed +the window every day. And all his great success, which I had taken as a +proof of ability, meant nothing but a stroke of brutal luck that might +happen to the commonest miner any day. I saw how you pretended to +respect his judgment while privately you managed in spite of it. I could +not help seeing that he was laughed at for his pretensions in the +community that knew him best. It was tearing away the last rag of +self-respect in which I had been trying to dress up my shameful bargain. +I knew what you all thought of him, and I knew what you must think of +me. I could not force myself to act my wretched part before you; it +seemed a deeper degradation when you were there to see. How could I let +you think that <i>that</i> was my idea of happiness! But from the first I +never could be anything with you but just myself—for better or for +worse. It was such a rest, such a perilous rest, to be with you, just +because I knew it was no use to pretend. You always seemed to understand +everything without a word."</p> + +<p>"I understood <i>you</i> because I gave my whole mind to the business. You +were in my thoughts night and day, from the moment I first saw you."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Esmée, passing over this confession as a thing of course in +a young man's relations with his employer's wife. "It was as if we had +been dear friends once, before memory began, before anything began; and +all the rest came of the miserable accident of our being born—mis-born, +since we could not meet until it was too late. Oh, it was cruel! I can +never forgive life, fate, society—whatever it was that played us this +trick. I had the strangest forebodings when they talked about you, +before I saw you—a premonition of a crisis, a danger ahead. There was a +fascination in the commonest reports about you. And then your perfectly +reckless naturalness, of a man who has nothing to hide and nothing to +fear. Who on earth could resist it?"</p> + +<p>"I was the one who ought to have resisted it, perhaps. I don't deny that +I was 'natural.' We're neither of us exactly humbugs—not now. If the +law that we've broken is hunting for us, there will be plenty of good +people to point us out. All that we shall have to face by and by. I wish +I could take your share and mine too; but you will always have it the +harder. That, too, is part of the law, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"I must not be too proud," said Esmée. "I must remember what I am in the +eyes of the world. But, Jack dear, if Wilfrid Knight does come, do not +let him come without telling me first. Don't let him 'drop in on us,' as +you said."</p> + +<p>"He shall not come at all if it bothers you to think of it. I am not +such a politic fellow. It's for your sake, dearest one, that I am +cringing to luck in this way. I never pestered myself much about making +friends and connections; but <i>I</i> must not be too proud, either. It's a +handicap, there's no doubt about that; it's wiser to accept the fact, +and go softly. Great heavens! haven't I got you?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose Wilfrid Knight is a man of the world? He'll know how to spare +the situation?"</p> + +<p>"Quite so," said Jack, with a faint smile. "You needn't be uneasy about +him." Then, more gravely, he added:—</p> + +<p>"He knows this is no light thing with either of us. He must respect your +courage—the courage so rare in a woman—to face a cruel mistake that +all the world says she must cover up, and right it at any cost."</p> + +<p>"That is nonsense," said Esmée, with the violence of acute +sensitiveness. "You need not try to doctor up the truth to me. You know +that men do not admire that kind of courage in women—not in their own +women. Let us be plain with each other. I don't pretend that I came here +with you for the sake of courage, or even of honesty."</p> + +<p>Esmée stopped, and turned herself about, with her shoulders against the +wall of snow, crushing the back of her head deep into its soft, cold +resistance. In this way she gained a glimpse of the sky.</p> + +<p>"Jack, it does look like a storm. It's all over gray, is it not? and the +air is so raw and chilly. I wish you would not go to-day."</p> + +<p>"I'll get off at once, and be back before dark. There shall be no solo +this afternoon. But leave those dishes for me. I despise to have you +wash dishes."</p> + +<p>"I hate it myself. If I do do it, it will be to preserve my +self-respect, and partly because you are so slow, Jack dear, and there's +no comfort in life till you get through. What a ridiculous, blissful, +squalid time it is! Shall we ever do anything natural and restful again, +I wonder?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; when we get some money."</p> + +<p>"I can't bear to hear you talk so much about money. Have I not had +enough of money in my life?"</p> + +<p>"Life is more of a problem with us than it is with most people."</p> + +<p>"Let us go where nature solves the problem. There was an old song one of +my nurses used to sing to me—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Oh, islands there are, in the midst of the deep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the leaves never fade, and the skies never weep.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Can't we go, Jack dear? Let us be South Sea Islanders. Let's be +anything where there will be no dishes to wash, or somebody to wash them +for us."</p> + +<p>"We will go when we get some money," Jack persisted hauntingly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, hush about the money! It's so uncomplimentary of you. I shall begin +to think"—</p> + +<p>"You must not think. Thinking, after a thing is done, is no use. You +must 'sleep, dear, sleep.' I shall be back before dark; but if I am not, +don't think it strange. One never knows what may happen."</p> + +<p>When he was gone Esmée was seized with a profound fit of dawdling. She +sat for an hour in Jack's deep leather chair by the fire, her cloak +thrown back, her feet, in the fur boots, extended to the blaze. For the +first time that day she felt completely warm. She sat an hour dreaming, +in perfect physical content.</p> + +<p>Where did those words that Jack had quoted come from, she mused, and +repeated them to herself, trying their sound by ear.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Then sleep, dear, sleep!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>They gathered meaning from some fragmentary connection in her memory.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"If thou wilt ease thine heart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of love, and all its smart—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Then sleep, dear, sleep!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And not a sorrow"—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>She could recall no more. The lines had an echo of Keats. She looked +across the room toward the low shelves where Jack's books were crammed +in dusty banishment. It was not likely that Keats would be in that +company; yet Jack, by fits and starts, had been a passionate reader of +everybody, even of the poets.</p> + +<p>She was too utterly comfortable to be willing to move merely to lay the +ghost of a vanished song. And now another verse awoke to haunt her:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"But wilt thou cure thine heart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of love, and all its smart—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Then die, dear, die!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'T is deeper, sweeter"—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Than what? She could not remember. She had read the verses long ago, as +a girl of twenty measures time, when the sentiment had had for her the +palest meaning. Now she thought it not extravagant, but simply true.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Then die, dear, die!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>She repeated, pillowing her head in the satin lining of her cloak. A +tear of self-forgiving pity stole down her cheek. Love,—of her own +fair, sensitive self; love of the one who could best express her to +herself, and magnify her day by day, on the highest key of modern poetic +sympathy and primal passion and mediæval romance,—this was the whole of +life to her. She desired no other revelation concerning the mission of +woman. In no other sense would she have held it worth while to be a +woman. Yet she, of Beauty's daughters, had been chosen for that +stupidest of all the dull old world's experiments in what it calls +success—a loveless marriage!</p> + +<p>When at length the fire went down, and the air of the draughty room grew +cool, Esmée languidly bestirred herself. The confusion that Jack had +left behind him in his belated departure began to afflict her—the +unwashed dishes on the table, the crumbs on the floor, the half-emptied +pipe and ashes on the mantel, the dust everywhere. She pitied herself +that she had no one at her command to set things right. At length she +rose, reluctantly dispensing with her cloak, but keeping the fur boots +on her feet, and began to pile up the breakfast dishes, and carry them +by separate journeys to the kitchen.</p> + +<p>The fire had long been out in the cook-stove; the bare little place was +distressingly cold; neither was it particularly clean, and the nature of +its disorder was even more objectionable than that of the sitting-room. +Poor Jack! Esmée had profoundly admired and pitied his struggles with +the kitchen. What man of Jack's type and breeding had ever stood such a +test of devotion? Even young Sir Gareth, who had done the same sort of +thing, had done it for knighthood's sake, and had taken pride in the +ordeal. With Jack such service counted for nothing except as a +preposterous proof of his love for her.</p> + +<p>Suppose she should surprise him in house-wifely fashion, and treat him +to a clean kitchen, a bright fire, and a hot supper on his return? The +fancy was a pleasing one; but when she came to reckon up the unavoidable +steps to its accomplishment, the details were too hopelessly repellent. +She did not know, in fact, where or how to begin. She mused forlornly on +their present situation, which, of course, could not last; but what +would come next? Surely, without money, plucked of the world's respect +and charity, they were a helpless pair. Jack was right; money they must +have; and she must learn to keep her scruples out of his way; he was +sufficiently handicapped already. She hovered about the scene of his +labors for a while, mourning over him, and over herself for being so +helpless to help him. By this time the sitting-room fire had gone quite +down; she put on a pair of gloves before raking out the coals and laying +the wood to rebuild it. The room had still a comfortless air, now that +she was alone to observe it. She could have wept as she went about, +moving chairs, lifting heavy bearskins, and finding dirt, ever more +dirt, that had accumulated under Jack's superficial housekeeping.</p> + +<p>Her timid attempt at sweeping raised a hideous dust. When she tried to +open the windows every one was frozen fast, and when she opened the door +the cold air cut her like a knife.</p> + +<p>She gave up trying to overhaul Jack's back accounts, and contented +herself with smoothing things over on the surface. She possessed in +perfection the decorative touch that lends an outward grace to the +aspect of a room which may be inwardly unclean, and therefore +unwholesome, for those who live in it.</p> + +<p>It had never been required of her that she should be anything but +beautiful and amiable, or do anything but contribute her beauty and +amiability to the indulgent world around her. The hard work was for +those who had nothing else to bestow. She laid Jack's slippers by the +fire, and, with fond coquetry, placed a pair of her own little +mouse-colored suedes, sparkling with silver embroidery, close beside +them. Her velvet wrap with its collar of ostrich plumes she disposed +effectively over the back of the hardwood settle, where the shimmering +satin lining caught a red gleam from the fire. Then she locked the outer +door, and prepared to take Jack's advice, and "sleep, dear, sleep."</p> + +<p>At the door of her bedroom she turned for a last survey of the empty +room—the room that would live in her memory as the scene of this most +fateful chapter of her life. That day, she suddenly remembered, was her +younger sister's wedding-day. She would not permit the thoughts to come. +All weddings, since her own, were hateful to her. "Hush!" she inwardly +breathed, to quell her heart. "The thing was done. All that was left was +dishonor, either way. This is my plea, O God! There was no escape from +shame! And Jack loved me so!"</p> + +<p>About five o'clock of that dark winter day Esmée was awakened from her +warm sleep by a loud knocking on the outside door. It could not be Jack, +for he had carried with him the key of the kitchen door, by which way he +always entered on his return. It was understood between them that in his +absences no stranger could be admitted to the house. Guests they did not +look for; as to friends, they knew not who their friends were, or if, +indeed, they had any friends remaining since their flight.</p> + +<p>The knocking continued, with pauses during which Esmée could fancy the +knocker outside listening for sounds within the house. Her heart beat +hard and fast. She had half risen in her bed; at intervals she drew a +deep breath, and shifted her weight on its supporting arm.</p> + +<p>Footsteps could be heard passing and repassing the length of the trench +in front of the house. They ceased, and presently a man jumped down +into the pit outside her bedroom window; the window was curtained, but +she was aware that he was there, trying to look in. He laid his hand on +the window-frame, and leaped upon the sill, and shook the sash, +endeavoring to raise it; but the blessed frost held it fast. The man had +a dog with him, that trotted after him, back and forth, and seconded his +efforts to gain entrance by leaping against the door, and whining, and +scratching at the lock.</p> + +<p>The girl was unspeakably alarmed, there was something so imperative in +the stranger's demand. It had for her startled ear an awful assurance, +as who should say, "I have a right to enter here." Who was it, what was +it, knocking at the door of that guilty house?</p> + +<p>It seemed to Esmée that this unappeasable presence had haunted the place +for an hour or more, trying windows, and going from door to door. At +length came silence so prolonged and complete that she thought herself +alone at last.</p> + +<p>But Jack's brother had not gone. He was standing close to the window of +the outer room, studying its interior in the strong light and shadow of +a pitch-pine fire. The room was confiding its history to one who was no +stranger to its earlier chapters, and was keen for knowledge of the +rest.</p> + +<p>This was Jack's house, beyond a doubt, and Jack was its tenant at this +present time, its daily intimate inhabitant. In this sense the man and +his house were one.</p> + +<p>The Dreadnaught had been Jack's first important mining venture. In it he +had sunk his share of his father's estate, considerable time and +reputation, and the best work he was capable of; and he still +maintained, in accordance with his temperament, that the mine was a good +mine, only present conditions would not admit of the fact being +demonstrated. The impregnable nature of its isolation made it a +convenient cache for personal properties that he had no room for in his +quarters in town, the beloved impedimenta that every man of fads and +enthusiasms accumulates even in a rolling-stone existence. He was all +there: it was Jack so frankly depicted in his belongings that his young +brother, who adored him, sighed restlessly, and a blush of mingled +emotions rose in his snow-chilled cheek.</p> + +<p>What reminder is so characteristic of a man as the shoes he has lately +put off his feet? And, by token, there were Jack's old pumps waiting for +him by the fire.</p> + +<p>But now suspicion laid its finger on that very unnamed dread which had +been lurking in the young man's thoughts. Jack, the silent room +confessed, was not living here alone. This could hardly be called +"baching it," with a pair of frail little feminine slippers moored close +beside his own. Where had Jack's feet been straying lately,—on what +forbidden ground,—that his own brother must be kept in ignorance of +such a step as this? If he had been mad enough to fetch a bride to such +an inhuman solitude as this,—if this were Jack's lawful honeymoon, why +should his bliss be hedged about with an awkward conspiracy of silence +on the part of all his friends?</p> + +<p>The silent room summoned its witnesses; one by one each mute, inanimate +object told its story. The firelight questioned them in scornful +flashes; the defensive shadows tried to confuse the evidence, and cover +it up.</p> + +<p>But there were the conscious slippers reddening by the hearth. The +costly Paris wrap displayed itself over the back of Jack's honest +hardwood settle. On the rough table, covered with a blanket wrought by +the hands of an Indian squaw, glimpsed a gilded fan, half-open, showing +court ladies, dressed as shepherdesses, blowing kisses to their +ephemeral swains. Faded hot-house roses were hanging their +heads—shriveled packets of sweetness—against the brown sides of a +pot-bellied tobacco-jar, the lid of which, turned upside down, was doing +duty as an ash-receiver. A box of rich confectionery imported from the +East had been emptied into a Dresden bowl of a delicate, frigid pattern, +reminding one of such pure-bred gentlewomen as Jack's little mother, +from whom he had coaxed this bit of the family china on his last home +visit.</p> + +<p>We do not dress up our brother's obliquity in euphemistic phrases; Jack +might call it what he pleased; but not the commonest man that knew him +had been willing to state in plain words the manner of his life at +present, snowed in at the top of the Dreadnaught road. Behold how that +life spoke for itself: how his books were covered with dust; how the +fine, manly rigor of the room had been debased by contact with the +habits of a luxurious dependent woman!</p> + +<p>Here Jack was wasting life in idleness, in self-banishment, in +inordinate affections and deceits of the flesh. The brother who loved +him too well to be lenient to his weakness turned away with a groan of +such indignant heartbreak as only the young can know. Only the young and +the pure in heart can have such faith in anything human as Jack's +brother had had in Jack.</p> + +<p>Esmée, reassured by the long-continued silence, had ventured out, and +now stepped cautiously forward into the broad, low light in the middle +of the room. The fireshine touched her upraised chin, her parted lips, +and a spark floated in each of her large, dark, startled eyes. Tip had +been watching as breathless and as motionless as his companion, but now +at sight of Esmée he bounded against the sash, and squealed his +impatience to be let in. Esmée shrank back with a cry; her hands went up +to her breast and clasped themselves. She had seen the face at the +window. Her attitude was the instinctive expression of her convicted +presence in that house. And the excluded pair who watched her were her +natural judges: Fidelity that she had outraged, and Family Affection +that she had wronged.</p> + +<p>Tip made further demonstrations at the window, but Esmée had dragged +herself away out of sight into her own room.</p> + +<p>The steps of the knocker were heard, a few minutes later, wandering +irresolutely up and down the trench. For the last time they paused at +the door.</p> + +<p>"Shall we knock once more, Tip? Shall we give her one more chance? She +has seen that I am no ruffian; she knows that you are a friend. Now if +she is an honest woman let her show herself! For the last time, then!"</p> + +<p>A terrific peal of knocking shocked the silence. Esmée could have +screamed, there was an accent so scornfully accusative in this last +ironical summons. No answer was possible. The footsteps turned away from +the door, and did not come back.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>The snow that had began to fall softly and quietly about the middle of +the afternoon had steadily increased until now in the thickening dusk it +spread a white blindness everywhere. From her bedroom window Esmée +looked out, and though she could not see the sky, there were signs +enough to tell her what the coming night would be. Fresh snow lay piled +in the trench, and snow was whirling in. The blast outside wailed in the +chimney, and shook the house, and sifted snow in beneath the outer door.</p> + +<p>Esmée was not surprised that Jack, when he came home, should be as +dismal and quiet as she was herself; but it did surprise her that he +should not at once perceive that something had happened in his absence.</p> + +<p>At first there was supper to cook, and she could not talk to him then. +Later, when they were seated together at the table, she tried to speak +of that ghostly knocking; but Jack seemed preoccupied and not inclined +to talk, and she was glad of an excuse to postpone a subject that had +for her a peculiar terror in its suggestions.</p> + +<p>It was nine o'clock before all the little house tasks were done, and +they drew up to the fire, seeking in each other's eyes the assurance +that both were in need of, that nothing of their dear-bought treasure of +companionship had altered since they had sat that way before. But it was +not quite the same Esmée, nor the same Jack. They were not thinking +exclusively of each other.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you read your letters, dear?"</p> + +<p>"I can't read them," said Esmée. "They were not written to me—the woman +I am now."</p> + +<p>These were the home letters, telling of her sister's coming wedding +festivities, that Esmée could not read, especially that one from +Lilla—her last letter as a girl to the sister who had been a bride +herself, and would know what a girl's feelings at such a time must be.</p> + +<p>"I have tried to write to mama," said Esmée; "but it's impossible. +Anything I could say by way of defense sounds as if I were trying to lay +the blame on some one else; and if I say nothing, but just state the +facts, it is harsh, as if I were brazening it out. And she has never +seen you, Jack. You are my only real defense. By what you are, by what +you will be to me, I am willing to be judged."</p> + +<p>"Dearest, you make me ashamed, but I can say the same of you. Still, to +a mother, I'm afraid it will make little difference whether it's +'Launcelot or another.'"</p> + +<p>"It certainly made little difference to her when she made her choice of +a husband for me," said Esmée, bitterly. One by one she dropped the +sheets of her letters in the fire, and watched them burn to ashes.</p> + +<p>"When they know—if they ever write to me after that, I will read those +letters. These have no meaning." They had too much meaning, was what +Esmée should have said.</p> + +<p>After a silence Jack spoke somewhat hoarsely: "It's a beastly long time +since I have written to any of my people. It's a pity I didn't write and +tell them something; it might have saved trouble. But how can a fellow +write? I got a letter to-day from my brother Sid. Says he's thinking of +coming out here."</p> + +<p>"Heaven save us!" cried Esmée. "Do write at once—anything—say +anything you like."</p> + +<p>Jack smiled drearily. "I'm afraid it's too late. In fact, the letter was +written the day before he was to start, and it's dated January 25. +There's a rumor that some one is in town, now, looking for me. I +shouldn't be surprised if it were Sid."</p> + +<p>"What if it were?" asked Esmée. "What could you do?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, indeed," said Jack. "I'm awfully cut up about it. The +worst of it is, I asked him to come."</p> + +<p>"You asked him!"</p> + +<p>"Some time ago, dearest, when everything was different. I thought I must +make the fight for both our sakes, and I sent for Sid, thinking it might +help to have him here with me."</p> + +<p>"Did you indeed," said Esmée, coldly. "What a pity he did not come +before it was too late; he might have saved us both. How long ago was +it, please?"</p> + +<p>"Esmée, don't speak to me like that."</p> + +<p>"But do you realize what you are saying?"</p> + +<p>"You should not mind what I say. Think—what shall we do if it should +be Sid? It rests with you, Esmée. Could you bear to meet him?"</p> + +<p>"What is he like?" said Esmée, trembling.</p> + +<p>"Oh, he's a lovely fellow. There's nobody like Sid."</p> + +<p>"What does he look like?"</p> + +<p>"He's good-looking, of course, being my brother," said Jack, with a +wretched attempt at pleasantry, which met with no response. Esmée was +staring at him, a strange terror in her eyes. "But there is more to his +looks, somehow, than to most pretty boys. People who are up in such +things say he's like the Saint George, or Saint Somebody, by Donatello. +He's blond, you know; he's as fresh as a girl, but he has an uncommonly +set look at times, when he's serious or a bit disgusted about something. +He has a set in his temper, too. I should not care to have Sid hear our +story—not till after he had seen you, Esmée. Perhaps even then he could +not understand. He has never loved a woman, except his mother. He +doesn't know what a man's full-grown passion means. At least, I don't +think he knows. He was rather fiercely moral on some points when I +talked to him last; a little bit inhuman—what is it, Esmée?"</p> + +<p>"There is that dog again!"</p> + +<p>Jack looked at her in surprise at her shocked expression. Every trace of +color had left her face. Her eyes were fixed upon the door.</p> + +<p>"What dog? Why, it's Tip."</p> + +<p>A creature as white as the storm sprang into the room as he opened the +door, threw himself upon Jack, and whimpered and groaned and shivered, +and seemed to weep with joy. Jack hugged him, laughing, and then threw +him off, and dusted the snow from his clothing.</p> + +<p>Tip shook himself, and came back excitedly for more recognition from his +master. He took no notice at all of Esmée.</p> + +<p>"Speak to him, won't you, dear? It's only manners, even if you don't +care for him," Jack prompted gently. But Tip refused to accept Esmée's +sad, perfunctory greeting; his countenance changed, he held aloof, +glancing at her with an unpleasant gleam in his bloodshot eyes.</p> + +<p>He had satisfied the cravings of affection, and now made it plain that +his visit was on business that demanded his master's attention outside +of the house. Jack knew the creature's intelligent ways so well that +speech was hardly needed between them. "What's the racket, Tip? What's +wrong out there? No, sir; I don't go back to town with you to-night, +sir. Not much. Lie down! Be quiet, idiot!"</p> + +<p>But Tip stood at the door, and began to whine, fixing his eyes on his +master's face. As nothing came of this, he went back and stood in front +of him, wagging his tail heavily and slowly; troubled wrinkles stood out +over his beseeching eyes.</p> + +<p>"What under heaven's the matter with you, dog? You're a regular funeral +procession." Jack shoved the creature from him, and again he took up his +station at the door. Jack rose, and opened it, and playfully tried to +push him out. Tip stood his ground, always with his eyes on his master's +face, and whimpered under his breath with almost tearful meaning.</p> + +<p>"He's on duty to-night," said Jack. "He's got something on his mind, and +he wants me to help him out with it. I say, old chap, we don't keep a +life-saving station up here. Get out with your nonsense."</p> + +<p>"There was some one with him when he was here this afternoon," Esmée +forced herself to say.</p> + +<p>"Has Tip been here before?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Jack. But a man was with him—a young, strange man. It was about +four o'clock, perhaps five; it was getting dusk. I had been asleep, and +I was so frightened. He knocked and knocked. I thought he would never +stop knocking. He came to my window, and tried to get in, but the sash +was frozen fast." Esmée paused, and caught her breath. "And I heard a +dog scratching and whining."</p> + +<p>"Did you not see the man?"</p> + +<p>"I did. I saw him," gasped Esmée. "It was all quiet after a while. I +thought he had gone. I came out into the room, and there he stood close +by that window, staring in; and the dog was with him. It was Tip."</p> + +<p>"And you did not open the door to Tip?"</p> + +<p>"Jack dear, have you not told me that I was never to open the door when +you were away?"</p> + +<p>"But didn't you speak to the man? Didn't you ask him who he was or what +he wanted?"</p> + +<p>"How could I? He did not speak to me. He stared at me as if I were a +ghost, and then he went away."</p> + +<p>"I would have questioned any man that came here with Tip. Tip doesn't +take up with toughs and hobos. What was he like?"</p> + +<p>Esmée had retreated under this cross-questioning, and stood at some +distance from Jack, pale, and trembling with an ague of the nerves.</p> + +<p>"What was he like?" Jack repeated.</p> + +<p>"He was most awfully beautiful. He had a face like—like a death-angel."</p> + +<p>Jack rejected this phrase with an impatient gesture. "Was he fair, with +blue eyes, and a little blond mustache?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. The light was not good. He stood close to the window, or +I could not have seen him. What have I done? Was it wrong not to open +the door?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind about that, Esmée. I want you to describe the man."</p> + +<p>"I can't describe him. I don't need to. I know—I know it was your +brother."</p> + +<p>"It must have been; and we have been sitting here—how many hours?"</p> + +<p>"I did not know there could be anybody—who—had a right to come in."</p> + +<p>"Such a night as this? Get away, Tip!"</p> + +<p>Jack had risen, and thrown off his coat. Esmée saw him get down his +snow-shoe rig. He pulled on a thick woolen jersey, and buttoned his +reefer over that. His foot-gear was drying by the fire; he put on a pair +of German stockings, and fastened them below the knee, and over these +the India-rubber buskins which a snow-shoer wears.</p> + +<p>"Tip had better have something to eat before we start," he suggested. He +did not look at Esmée, but his manner to her was very gentle and +forbearing; it cut her more than harsh words and unreasonable reproaches +would have done.</p> + +<p>"He seems to think that I have done it," she said to herself, with the +instinct of self-defense which will always come first with timid +natures.</p> + +<p>Tip would not touch the food she brought him. She followed him about the +room meekly, with the plate in her hand; but he shrunk away, lifting +his lip, and showing the whites of his blood-rimmed eyes.</p> + +<p>Except for this defect, the sequel of distemper or some other of the +ills of puppyhood, Tip had been a good-looking dog. But this accident of +his appearance had prejudiced Esmée against him at the first sight. +Later he had made her dislike and fear him by a habit he had of dogging +his master to her door, and waiting there, outside, like Jack's +discarded conscience. If chidden, or invited to come in, the +unaccountable creature would skulk away, only to return and take up his +post of dumb witness as before; so that no one who watched the movements +of Jack's dog could fail to know how Jack bestowed his time. In this +manner Esmée had come almost to hate the dog, and Tip returned her +feeling in his heart, though he was restrained from showing it. But +to-night there was a new accusation in his gruesome eye.</p> + +<p>"He will not eat for me," said Esmée, humbly.</p> + +<p>"He must eat," said Jack. "Here, down with it!" The dog clapped his jaws +on the meat his master threw to him, and stood ready, without a change +of countenance, at the door.</p> + +<p>"Can't you say that you forgive me?" Esmée pleaded.</p> + +<p>"Forgive you? Who am I, to be forgiving people?" Jack answered hoarsely.</p> + +<p>"But say it—say it! It was your brother. If it had been mine, I could +forgive you."</p> + +<p>"Esmée, you don't see it as it is."</p> + +<p>"I do see it; but, Jack, you said that I was not to open the door."</p> + +<p>"Well, you didn't open it, did you? So it's all right. But there's a man +out in the snow, somewhere, that I have got to find, if Tip can show me +where he is. Come, Tip!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jack! You will not go without"—Jack turned his back to the door, +and held out his arms. Esmée cast herself into them, and he kissed her +in bitter silence, and went out.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>These two were seated together again by the fire in the same room. It +was four o'clock in the morning, but as dark as midnight. The floor in +spots was wet with melted snow. They spoke seldom, in low, tired +voices; it was generally Esmée who spoke. They had not been weeping, but +their faces were changed and grown old. Jack shivered, and kept feeding +the fire. On the bed in the adjoining room, cold as the snow in a +deserted nest, lay their first guest, whom no house fire would ever +warm.</p> + +<p>"I cannot believe it. I cannot take it in. Are you sure there is nothing +more we could do that a doctor would do if we had one?"</p> + +<p>"We have done everything. It was too late when I found him."</p> + +<p>"How is it possible? I have heard of persons lost for days—and this was +only such a few hours."</p> + +<p>"A few hours! Good God, Esmée! Come out with me, and stand five minutes +in this storm, if you can. And he had been on snow-shoes all day; he had +come all the way up-hill from town. He had had no rest, and nothing to +eat. And then to turn about, and take it worse than ever!"</p> + +<p>"It is an impossible thing," she reiterated. "I am crazy when I think of +it."</p> + +<p>Tip lifted his head uneasily, rose, and tapped about the room, his +long-nailed toes rattling on the uncarpeted floor. He paused, and licked +up one of the pools of melted snow. "Stop that!" Jack commanded. There +was dead silence. Then Tip began again his restless march about the +room, pausing at the bedroom door to whine his questioning distress.</p> + +<p>"Can't you make him stay in the kitchen?" Esmée suggested timidly.</p> + +<p>"It is cold in the kitchen. Tip has earned his place by my fire as long +as I shall have one," said Jack, emphatically.</p> + +<p>Down fell some crashing object, and was shivered on the floor. The dog +sprang up, and howled; Esmée trembled like a leaf.</p> + +<p>"It's only your little looking-glass," she whispered. There was no +mystery in its having fallen in such a wind from the projecting log +where Esmée, with more confidence than judgment, had propped it.</p> + +<p>In silence both recalled the light words that had passed when Jack had +taken it down from its high nail, saying that the mirrors in his +establishment had not been hung with reference to persons of her size; +and Esmée could see the picture they had made, putting their heads +together before it, Jack stooping, with his hands on her shoulders, to +bring his face in line with hers. Those laughing faces! All smiles, all +tremulous mirth in that house had vanished as the reflections in a +shattered mirror.</p> + +<p>Jack got up, and fetched a broom, and swept the clinking fragments into +the fire. The frame he broke in two and tossed after them.</p> + +<p>"Call me as soon as it is light enough to start," he said to Esmée.</p> + +<p>"But not unless it has stopped snowing?"</p> + +<p>"Call me as soon as it is light, please," Jack repeated. He stumbled as +he walked, like an old man. Esmée followed him into the drear little +kitchen, where a single candle on the table was guttering in the draft. +The windows were blank with frost, the boards cracked with the cold. +Esmée helped prepare him a bed on a rude bunk against the wall, and Jack +threw himself down on his pallet, and closed his eyes, without speaking. +Esmée stood watching him in silence a moment; then she fell on her knees +beside him on the floor.</p> + +<p>"Say that you can forgive me! How shall I bear it all alone!"</p> + +<p>At first Jack made no answer; he could not speak; his breath came deep +and hard. Then he rose on one elbow, and looked at her with great stern +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Have I accused you? You did not do it. I did not do it. It happened—to +show us what we are. We have broken with all the ties of family. We can +have no brother or sister—our brothers and sisters are the rebels like +ourselves; every man and woman whom society has branded and cast out. +Sooner or later we shall embrace them all. Nothing healthy can come near +us and not take harm from us. We are contamination to women and +destruction to men. Poor Sid had better have come to a den of thieves +and murderers than to his own brother's house last night; yet we might +have done him worse harm if we had let him in. Now he is only +dead—clean and true, as he lived. He is dead through my sin. Do you +see, now, what this means to me?"</p> + +<p>"I see," said Esmée, rising from her knees. She went out of the room, +closing the door gently between them.</p> + +<p>Jack lay stretching his aching muscles in one position after another, +and every way he turned his thoughts pursued him. The brutality of his +speech to Esmée wrought its anguish equally upon him, now that it was +too late to get back a single word. Still, she must understand,—she +would understand, when she came to think—how broken up he was in mind +and body, how crazed for want of rest after that horrible night's work. +This feeling of irresponsibility to himself satisfied him that she could +not hold him responsible for his words at such a time. The strain he was +supporting, mentally and physically, must absolve him if she had any +consideration for him left.</p> + +<p>So at length he slept. Esmée was careful not to disturb him. She had no +need of bodily rest, and the beating of her heart and the ceaseless +thinking went on and on.</p> + +<p>"I am to be left here alone with <i>it</i>"—she glanced toward the room +where the body lay—"while he goes for help to take it to town. He has +not asked me if I can go through with this. If I should say to him, +'Spare me this awful trial,' he would answer,—and of course he would be +right,—'There are only us two; one to go and one to stay. Is it so +much to ask of you after what has happened?'</p> + +<p>"He does not ask it; he expects it. He is not my tender, remorseful +lover now, dreading for me, every day, what his happiness must cost me. +He is counting what I have cost him in other possessions which he might +have had if he had not paid too great a price for one."</p> + +<p>So these two had come to judge each other in the common misery that +drove them apart. Toward daylight the snow ceased and the wind went +down. Jack had forgotten to provide wood for Esmée's fire; the room was +growing cold, and the wood supply was in the kitchen, where he slept. +She sat still and suffered mutely, rather than waken him before the +time. This was not altogether consideration for him. It was partly +wounded pride, inflicting its own suffering on the flesh after a moral +scourging, either through one's own or another's conscience.</p> + +<p>When the late morning slowly dawned, she went to waken him, obedient to +orders. She made every effort to arouse him, but in vain. His sleep was +like a trance. She had heard of cases of extreme mental and physical +strain where a sleep like this, bordering on unconsciousness, had been +nature's cure. She let him sleep.</p> + +<p>Seeing that her movements did not disturb him, she went cautiously about +the room, trying, now in forlorn sincerity, to adapt herself to the +necessities of the situation. She did her best to make ready something +in the nature of a breakfast for Jack when he should at length awaken. +It promised to be a poor substitute, but the effort did her good.</p> + +<p>It was after noon before Jack came to himself. He had been awake some +little time, watching her, before she was aware of it. He could see for +himself what she had been trying to accomplish, and he was greatly +touched.</p> + +<p>"Poor child!" he said, and held out his arms.</p> + +<p>She remained at a distance, slightly smiling, her eyes on the floor.</p> + +<p>He did not press the moment of reconciliation. He got upon his feet, +and, in the soldierly fashion of men who live in camps and narrow +quarters, began to fold his blankets, and straighten things in his +corner of the room.</p> + +<p>"If you will go into the sitting-room, I will bring in the breakfast, +such as it is," said Esmée. Jack obeyed her meekly. The sitting-room +fire had been relighted, and was burning brightly. It was strange to him +to sit and see her wait upon him. Stranger still was her silence. Here +was a new distress. He tried to pretend unconsciousness of the change in +her.</p> + +<p>"It is two o'clock," he said, looking at his watch. "I'm afraid I shall +be late getting back; but you must not worry. The storm is over, and I +know every foot of the way."</p> + +<p>"Did I do wrong," Esmée questioned nervously, "not to call you? I tried +very hard, but you could not wake. You must have needed to sleep, I +think."</p> + +<p>"Do you expect me to scold you every time I speak, Esmée? I have said +enough, I think. Come here, dear girl. <i>I</i> need to be forgiven now. It +cuts me to the heart to see you so humble. May God humble me for those +words I said!"</p> + +<p>"You spoke the truth. Only we had not been telling each other the truth +before."</p> + +<p>"No. And we must stop it. We shall learn the truth fast enough. We need +not make whips of it to lash each other with. Come here."</p> + +<p>"I can't," said Esmée in a choking whisper.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you can. You shall forgive me."</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "That is not the question. You did not do it. I did +not do it. God has done it—as you said."</p> + +<p>"Did I say that? Did I presume to preach to you?"</p> + +<p>"If I have done what you say—if I have cut you off from all human +relations, and made your house worse than a den of thieves and +murderers, how can anything be too bad for me to hear? What does it +matter from whom I hear it?"</p> + +<p>"I was beside myself. I was drunk with sorrow and fatigue."</p> + +<p>"That is when people speak the truth, they say. I don't blame you, Jack. +How should I? But you know it can never be the same, after this, with +you or with me."</p> + +<p>"Esmée," said Jack, after a long and bitter silence, holding out his +shaking hand, "will you come with me in there, and look at him? He knows +the truth—the whole truth. If you can see in his face anything like +scorn or reproach, anything but peace,—peace beyond all +conception,—then I will agree that we part this day, forever. Will you +come?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jack, you <i>are</i> beside yourself, now. Do you think that I would go +in there, in the presence of <i>that</i> peace, and call on it for my +justification, and begin this thing again? I should expect that peace +would come to me—the peace of instant death—for such awful +presumption."</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean that—not to excuse ourselves; only to bring back the +trust that was between us. Does this bitterness cure the past? Have we +not hurt each other enough already?"</p> + +<p>"I think so. It is sufficient for me. But men, they say, get over such +things, and their lives go on, and they take their places as before. I +want you to"—</p> + +<p>"There is nothing for me—will you believe it?—more than there is for +you. Will you not do me that much justice, not to treat this one +passion of my life as—what shall I say? It is not possible that you can +think such things. We must make up to each other for what we have each +cost the other. Come. Let us go and stand beside him—you and I, before +the others get here. It will do us good. Then we will follow him out, on +his way home, as far as we can; and if there is any one in town who has +an account with me, he can settle it there and then. Perhaps my mother +will have both her sons shipped home to her on the same train."</p> + +<p>Jack had not miscounted on the effect of these words. They broke down +Esmée's purer resolution with their human appeal. Yet he was not +altogether selfish.</p> + +<p>He held out his hand to her. She took it, and they went together, +shrinkingly, into the presence of the dead. When they came out, the eyes +of both were wet.</p> + +<p>Late as it was, it was inevitable that Jack must start. Esmée watched +him prepare once more for the journey. When he was ready to set out, she +said to him, with an extreme effort:</p> + +<p>"If any one should come while you are gone, I am to let him in?"</p> + +<p>"Do as you think best, dear; but I am afraid that no one will disturb +you. It will be a lonely watch. I wish I could help you through with +it."</p> + +<p>"It is my watch," said Esmée. "I must keep it."</p> + +<p>She would have been thankful for the company even of Tip, to answer for +something living, if not human, in the house; but the dog insisted so +savagely on following his master that she was forced to set him free. +She closed the door after him, and locked it mechanically, hardly aware +of what she did.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>There is a growth of the spirit which is gradual, progressive, +healthful, and therefore permanent. There are other psychical births +that are forced, convulsive, agonizing in their suddenness. They may be +premature, brought on by the shock of a great sorrow, or a sin perhaps +committed without full knowledge of its nature, or realization of its +consequences. Such births are perilous and unsure. Of these was the +spiritual crisis through which Esmée was now passing.</p> + +<p>She had made her choice: human love was satisfied according to the +natural law. Now, in the hours of her solitary watch, that irrevocable +choice confronted her. It was as a cup of trembling held to her lips by +the mystery of the Invisible, which says: Whoever will drink of this cup +of his desire, be it soon, be it late, shall drain it to the dregs, and +"wring them out." Esmée had come very soon to the dregs of her cup of +trembling.</p> + +<p>In such anguish and abasement her new life of the spirit began. Will she +have strength to sustain it, or must it pass like a shaken light into +the keeping of a steadier hand?</p> + +<p>She was but dimly aware of outward changes as the ordeal wore on. It had +been pale daylight in the cabin, and now it was dusk. It had been as +still as death outside after the night of storm, the cold relenting, the +frost trickling like tears down the pane; but now there was a rising +stir. The soft, wild gale, the chinook of the Northwest, came roaring up +the peak—the breath of May, but the voice of March. The forest began to +murmur and moan, and strip its white boughs of their burden, and all +its fairy frost-work melted like a dream. At intervals in the deep +timber a strange sound was heard, the rush and thump of some soft, heavy +mass into the snow. Esmée had never heard the sound before; it filled +her with a creeping dread. Every separate distinct pounce—they came at +intervals, near or far, but with no regularity—was a shock to her +overwrought nerves. These sounds had taken sole possession of her ear. +It was hence a double shock, at about the same hour of early twilight +when her visitor had come the night before, to hear again a man's feet +in the trench outside, and again a loud knock upon the door.</p> + +<p>Her heart with its panting answered in her breast. There was a pause +while outside the knocker seemed to listen, as he had done before. Then +the new-born will of the woman fearfully took command of her cowering +senses. Something that was beyond herself forced her to the door. Pale, +and weak in every limb, she dragged herself to meet whatever it was that +summoned her. This time she opened the door.</p> + +<p>There stood a mild-faced man, in the dress of a miner, smiling +apologetically. Esmée simply stared at him, and held the door wide. The +man stepped hesitatingly inside, taking off his hat to the pale girl who +looked at him so strangely.</p> + +<p>David Bruce modestly attempted to give an incidental character to his +visit by inventing an errand in that neighborhood.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me, ma'am," he said. "I was going along over to the Mule Deer, +but I thought I'd just ask if Mr. Waring's brother got through all right +yesterday evenin'. It was so ugly outside."</p> + +<p>The girl parted her lips to speak, but no sound came. The light shone in +her ashy face. Her eyes were losing their expression. Bruce saw that she +was fainting, and caught her as she fell.</p> + +<p>The interview begun in this unpromising manner proved of the utmost +comfort to Esmée. There was nothing in Bruce's manner to herself, +nothing in his references to Jack, that implied any curiosity on his +part as to the relation between them, or the least surprise at their +being together at the Dreadnaught. He had "spared the situation" with an +instinct that does not come from knowledge of the world.</p> + +<p>He listened to her story of the night's tragedy, which she told with +helpless severity, almost with indifference, as if it had happened to +another.</p> + +<p>He appeared to be greatly moved by it personally; its moral significance +he did not seem to see. He sat helplessly repeating himself, in his +efforts to give words to his sorrow for the "kid." His vocabulary being +limited, and chiefly composed of words which he could not use before a +lady, he was put to great inconvenience to do justice to his feelings.</p> + +<p>He blamed himself and his brother for letting the young man go by their +cabin on such a threatening day.</p> + +<p>"Why, Jim and me we couldn't get to sleep for thinkin' about him, 't was +blowin' such a blizzard. Seemed like we could hear him a-yellin' to us, +'Is this the way to the Dreadnaught mine?' Wisht the Lord we'd 'a' said +it wa'n't. Well, sir, we don't want no more such foolishness. And that's +partly why I come. We never thought but what he <i>had</i> got through, for +all we was pestered about it, or else me and Jim would 'a' turned out +last night. But what we was a-sayin' this morning was this: Them folks +up there ain't acquainted with this country like we be—not in the +winter-time. This here is what we call snow-slide weather. Hain't you +been hearing how things is lettin' go? The snow slumpin' off the +trees—you must have heard that. It's lettin' go up above us, too. +There's a million ton of snow up there a-settlin' and a-crawlin' in this +chinook, just a-gettin' ready to start to slide. We fellers in the +mountains know how 'tis. This cabin has stood all right so far, but the +woods above was cut last summer. Now, I want you to come along with me +right now. I've got a hand-sleigh here. You can tuck yourself up on it, +and we'll pull out for the Mule Deer, and likely meet with Mr. Waring on +the way. And if there's a snow-slide here before morning, it'll bury the +dead, and not the living and the dead."</p> + +<p>At these words the blood rushed to Esmée's cheek, and then dropped back +to her heart, leaving her as white as snow.</p> + +<p>"I don't remember that I have ever seen you before," she said; "but I +thank you more than I ever thanked anybody in all my life."</p> + +<p>David Bruce thought of course that she was going with him. But that was +not what she meant. Her face shone. God, in his great mercy, had given +her this one opportunity.</p> + +<p>"This is my watch, you know. I cannot leave this house. But I don't +think there will be a snow-slide. Things do not happen so simply as +that. You don't know what I mean? But think a moment. You know, do you +not, who I am? Should you think really that death is a thing that any +friend of mine would wish to save me from? Life is what I am afraid +of—long life to the end. I don't think there will be a snow-slide, not +in time for me. But I thank you so much. You have made me feel so +human—so like other people. You don't understand that, either? Well, no +matter. I am just as grateful. I shall remember your visit all my life; +and even if I live long, I doubt if I shall ever have a kinder visitor. +I am much better for your coming, though you may think you have come for +nothing. Now you must go before it gets too dark. You will go to the +Mule Deer, will you not, and carry this same message to—there?"</p> + +<p>"I'm goin' to stop right here till Jack Waring gets back."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, you're not. You are going this instant." She rose, and held out +her hand. She had that power over him that one so much in earnest as she +will always have over one who is amazed and in doubt.</p> + +<p>"Won't you shake hands with me?" Her thrilling voice made a sort of +music of the common words.</p> + +<p>He took her hand, and wagged it clumsily in a dazed way, and she almost +pushed him out of the house.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Well, I'll be hanged if that ain't the meanest trick since I was +born—to leave a little lone woman watchin' with a dead man in a cabin, +with snow-slides startin' all over the mountains! What's the matter with +me, anyhow? Seem to be knocked silly with her blamed queer talk. Heap of +sense in it, too. Wouldn't think one of her kind would see it that way, +though. Durned if I know which kind she is. B'lieve I'll go back now. +Why, Lord! I must go back! What'll I say to Jim?"</p> + +<p>David Bruce had gained the top of the road leading away from the mine +before he came to himself in a burst of unconscious profanity. He could +hear the howling of the wind around the horn of the peak. He looked up +and down, and considered a second.</p> + +<p>In another second it was too late—too late to add his life to hers, +that instant buried beneath the avalanche.</p> + +<p>A stroke out of a clear sky; a roar that filled the air; a burst of +light snow mounting over the tree-tops like steam condensed above a +rushing train; a concussion of wind that felled trees in the valley a +hundred yards from the spot where the plunging mass shot down—then the +chinook eddied back, across the track of the snow-slide, and went +storming up the peak.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="MAVERICK" id="MAVERICK"></a>MAVERICK</h2> + + +<p>Traveling Buttes is a lone stage-station on the road, largely speaking, +from Blackfoot to Boise. I do not know whether the stages take that road +now, but ten years ago they did, and the man who kept the stage-house +was a person of primitive habits and corresponding appearance named +Gilroy.</p> + +<p>The stage-house is perhaps half a mile from the foot of the largest +butte, one of three that loom on the horizon, and appear to "travel" +from you, as you approach them from the plains. A day's ride with the +Buttes as a landmark is like a stern chase, in that you seem never to +gain upon them.</p> + +<p>From the stage-house the plain slopes up to the foot of the Big Butte, +which rises suddenly in the form of an enormous tepee, as if Gitche +Manito, the mighty, had here descended and pitched his tent for a +council of the nations.</p> + +<p>The country is destitute of water. To say that it is "thirsty" is to +mock with vain imagery that dead and mummied land on the borders of the +Black Lava. The people at the stage-house had located a precious spring, +four miles up, in a cleft near the top of the Big Butte; they piped the +water down to the house and they sold it to travelers on that Jericho +road at so much per horse. The man was thrown in, but the man usually +drank whisky.</p> + +<p>Our guide commented unfavorably on this species of husbandry, which is +common enough in the arid West, and as legitimate as selling oats or +hay; but he chose to resent it in the case of Gilroy, and to look upon +it as an instance of individual and exceptional meanness.</p> + +<p>"Any man that will jump God's water in a place like this, and sell it +the same as drinks—he'd sell water to his own father in hell!"</p> + +<p>This was our guide's opinion of Gilroy. He was equally frank, and much +more explicit, in regard to Gilroy's sons. "But," he concluded, with a +philosopher's acceptance of existing facts, "it ain't likely that any of +that outfit will ever git into trouble, so long as Maverick is sheriff +of Lemhi County."</p> + +<p>We were about to ask why, when we drove up to the stage-house, and +Maverick himself stepped out and took our horses.</p> + +<p>"What the—infernal has happened to the man?" my companion, Ferris, +exclaimed; and our guide answered indifferently, as if he were speaking +of the weather,—</p> + +<p>"Some Injuns caught him alone in an out-o'-the-way ranch, when he was a +kid, and took a notion to play with him. This is what was left when they +got through. I never see but one worse-looking man," he added, speaking +low, as Maverick passed us with the team: "him a bear wiped over the +head with its paw. 'Twas quicker over with, I expect, but he lived, and +<i>he</i> looked worse than Maverick."</p> + +<p>"Then I hope to the Lord I may never see him!" Ferris ejaculated; and I +noticed that he left his dinner untasted, though he had boasted of a +hunter's appetite.</p> + +<p>We were two college friends on a hunting trip, but we had not got into +the country of game. In two days more we expected to make Jackson's +Hole, and I may mention that "hole," in this region, signifies any +small, deep valley, well hidden amidst high mountains, where moisture +is perennial, and grass abounds. In these pockets of plenty, herds of +elk gather and feed as tame as park pets; and other hunted creatures, as +wild but less innocent, often find sanctuary here, and cache their +stolen stock and other spoil of the road and the range.</p> + +<p>We did not forget to put our question concerning Maverick, that unhappy +man, in his character of legalized protector of the Gilroy gang. What +did our free-spoken guide mean by that insinuation?</p> + +<p>We were told that Gilroy, in his rough-handed way, had been as a father +to the lad, after the savages wreaked their pleasure on him: and his +people being dead or scattered, Maverick had made himself useful in +various humble capacities at the stage-house, and had finally become a +sort of factotum there and a member of the family. And though perfectly +square himself, and much respected on account of his personal courage +and singular misfortunes, he could never see the old man's crookedness, +nor the more than crookedness of his sons. He was like a son of the +house, himself; but most persons agreed that it was not as a brother he +felt toward Rose Gilroy. And a tough lookout it was for the girl; for +Maverick was one whom no man would lightly cross, and in her case he was +acting as "general dog around the place," as our guide called it. The +young fellows were shy of the house, notwithstanding the attraction it +held. It was likely to be Maverick or nobody for Rose.</p> + +<p>We did not see Rose Gilroy, but we heard her step in the stage-house +kitchen, and her voice, as clear as a lark's, giving orders to the tall, +stooping, fair young Swede, who waited on us at table, and did other +work of a menial character in that singular establishment.</p> + +<p>"How is it the watch-dog allows such a pretty sprig as that around the +place?" Ferris questioned, eying our knight of the trencher, who blushed +to feel himself remarked.</p> + +<p>"He won't stay," our guide pronounced; "they don't none of 'em stay when +they're good-lookin'. The old man he's failin' considerable these +days,—gettin' kind o' silly,—and the boys are away the heft of the +time. Maverick pretty much runs the place. I don't justly blame the +critter. He's watched that little Rose grow up from a baby. How's he +goin' to quit being fond of her now she's a woman? I dare say he'd a +heap sooner she'd stayed a little girl. And these yere boys around here +they're a triflin' set, not half so able to take care of her as +Maverick. He's got the sense and he's got the sand; but there's that +awful head on him! I don't blame him much, lookin' the way he does, and +feelin' the same as any other man."</p> + +<p>We left Traveling Buttes and its cruel little love-story, but we had not +gone a mile when a horseman overtook us with a message for Ferris from +his new foreman at the ranch, a summons which called him back for a day +at the least. Ferris was exceedingly annoyed: a day at the ranch meant +four days on the road; but the business was imperative. We held a brief +council, and decided that, with Ferris returning, our guide should push +on with the animals and camp outfit into a country of grass, and look up +a good camping-spot (which might not be the first place he struck) this +side of Jackson's Hole. It remained for me to choose between going with +the stuff, or staying for a longer look at the phenomenal Black Lava +fields at Arco; Arco being another name for desolation on the very edge +of that weird stone sea. This was my ostensible reason for choosing to +remain at Arco; but I will not say the reflection did not cross me that +Arco is only sixteen miles from Traveling Buttes—not an insurmountable +distance between geology and a pretty girl, when one is five and twenty, +and has not seen a pretty face for a month of Sundays.</p> + +<p>Arco, at that time, consisted of the stage-house, a store, and one or +two cabins—a poor little seed of civilization dropped by the wayside, +between the Black Lava and the hills where Lost River comes down and +"sinks" on the edge of the lava. The station is somewhat back from the +road, with its face—a very grimy, unwashed countenance—to the lava. +Quaking asps and mountain birches follow the water, pausing a little way +up the gulch behind the house, but the eager grass tracks it all the way +till it vanishes; and the dry bed of the stream goes on and spreads in a +mass of coarse sand and gravel, beaten flat, flailed by the feet of +countless driven sheep that have gathered here. For this road is on the +great overland sheep-trail from Oregon eastward—the march of the +million mouths, and what the mouths do not devour the feet tramp down.</p> + +<p>The staple topic of conversation at Arco was one very common in the far +west, when a tenderfoot is of the company. The poorest place can boast +of some distinction, and Arco, though hardly on the highroad of fashion +and commerce, had frequently been named in print in connection with +crime of a highly sensational and picturesque character. Scarcely +another fifty miles of stage-road could boast of so many and such +successful road-jobs; and although these affairs were of almost monthly +occurrence, and might be looked for to come off always within that noted +danger-limit, yet it was a fact that the law had never yet laid finger +on a man of the gang, nor gained the smallest clew to their hide-out. It +was a difficult country around Arco, one that lent itself to secrecy. +The road-agents came, and took, and vanished as if the hills were their +co-partners as well as the receivers of their goods. As for the lava, +which was its front dooryard, so to speak, for a hundred miles, the man +did not live who could say he had crossed it. What it held or was +capable of hiding, in life or in death, no man knew.</p> + +<p>The day after Ferris left me I rode out upon that arrested tide—those +silent breakers which for ages have threatened, but never reached, the +shore. I tried to fancy it as it must once have been, a sluggish, +vitreous flood, filling the great valley, and stiffening as it slowly +pushed toward the bases of the hills. It climbed and spread, as dough +rises and crawls over the edge of the pan. The Black Lava is always +called a sea—that image is inevitable; yet its movement had never in +the least the character of water. "This is where hell pops," an old +plains-man feelingly described it, and the suggestion is perfect. The +colors of the rock are those produced by fire: its texture is that of +slag from a furnace. One sees how the lava hardened into a crust, which +cracked and sank in places, mingling its tumbled edges with the creeping +flood not cooled beneath. After all movement had ceased and the mass was +still, time began upon its tortured configurations, crumbled and wore +and broke, and sifted a little earth here and there, and sealed the +burnt rock with fairy print of lichens, serpent-green and orange and +rust-red. The spring rains left shallow pools which the summer dried. +Across it, a few dim trails wander a little way and give out, like the +water.</p> + +<p>For a hundred miles to the Snake River this Plutonian gulf obliterates +the land—holds it against occupation or travel. The shoes of a marching +army would be cut from their feet before they had gone a dozen miles +across it; horses would have no feet left; and water would have to be +packed as on an ocean, or a desert, cruise.</p> + +<p>I rode over places where the rock rang beneath my horse's hoofs like the +iron cover of a manhole. I followed the hollow ridges that mounted often +forty feet above my head, but always with that gruesome effect of +thickening movement—that sluggish, atomic crawl; and I thought how one +man pursuing another into this frozen hell might lose himself, but never +find the object of his quest. If he took the wrong furrow, he could not +cross from one blind gut into another, nor hope to meet the fugitive at +any future turning.</p> + +<p>I don't know why the fancy of a flight and pursuit should so have +haunted me, in connection with the Black Lava; probably the desperate +and lawless character of our conversation at the stage-house gave rise +to it.</p> + +<p>I had fallen completely under the spell of that skeleton flood. I +watched the sun sink, as it sinks at sea, beyond its utmost ragged +ridges; I sat on the borders of it, and stared across it in the gray +moonlight; I rode out upon it when the Buttes, in their delusive +nearness, were as blue as the gates of amethyst, and the morning was as +fair as one great pearl; but no peace or radiance of heaven or earth +could change its aspect more than that of a mound of skulls. When I +began to dream about it, I thought I must be getting morbid. This is +worse than Gilroy's, I said; and I promised myself I would ride up there +next day and see if by chance one might get a peep at the Rose that all +were praising, but none dared put forth a hand to pluck. Was it indeed +so hard a case for the Rose? There are women who can love a man for the +perils he has passed. Alas, Maverick! could any one get used to a face +like that?</p> + +<p>Here, surely, was the story of Beauty and her poor Beast humbly +awaiting, in the mask of a brutish deformity, the recognition of Love +pure enough to divine the soul beneath, and unselfish enough to deliver +it. Was there such love as that at Gilroy's? However, I did not make +that ride.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was the fourth night of clear, desert moonlight since Ferris had left +me: I was sleepless, and so I heard the first faint throb of a horse's +feet approaching from the east, coming on at a great pace, and making +the turn to the stage-house. I looked out, and on the trodden space in +front I saw Maverick dismounting from a badly blown horse.</p> + +<p>"Halloo! what's up?" I called from the open window of my bedroom on the +ground-floor.</p> + +<p>"Did two men pass here on horseback since dark?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," I said; "about twelve o'clock: a tall man and a little short +fellow."</p> + +<p>"Did they stop to water?"</p> + +<p>"No, they did not; and they seemed in such a tearing hurry that I +watched them down the road"—</p> + +<p>"I am after those men, and I want a fresh horse," he cut in. "Call up +somebody quick!"</p> + +<p>"Shall you take one of the boys along?" I inquired, with half an eye to +myself, after I had obeyed his command.</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "Only one horse here that's good for anything: I want +that myself."</p> + +<p>"There is my horse," I suggested; "but I'd rather be the one who rides +her. She belongs to a friend."</p> + +<p>"Take her, and come on, then, but understand—this ain't a Sunday-school +picnic."</p> + +<p>"I'm with you, if you'll have me."</p> + +<p>"I'd sooner have your horse," he remarked, shifting the quid of tobacco +in his cheek.</p> + +<p>"You can't have her without me, unless you steal her," I said.</p> + +<p>"Git your gun, then, and shove some grub into your pockets: I can't wait +for nobody." He swung himself into the saddle.</p> + +<p>"What road do you take?"</p> + +<p>"There ain't but one," he shouted, and pointed straight ahead.</p> + +<p>I overtook him easily within the hour; he was saving his horse, for +this was his last chance to change until Champagne Station, fifty miles +away.</p> + +<p>He gave me rather a cynical smile of recognition as I ranged alongside, +as if to say, "You'll probably get enough of this before we are +through." The horses settled down to their work, and they "humped +theirselves," as Maverick put it, in the cool hours before sunrise.</p> + +<p>At daybreak his awful face struck me all afresh, as inscrutable in its +strange distortion as some stone god in the desert, from whose graven +hideousness a thousand years of mornings have silently drawn the veil.</p> + +<p>"What do you want those fellows for?" I asked, as we rode. I had taken +for granted that we were hunting suspects of the road-agent persuasion.</p> + +<p>"I want 'em on general principles," he answered shortly.</p> + +<p>"Do you think you know them?"</p> + +<p>"I think they'll know me. All depends on how they act when we get within +range. If they don't pay no attention to us, we'll send a shot across +their bows. But more likely they'll speak first."</p> + +<p>He was very gloomy, and would keep silence for an hour at a time. Once +he turned on me as with a sudden misgiving.</p> + +<p>"See here, don't you git excited; and whatever happens, don't you meddle +with the little one. If the big fellow cuts up rough, he'll take his +chances, but you leave the little one to me. I want him—I want him for +State's evidence," he finished hoarsely.</p> + +<p>"The little one must be the Benjamin of the family," I thought—"one of +the bad young Gilroys, whose time has come at last; and sheriff Maverick +finds his duty hard."</p> + +<p>I could not say whether I really wished the men to be overtaken, but the +spirit of the chase had undoubtedly entered into my blood. I felt as +most men do, who are not saints or cowards, when such work as this is to +be done. But I knew I had no business to be along. It was one thing for +Maverick, but the part of an amateur in a man-hunt is not one to boast +of.</p> + +<p>The sun was now high, and the fresh tracks ahead of us were plain in the +dust. Once they left the road and strayed off into the lava, +incomprehensibly to me; but Maverick understood, and pressed forward. +"We'll strike them again further on. D—— fool!" he muttered, and I +observed that he alluded but to one, "huntin' water-holes in the lava in +the tail end of August!"</p> + +<p>They could not have found water, for at Belgian Flat they had stopped +and dug for it in the gravel, where a little stream in freshet time +comes down the gulch from the snow-fields higher up, and sinks, as at +Arco, on the lip of the lava. They had dug, and found it, and saved us +the trouble, as Maverick remarked.</p> + +<p>Considerable water had gathered since the flight had paused here and +lost precious time. We drank our fill, refreshed our horses, and shifted +the saddle-girths; and I managed to stow away my lunch during the next +mile or so, after offering to share it with Maverick, who refused it as +if the notion of food made him sick. He had considerable whisky aboard, +but he was, I judged, one of those men on whom drink has little effect; +else some counter-flame of excitement was fighting it in his blood.</p> + +<p>I looked for the development of the personal complication whenever we +should come up with the chase, for the man's eye burned, and had his +branded countenance been capable of any expression that was not cruelly +travestied, he would have looked the impersonation of wild justice.</p> + +<p>It was now high noon, and our horses were beginning to feel the steady +work; yet we had not ridden as they brought the good news from Ghent: +that is the pace of a great lyric; but it's not the pace at which +justice, or even vengeance, travels in the far West. Even the furies +take it coolly when they pursue a man over these roads, and on these +poor brutes of horses, in fifty-mile stages, with drought thrown in.</p> + +<p>Maverick had had no mercy on the pony that brought him sixteen miles; +but this piece of horse-flesh he now bestrode must last him through at +least to Champagne Station, should we not overhaul our men before. He +knew well when to press and when to spare the pace, a species of purely +practical consideration which seemed habitual with him; he rode like an +automaton, his baleful face borne straight before him—the Gorgon's +head.</p> + +<p>Beyond Belgian Flat—how far beyond I do not remember, for I was +beginning to feel the work, too, and the country looked all alike to me +as we made it, mile by mile—the road follows close along by the lava, +but the hills recede, and a little trail cuts across, meeting the road +again at Deadman's Flat. Here we could not trust to the track, which +from the nature of the ground was indistinct. So we divided our forces, +Maverick taking the trail,—which I was quite willing he should do, for +it had a look of most sinister invitation,—while I continued by the +longer road. Our little discussion, or some atmospheric change,—some +breath of coolness from the hills,—had brought me up out of my stupor +of weariness. I began to feel both alert and nervous; my heart was +beating fast. The still sunshine lay all around us, but where Maverick's +white horse was climbing, the shadows were turning eastward, and the +deep gulches, with their patches of aspen, were purple instead of brown. +The aspens were left shaking where he broke through them and passed out +of sight.</p> + +<p>I kept on at a good pace, and about three o'clock I, being then as much +as half a mile away, saw the spot which I knew must be Deadman's Flat; +and there were our men, the tall one and his boyish mate, standing +quietly by their horses in broad sunlight, as if there were no one +within a hundred miles. Their horses had drunk, and were cropping the +thin grass, which had set its tooth in the gravel where, as at the other +places, a living stream had perished. I spurred forward, with my heart +thumping, but before they saw me I saw Maverick coming down the little +gulch; and from the way he came I knew that he had seen them.</p> + +<p>The scene was awful in its treacherous peacefulness. Their shadows slept +on the broad bed of sunlight, and the gulch was as cool and still as a +lady's chamber. The great dead desert received the silence like a +secret.</p> + +<p>Tenderfoot as I was, I knew quite well what must happen now; yet I was +not prepared—could not realize it—even when the tall one put his hand +quickly behind him and stepped ahead of his horse. There was the flash +of his pistol, and the loud crack echoing in the hill; a second shot, +and then Maverick replied deliberately, and the tall one was down, with +his face in the grass.</p> + +<p>I heard a scream that sounded strangely like a woman's; but there were +only the three, the little one, acting wildly, and Maverick bending over +him who lay with his face in the grass. I saw him turn the body over, +and the little fellow seemed to protest, and to try to push him away. I +thought it strange he made no more of a fight, but I was not near enough +to hear what those two said to each other.</p> + +<p>Still, the tragedy did not come home to me. It was all like a scene, and +I was without feeling in it except for that nervous trembling which I +could not control.</p> + +<p>Maverick stood up at length, and came slowly toward me, wiping his face. +He kept his hat in his hand, and, looking down at it, said huskily:—</p> + +<p>"I gave that man his life when I found him last spring runnin' loose +like a wild thing in the mountains, and now I've took it; and God above +knows I had no grudge ag'in' him, if he had stayed in his place. But he +would have it so."</p> + +<p>"Maverick, I saw it all, and I can swear it was self-defense."</p> + +<p>His face drew into the tortured grimace which was his smile. "This here +will never come before a jury," he said. "It's a family affair. Did ye +see how he acted? Steppin' up to me like he was a first-class shot, or +else a fool. He ain't nary one; he's a poor silly tool, the whip-hand of +a girl that's boltin' from her friends like they was her mortal enemies. +Go and take a look at him; then maybe you'll understand."</p> + +<p>He paused, and uttered the name of Jesus Christ, but not as such men +often use it, with an inconsequence dreadful to hear: he was not idly +swearing, but calling that name to witness solemnly in a case that would +never come before a jury.</p> + +<p>I began to understand.</p> + +<p>"Is it—is the girl"—</p> + +<p>"Yes; it's our poor little Rose—that's the little one, in the gray hat. +She'll give herself away if I don't. She don't care for nothin' nor +nobody. She was runnin' away with that fellow—that dish-washin' Swede +what I found in the mountings eatin' roots like a ground-hog, with the +ends of his feet froze off. Now you know all I know—and more than she +knows, for she thinks she was fond of him. She wa'n't, never—for I +watched 'em, and I know. She was crazy to git away, and she took him for +the chance."</p> + +<p>His excitement passed, and we sat apart and watched the pair at a +distance. She—the little one—sat as passively by her dead as Maverick +pondering his cruel deed; but with both it was a hopeless quiet.</p> + +<p>"Come," he said at length, "I've got to bury him. You look after her, +and keep her with you till I git through. I'm givin' you the hardest +part," he added wistfully, as if he fully realized how he had cut +himself off from all such duties, henceforth, to the girl he was +consigning to a stranger's care.</p> + +<p>I told him I thought that the funeral had more need of me than the +mourner, and I shrank from intruding myself.</p> + +<p>"I dassent leave her by herself—see? I don't know what notion she may +take next, and she won't let me come within a rope's len'th of her."</p> + +<p>I will not go over again that miserable hour in the willows, where I +made her stay with me, out of sight of what Maverick was doing. Ours +were the tender mercies of the wicked, I fear; but she must have felt +that sympathy at least was near her, if not help. I will not say that +her youth and distressful loveliness did not sharpen my perception of a +sweet life wasted, gone utterly astray, which might have brought God's +blessing into some man's home—perhaps Maverick's, had he not been so +hardly dealt with. She was not of that great disposition of heart which +can love best that which has sorest need of love; but she was all woman, +and helpless and distraught with her tangle of grief and despair, the +nature of which I could only half comprehend.</p> + +<p>We sat there by the sunken stream, on the hot gravel where the sun had +lain, the willows sifting their inconstant shadows over us; and I +thought how other things as precious as "God's water" go astray on the +Jericho road, or are captured and sold for a price, while dry hearts +ache with the thirst that asks a "draught divine."</p> + +<p>The man's felt hat she wore, pulled down over her face, was pinned to +her coil of braids which had slipped from the crown of her head. The hat +was no longer even a protection; she cast it off, and the blond braids, +that had not been smoothed for a day and night, fell like ropes down her +back. The sun had burned her cheeks and neck to a clear crimson; her +blue eyes were as wild with weeping as a child's. She was a rose, but a +rose that had been trampled in the dust; and her prayer was to be left +there, rather than that we should take her home.</p> + +<p>I suppose I must have had some influence over her, for she allowed me to +help her to arrange her forlorn disguise, and put her on her horse, +which was more than could have been expected from the way she had +received me. And so, about four o'clock, we started back.</p> + +<p>There was a scene when we headed the horses to the west; she protesting +with wild sobs that she would not, could not, go home, that she would +rather die, that we should never get her back alive, and so on. Maverick +stood aside bitterly, and left her to me, and I was aware of a grotesque +touch of jealousy—which, after all, was perhaps natural—in his dour +face whenever he looked back at us. He kept some distance ahead, and +waited for us when we fell too far in the rear.</p> + +<p>This would happen when from time to time her situation seemed to +overpower her, and she would stop in the road, and wring her hands, and +try to throw herself out of the saddle, and pray me to let her go.</p> + +<p>"Go where?" I would ask. "Where do you wish to go? Have you any plan, or +suggestion, that I could help you to carry out?" But I said it only to +show her how hopeless her resistance was. This she would own piteously, +and say: "Nobody can help me. There ain't nowhere for me to go. But I +can't go back. You won't let him make me, will you?"</p> + +<p>"Why cannot you go back to your father and your brothers?"</p> + +<p>This would usually silence her, and, setting her teeth upon her trouble, +she would ride on, while I reproached myself, I knew not why.</p> + +<p>After one of these struggles—when she had given in to the force of +circumstances, but still unconsenting and rebellious—Maverick fell +back, and ranged his horse by her other side.</p> + +<p>"I know partly what's troubling you, and I'd rid you of that part quick +enough," he said, with a kind of dogged patience in his hard voice; +"but you can't get on there without me. You know that, don't you? You +don't blame me for staying?"</p> + +<p>"I don't blame you for anything but what you've done to-day. You've +broke my heart, and ruined me, and took away my last chance, and I don't +care what becomes of me, so I don't have to go back."</p> + +<p>"You don't have to any more than you have to live. Dyin' is a good deal +easier, but we can't always die when we want to. Suppose I found a +little lost child on the road, and it cried to go home, and I didn't +know where 'home' was, would I leave it there just because it cried and +hung back? I'd take you to a better home if I knew of one; but I don't. +And there's the old man. I suppose we could get some doctor to certify +that he's out of his mind, and get him sent up to Blackfoot; but I guess +we'd have to buy the doctor first."</p> + +<p>"Oh, hush, do, and leave me alone," she said.</p> + +<p>Maverick dug his spurs into his horse, and plunged ahead.</p> + +<p>"There," she cried, "now you know part of it; but it's the least +part—the least, the least! Poor father, he's awful queer. He don't more +than half the time know who I am," she whispered. "But it ain't him I'm +running away from. It's myself—my own life."</p> + +<p>"What is it—can't you tell me?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head, but she kept on telling, as if she were talking to +herself.</p> + +<p>"Father he's like I told you, and the boys—oh, that's worse! I can't +get a decent woman to come there and live, and the women at Arco won't +speak to me because I'm livin' there alone. They say—they think I ought +to get married—to Maverick or somebody. I'll die first. I <i>will</i> die, +if there's any way to, before I'll marry him!"</p> + +<p>This may not sound like tragedy as I tell it, but I think it was tragedy +to her. I tried to persuade her that it must be her imagination about +the women at Arco; or, if some of them did talk,—as indeed I myself had +heard, to my shame and disgust,—I told her I had never known that place +where there was not one woman, at least, who could understand and help +another in her trouble.</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> don't know of any," she said simply.</p> + +<p>There was no more to do but ride on, feeling like her executioner; but</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Ride hooly, ride hooly, now, gentlemen,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ride hooly now wi' me,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>came into my mind; and no man ever kept beside a "wearier burd," on a +sadder journey.</p> + +<p>At dusk we came to Belgian Flat, and here Maverick, dismounting, mixed a +little whisky in his flask with water which he dipped from the pool. She +must have recalled who dug the well, and with whom she had drunk in the +morning. He held it to her lips. She rejected it with a strong shudder +of disgust.</p> + +<p>"Drink it!" he commanded. "You'll kill yourself, carryin' on like this." +He pressed it on her, but she turned away her face like a sick and +rebellious child.</p> + +<p>"Maybe she'll drink it for you," said Maverick, with bitter patience, +handing me the cup.</p> + +<p>"Will you?" I asked her gently. She shook her head, but at the same time +she let me take her hand, and put it down from her face, and I held the +cup to her lips. She drank it, every drop. It made her deathly sick, +and I took her off her horse, and made a pillow of my coat, so that she +could lie down. In ten minutes she was asleep. Maverick covered her with +his coat after she was no longer conscious.</p> + +<p>We built a fire on the edge of the lava, for we were both chilled and +both miserable, each for his own part in that day's work.</p> + +<p>The flat is a little cup-shaped valley formed by high hills, like dark +walls, shutting it in. The lava creeps up to it in front.</p> + +<p>We hovered over the fire, and Maverick fed it, savagely, in silence. He +did not recognize my presence by a word—not so much as if I had been a +strange dog. I relieved him of it after a while, and went out a little +way on the lava. At first all was blackness after the strong glare of +the fire; but gradually the desolation took shape, and I stumbled about +in it, with my shadow mocking me in derisive beckonings, or crouching +close at my heels, as the red flames towered or fell. I stayed out there +till I was chilled to the bone, and then went back defiantly. Maverick +sat as if he had not moved, his elbows on his knees, his face in his +hands. I wondered if he were thinking of that other sleeper under the +birches of Deadman's Gulch, victim of an unhappy girl's revolt. Had she +loved him? Had she deceived him as well as herself? It seemed to me they +were all like children who had lost their way home.</p> + +<p>By midnight the moon had risen high enough to look at us coldly over the +tops of the great hills. Their shadows crept forth upon the lava. The +fire had died down. Maverick rose, and scattered the winking brands with +his boot-heel.</p> + +<p>"We must pull out," he said. "I'll saddle up, if you will"—The +hoarseness in his voice choked him, and he nodded toward the sleeper.</p> + +<p>I dreaded to waken the poor Rose. She was very meek and quiet after the +brief respite sleep had given her. She sat quite still, and watched me +while I shook the sand from my coat, put it on, and buttoned it to the +chin, and drew my hat down more firmly. There was a kind of magnetism in +her gaze; I felt it creep over me like the touch of a soft hand.</p> + +<p>When her horse was ready, Maverick brought it, and left it standing +near, and went back to his own, without looking toward us.</p> + +<p>"Come, you poor, tired little girl," I said, holding out my hand. She +could not find her way at first in the uncertain light, and she seemed +half asleep still, so I kept her hand in mine, and guided her to her +horse. "Now, once more up," I encouraged her; and suddenly she was +clinging to me, and whispering passionately:</p> + +<p>"Can't you take me somewhere? Where are those women that you know?" she +cried, shaking from head to foot.</p> + +<p>"Dear little soul, all the women I know are two thousand miles away," I +answered.</p> + +<p>"But can't you take me <i>somewhere</i>? There must be some place. I know you +would be good to me; and you could go away afterward, and I wouldn't +trouble you any more."</p> + +<p>"My child, there is not a place under the heavens where I could take +you. You must go on like a brave girl, and trust to your friends. Keep +up your heart, and the way will open. God will not forget you," I said, +and may He forgive me for talking cant to that poor soul in her bitter +extremity.</p> + +<p>She stood perfectly still one moment while I held her by the hands. I +think she could have heard my heart beat; but there was nothing I could +do. Even now I wake in the night, and wonder if there was any other +way—but one; the way that for one wild moment I was half tempted to +take.</p> + +<p>"Yes; the way will open," she said very low. She cast off my hands, and +in a second she was in the saddle, and off up the road, riding for her +life. And we two men knew no better than to follow her.</p> + +<p>I knew better, or I think, now, that I did. I told Maverick we had +pushed her far enough. I begged him to hold up and at least not to let +her see us on her track. He never answered a word, but kept straight on, +as if possessed. I don't think he knew what he was doing. At least there +was only one thing <i>he</i> was capable of doing—following that girl till +he dropped.</p> + +<p>Two miles beyond the Flat there is another turn, where the shoulder of a +hill comes down and crowds the road, which passes out of sight. She saw +us hard upon her, as she reached this bend. Maverick was ahead. Her +horse was doing all he could, but it was plain he could not do much +more. She looked back, and flung out her hand in the man's sleeve that +half covered it. She gave a little whimpering cry, the most dreadful +sound I ever heard from any hunted thing.</p> + +<p>We made the turn after her; and there lay the road white in the +moonlight, and as bare as my hand. She had escaped us.</p> + +<p>We pulled up the horses, and listened. Not a sound came from the hills +or the dark gulches, where the wind was stirring the quaking asps; the +lonesome hush-sh made the silence deeper. But we heard a horse's step go +clink, clinking—a loose, uncertain step wandering away in the lava.</p> + +<p>"Look! look there! My God!" groaned Maverick.</p> + +<p>There was her horse limping along one of the hollow ridges, but the +saddle was empty.</p> + +<p>"She has taken to the lava!"</p> + +<p>I had no need to be told what that meant; but if I had needed, I learned +what it meant before the night was through. I think that if I were a +poet, I could add another "dolorous circle" to the wailing-place for +lost souls.</p> + +<p>But she had found a way. Somewhere in that stony-hearted wilderness she +is at rest. We shall see her again when the sea—the stupid, cruel sea +that crawls upon the land—gives up its dead.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="ON_A_SIDE-TRACK" id="ON_A_SIDE-TRACK"></a>ON A SIDE-TRACK</h2> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>It was the second week in February, but winter had taken a fresh hold: +the stockmen were grumbling; freight was dull, and travel light on the +white Northwestern lines. In the Portland car from Omaha there were but +four passengers: father and daughter,—a gentle, unsophisticated +pair,—and two strong-faced men, fellow-travelers also, keeping each +other's company in a silent but close and conspicuous proximity. They +shared the same section, the younger man sleeping above, going to bed +before, and rising later than, his companion; and whenever he changed +his seat or made an unexpected movement, the eyes of the elder man +followed him, and they were never far from him at any time.</p> + +<p>The elder was a plain farmer type of man, with a clean-shaven, straight +upper lip, a grizzled beard covering the lower half of his face, and +humorous wrinkles spreading from the corners of his keen gray eyes.</p> + +<p>The younger showed in his striking person that union of good blood with +hard conditions so often seen in the old-young graduates of the life +schools of the West. His hands and face were dark with exposure to the +sun, not of parks and club-grounds and seaside piazzas, but the dry +untempered light of the desert and the plains. His dark eye was +distinctively masculine,—if there be such a thing as gender in +features,—bold, ardent, and possessive; but now it was clouded with +sadness that did not pass like a mood, though he looked capable of +moods.</p> + +<p>He was dressed in the demi-toilet which answers for dinners in the West, +on occasions where a dress-coat is not required. In itself the costume +was correct, even fastidious, in its details, but on board an overland +train there was a foppish unsuitability in it that "gave the wearer +away," as another man would have said—put him at a disadvantage, +notwithstanding his splendid physique, and the sad, rather fine +preoccupation of his manner. He looked like a very real person dressed +for a trifling part, which he lays aside between the scenes while he +thinks about his sick child, or his debts, or his friend with whom he +has quarreled.</p> + +<p>But these incongruities, especially the one of dress, might easily have +escaped a pair of eyes so confiding and unworldly as those of the young +girl in the opposite section; they had escaped her, but not the +incongruity of youth with so much sadness. The girl and her father had +boarded the car at Omaha, escorted by the porter of one of the forward +sleepers on the same train. They had come from farther East. The old +gentleman appeared to be an invalid; but they gave little trouble. The +porter had much leisure on his hands, which he bestowed in arrears of +sleep on the end seat forward. The conductor made up his accounts in the +empty drawing-room, or looked at himself in the mirrors, or stretched +his legs on the velvet sofas. He was a young fellow, with a tendency to +jokes and snatches of song and talk of a light character when not on +duty. He talked sometimes with the porter in low tones, and then both +looked at the pair of travelers in No. 8, and the younger man seemed +moodily aware of their observation.</p> + +<p>On the first morning out from Omaha the old gentleman kept his berth +until nine or ten o'clock. At eight his daughter brought him a cup of +chocolate and a sandwich, and sat between his curtains, chatting with +him cozily. In speaking together they used the language of the Society +of Friends.</p> + +<p>The young man opposite listened attentively to the girl's voice; it was +as sweet as the piping of birds at daybreak. Phebe her father called +her.</p> + +<p>Afterward Phebe sat in the empty section next her father's. The table +before her was spread with a fresh napkin, and a few pieces of old +household silver and china which she had taken from her lunch-basket.</p> + +<p>She and her father were economical travelers, but in all their +belongings there was the refinement of modest suitability and an +exquisite cleanliness. Her own order for breakfast was confined to a cup +of coffee, which the porter was preparing in the buffet-kitchen.</p> + +<p>"Would you mind changing places with me?"</p> + +<p>The young man in No. 8 spoke to his companion, who sat opposite reading +a newspaper. They changed seats, and by this arrangement the younger +could look at Phebe, who innocently gave him every advantage to study +her sober and delicate profile against the white snow-light, as she sat +watching the dreary cattle-ranges of Wyoming swim past the car window.</p> + +<p>Her hair had been brushed, and her face washed in the bitter alkaline +waters of the plains, with the uncompromising severity of one whose +standards of personal adornment are limited to the sternest ideals of +neatness and purity. Yet her fair face bloomed, like a winter sunrise, +with tints of rose and pearl and sapphire blue, and the pale gold of +winter sunshine was in her satin-smooth hair.</p> + +<p>The young man did not fail to include in his study of Phebe the modest +breakfast equipment set out before her. He perfectly recalled the +pattern of the white-and-gold china, the touch, the very taste, of the +thin, bright old silver spoons; they were like his grandmother's +tea-things in the family homestead in the country, where he had spent +his summers as a boy. The look of them touched him nearly, but not +happily, it would seem, from his expression.</p> + +<p>The porter came with the cup of coffee, and offered a number of +patronizing suggestions in the line of his service, which the young girl +declined. She set forth a meek choice of food, blushing faintly in +deprecation of the young man's eyes, of which she began to be aware. +Evidently she was not yet hardened to the practice of eating in public.</p> + +<p>He took the hint, and retired to his corner, opening a newspaper between +himself and Phebe.</p> + +<p>Presently he heard her call the porter in a small, ineffectual voice. +The porter did not come. She waited a little, and called again, with no +better result. He put down his newspaper.</p> + +<p>"If you will press the button at your left," he suggested.</p> + +<p>"The button!" she repeated, looking at him helplessly.</p> + +<p>He sprang to assist her. As he did so his companion flung down his +paper, and jumped in front of him. The eyes of the two met. A hot flush +rose to the young man's eyebrows.</p> + +<p>"I am calling the porter for her."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said the other, and he sat down again; but he kept an eye upon the +angry youth, who leaned across Phebe's seat, and touched the electric +button.</p> + +<p>"Little girl hadn't got on to it, eh?" the grizzled man remarked +pleasantly, when his companion had resumed his seat.</p> + +<p>There was no answer.</p> + +<p>"Nice folks; from the country, somewheres back East, I should guess," +the imperturbable one continued. "Old man seems sort of sickly. Making a +move on account of his health, likely. Great mistake—old folks turning +out in winter huntin' a climate."</p> + +<p>The young man remained silent, and the elder returned to his paper.</p> + +<p>At Cheyenne, where the train halts for dinner, the young girl helped her +father into his outer garments, buttoned herself hastily into her +homespun jacket bordered with gray fur, pinned her little hat firmly to +her crown of golden braids, hid her hands in her muff,—she did not wait +to put on gloves,—and led the way to the dining-room.</p> + +<p>The travelers in No. 8 disposed of their meal rapidly, in their usual +close but silent conjunction, and returned at once to the car.</p> + +<p>The old gentleman and his daughter walked the windy platform, and cast +rather forlorn glances at the crowd bustling about in the bleak winter +sunlight. When they took their seats again, the father's pale blue eyes +were still paler, his face looked white and drawn with the cold; but +Phebe was like a rose: with her wonderful, pure color the girl was +beautiful. The young man of No. 8 looked at her with a startled +reluctance, as if her sweetness wounded him.</p> + +<p>Then he seemed to have resolved to look at her no more. He leaned his +head back in his corner, and closed his eyes; the train shook him +slightly as he sat in moody preoccupation with his thoughts, and the +miles of track flew by.</p> + +<p>At Green River, at midnight, the Portland car was dropped by its convoy +of the Union Pacific, and was coupled with a train making up for the +Oregon Short Line. There was hooting and backing of engines, slamming +of car doors, flashing of conductors' lanterns, voices calling across +the tracks. One of these voices could be heard, in the wakeful silence +within the car, as an engine from the west steamed past in the glare of +its snow-wreathed headlight.</p> + +<p>"No. 10 stuck this side of Squaw Creek. Bet you don't make it before +Sunday!"</p> + +<p>The outbound conductor's retort was lost in the clank of couplings as +the train lurched forward on the slippery rails.</p> + +<p>"Phebe, is thee awake?" the old gentleman softly called to his daughter, +about the small hours.</p> + +<p>"Yes, father. Want anything?"</p> + +<p>"Are those ventilators shut? I feel a cold draft in the back of my +berth."</p> + +<p>The ventilators were all shut, but the train was now climbing the Wind +River divide, the cold bitterly increasing, and the wind dead ahead. +Cinders tinkled on the roaring stovepipes, the blast swept the car +roofs, pelting the window panes with fine, dry snow, and searching every +joint and crevice defended by the company's upholstery.</p> + +<p>Phebe slipped down behind the berth-curtain, and tucked a shawl in at +her father's back. Her low voice could be heard, and the old man's +self-pitying tones in answer to her tender questionings. He coughed at +intervals till daybreak, when there was silence in section No. 7.</p> + +<p>In No. 8, across the aisle, the young man lay awake in the strength of +his thoughts, and made up passionate sentences which he fancied himself +speaking to persons he might never be brought face to face with again. +They were people mixed in with his life in various relations, past and +present, whose opinions had weighed with him. When he heard Phebe +talking to her father, he muttered, with a sort of anguish:—</p> + +<p>"Oh, you precious lamb!"</p> + +<p>He and his companion made their toilet early, and breakfasted and smoked +together, and their taciturn relation continued as before. Snow filled +the air, and blotted out the distance, but there were few stationary +dark objects outside by which to gauge its fall. They were across the +border now, between Wyoming and Idaho, in a featureless white region, a +country of small Mormon ranches, far from any considerable town.</p> + +<p>The old man slept behind his curtains. Phebe went through the morning +routine by which women travelers make themselves at home and pass the +time, but obviously her day did not begin until her father had reported +himself. She had found a hole in one of her gloves, which she was +mending, choosing critically the needle and the silk for the purpose +from a very complete housewife in brown linen bound with a brown silk +galloon. Again the young man was reminded of his boyhood, and of certain +kind old ladies of precise habits who had contributed to his happiness, +and occasionally had eked out the fond measure of paternal discipline.</p> + +<p>The snow continued; about noon the train halted at a small water +station, waited awhile as if in consideration of difficulties ahead, and +then quietly backed down upon a side-track. A shock of silence followed. +Every least personal movement in the thinly peopled car, before lost in +the drumming of the wheels, asserted itself against this new medium. The +passengers looked up and at one another; the Pullman conductor stepped +out to make inquiries.</p> + +<p>The silence continued, and became embarrassing. Phebe dropped her +scissors. This time the young man sat still, but the flush rose to his +forehead as before. The old gentleman's breathing could be heard behind +his curtains; the porter rattling plates in the cooking-closet; the soft +rustling of the snow outside. Phebe stepped to her father's berth, and +peeped between his curtains; he was still sleeping. Her voice was hushed +to the note of a sick-room as she asked,—</p> + +<p>"Where are we now, do you know?"</p> + +<p>The young man was looking at her, and to him she addressed the question.</p> + +<p>With a glance at his companion, he crossed to her side of the car, and +took the seat in front of her.</p> + +<p>"We are in the Bear Lake valley, just over the border of Idaho, about +fifteen miles from the Squaw Creek divide," he answered, sinking his +voice.</p> + +<p>"Did you hear what that person said in the night, when a train passed +us, about our not getting through?"</p> + +<p>"I wondered if you heard that." He smiled. "You did not rest well, I'm +afraid."</p> + +<p>"I was anxious about father. This weather is a great surprise to us. We +were told the winters were short in southern Idaho—almost like +Virginia; but look at this!"</p> + +<p>"We have nearly eight thousand feet of altitude here, you must remember. +In the valleys it is warmer. There the winter does break usually about +this time. Are you going on much farther?"</p> + +<p>"To a place called Volney."</p> + +<p>"Volney is pretty high; but there is Boise, farther down. Strangers +moving into a new country very seldom strike it right the first time."</p> + +<p>"Oh, we shall stay at Volney, even if we do not like it; that is, if we +<i>can</i> stay. I have a married sister living there. She thought the +climate would be better for father."</p> + +<p>After a pause she asked, "Do you know why we are stopping here so long?"</p> + +<p>"Probably because we have had orders not to go any farther."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean that we are blocked?"</p> + +<p>"The train ahead of us is. We shall stay here until that gets through."</p> + +<p>"You seem very cheerful about it," she said, observing his expression.</p> + +<p>"Ah, I should think so!"</p> + +<p>His short lip curled in the first smile she had seen upon his strong, +brooding face. She could not help smiling in response, but she felt +bound to protest against his irresponsible view of the situation.</p> + +<p>"Have you so much time to spend upon the road? I thought the men of this +country were always in a hurry."</p> + +<p>"It makes a difference where a man is going, and on what errand, and +what fortune he meets with on the way. <i>I</i> am not going to Volney."</p> + +<p>She did not understand his emphasis, nor the bearing of his words. His +eyes dropped to her hands lying in her lap, still holding the glove she +had been mending.</p> + +<p>"How nicely you do it! How can you take such little stitches without +pricking yourself, when the train is going?"</p> + +<p>"It is my business to take little stitches. I don't know how to do +anything else."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean it literally? It is your business to sew?"</p> + +<p>The notion seemed to surprise him.</p> + +<p>"No; I mean in a general sense. Some of us can do only small things, a +stitch at a time,—take little steps, and not know always where they are +going."</p> + +<p>"Is this a little step—to Volney?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no; it is a very long one, and rather a wild one, I'm afraid. I +suppose everybody does a wild thing once in a lifetime?"</p> + +<p>"How should <i>you</i> know that?"</p> + +<p>"I only said so. I don't say that it is true."</p> + +<p>"People who take little steps are sometimes picked up and carried off +their feet by those who take long, wild ones."</p> + +<p>"Why, what are we talking about?" she asked herself, in surprise.</p> + +<p>"About going to Volney, was it not?" he suggested.</p> + +<p>"What is there about Volney, please tell me, that you harp upon the +name? I am a stranger, you know; I don't know the country allusions. Is +there anything peculiar about Volney?"</p> + +<p>"She is a deep little innocent," he said within himself; "but oh, so +innocent!" And again he appeared to gather himself in pained resistance +to some thought that jarred with the thought of Phebe. He rose and +bowed, and so took leave of her, and settled himself back into his +corner, shading his eyes with his hand.</p> + +<p>He ate no luncheon, Phebe noticed, and he sat so long in a dogged +silence that she began to cast wistful glances across the aisle, +wondering if he were ill, or if she had unwittingly been rude to him. +Any one could have shaken her confidence in her own behavior; moreover, +she reminded herself, she did not know the etiquette of an overland +train. She had heard that the Western people were very friendly; no +doubt they expected a frank response in others. She resolved to be more +careful the next time, if the moody young man should speak to her again.</p> + +<p>Her father was awake now, dressed and sitting up. He was very chipper, +but Phebe knew that his color was not natural, nor his breathing right. +He was much inclined to talk, in a rambling, childish, excited manner +that increased her anxiety.</p> + +<p>The young man in No. 8 had evidently taken his fancy; his formal, +old-fashioned advances were modestly but promptly met.</p> + +<p>"I suppose it is not usual, in these parts, for travelers to inquire +each other's names?" the old gentleman remarked to his new acquaintance; +"but we seem to have plenty of time on our hands; we might as well +improve it socially. My name is David Underhill, and this is my daughter +Phebe. Now what might thy name be, friend?"</p> + +<p>"My name is Ludovic," said the youth, looking a half-apology at Phebe, +who saw no reason for it.</p> + +<p>"First or family name?"</p> + +<p>"Ludovic is my family name."</p> + +<p>"And a very good name it is," said the old gentleman. "Not a common name +in these parts, I should say, but one very well and highly known to me," +he added, with pleased emphasis. "Phebe, thee remembers a visit we had +from Martin Ludovic when we were living at New Rochelle?"</p> + +<p>"Thee knows I was not born when you lived at New Rochelle, father dear."</p> + +<p>"True, true! It was thy mother I was thinking of. She had a great esteem +for Martin Ludovic. He was one of the world's people, as we say—in the +world, but not of the world. Yet he made a great success in life. He +was her father's junior partner—rose from a clerk's stool in his +counting-room; and a great success he made of it. But that was after +Friend Lawrence's time. My wife was Phebe Lawrence."</p> + +<p>Young Ludovic smiled brightly in reply to this information, and seemed +about to speak, but the old gentleman forestalled him.</p> + +<p>"Friend Lawrence had made what was considered a competence in those +days—a very small one it would be called now; but he was satisfied. +Thee may not be aware that it is a recommendation among the Friends, and +it used to be a common practice, that when a merchant had made a +sufficiency for himself and those depending on him, he should show his +sense of the favor of Providence by stepping out and leaving his chance +to the younger men. Friend Lawrence did so—not to his own benefit +ultimately, though that was no one's fault that ever I heard; and Martin +Ludovic was his successor, and a great and honorable business was the +outcome of his efforts. Now does thee happen to recall if Martin is a +name in thy branch?"</p> + +<p>"My grandfather was Martin Ludovic of the old New York house of Lawrence +and Ludovic," said the cadet of that name; but as he gave these +credentials a profound melancholy subdued his just and natural pride.</p> + +<p>"Is it possible!" Friend Underhill exulted, more pleased than if he had +recovered a lost bank-note for many hundreds. There are no people who +hold by the ties of blood and family more strongly than the Friends; and +Friend Underhill, on this long journey, had felt himself sadly insolvent +in those sureties that cannot be packed in a trunk or invested in +irrigable lands. It was as if on the wild, cold seas he had crossed the +path of a bark from home. He yearned to have speech with this graciously +favored young man, whose grandfather had been his Phebe's grandfather's +partner and dearest friend. The memory of that connection had been +cherished with ungrudging pride through the succeeding generations in +which the Ludovics had gone up in the world and the Lawrences had come +down. Friend Underhill did not recall—nor would he have thought it of +the least importance—that a Lawrence had been the benefactor in the +first place, and had set Martin Ludovic's feet upon the ladder of +success. He took the young man's hand affectionately in his own, and +studied the favor of his countenance.</p> + +<p>"Thee has the family look," he said in a satisfied tone; "and they had +no cause, as a rule, to be discontented with their looks."</p> + +<p>Young Ludovic's eyes fell, and he blushed like a girl; the dark-red +blood dyed his face with the color almost of shame. Phebe moved uneasily +in her seat.</p> + +<p>"Make room beside thee, Phebe," said her father; "or, no, friend +Ludovic; sit thee here beside me. If the train should start, I could +hear thee better. And thy name—let me see—thee must be a Charles +Ludovic. In thy family there was always a Martin, and then an Aloys, and +then a Charles; and it was said—though a foolish superstition, no +doubt—that the king's name brought ill luck. The Ludovic whose turn it +was to bear the name of the unhappy Stuart took with it the misfortunes +of three generations."</p> + +<p>"A very unjust superstition I should call it," pronounced Phebe.</p> + +<p>"Surely, and a very idle one," her father acquiesced, smiling at her +warmth. "I trust, friend Charles, it has been given thee happily to +disprove it in thy own person."</p> + +<p>"On the contrary," said Charles Ludovic, "if I am not the unluckiest of +my name, I hope there may never be another."</p> + +<p>He spoke with such conviction, such energy of sadness, only silence +could follow the words. Then the old gentleman said, most gently and +ruefully:—</p> + +<p>"If it be indeed as thee says, I trust it will not seem an intrusion, in +one who knew thy family's great worth, to ask the nature of thy +trouble—if by chance it might be my privilege to assist thee. I feel of +rather less than my usual small importance—cast loose, as it were, +between the old and the new; but if my small remedies should happen to +suit with thy complaint, it would not matter that they were +trifling—like Phebe's drops and pellets she puts such faith in," he +added, with a glance at his daughter's downcast face.</p> + +<p>"Dear sir, you <i>have</i> helped me, by the gift of the outstretched hand. +Between strangers, as we are, that implies a faith as generous as it is +rare."</p> + +<p>"Nay, we are not strangers; no one of thy name shall call himself +stranger to one of ours. Shall he, Phebe? Still, I would not importune +thee"—</p> + +<p>"I thank you far more than you can know; but we need not talk of my +troubles. It was a graceless speech of mine to obtrude them."</p> + +<p>"As thee will. But I deny the lack of grace. The gracelessness was mine +to bring up a foolish saying, more honored in the forgetting."</p> + +<p>Here Phebe interposed with a spoonful of the medicine her father had +referred to so disparagingly. "I would not talk any more now, if I were +thee, father. Thee sees how it makes thee cough."</p> + +<p>At this, Ludovic rose to leave them; but Phebe detained him, shyly doing +the honors of their quarters in the common caravan. He stayed, but a +constrained silence had come upon him. The old gentleman closed his +eyes, and sometimes smiled to himself as he sat so, beside the younger +man, and Phebe had strange thoughts as she looked at them both. Her +imagination was greatly stirred. She talked easily and with perfect +unconsciousness to Ludovic, and told him little things she could +remember having heard about the one generation of his family that had +formerly been connected with her own. She knew more about it, it +appeared, than he did. And more and more he seemed to lose himself in +her eyes, rather than to be listening to her voice. He sat with his back +to his companion across the aisle; at length the latter rose, and +touched him on the shoulder. He turned instantly, and Phebe, looking up, +caught the hard, roused expression that altered him into the likeness of +another man.</p> + +<p>"I am going outside." No more was said, but Ludovic rose, bowed to +Phebe, and followed his curt fellow-passenger.</p> + +<p>"What can be the connection between them?" thought the girl. "They seem +inseparable, yet not friends precisely. How could they be friends?" And +in her prompt mental comparison the elder man inevitably suffered. She +began to think of all the tragedies with which young lives are +fatalistically bound up; but it was significant that none of her +speculations included the possibility of anything in the nature of error +in respect to this Charles Ludovic who called himself unhappy.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>"Stop a moment. I want to speak to you," said Ludovic. The two men were +passing through the gentlemen's toilet-room; Ludovic turned his back to +the marble washstand, and waited, with his head up, and the tips of his +long hands resting in his trousers' pockets. "I have a favor to ask of +you, Mr. Burke."</p> + +<p>"Well, sir, what's the size of it?"</p> + +<p>"You must have heard some of our talk in there; you see how it is? They +will never, of themselves, suspect the reason of your fondness for my +company. Is it worth while, for the time we shall be together, to put +them on to it? It's not very easy, you see; make it as easy as you can."</p> + +<p>"Have I tried to make it hard, Mr. Ludovic?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all. I don't mean that."</p> + +<p>"Am I giving you away most of the time?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not. You have been most awfully good. But you're—you're +damnably in my way. I see you out of the corner of my eye always, when +you aren't square in front of me. I can't make a move but you jump. Do +you think I am such a fool as to make a break now? No, sir; I am going +through with this; I'm in it most of the time. Now see here, I give you +my word—and there are no liars of my name—that you will find me with +you at Pocatello. Till then let me alone, will you? Keep your eyes off +me. Keep out of range of my talk. I would like to say a word now and +then without knowing there's a running comment in the mind of a man +across the car, who thinks he knows me better than the people I am +talking to—understand?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe I do, maybe I don't," said Mr. Burke, deliberately. "I don't know +as it's any of my business what you say to your friends, or what they +think of you. All I'm responsible for is your person."</p> + +<p>"Precisely. At Pocatello you will have my person."</p> + +<p>"And have I got your word for the road between?"</p> + +<p>"My word, and my thanks—if the thanks of a man in my situation are +worth anything."</p> + +<p>"I'm dum sorry for you, Mr. Ludovic, and I don't mind doing what little +I can to make things easy"—Mr. Burke paused, seeing his companion +smile. "Well, yes, I know it's hard—it's dooced almighty hard; and it +looks like there was a big mistake somewheres, but it's no business of +mine to say so. Have a cigar?"</p> + +<p>Young Mr. Ludovic had accepted a number of Mr. Burke's palliative offers +of cigars during their journey together; he accepted the courtesy, but +he did not smoke the cigars. He usually gave them to the porter. He had +an expensive taste in cigars, as in many other things. He paid for his +high-priced preferences, or he went without. He was never willing to +accept any substitute for the thing he really wanted; and it was very +hard for him, when he had set his heart upon a thing, not to approach it +in the attitude that an all-wise Providence had intended it for him.</p> + +<p>About dusk the snow-plow engines from above came down for coal and +water. They brought no positive word, only that the plows and shovelers +were at work at both ends of the big cut, and they hoped the track would +be free by daybreak. But the snow was still falling as night set in.</p> + +<p>Ludovic and Phebe sat in the shadowed corner behind the curtains of No. +7. Phebe's father had gone to bed early; his cough was worse, and Phebe +was treating him for that and for the fever which had developed as an +attendant symptom. She was a devotee in her chosen school of medicine; +she knew her remedies, within the limits of her household experience, +and used them with the courage and constancy that are of no school, but +which better the wisdom of them all.</p> + +<p>Ludovic observed that she never lost count of the time through all her +talk, which was growing more and more absorbing; he was jealous of the +interruption when she said, "Excuse me," and looked at her watch, or +rose and carried her tumblers of medicine alternately to the patient, +and woke him gently; for it was now a case for strenuous treatment, and +she purposed to watch out the night, and give the medicines regularly +every hour.</p> + +<p>Mr. Burke was as good as his word; he kept several seats distant from +the young people. He had a private understanding, though, with the car +officials: not that he put no faith in the word of a Ludovic, but +business is business.</p> + +<p>When he went to his berth about eleven o'clock he noticed that his +prisoner was still keeping the little Quaker girl company, and neither +of them seemed to be sleepy. The table where they had taken supper +together was still between them, with Phebe's watch and the medicine +tumblers upon it. The panel of looking-glass reflected the young man's +profile, touched with gleams of lamplight, as he leaned forward with his +arms upon the table.</p> + +<p>Phebe sat far back in her corner, pale and grave; but when her eyes were +lifted to his face they were as bright as winter stars.</p> + +<p>It was Ludovic's intention, before he parted with Phebe, to tell her his +story—his own story; the newspaper account of him she would read, with +all the world, after she had reached Volney. Meantime he wished to lose +himself in a dream of how it might have been could he have met this +little Phebe, not on a side-track, his chance already spoiled, but on +the main line, with a long ticket, and the road clear before them to the +Golden Gate.</p> + +<p>Under other circumstances she might not have had the same overmastering +fascination for him; he did not argue that question with himself. He +talked to her all night long as a man talks to the woman he has chosen +and is free to win, with but a single day in which to win her; and +underneath his impassioned tones, shading and deepening them with tragic +meaning, was the truth he was withholding. There was no one to stand +between Phebe and this peril, and how should she know whither they were +drifting?</p> + +<p>He told her stories of his life of danger and excitement and contrasts, +East and West; he told her of his work, his ambitions, his +disappointments; he carried her from city to city, from camp to camp. He +spoke to sparkling eyes, to fresh, thrilling sympathies, to a warm +heart, a large comprehension, and a narrow experience. Every word went +home; for with this girl he was strangely sure of himself, as indeed he +might have been.</p> + +<p>And still the low music of his voice went on; for he did not lack that +charm, among many others—a voice for sustained and moving speech. +Perhaps he did not know his own power; at all events, he was unsparing +of an influence the most deliberate and enthralling to which the girl +had ever been subjected.</p> + +<p>He was a Ludovic of that family her own had ever held in highest +consideration. He was that Charles Ludovic who had called himself +unhappiest of his name. Phebe never forgot this fact, and in his pauses, +and often in his words, she felt the tug of that strong undertow of +unspoken feeling pulling him back into depths where even in thought she +could not follow him.</p> + +<p>And so they sat face to face, with the watch between them ticking away +the fateful moments. For Ludovic, life ended at Pocatello, but not for +Phebe.</p> + +<p>What had he done with that faith they had given him—the gentle, +generous pair! He had resisted, he thought that he was resisting, his +mad attraction to this girl—of all girls the most impossible to him +now, yet the one, his soul averred, most obviously designed for him. His +wild, sick fancy had clung to her from the moment her face had startled +him, as he took his last backward look upon the world he had forfeited.</p> + +<p>His prayer was that he might win from Phebe, before he left her at +Pocatello, some sure token of her remembrance that he might dwell upon +and dream over in the years of his buried life.</p> + +<p>It would not have been wonderful, as the hours of that strange night +flew by, if Phebe had lost a moment, now and then, had sometimes +wandered from the purpose of her vigil. Her thoughts strayed, but they +came back duly, and she was constant to her charge. Through all that +unwholesome enchantment her hold upon herself was firm, through her +faithfulness to the simple duties in which she had been bred.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the train lay still in the darkness, and Ludovic thanked God, +shamelessly, for the snow. How the dream outwore the night and +strengthened as morning broke gray and cold, and quiet with the +stillness of the desert, we need not follow. More and more it possessed +him, and began to seem the only truth that mattered.</p> + +<p>He took to himself all the privileges of her protector; the rights, +indeed—as if he could have rights such as belong to other men, now, in +regard to any woman.</p> + +<p>If the powers that are named of good or evil, according to the will of +the wisher, had conspired to help him on, the dream could not have drawn +closer to the dearest facts of life; but no spells were needed beyond +those which the reckless conjurer himself possessed—his youth, his +implied misfortunes, his unlikeness to any person she had known, his +passion, "meek, but wild," which he neither spoke nor attempted to +conceal.</p> + +<p>And Phebe sat like a charmed thing while he wove the dream about her. +She could not think; she had nothing to do while her father slept; she +had nowhere to go, away from this new friend of her father's choosing. +She was exhausted with watching, and nervously unstrung. Her hands were +ice; her color went and came; her heart was in a wild alarm. She blushed +almost as she breathed, with his eyes always upon her; and blushing, +could have wept, but for the pride that still was left her in this +strange, unwholesome excitement.</p> + +<p>It was an ordeal that should have had no witnesses but the angels; yet +it was seen of the porter and the conductor and Mr. Burke. The last was +not a person finely cognizant of situations like this one; but he felt +it and resented it in every fibre of his honest manhood.</p> + +<p>"What's Ludovic doing?" he asked himself in heated soliloquy. "He's out +of the running, and the old man's sick abed, and no better than an old +woman when he's well. What's the fellow thinking of?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Burke took occasion to ask him, when they were alone +together—Ludovic putting the finishing touches to a shave; the time was +not the happiest, but the words were honest and to the point.</p> + +<p>"I didn't understand," said Mr. Burke, "that the little girl was in it. +Now, do you call it quite on the square, Mr. Ludovic, between you and +her? I don't like it, myself; I don't want to be a party to it. I've got +girls of my own."</p> + +<p>Ludovic held his chin up high; his hands shook as he worked at his +collar-button.</p> + +<p>"Have you got any boys?" he flung out in the tone of a retort.</p> + +<p>"Yes; one about your age, I should guess."</p> + +<p>"How would you like to see him in the fix I'm in?"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't suppose it, Mr. Ludovic. My boy and you ain't one bit +alike."</p> + +<p>"Are your girls like her?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir; they are not. I ain't worrying about them any, nor wouldn't if +they was in her place. But there's points about this thing"—</p> + +<p>"We'll leave the points. Suppose, I say, your boy was in my fix: would +you grudge him any little kindness he might be able to cheat heaven, +we'll say, out of between here and Pocatello?"</p> + +<p>"Heaven can take care of itself; that little girl is not in heaven yet. +And there's kindnesses and kindnesses, Mr. Ludovic. There are some that +cost like the mischief. I expect you're willing to bid high on kindness +from a nice girl, about now; but how about her? Has kindness gone up in +her market? I guess not. That little creetur's goods can wait; she'd be +on top in any market. I guess it ain't quite a square deal between her +and you."</p> + +<p>Ludovic sat down, and buried his hands in his pockets. His face was a +dark red; his lips twitched.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to stick to your bargain, or are you not?" he asked, +fixing his eyes on a spot just above Mr. Burke's head.</p> + +<p>"You've got the cheek to call it a bargain! But say it was a bargain. I +didn't know, I say, that the little girl was in it. Your bank's broke, +Mr. Ludovic. You ought to quit business. You've got no right to keep +your doors open, taking in money like hers, clean gold fresh from the +mint."</p> + +<p>"O Lord!" murmured Ludovic; and he may have added a prayer for patience +with this common man who was so pitilessly in the right. A week ago, and +the right had been easy to him. But now he was off the track; every turn +of the wheels tore something to pieces.</p> + +<p>"There are just two subjects I cannot discuss with you," he said, +sinking his voice. "One is that young lady. Her father knows my people. +She shall know me before I leave her. They say we shall go through +to-night. You must think I am the devil if you think that, without the +right even to dispense with your company, I can have much to answer for +between here and Pocatello."</p> + +<p>"You are as selfish as the devil, that's what I think; and the worst of +it is, you look as white as other folks."</p> + +<p>"Then leave me alone, or else put the irons on me. Do one thing or the +other. I won't be dogged and watched and hammered with your infernal +jaw! You can put a ball through me, you can handcuff me before her face; +but my eyes are my own, and my tongue is my own, and I will use them as +I please."</p> + +<p>Mr. Burke said no more. He had said a good deal; he had covered the +ground, he thought. And possibly he had some sympathy, even when he +thought of his girls, with the young fellow who had looked too late in +the face of joy and gone clean wild over his mischance.</p> + +<p>It was his opinion that Ludovic would "get" not less than twenty-five +years. There were likely to be Populists on that jury; the prisoner's +friends belonged to a clique of big monopolists; it would go harder +with him than if he had been an honest miner, or a playful cow-boy on +one of his monthly "tears."</p> + +<p>When Ludovic returned to his section, Phebe had gone to sleep in the +corner opposite, her muff tucked under one flushed cheek; the other +cheek was pale. Shadows as delicate as the tinted reflections in the +hollow of a snow-drift slept beneath her chin, and in the curves around +her pathetic eyelids, and in the small incision that defined her pure +red under lip. Again the angels, whom we used to believe in, were far +from this their child.</p> + +<p>Ludovic drew down all the blinds to keep out the glare, and sat in his +own place, and watched her, and fed his aching dream. He did not care +what he did, nor who saw him, nor what anybody thought.</p> + +<p>In the afternoon he took her out for a walk. The snow had stopped; her +father was up and dressed, and very much better, and Phebe was radiant. +Her sky was clearing all at once. She charged the porter to call her in +"just twenty minutes," for then she must give the medicine again. On +their way out of the car Ludovic slipped a dollar into the porter's +hand. Somehow that clever but corrupted functionary let the time slip +by, to Phebe's innocent amazement. Could he have gone to sleep? Surely +it must be more than twenty minutes since they had left the car.</p> + +<p>"He's probably given the dose himself," said Ludovic. "A good porter is +always three parts nurse."</p> + +<p>"But he doesn't know which medicine to give."</p> + +<p>"Oh, let them be," he said impatiently. "He's talking to your father, +and making him laugh. He'll brace him up better than any medicine. They +will call you fast enough if you are needed."</p> + +<p>They walked the platform up and down in front of the section-house. They +were watched, but Ludovic did not care for that now.</p> + +<p>"Will you take my arm?"</p> + +<p>She hesitated, in amused consideration of her own inexperience.</p> + +<p>"Why, I never <i>did</i> take any one's arm that I remember. I don't think I +could keep step with thee."</p> + +<p>The intimate pronoun slipped out unawares.</p> + +<p>"I will keep step with <i>thee</i>."</p> + +<p>"I don't know that I quite like to hear you use that word."</p> + +<p>"But you used it, just now, to me."</p> + +<p>"It was an accident, then."</p> + +<p>"Your father says 'thee' to me."</p> + +<p>"He is of an older generation; my mother wore the Friends' dress. But +those customs had a religious meaning for them to which I cannot +pretend. With me it is a sort of instinct; I can't explain it, nor yet +quite ignore it."</p> + +<p>"Have I offended that particular instinct of yours which attaches to the +word 'thee'?"</p> + +<p>He seemed deeply chagrined. He was one who did not like to make +mistakes, and he had no time to waste in apologizing and recovering lost +ground.</p> + +<p>"People do say it to us sometimes in fun, not knowing what the word +means to us," said Phebe.</p> + +<p>In the fresh winter air she was regaining her tone—escaping from him, +Ludovic felt, into her own sweet, calm self-possession.</p> + +<p>"Then you distinctly refuse me whatever—the least—that word implies? I +am one of those who 'rush in'?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no; but you are much too serious. It is partly a habit of speech; +we cannot lose the habit of speaking to each other as strangers in three +days."</p> + +<p>"You were never a stranger to me. I knew you from the first moment I saw +you; yet each moment since you have been a fresh surprise."</p> + +<p>"I cannot keep up with you," she said, slipping her hand out of his arm. +In the grasp of his passionate dream he was striding along regardless, +not of her, but of her steps.</p> + +<p>"Oh, little steps," he groaned within himself—"oh, little doubting +steps, why did we not meet before?"</p> + +<p>Oh, blessed hampering steps, how much safer would his have gone beside +them!</p> + +<p>"What a charming pair!" cried a lady passenger from the forward sleeper. +She too was walking, with her husband, and her eye had been instantly +taken by the gentle girl with the delicate wild-rose color, halting on +the arm of a splendid youth with dare-devil eyes, who did not look as +happy as he ought with that sweet creature on his arm.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it good to know that the old stories are going on all the same?" +said the sentimental traveler. "What do you say—will that story end in +happiness?"</p> + +<p>"I say that he isn't good enough for her," the husband replied.</p> + +<p>"Then he'll be sure to win her," laughed the lady. "He has won her, I +believe," she added more seriously, watching the pair where they stood +together at the far end of the platform; "but something is wrong."</p> + +<p>"Something usually is at that stage, if I remember. Come, let us get +aboard."</p> + +<p>The sun was setting clear in the pale saffron west. The train from the +buried cut had been released, and now came sliding down the track, +welcomed by boisterous salutations. Behind were the mighty snow-plow +engines, backing down, enwreathed and garlanded with snow.</p> + +<p>"A-a-all aboard!" the conductor drawled in a colloquial tone to the +small waiting group upon the platform.</p> + +<p>Slowly they crept back upon the main track, and heavily the motion +increased, till the old chant of the rails began again, and they were +thundering westward down the line.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Phebe was much occupied with her father, perhaps purposely so, until his +bed-time. She made him her innocent refuge. Ludovic kept subtly away, +lest the friendly old gentleman should be led into conversation, which +might delay the hour of his retiring. He went cheerfully to rest about +the time the lamps were lighted, and Phebe sought once more her corner +in the empty section, shaded by her father's curtains.</p> + +<p>Ludovic, dropping his voice below the roar of the train, asked if he +might take the seat beside her.</p> + +<p>He took it, and turned his back upon the car. He looked at his watch. He +had just three hours before Pocatello. The train was making great speed; +they would get in, the conductor said, by eleven o'clock. But he need +not tell her yet. Half an hour passed, and his thoughts in the silence +were no longer to be borne.</p> + +<p>She was aware of his intense excitement, his restlessness, the nervous +action of his hands. She shrank from the burning misery in his +questioning eyes. Once she heard him whisper under his breath; but the +words she heard were, "<i>My love! my love!</i>" and she thought she could +not have heard aright. Her trouble increased with her sense of some +involuntary strangeness in her companion, some recklessness impending +which she might not know how to meet. She rose in her place, and said +tremulously that she must go.</p> + +<p>"Go!" He sprang up. "Go where, in Heaven's name? Stay," he implored, +"and be kind to me! We get off at Pocatello."</p> + +<p>"We?" she asked with her eyes in his.</p> + +<p>"That man and I. I am his prisoner."</p> + +<p>She sank down again, and stared at him mutely.</p> + +<p>"He is the sheriff of Bingham County, and I am his prisoner," he +repeated. "Do the words mean nothing to you?" He paused for some sign +that she understood him. She dropped her eyes; her face had become as +white as a snowdrop.</p> + +<p>"He is taking me to Pocatello for the preliminary examination—oh, must +I tell you this? If I thought you would never read it in the ghastly +type"—</p> + +<p>"Go on," she whispered.</p> + +<p>"Examination," he choked, "for—for homicide. I don't know what the +judge will call it; but the other man is dead, and I am left to answer +for the passion of a moment with my life. And you will not speak to me?"</p> + +<p>But now she did speak. Leaning forward so that she could look him in the +eyes, she said:—</p> + +<p>"I thought when I saw that man always with you, watching you, that he +might be taking you, with your consent, to one of those places where +they treat persons for—for unsoundness of the mind. I knew you had some +trouble that was beyond help. I could think of nothing worse than that. +It haunted me till we began to speak together; then I knew it could not +be; now I wish it had been."</p> + +<p>"I do not," said Ludovic. "I thank God I am not mad. There is passion in +my blood, and folly, perhaps, but not insanity. No; I am responsible."</p> + +<p>She remained silent, and he continued defensively:—</p> + +<p>"But I am not the only one responsible. Can you listen? Can you hear the +particulars? One always feels that one's own case is peculiar; one is +never the common sinner, you know.</p> + +<p>"I have a friend at Pocatello; he is my partner in business. Two years +ago he married a New York girl, and brought her out there to live. If +you knew Pocatello, you would know what a privilege it was to have their +house to go to. They made me free of it, as people do in the West. There +is nothing they could not have asked of me in return for such +hospitality; it was an obligation not less sacred on my part than that +of family.</p> + +<p>"When my friend went away on long journeys, on our common business, it +was my place in his absence to care for all that was his. There are many +little things a woman needs a man to do for her in a place like +Pocatello; it was my pride and privilege to be at all times at the +service of this lady. She was needlessly grateful, but she liked me +besides: she was one who showed her likes and dislikes frankly. She had +grown up in a small, exclusive set of persons who knew one anther's +grandfathers, and were accustomed to say what they pleased inside; what +outsiders thought did not matter. She had not learned to be careful; she +despised the need of it. She thought Pocatello and the people there were +a joke. But there is a serious side even to Pocatello: you cannot joke +with rattlesnakes and vitriol and slow mines. She made enemies by her +gay little sallies, and she would never condescend to explain. When +people said things that showed they had interpreted her words or actions +in a stupid or a vulgar way, she gave the thing up. It was not her +business to adapt herself to such people; it was theirs to understand +her. If they could not, then it did not matter what they thought. That +was her theory of life in Pocatello.</p> + +<p>"One night I was in a place—not for my pleasure—a place where a lady's +name is never spoken by a gentleman. I heard her name spoken by a fool; +he coupled it with mine, and laughed. I walked out of the place, and +forgot what I was there for till I found myself down the street with my +heart jumping. That time I did right, you would say.</p> + +<p>"But I met him again. It was at the depot at Pocatello. I was seeing a +man off—a stranger in the place, but a friend of my friends; we had +dined at their house together. This other—I think he had been +drinking—I suppose he must have included me in his stupid spite against +the lady. He made his fool speech again. The man who was with me heard +him, and looked astounded. I stepped up to him. I said—I don't know +what. I ordered him to leave that name alone. He repeated it, and I +struck him. He pulled a pistol on me. I grabbed him, and twisted it out +of his hand. How it happened I cannot tell, but there in the smoke he +lay at my feet. The train was moving out. My friend pulled me aboard. +The papers said I ran away. I did not. I waited at Omaha for Mr. Burke.</p> + +<p>"And there I met you, three days ago; and all I care for now is just to +know that you will not think of me always by that word."</p> + +<p>"What word?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind; spare me the word. Look at me! Do I seem to you at all the +same man?"</p> + +<p>Phebe slowly lifted her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Is there nothing left of me? Answer me the truth. I have a right to be +answered."</p> + +<p>"You are the same; but all the rest of it is strange. I do not see how +such a thing could be."</p> + +<p>"Can you not conceive of one wild act in a man not inevitably always a +sinner?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; but not that act. I cannot understand the impulse to take a +life."</p> + +<p>"I did not think of his miserable life; I only meant to stop his +talking. He tried to take mine. I wish he had. But no, no; I should have +missed this glimpse of you. Just when it is too late I learn what life +is worth."</p> + +<p>"Do men truly do those things for the sake of women? Were you thinking +of your friend's wife when you struck him?"</p> + +<p>"I was thinking of the man—what a foul-mouthed fool he was—not fit +to"—He stopped, seeing the look on Phebe's face.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm impossible, I know, to one like you! It's rather hard I should +have to be compared, in your mind, to a race of men like your father. +Have you never known any other men?"</p> + +<p>"I have read of all the men other people read of. I have some +imagination."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you read your Bible."</p> + +<p>"Yes: the men in the Bible were not all of the Spirit; but they +worshiped the Spirit—they were humble when they did wrong."</p> + +<p>"Did women ever love them?"</p> + +<p>Phebe was silent.</p> + +<p>"Do not talk to me of the Spirit," Ludovic pleaded. "I am a long way +from that. At least I am not a hypocrite—not yet. Wait till I am a +'trusty,' scheming for a pardon. Can you not give me one word of simple +human comfort? There are just forty minutes more."</p> + +<p>"What can I say?"</p> + +<p>"Tell me this—and oh, be careful! Could you, if it were permitted a +criminal like me to expiate his sin in the world among living men, in +human relations with them—could we ever meet? Could you say 'thee' to +me, not as to an afflicted person or a child? Am I to be only a text, +another instance"—</p> + +<p>"Many would not blame you. Neither do I blame you, not knowing that +life or those people," said Phebe. "But there was One who turned away +from the evil-speakers, and wrote upon the sand."</p> + +<p>"But those evil-speakers spoke the truth."</p> + +<p>"Can a lie be stopped by a pistol-shot? But we need not argue."</p> + +<p>"No; I see how it is. I shall be to you only another of the wretched +sons of Cain."</p> + +<p>"I am thy sister," she said, and gave him her hand.</p> + +<p>He held it in his strong, cold, trembling clasp.</p> + +<p>"Darling, do you know where I am going? I shall never see you, never +again—unless you are like the sainted women of your faith who walked +the prisons, and preached to them in bonds."</p> + +<p>"Thy bonds are mine: but I am no preacher."</p> + +<p>The drowsy lights swayed and twinkled, the wheels rang on the frozen +rails as the wild, white wastes flew by.</p> + +<p>"Father shall never know it," Phebe murmured. "He shall never know, if I +can help it, why you called yourself unhappy."</p> + +<p>"Is it such an unspeakable horror to you?" He winced.</p> + +<p>"He has not many years to live; it would only be one disappointment +more." She was leaning back in her seat; her eyes were closed; she +looked dead weary, but patient, as if this too were life, and not more +than her share.</p> + +<p>"Has your father any money, dear?"</p> + +<p>She smiled: "Do we look like people with money?"</p> + +<p>"If they would only let me have my hands!" he groaned. "To think of +shutting up a great strong fellow like me"—</p> + +<p>It was useless to go on. He sat, bitterly forecasting the fortunes of +those two lambs who had strayed so far from the green pastures and still +waters, when he heard Phebe say softly, as if to herself,—</p> + +<p>"We are almost there."</p> + +<p>Mr. Burke began to fold his newspapers and get his bags in order. His +hands rested upon the implements of his office—he carried them always +in his pockets—while he stood balancing himself in the rocking car, and +the porter dusted his hat and coat.</p> + +<p>The train dashed past the first scattered lights of the town.</p> + +<p>"Po-catello!" the brakeman roared in a voice of triumph, for they were +"in" at last.</p> + +<p>The porter came, and touched Ludovic on the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Gen'leman says he's ready, sir."</p> + +<p>He rose and bent over Phebe. If she had been like any other girl he must +have kissed her, but he dared not. He had prayed for a sign, and he had +won it—that look of dumb and lasting anguish in her childlike eyes.</p> + +<p>Yet, strange passion of the man's nature, he was not sorry for what he +had done.</p> + +<p>Mr. Burke took his arm in silence, and steered him out of the car; both +doors were guarded, for he had feared there might be trouble. He was +surprised at Ludovic's behavior.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with him?" the car-conductor asked, looking after the +pair as they walked up the platform together. "Is he sick?"</p> + +<p>"Mashed," said the porter, gloomily; for Ludovic had forgotten the +parting fee. "Regular girl mash, the worst I ever saw."</p> + +<p>"He's late about it, if he expects to have any fun," said the conductor; +and he began to dance, with his hands in his great-coat pockets, for the +night air was raw. He was at the end of his run, and was going home to +his own girl, whom he had married the week before.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Friends and family influence mustered strong for Ludovic at the trial +six weeks later. His lawyer's speech was the finest effort, it was said, +ever listened to by an Idaho jury. The ladies went to hear it, and to +look at the handsome prisoner, who seemed to grow visibly old as the +days of the trial went by.</p> + +<p>But those who are acquainted with the average Western jury need not be +told that it was not influence that did it, nor the lawyer's eloquence, +nor the court's fine-spun legal definitions, nor even the women's tears. +They looked at the boy, and thought of their own boys, or they looked +inside, and thought of themselves; and they concluded that society might +take its chances with that young man at large. They stayed out an hour, +out of respect to their oath, and then brought in a verdict of "Not +guilty;" and the audience had to be suppressed.</p> + +<p>But after the jury's verdict there is society, and all the tongues that +will talk, long after the tears are dry. And then comes God in the +silence—and Phebe.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The men all say she is too good for him, whose name has been in +everybody's mouth. They say it, even though they do not know the cruel +way in which he won her love. But the women say that Phebe, though +undeniably a saint (and "the sweetest thing that ever lived"), is yet a +woman, incapable of inflicting judgment upon the man she loves.</p> + +<p>The case is in her hands now. She may punish, she may avenge, if she +will; for Ludovic is the slave of his own remorseless conquest. But +Phebe has never discovered that she was wronged. There is something in +faith, after all; and there is a good deal in blood, Friend Underhill +thinks. "Doubtless the grandson of Martin Ludovic must have had great +provocation."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_TRUMPETER" id="THE_TRUMPETER"></a>THE TRUMPETER</h2> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>When the trumpets at Bisuka barracks sound retreat, the girls in the +Meadows cottage, on the edge of the Reservation, begin to hurry with the +supper things, and Mrs. Meadows, who has been young herself, says to her +eldest daughter, "You go now, Callie; the girls and I can finish." Which +means that Callie's colors go up as the colors on the hill come down; +for soon the tidy infantrymen and the troopers with their yellow stripes +will be seen, in the first blush of the afterglow, tramping along the +paths that thread the sagebrush common between the barracks and the +town; and Callie's young man will be among them, and he will turn off at +the bridge that crosses the acéquia, and make for the cottage gate by a +path which he ought to know pretty well by this time.</p> + +<p>Callie's young man is Henniker, one of the trumpeters of K troop, —th +cavalry; <i>the</i> trumpeter, Callie would say, for though there are two of +the infantry and two of the cavalry who stand forth at sunset, in front +of the adjutant's office, and blow as one man the brazen call that +throbs against the hill, it is only Henniker whom Callie hears. That +trumpet blare, most masculine of all musical utterances, goes straight +from his big blue-clad chest to the heart of his girl, across the +clear-lit evening; but not to hers alone. There is only one Henniker, +but there is more than one girl in the cottage on the common.</p> + +<p>At this hour, nightly, a small dark head, not so high above the sage as +Callie's auburn one, pursues its dreaming way, in the wake of two cows +and a half-grown heifer, towards the hills where the town herd pastures. +Punctually at the first call it starts out behind the cows from the home +corral; by the second it has passed, very slowly, the foot-bridge, and +is nearly to the corner post of the Reservation; but when "sound off" is +heard, the slow-moving head stops still. The cheek turns. A listening +eye is raised; it is black, heavily lashed; the tip of a silken eyebrow +shows against the narrow temple. The cheek is round and young, of a +smooth clear brown, richly under-tinted with rose,—a native wild flower +of the Northwest. As the trumpets cease, and the gun fires, and the +brief echo dies in the hill, the liquid eyes grow sad.</p> + +<p>"Sweet, sweet! too sweet to be so short and so strong!" The dumb +childish heart swells in the constriction of a new and keener sense of +joy, an unspeakable new longing.</p> + +<p>What that note of the deep-colored summer twilight means to her she +hardly understands. It awakens no thought of expectation for herself, no +definite desire. She knows that the trumpeter's sunset call is his +good-by to duty on the eve of joy; it is the pæan of his love for +Callie. Wonderful to be like Callie; who after all is just like any +other girl,—like herself, just as she was a year ago, before she had +ever spoken to Henniker.</p> + +<p>Henniker was not only a trumpeter, one of four who made music for the +small two-company garrison; he was an artist with a personality. The +others blew according to tactics, and sometimes made mistakes; Henniker +never made mistakes, except that he sometimes blew too well. Nobody with +an ear, listening nightly for taps, could mistake when it was Henniker's +turn, as orderly trumpeter, to sound the calls. He had the temperament +of the joyous art: and with it the vanity, the passion, the +forgetfulness, the unconscious cruelty, the love of beauty, and the love +of being loved that made him the flirt constitutional as well as the +flirt military,—which not all soldiers are, but which all soldiers are +accused of being. He flirted not only with his fine gait and figure, and +bold roving glances from under his cap-peak with the gold sabres crossed +above it; he flirted in a particular and personal as well as promiscuous +manner, and was ever new to the dangers he incurred, not to mention +those to which his willing victims exposed themselves. For up to this +time in all his life Henniker had never yet pursued a girl. There had +been no need, and as yet no inducement, for him to take the offensive. +The girls all felt his irresponsible gift of pleasing, and forgot to be +afraid. Not one of the class of girls he met but envied Callie Meadows, +and showed it by pretending to wonder what he could see in her.</p> + +<p>It was himself Henniker saw, so no wonder he was satisfied, until he +should see himself in a more flattering mirror still. The very first +night he met her, Callie had informed him, with the courage of her +bright eyes, that she thought him magnificent fun; and he had laughed in +his heart, and said, "Go ahead, my dear!" And ahead they went headlong, +and were engaged within a week.</p> + +<p>Mother Meadows did not like it much, but it was the youthful way, in +pastoral frontier circles like their own; and Callie would do as she +pleased,—that was Callie's way. Father Meadows said it was the women's +business; if Callie and her mother were satisfied, so was he.</p> + +<p>But he made inquiries at the post, and learned that Henniker's record +was good in a military sense. He stood well with his officers, had no +loose, unsoldierly habits, and never was drunk on duty. He did not save +his pay; but how much "pay" had Meadows ever saved when he was a single +man? And within two years, if he wanted it, the trumpeter was entitled +to his discharge. So he prospered in this as in former love affairs that +had stopped short of the conclusive step of marriage.</p> + +<p>Meta, the little cow-girl, the youngest and fairest, though many shades +the darkest, of the Meadows household, was not of the Meadows blood. On +her father's side, her ancestry, doubtless, was uncertain; some said +carelessly, "Canada French." Her mother was pure squaw of the Bannock +breed. But Mother Meadows, whose warm Scotch-Irish heart nourished a +vein of romance together with a feudal love of family, upheld that Meta +was no chance slip of the murky half-bloods, neither clean wild nor +clean tame. Her father, she claimed to know, had been a man of education +and of honor, on the white side of his life, a well-born Scottish +gentleman, exiled to the wilderness of the Northwest in the service of +the Hudson's Bay Company. And Meta's mother had broken no law of her +rudimentary conscience. She had not swerved in her own wild allegiance, +nor suffered desertion by her white chief. He had been killed in some +obscure frontier fight, and his goods, including the woman and child, +were the stake for which he had perished. But Father Josette, who knew +all things and all people of those parts, and had baptized the infant by +the sainted name of Margaret, had traced his lost plant of grace and +conveyed it out of the forest shades into the sunshine of a Christian +white woman's home. Father Josette—so Mrs. Meadows maintained—had +known that the babe would prove worthy of transplantation.</p> + +<p>She made room for the little black-headed stranger, with soft eyes like +a mouse (by the blessing of God she had never lost a child, and the nest +was full,) in the midst of her own fat, fair-haired brood, and cherished +her in her place, and gave her a daughter's privilege.</p> + +<p>In a wild, woodlandish way Meta was a bit of an heiress in her own +right. She had inherited through her mother a share in the yearly +increase of a band of Bannock ponies down on the Salmon meadows; and +every season, after grand round-up, the settlement was made,—always +with distinct fairness, though it took some time, and a good deal of +eating, drinking, and diplomacy, before the business could be +accomplished.</p> + +<p>"What is a matter of a field worth forty shekels betwixt thee and me?" +was the etiquette of the transaction, but the outcome was practically +the same as in the days of patriarchal transfers of real estate.</p> + +<p>Father Meadows would say that it cost him twice over what the maiden's +claim was worth to have her cousins the Bannocks, with their wives and +children and horses, camped on his borders every summer; for Meta's +dark-skinned brethren never sent her the worth of her share in money, +but came themselves with her ponies in the flesh, and spare ponies of +their own, for sale in the town; and on Father Meadows was the burden of +keeping them all good-natured, of satisfying their primitive ideas of +hospitality, and of pasturing Meta's ponies until they could finally be +sold for her benefit. No account was kept, in this simple, generous +household, of what was done for Meta, but strict account was kept of +what was Meta's own.</p> + +<p>The Bannock brethren were very proud of their fair kinswoman who dwelt +in the tents of Jacob. They called her, amongst themselves, by the name +they give to the mariposa lily, the closed bud of which is pure white as +the whitest garden lily; but as each Psyche-wing petal opens it is +mooned at the base with a dark, purplish stain which marks the flower +with startling beauty, yet to some eyes seems to mar it as well. With +every new bud the immaculate promise is renewed; but the leopard cannot +change his spots nor the wild hill lily her natal stain.</p> + +<p>This year the sale of pony flesh amounted to nearly a hundred dollars, +which Father Meadows put away for Meta's future benefit,—all but one +gold piece, which the mother showed her, telling her that it represented +a new dress.</p> + +<p>"You need a new white one for your best, and I shall have it made long. +You're filling out so, I don't believe you'll grow much taller."</p> + +<p>Meta smiled sedately. In spite of the yearly object lesson her dark +kinsfolk presented, she never classed herself among the hybrids. She +accepted homage and tribute from the tribe, but in her consciousness, at +this time, she was all white. This was due partly to Mother Meadows's +large-hearted and romantic theories of training, and partly to an +accident of heredity. The woman who looks the squaw is the squaw, when +it comes to the flowering time of her life. To Meta had succeeded the +temperament of her mother expressed in the features of her father; +whether Canadian trapper or Scotch grandee, he had owned an admirable +profile.</p> + +<p>A great social and musical event took place that summer in the town, and +Meta's first long dress was finished in time to play its part, as such +trifles will, in the simple fates of girlhood. It was by far the +prettiest dress she had ever put over her head: the work of a +professional, to begin with. Then its length persuaded one that she was +taller than nature had made her. Its short waist suited her youthful +bust and flat back and narrow shoulders. The sleeves were puffed and +stood out like wings, and were gathered on a ribbon which tied in a bow +just above the bend of her elbow. Her arms were round and soft as satin, +and pinkish-pale inside, like the palms of her small hands. All her +skin, though dark, was as clear as wine in a colored glass. The neck was +cut down in a circle below her throat, which she shyly clasped with her +hands, not being accustomed to feel it bare. And as naturally as a bird +would open its beak for a worm, she exclaimed to Mother Meadows, "Oh, +how I wish I had some beads!" And before night she had strung herself a +necklace of the gold-colored pom-pons with silver-gray stems that +spangle the dry hills in June,—"butter-balls" the Western children call +them,—and, in spite of the laughter and gibes of the other girls, she +wore her sylvan ornament on the gala night, and its amazing becomingness +was its best defense.</p> + +<p>So Meta's first long dress went, in company with three other unenvious +white dresses and Father Meadows's best coat, to hear the "Coonville +Minstrels," a company of amateur performers representing the best +musical talent in the town, who would appear "for one night only," for +the benefit of the free circulating library fund.</p> + +<p>Henniker was not in attendance on his girl as usual.</p> + +<p>"What a pity," the sisters said, "that he should have to be on guard +to-night!" But Meta remembered, though she did not say so, that +Henniker had been on guard only two nights before, so it could not be +his turn again, and that could not explain his absence.</p> + +<p>But Callie was as gay as ever, and did not seem put out, even at her +father's bantering insinuations about some other possible girl who might +be scoring in her place.</p> + +<p>The sisters were enraptured over every number on the programme. The +performers had endeavored to conceal their identity under burnt cork and +names that were fictitious and humorous, but everybody was comparing +guesses as to which was which, and who was who. The house was packed, +and "society" was there. The feminine half of it did not wear its best +frock to the show and its head uncovered, but what of that! A girl knows +when she is looking her prettiest, and the young Meadowses were in no +way concerned for the propriety of their own appearance. Father Meadows, +looking along the row of smiling faces belonging to him, was as well +satisfied as any man in the house. His eyes rested longer than usual on +little Meta to-night. He saw for the first time that the child was a +beauty; not going to be,—she was one then and there. Her hair, which +she was accustomed to wear in two tightly braided pigtails down her +back, had been released and brushed out all its stately maiden length, +"crisped like a war steed's encolure." It fell below her waist, and made +her face and throat look pale against its blackness. A spot of white +electric light touched her chest where it rose and fell beneath the +chain of golden blossom balls,—orange gold, the cavalry color. She +looked like no other girl in the house, though nearly every girl in town +was there.</p> + +<p>Part I. of the programme was finished; a brief wait,—the curtain rose, +and behold the colored gentlemen from Coonville had vanished. Only the +interlocutor remained, scratching his white wool wig over a letter which +he begged to read in apology for his predicament. His minstrelsy had +decamped, and spoilt his show. They wrote to inform him of the obvious +fact, and advised him facetiously to throw himself upon the indulgence +of the house, but "by no means to refund the money."</p> + +<p>Poor little Meta believed that she was listening to the deplorable +truth, and wondered how Father Meadows and the girls could laugh.</p> + +<p>"Oh, won't there be any second part, after all?" she despaired; at which +Father Meadows laughed still more, and pinched her cheek, and some +persons in the row of chairs in front half turned and smiled.</p> + +<p>"Goosey," whispered Callie, "don't you see he's only gassing? This is +part of the fun."</p> + +<p>"Oh, is it?" sighed Meta, and she waited for the secret of the fun to +develop.</p> + +<p>"Look at your programme," Callie instructed her. "See, this is the +Impressario's Predicament. The Wandering Minstrel comes next. He will be +splendid, I can tell you."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Piper Hide-and-Seek," murmured Meta, studying her programme. "What +a funny name!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you child!" Callie laughed aloud, but as suddenly hushed, for the +sensation of the evening, to the Meadows party, had begun.</p> + +<p>A very handsome man, in the gala dress of a stage peasant, of the +Bavarian Highlands possibly, came forward with a short, military step, +and bowed impressively. There was a burst of applause from the bluecoats +in the gallery, and much whistling and stamping from the boys.</p> + +<p>"Who is it?" the lady in front whispered to her neighbor.</p> + +<p>"One of the soldiers from the post," was the answer.</p> + +<p>"Really!"</p> + +<p>But the lady's accent of surprise conveyed nothing, beside the +speechless admiration of the Meadows family. Callie, who had been in the +exciting secret all along, whispered violently with the other girls, but +Meta had become quite cold and shivery. She could not have uttered a +word.</p> + +<p>Henniker made a little speech in an assumed accent which astonished his +friends almost more than his theatrical dress and bearing. He said he +was a stranger, piping his way through a foreign land, but he could +"spik ze Engleesh a leetle." Would the ladies and gentlemen permit him, +in the embarrassing absence of better performers, to present them with a +specimen of his poor skill upon a very simple instrument? Behold!</p> + +<p>He flung back his short cloak, and filled his chest, standing lightly on +his feet, with his elbows raised.</p> + +<p>No rattling trumpet blast from the artist's lips to-night, but, still +and small, sustained and clear, the pure reed note trilled forth. Willow +whistles piping in spring-time in the stillness of deep meadow lands +before the grass is long, or in flickering wood paths before the full +leaves darken the boughs—such was the pastoral simplicity of the +instrument with which Henniker beguiled his audience. Such was the +quality of sound, but the ingenuity, caprice, delicacy, and precision of +its management were quite his own. They procured him a wild encore.</p> + +<p>Henniker had been nervous at the first time of playing; it would have +embarrassed him less to come before a strange house; for there were the +captain and the captain's lady, and the lieutenants with their best +girls; and forty men he knew were nudging and winking at one another; +and there were the bonny Meadowses, with their eyes upon him and their +faces all aglow. But who was she, the little big-eyed dark one in their +midst? He took her in more coolly as he came before the house the second +time; and this time he knew her, but not as he ever had known her +before.</p> + +<p>Is it one of nature's revenges that in the beauty of their women lurks +the venom of the dark races which the white man has put beneath his +feet? The bruised serpent has its sting; and we know how, from Moab and +Midian down, the daughters of the heathen have been the unhappy +instruments of proud Israel's fall; but the shaft of his punishment +reaches him through the body of the woman who cleaves to his breast.</p> + +<p>That one look of Henniker's at Meta, in her strange yet familiar beauty, +sitting captive to his spell, went through his flattered senses like the +intoxication of strong drink. He did not take his eyes off her again. +His face was pale with the complex excitement of a full house that was +all one girl and all hushed through joy of him. She sat so close to +Callie, his reckless glances might have been meant for either of them; +Callie thought at first they were for her, but she did not think so +long.</p> + +<p>Something followed on the programme at which everybody laughed, but it +meant nothing at all to Meta. She thought the supreme moment had come +and gone, when a big Zouave in his barbaric reds and blues marched out +and took his stand, back from the footlights, between the wings, and +began that amazing performance with a rifle which is known as the +"Zouave drill."</p> + +<p>The dress was less of a disguise than the minstrel's had been, and it +was a sterner, manlier transformation. It brought out the fighting look +in Henniker. The footlights were lowered, a smoke arose behind the +wings, strange lurid colors were cast upon the figure of the soldier +magician.</p> + +<p>"The stage is burning!" gasped Meta, clutching Collie's arm.</p> + +<p>"It's nothing but red fire. You mustn't give yourself away so, Meta; +folks will take us for a lot of sagebrushers."</p> + +<p>Meta settled back in her place with a fluttering sigh, and poured her +soul into this new wonder.</p> + +<p>But Henniker was not doing himself justice to-night, his comrades +thought. No one present was so critical of him or so proud of him as +they. A hundred times he had put himself through this drill before a +barrack audience, and it had seemed as if he could not make a break. But +to-night his nerve was not good. Once he actually dropped his piece, and +a groan escaped the row of uniforms in the gallery. This made him angry; +he pulled himself up and did some good work for a moment, and +then—"Great Scott! he's lost it again! No, he hasn't. Brace up, man!" +The rifle swerves, but Henniker's knee flies up to catch it; the sound +of the blow on the bone makes the women shiver; but he has his piece, +and sends it savagely whirling, and that miss was his last. His head was +like the centre of a spinning top or the hub of a flying wheel. He felt +ugly from the pain of his knee, but he made a dogged finish, and only +those who had seen him at his best would have said that his drill was a +failure.</p> + +<p>Henniker knew, if no one else did, what had lost him his grip in the +rifle act. His eyes, which should have been glued to his work, had been +straying for another and yet one more look at Meta. Where she sat so +still was the storm centre of emotion in the house, and when his eyes +approached her they caught the nerve shock that shook his whole system +and spoiled his fine work. He cared nothing for the success of his +piping when he thought of the failure of his drill. The failure had come +last, and, with other things, it left its sting.</p> + +<p>On the way home to barracks, the boys were all talking, in their free +way, about Meta Meadows,—the little broncho, they called her, in +allusion to her great mane of hair,—which made Henniker very hot.</p> + +<p>He would not own that his knee pained him; he would not have it referred +to, and was ready, next day, to join the riders in squad drill, a new +feature of which was the hurdles and ditch-jumping and the mounted +exercises, in which as usual, Henniker had distinguished himself.</p> + +<p>The Reservation is bounded on the south-east side, next the town, by an +irrigation ditch, which is crossed by as many little bridges as there +are streets that open out upon the common. (All this part of the town is +laid out in "additions," and is sparsely built up.) Close to this +division line, at right angles with it, are the dry ditches and hurdle +embankments over which the stern young corporals put their squads, under +the eye of the captain.</p> + +<p>Out in the centre of the plain other squads are engaged in the athletics +of horsemanship,—a series of problems in action which embraces every +sort of emergency a mounted man may encounter in the rush and throng of +battle, and the means of instantly meeting it, and of saving his own +life or that of a comrade. So much more is made in these days of the +individual powers of the man and horse that it is wonderful to see what +an exact yet intelligently obedient combination they have become; no +less effective in a charge, as so many pounds of live momentum to be +hurled on the bayonet points, but much more self-reliant on scout +service, or when scattered singly, in defeat, over a wide, strange field +of danger.</p> + +<p>On the regular afternoons for squad and troop drill, the ditch bank on +the town side would be lined with spectators: ladies in light cotton +dresses and beflowered hats, small bare-legged boys and muddy dogs, the +small boys' sisters dragging bonnetless babies by the hand, and +sometimes a tired mother who has come in a hurry to see where her little +truants have strayed to, or a cow-boy lounging sideways on his peaked +saddle, condescending to look on at the riding of Uncle Sam's boys. The +crowd assorts itself as the people do who line the barriers at a +bull-fight: those who have parasols, to the shadow; those who have +barely a hat, to the sun.</p> + +<p>Here, on the field of the gray-green plain, under the glaring tent roof +of the desert sky, the national free circus goes on,—to the screaming +delight of the small boys, the fear and exultation of the ladies, and +the alternate pride and disgust of the officers who have it in charge.</p> + +<p>A squad of the boldest riders are jumping, six in line. One can see by +the way they come that every man will go over: first the small ditch, +hardly a check in the pace; then a rush at the hurdle embankment, the +horses' heads very grand and Greek as they rear in a broken line to take +it. Their faces are as strong and wild as the faces of the men. Their +flanks are slippery with sweat. They clear the hurdles, and stretch out +for the wide ditch.</p> + +<p>"Keep in line! Don't crowd!" the corporal shouts. They are doing well, +he thinks. Over they all go; and the ladies breathe again, and say to +each other how much finer this sport is because it is work, and has a +purpose in it.</p> + +<p>Now the guidon comes, riding alone, and the whole troop is proud of him. +The signal flag flashes erect from the trooper's stirrup; the horse is +new to it, and fears it as if it were something pursuing him; but in the +face of horse and man is the same fixed expression, the sober +recklessness that goes straight to the finish. If these do not go over, +it will not be for want of the spur in the blood.</p> + +<p>Next comes a pale young cavalryman just out of the hospital. He has had +a fall at the hurdle week before and strained his back. His captain sees +that he is nervous and not yet fit for the work, yet cannot spare him +openly. He invents an order, and sends him off to another part of the +field where the other squads are manœuvring.</p> + +<p>If it is not in the man to go over, it will not be in his horse, though +a poor horse may put a good rider to shame; but the measure of every man +and every horse is taken by those who have watched them day by day.</p> + +<p>The ladies are much concerned for the man who fails,—"so sorry" they +are for him, as his horse blunders over the hurdle, and slackens when he +ought to go free; and of course he jibs at the wide ditch, and the rider +saws on his mouth.</p> + +<p>"Give him his head! Where are your spurs, man?" the corporal shouts, and +adds something under his breath which cannot be said in the presence of +his captain. In they go, floundering, on their knees and noses, horse +and man, and the ladies cannot see, for the dust, which of them is on +top; but they come to the surface panting, and the man, whose uniform is +of the color of the ditch, climbs on again, and the corporal's disgust +is heard in his voice as he calls, "Ne-aaxt!"</p> + +<p>It need not be said that no corporal ever asked Henniker where were +<i>his</i> spurs. To-day the fret in his temper fretted his horse, a young, +nervous animal who did not need to know where his rider's heels were +quite so often as Henniker's informed him.</p> + +<p>"Is that a non-commissioned officer who is off, and his horse scouring +away over the plain? What a dire mortification," the ladies say, "and +what a consolation to the bunglers!"</p> + +<p>No, it is the trumpeter. He was taking the hurdle in a rush of the whole +squad; his check-strap broke, and his horse went wild, and slammed +himself into another man's horse, and ground his rider's knee against +his comrade's carbine. It is Henniker who is down in the dust, cursing +the carbine, and cursing his knee, and cursing the mischief generally.</p> + +<p>The ladies strolled home through the heat, and said how glorious it was +and how awfully real, and how one man got badly hurt; and they described +in detail the sight of Henniker limping bareheaded in the sun, holding +on to a comrade's shoulder; how his face was a "ghastly brown white," +and his eyes were bloodshot, and his black head dun with dust.</p> + +<p>"It was the trumpeter who blew so beautifully the other night,—who hurt +his knee in the rifle drill," they said. "It was his knee that was hurt +to-day. I wonder if it was the same knee?"</p> + +<p>It was the same knee, and this time Henniker went to hospital and stayed +there; and being no malingerer, his confinement was bitterly irksome and +a hurt to his physical pride.</p> + +<p>The post surgeon's house is the last one on the line. Then comes the +hospital, but lower down the hill. The officer's walk reaches it by a +pair of steps that end in a slope of grass. There are moisture and shade +where the hospital stands, and a clump of box-elder trees is a boon to +the convalescents there. The road between barracks and canteen passes +the angle of the whitewashed fence; a wild syringa bush grows on the +hospital side, and thrusts its blossoms over the wall. There is a broken +board in the fence which the syringa partly hides.</p> + +<p>After three o'clock in the afternoon this is the coolest corner of the +hospital grounds; and here, on the grass, Henniker was lying, one day of +the second week of his confinement.</p> + +<p>He had been half asleep when a soft, light thump on the grass aroused +him. A stray kitten had crawled through the hole in the fence, and, +feeling her way down with her forepaws, had leaped to the ground beside +him.</p> + +<p>"Hey, pussy!" Henniker welcomed her pleasantly, and then was silent. A +hand had followed the kitten through the hole in the fence,—a smooth +brown hand no bigger than a child's, but perfect in shape as a woman's. +The small fingers moved and curled enticingly.</p> + +<p>"Pussy, pussy? Come, pussy!" a soft voice cooed. "Puss, puss, puss? +Come, pussy!" The fingers groped about in empty air. "Where are you, +pussy?"</p> + +<p>Henniker had quietly possessed himself of the kitten, which, moved by +these siren tones, began to squirm a little and meekly to "miew." He +reached forth his hand and took the small questing one prisoner; then he +let the kitten go. There was a brief speechless struggle, quite a +useless one.</p> + +<p>"Let me go! Who is it? Oh <i>dear</i>!"</p> + +<p>Another pull. Plainly, from the tone, this last was feminine profanity.</p> + +<p>Silence again, the hand struggling persistently, but in vain. The soft +bare arm, working against the fence, became an angry red.</p> + +<p>"Softly now. It's only me. Didn't you know I was in hospital, Meta?"</p> + +<p>"Is it you, Henniker?"</p> + +<p>"Indeed it is. You wouldn't begrudge me a small shake of your hand, +after all these days?"</p> + +<p>"But you are not in hospital now?"</p> + +<p>"That's what I am. I'm not in bed, but I'm going on three legs when I'm +going at all. I'm a house-bound man." A heavy sigh from Henniker.</p> + +<p>"Haven't you shaken hands enough now, Henniker?" beseechingly from the +other side. "I only wanted kitty; please put her through the fence."</p> + +<p>"What's your hurry?"</p> + +<p>"Have you got her there? Callie left her with me. I mustn't lose her. +Please?"</p> + +<p>"Has Callie gone away?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, didn't you know? She has gone to stay with Tim's wife." (Tim +Meadows was the eldest, the married son of the family.) "She has a +little baby, and they can't get any help, and father wouldn't let +mother go down because it's bad for her to be over a cook stove, you +know."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know the old lady feels the heat."</p> + +<p>"We are quite busy at the house. I came of an errand to the +quartermaster-sergeant's, and kitty followed me, and the children chased +her. I must go home now," urged Meta. "Really, I did not think you would +be so foolish, Henniker. I can't see what fun there is in this!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but Meta, I've made a discovery,—here in your hand."</p> + +<p>"In my hand? What is it? Let me see." A violent determined pull, and a +sound like a smothered explosion of laughter from Henniker.</p> + +<p>"Softly, softly now. You'll hurt yourself, my dear."</p> + +<p>"Is my hand dirty? It was the kitten, then; her paws were all over +sand."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no. Great sign! It's worse than that. It'll not come off."</p> + +<p>"I <i>will</i> see what it is!"</p> + +<p>"But you can't see unless I was to tell you. I'm a hand reader, did you +know it? I can tell your fortune by the lines on your palm. I'm reading +them off here just like a book."</p> + +<p>"Good gracious! what do you see?"</p> + +<p>"Why, it's a most extraordinary thing! Your head line is that mixed up +with your heart line, 'pon me word I can't tell which is which. Which is +it, Meta? Do you choose your friends with your head entirely, or is it +the other way with you, dear?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, is that all? I thought you could tell fortunes really. I don't care +what I <i>am</i>; I want to know what I'm going to <i>do</i>. Don't you see +anything that's going to happen to me?"</p> + +<p>"Lots of things. I see something that's going to happen to you right +now. I wonder did it ever happen to you before?"</p> + +<p>"What is it? When is it coming?"</p> + +<p>"It has come. I will put it right here in your hand. But I shall want it +back again, remember; and don't be giving it away, now, to anybody +else."</p> + +<p>A mysterious pause. Meta felt a breath upon her wrist, and a kiss from a +mustached lip was pressed into the hollow of her hand.</p> + +<p>"Keep that till I ask you for it," said Henniker quite sternly, and +closed her hand tight with his own. The hand became an expressive little +fist.</p> + +<p>"I think you are just as mean and silly as you can be! I'll never +believe a word you say again."</p> + +<p>"Pussy," remarked Henniker, in a mournful aside, "go ask your mistress +will she please forgive me. Tell her I'm not exactly sorry, but I +couldn't help it. Faith, I couldn't."</p> + +<p>"I'm not her mistress," said Meta.</p> + +<p>It was a keen reminder, but Henniker did not seem to feel it much.</p> + +<p>"Go tell Meta," he corrected. "Ask her please to forgive me, and I'll +take it back,—the kiss, I mean."</p> + +<p>"I'm going now," said Meta. "Keep the kitten, if you want her. She isn't +mine, anyway."</p> + +<p>But now the kitten was softly crowded through the fence by Henniker, and +Meta, relenting, gathered her into her arms and carried her home.</p> + +<p>It was certainly not his absence from Callie's side that put Henniker in +such a bad humor with his confinement. He grew morbid, and fell into +treacherous dreaming, and wondered jealously about the other boys, and +what they were doing with themselves these summer evenings, while he was +loafing on crutches under the hospital trees. He was frankly pining for +his freedom before Callie should return. He wanted a few evenings which +he need not account for to anybody but himself; and he got his freedom, +unhappily, in time to do the mischief of his dream,—to put vain, +selfish longings into the simple heart of Meta, and to spoil his own +conscience toward his promised wife.</p> + +<p>Henniker knew the ways of the Meadows cottage as well as if he had been +one of the family. He knew that Meta, having less skill about the house +than the older girls, took the part of chore-boy, and fetched and drove +away the cows.</p> + +<p>It were simple enough to cross her evening track through the pale +sagebrush, which betrayed every bit of contrasting color, the colors of +Meta's hair-ribbon and her evening frock; it were simple enough, had she +been willing to meet him. But Meta had lost confidence in the hero of +the household. She had seen Henniker in a new light; and whatever her +heart line said, her head line told her that she had best keep a good +breadth of sagebrush between herself and that particular pair of broad +blue shoulders that moved so fast above it. So as Henniker advanced the +girl retreated, obscurely, with shy doublings and turnings, carefully +managed not to reveal that she was running away; for that might vex +Henniker, and she was still too loyal to the family bond to wish to show +her sister's lover an open discourtesy. She did not dream of the +possibility of his becoming her own lover, but she thought him capable +of going great lengths in his very peculiar method of teasing.</p> + +<p>As soon as he understood her tactics Henniker changed his own. Without +another glance in her direction he made off for the hills, but not too +far from the trail the cows were taking; and choosing a secluded spot, +behind a thick-set clump of sage, he took out his rustic pipe and +waited, and when he saw her he began to play.</p> + +<p>Meta's heart jumped at the first note. She stole along, drinking in the +sounds, no one molesting or making her afraid. Ahead of her, as she +climbed, the first range of hills cast a glowing reflection in her +face; but the hills beyond were darker, cooler, and the blue-black pines +stood out against the sky-like trees of a far cloud-country cut off by +some aerial gulf from the most venturesome of living feet.</p> + +<p>Henniker saw the girl coming, her face alight in the primrose glow, and +he threw away all moments but the present. His breath stopped; then he +took a deep inspiration, laid his lips to the pipe, and played, softly, +subtly, as one who thinks himself alone.</p> + +<p>She had discovered him, but she could not drag herself very far away +from those sounds. At last she sat down upon the ground, and gave +herself up to listening. A springy sagebush supported her as she let +herself sink back; one arm was behind her head, to protect it from the +prickly shoots.</p> + +<p>"Meta," said Henniker, "are you listening? I'm talking to you now."</p> + +<p>It was all the same: his voice was like another phrase of music. He went +on playing, and Meta did not stir.</p> + +<p>Another pause. "Are you there still, Meta? I was lonesome to-night, but +you ran away from me. Was that friendly? You like my music; then why +don't you like me? Well, here's for you again, ungrateful!" He went on +playing.</p> + +<p>The cows were wandering wide of the trail, towards the upper valley. +Meta began to feel herself constrained, and not in the direction of her +duty. She rose, cast her long braids over her shoulder, and moved +resolutely away.</p> + +<p>Henniker was absorbed in what he was saying to her with his pipe. When +he had made a most seductive finish he paused, and spoke. He rose and +looked about him. Meta was a long way off, down the valley, walking +fast. He bounded after her, and caught her rudely around the waist.</p> + +<p>"See here, little girl, I won't be made game of like this! I was playing +to you, and you ran off and left me tooting like a fool. Was that +right?"</p> + +<p>"I had to go; it is getting late. The music was too sweet. It made me +feel like I could cry." She lifted her long-lashed eyes swimming in +liquid brightness. Henniker caught her hand in his.</p> + +<p>"I was playing to you, Meta, as I play to no one else. Does a person +steal away and leave another person discoursin' to the empty air? I +didn't think you would want to make a fool of me."</p> + +<p>Meta drew away her hand and pressed it in silence on her heart. No woman +of Anglo-Saxon blood, without a vast amount of training, could have said +so much and said it so naturally with a gesture so hackneyed.</p> + +<p>Henniker looked at her from under his eyebrows, biting his mustache. He +took a few steps away from her, and then came back.</p> + +<p>"Meta," he said, in a different voice, "what was that thing you wore +around your neck, the other night, at the minstrels,—that filigree gold +thing, eh?"</p> + +<p>The girl looked up, astonished; then her eyes fell, and she colored +angrily. No Indian or dog could hate to be laughed at more than Meta; +and she had been so teased about her innocent make-believe necklace! Had +the girls been spreading the joke? She had suddenly outgrown the +childish good faith that had made it possible for her to deck herself in +it, and she wished never to hear the thing mentioned again. She hung +her head and would not speak.</p> + +<p>Henniker's suspicions were characteristic. Of course a girl like that +must have a lover. Her face confessed that he had touched upon a tender +spot.</p> + +<p>"It was a pretty thing," he said coldly. "I wonder if I could get one +like it for Callie?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think Callie would wear one even if you gave it to her," Meta +answered with spirit.</p> + +<p>"I say, won't you tell me which of the boys it is, Meta?—Won't I wear +the life out of him, just!" he added to himself.</p> + +<p>"Is what?"</p> + +<p>"Your best fellah; the one who gave you that."</p> + +<p>"There isn't any. It was nothing. I won't tell you what it was! I made +it myself, there! It was only 'butter-balls.'"</p> + +<p>"Oh, good Lord!" laughed Henniker.</p> + +<p>Meta thought he was laughing at her. It was too much! The sweetness of +his music was all jangled in her nerves. Tears would come, and then more +tears because of the first.</p> + +<p>Had Meta been the child of her father, she might have been sitting that +night in one of the vine-shaded porches of the houses on the line, with +a brace of young lieutenants at her feet, and in her wildest follies +with them she would have been protected by all the traditions and +safeguards of her class. As she was the child of her mother, instead, +she was out on the hills with Henniker. And how should the squaw's +daughter know the difference between protection and pursuit?</p> + +<p>When Henniker put his arm around her and kissed the tears from her eyes, +she would not have changed places with the proudest lady of the +line,—captain's wife, lieutenant's sweetheart, or colonel's daughter of +them all. Her chief, who blew the trumpet, was as great a man in Meta's +eyes as the officer who buckled on his sabre in obedience to the call.</p> + +<p>As for Henniker, no girl's head against his breast had ever looked so +womanly dear as Meta's; no shut eyelids that he had ever kissed had +covered such wild, sweet eyes. He did not think of her at all in words, +any more than of the twilight afterglow in which they parted, with its +peculiar intensity, its pang of color. He simply felt her; and it was +nearest to the poetic passion of any emotion that he had ever known.</p> + +<p>That night Meta deceived her foster-mother, and lying awake beside +Callie's empty cot, in the room which the two girls shared together, she +treacherously prayed that it might be long before her sister's return. +The wild white lily had opened, and behold the stain!</p> + +<p>It had been a hard summer for Tim Meadows's family,—the second summer +on a sagebrush ranch, their small capital all in the ground, the first +hay crop ungathered, and the men to board as well as to pay. The +boarding was Mrs. Tim's part; yet many a young wife would have thought +that she had enough to do with her own family to cook and wash for, and +her first baby to take care of.</p> + +<p>"You'll get along all right," the older mothers encouraged her. "A +summer baby is no trouble at all."</p> + +<p>No trouble when the trouble is twenty years behind us, among the joys of +the past. But Tim's wife was wondering if she could hold out till cool +weather came, when the rush of the farm work would be over, and her +"summer baby" would be in short clothes and able to sit alone. The heat +in their four-roomed cabin, in the midst of the treeless land, was an +ordeal alone. To sleep in the house was impossible; the rooms and the +windows were too small to admit enough air. They moved their beds +outside, and slept like tramps under the stars; and the broad light +awoke them at earliest dawn, and the baby would never sleep till after +ten at night, when the dry Plains wind began to fan the face of the +weary land. Even Callie, whose part in the work was subsidiary, lost +flesh, and the roses in her cheeks turned sallow, in the month she +stayed on the ranch; but she would have been ashamed to complain, though +she was heartsick for a word from Henniker. He had written to her only +once.</p> + +<p>It was Mrs. Meadows who thought it high time that Callie should come +home. She had found a good woman to take her daughter's place, and +arranged the matter of pay herself. Tim had said they could get no help, +but his mother knew what that meant; such help as they could afford to +pay for was worse than none.</p> + +<p>It seemed a poor return to Callie, for her sisterly service in the +valley, to come home and find her lover a changed man. Mrs. Meadows said +he was like all the soldiers she had ever known,—light come, light go. +But this did not comfort Callie much, nor more to be reminded what a +good thing it was she had found him out in time.</p> + +<p>Henniker was not scoundrel enough to make love to two girls at once, two +semi-sisters, who slept in the same room and watched each other's +movements in the same looking-glass. It was no use pretending that he +and Callie could "heat their broth over again;" so the coolness came +speedily to a breach, and Henniker no longer openly, in fair daylight, +took the path to the cottage gate. But there were other paths.</p> + +<p>He had found a way to talk to Meta with his trumpet. He sent her +messages at guard-mounting, as the guard was forming, when, as senior +trumpeter, he was allowed a choice in the airs he played; and when he +was orderly trumpeter, and could not come himself to say it, he sent +her his good-night in the plaintive notes of taps.</p> + +<p>This was the climax of Henniker's flirtations: all that went before had +been as nothing, all that came after was not much worse than nothing. It +was the one sincere as it was the one poetic passion of his life; and +had it not cost him his self-respect through his baseness to Callie, and +the treachery and dissimulation he was teaching to an innocent child, it +might have made him a faithful man. As it was, his soldier's honor +slept; it was the undisciplined part of him that spoke to the elemental +nature of the girl; and it was fit that a trumpet's reckless summons, or +its brief inarticulate call, like the note of a wild bird to its mate, +should be the language of his love.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Retreat had sounded, one evening in October, but it made no stir any +more in the cottage where the girls had been so gay. Callie, putting the +tea on the table, remembered, as she heard the gun fire, how in the the +spring Henniker had said that when "sound off" was at six he would drop +in to supper some night, and show her how to make <i>chili con carne</i>, a +dish that every soldier knows who has served on the Mexican border. Her +face grew hard, for these foolish, unsleeping reminders were as constant +as the bugle calls.</p> + +<p>The women waited for the head of the house; but as he did not come, they +sat down and ate quickly, saving the best dish hot for him.</p> + +<p>They had finished, and the room was growing dusk, when he came in +breezily, and called at once, as a man will, for a light. Meta rose to +fetch it. The door stood open between the fore-room and the kitchen, +where she was groping for a lamp. Mr. Meadows spoke in a voice too big +for the room. He had just been conversing across the common with the +quartermaster-sergeant, as the two men's footsteps diverged by separate +paths to their homes.</p> + +<p>"I hear there's going to be a change at the post;" he shouted. "The —th +is going to leave this department, and C troop of the Second is coming +from Custer. Sergeant says they are looking for orders any day now."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Meadows, before she thought, glanced at Callie. The girl winced, +for she hated to be looked at like that. She held up her head and began +to sing audaciously, drumming with her fingers on the table:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'When my mother comes to know<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That I love the soldiers so,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She will lock me up all day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till the soldiers march away.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"What sort of a song is that?" asked her father sharply.</p> + +<p>Callie looked him in the eyes. "Don't you know that tune?" said she. +"Henniker plays that at guard-mount; and sometimes he plays this:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Oh, whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though father and mither and a' should go mad.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Let him play what he likes," said the father angrily. "His saucy jig +tunes are nothing to us. I'm thankful no girl of mine is following after +the army. It's a hard life for a woman, I can tell you, in the ranks."</p> + +<p>Callie pushed her chair back, and looked out of the window as if she had +not heard.</p> + +<p>"Where's Meta with that lamp? Go and see what's keeping her."</p> + +<p>"Sit still," said Mrs. Meadows. She went herself into the kitchen, but +no one heard her speak a word; yet the kitchen was not empty.</p> + +<p>There was a calico-covered lounge that stood across the end of the room; +Meta sat there, quite still, her back against the wall. Mrs. Meadows +took one look at her; then she lighted the lamp and carried it into the +dining-room, and went back and shut herself in with Meta.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'When my mother comes to know,'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>hummed Callie. Her face was pale. She hardly knew that she was singing.</p> + +<p>"Stop that song!" her father shouted. "Go and see what's the matter with +your sister."</p> + +<p>"Sister?" repeated Callie. "Meta is no sister of mine."</p> + +<p>"She's your tent-mate, then. Ye grew nest-ripe under the same mother's +wing."</p> + +<p>"Meta can use her own wings now, you will find. She grew nest-ripe very +young."</p> + +<p>Father Meadows knew that there was trouble inside of that closed door, +as there was trouble inside the white lips and shut heart of his frank +and joyous Callie, but it was "the women's business." He went out to +attend to his own.</p> + +<p>Irrigation on the scale of a small cottage garden is tedious work. It +has intervals of silence and leaning on a hoe while one little channel +fills or trickles into the next one; and the water must be stopped out +here, and floated longer there, like the bath over the surface of an +etcher's plate. Water was scarce and the rates were high that summer, +and there was a good deal of "dry-point" work with a hoe in Father +Meadows's garden.</p> + +<p>He had come to one of the discouraging places where the ground was +higher than the water could be made to reach without a deal of propping +and damming with shovelfuls of earth. This spot was close to the window +of the kitchen chamber, which was "mother's room." She was in there +talking to Meta. Her voice was deep with the maternal note of +remonstrance; Meta's was sharp and high with excitement and resistance. +Her faintness had passed, but Mother Meadows had been inquiring into +causes.</p> + +<p>"I am married to him, mother! He is my husband as much as he can be."</p> + +<p>"It was never Father Magrath married you, or I should be knowing to it +before now."</p> + +<p>"No; we went before a judge, or a justice, in the town."</p> + +<p>"In town! Well, that is something; but be sure there is a wrong or a +folly somewhere when a man takes a young girl out of her home and out of +her church to be married. If Henniker had taken you 'soberly, in the +fear of God'"—</p> + +<p>"He <i>was</i> sober!" cried Meta. "I never saw him any other way."</p> + +<p>"Mercy on us! I was not thinking of the man's habits. He's too good to +have done the way he has. That's what I have against him. I don't know +what I shall say to Father Josette. The disgrace of this is on me, too, +for not looking after my house better. 'Never let her be humbled through +her not being all white,' the father said when he brought you to me, and +God knows I never forgot that your little heart was white. I trusted you +as I would one of my own, and was easier on you for fear of a mother's +natural bias toward her own flesh and blood; and now to think that you +would lie to me, and take a man in secret that had deceived your sister +before you,—as if nothing mattered so that you got what you wanted! And +down in the town, without the priest's blessing or a kiss from any of us +belonging to you! It's one way to get married, but it's not the right +way."</p> + +<p>"Did no white girl ever do as I have?" asked Meta, with a touch of +sullenness.</p> + +<p>"Plenty of them, but they didn't make their mothers happy."</p> + +<p>Meta stirred restively on the bed. "Will Father Magrath have to talk to +me, and Father Josette, and <i>all</i> the fathers?" she inquired. "He said +he never would have married Callie anyway,—not even if he couldn't +have had me."</p> + +<p>"And the more shame to him to say such a thing to one sister of another! +Callie is much the best off of you two." Mrs. Meadows rose and moved +heavily away from the bed. "Well," she said, "most marriages are just +one couple more. It's very little of a sacrament there is about the +common run of such things, but I hoped for something better when it came +to my girls' turn. However, sorrow is the sacrament God sends us, to +give us a chance to learn a little something before we die. I expect +you'll learn your lesson."</p> + +<p>She came back to the bed, and Meta moaned as she sat down again, to +signify that she had been talked to enough. But the mother had something +practical to say, though she could not say it without emotional +emphasis, for her outraged feelings were like a flood that has come +down, but has not yet subsided.</p> + +<p>"If there's any way for you to go with Henniker when the troop goes, +it's with him you ought to be; but if he has married without his +captain's consent, he'll get no help at barracks. Do you know how that +is, Meta?"</p> + +<p>Meta shook her head; but presently she forced herself to speak the +truth. She did know that Henniker had told no one at the post of his +marriage. She had never asked him why, nor had thought that it mattered.</p> + +<p>"Oh my! I was afraid of that," said Mrs. Meadows. "The colonel knows it +was Callie he was engaged to. Father went up to see him about Henniker, +and the colonel as good as gave his word for him that he was a man we +could have in the family. A commanding officer doesn't like such +goings-on with respectable neighbors."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Meadows possibly overestimated the post commandant's interest in +these matters, but she had gratefully remembered his civility to her +husband when he went to make fatherly inquiries. The colonel was a +father himself, and had seemed to appreciate their anxiety about +Callie's choice. It was just as well that Meta should know that none of +the constituted authorities were on the side of her lover's defection.</p> + +<p>Meta said nothing to all this. It did not touch her, only as it bore on +the one question, Was Henniker going to leave her behind him?</p> + +<p>"How long is it since you have seen him, that he hasn't told you this +news himself?" asked the mother.</p> + +<p>"Last night; but perhaps he did not know."</p> + +<p>Henniker had known, as Mrs. Meadows supposed, but having to shift for +himself in the matter of transportation for the wife he had never +acknowledged, and seeing no way of providing for her without +considerable inconvenience to himself, he had put off the pain of +breaking to her the parting that must come. In their later consultations +Meta had mentioned her "pony money," as she called it, and Henniker had +privately welcomed the existence of such a fund. It lightened the +pressure of his own responsibility in the future, in case—but he did +not formulate his doubts. There are more uncertainties than anything +else, except hard work, in the life of an enlisted man.</p> + +<p>Father Meadows purposely would not speak of Meta's resources. He felt +that Henniker had not earned his confidence in this or any other respect +where his girls were concerned. Till Meta should come of age,—she was +barely sixteen,—or until it could be known what sort of a husband she +had got in Henniker, her bit of money was safest in her guardian's +hands.</p> + +<p>So the orders came, and the transfer of troops was made; and now it was +the trumpeter of C troop that sounded the calls, and Henniker's bold +messages at guard-mounting and his tender good-night at taps called no +more across the plain. The summer lilies were all dead on the hills, and +the common was white with snow. But something in Meta's heart said,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Weep no more! Oh, weep no more!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Young buds sleep in the root's white core.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And she dried her eyes. The mother was very gentle with her; and Callie, +hard-eyed, saying nothing, watched her, and did her little cruel +kindnesses that cut to the quick of her soreness and her pride.</p> + +<p>When the Bannock brethren came, late in September, the next year, she +walked the sagebrush paths to their encampment with her young son in her +arms. They looked at the boy and said that it was good; but when they +asked after the father, and Meta told them that he had gone with his +troop to Fort Custer, and that she waited for word to join him, they +said it was not good, and they turned away their eyes in silence from +her shame. The men did, but the women looked at her in a silence that +said different things. Her heart went out to them, and their dumb soft +glances brought healing to her wounds. What sorrow, what humiliation, +was hers that they from all time had not known? The men took little +notice of her after that: she had lost caste both as maid and wife; she +was nothing now but a means of existence to her son. But between her +and her dark sisters the natural bond grew strong. Old lessons that had +lain dormant in her blood revived with the force of her keener +intelligence, and supplanted later teachings that were of no use now +except to make her suffer more.</p> + +<p>It was impossible that Mother Meadows should not resent the wrong and +insult to her own child; she felt it increasingly as she came to realize +the girl's unhappiness. It grew upon her, and she could not feel the +same towards Meta, who kept herself more and more proudly and silently +aloof. She was one alone in the house, where no one spoke of the past to +reproach her, where nothing but kindness was ever shown. The kindness +was like the hand of pardon held out to her. Why did they think she +wanted their forgiveness? She was not sorry for what she had done. She +wanted nothing, only Henniker. So she crept away with her child and sat +among the Bannock women, and was at peace with them whom she had never +injured; who beheld her unhappiness, but did not call it her shame.</p> + +<p>When she walked the paths across the common, her eyes were always on the +skyward range of hills that appeared to her farther away than +ever,—beyond a wider gulf, now that their tops were white, and the +clouds came low enough to hide them. Often yellow gleams shot out +beneath the clouds and turned the valleys green. It seemed to her that +Henniker was there; he was in the cold, bright north, and the trumpets +called her, but she could not go, for the way was very long. Such words +as these she would sometimes whisper to her dark sisters by the +camp-fire, and once they said to her, "Get strong and go; we will show +you the way."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Henniker was taking life as it comes to an enlisted man in barracks. He +thought of Meta many times, and of his boy, very tenderly and +shamefully; and if he could have whistled them to him, or if a wind of +luck could have blown them thither, he would have embraced them with +joy, and shared with them all that he had. There was the difficulty. He +had so little besides the very well fitting clothes on his back. His pay +seemed to melt away, month by month, and where it went to the mischief +only knew. Canteen got a good deal of it. Henniker was one of the +popular men in barracks, with his physical expertness, his piping and +singing and story-telling, and his high good humor at all times with +himself and everybody else. He did not drink much, except in the way of +comradeship, but he did a good deal of that. He was a model trumpeter, +and a very ornamental fellow when he rode behind his captain on +full-dress inspection, more bedight than the captain himself with gold +cords and tags and bullion; but he was not a domestic man, and the only +person in the world who might perhaps have made him one was a very +helpless, ignorant little person, and—she was not there.</p> + +<p>It was a bad season for selling ponies. The Indians had arrived late +with a larger band than usual, which partly represented an unwise +investment they had made on the strength of their good fortune the year +before. Certain big ditch enterprises had been starting then, creating a +brisk demand for horses at prices unusual, especially in the latter end +of summer. This year the big ditch had closed down, and was selling its +own horses, or turning them out upon the range, and unbroken Indian +ponies could hardly be given away.</p> + +<p>The disappointment of the Bannocks was very great, and their +comprehension of causes very slow. It took some time for them to satisfy +themselves that Father Meadows was telling them a straight tale. It took +still more time for consultations as to what should now be done with +their unsalable stock. The middle of October was near, and the grumbling +chiefs finally decided to accept their loss and go hunting. The squaws +and children were ordered home to the Reservation by rail, as wards of +the nation travel, to get permission of the agent for the hunt, and the +men, with ponies, were to ride overland and meet the women at Eagle +Rock.</p> + +<p>Thus Meta learned how an Indian woman may pass unchallenged from one +part of the country to another, clothed in the freedom of her poverty. +In this way the nation acknowledges a part of its ancient indebtedness +to her people. No word had come from Henniker, though he had said that +he should get his discharge in October. Meta's resolve was taken. The +Bannock women encouraged her, and she saw how simple it would be to copy +their dress and slip away with them as far as their roads lay together; +and thence, having gained practice in her part and become accustomed to +its disguises, to go on alone to Custer, where her chief, her beautiful +trumpeter, was sounding his last calls. She was wise in this +resolution—to see her husband, at whatever cost, before the time of his +freedom should come; but she was late in carrying it out.</p> + +<p>Long before, she had turned over fruitlessly in her mind every means of +getting money for this journey besides the obvious way of asking Father +Meadows for her own. She had guessed that her friends were suspicious of +Henniker's good faith, and believed that if they should come to know of +her intention of running away to follow him they would prevent her for +her own good,—which was quite the case.</p> + +<p>That was the point Father Meadows made with his wife, when she argued +that Meta, being a married woman now, ought to learn the purchasing +power of money and its limitations by experimenting with a little of her +own.</p> + +<p>"We shall do wrong if we keep her a child now," she said.</p> + +<p>"But if she has money, she'll lay it by till she gets enough to slip off +to her soldier with. There's that much Injun about her; she'll follow to +heel like a dog."</p> + +<p>Father Meadows could not have spoken in this way of Meta a year ago. She +had lost caste with him, also.</p> + +<p>"Don't, father," the mother said, with a hurt look. "She'll not follow +far with ten dollars in her pocket; but that much I want to try her +with. She's like a child about shopping. She'll take anything at all, if +it looks right and the man persuades her. And those Jew clerks will +charge whatever they think they can get."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Meadows had her way, and the trial sum was given to Meta one day, +and the next day she and the child were missing.</p> + +<p>At dusk, that evening, a group of Bannock squaws, more or less +encumbered with packs, and children, climbed upon one of the flat cars +of a freight train bound for Pocatello. The engine steamed out of the +station, and down the valley, and away upon the autumn plains. The next +morning the Bannocks broke camp, and vanished before the hoar frost had +melted from the sage. Their leave-taking had been sullen, and their +answers to questions about Meta, with which Father Meadows had routed +them out in the night, had been so unsatisfactory that he took the first +train to the Fort Hall Agency. There he waited for the party of squaws +from Bisuka; but when they came, Meta was not with them. They knew +nothing of her, they said; even the agent was deceived by their +counterfeit ignorance. They could tell nothing, and were allowed to join +their men at Eagle Rock, to go hunting into the wild country around +Jackson's Hole.</p> + +<p>Father Meadows went back and relieved his wife's worst fear,—that the +girl had fulfilled the wrong half of her destiny, and gone back to hide +her grief in the bosom of her tribe.</p> + +<p>"Then you'll find her at Custer," said she. "You must write to the +quartermaster-sergeant. And be sure you tell him she's married to him. +He may be carrying on with some one else by this time."</p> + +<p>Traveling as a ward of the nation travels; suffering as a white girl +would suffer, from exposure and squalor, weariness and dirt, but bearing +her misery like a squaw, Meta came at last to Custer station. In five +days, always on the outside of comforts that other travelers pay for, +she had passed from the lingering mildness of autumn in southern Idaho +into the early winter of the hard Montana north.</p> + +<p>She was fit only for a sick-bed when she came into the empty station at +Custer, and learned that she was still thirty miles away from the fort. +In her make-believe broken English, she asked a humble question about +transportation. The station-keeper was called away that moment by a +summons from the wire. It was while she stood listening to the tapping +of the message, and waiting to repeat her question, that she felt a +frightening pain, sharp, like a knife sticking in her breast. She could +take only short breaths, yet longed for deep ones to brace her lungs and +strengthen her sick heart. She stepped outside and spoke to a man who +was wheeling freight down the platform. She dared not throw off her +fated disguise and say, "I am the wife of Trumpeter Henniker. How shall +I get to the fort?" for she had stolen a ride of a thousand miles, and +she knew not what the penalty of discovery might be. She had borrowed a +squaw's wretched immunity, and she must pay the price for that which she +had rashly coveted. She pulled her blanket about her face and muttered, +"Which way—Fort Custer?"</p> + +<p>The freight man answered by pointing to the road. Dark wind clouds +rolled along the snow-white tops of the mountains. The plain was a +howling sea of dust.</p> + +<p>"No stage?" she gasped.</p> + +<p>The man laughed and shook his head. "There's the road. Injuns walk." He +went on with his baggage-truck, and did not look at her again. He had +not spoken unkindly: the fact and his blunt way of putting it were +equally a matter of course, Squaws who "beat" their way in on freight +trains do not go out by stage.</p> + +<p>Meta crept away in the lee of a pile of freight, and sat down to nurse +her child. The infant, like herself, had taken harm from exposure to the +cold; his head passages were stopped, and when he tried to nurse he had +to fight with suffocation and hunger both, and threw himself back in the +visible act of screaming, but his hoarse little pipe was muted to a +squeak. This, which sounds grotesque in the telling, was acute anguish +for the mother to see. She covered her face with her blanket and sobbed +and coughed, and the pain tore her like a knife. But she rose, and began +her journey. She had little conception of what she was under-taking, but +it would have made no difference; she must get there on her feet, since +there was no other way.</p> + +<p>She no longer carried her baby squaw fashion. She was out of sight of +the station, and she hugged it where the burden lay heaviest, on her +heart. Her hands were not free, but she had cast away her bundle of +food; she could eat no more; and the warmth of the child's nestling body +gave her all the strength she had,—that and her certainty of Henniker's +welcome. That he would be faithful to her presence she never doubted. He +would see her coming, perhaps, and he would run to catch her and the +child together in his arms. She could feel the thrill of his eyes upon +her, and the half groan of joy with which he would strain her to his +breast. Then she would take one deep, deep breath of happiness,—ah, +that pain!—and let the anguish of it kill her if it must.</p> + +<p>The snows on the mountains had come down and encompassed the whole +plain; the winter's siege had begun. The winds were iced to the teeth, +and they smote like armed men. They encountered Meta carrying some +hidden, precious thing to the garrison at Custer; they seized her and +searched her rudely, and left her, trembling and disheveled, sobbing +along with her silly treasure in her arms. The dust rose in columns, and +traveled with mocking becks and bows before her, or burst like a bomb in +her face, or circled about her like a band of wild horses lashed by the +hooting winds.</p> + +<p>Meantime, Henniker, in span-new civilian dress, was rattling across the +plain on the box seat of the ambulance, beside the soldier driver. The +ambulance was late to catch the east-bound train, and the pay-master was +inside; so the four stout mules laid back their ears and traveled, and +the heavy wheels bounded from stone to stone of the dust-buried road. +Henniker smoked hard in silence, and drew great breaths of cold air into +his splendid lungs. He was warm and clean and sound and fit, from top to +toe. He had been drinking bounteous farewells to a dozen good comrades, +and though sufficiently himself for all ordinary purposes, he was not +that self he would have wished to be had he known that one of the test +moments of his life was before him. It was a mood with him of headlong, +treacherous quiet, and the devil of all foolish desires was showing him +the pleasures of the world. He was in dangerously good health; he had +got his discharge, and was off duty and off guard, all at once. He was a +free man, though married. He was going to his wife, of course. Poor +little Meta! God bless the girl, how she loved him! Ah, those black-eyed +girls, with narrow temples and sallow, deep-fringed eyelids, they knew +how to love a man! He was going to her by way of Laramie, or perhaps the +coast. He might run upon a good thing over there, and start a bit of a +home before he sent for her or went to fetch her; it was all one. She +rested lightly on his mind, and he thought of her with a tender, +reminiscent sadness,—rather a curious feeling considering that he was +to see her now so soon. Why was she always "poor little Meta" in his +thoughts?</p> + +<p>Poor little Meta was toiling on, for "Injuns walk." The dreadful pain of +coughing was incessant. The dust blinded and choked her, and there was a +roaring in her ears which she confused with the night and day burden of +the trains. She was in a burning fever that was fever and chill in one, +and her mind was not clear, except on the point of keeping on; for once +down, she felt that she could never get up again. At times she fancied +she was clinging to the rocking, roaring platforms she had ridden on so +long. The dust swirled around her—when had she breathed anything but +dust! The ground swam like water under her feet. She swayed, and seemed +to be falling,—perhaps she did fall. But she was up and on her feet, +the blanket cast from her head, when the ambulance drove straight +towards her, and she saw him—</p> + +<p>She had seen it coming, the ambulance, down the long, dizzy rise. The +hills above were white as death; a crooked gash of color rent the sky; +the toothed pines stood black against that gleam, and through the +ringing in her ears, loud and sweet, she heard the trumpets call. The +cloud of delirium lifted, and she saw the uniform she loved; and beside +the soldier driver sat her white chief, looking down at her who came so +late with joy, bringing her babe,—her sheaves, the harvest of that +year's wild sowing. But he did not seem to see her. She had not the +power to speak or cry. She took one step forward and held up the child.</p> + +<p>Then she fell down on her face in the road, for the beloved one had seen +her, and had not known her, and had passed her by. And God would not let +her make one sound.</p> + +<p>How in Heaven's name could it have happened! Could any man believe it of +himself? Henniker put it to his reason, not to speak of conscience or +affection, and never could explain, even to himself, that most unhappy +moment of his life. If he had not a heart for any helpless thing in +trouble, who had? He was the joke of the garrison for his softness about +dogs and women and children. Yet he had met his wife and baby on the +open road, and passed them by, and owned them not, and still he called +himself a man.</p> + +<p>What he had seen at first had been the abject figure of a little squaw +facing the wind, her bowed head shrouded in her blanket, carrying +something which her short arms could barely meet around,—a shapeless +bundle. He did not think it a child, for a squaw will pack her baby +always on her back. He had looked at her indifferently, but with +condescending pity; for the day was rough, and the road was long, even +for a squaw. Then, in all the disfigurement of her dirt and wretchedness +and wild attire, it broke upon him that this creature was his wife, the +rightful sharer of his life and freedom; and that animal-like thing she +held up, that wrung its face and squeaked like a blind kitten, was his +son.</p> + +<p>Good God! He clutched the driver's arm, and the man swore and jerked his +mules out of the road, for the woman had stopped right in the track +where the wheels were going. The driver looked back, but could not see +her; he knew that he had not touched her, only with the wind of his +pace, so he pulled the mules into the road again, and the ambulance +rolled on.</p> + +<p>"Stop; let me get off. That woman is my wife." Henniker heard himself +saying the words, but they were never spoken to the ear. "Stop; let me +get down," the inner voice prompted; but he did not make a sound, and +the curtains flapped and the wheels went bounding along. They were a +long way past the spot, and the station was in sight, when Henniker was +heard to say hoarsely, "Pick her up, as you go back, can't you?"</p> + +<p>"Pick up which?" asked the driver.</p> + +<p>"The—that woman we passed just now."</p> + +<p>"I'll see how she's making it," the man answered coolly. "I ain't much +stuck on squaws. Acted like she was drunk or crazy."</p> + +<p>Henniker's face flushed, but he shuddered as if he were cold.</p> + +<p>"Pick her up, for the child's sake, by God!" No man was ever more +ashamed of himself than he as he took out a gold piece and handed it to +the soldier. "Give her this, Billy,—from yourself, you know. I ain't in +it."</p> + +<p>Billy looked at Henniker, and then at the gold piece. It was a double +eagle; all that the husband had dared to offer as alms to his wife, but +more than enough to arouse the suspicions that he feared.</p> + +<p>"Ain't in it, eh?" thought the soldier. "You knew the woman, and she +knew you. This is conscience money." But aloud he said, "A fool and his +money are soon parted. How do you know but I'll blow it in at canteen?"</p> + +<p>"I'll trust you," said Henniker.</p> + +<p>The men did not speak to each other again.</p> + +<p>"She's one of them Bannocks that camped by old Pop Meadows's place, down +at Bisuka, I bet," said the soldier to himself.</p> + +<p>Henniker went on fighting his fight as if it had not been lost forever +in that instant's hesitation. A man cannot bethink himself: "By the way, +it strikes me that was my wife and child we passed on the road!" What he +had done could never be explained without grotesque lying which would +deceive nobody.</p> + +<p>It could not be undone; it must be lived down. Henniker was much better +at living things down than he was at explaining or trying to mend them.</p> + +<p>After all, it was the girl's own fault, putting up that wretched squaw +act on him. To follow him publicly, and shame him before all the +garrison, in that beastly Bannock rig! Had she turned Bannock altogether +and gone back to the tribe? In that case let the tribe look after her; +he could have no more to do with her, of course.</p> + +<p>He stepped into the smoking-car, and lost himself as quickly as possible +in the interest of new faces around him, and the agreeable impressions +of himself which he read in eyes that glanced and returned for another +look at so much magnificent health and color and virility. His spot of +turpitude did not show through. He was still good to look at; and to +look the man that one would be goes a long way toward feeling that one +is that man.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>It was at Laramie, between the mountains, and Henniker was celebrating +the present and drowning the past in a large, untrammeled style, when he +received a letter from the quartermaster-sergeant at Custer,—a plain +statement until the end, where Henniker read:—</p> + +<p>"If you should happen at any time to wish for news of your son, Meadows +and his wife have taken the child. They came on here to get him, and +Meadows insisted on standing the expense of the funeral, which was the +best we could give her for the credit of the troop. He put a handsome +stone over her, with 'Meta, wife of Trumpeter Henniker, K Troop, —th U. +S. Cavalry,' on it; and there it stands to her memory, poor girl, and to +your shame, a false, cruel, and cowardly man in the way you treated her. +And so every one of us calls you, officers and men the same,—of your +old troop that walked behind her to her grave. And where were you, +Henniker, and what were you doing this day two weeks, when we were +burying your poor wife? The twenty dollars you sent her by Billy, +Meadows has, and says he will keep it till he sees you again. Which some +of us think it will be a good while he will be packing that Judas piece +around with him.—And so good-by, Henniker. I might have said less, or I +might have said nothing at all, but that the boy is a fine child, my +wife says, and must have a grand constitution to stand what he has +stood; and I have a fondness for you myself when all is said and done.</p> + +<p>"P. S. I would take a thought for that boy once in a while, if I was +you. A man doesn't care for the brats when he is young, but age cures us +of all wants but the want of a child."</p> + +<p>But Henniker was not ready to go back to the Meadows cottage and be +clothed in the robe of forgiveness, and receive his babe like a pledge +of penitence on his hand.</p> + +<p>The shock of the letter sobered him at first, and then the sting of it +drove him to drinking harder than ever. He did not run upon that "good +thing" at Laramie, nor in any of the cities westward, that one after +another beheld the progress of his deterioration. It does not take long +in the telling, but it was several years before he finally struck upon +the "Barbary Coast" in San Francisco, where so many mothers' sons who +never were heard of have gone down. He went ashore, but he did not quite +go to pieces. His constitution had matured under healthy conditions, and +could stand a good deal of ill-usage; but we are "no stronger than our +weakest part," and at the end of all he found himself in a hospital bed +under treatment for his knee,—the same that had been mulcted for him +twice before.</p> + +<p>He listened grimly to the doctor's explanations,—how the past sins of +his whole impenitent system were being vicariously reckoned for through +this one afflicted member. It was rough on his old knee, Henniker +remarked; but he had hopes of getting out all right again, and he made +the usual sick-bed promises to himself. He did get out, eventually, +without a penny in the world, and with a stiff knee to drag about for +the rest of his life. And he was just thirty-four years old.</p> + +<p>His splendid vitality, that had been wont to express itself in so many +attractive ways, now found its chief vent in talk—inexpensive, +inordinate, meddlesome discourse—wherever two or three were gathered +together in the name of idleness and discontent. The members of these +congregations were pessimists to a man. They disbelieved in everybody +and everything except themselves, and secretly, at times, they were even +a little shaken on that head; but all the louder they exclaimed upon +the world that had refused them the chance to be the great and +successful characters nature had intended them to be.</p> + +<p>It need hardly be said that when Henniker raved about the inequalities +of class, the helplessness of poverty, the tyranny of wealth, and the +curse of labor; and devoted in eloquent phrases the remainder of a +blighted existence to the cause of the Poor Man, he was thinking of but +one poor man, namely, himself. He classed himself with Labor only that +he might feel his superiority to the laboring masses. There were few +situations in which he could taste his superiority, in these days. The +"ego" in his Cosmos was very hungry; his memories were bitter, his hopes +unsatisfied; his vanity and artistic sense were crucified through +poverty, lameness, and bad clothes. Now all that was left him was the +conquests of the mind. For the smiles of women, give him the hoarse +plaudits of men. The dandy of the garrison began to shine in saloon +coteries and primaries of the most primary order. He was the star of +sidewalk convocations and vacant-lot meetings of the Unemployed. But he +despised the mob that echoed his perorations and paid for his drinks, +and was at heart the aristocrat that his old uniform had made him.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>In the summer of 1894, a little black-eyed boy with chestnut curls used +to swing on the gate of the Meadows cottage that opens upon the common, +and chant some verses of domestic doggerel about Coxey's army, which was +then begging and bullying its way eastward, and demanding transportation +at the expense of the railroads and of the people at large.</p> + +<p>He sang his song to the well-marked tune of Pharaoh's Army, and thus the +verses ran:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"The Coxeyites they gathered,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The Coxeyites they gathered,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And stole a train of freight-cars in the morn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And stole a train of freight-cars in the morning,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And stole a train of freight-cars in the morn.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"The engine left them standing,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The engine left them standing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the railroad-track at Caldwell in the morn.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Very sad it was for Caldwell in the morning<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To feed that hungry army in the morn.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"Where are all the U. S. marshals,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The deputy U. S. marshals,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To jail that Coxey army in the morn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That 'industrious, law-abiding' Coxey's army<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That stole a train of freight-cars in the morn?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Where indeed were all the U. S. marshals? The question was being asked +with anxiety in the town, for a posse of them had gone down to arrest +the defiant train-stealers, and it was rumored that the civil arm had +been disarmed, and the deputies carried on as prisoners to Pocatello, +where the Industrials, two hundred strong, were intrenched in the +sympathies of the town, and knocking the federal authorities about at +their law-abiding pleasure. Pocatello is a division town on the Union +Pacific Railroad; it is full of the company's shops and men, the latter +all in the American Railway Union or the Knights of Labor, and solid on +class issues, right or wrong; and it was said that the master workman +was expected at Pocatello to speak on the situation, and, if need arose, +to call out the trades all over the land in support of the principle +that tramp delegations shall not walk. Disquieting rumors were abroad, +and there was relief in the news that the regulars had been called on +to sustain the action of the federal court.</p> + +<p>The troops at Bisuka barracks were under marching orders. While the town +was alert to hear them go they tramped away one evening, just as a +shower was clearing that had emptied the streets of citizens; and before +the ladies could say "There they go," and call each other to the window, +they were gone.</p> + +<p>Then for a few days the remote little capital, with Coxeyites gathering +and threatening its mails and railroad service, waited in apprehensive +curiosity as to what was going to happen next. The party press on both +sides seized the occasion to point a moral on their own account, and +some said, "Behold the logic of McKinleyism," and others retorted, +"Behold the shadow of the Wilson Bill stalking abroad over the land. Let +us fall on our faces and pray!" But most people laughed instead, and +patted the Coxeyites on the back, preferring their backs to their faces.</p> + +<p>It seemed as if it might be time to stop laughing and gibing and +inviting the procession to move on, when a thousand or more men, +calling themselves American citizens, were parading their idleness +through the land as authority for lawlessness and crime, and when our +sober regulars had to be called out to quell a Falstaff's army. The +regulars, be sure, did not enjoy it. If there is a sort of service our +soldiers would like to be spared, doubtless it is disarming crazy +Indians: but they prefer even that to standing up to be stoned and +insulted and chunked with railroad iron by a mob which they are ordered +not to fire upon, or to entering a peaceful country which has been sown +with dynamite by patriotic labor unions, or prepared with cut-bridges by +sympathetic strikers.</p> + +<p>We are here to be hurt, so the strong ones tell us, and perhaps the best +apology the strong can make to the weak for the vast superiority that +training gives is to show how long they can hold their fire amidst a mob +of brute ignorances, and how much better they can bear their hurts when +the senseless missiles fly. We love the forbearance of our "unpitied +strong;" it is what we expect of them: but we trust also in their +firmness when the time for forbearance is past.</p> + +<p>Little Ross Henniker—named for that mythical great Scotchman, his +supposed grandfather—was deeply disappointed because he did not see the +soldiers go. To have lived next door to them all his life, seven whole +years, and watched them practicing and preparing to be fit and ready to +go, and then not to see them when they did march away for actual service +in the field, was hard indeed.</p> + +<p>Ross was not only one of those brightest boys of his age known to +parents and grand-parents by the million, but he was really a very +bright and handsome child. If Mother Meadows, now "granny," had ever had +any doubts at all about the Scottish chief of the Hudson's Bay Company, +the style and presence of that incomparable boy were proof enough. It +was a marked case of "throwing-back." There was none of the Bannock +here. Could he not be trusted like a man to do whatever things he liked +to do; as riding to fetch the cows and driving them hillward again, on +the weird little spotted pony, hardly bigger than a dog, with a huge +head and a furry cheek and a hanging under-lip, which the tributary +Bannocks had brought him? It was while he was on cow-duty far away, but +not out of sight of the post, that he saw the column move. "Great +Scott!" how he did ride! He broke his stick over the pony's back, and +kicked him with his bare heels, and slapped him with his hat, till the +pony bucked him off into a sagebush whence he picked himself up and flew +as fast as his own legs would spin; but he was too late. Then, for the +first time in six months at least, he howled. Aunt Callie comforted him +with fresh strawberry jam for supper, but the lump of grief remained, +until, as she was washing the dishes, she glanced at him, laughing out +of the corner of her eye, and began to make up the song about Coxey's +army. For some time Ross refused to smile, but when it came to the +chorus about the soldiers who were going</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"To turn back Coxey's army, hallelujah!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To turn back Coxey's army, halleloo!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>he began to sing "hallelujah" too. Then gun-fire broke in with a +lonesome sound, as if the cavalry up on the hill missed its comrades of +the white stripes who were gone to "turn back" that ridiculous army.</p> + +<p>Mother Meadows wished "that man Coxey had never been born," so weary did +she get of the Coxey song. Coxeyism had taken complete possession of the +young lord of the house, now that his friends the soldiers had gone to +take a hand in the business.</p> + +<p>In a few days the soldiers came back escorting the Coxey prisoners. The +"presence of the troops" had sufficed. The two hundred Coxeyites were to +be tried at Bisuka for crimes committed within the State. They were +penned meanwhile in a field by the river, below the railroad track, and +at night they were shut into a rough barrack which had been hastily put +up for the purpose. A skirt of the town little known, except to the +Chinese vegetable gardeners and makers of hay on the river meadows and +small boys fishing along the shore, now became the centre of popular +regard; and "Have you been down to the Coxey camp?" was as common a +question as "Are you going to the Natatorium Saturday night?" or "Will +there be a mail from the west to-day?"</p> + +<p>One evening, Mother Meadows, with little Ross Henniker by the hand, +stood close to the dead-line of the Coxey field, watching the groups on +the prisoners' side. The woman looked at them with perplexed pity, but +the child swung himself away and cried, "Pooh! only a lot of dirty +hobos!" and turned to look at the soldiers.</p> + +<p>The tents of the guard of regulars stood in a row in front of a rank of +tall poplar-trees, their tops swinging slow in the last sunlight. Behind +the trees stretched the green river flats in the shadow. Frogs were +croaking; voices of girls could be heard in a tennis-court with a high +wall that ran back to the street of the railroad.</p> + +<p>Roll-call was proceeding in front of the tents, the men firing their +quick, harsh answers like scattering shots along the line. Under the +trees at a little distance the beautiful sleek cavalry horses were +grouped, unsaddled and calling for their supper. Ross Henniker gazed at +them with a look of joy; then he turned a contemptuous eye upon the +prisoners.</p> + +<p>"Which of them two kinds of animals looks most like what a man ought to +be?" he asked, pointing to the horses and then to the Coxeyites, who in +the cool of the evening were indulging in unbeautiful horse-play, not +without a suspicion of showing off before the eyes of visitors. The +horses in their free impatience were as unconscious as lords.</p> + +<p>"What are you saying, Ross?" asked Mrs. Meadows, rousing herself.</p> + +<p>"I say, suppose I'd just come down from the moon, or some place where +they don't know a man from a horse, and you said to me: 'Look at these +things, and then look at them things over there, and say which is boss +of t'other.' Why, I'd say <i>them</i> things, every time." Ross pointed +without any prejudice to the horses.</p> + +<p>"My goodness!" cried Mrs. Meadows, "if these Coxeys had been taken care +of and coddled all their lives like them troop horses, they might not be +so handsome, but they'd look a good deal better than what they do. And +they'd have more sense," she added in a lower voice. "Very few poor +men's sons get the training those horses have had. They've learned to +mind, for one thing, and to be faithful to the hand that feeds them."</p> + +<p>"Not all of them don't," said Ross, shaking his head wisely. "There's +kickers and biters and shirks amongst them; but if they won't learn and +can't learn, they get 'condemned.'"</p> + +<p>"And what becomes of them then?"</p> + +<p>"Why, <i>you</i> know," answered the boy, who began to suspect that there was +a moral looming in the distance of this bold generalization.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mother Meadows, "I know what becomes of some of them, +because I've seen; and I don't think a condemned horse looks much better +in the latter end of him than a condemned man."</p> + +<p>"But you can't leave them in the troop, for they'd spoil all the rest," +objected the boy.</p> + +<p>"It's too much for me, dear," replied the old woman humbly. "These +Coxeys are a kind of folks I don't understand."</p> + +<p>"I should think you might understand, when the troops have to go out and +run 'em in! I'm on the side of the soldiers, every time."</p> + +<p>"Well, that's simple enough," said Mrs. Meadows. She was a very mild +protagonist, for she could never confine herself to one side of a +question. "I'm on the side of the soldiers, too. A soldier has to do +what he's told, and pays with his life for it, right or wrong."</p> + +<p>"And I think it's a shame to send the beautiful clean soldiers to shove +a lot of dirty hobos back where they belong."</p> + +<p>"My goodness! Hush! you'd better talk less till you get more sense to +talk with," said Mrs. Meadows sternly. A man standing near, with his +back to them, had turned around quickly, and she saw by his angry eye +that he had overheard. She looked at him again, and knew the man. It was +the boy's father. Ross had bounded away to talk to his friend Corporal +Niles.</p> + +<p>"Henniker!" exclaimed Mrs. Meadows in a low voice of shocked amazement. +"It don't seem as if this could be you!"</p> + +<p>"Let that be!" said Henniker roughly. "I didn't enlist by that name in +this army. Who's that young son of a gun that's got so much lip on him?"</p> + +<p>"God help you! don't you know your own son?"</p> + +<p>"What? No! Has he got to be that size already?" The man's weather-beaten +face turned a darker red under the week-old beard that disfigured it. He +sat down on the ground, for suddenly he felt weak, and also to hide his +lameness from the woman who should have hated him, but who simply pitied +him instead. Her face showed a sort of motherly shame for the change +that she saw in him. It was very hard to bear. He had not fully realized +the change in himself till its effect upon her confronted him. He tried +to bluff it off carelessly.</p> + +<p>"Bring the boy here. I have a word to say to him."</p> + +<p>"You should have said it long ago, then." Mrs. Meadows was hurt and +indignant at his manner. "What has been said is said, for good and all. +It's too late to unsay it now."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by that, Mrs. Meadows? Am I the boy's father or am I +not?"</p> + +<p>"You are not the father he knows. Do you think I have been teaching him +to be ashamed of the name he bears?"</p> + +<p>"Old lady," cried Henniker the Coxeyite, "have you been stuffing that +boy about his dad as you did the mother about hers?"</p> + +<p>"I have told him the truth, partly. The rest, if it wasn't the truth, it +ought to have been," answered Mrs. Meadows stoutly. "I have put the +story right, as an honest man would have lived it. Whatever you've been +doing with yourself these years, it's your own affair, not the boy's nor +mine. Keep it to yourself now. You were too good for them once,—the +mother and the child; they can do without you now."</p> + +<p>"That's all right," said Henniker, wincing; "but as a matter of +curiosity let me hear how you have put it up."</p> + +<p>"How I have what?"</p> + +<p>"How you have dressed up the story to the boy. I'd like to see myself +with a woman's eyes once more."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Meadows looked him over and hesitated; then her face kindled. "I've +told him that his father was a beautiful clean man," she said, using +unconsciously the boy's own words, "and rode a beautiful horse, and +saluted his captain so!" She pointed to the corporal of the guard who +was at that moment reporting. "I told him that when the troops went you +had to leave your young wife behind you, and she could not be kept from +following you with her child; and by a cruel mischance you passed each +other on the road, and you never knew till you had got to her old home +and heard she was dead and buried; and you were so broke up that you +couldn't bear your life in the place where you used to be with her; and +you were a sorrowful wandering man that he must pray for, and ask God to +bring you home. You never came near us, Henniker, nor thought of coming; +but could I tell your own child that? Indeed, I would be afraid to tell +him what did happen on that road from Custer station, for fear when he's +a man he'd go hunting you with a shotgun. Now where is the falsehood +here? Is it in me, or in you, who have made it as much as your own life +is worth to tell the truth about you to your son? <i>Was</i> it the truth, +Henniker? Sure, man, you did love her! What did you want with her else? +Was it the truth that they told us at Custer? There are times when I +can't believe it myself. If there is a word you could say for +yourself,—say it, for the child's sake! You wouldn't mind speaking to +an old woman like me? There was a time when I would have been proud to +call you my son."</p> + +<p>"You are a good woman, Mrs. Meadows, but I cannot lie to you, even for +the child's sake. And it's not that I don't know how to lie, for God +knows I'm nothing but a lie this blessed minute! What do I care for such +cattle as these?" He had risen, and waved his hand contemptuously toward +his fellow-martyrs. "Well, I must be going. I see they're passin' around +the flesh-pots. We're livin' like fighting-cocks here, on a restaurant +contract. There'll be a big deal in it for the marshal, I suspect." +Henniker winked, and his face fell into the lowest of its demoralized +expressions.</p> + +<p>"There's no such a thing!" said Mrs. Meadows indignantly. "Some folks +are willing to work for very little these hard times, and give good +value for their money. You had better eat and be thankful, and leave +other folks alone!"</p> + +<p>Little Ross coming up heard but the last words, and saw his granny's +agitation and the familiar attitude of the strange Coxeyite. His quick +temper flashed out: "Get out with you! Go off where you belong, you +dirty man!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Meadows caught the boy, and whirled him around and shook him. +"Never, never let me hear you speak like that to any man again!"</p> + +<p>"Why?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you why, some day, if I have to. Pray God I may never need to +tell you!"</p> + +<p>"Why?" repeated the boy, wondering at her excitement.</p> + +<p>"Come away,—come away home!" she said, and Ross saw that her eyes were +red with unshed tears. He hung behind her and looked back.</p> + +<p>"He's lame," said he, half to himself. "I wouldn't have spoken that way +if I'd known he had a game leg."</p> + +<p>"Who's lame?" asked Mrs. Meadows.</p> + +<p>"The Coxeyite. See. He limps bad."</p> + +<p>"Didn't I tell you! We never know, when we call names, what sore spots +we may be hitting. You may have sore spots of your own some day."</p> + +<p>"I hope I sha'n't be lame," mused the boy. "And I hope I sha'n't be a +Coxey."</p> + +<p>The Coxeyites had been in camp a fortnight when their trial began. Twice +a day the prisoners were marched up the streets of Bisuka to the +courthouse, and back again to camp, till the citizens became accustomed +to the strange, unrepublican procession. The prisoners were herded along +the middle of the street; on either side of them walked the marshals, +and outside of the line of civil officers the guard of infantry or +cavalry, the officers riding and the men on foot.</p> + +<p>This was the last march of the Coxeyites. Many citizens looking on were +of the opinion that if these men desired to make themselves an +"object-lesson" to the nation, this was their best chance of being +useful in that capacity.</p> + +<p>For two weeks, day by day, in the prisoner's field, Henniker had been +confronted with the contrast of his old service with his present +demoralization. He had been a conspicuous figure among the Industrials +until they came in contact with the troops; then suddenly he subsided, +and was heard and seen as little as possible. Not for all that a +populist congress could vote, out of the pockets of the people into the +pockets of the tramp petitioners, would he have posed as one of them +before the eyes of an officer, or a man, of his old regiment, who might +remember him as Trumpeter Henniker of K troop. But the daily march to +the courthouse was the death-sickness of his pride. Once he had walked +these same streets with his head as high as any man's; and it had been, +"How are you, Henniker?" and "Step in, Henniker;" or Callie had been +laughing and falling out of step on his arm, or Meta—poor little +Meta—waiting for him when the darkness fell!</p> + +<p>Now the women ran to the windows and crowded the porches, and stared at +him and his ill-conditioned comrades as if they had been animals +belonging to a different species.</p> + +<p>But Henniker was mistaken here. The eyes of the pretty girls were for +the "pretty soldiers." It was all in the day's work for the soldiers, +who tramped indifferently along; but the officers looked bored, as if +they were neither proud of the duty nor of the display of it which the +times demanded.</p> + +<p>On the last day's march from the courthouse to the camp, there was a +clamor of voices that drowned the shuffling and tramping of the feet. +The prisoners were all talking at once, discussing the sentences which +the court had just announced: the leaders and those taken in acts of +violence to be imprisoned at hard labor for specified terms; the rank +and file to be put back on their stolen progress as far westward, whence +they came, as the borders of the State would allow; there to be staked +out, as it were, on the banks of the Snake River, and guarded for sixty +days by the marshals, supported by the inevitable "presence of the +troops."</p> + +<p>But the sentence that Henniker heard was that private one which his own +child had spoken: "Get out with you! Go back where you belong, you dirty +man!" He had wished at the time that he could make the proud youngster +feel the sting of his own lash: but that thought had passed entirely, +and been merged in the simple hurt of a father's longing for his son. +"If he were mine," he bitterly confessed, "if that little cock-a-hoop +rascal would own me and love me for his dad, I swear to God I could +begin my life again! But now, what next?"</p> + +<p>There had been a stoppage ahead, the feet pressing on had slackened +step, when there, with his back to the high iron gates of the +capitol-grounds, was the beautiful child again. A young woman stood +beside him, a fine, wholesome girl like a full-blown cottage rose, with +auburn hair, an ivory-white throat, and a back as flat as a trooper's. +It was Callie, of course, with Meta's child. The cup of Henniker's +humiliation was full.</p> + +<p>The boy stood with his chin up, his hat on the back of his head, his +plump hands spread on the hips of his white knickerbockers. He was +dressed in his best, as he had come from a children's fęte. Around his +neck hung a prize which he had won in the games, a silver dog-whistle on +a scarlet ribbon. He caught it to his lips and blew a long piercing +trill, his dark eyes smiling, the wind blowing the short curls across +his cheek.</p> + +<p>"There he is, the lame one! I made him look round," said Ross.</p> + +<p>Henniker had turned, for one long look—the last, he thought—at his +son. All the singleness and passion of the mother, the fire and grace +and daring of the father, were in the promise of his childish face and +form. He flushed, not a self-conscious, but an honest, generous blush, +and took his hat away off his head to the lame Coxeyite—"because I was +mean to him; and they are down and done for now, the Coxeys."</p> + +<p>"Whose kid is that?" asked the man who walked beside Henniker, seeing +the gesture and the look that passed between the man and the boy. "He's +as handsome as they make 'em," he added, smiling.</p> + +<p>Henniker did not reply in the proud word "Mine." A sudden heat rushed to +his eyes, his chest was tight to bursting. He pulled his hat down and +tramped along. The shuffling feet of the prisoners passed on down the +middle of the street; the double line of guards kept step on either +side. The dust arose and blended the moving shapes, prisoners and guards +together, and blotted them out in the distance.</p> + +<p>Callie had not seen her old lover at all. "Great is the recuperative +power of the human heart." She had been looking at Corporal Niles, who +could not turn his well-drilled head to look at her. But a side-spark +from his blue eye shot out in her direction, and made her blush and +cease to smile. Corporal Niles carried his head a little higher and +walked a little straighter after that; and Callie went slowly through +the gates, and sat a long while on one of the benches in the park, with +her elbow resting on the iron scroll and her cheek upon her hand.</p> + +<p>She was thinking about the Coxeyites' sentence, and wondering if the +cavalry would have to go down to the stockade prison on the Snake; for +in that case Corporal Niles would have to go, and the wedding be +postponed. Everybody knows it is bad luck to put off a wedding-day; and +besides, the yellow roses she had promised her corporal to wear would +all be out of bloom, and no other roses but those were the true cavalry +yellow.</p> + +<p>But the cavalry did not go down till after the wedding, which took place +on the evening appointed, at the Meadows cottage, between "Sound off" +and "Taps." The ring was duly blessed, and the father's and mother's +kiss was not wanting. The primrose radiance of the summer twilight shone +as strong as lamplight in the room, and Callie, in her white dress, with +her auburn braids gleaming through the wedding-veil and her lover's +colors in the roses on her breast, was as sweet and womanly a picture +as any mother could wish to behold.</p> + +<p>When little Ross came up to kiss the bride, he somehow forgot, and flung +his arms first around Corporal Niles's brown neck.</p> + +<p>"Corporal, I'm twice related to the cavalry now," said he. "I had a +father in it, and now I've got an uncle in it."</p> + +<p>"That's right," the corporal agreed; "and if you have any sort of luck +you'll be in it yourself some day."</p> + +<p>"But not in the ranks," said Ross firmly. "I'm going to West Point, you +know."</p> + +<p>"Bless his heart!" cried Callie, catching the boy in her arms; "and how +does he think he's going to get there?"</p> + +<p>"I shall manage it somehow," said Ross, struggling. He was very fond of +Aunt Callie, but a boy doesn't like to be hugged so before his military +acquaintances, and in Ross's opinion there had been a great deal too +much kissing and hugging, not to speak of crying, already. He did not +see why there should be all this fuss just because Aunt Callie was going +up to the barracks to live, in the jolliest little whitewashed cabin, +with a hop-vine hanging, like the veil on an old woman's bonnet, over +the front gable. He only wished that the corporal had asked him to go +too!</p> + +<p>A slight misgiving about his last speech was making Ross uncomfortable. +If there was a person whose feelings he would not have wished to hurt +for anything in the world, it was Corporal Niles.</p> + +<p>"Corporal," he amended affectionately, "if I should be a West Pointer, +and should be over you, I shouldn't put on any airs, you know. We should +be better friends than ever."</p> + +<p>"I expect we should, captain. I'm looking forward to the day."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>A mild species of corvée had been put in force down on the Snake River +while the stockade prison was building. The prisoners as a body rebelled +against it, and were not constrained to work; but a few were willing, +and these were promptly stigmatized as "scabs," and ill treated by the +lordly idlers. Hence they were given a separate camp and treated as +trusties.</p> + +<p>When the work was done the trusties were rewarded with their freedom, +either to go independently, or to stay and eat government rations till +the sixty days of their sentence had expired.</p> + +<p>Henniker, in spite of his infirmity, had been one of the hardest +volunteer workers. But now the work was done, and the question returned, +What next? What comes after Coxeyism when Coxeyism fails?</p> + +<p>He sat one evening by the river, and again he was a free man. A dry +embankment, warm as an oven to the touch, sloped up to the railroad +track above his head; tufts of young sage and broken stone strewed the +face of it; there was not a tree in sight. He heard the river boiling +down over the rapids and thundering under the bridge. He heard the +trumpets calling the men to quarters. "Lights out" had sounded some time +before. He had been lying motionless, prone on his face, his head +resting on his crossed arms. The sound of the trumpets made him choke up +like a homesick boy. He lay there till, faintly in the distance, "Taps" +breathed its slow and sweet good-night.</p> + +<p>"Last call," he said. "Time to turn in." He rolled over and began to +pull off the rags in which his child had spurned him.</p> + +<p>"The next time I'm inspected," he muttered, "I shall be a clean man." +So, naked, he slipped into the black water under the bank. The river +bore him up and gave him one more chance, but he refused it: with two +strokes he was in the midst of the death current, and it seized him and +took him down.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BOOKS_OF_FICTION" id="BOOKS_OF_FICTION"></a><i>BOOKS OF FICTION.</i></h2> + + +<h3>Books by Mary Hallock Foote.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">THE CHOSEN VALLEY. A Novel.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. Illustrated.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">JOHN BODEWIN'S TESTIMONY.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL, and THE FATE OF A VOICE.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">IN EXILE, AND OTHER STORIES.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">CŒUR D'ALÉNE. A Novel.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">THE CUP OF TREMBLING, AND OTHER STORIES.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3>Clara Louise Burnham.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Young Maids and Old.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Next Door.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dearly Bought.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No Gentlemen.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Sane Lunatic.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Mistress of Beech Knoll.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Miss Bagg's Secretary.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dr. Latimer.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sweet Clover: A Romance of the White City.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Wise Woman.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3>Edwin Lassetter Bynner.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Zachary Phips.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Agnes Surriage.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Begum's Daughter.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">These three Historical Novels:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Penelope's Suitors.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Damen's Ghost.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An Uncloseted Skeleton. (Written with Lucretia P. Hale.)<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3>Rose Terry Cooke.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Somebody's Neighbors. Stories.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Happy Dodd.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Sphinx's Children. Stories.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Steadfast.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Huckleberries. Gathered from New England Hills. Short Stories.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3>Charles Egbert Craddock [Mary N. Murfree].</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In the Tennessee Mountains. Short Stories.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Down the Ravine. For Young People. Illustrated.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the Clouds.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Story of Keedon Bluffs.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Despot of Broomsedge Cove.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the Battle was Fought.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His Vanished Star.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain, and Other Stories.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3>Oliver Wendell Holmes.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Elsie Venner.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Guardian Angel.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Mortal Antipathy.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3>Augustus Hoppin.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Recollections of Auton House. Illustrated by the Author.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Fashionable Sufferer. Illustrated by the Author.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Two Compton Boys. Illustrated by the Author.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3>Henry James.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Watch and Ward.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Passionate Pilgrim, and other Tales.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Roderick Hudson.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The American.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Europeans.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Confidence.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Portrait of a Lady.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Author of Beltraffio; Pandora; Georgina's Reasons; Four Meetings, etc.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Siege of London; The Pension Beaurepas; and The Point of View.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tales of Three Cities (The Impressions of a Cousin; Lady Barberina; A New England Winter)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Daisy Miller: A Comedy.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Tragic Muse.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3>Sarah Orne Jewett.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The King of Folly Island, and other People.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tales of New England. In Riverside Aldine Series.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A White Heron, and Other Stories.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Marsh Island.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Country Doctor.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deephaven.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Old Friends and New.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Country By-Ways.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Mate of the Daylight, and Friends Ashore.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Betty Leicester.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strangers and Wayfarers.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Native of Winby.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Life of Nancy, and Other Stories.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3>Ellen Olney Kirk.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The Story of Lawrence Garthe.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ciphers.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Story of Margaret Kent.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sons and Daughters.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Queen Money.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Better Times. Stories.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Midsummer Madness.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Lesson in Love.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Daughter of Eve.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Walford.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3>Elizabeth Stuart Phelps [Mrs. Ward].</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The Gates Ajar.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beyond the Gates.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Gates Between.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Men, Women, and Ghosts. Stories.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hedged In.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Silent Partner.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Story of Avis.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sealed Orders, and other Stories.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Friends: A Duet.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dr. Zay.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An Old Maid's Paradise, and Burglars in Paradise.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Master of the Magicians. Collaborated by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Herbert D. Ward.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Come Forth. Collaborated by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Herbert D. Ward.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fourteen to One. Short Stories.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Donald Marcy.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Madonna of the Tubs. With Illustrations.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Jack the Fisherman. Illustrated.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Singular Life.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3>F. Hopkinson Smith.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Colonel Carter of Cartersville. With Illustrations.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Day at Laguerre's, and other Days.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Gentleman Vagabond, and other Stories.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3>Octave Thanet.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Knitters in the Sun.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Otto the Knight, and other Stories.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3>William Makepeace Thackeray.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Complete Works. <i>Illustrated Library Edition.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">With Biographical and Bibliographical Introductions,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Portrait, and over 1600 Illustrations.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3>Gen. Lew Wallace.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The Fair God; or, The Last of the 'Tzins. A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3>Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Faith Gartney's Girlhood.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hitherto.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Patience Strong's Outings.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Gayworthys.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We Girls.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Real Folks.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Other Girls.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sights and Insights.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Odd or Even?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bonnyborough.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Homespun Yarns. Stories.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ascutney Street.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Golden Gossip.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Boys at Chequasset.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mother Goose for Grown Folks.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3>Kate Douglas Wiggin.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The Birds' Christmas Carol. With Illustrations.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Story of Patsy. Illustrated.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Timothy's Quest.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Summer in a Caņon. Illustrated.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Cathedral Courtship, and Penelope's English Experiences. Illustrated.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Polly Oliver's Problem. Illustrated.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Story Hour. Illustrated.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Timothy's Quest. <i>Holiday Edition.</i> Illustrated by Oliver Herford.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cup of Trembling and Other Stories, by +Mary Hallock Foote + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CUP *** + +***** This file should be named 36625-h.htm or 36625-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/6/2/36625/ + +Produced by Katherine Ward, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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 Cup of Trembling and Other Stories + +Author: Mary Hallock Foote + +Release Date: July 5, 2011 [EBook #36625] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CUP *** + + + + +Produced by Katherine Ward, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + THE CUP OF TREMBLING + + AND OTHER STORIES + + BY MARY HALLOCK FOOTE + + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY + The Riverside Press, Cambridge + 1895 + + Copyright, 1895, + BY MARY HALLOCK FOOTE. + + _All rights reserved._ + + _The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._ + Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +THE CUP OF TREMBLING + +MAVERICK + +ON A SIDE-TRACK + +THE TRUMPETER + + + + +THE CUP OF TREMBLING + + +I + +A miner of the Coeur d'Alene was returning alone on foot, one winter +evening, from the town in the gulch to his solitary claim far up on the +timbered mountain-side. + +His nearest way was by an unfrequented road that led to the Dreadnaught, +a lofty and now abandoned mine that had struck the vein three thousand +feet above the valley, but the ore, being low-grade, could never be made +to pay the cost of transportation. + +He had cached his snow-shoes, going down, at the Bruce boys' cabin, the +only habitation on the Dreadnaught road, which from there was still open +to town. + +The snows that camp all summer on the highest peaks of the Coeur +d'Alene were steadily working downward, driving the game before them; +but traffic had not ceased in the mountains. Supplies were still +delivered by pack-train at outlying claims and distant cabins in the +standing timber. The miner was therefore traveling light, encumbered +with no heavier load than his personal requisition of tobacco and whisky +and the latest newspapers, which he circulated in exchange for the +wayside hospitalities of that thinly peopled but neighborly region. + +His homeward halt at the cabin was well timed. The Bruce boys were just +sitting down to supper; and the moon, that would light his lonelier way +across the white slopes of the forest, would not be visible for an hour +or more. The boys threw wood upon their low cooking-fire of coals, which +flamed up gloriously, spreading its immemorial welcome over that poor, +chance suggestion of a home. The supper was served upon a board, or +literally two boards, nailed shelf-wise across the lighted end of the +cabin, beneath a small window where, crossed by the squares of a dusty +sash, the austere winter twilight looked in: a sky of stained-glass +colors above the clear heights of snow; an atmosphere as cold and pure +as the air of a fireless church; a hushed multitude of trees disguised +in vestments of snow, a mute recessional after the benediction has been +said. + +Each man dragged his seat to the table, and placed himself sidewise, +that his legs might find room beneath the narrow board. Each dark face +was illumined on one side by the fitful fire-glow, on the other by the +constant though fading ray from the window; and, as they talked, the +boisterous fire applauded, and the twilight, like a pale listener, laid +its cold finger on the pane. + +They talked of the price of silver, of the mines shutting down, of the +bad times East and West, and the signs of a corrupt generation; and this +brought them to the latest ill rumor from town--a sensation that had +transpired only a few hours before the miner's departure, and which +friends of the persons discussed were trying to keep as quiet as +possible. + +The name of a young woman was mentioned, hitherto a rather disdainful +favorite with society in the Coeur d'Alene--the wife of one of the +richest mine-owners in the State. + +The "Old Man," as the miners called him, had been absent for three +months in London, detained from week to week on the tedious but +paramount business of selling his mine. The mine, with its fatalistic +millions (which, it was surmised, had spoken for their owner in marriage +more eloquently than the man could have spoken for himself), had been +closed down pending negotiations for its sale, and left in charge of the +engineer, who was also the superintendent. This young man, whose +personal qualities were in somewhat formidable contrast to those of his +employer, nevertheless, in business ways, enjoyed a high measure of his +confidence, and had indeed deserved it. The present outlook was somewhat +different. Persons who were fond of Waring were saying in town that +"Jack must be off his head," as the most charitable way of accounting +for his late eccentricity. The husband was reported to be on shipboard, +expected in New York in a week or less; but the wife, without +explanation, had suddenly left her home. Her disappearance was generally +accounted a flight. On the same night of the young woman's evanishment, +Superintendent Waring had relieved himself of his duties and +responsibilities, and taken himself off, with the same irrevocable +frankness, leaving upon his friends the burden of his excuses, his +motives, his whereabouts, and his reputation. + +Since news of the double desertion had got abroad, tongues had been +busy, and a vigorous search was afoot for evidence of the generally +assumed fact of an elopement, but with trifling results. + +The fugitives, it was easily learned, had not gone out by the railroad; +but Clarkson's best team, without bells, and a bob-sleigh with two seats +in it had been driven into the stable yard before daylight on the +morning of the discovery, the horses rough and jaded, and white with +frozen steam; and Clarkson himself had been the driver on this hard +night trip. As he was not in the habit of serving his patrons in this +capacity, and as he would give none but frivolous, evasive answers to +the many questions that were asked him, he was supposed to be accessory +to Waring in his crime against the morals of the camp. + +While the visitor enlarged upon the evidence furnished by Clarkson's +night ride, the condition of his horses, and his own frank lying, the +Bruce boys glanced at each other significantly, and each man spat into +the fire in silence. + +The traveler's halt was over. He slipped his feet into the straps of his +snow-shoes, and took his pole in hand; for now the moon had risen to +light his path; faint boreal shadows began to appear on the glistening +slopes. He shuffled away, and his shape was soon lost in the white +depths of the forest. + +The brothers sat and smoked by their sinking fire, before covering its +embers for the night; and again the small window, whitening in the +growing moonlight, was like the blanched face of a troubled listener. + +"That must have been them last night, you recollect. I looked out about +two o'clock, and it _was_ a bob-sleigh, crawlin' up the grade, and the +horses hadn't any bells on. The driver was a thick-set man like +Clarkson, in a buffaler coat. There was two on the back seat, a man and +woman plain enough, all muffled up, with their heads down. It was so +still in the woods I could have heard if they'd been talkin' no louder +than I be now; but not a word was spoke all the way up the hill. I says +to myself, 'Them folks must be pretty well acquainted, 'less they 're +all asleep, goin' along through the woods the prettiest kind of a night, +walkin' their horses, and not a word in the whole dumb outfit.'" + +"I'm glad you didn't open your head about it," said the elder brother. +"We don't know for certain it was them, and it's none of our funeral, +anyhow. Where, think, could they have been going to, supposin' you was +right? Would Jack be likely to harbor up there at the mine?" + +"Where else could they get to, with a team, by this road? Where else +could they be safer? Jack's inside of his own lines up there, and come +another big snow the road'll be closed till spring; and who'd bother +about them, anyway, exceptin' it might be the Old Man? And a man that +leaves his wife around loose the way he done ain't likely to be huntin' +her on snow-shoes up to another man's mine." + +"I don't believe Jack's got the coin to be meanderin' very far just +about now," said the practical elder brother. "He's staked out with a +pretty short rope, unless he's realized on some of his claims. I heard +he was tryin' to dig up a trade with a man who's got a mine over in the +Slocan country. That would be convenient, over the line among the +Kanucks. I wouldn't wonder if he's hidin' out for a spell till he +gathers his senses, and gets a little more room to turn in. He can't fly +far with a woman like her, unless his pockets are pretty well lined. +Them easy-comers easy-goers ain't the kind that likes to rough it. I'll +bet she don't bile his shirts or cook his dinners, not much." + +"It's a wild old nest up there," said the younger and more imaginative +as well as more sympathetic of the brothers--"a wild road to nowhere, +only the dropping-off place." + +"What gets me is that talk of Jack's last fall, when you was in the +Kootenai, about his intentions to bach it up there this winter, if he +could coax his brother out from Manitoba to bach with him. I wouldn't +like to think it of Jack, that he'd lie that way, just to turn folks off +the scent. But he did, sure, pack a lot of his books and stuff up to +the mine; grub, too, a lot of it; and done some work on the cabin. Think +he was fixin' up for a hide-out, in case he should need one? Or wa'n't +it anything but a bluff?" + +"Naw," the other drawled impatiently. "Jack's no such a deep schemer as +all that comes to. More'n likely he seen he was workin' the wrong lead, +and concluded 't was about time for him to be driftin' in another +direction. 'T ain't likely he give in to such foolishness without one +fight with himself. And about when he had made up his mind to fire +himself out, and quit the whole business, the Old Man puts out for +London, stuck on sellin' his mine, and can't leave unless Jack stays +with it. And Jack says to himself, 'Well, damn it all, I done what I +could! What is to be will be.' That's about the way I put it up." + +"I wouldn't be surprised," the other assented; "but what's become of the +brother, if there ever was a brother in it at all?" + +"Why, Lord! a man can change his mind. But I guess he didn't tell his +brother about this young madam he was lookin' after along with the rest +of the Old Man's goods. I hain't got nothin' against Jack Waring; he's +always been square with me, and he's an awful good minin' man. I'd trust +him with my pile, if it was millions, but I wouldn't trust him, nor any +other man, with my wife." + +"Sho! she was poor stuff; she was light, I tell ye. Think of some of the +women we've known! Did they need watchin'? No, sir; it ain't the man, +it's the woman, when it's between a young man and a married woman. It's +her foolishness that gits away with them both. Girls is different. I'd +skin a man alive that set the town talkin' about my sister like _she's_ +bein' talked about, now." + +The brothers stepped outside and stood awhile in silence, regarding the +night and breathing the pure, frosty air of the forest. A commiserating +thankfulness swelled in their breasts with each deep, clean inspiration. +They were poor men, but they were free men--free, compared with Jack. +There was no need to bar their door, or watch suspiciously, or skulk +away and hide their direction, choosing the defense of winter and the +deathlike silence of the snows to the observation of their kind. + +They stared with awe up the white, blank road that led to the deserted +mine, and they marveled in homely thinking: "Will it pay?" It was "the +wrong lead this time, sure." + +The brothers watched the road from day to day, and took note that not a +fresh track had been seen upon it; not a team, or a traveler on +snow-shoes, had gone up or down since the night when the bob-sleigh with +its silent passengers had creaked up it in the moonlight. Since that +night of the full moon of January not another footprint had broken the +smoothness of that hidden track. The snow-tides of midwinter flowed over +it. They filled the gulch and softly mounting, snow on snow, rose to the +eaves of the little cabin by the buried road. The Bruce boys dug out +their window; the hooded roof protected their door. They walked about on +top of the frozen tide, and entered their house, as if it were a cellar, +by steps cut in a seven-foot wall of snow. + +One gray day in February a black dog, with a long nose and bloodshot +eyes, leaped down into the trench and pawed upon the cabin door. +Opening to the sound, the Bruce boys gave him a boisterous welcome, +calling their visitor by name. The dog was Tip, Jack Waring's clever +shepherd spaniel, a character as well known in the mountains as his +master. Indeed, he was too well known, and too social in his habits, for +a safe member of a household cultivating strict seclusion; therefore, +when Tip's master went away with his neighbor's wife, Tip had been left +behind. His reappearance on this road was regarded by the Bruce boys as +highly suggestive. + +Tip was a dog that never forgave an injury or forgot a kindness. Many a +good bone he had set down to the Bruce boys' credit in the days when his +master's mine was supposed to be booming, and his own busy feet were +better acquainted with the Dreadnaught road. He would not come in, but +stood at the door, wagging his tail inquiringly. The boys were about to +haul him into the cabin by the hair of his neck, or shut him out in the +cold, when a shout was heard from the direction of the road above. +Looking out, they saw a strange young man on snow-shoes, who hailed +them a second time, and stood still, awaiting their response. Tip +appeared to be satisfied now; he briskly led the way, the boys +following, up the frozen steps cut in their moat-wall of snow, and stood +close by, assisting, with all the eloquence his honest, ugly phiz was +capable of, at the conference that ensued. He showed himself +particularly anxious that his old friends should take his word for the +stranger whom he had introduced and appeared to have adopted. + +Pointing up the mountain, the young man asked, "Is that the way to the +Dreadnaught mine?" + +"There ain't anybody workin' up there now," Jim Bruce replied +indirectly, after a pause in which he had been studying the stranger's +appearance. His countenance was exceedingly fresh and pleasing, his age +about twenty years. He was buttoned to the chin in a reefing-jacket of +iron-gray Irish frieze. His smooth, girlish face was all over one pure, +deep blush from exertion in the cold. He wore Canadian snow-shoes +strapped upon his feet, instead of the long Norwegian skier on which the +men of the Coeur d'Alene make their winter journeys in the mountains; +and this difference alone would have marked him for a stranger from over +the line. After he had spoken, he wiped away the icy moisture of his +breath that frosted his upper lip, stuck a short pipe between his teeth, +drew off one mitten and fumbled in his clothing for a match. The Bruce +boys supplied him with a light, and as the fresh, pungent smoke +ascended, he raised his head and smiled his thanks. + +"Is this the road to the Waring mine--the Dreadnaught?" he asked again, +deliberately, after a pull or two at his pipe. + +And again came the evasive answer: "Mine's shut down. Ain't nobody +workin' up there now." + +The youngster laughed aloud. "Most uncommunicative population I ever +struck," he remarked, in a sort of humorous despair. "That's the way +they answered me in town. I say, is this a hoodoo? If my brother isn't +up there, where in the devil is he? All I ask is a straight answer to a +straight question." + +The Bruce boys grinned their embarrassment. "You'll have to ask us +somethin' easier," they said. + +"This is the road to the mine, ain't it?" + +"Oh, that's the road all right enough," the boys admitted; "but you can +see yourself how much it's been traveled lately." + +The stranger declined to be put off with such casual evidence as this. +"The wind would wipe out any snow-shoe track; and a snow-shoer would as +soon take across the woods as keep the road, if he knew the way." + +"Wal," said Jim Bruce, conclusively, "most of the boys, when they are +humpin' themselves to town, stops in here for a spell to limber up their +shins by our fire; but Jack Waring hain't fetched his bones this way for +two months and better. Looks mighty queer that we hain't seen track nor +trace of him if he's been livin' up there since winter set in. Are you +the brother he was talkin' of sending for to come out and bach it with +him?" + +The boys were conscious of their own uneasy looks as the frank eyes of +the stranger met theirs at the question. + +"I'm the only brother he's got. He wrote me last August that he'd taken +a fit of the sulks, and wanted me to come and help him work it off up +here at his mine. I was coming, only a good job took me in tow; and +after a month or so the work went back on me, and I wrote to Jack two +weeks ago to look out for me; and here I am. And the people in town, +where he's been doing business these six years, act as if they distantly +remembered him. 'Oh, yes,' they say, 'Jack Waring; but he's gone away, +don't you know? Snowed under somewhere; don't know where.' I asked them +if he'd left no address. Apparently not. Asked if he'd seemed to be +clothed in his proper senses when last seen. They thought so. I went to +the post-office, expecting to find his mail piled up there. Every scrap +had been cleaned up since Friday last; but not the letter I wrote him, +so he can't be looking for me. The P. M. squirmed, like everybody else, +when I mentioned my brother; but he owned that a man's mail can't leave +the box without hands, and that the hands belonged usually to some of +the boys at the Mule Deer mine. Now, the Mule Deer is next neighbor to +the Dreadnaught, across the divide. It's a friendly power, I know; and +that confirms me that my brother has done just what he said he was +going to do. The tone of his letter showed that he was feeling a bit +seedy. He seemed to have soured on the town for some reason, which might +mean that the town has soured on him. I don't ask what it is, and I +don't care to know, but something has queered him with the whole crowd. +I asked Clarkson to let me have a man to show me the way to the +Dreadnaught. He calmly lied to me a blue streak, and he knew that I knew +he was lying. And then Tip, here, looked me in the eye, with his head on +one side, and I saw that he was on to the whole business." + +"Smartest dog that ever lived!" Jim Bruce ejaculated. "I wouldn't wonder +if he knew you was Jack's brother." + +"I won't swear that he could name the connection; but he knows I'm +looking for his master, and he's looking for him too; but he's afraid to +trail after him without a good excuse. See? I don't know what Tip's been +up to, that he should be left with a man like Clarkson; but whatever +he's done, he's a good dog now. Ain't you, Tip?" + +"_He_ done!" Jim Bruce interrupted sternly. "Tip never done nothing to +be punished for. Got more sense of what's right than most humans, and +lives up to it straight along. I'd quar'l with any man that looked cross +at that dog. You old brute, you rascal! What you doin' up here? Ain't +you 'shamed, totin' folks 'way up here on a wild-goose chase? What you +doin' it fer, eh? Pertendin' you're so smart! You know Jack ain't up +here; Jack ain't up here, I say. Go along with ye, tryin' to fool a +stranger!" + +Tip was not only unconvinced by these unblushing assertions on the part +of a friend whose word he had never doubted: he was terribly abashed and +troubled by their manifest disingenuousness. From a dog's point of view +it was a poor thing for the Bruce boys to do, trying to pass upon him +like this. He blinked apologetically, and licked his chaps, and wagged +the end of his tail, which had sunk a trifle from distress and +embarrassment at his position. + +The three men stood and watched the workings of his mind, expressed in +his humble, doggish countenance; and a final admission of the truth that +he had been trying to conceal escaped Jim Bruce in a burst of +admiration for his favorite's unswerving sagacity. + +"Smartest dog that ever lived!" he repeated, triumphant in defeat; and +the brothers wasted no more lies upon the stranger. + +There was something uncanny, thought the young man, in this mystery +about his brother, that grew upon him and waxed formidable, and pursued +him even into the depths of the snow-buried wilderness. The breath of +gossip should have died on so clean an air, unless there had been more +than gossip in it. + +The Bruce boys ceased to argue with him on the question of his brother's +occupancy of the mine. They urged other considerations by way of +delaying him. They spoke of the weather; of the look of snow in the sky, +the feeling of snow in the air, the yellow stillness of the forest, the +creeping cold. They tried to keep him over night, on the offer of their +company up the mountain in the morning, if the weather should prove fit. +But he was confident, though graver in manner than at first, that he was +going to a supper and a bed at his brother's camp, to say nothing of a +brother's welcome. + +"I'm positive he's up there. I froze on to it from the first," he +persisted. "And why should I sleep at the foot of the hill when my +brother sleeps at the top?" + +The Bruce boys were forced to let him go on, with the promise, merely +allowing for the chance of disappointment, that if he found nobody above +he would not attempt to return after nightfall by the Dreadnaught road, +which hugs the peak at a height above the valley where there is always a +stiff gale blowing, and the combing drifts in midwinter are forty feet +high. + +"Trust Tip," they said; "he'll show you the trail across the mountain to +the Mule Deer"--a longer but far safer way to shelter for the night. + +"Tip is fly; he'll see me through," said Jack's brother. "I'd trust him +with my life. I'll be back this way possibly in the morning; but if you +don't see me, come up and pay us a visit. We'll teach the Dreadnaught to +be more neighborly. Here's hoping," he cried, and the three drank in +turn out of the young fellow's flask, the Bruce boys almost solemnly as +they thought of the meeting between the brothers, the sequel to that +innocent hope. Unhappy brother, unhappy Jack! + +He turned his face to the snows again, and toiled on up the mountain, +with Tip's little figure trotting on ahead. + +"Think of Jack's leavin' a dog like that, and takin' up with a woman!" +said Jim Bruce, as he squared his shoulders to the fire, yawning and +shuddering with the chill he had brought with him from outside. "And +such a woman!" he added. "I'd want the straight thing, or else I'd +manage to git along without. Anything decent would have taken the dog +too." + +"'Twas mortal cute, though, of the youngster to freeze on to Tip, and +pay no attention to the talk. He knows a dog, that's sure. And Tip +knowed him. But I wish we could 'a' blocked that little rascal's game. +'Twas too bad to let him go on." + +"I never see anybody so stuck on goin' to a place," said the elder +Bruce. "We'll see him back in the morning: but I'll bet he don't jaw +much about brother Jack." + + * * * * * + +The manager's house at the Dreadnaught had been built in the time of +the mine's supposititious prosperity, and was the ideal log cabin of +the Coeur d'Alene. A thick-waisted chimney of country rock buttressed +the long side-wall of peeled logs chinked with mud. The front room was +twenty feet across, and had a stone hearth and a floor of dressed pine. +Back of it were a small bedroom and a kitchen into which water was piped +from a spring higher up on the mountain. The roof of cedar shakes +projected over the gable, shading the low-browed entrance from the sun +in summer, and protecting it in winter from the high-piled snows. + +Like a swallow's nest it clung in the hollow of the peak, which slopes +in vast, grand contours to the valley, as if it were the inside of a +bowl, the rim half broken away. The valley is the bottom of the bowl, +and the broken rim is the lower range of hills that completes its +boundary. Great trees, growing beside its hidden streams far below, to +the eye of a dweller in the cabin are dwarfed to the size of junipers, +and the call of those unseen waters comes dreamily in a distant, +inconstant murmur, except when the wind beats up the peak, which it +seldom does, as may be seen by the warp of the pines and tamaracks, and +the drifting of the snows in winter. + +To secure level space for the passage of teams in front of the house, an +embankment had been thrown up, faced with a heavy retaining-wall of +stone. This bench, or terrace, was now all one with the mountain-side, +heaped up and smoothed over with snow. + +Jack, in his winter nest-building, had cleared a little space for air +and light in front of each of the side windows, and with unceasing labor +he shoveled out the snow which the wind as constantly sifted into these +pits, and into the trench beneath the hooded roof that sheltered the +gable entrance. + +The snow walls of this sunken gallery rose to the height of the +door-frame, cutting out all view from without or within. A perpetual +white twilight, warmed by the glow of their hearth-fire, was all that +the fugitives ever saw of the day. Sun, or stars were alike to them. One +link they had with humanity, however, without which they might have +suffered hardship, or even have been forced to succumb to their savage +isolation. + +The friendly Mule Deer across the mountain was in a state of winter +siege, like the Dreadnaught, but had not severed its connections with +the world. It was a working mine, with a force of fifty or more men on +its pay-roll, and regular communication on snow-shoes was had with the +town. The mine was well stocked as well as garrisoned, and Jack was +indebted to the friendship of the manager for many accustomed luxuries +which Esmee would have missed in the new life that she had rashly +welcomed for his sake. No woman could have been less fitted than she, by +previous circumstances and training, to take her share of its hardships, +or to contribute to its slender possibilities in the way of comfort. A +servant was not to be thought of. No servant but a Chinaman would have +been impersonal enough for the situation, and all heathen labor has been +ostracized by Christian white labor from the Coeur d'Alene. + +So Jack waited upon his love, and was inside man and outside man, and as +he expressed it, "general dog around the place." He was a clever cook, +which goes without saying in one who has known good living, and has +lived eight years a bachelor on the frontier: but he cleaned his own +kitchen and washed his own skillets, which does not go without saying, +sooner than see Esmee's delicate hands defiled with such grimy tasks. He +even swept, as a man sweeps; but what man was ever known to dust? The +house, for all his ardent, unremitting toil, did not look particularly +tidy. + +Its great, dark front room was a man's room, big, undraped and +uncurtained, strongly framed,--the framework much exposed in +places,--heavy in color, hard in texture, yet a stronghold, and a place +of absolute reserve: a very safe place in which to lodge such a secret +as Esmee. And there she was, in her exotic beauty, shivering close to a +roaring fire, scorching her cheeks that her silk-clad shoulders might be +warm. She had never before lived in a house where the fires went out at +night, and water froze beside her bed, and the floors were carpetless +and cold as the world's indifference to her fate. She was absolutely +without clothing suited to such a change, nor would she listen to +sensible, if somewhat unattractive, suggestions from Jack. Now, least of +all times, could she afford to disguise her picturesque beauty for the +sake of mere comfort and common sense, or even to spare Jack his worries +about her health. + +It was noon, and the breakfast-table still stood in front of the fire. +Jack, who since eight o'clock had been chopping wood and "packing" it +out of the tunneled snow-drift which was the woodshed into the kitchen, +and cooking breakfast, and shoveling snow out of the trenches, sat +glowing on his side of the table, farthest from the fire, while Esmee, +her chair drawn close to the hearth, was sipping her coffee and holding +a fan spread between her face and the flames. + +"Jack, I wish you had a fire-screen--one that would stand of itself, and +not have to be held." + +"Bless you! I'd be your fire-screen, only I think I'm rather hotter than +the fire itself. I insist that you take some exercise, Esmee. Come, walk +the trench with me ten rounds before I start." + +"Why do you start so early?" + +"Do you call this early? Besides, it looks like snow." + +"Then, why go at all?" + +"You know why I go, dearest. The boys went to town yesterday. I've had +no mail for a week." + +"And can't you exist without your mail?" + +"Existence is just the hitch with us at present. It's for your sake I +cannot afford to be overlooked. If I fall out of step in my work, it may +take years to get into line again. I can't say like those ballad +fellows: + + 'Arise! my love, and fearless be, + For o'er the southern moors I have a home for thee.' + +"I wish I had. We'll put some money in our purse, and then we'll make +ourselves a home where we please. Money is the first thing with us now. +You must see that yourself." + +"I see it, of course; but it doesn't seem the nearest way to a fortune, +going twice a week on snow-shoes to play solo at the Mule Deer mine. +Confess, Jack dear, you do not come straight away as soon as you get +your mail." + +"I do not, of course. I must be civil, after a fashion, to Wilfrid +Knight, considering all that he is doing for me." + +"What is he doing for you?" + +"He's working as hard as he can for me in certain directions. It's best +not to say too much about these things till they've materialized; but he +has as strong a backing as any man in the Coeur d'Alene. To tell you +the truth, I can't afford _not_ to be civil to him, if it meant solo +every day in the week." + +Esmee smiled a little, but remained silent. Jack went around to the +chimney-piece and filled his pipe, and began to stalk about the room, +talking in brief sentences as he smoked. + +"And by the way, dearest, would you mind if he should drop in on us some +day?" Jack laughed at his own phrase, so literally close to the only +mode of gaining access to their cellarage in the snow. + +Esmee looked up quickly. "What in the world does he want to come here +for? Doesn't he see enough of you as it is?" + +"He wants to see something of you; and it's howling lonesome at the Mule +Deer. Won't you let him come, Esmee?" + +"Why, do you want him, Jack?" + +"I want him! What should I want him for? But we have to be decent to a +man who's doing everything in the world for us. We couldn't have made it +here, at all, without the aid and comfort of the Mule Deer." + +"I'd rather have done without his aid and comfort, if it must be paid +for at his own price. + +"Everything has got to be paid for. Even that inordinate fire, which you +won't be parted from, has to be paid for with a burning cheek." + +"Not if you had a fire-screen, Jack," Esmee reminded him sweetly. + +"We will have one--an incandescent fire-screen on two legs. Will two be +enough? A Mule Deer miner shall pack it in on his back from town. But we +shall have to thank Wilfrid Knight for sending him. Well, if you won't +have him here, he can't come, of course; but it's a mistake, I think. We +can't afford, in my opinion, not to see the first hand that is held out +to us in a social way--a hand that can help us if it will, but one that +is quite as strong to injure us." + +"Have him, then, if he's so dangerous. But is he nice, do you think?" + +"He's nice enough, as men go. We're not any of us any too nice." + +"Some of you are at least considerate, and I think it very inconsiderate +of Mr. Wilfrid Knight to wish to intrude himself on me now." + +"Dearest, he has been kindness itself, and delicacy, in a way. Twice he +has sent a special man to town to hunt up little dainties and comforts +for you when my prison fare"-- + +"Jack, what do you mean? Has Wilfrid Knight been putting his hand in his +pocket for things for me to eat and drink?" + +"His pocket's not much hurt. Don't let that disturb you; but it is +something to send a man fifteen miles down the mountain to pack the +stuff. You might very properly recognize that, if you chose." + +"I recognize nothing of it. Why did you not tell me how it was? I +thought that you were sending for those things." + +"How can I send Knight's men on my errands, if you please? I don't show +up very largely at the mine in person. You don't seem to realize the +situation. Did you suppose that the Mule Deer men, when they fetch these +things from town, know whom they are for? They may, but they are not +supposed to." + +"Arrange it as you like, but I will not take presents from the manager +of the Mule Deer." + +"He has dined at your table, Esmee." + +"Not at _my_ table," said Esmee, haughtily averting her face. + +"But you have been nice to him; he remembers you with distinct +pleasure." + +"Very likely. It is my role to be nice to people. I should be nice to +him if he came here now; but I should hate him for coming. If _he_ were +nice, he would not dream of your asking him or allowing him to come." + +"Darling, darling, we can't keep it up like this. We are not lords of +fate to that extent. Fellows will pay you attention; they always have +and they always will: but you must not, dearest, imply that I am not +sensitive on the point of what you may or may not receive in that way. I +should make myself a laughing-stock before all men if I should begin by +resenting things. I could not insult you so. I will resent nothing that +a husband does not resent." + +"Jack, don't you understand? I could have taken it lightly once; I +always used to. I can't take it lightly now. I cannot have him come +here--the first to see us in this _solitude a deux_, the most intimate, +the most awful--" + +"Of course, of course," murmured Jack. "It is awful, I admit it, for +you. But it always will be. Ours is a double solitude for life, with the +world always eying us askance, scoring us, or secretly envying us, or +merely wondering coarsely about us. It takes tremendous courage in a +woman; but you will have the courage of your honesty, your surpassing +generosity to me." + +"Generosity!" Esmee repeated. "We shall see. I give myself just five +years of this 'generosity.' After that, the beginning of the end. I +shall have to eliminate myself from the problem, to be finally generous. +But five years is a good while," she whispered, "to dare to love my love +in, if my love loves me." + +There could be no doubt of this as yet. Esmee could afford to toy +sentimentally with the thought of future despair and final +self-elimination. + +"Come, come," said Waring; "this will never do; we must get some fresh +air on this." He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, pocketed it, and +marched into an inner room whence he fetched a warm, loose cloak and a +pair of carriage boots. + +"Fresh air and exercise!" + +Esmee, seeing there was to be no escape from Jack's favorite specific +for every earthly ill, put out her foot, in its foolish little slipper, +and Jack drew on the fur-lined boots, and laced them around the silken +ankles. + +He followed her out into the snow-walled fosse, and fell into step +beside her. + +"May I smoke?" + +"What affectation! As if you didn't always smoke." + +"Well, hardly, when I have a lady with me, in such a public place." + + * * * * * + +"Oh me, oh me!" Esmee suddenly broke forth, "why did I not meet you when +you were in New York the winter before! Well, it would have settled one +or two things. And we might be walking like this now, before all the +world, and every one would say we were exactly suited to each other. And +so we are--fearfully and wonderfully. Why did that fact wait to force +itself upon us when to admit it was a crime? And we were so helpless +_not_ to admit it. What resources had I against it?" + +"God knows. Perhaps I ought to have made a better fight, for your sake. +But the fight was over for me the moment I saw that you were unhappy. If +you had seemed reasonably content with your life, or even resigned, I +hope I should have been man enough to have taken myself off and had it +out alone." + +"I had no life that was not all a pretense and a lie. I began by +thinking I could pretend to you. But you know how all that broke down. +Oh, Jack, _you_ know the man!" + +"I wouldn't go on with that, Esmee." + +"But I must. I must explain to you just once, if I can." + +"You need not explain, I should hope, to me." + +"But this is something that rankles fearfully. I must tell you that I +never, never would have given in if I hadn't thought there was something +in him, really. Even his peculiarities at first seemed rather +picturesque; at least they were different from other men's. And we +thought him a great original, a force, a man of such power and capacity. +His very success was supposed to mean that. It was not his gross money +that appealed to me. You could not think that I would have let myself be +literally sold. But the money seemed to show what he had done. I thought +that at least my husband would be a man among men, and especially in the +West. But"-- + +"Darling, need we go into all this? Say it to yourself, if it must be +said. You need not say it to me." + +"_I_ am saying it, not you. It is not you who have a monstrous, +incredible marriage to explain. I must explain it as far as I can. Do +you think I can afford to be without your respect and comprehension +simply because you love me?" + +"But love includes the rest." + +"Not after a while. Now let me speak. It was when he brought me out +here that I saw him as he is. I measured him by the standards of the +life that had made him. I saw that he was just a rough Western man, like +hundreds of others; not half so picturesque as a good many who passed +the window every day. And all his great success, which I had taken as a +proof of ability, meant nothing but a stroke of brutal luck that might +happen to the commonest miner any day. I saw how you pretended to +respect his judgment while privately you managed in spite of it. I could +not help seeing that he was laughed at for his pretensions in the +community that knew him best. It was tearing away the last rag of +self-respect in which I had been trying to dress up my shameful bargain. +I knew what you all thought of him, and I knew what you must think of +me. I could not force myself to act my wretched part before you; it +seemed a deeper degradation when you were there to see. How could I let +you think that _that_ was my idea of happiness! But from the first I +never could be anything with you but just myself--for better or for +worse. It was such a rest, such a perilous rest, to be with you, just +because I knew it was no use to pretend. You always seemed to understand +everything without a word." + +"I understood _you_ because I gave my whole mind to the business. You +were in my thoughts night and day, from the moment I first saw you." + +"Yes," said Esmee, passing over this confession as a thing of course in +a young man's relations with his employer's wife. "It was as if we had +been dear friends once, before memory began, before anything began; and +all the rest came of the miserable accident of our being born--mis-born, +since we could not meet until it was too late. Oh, it was cruel! I can +never forgive life, fate, society--whatever it was that played us this +trick. I had the strangest forebodings when they talked about you, +before I saw you--a premonition of a crisis, a danger ahead. There was a +fascination in the commonest reports about you. And then your perfectly +reckless naturalness, of a man who has nothing to hide and nothing to +fear. Who on earth could resist it?" + +"I was the one who ought to have resisted it, perhaps. I don't deny that +I was 'natural.' We're neither of us exactly humbugs--not now. If the +law that we've broken is hunting for us, there will be plenty of good +people to point us out. All that we shall have to face by and by. I wish +I could take your share and mine too; but you will always have it the +harder. That, too, is part of the law, I suppose." + +"I must not be too proud," said Esmee. "I must remember what I am in the +eyes of the world. But, Jack dear, if Wilfrid Knight does come, do not +let him come without telling me first. Don't let him 'drop in on us,' as +you said." + +"He shall not come at all if it bothers you to think of it. I am not +such a politic fellow. It's for your sake, dearest one, that I am +cringing to luck in this way. I never pestered myself much about making +friends and connections; but _I_ must not be too proud, either. It's a +handicap, there's no doubt about that; it's wiser to accept the fact, +and go softly. Great heavens! haven't I got you?" + +"I suppose Wilfrid Knight is a man of the world? He'll know how to spare +the situation?" + +"Quite so," said Jack, with a faint smile. "You needn't be uneasy about +him." Then, more gravely, he added:-- + +"He knows this is no light thing with either of us. He must respect your +courage--the courage so rare in a woman--to face a cruel mistake that +all the world says she must cover up, and right it at any cost." + +"That is nonsense," said Esmee, with the violence of acute +sensitiveness. "You need not try to doctor up the truth to me. You know +that men do not admire that kind of courage in women--not in their own +women. Let us be plain with each other. I don't pretend that I came here +with you for the sake of courage, or even of honesty." + +Esmee stopped, and turned herself about, with her shoulders against the +wall of snow, crushing the back of her head deep into its soft, cold +resistance. In this way she gained a glimpse of the sky. + +"Jack, it does look like a storm. It's all over gray, is it not? and the +air is so raw and chilly. I wish you would not go to-day." + +"I'll get off at once, and be back before dark. There shall be no solo +this afternoon. But leave those dishes for me. I despise to have you +wash dishes." + +"I hate it myself. If I do do it, it will be to preserve my +self-respect, and partly because you are so slow, Jack dear, and there's +no comfort in life till you get through. What a ridiculous, blissful, +squalid time it is! Shall we ever do anything natural and restful again, +I wonder?" + +"Yes; when we get some money." + +"I can't bear to hear you talk so much about money. Have I not had +enough of money in my life?" + +"Life is more of a problem with us than it is with most people." + +"Let us go where nature solves the problem. There was an old song one of +my nurses used to sing to me-- + + 'Oh, islands there are, in the midst of the deep, + Where the leaves never fade, and the skies never weep.' + +"Can't we go, Jack dear? Let us be South Sea Islanders. Let's be +anything where there will be no dishes to wash, or somebody to wash them +for us." + +"We will go when we get some money," Jack persisted hauntingly. + +"Oh, hush about the money! It's so uncomplimentary of you. I shall begin +to think"-- + +"You must not think. Thinking, after a thing is done, is no use. You +must 'sleep, dear, sleep.' I shall be back before dark; but if I am not, +don't think it strange. One never knows what may happen." + +When he was gone Esmee was seized with a profound fit of dawdling. She +sat for an hour in Jack's deep leather chair by the fire, her cloak +thrown back, her feet, in the fur boots, extended to the blaze. For the +first time that day she felt completely warm. She sat an hour dreaming, +in perfect physical content. + +Where did those words that Jack had quoted come from, she mused, and +repeated them to herself, trying their sound by ear. + + "Then sleep, dear, sleep!" + +They gathered meaning from some fragmentary connection in her memory. + + "If thou wilt ease thine heart + Of love, and all its smart-- + Then sleep, dear, sleep!" + + "And not a sorrow"-- + +She could recall no more. The lines had an echo of Keats. She looked +across the room toward the low shelves where Jack's books were crammed +in dusty banishment. It was not likely that Keats would be in that +company; yet Jack, by fits and starts, had been a passionate reader of +everybody, even of the poets. + +She was too utterly comfortable to be willing to move merely to lay the +ghost of a vanished song. And now another verse awoke to haunt her:-- + + "But wilt thou cure thine heart + Of love, and all its smart-- + Then die, dear, die!" + + "'T is deeper, sweeter"-- + +Than what? She could not remember. She had read the verses long ago, as +a girl of twenty measures time, when the sentiment had had for her the +palest meaning. Now she thought it not extravagant, but simply true. + + "Then die, dear, die!" + +She repeated, pillowing her head in the satin lining of her cloak. A +tear of self-forgiving pity stole down her cheek. Love,--of her own +fair, sensitive self; love of the one who could best express her to +herself, and magnify her day by day, on the highest key of modern poetic +sympathy and primal passion and mediaeval romance,--this was the whole of +life to her. She desired no other revelation concerning the mission of +woman. In no other sense would she have held it worth while to be a +woman. Yet she, of Beauty's daughters, had been chosen for that +stupidest of all the dull old world's experiments in what it calls +success--a loveless marriage! + +When at length the fire went down, and the air of the draughty room grew +cool, Esmee languidly bestirred herself. The confusion that Jack had +left behind him in his belated departure began to afflict her--the +unwashed dishes on the table, the crumbs on the floor, the half-emptied +pipe and ashes on the mantel, the dust everywhere. She pitied herself +that she had no one at her command to set things right. At length she +rose, reluctantly dispensing with her cloak, but keeping the fur boots +on her feet, and began to pile up the breakfast dishes, and carry them +by separate journeys to the kitchen. + +The fire had long been out in the cook-stove; the bare little place was +distressingly cold; neither was it particularly clean, and the nature of +its disorder was even more objectionable than that of the sitting-room. +Poor Jack! Esmee had profoundly admired and pitied his struggles with +the kitchen. What man of Jack's type and breeding had ever stood such a +test of devotion? Even young Sir Gareth, who had done the same sort of +thing, had done it for knighthood's sake, and had taken pride in the +ordeal. With Jack such service counted for nothing except as a +preposterous proof of his love for her. + +Suppose she should surprise him in house-wifely fashion, and treat him +to a clean kitchen, a bright fire, and a hot supper on his return? The +fancy was a pleasing one; but when she came to reckon up the unavoidable +steps to its accomplishment, the details were too hopelessly repellent. +She did not know, in fact, where or how to begin. She mused forlornly on +their present situation, which, of course, could not last; but what +would come next? Surely, without money, plucked of the world's respect +and charity, they were a helpless pair. Jack was right; money they must +have; and she must learn to keep her scruples out of his way; he was +sufficiently handicapped already. She hovered about the scene of his +labors for a while, mourning over him, and over herself for being so +helpless to help him. By this time the sitting-room fire had gone quite +down; she put on a pair of gloves before raking out the coals and laying +the wood to rebuild it. The room had still a comfortless air, now that +she was alone to observe it. She could have wept as she went about, +moving chairs, lifting heavy bearskins, and finding dirt, ever more +dirt, that had accumulated under Jack's superficial housekeeping. + +Her timid attempt at sweeping raised a hideous dust. When she tried to +open the windows every one was frozen fast, and when she opened the door +the cold air cut her like a knife. + +She gave up trying to overhaul Jack's back accounts, and contented +herself with smoothing things over on the surface. She possessed in +perfection the decorative touch that lends an outward grace to the +aspect of a room which may be inwardly unclean, and therefore +unwholesome, for those who live in it. + +It had never been required of her that she should be anything but +beautiful and amiable, or do anything but contribute her beauty and +amiability to the indulgent world around her. The hard work was for +those who had nothing else to bestow. She laid Jack's slippers by the +fire, and, with fond coquetry, placed a pair of her own little +mouse-colored suedes, sparkling with silver embroidery, close beside +them. Her velvet wrap with its collar of ostrich plumes she disposed +effectively over the back of the hardwood settle, where the shimmering +satin lining caught a red gleam from the fire. Then she locked the outer +door, and prepared to take Jack's advice, and "sleep, dear, sleep." + +At the door of her bedroom she turned for a last survey of the empty +room--the room that would live in her memory as the scene of this most +fateful chapter of her life. That day, she suddenly remembered, was her +younger sister's wedding-day. She would not permit the thoughts to come. +All weddings, since her own, were hateful to her. "Hush!" she inwardly +breathed, to quell her heart. "The thing was done. All that was left was +dishonor, either way. This is my plea, O God! There was no escape from +shame! And Jack loved me so!" + +About five o'clock of that dark winter day Esmee was awakened from her +warm sleep by a loud knocking on the outside door. It could not be Jack, +for he had carried with him the key of the kitchen door, by which way he +always entered on his return. It was understood between them that in his +absences no stranger could be admitted to the house. Guests they did not +look for; as to friends, they knew not who their friends were, or if, +indeed, they had any friends remaining since their flight. + +The knocking continued, with pauses during which Esmee could fancy the +knocker outside listening for sounds within the house. Her heart beat +hard and fast. She had half risen in her bed; at intervals she drew a +deep breath, and shifted her weight on its supporting arm. + +Footsteps could be heard passing and repassing the length of the trench +in front of the house. They ceased, and presently a man jumped down +into the pit outside her bedroom window; the window was curtained, but +she was aware that he was there, trying to look in. He laid his hand on +the window-frame, and leaped upon the sill, and shook the sash, +endeavoring to raise it; but the blessed frost held it fast. The man had +a dog with him, that trotted after him, back and forth, and seconded his +efforts to gain entrance by leaping against the door, and whining, and +scratching at the lock. + +The girl was unspeakably alarmed, there was something so imperative in +the stranger's demand. It had for her startled ear an awful assurance, +as who should say, "I have a right to enter here." Who was it, what was +it, knocking at the door of that guilty house? + +It seemed to Esmee that this unappeasable presence had haunted the place +for an hour or more, trying windows, and going from door to door. At +length came silence so prolonged and complete that she thought herself +alone at last. + +But Jack's brother had not gone. He was standing close to the window of +the outer room, studying its interior in the strong light and shadow of +a pitch-pine fire. The room was confiding its history to one who was no +stranger to its earlier chapters, and was keen for knowledge of the +rest. + +This was Jack's house, beyond a doubt, and Jack was its tenant at this +present time, its daily intimate inhabitant. In this sense the man and +his house were one. + +The Dreadnaught had been Jack's first important mining venture. In it he +had sunk his share of his father's estate, considerable time and +reputation, and the best work he was capable of; and he still +maintained, in accordance with his temperament, that the mine was a good +mine, only present conditions would not admit of the fact being +demonstrated. The impregnable nature of its isolation made it a +convenient cache for personal properties that he had no room for in his +quarters in town, the beloved impedimenta that every man of fads and +enthusiasms accumulates even in a rolling-stone existence. He was all +there: it was Jack so frankly depicted in his belongings that his young +brother, who adored him, sighed restlessly, and a blush of mingled +emotions rose in his snow-chilled cheek. + +What reminder is so characteristic of a man as the shoes he has lately +put off his feet? And, by token, there were Jack's old pumps waiting for +him by the fire. + +But now suspicion laid its finger on that very unnamed dread which had +been lurking in the young man's thoughts. Jack, the silent room +confessed, was not living here alone. This could hardly be called +"baching it," with a pair of frail little feminine slippers moored close +beside his own. Where had Jack's feet been straying lately,--on what +forbidden ground,--that his own brother must be kept in ignorance of +such a step as this? If he had been mad enough to fetch a bride to such +an inhuman solitude as this,--if this were Jack's lawful honeymoon, why +should his bliss be hedged about with an awkward conspiracy of silence +on the part of all his friends? + +The silent room summoned its witnesses; one by one each mute, inanimate +object told its story. The firelight questioned them in scornful +flashes; the defensive shadows tried to confuse the evidence, and cover +it up. + +But there were the conscious slippers reddening by the hearth. The +costly Paris wrap displayed itself over the back of Jack's honest +hardwood settle. On the rough table, covered with a blanket wrought by +the hands of an Indian squaw, glimpsed a gilded fan, half-open, showing +court ladies, dressed as shepherdesses, blowing kisses to their +ephemeral swains. Faded hot-house roses were hanging their +heads--shriveled packets of sweetness--against the brown sides of a +pot-bellied tobacco-jar, the lid of which, turned upside down, was doing +duty as an ash-receiver. A box of rich confectionery imported from the +East had been emptied into a Dresden bowl of a delicate, frigid pattern, +reminding one of such pure-bred gentlewomen as Jack's little mother, +from whom he had coaxed this bit of the family china on his last home +visit. + +We do not dress up our brother's obliquity in euphemistic phrases; Jack +might call it what he pleased; but not the commonest man that knew him +had been willing to state in plain words the manner of his life at +present, snowed in at the top of the Dreadnaught road. Behold how that +life spoke for itself: how his books were covered with dust; how the +fine, manly rigor of the room had been debased by contact with the +habits of a luxurious dependent woman! + +Here Jack was wasting life in idleness, in self-banishment, in +inordinate affections and deceits of the flesh. The brother who loved +him too well to be lenient to his weakness turned away with a groan of +such indignant heartbreak as only the young can know. Only the young and +the pure in heart can have such faith in anything human as Jack's +brother had had in Jack. + +Esmee, reassured by the long-continued silence, had ventured out, and +now stepped cautiously forward into the broad, low light in the middle +of the room. The fireshine touched her upraised chin, her parted lips, +and a spark floated in each of her large, dark, startled eyes. Tip had +been watching as breathless and as motionless as his companion, but now +at sight of Esmee he bounded against the sash, and squealed his +impatience to be let in. Esmee shrank back with a cry; her hands went up +to her breast and clasped themselves. She had seen the face at the +window. Her attitude was the instinctive expression of her convicted +presence in that house. And the excluded pair who watched her were her +natural judges: Fidelity that she had outraged, and Family Affection +that she had wronged. + +Tip made further demonstrations at the window, but Esmee had dragged +herself away out of sight into her own room. + +The steps of the knocker were heard, a few minutes later, wandering +irresolutely up and down the trench. For the last time they paused at +the door. + +"Shall we knock once more, Tip? Shall we give her one more chance? She +has seen that I am no ruffian; she knows that you are a friend. Now if +she is an honest woman let her show herself! For the last time, then!" + +A terrific peal of knocking shocked the silence. Esmee could have +screamed, there was an accent so scornfully accusative in this last +ironical summons. No answer was possible. The footsteps turned away from +the door, and did not come back. + + +II + +The snow that had began to fall softly and quietly about the middle of +the afternoon had steadily increased until now in the thickening dusk it +spread a white blindness everywhere. From her bedroom window Esmee +looked out, and though she could not see the sky, there were signs +enough to tell her what the coming night would be. Fresh snow lay piled +in the trench, and snow was whirling in. The blast outside wailed in the +chimney, and shook the house, and sifted snow in beneath the outer door. + +Esmee was not surprised that Jack, when he came home, should be as +dismal and quiet as she was herself; but it did surprise her that he +should not at once perceive that something had happened in his absence. + +At first there was supper to cook, and she could not talk to him then. +Later, when they were seated together at the table, she tried to speak +of that ghostly knocking; but Jack seemed preoccupied and not inclined +to talk, and she was glad of an excuse to postpone a subject that had +for her a peculiar terror in its suggestions. + +It was nine o'clock before all the little house tasks were done, and +they drew up to the fire, seeking in each other's eyes the assurance +that both were in need of, that nothing of their dear-bought treasure of +companionship had altered since they had sat that way before. But it was +not quite the same Esmee, nor the same Jack. They were not thinking +exclusively of each other. + +"Why don't you read your letters, dear?" + +"I can't read them," said Esmee. "They were not written to me--the woman +I am now." + +These were the home letters, telling of her sister's coming wedding +festivities, that Esmee could not read, especially that one from +Lilla--her last letter as a girl to the sister who had been a bride +herself, and would know what a girl's feelings at such a time must be. + +"I have tried to write to mama," said Esmee; "but it's impossible. +Anything I could say by way of defense sounds as if I were trying to lay +the blame on some one else; and if I say nothing, but just state the +facts, it is harsh, as if I were brazening it out. And she has never +seen you, Jack. You are my only real defense. By what you are, by what +you will be to me, I am willing to be judged." + +"Dearest, you make me ashamed, but I can say the same of you. Still, to +a mother, I'm afraid it will make little difference whether it's +'Launcelot or another.'" + +"It certainly made little difference to her when she made her choice of +a husband for me," said Esmee, bitterly. One by one she dropped the +sheets of her letters in the fire, and watched them burn to ashes. + +"When they know--if they ever write to me after that, I will read those +letters. These have no meaning." They had too much meaning, was what +Esmee should have said. + +After a silence Jack spoke somewhat hoarsely: "It's a beastly long time +since I have written to any of my people. It's a pity I didn't write and +tell them something; it might have saved trouble. But how can a fellow +write? I got a letter to-day from my brother Sid. Says he's thinking of +coming out here." + +"Heaven save us!" cried Esmee. "Do write at once--anything--say +anything you like." + +Jack smiled drearily. "I'm afraid it's too late. In fact, the letter was +written the day before he was to start, and it's dated January 25. +There's a rumor that some one is in town, now, looking for me. I +shouldn't be surprised if it were Sid." + +"What if it were?" asked Esmee. "What could you do?" + +"I don't know, indeed," said Jack. "I'm awfully cut up about it. The +worst of it is, I asked him to come." + +"You asked him!" + +"Some time ago, dearest, when everything was different. I thought I must +make the fight for both our sakes, and I sent for Sid, thinking it might +help to have him here with me." + +"Did you indeed," said Esmee, coldly. "What a pity he did not come +before it was too late; he might have saved us both. How long ago was +it, please?" + +"Esmee, don't speak to me like that." + +"But do you realize what you are saying?" + +"You should not mind what I say. Think--what shall we do if it should +be Sid? It rests with you, Esmee. Could you bear to meet him?" + +"What is he like?" said Esmee, trembling. + +"Oh, he's a lovely fellow. There's nobody like Sid." + +"What does he look like?" + +"He's good-looking, of course, being my brother," said Jack, with a +wretched attempt at pleasantry, which met with no response. Esmee was +staring at him, a strange terror in her eyes. "But there is more to his +looks, somehow, than to most pretty boys. People who are up in such +things say he's like the Saint George, or Saint Somebody, by Donatello. +He's blond, you know; he's as fresh as a girl, but he has an uncommonly +set look at times, when he's serious or a bit disgusted about something. +He has a set in his temper, too. I should not care to have Sid hear our +story--not till after he had seen you, Esmee. Perhaps even then he could +not understand. He has never loved a woman, except his mother. He +doesn't know what a man's full-grown passion means. At least, I don't +think he knows. He was rather fiercely moral on some points when I +talked to him last; a little bit inhuman--what is it, Esmee?" + +"There is that dog again!" + +Jack looked at her in surprise at her shocked expression. Every trace of +color had left her face. Her eyes were fixed upon the door. + +"What dog? Why, it's Tip." + +A creature as white as the storm sprang into the room as he opened the +door, threw himself upon Jack, and whimpered and groaned and shivered, +and seemed to weep with joy. Jack hugged him, laughing, and then threw +him off, and dusted the snow from his clothing. + +Tip shook himself, and came back excitedly for more recognition from his +master. He took no notice at all of Esmee. + +"Speak to him, won't you, dear? It's only manners, even if you don't +care for him," Jack prompted gently. But Tip refused to accept Esmee's +sad, perfunctory greeting; his countenance changed, he held aloof, +glancing at her with an unpleasant gleam in his bloodshot eyes. + +He had satisfied the cravings of affection, and now made it plain that +his visit was on business that demanded his master's attention outside +of the house. Jack knew the creature's intelligent ways so well that +speech was hardly needed between them. "What's the racket, Tip? What's +wrong out there? No, sir; I don't go back to town with you to-night, +sir. Not much. Lie down! Be quiet, idiot!" + +But Tip stood at the door, and began to whine, fixing his eyes on his +master's face. As nothing came of this, he went back and stood in front +of him, wagging his tail heavily and slowly; troubled wrinkles stood out +over his beseeching eyes. + +"What under heaven's the matter with you, dog? You're a regular funeral +procession." Jack shoved the creature from him, and again he took up his +station at the door. Jack rose, and opened it, and playfully tried to +push him out. Tip stood his ground, always with his eyes on his master's +face, and whimpered under his breath with almost tearful meaning. + +"He's on duty to-night," said Jack. "He's got something on his mind, and +he wants me to help him out with it. I say, old chap, we don't keep a +life-saving station up here. Get out with your nonsense." + +"There was some one with him when he was here this afternoon," Esmee +forced herself to say. + +"Has Tip been here before?" + +"Yes, Jack. But a man was with him--a young, strange man. It was about +four o'clock, perhaps five; it was getting dusk. I had been asleep, and +I was so frightened. He knocked and knocked. I thought he would never +stop knocking. He came to my window, and tried to get in, but the sash +was frozen fast." Esmee paused, and caught her breath. "And I heard a +dog scratching and whining." + +"Did you not see the man?" + +"I did. I saw him," gasped Esmee. "It was all quiet after a while. I +thought he had gone. I came out into the room, and there he stood close +by that window, staring in; and the dog was with him. It was Tip." + +"And you did not open the door to Tip?" + +"Jack dear, have you not told me that I was never to open the door when +you were away?" + +"But didn't you speak to the man? Didn't you ask him who he was or what +he wanted?" + +"How could I? He did not speak to me. He stared at me as if I were a +ghost, and then he went away." + +"I would have questioned any man that came here with Tip. Tip doesn't +take up with toughs and hobos. What was he like?" + +Esmee had retreated under this cross-questioning, and stood at some +distance from Jack, pale, and trembling with an ague of the nerves. + +"What was he like?" Jack repeated. + +"He was most awfully beautiful. He had a face like--like a death-angel." + +Jack rejected this phrase with an impatient gesture. "Was he fair, with +blue eyes, and a little blond mustache?" + +"I don't know. The light was not good. He stood close to the window, or +I could not have seen him. What have I done? Was it wrong not to open +the door?" + +"Never mind about that, Esmee. I want you to describe the man." + +"I can't describe him. I don't need to. I know--I know it was your +brother." + +"It must have been; and we have been sitting here--how many hours?" + +"I did not know there could be anybody--who--had a right to come in." + +"Such a night as this? Get away, Tip!" + +Jack had risen, and thrown off his coat. Esmee saw him get down his +snow-shoe rig. He pulled on a thick woolen jersey, and buttoned his +reefer over that. His foot-gear was drying by the fire; he put on a pair +of German stockings, and fastened them below the knee, and over these +the India-rubber buskins which a snow-shoer wears. + +"Tip had better have something to eat before we start," he suggested. He +did not look at Esmee, but his manner to her was very gentle and +forbearing; it cut her more than harsh words and unreasonable reproaches +would have done. + +"He seems to think that I have done it," she said to herself, with the +instinct of self-defense which will always come first with timid +natures. + +Tip would not touch the food she brought him. She followed him about the +room meekly, with the plate in her hand; but he shrunk away, lifting +his lip, and showing the whites of his blood-rimmed eyes. + +Except for this defect, the sequel of distemper or some other of the +ills of puppyhood, Tip had been a good-looking dog. But this accident of +his appearance had prejudiced Esmee against him at the first sight. +Later he had made her dislike and fear him by a habit he had of dogging +his master to her door, and waiting there, outside, like Jack's +discarded conscience. If chidden, or invited to come in, the +unaccountable creature would skulk away, only to return and take up his +post of dumb witness as before; so that no one who watched the movements +of Jack's dog could fail to know how Jack bestowed his time. In this +manner Esmee had come almost to hate the dog, and Tip returned her +feeling in his heart, though he was restrained from showing it. But +to-night there was a new accusation in his gruesome eye. + +"He will not eat for me," said Esmee, humbly. + +"He must eat," said Jack. "Here, down with it!" The dog clapped his jaws +on the meat his master threw to him, and stood ready, without a change +of countenance, at the door. + +"Can't you say that you forgive me?" Esmee pleaded. + +"Forgive you? Who am I, to be forgiving people?" Jack answered hoarsely. + +"But say it--say it! It was your brother. If it had been mine, I could +forgive you." + +"Esmee, you don't see it as it is." + +"I do see it; but, Jack, you said that I was not to open the door." + +"Well, you didn't open it, did you? So it's all right. But there's a man +out in the snow, somewhere, that I have got to find, if Tip can show me +where he is. Come, Tip!" + +"Oh, Jack! You will not go without"--Jack turned his back to the door, +and held out his arms. Esmee cast herself into them, and he kissed her +in bitter silence, and went out. + + * * * * * + +These two were seated together again by the fire in the same room. It +was four o'clock in the morning, but as dark as midnight. The floor in +spots was wet with melted snow. They spoke seldom, in low, tired +voices; it was generally Esmee who spoke. They had not been weeping, but +their faces were changed and grown old. Jack shivered, and kept feeding +the fire. On the bed in the adjoining room, cold as the snow in a +deserted nest, lay their first guest, whom no house fire would ever +warm. + +"I cannot believe it. I cannot take it in. Are you sure there is nothing +more we could do that a doctor would do if we had one?" + +"We have done everything. It was too late when I found him." + +"How is it possible? I have heard of persons lost for days--and this was +only such a few hours." + +"A few hours! Good God, Esmee! Come out with me, and stand five minutes +in this storm, if you can. And he had been on snow-shoes all day; he had +come all the way up-hill from town. He had had no rest, and nothing to +eat. And then to turn about, and take it worse than ever!" + +"It is an impossible thing," she reiterated. "I am crazy when I think of +it." + +Tip lifted his head uneasily, rose, and tapped about the room, his +long-nailed toes rattling on the uncarpeted floor. He paused, and licked +up one of the pools of melted snow. "Stop that!" Jack commanded. There +was dead silence. Then Tip began again his restless march about the +room, pausing at the bedroom door to whine his questioning distress. + +"Can't you make him stay in the kitchen?" Esmee suggested timidly. + +"It is cold in the kitchen. Tip has earned his place by my fire as long +as I shall have one," said Jack, emphatically. + +Down fell some crashing object, and was shivered on the floor. The dog +sprang up, and howled; Esmee trembled like a leaf. + +"It's only your little looking-glass," she whispered. There was no +mystery in its having fallen in such a wind from the projecting log +where Esmee, with more confidence than judgment, had propped it. + +In silence both recalled the light words that had passed when Jack had +taken it down from its high nail, saying that the mirrors in his +establishment had not been hung with reference to persons of her size; +and Esmee could see the picture they had made, putting their heads +together before it, Jack stooping, with his hands on her shoulders, to +bring his face in line with hers. Those laughing faces! All smiles, all +tremulous mirth in that house had vanished as the reflections in a +shattered mirror. + +Jack got up, and fetched a broom, and swept the clinking fragments into +the fire. The frame he broke in two and tossed after them. + +"Call me as soon as it is light enough to start," he said to Esmee. + +"But not unless it has stopped snowing?" + +"Call me as soon as it is light, please," Jack repeated. He stumbled as +he walked, like an old man. Esmee followed him into the drear little +kitchen, where a single candle on the table was guttering in the draft. +The windows were blank with frost, the boards cracked with the cold. +Esmee helped prepare him a bed on a rude bunk against the wall, and Jack +threw himself down on his pallet, and closed his eyes, without speaking. +Esmee stood watching him in silence a moment; then she fell on her knees +beside him on the floor. + +"Say that you can forgive me! How shall I bear it all alone!" + +At first Jack made no answer; he could not speak; his breath came deep +and hard. Then he rose on one elbow, and looked at her with great stern +eyes. + +"Have I accused you? You did not do it. I did not do it. It happened--to +show us what we are. We have broken with all the ties of family. We can +have no brother or sister--our brothers and sisters are the rebels like +ourselves; every man and woman whom society has branded and cast out. +Sooner or later we shall embrace them all. Nothing healthy can come near +us and not take harm from us. We are contamination to women and +destruction to men. Poor Sid had better have come to a den of thieves +and murderers than to his own brother's house last night; yet we might +have done him worse harm if we had let him in. Now he is only +dead--clean and true, as he lived. He is dead through my sin. Do you +see, now, what this means to me?" + +"I see," said Esmee, rising from her knees. She went out of the room, +closing the door gently between them. + +Jack lay stretching his aching muscles in one position after another, +and every way he turned his thoughts pursued him. The brutality of his +speech to Esmee wrought its anguish equally upon him, now that it was +too late to get back a single word. Still, she must understand,--she +would understand, when she came to think--how broken up he was in mind +and body, how crazed for want of rest after that horrible night's work. +This feeling of irresponsibility to himself satisfied him that she could +not hold him responsible for his words at such a time. The strain he was +supporting, mentally and physically, must absolve him if she had any +consideration for him left. + +So at length he slept. Esmee was careful not to disturb him. She had no +need of bodily rest, and the beating of her heart and the ceaseless +thinking went on and on. + +"I am to be left here alone with _it_"--she glanced toward the room +where the body lay--"while he goes for help to take it to town. He has +not asked me if I can go through with this. If I should say to him, +'Spare me this awful trial,' he would answer,--and of course he would be +right,--'There are only us two; one to go and one to stay. Is it so +much to ask of you after what has happened?' + +"He does not ask it; he expects it. He is not my tender, remorseful +lover now, dreading for me, every day, what his happiness must cost me. +He is counting what I have cost him in other possessions which he might +have had if he had not paid too great a price for one." + +So these two had come to judge each other in the common misery that +drove them apart. Toward daylight the snow ceased and the wind went +down. Jack had forgotten to provide wood for Esmee's fire; the room was +growing cold, and the wood supply was in the kitchen, where he slept. +She sat still and suffered mutely, rather than waken him before the +time. This was not altogether consideration for him. It was partly +wounded pride, inflicting its own suffering on the flesh after a moral +scourging, either through one's own or another's conscience. + +When the late morning slowly dawned, she went to waken him, obedient to +orders. She made every effort to arouse him, but in vain. His sleep was +like a trance. She had heard of cases of extreme mental and physical +strain where a sleep like this, bordering on unconsciousness, had been +nature's cure. She let him sleep. + +Seeing that her movements did not disturb him, she went cautiously about +the room, trying, now in forlorn sincerity, to adapt herself to the +necessities of the situation. She did her best to make ready something +in the nature of a breakfast for Jack when he should at length awaken. +It promised to be a poor substitute, but the effort did her good. + +It was after noon before Jack came to himself. He had been awake some +little time, watching her, before she was aware of it. He could see for +himself what she had been trying to accomplish, and he was greatly +touched. + +"Poor child!" he said, and held out his arms. + +She remained at a distance, slightly smiling, her eyes on the floor. + +He did not press the moment of reconciliation. He got upon his feet, +and, in the soldierly fashion of men who live in camps and narrow +quarters, began to fold his blankets, and straighten things in his +corner of the room. + +"If you will go into the sitting-room, I will bring in the breakfast, +such as it is," said Esmee. Jack obeyed her meekly. The sitting-room +fire had been relighted, and was burning brightly. It was strange to him +to sit and see her wait upon him. Stranger still was her silence. Here +was a new distress. He tried to pretend unconsciousness of the change in +her. + +"It is two o'clock," he said, looking at his watch. "I'm afraid I shall +be late getting back; but you must not worry. The storm is over, and I +know every foot of the way." + +"Did I do wrong," Esmee questioned nervously, "not to call you? I tried +very hard, but you could not wake. You must have needed to sleep, I +think." + +"Do you expect me to scold you every time I speak, Esmee? I have said +enough, I think. Come here, dear girl. _I_ need to be forgiven now. It +cuts me to the heart to see you so humble. May God humble me for those +words I said!" + +"You spoke the truth. Only we had not been telling each other the truth +before." + +"No. And we must stop it. We shall learn the truth fast enough. We need +not make whips of it to lash each other with. Come here." + +"I can't," said Esmee in a choking whisper. + +"Yes, you can. You shall forgive me." + +She shook her head. "That is not the question. You did not do it. I did +not do it. God has done it--as you said." + +"Did I say that? Did I presume to preach to you?" + +"If I have done what you say--if I have cut you off from all human +relations, and made your house worse than a den of thieves and +murderers, how can anything be too bad for me to hear? What does it +matter from whom I hear it?" + +"I was beside myself. I was drunk with sorrow and fatigue." + +"That is when people speak the truth, they say. I don't blame you, Jack. +How should I? But you know it can never be the same, after this, with +you or with me." + +"Esmee," said Jack, after a long and bitter silence, holding out his +shaking hand, "will you come with me in there, and look at him? He knows +the truth--the whole truth. If you can see in his face anything like +scorn or reproach, anything but peace,--peace beyond all +conception,--then I will agree that we part this day, forever. Will you +come?" + +"Oh, Jack, you _are_ beside yourself, now. Do you think that I would go +in there, in the presence of _that_ peace, and call on it for my +justification, and begin this thing again? I should expect that peace +would come to me--the peace of instant death--for such awful +presumption." + +"I didn't mean that--not to excuse ourselves; only to bring back the +trust that was between us. Does this bitterness cure the past? Have we +not hurt each other enough already?" + +"I think so. It is sufficient for me. But men, they say, get over such +things, and their lives go on, and they take their places as before. I +want you to"-- + +"There is nothing for me--will you believe it?--more than there is for +you. Will you not do me that much justice, not to treat this one +passion of my life as--what shall I say? It is not possible that you can +think such things. We must make up to each other for what we have each +cost the other. Come. Let us go and stand beside him--you and I, before +the others get here. It will do us good. Then we will follow him out, on +his way home, as far as we can; and if there is any one in town who has +an account with me, he can settle it there and then. Perhaps my mother +will have both her sons shipped home to her on the same train." + +Jack had not miscounted on the effect of these words. They broke down +Esmee's purer resolution with their human appeal. Yet he was not +altogether selfish. + +He held out his hand to her. She took it, and they went together, +shrinkingly, into the presence of the dead. When they came out, the eyes +of both were wet. + +Late as it was, it was inevitable that Jack must start. Esmee watched +him prepare once more for the journey. When he was ready to set out, she +said to him, with an extreme effort: + +"If any one should come while you are gone, I am to let him in?" + +"Do as you think best, dear; but I am afraid that no one will disturb +you. It will be a lonely watch. I wish I could help you through with +it." + +"It is my watch," said Esmee. "I must keep it." + +She would have been thankful for the company even of Tip, to answer for +something living, if not human, in the house; but the dog insisted so +savagely on following his master that she was forced to set him free. +She closed the door after him, and locked it mechanically, hardly aware +of what she did. + + * * * * * + +There is a growth of the spirit which is gradual, progressive, +healthful, and therefore permanent. There are other psychical births +that are forced, convulsive, agonizing in their suddenness. They may be +premature, brought on by the shock of a great sorrow, or a sin perhaps +committed without full knowledge of its nature, or realization of its +consequences. Such births are perilous and unsure. Of these was the +spiritual crisis through which Esmee was now passing. + +She had made her choice: human love was satisfied according to the +natural law. Now, in the hours of her solitary watch, that irrevocable +choice confronted her. It was as a cup of trembling held to her lips by +the mystery of the Invisible, which says: Whoever will drink of this cup +of his desire, be it soon, be it late, shall drain it to the dregs, and +"wring them out." Esmee had come very soon to the dregs of her cup of +trembling. + +In such anguish and abasement her new life of the spirit began. Will she +have strength to sustain it, or must it pass like a shaken light into +the keeping of a steadier hand? + +She was but dimly aware of outward changes as the ordeal wore on. It had +been pale daylight in the cabin, and now it was dusk. It had been as +still as death outside after the night of storm, the cold relenting, the +frost trickling like tears down the pane; but now there was a rising +stir. The soft, wild gale, the chinook of the Northwest, came roaring up +the peak--the breath of May, but the voice of March. The forest began to +murmur and moan, and strip its white boughs of their burden, and all +its fairy frost-work melted like a dream. At intervals in the deep +timber a strange sound was heard, the rush and thump of some soft, heavy +mass into the snow. Esmee had never heard the sound before; it filled +her with a creeping dread. Every separate distinct pounce--they came at +intervals, near or far, but with no regularity--was a shock to her +overwrought nerves. These sounds had taken sole possession of her ear. +It was hence a double shock, at about the same hour of early twilight +when her visitor had come the night before, to hear again a man's feet +in the trench outside, and again a loud knock upon the door. + +Her heart with its panting answered in her breast. There was a pause +while outside the knocker seemed to listen, as he had done before. Then +the new-born will of the woman fearfully took command of her cowering +senses. Something that was beyond herself forced her to the door. Pale, +and weak in every limb, she dragged herself to meet whatever it was that +summoned her. This time she opened the door. + +There stood a mild-faced man, in the dress of a miner, smiling +apologetically. Esmee simply stared at him, and held the door wide. The +man stepped hesitatingly inside, taking off his hat to the pale girl who +looked at him so strangely. + +David Bruce modestly attempted to give an incidental character to his +visit by inventing an errand in that neighborhood. + +"Excuse me, ma'am," he said. "I was going along over to the Mule Deer, +but I thought I'd just ask if Mr. Waring's brother got through all right +yesterday evenin'. It was so ugly outside." + +The girl parted her lips to speak, but no sound came. The light shone in +her ashy face. Her eyes were losing their expression. Bruce saw that she +was fainting, and caught her as she fell. + +The interview begun in this unpromising manner proved of the utmost +comfort to Esmee. There was nothing in Bruce's manner to herself, +nothing in his references to Jack, that implied any curiosity on his +part as to the relation between them, or the least surprise at their +being together at the Dreadnaught. He had "spared the situation" with an +instinct that does not come from knowledge of the world. + +He listened to her story of the night's tragedy, which she told with +helpless severity, almost with indifference, as if it had happened to +another. + +He appeared to be greatly moved by it personally; its moral significance +he did not seem to see. He sat helplessly repeating himself, in his +efforts to give words to his sorrow for the "kid." His vocabulary being +limited, and chiefly composed of words which he could not use before a +lady, he was put to great inconvenience to do justice to his feelings. + +He blamed himself and his brother for letting the young man go by their +cabin on such a threatening day. + +"Why, Jim and me we couldn't get to sleep for thinkin' about him, 't was +blowin' such a blizzard. Seemed like we could hear him a-yellin' to us, +'Is this the way to the Dreadnaught mine?' Wisht the Lord we'd 'a' said +it wa'n't. Well, sir, we don't want no more such foolishness. And that's +partly why I come. We never thought but what he _had_ got through, for +all we was pestered about it, or else me and Jim would 'a' turned out +last night. But what we was a-sayin' this morning was this: Them folks +up there ain't acquainted with this country like we be--not in the +winter-time. This here is what we call snow-slide weather. Hain't you +been hearing how things is lettin' go? The snow slumpin' off the +trees--you must have heard that. It's lettin' go up above us, too. +There's a million ton of snow up there a-settlin' and a-crawlin' in this +chinook, just a-gettin' ready to start to slide. We fellers in the +mountains know how 'tis. This cabin has stood all right so far, but the +woods above was cut last summer. Now, I want you to come along with me +right now. I've got a hand-sleigh here. You can tuck yourself up on it, +and we'll pull out for the Mule Deer, and likely meet with Mr. Waring on +the way. And if there's a snow-slide here before morning, it'll bury the +dead, and not the living and the dead." + +At these words the blood rushed to Esmee's cheek, and then dropped back +to her heart, leaving her as white as snow. + +"I don't remember that I have ever seen you before," she said; "but I +thank you more than I ever thanked anybody in all my life." + +David Bruce thought of course that she was going with him. But that was +not what she meant. Her face shone. God, in his great mercy, had given +her this one opportunity. + +"This is my watch, you know. I cannot leave this house. But I don't +think there will be a snow-slide. Things do not happen so simply as +that. You don't know what I mean? But think a moment. You know, do you +not, who I am? Should you think really that death is a thing that any +friend of mine would wish to save me from? Life is what I am afraid +of--long life to the end. I don't think there will be a snow-slide, not +in time for me. But I thank you so much. You have made me feel so +human--so like other people. You don't understand that, either? Well, no +matter. I am just as grateful. I shall remember your visit all my life; +and even if I live long, I doubt if I shall ever have a kinder visitor. +I am much better for your coming, though you may think you have come for +nothing. Now you must go before it gets too dark. You will go to the +Mule Deer, will you not, and carry this same message to--there?" + +"I'm goin' to stop right here till Jack Waring gets back." + +"Oh, no, you're not. You are going this instant." She rose, and held out +her hand. She had that power over him that one so much in earnest as she +will always have over one who is amazed and in doubt. + +"Won't you shake hands with me?" Her thrilling voice made a sort of +music of the common words. + +He took her hand, and wagged it clumsily in a dazed way, and she almost +pushed him out of the house. + + * * * * * + +"Well, I'll be hanged if that ain't the meanest trick since I was +born--to leave a little lone woman watchin' with a dead man in a cabin, +with snow-slides startin' all over the mountains! What's the matter with +me, anyhow? Seem to be knocked silly with her blamed queer talk. Heap of +sense in it, too. Wouldn't think one of her kind would see it that way, +though. Durned if I know which kind she is. B'lieve I'll go back now. +Why, Lord! I must go back! What'll I say to Jim?" + +David Bruce had gained the top of the road leading away from the mine +before he came to himself in a burst of unconscious profanity. He could +hear the howling of the wind around the horn of the peak. He looked up +and down, and considered a second. + +In another second it was too late--too late to add his life to hers, +that instant buried beneath the avalanche. + +A stroke out of a clear sky; a roar that filled the air; a burst of +light snow mounting over the tree-tops like steam condensed above a +rushing train; a concussion of wind that felled trees in the valley a +hundred yards from the spot where the plunging mass shot down--then the +chinook eddied back, across the track of the snow-slide, and went +storming up the peak. + + + + +MAVERICK + + +Traveling Buttes is a lone stage-station on the road, largely speaking, +from Blackfoot to Boise. I do not know whether the stages take that road +now, but ten years ago they did, and the man who kept the stage-house +was a person of primitive habits and corresponding appearance named +Gilroy. + +The stage-house is perhaps half a mile from the foot of the largest +butte, one of three that loom on the horizon, and appear to "travel" +from you, as you approach them from the plains. A day's ride with the +Buttes as a landmark is like a stern chase, in that you seem never to +gain upon them. + +From the stage-house the plain slopes up to the foot of the Big Butte, +which rises suddenly in the form of an enormous tepee, as if Gitche +Manito, the mighty, had here descended and pitched his tent for a +council of the nations. + +The country is destitute of water. To say that it is "thirsty" is to +mock with vain imagery that dead and mummied land on the borders of the +Black Lava. The people at the stage-house had located a precious spring, +four miles up, in a cleft near the top of the Big Butte; they piped the +water down to the house and they sold it to travelers on that Jericho +road at so much per horse. The man was thrown in, but the man usually +drank whisky. + +Our guide commented unfavorably on this species of husbandry, which is +common enough in the arid West, and as legitimate as selling oats or +hay; but he chose to resent it in the case of Gilroy, and to look upon +it as an instance of individual and exceptional meanness. + +"Any man that will jump God's water in a place like this, and sell it +the same as drinks--he'd sell water to his own father in hell!" + +This was our guide's opinion of Gilroy. He was equally frank, and much +more explicit, in regard to Gilroy's sons. "But," he concluded, with a +philosopher's acceptance of existing facts, "it ain't likely that any of +that outfit will ever git into trouble, so long as Maverick is sheriff +of Lemhi County." + +We were about to ask why, when we drove up to the stage-house, and +Maverick himself stepped out and took our horses. + +"What the--infernal has happened to the man?" my companion, Ferris, +exclaimed; and our guide answered indifferently, as if he were speaking +of the weather,-- + +"Some Injuns caught him alone in an out-o'-the-way ranch, when he was a +kid, and took a notion to play with him. This is what was left when they +got through. I never see but one worse-looking man," he added, speaking +low, as Maverick passed us with the team: "him a bear wiped over the +head with its paw. 'Twas quicker over with, I expect, but he lived, and +_he_ looked worse than Maverick." + +"Then I hope to the Lord I may never see him!" Ferris ejaculated; and I +noticed that he left his dinner untasted, though he had boasted of a +hunter's appetite. + +We were two college friends on a hunting trip, but we had not got into +the country of game. In two days more we expected to make Jackson's +Hole, and I may mention that "hole," in this region, signifies any +small, deep valley, well hidden amidst high mountains, where moisture +is perennial, and grass abounds. In these pockets of plenty, herds of +elk gather and feed as tame as park pets; and other hunted creatures, as +wild but less innocent, often find sanctuary here, and cache their +stolen stock and other spoil of the road and the range. + +We did not forget to put our question concerning Maverick, that unhappy +man, in his character of legalized protector of the Gilroy gang. What +did our free-spoken guide mean by that insinuation? + +We were told that Gilroy, in his rough-handed way, had been as a father +to the lad, after the savages wreaked their pleasure on him: and his +people being dead or scattered, Maverick had made himself useful in +various humble capacities at the stage-house, and had finally become a +sort of factotum there and a member of the family. And though perfectly +square himself, and much respected on account of his personal courage +and singular misfortunes, he could never see the old man's crookedness, +nor the more than crookedness of his sons. He was like a son of the +house, himself; but most persons agreed that it was not as a brother he +felt toward Rose Gilroy. And a tough lookout it was for the girl; for +Maverick was one whom no man would lightly cross, and in her case he was +acting as "general dog around the place," as our guide called it. The +young fellows were shy of the house, notwithstanding the attraction it +held. It was likely to be Maverick or nobody for Rose. + +We did not see Rose Gilroy, but we heard her step in the stage-house +kitchen, and her voice, as clear as a lark's, giving orders to the tall, +stooping, fair young Swede, who waited on us at table, and did other +work of a menial character in that singular establishment. + +"How is it the watch-dog allows such a pretty sprig as that around the +place?" Ferris questioned, eying our knight of the trencher, who blushed +to feel himself remarked. + +"He won't stay," our guide pronounced; "they don't none of 'em stay when +they're good-lookin'. The old man he's failin' considerable these +days,--gettin' kind o' silly,--and the boys are away the heft of the +time. Maverick pretty much runs the place. I don't justly blame the +critter. He's watched that little Rose grow up from a baby. How's he +goin' to quit being fond of her now she's a woman? I dare say he'd a +heap sooner she'd stayed a little girl. And these yere boys around here +they're a triflin' set, not half so able to take care of her as +Maverick. He's got the sense and he's got the sand; but there's that +awful head on him! I don't blame him much, lookin' the way he does, and +feelin' the same as any other man." + +We left Traveling Buttes and its cruel little love-story, but we had not +gone a mile when a horseman overtook us with a message for Ferris from +his new foreman at the ranch, a summons which called him back for a day +at the least. Ferris was exceedingly annoyed: a day at the ranch meant +four days on the road; but the business was imperative. We held a brief +council, and decided that, with Ferris returning, our guide should push +on with the animals and camp outfit into a country of grass, and look up +a good camping-spot (which might not be the first place he struck) this +side of Jackson's Hole. It remained for me to choose between going with +the stuff, or staying for a longer look at the phenomenal Black Lava +fields at Arco; Arco being another name for desolation on the very edge +of that weird stone sea. This was my ostensible reason for choosing to +remain at Arco; but I will not say the reflection did not cross me that +Arco is only sixteen miles from Traveling Buttes--not an insurmountable +distance between geology and a pretty girl, when one is five and twenty, +and has not seen a pretty face for a month of Sundays. + +Arco, at that time, consisted of the stage-house, a store, and one or +two cabins--a poor little seed of civilization dropped by the wayside, +between the Black Lava and the hills where Lost River comes down and +"sinks" on the edge of the lava. The station is somewhat back from the +road, with its face--a very grimy, unwashed countenance--to the lava. +Quaking asps and mountain birches follow the water, pausing a little way +up the gulch behind the house, but the eager grass tracks it all the way +till it vanishes; and the dry bed of the stream goes on and spreads in a +mass of coarse sand and gravel, beaten flat, flailed by the feet of +countless driven sheep that have gathered here. For this road is on the +great overland sheep-trail from Oregon eastward--the march of the +million mouths, and what the mouths do not devour the feet tramp down. + +The staple topic of conversation at Arco was one very common in the far +west, when a tenderfoot is of the company. The poorest place can boast +of some distinction, and Arco, though hardly on the highroad of fashion +and commerce, had frequently been named in print in connection with +crime of a highly sensational and picturesque character. Scarcely +another fifty miles of stage-road could boast of so many and such +successful road-jobs; and although these affairs were of almost monthly +occurrence, and might be looked for to come off always within that noted +danger-limit, yet it was a fact that the law had never yet laid finger +on a man of the gang, nor gained the smallest clew to their hide-out. It +was a difficult country around Arco, one that lent itself to secrecy. +The road-agents came, and took, and vanished as if the hills were their +co-partners as well as the receivers of their goods. As for the lava, +which was its front dooryard, so to speak, for a hundred miles, the man +did not live who could say he had crossed it. What it held or was +capable of hiding, in life or in death, no man knew. + +The day after Ferris left me I rode out upon that arrested tide--those +silent breakers which for ages have threatened, but never reached, the +shore. I tried to fancy it as it must once have been, a sluggish, +vitreous flood, filling the great valley, and stiffening as it slowly +pushed toward the bases of the hills. It climbed and spread, as dough +rises and crawls over the edge of the pan. The Black Lava is always +called a sea--that image is inevitable; yet its movement had never in +the least the character of water. "This is where hell pops," an old +plains-man feelingly described it, and the suggestion is perfect. The +colors of the rock are those produced by fire: its texture is that of +slag from a furnace. One sees how the lava hardened into a crust, which +cracked and sank in places, mingling its tumbled edges with the creeping +flood not cooled beneath. After all movement had ceased and the mass was +still, time began upon its tortured configurations, crumbled and wore +and broke, and sifted a little earth here and there, and sealed the +burnt rock with fairy print of lichens, serpent-green and orange and +rust-red. The spring rains left shallow pools which the summer dried. +Across it, a few dim trails wander a little way and give out, like the +water. + +For a hundred miles to the Snake River this Plutonian gulf obliterates +the land--holds it against occupation or travel. The shoes of a marching +army would be cut from their feet before they had gone a dozen miles +across it; horses would have no feet left; and water would have to be +packed as on an ocean, or a desert, cruise. + +I rode over places where the rock rang beneath my horse's hoofs like the +iron cover of a manhole. I followed the hollow ridges that mounted often +forty feet above my head, but always with that gruesome effect of +thickening movement--that sluggish, atomic crawl; and I thought how one +man pursuing another into this frozen hell might lose himself, but never +find the object of his quest. If he took the wrong furrow, he could not +cross from one blind gut into another, nor hope to meet the fugitive at +any future turning. + +I don't know why the fancy of a flight and pursuit should so have +haunted me, in connection with the Black Lava; probably the desperate +and lawless character of our conversation at the stage-house gave rise +to it. + +I had fallen completely under the spell of that skeleton flood. I +watched the sun sink, as it sinks at sea, beyond its utmost ragged +ridges; I sat on the borders of it, and stared across it in the gray +moonlight; I rode out upon it when the Buttes, in their delusive +nearness, were as blue as the gates of amethyst, and the morning was as +fair as one great pearl; but no peace or radiance of heaven or earth +could change its aspect more than that of a mound of skulls. When I +began to dream about it, I thought I must be getting morbid. This is +worse than Gilroy's, I said; and I promised myself I would ride up there +next day and see if by chance one might get a peep at the Rose that all +were praising, but none dared put forth a hand to pluck. Was it indeed +so hard a case for the Rose? There are women who can love a man for the +perils he has passed. Alas, Maverick! could any one get used to a face +like that? + +Here, surely, was the story of Beauty and her poor Beast humbly +awaiting, in the mask of a brutish deformity, the recognition of Love +pure enough to divine the soul beneath, and unselfish enough to deliver +it. Was there such love as that at Gilroy's? However, I did not make +that ride. + + * * * * * + +It was the fourth night of clear, desert moonlight since Ferris had left +me: I was sleepless, and so I heard the first faint throb of a horse's +feet approaching from the east, coming on at a great pace, and making +the turn to the stage-house. I looked out, and on the trodden space in +front I saw Maverick dismounting from a badly blown horse. + +"Halloo! what's up?" I called from the open window of my bedroom on the +ground-floor. + +"Did two men pass here on horseback since dark?" + +"Yes," I said; "about twelve o'clock: a tall man and a little short +fellow." + +"Did they stop to water?" + +"No, they did not; and they seemed in such a tearing hurry that I +watched them down the road"-- + +"I am after those men, and I want a fresh horse," he cut in. "Call up +somebody quick!" + +"Shall you take one of the boys along?" I inquired, with half an eye to +myself, after I had obeyed his command. + +He shook his head. "Only one horse here that's good for anything: I want +that myself." + +"There is my horse," I suggested; "but I'd rather be the one who rides +her. She belongs to a friend." + +"Take her, and come on, then, but understand--this ain't a Sunday-school +picnic." + +"I'm with you, if you'll have me." + +"I'd sooner have your horse," he remarked, shifting the quid of tobacco +in his cheek. + +"You can't have her without me, unless you steal her," I said. + +"Git your gun, then, and shove some grub into your pockets: I can't wait +for nobody." He swung himself into the saddle. + +"What road do you take?" + +"There ain't but one," he shouted, and pointed straight ahead. + +I overtook him easily within the hour; he was saving his horse, for +this was his last chance to change until Champagne Station, fifty miles +away. + +He gave me rather a cynical smile of recognition as I ranged alongside, +as if to say, "You'll probably get enough of this before we are +through." The horses settled down to their work, and they "humped +theirselves," as Maverick put it, in the cool hours before sunrise. + +At daybreak his awful face struck me all afresh, as inscrutable in its +strange distortion as some stone god in the desert, from whose graven +hideousness a thousand years of mornings have silently drawn the veil. + +"What do you want those fellows for?" I asked, as we rode. I had taken +for granted that we were hunting suspects of the road-agent persuasion. + +"I want 'em on general principles," he answered shortly. + +"Do you think you know them?" + +"I think they'll know me. All depends on how they act when we get within +range. If they don't pay no attention to us, we'll send a shot across +their bows. But more likely they'll speak first." + +He was very gloomy, and would keep silence for an hour at a time. Once +he turned on me as with a sudden misgiving. + +"See here, don't you git excited; and whatever happens, don't you meddle +with the little one. If the big fellow cuts up rough, he'll take his +chances, but you leave the little one to me. I want him--I want him for +State's evidence," he finished hoarsely. + +"The little one must be the Benjamin of the family," I thought--"one of +the bad young Gilroys, whose time has come at last; and sheriff Maverick +finds his duty hard." + +I could not say whether I really wished the men to be overtaken, but the +spirit of the chase had undoubtedly entered into my blood. I felt as +most men do, who are not saints or cowards, when such work as this is to +be done. But I knew I had no business to be along. It was one thing for +Maverick, but the part of an amateur in a man-hunt is not one to boast +of. + +The sun was now high, and the fresh tracks ahead of us were plain in the +dust. Once they left the road and strayed off into the lava, +incomprehensibly to me; but Maverick understood, and pressed forward. +"We'll strike them again further on. D---- fool!" he muttered, and I +observed that he alluded but to one, "huntin' water-holes in the lava in +the tail end of August!" + +They could not have found water, for at Belgian Flat they had stopped +and dug for it in the gravel, where a little stream in freshet time +comes down the gulch from the snow-fields higher up, and sinks, as at +Arco, on the lip of the lava. They had dug, and found it, and saved us +the trouble, as Maverick remarked. + +Considerable water had gathered since the flight had paused here and +lost precious time. We drank our fill, refreshed our horses, and shifted +the saddle-girths; and I managed to stow away my lunch during the next +mile or so, after offering to share it with Maverick, who refused it as +if the notion of food made him sick. He had considerable whisky aboard, +but he was, I judged, one of those men on whom drink has little effect; +else some counter-flame of excitement was fighting it in his blood. + +I looked for the development of the personal complication whenever we +should come up with the chase, for the man's eye burned, and had his +branded countenance been capable of any expression that was not cruelly +travestied, he would have looked the impersonation of wild justice. + +It was now high noon, and our horses were beginning to feel the steady +work; yet we had not ridden as they brought the good news from Ghent: +that is the pace of a great lyric; but it's not the pace at which +justice, or even vengeance, travels in the far West. Even the furies +take it coolly when they pursue a man over these roads, and on these +poor brutes of horses, in fifty-mile stages, with drought thrown in. + +Maverick had had no mercy on the pony that brought him sixteen miles; +but this piece of horse-flesh he now bestrode must last him through at +least to Champagne Station, should we not overhaul our men before. He +knew well when to press and when to spare the pace, a species of purely +practical consideration which seemed habitual with him; he rode like an +automaton, his baleful face borne straight before him--the Gorgon's +head. + +Beyond Belgian Flat--how far beyond I do not remember, for I was +beginning to feel the work, too, and the country looked all alike to me +as we made it, mile by mile--the road follows close along by the lava, +but the hills recede, and a little trail cuts across, meeting the road +again at Deadman's Flat. Here we could not trust to the track, which +from the nature of the ground was indistinct. So we divided our forces, +Maverick taking the trail,--which I was quite willing he should do, for +it had a look of most sinister invitation,--while I continued by the +longer road. Our little discussion, or some atmospheric change,--some +breath of coolness from the hills,--had brought me up out of my stupor +of weariness. I began to feel both alert and nervous; my heart was +beating fast. The still sunshine lay all around us, but where Maverick's +white horse was climbing, the shadows were turning eastward, and the +deep gulches, with their patches of aspen, were purple instead of brown. +The aspens were left shaking where he broke through them and passed out +of sight. + +I kept on at a good pace, and about three o'clock I, being then as much +as half a mile away, saw the spot which I knew must be Deadman's Flat; +and there were our men, the tall one and his boyish mate, standing +quietly by their horses in broad sunlight, as if there were no one +within a hundred miles. Their horses had drunk, and were cropping the +thin grass, which had set its tooth in the gravel where, as at the other +places, a living stream had perished. I spurred forward, with my heart +thumping, but before they saw me I saw Maverick coming down the little +gulch; and from the way he came I knew that he had seen them. + +The scene was awful in its treacherous peacefulness. Their shadows slept +on the broad bed of sunlight, and the gulch was as cool and still as a +lady's chamber. The great dead desert received the silence like a +secret. + +Tenderfoot as I was, I knew quite well what must happen now; yet I was +not prepared--could not realize it--even when the tall one put his hand +quickly behind him and stepped ahead of his horse. There was the flash +of his pistol, and the loud crack echoing in the hill; a second shot, +and then Maverick replied deliberately, and the tall one was down, with +his face in the grass. + +I heard a scream that sounded strangely like a woman's; but there were +only the three, the little one, acting wildly, and Maverick bending over +him who lay with his face in the grass. I saw him turn the body over, +and the little fellow seemed to protest, and to try to push him away. I +thought it strange he made no more of a fight, but I was not near enough +to hear what those two said to each other. + +Still, the tragedy did not come home to me. It was all like a scene, and +I was without feeling in it except for that nervous trembling which I +could not control. + +Maverick stood up at length, and came slowly toward me, wiping his face. +He kept his hat in his hand, and, looking down at it, said huskily:-- + +"I gave that man his life when I found him last spring runnin' loose +like a wild thing in the mountains, and now I've took it; and God above +knows I had no grudge ag'in' him, if he had stayed in his place. But he +would have it so." + +"Maverick, I saw it all, and I can swear it was self-defense." + +His face drew into the tortured grimace which was his smile. "This here +will never come before a jury," he said. "It's a family affair. Did ye +see how he acted? Steppin' up to me like he was a first-class shot, or +else a fool. He ain't nary one; he's a poor silly tool, the whip-hand of +a girl that's boltin' from her friends like they was her mortal enemies. +Go and take a look at him; then maybe you'll understand." + +He paused, and uttered the name of Jesus Christ, but not as such men +often use it, with an inconsequence dreadful to hear: he was not idly +swearing, but calling that name to witness solemnly in a case that would +never come before a jury. + +I began to understand. + +"Is it--is the girl"-- + +"Yes; it's our poor little Rose--that's the little one, in the gray hat. +She'll give herself away if I don't. She don't care for nothin' nor +nobody. She was runnin' away with that fellow--that dish-washin' Swede +what I found in the mountings eatin' roots like a ground-hog, with the +ends of his feet froze off. Now you know all I know--and more than she +knows, for she thinks she was fond of him. She wa'n't, never--for I +watched 'em, and I know. She was crazy to git away, and she took him for +the chance." + +His excitement passed, and we sat apart and watched the pair at a +distance. She--the little one--sat as passively by her dead as Maverick +pondering his cruel deed; but with both it was a hopeless quiet. + +"Come," he said at length, "I've got to bury him. You look after her, +and keep her with you till I git through. I'm givin' you the hardest +part," he added wistfully, as if he fully realized how he had cut +himself off from all such duties, henceforth, to the girl he was +consigning to a stranger's care. + +I told him I thought that the funeral had more need of me than the +mourner, and I shrank from intruding myself. + +"I dassent leave her by herself--see? I don't know what notion she may +take next, and she won't let me come within a rope's len'th of her." + +I will not go over again that miserable hour in the willows, where I +made her stay with me, out of sight of what Maverick was doing. Ours +were the tender mercies of the wicked, I fear; but she must have felt +that sympathy at least was near her, if not help. I will not say that +her youth and distressful loveliness did not sharpen my perception of a +sweet life wasted, gone utterly astray, which might have brought God's +blessing into some man's home--perhaps Maverick's, had he not been so +hardly dealt with. She was not of that great disposition of heart which +can love best that which has sorest need of love; but she was all woman, +and helpless and distraught with her tangle of grief and despair, the +nature of which I could only half comprehend. + +We sat there by the sunken stream, on the hot gravel where the sun had +lain, the willows sifting their inconstant shadows over us; and I +thought how other things as precious as "God's water" go astray on the +Jericho road, or are captured and sold for a price, while dry hearts +ache with the thirst that asks a "draught divine." + +The man's felt hat she wore, pulled down over her face, was pinned to +her coil of braids which had slipped from the crown of her head. The hat +was no longer even a protection; she cast it off, and the blond braids, +that had not been smoothed for a day and night, fell like ropes down her +back. The sun had burned her cheeks and neck to a clear crimson; her +blue eyes were as wild with weeping as a child's. She was a rose, but a +rose that had been trampled in the dust; and her prayer was to be left +there, rather than that we should take her home. + +I suppose I must have had some influence over her, for she allowed me to +help her to arrange her forlorn disguise, and put her on her horse, +which was more than could have been expected from the way she had +received me. And so, about four o'clock, we started back. + +There was a scene when we headed the horses to the west; she protesting +with wild sobs that she would not, could not, go home, that she would +rather die, that we should never get her back alive, and so on. Maverick +stood aside bitterly, and left her to me, and I was aware of a grotesque +touch of jealousy--which, after all, was perhaps natural--in his dour +face whenever he looked back at us. He kept some distance ahead, and +waited for us when we fell too far in the rear. + +This would happen when from time to time her situation seemed to +overpower her, and she would stop in the road, and wring her hands, and +try to throw herself out of the saddle, and pray me to let her go. + +"Go where?" I would ask. "Where do you wish to go? Have you any plan, or +suggestion, that I could help you to carry out?" But I said it only to +show her how hopeless her resistance was. This she would own piteously, +and say: "Nobody can help me. There ain't nowhere for me to go. But I +can't go back. You won't let him make me, will you?" + +"Why cannot you go back to your father and your brothers?" + +This would usually silence her, and, setting her teeth upon her trouble, +she would ride on, while I reproached myself, I knew not why. + +After one of these struggles--when she had given in to the force of +circumstances, but still unconsenting and rebellious--Maverick fell +back, and ranged his horse by her other side. + +"I know partly what's troubling you, and I'd rid you of that part quick +enough," he said, with a kind of dogged patience in his hard voice; +"but you can't get on there without me. You know that, don't you? You +don't blame me for staying?" + +"I don't blame you for anything but what you've done to-day. You've +broke my heart, and ruined me, and took away my last chance, and I don't +care what becomes of me, so I don't have to go back." + +"You don't have to any more than you have to live. Dyin' is a good deal +easier, but we can't always die when we want to. Suppose I found a +little lost child on the road, and it cried to go home, and I didn't +know where 'home' was, would I leave it there just because it cried and +hung back? I'd take you to a better home if I knew of one; but I don't. +And there's the old man. I suppose we could get some doctor to certify +that he's out of his mind, and get him sent up to Blackfoot; but I guess +we'd have to buy the doctor first." + +"Oh, hush, do, and leave me alone," she said. + +Maverick dug his spurs into his horse, and plunged ahead. + +"There," she cried, "now you know part of it; but it's the least +part--the least, the least! Poor father, he's awful queer. He don't more +than half the time know who I am," she whispered. "But it ain't him I'm +running away from. It's myself--my own life." + +"What is it--can't you tell me?" + +She shook her head, but she kept on telling, as if she were talking to +herself. + +"Father he's like I told you, and the boys--oh, that's worse! I can't +get a decent woman to come there and live, and the women at Arco won't +speak to me because I'm livin' there alone. They say--they think I ought +to get married--to Maverick or somebody. I'll die first. I _will_ die, +if there's any way to, before I'll marry him!" + +This may not sound like tragedy as I tell it, but I think it was tragedy +to her. I tried to persuade her that it must be her imagination about +the women at Arco; or, if some of them did talk,--as indeed I myself had +heard, to my shame and disgust,--I told her I had never known that place +where there was not one woman, at least, who could understand and help +another in her trouble. + +"_I_ don't know of any," she said simply. + +There was no more to do but ride on, feeling like her executioner; but + + "Ride hooly, ride hooly, now, gentlemen, + Ride hooly now wi' me," + +came into my mind; and no man ever kept beside a "wearier burd," on a +sadder journey. + +At dusk we came to Belgian Flat, and here Maverick, dismounting, mixed a +little whisky in his flask with water which he dipped from the pool. She +must have recalled who dug the well, and with whom she had drunk in the +morning. He held it to her lips. She rejected it with a strong shudder +of disgust. + +"Drink it!" he commanded. "You'll kill yourself, carryin' on like this." +He pressed it on her, but she turned away her face like a sick and +rebellious child. + +"Maybe she'll drink it for you," said Maverick, with bitter patience, +handing me the cup. + +"Will you?" I asked her gently. She shook her head, but at the same time +she let me take her hand, and put it down from her face, and I held the +cup to her lips. She drank it, every drop. It made her deathly sick, +and I took her off her horse, and made a pillow of my coat, so that she +could lie down. In ten minutes she was asleep. Maverick covered her with +his coat after she was no longer conscious. + +We built a fire on the edge of the lava, for we were both chilled and +both miserable, each for his own part in that day's work. + +The flat is a little cup-shaped valley formed by high hills, like dark +walls, shutting it in. The lava creeps up to it in front. + +We hovered over the fire, and Maverick fed it, savagely, in silence. He +did not recognize my presence by a word--not so much as if I had been a +strange dog. I relieved him of it after a while, and went out a little +way on the lava. At first all was blackness after the strong glare of +the fire; but gradually the desolation took shape, and I stumbled about +in it, with my shadow mocking me in derisive beckonings, or crouching +close at my heels, as the red flames towered or fell. I stayed out there +till I was chilled to the bone, and then went back defiantly. Maverick +sat as if he had not moved, his elbows on his knees, his face in his +hands. I wondered if he were thinking of that other sleeper under the +birches of Deadman's Gulch, victim of an unhappy girl's revolt. Had she +loved him? Had she deceived him as well as herself? It seemed to me they +were all like children who had lost their way home. + +By midnight the moon had risen high enough to look at us coldly over the +tops of the great hills. Their shadows crept forth upon the lava. The +fire had died down. Maverick rose, and scattered the winking brands with +his boot-heel. + +"We must pull out," he said. "I'll saddle up, if you will"--The +hoarseness in his voice choked him, and he nodded toward the sleeper. + +I dreaded to waken the poor Rose. She was very meek and quiet after the +brief respite sleep had given her. She sat quite still, and watched me +while I shook the sand from my coat, put it on, and buttoned it to the +chin, and drew my hat down more firmly. There was a kind of magnetism in +her gaze; I felt it creep over me like the touch of a soft hand. + +When her horse was ready, Maverick brought it, and left it standing +near, and went back to his own, without looking toward us. + +"Come, you poor, tired little girl," I said, holding out my hand. She +could not find her way at first in the uncertain light, and she seemed +half asleep still, so I kept her hand in mine, and guided her to her +horse. "Now, once more up," I encouraged her; and suddenly she was +clinging to me, and whispering passionately: + +"Can't you take me somewhere? Where are those women that you know?" she +cried, shaking from head to foot. + +"Dear little soul, all the women I know are two thousand miles away," I +answered. + +"But can't you take me _somewhere_? There must be some place. I know you +would be good to me; and you could go away afterward, and I wouldn't +trouble you any more." + +"My child, there is not a place under the heavens where I could take +you. You must go on like a brave girl, and trust to your friends. Keep +up your heart, and the way will open. God will not forget you," I said, +and may He forgive me for talking cant to that poor soul in her bitter +extremity. + +She stood perfectly still one moment while I held her by the hands. I +think she could have heard my heart beat; but there was nothing I could +do. Even now I wake in the night, and wonder if there was any other +way--but one; the way that for one wild moment I was half tempted to +take. + +"Yes; the way will open," she said very low. She cast off my hands, and +in a second she was in the saddle, and off up the road, riding for her +life. And we two men knew no better than to follow her. + +I knew better, or I think, now, that I did. I told Maverick we had +pushed her far enough. I begged him to hold up and at least not to let +her see us on her track. He never answered a word, but kept straight on, +as if possessed. I don't think he knew what he was doing. At least there +was only one thing _he_ was capable of doing--following that girl till +he dropped. + +Two miles beyond the Flat there is another turn, where the shoulder of a +hill comes down and crowds the road, which passes out of sight. She saw +us hard upon her, as she reached this bend. Maverick was ahead. Her +horse was doing all he could, but it was plain he could not do much +more. She looked back, and flung out her hand in the man's sleeve that +half covered it. She gave a little whimpering cry, the most dreadful +sound I ever heard from any hunted thing. + +We made the turn after her; and there lay the road white in the +moonlight, and as bare as my hand. She had escaped us. + +We pulled up the horses, and listened. Not a sound came from the hills +or the dark gulches, where the wind was stirring the quaking asps; the +lonesome hush-sh made the silence deeper. But we heard a horse's step go +clink, clinking--a loose, uncertain step wandering away in the lava. + +"Look! look there! My God!" groaned Maverick. + +There was her horse limping along one of the hollow ridges, but the +saddle was empty. + +"She has taken to the lava!" + +I had no need to be told what that meant; but if I had needed, I learned +what it meant before the night was through. I think that if I were a +poet, I could add another "dolorous circle" to the wailing-place for +lost souls. + +But she had found a way. Somewhere in that stony-hearted wilderness she +is at rest. We shall see her again when the sea--the stupid, cruel sea +that crawls upon the land--gives up its dead. + + + + +ON A SIDE-TRACK + + +I + +It was the second week in February, but winter had taken a fresh hold: +the stockmen were grumbling; freight was dull, and travel light on the +white Northwestern lines. In the Portland car from Omaha there were but +four passengers: father and daughter,--a gentle, unsophisticated +pair,--and two strong-faced men, fellow-travelers also, keeping each +other's company in a silent but close and conspicuous proximity. They +shared the same section, the younger man sleeping above, going to bed +before, and rising later than, his companion; and whenever he changed +his seat or made an unexpected movement, the eyes of the elder man +followed him, and they were never far from him at any time. + +The elder was a plain farmer type of man, with a clean-shaven, straight +upper lip, a grizzled beard covering the lower half of his face, and +humorous wrinkles spreading from the corners of his keen gray eyes. + +The younger showed in his striking person that union of good blood with +hard conditions so often seen in the old-young graduates of the life +schools of the West. His hands and face were dark with exposure to the +sun, not of parks and club-grounds and seaside piazzas, but the dry +untempered light of the desert and the plains. His dark eye was +distinctively masculine,--if there be such a thing as gender in +features,--bold, ardent, and possessive; but now it was clouded with +sadness that did not pass like a mood, though he looked capable of +moods. + +He was dressed in the demi-toilet which answers for dinners in the West, +on occasions where a dress-coat is not required. In itself the costume +was correct, even fastidious, in its details, but on board an overland +train there was a foppish unsuitability in it that "gave the wearer +away," as another man would have said--put him at a disadvantage, +notwithstanding his splendid physique, and the sad, rather fine +preoccupation of his manner. He looked like a very real person dressed +for a trifling part, which he lays aside between the scenes while he +thinks about his sick child, or his debts, or his friend with whom he +has quarreled. + +But these incongruities, especially the one of dress, might easily have +escaped a pair of eyes so confiding and unworldly as those of the young +girl in the opposite section; they had escaped her, but not the +incongruity of youth with so much sadness. The girl and her father had +boarded the car at Omaha, escorted by the porter of one of the forward +sleepers on the same train. They had come from farther East. The old +gentleman appeared to be an invalid; but they gave little trouble. The +porter had much leisure on his hands, which he bestowed in arrears of +sleep on the end seat forward. The conductor made up his accounts in the +empty drawing-room, or looked at himself in the mirrors, or stretched +his legs on the velvet sofas. He was a young fellow, with a tendency to +jokes and snatches of song and talk of a light character when not on +duty. He talked sometimes with the porter in low tones, and then both +looked at the pair of travelers in No. 8, and the younger man seemed +moodily aware of their observation. + +On the first morning out from Omaha the old gentleman kept his berth +until nine or ten o'clock. At eight his daughter brought him a cup of +chocolate and a sandwich, and sat between his curtains, chatting with +him cozily. In speaking together they used the language of the Society +of Friends. + +The young man opposite listened attentively to the girl's voice; it was +as sweet as the piping of birds at daybreak. Phebe her father called +her. + +Afterward Phebe sat in the empty section next her father's. The table +before her was spread with a fresh napkin, and a few pieces of old +household silver and china which she had taken from her lunch-basket. + +She and her father were economical travelers, but in all their +belongings there was the refinement of modest suitability and an +exquisite cleanliness. Her own order for breakfast was confined to a cup +of coffee, which the porter was preparing in the buffet-kitchen. + +"Would you mind changing places with me?" + +The young man in No. 8 spoke to his companion, who sat opposite reading +a newspaper. They changed seats, and by this arrangement the younger +could look at Phebe, who innocently gave him every advantage to study +her sober and delicate profile against the white snow-light, as she sat +watching the dreary cattle-ranges of Wyoming swim past the car window. + +Her hair had been brushed, and her face washed in the bitter alkaline +waters of the plains, with the uncompromising severity of one whose +standards of personal adornment are limited to the sternest ideals of +neatness and purity. Yet her fair face bloomed, like a winter sunrise, +with tints of rose and pearl and sapphire blue, and the pale gold of +winter sunshine was in her satin-smooth hair. + +The young man did not fail to include in his study of Phebe the modest +breakfast equipment set out before her. He perfectly recalled the +pattern of the white-and-gold china, the touch, the very taste, of the +thin, bright old silver spoons; they were like his grandmother's +tea-things in the family homestead in the country, where he had spent +his summers as a boy. The look of them touched him nearly, but not +happily, it would seem, from his expression. + +The porter came with the cup of coffee, and offered a number of +patronizing suggestions in the line of his service, which the young girl +declined. She set forth a meek choice of food, blushing faintly in +deprecation of the young man's eyes, of which she began to be aware. +Evidently she was not yet hardened to the practice of eating in public. + +He took the hint, and retired to his corner, opening a newspaper between +himself and Phebe. + +Presently he heard her call the porter in a small, ineffectual voice. +The porter did not come. She waited a little, and called again, with no +better result. He put down his newspaper. + +"If you will press the button at your left," he suggested. + +"The button!" she repeated, looking at him helplessly. + +He sprang to assist her. As he did so his companion flung down his +paper, and jumped in front of him. The eyes of the two met. A hot flush +rose to the young man's eyebrows. + +"I am calling the porter for her." + +"Oh!" said the other, and he sat down again; but he kept an eye upon the +angry youth, who leaned across Phebe's seat, and touched the electric +button. + +"Little girl hadn't got on to it, eh?" the grizzled man remarked +pleasantly, when his companion had resumed his seat. + +There was no answer. + +"Nice folks; from the country, somewheres back East, I should guess," +the imperturbable one continued. "Old man seems sort of sickly. Making a +move on account of his health, likely. Great mistake--old folks turning +out in winter huntin' a climate." + +The young man remained silent, and the elder returned to his paper. + +At Cheyenne, where the train halts for dinner, the young girl helped her +father into his outer garments, buttoned herself hastily into her +homespun jacket bordered with gray fur, pinned her little hat firmly to +her crown of golden braids, hid her hands in her muff,--she did not wait +to put on gloves,--and led the way to the dining-room. + +The travelers in No. 8 disposed of their meal rapidly, in their usual +close but silent conjunction, and returned at once to the car. + +The old gentleman and his daughter walked the windy platform, and cast +rather forlorn glances at the crowd bustling about in the bleak winter +sunlight. When they took their seats again, the father's pale blue eyes +were still paler, his face looked white and drawn with the cold; but +Phebe was like a rose: with her wonderful, pure color the girl was +beautiful. The young man of No. 8 looked at her with a startled +reluctance, as if her sweetness wounded him. + +Then he seemed to have resolved to look at her no more. He leaned his +head back in his corner, and closed his eyes; the train shook him +slightly as he sat in moody preoccupation with his thoughts, and the +miles of track flew by. + +At Green River, at midnight, the Portland car was dropped by its convoy +of the Union Pacific, and was coupled with a train making up for the +Oregon Short Line. There was hooting and backing of engines, slamming +of car doors, flashing of conductors' lanterns, voices calling across +the tracks. One of these voices could be heard, in the wakeful silence +within the car, as an engine from the west steamed past in the glare of +its snow-wreathed headlight. + +"No. 10 stuck this side of Squaw Creek. Bet you don't make it before +Sunday!" + +The outbound conductor's retort was lost in the clank of couplings as +the train lurched forward on the slippery rails. + +"Phebe, is thee awake?" the old gentleman softly called to his daughter, +about the small hours. + +"Yes, father. Want anything?" + +"Are those ventilators shut? I feel a cold draft in the back of my +berth." + +The ventilators were all shut, but the train was now climbing the Wind +River divide, the cold bitterly increasing, and the wind dead ahead. +Cinders tinkled on the roaring stovepipes, the blast swept the car +roofs, pelting the window panes with fine, dry snow, and searching every +joint and crevice defended by the company's upholstery. + +Phebe slipped down behind the berth-curtain, and tucked a shawl in at +her father's back. Her low voice could be heard, and the old man's +self-pitying tones in answer to her tender questionings. He coughed at +intervals till daybreak, when there was silence in section No. 7. + +In No. 8, across the aisle, the young man lay awake in the strength of +his thoughts, and made up passionate sentences which he fancied himself +speaking to persons he might never be brought face to face with again. +They were people mixed in with his life in various relations, past and +present, whose opinions had weighed with him. When he heard Phebe +talking to her father, he muttered, with a sort of anguish:-- + +"Oh, you precious lamb!" + +He and his companion made their toilet early, and breakfasted and smoked +together, and their taciturn relation continued as before. Snow filled +the air, and blotted out the distance, but there were few stationary +dark objects outside by which to gauge its fall. They were across the +border now, between Wyoming and Idaho, in a featureless white region, a +country of small Mormon ranches, far from any considerable town. + +The old man slept behind his curtains. Phebe went through the morning +routine by which women travelers make themselves at home and pass the +time, but obviously her day did not begin until her father had reported +himself. She had found a hole in one of her gloves, which she was +mending, choosing critically the needle and the silk for the purpose +from a very complete housewife in brown linen bound with a brown silk +galloon. Again the young man was reminded of his boyhood, and of certain +kind old ladies of precise habits who had contributed to his happiness, +and occasionally had eked out the fond measure of paternal discipline. + +The snow continued; about noon the train halted at a small water +station, waited awhile as if in consideration of difficulties ahead, and +then quietly backed down upon a side-track. A shock of silence followed. +Every least personal movement in the thinly peopled car, before lost in +the drumming of the wheels, asserted itself against this new medium. The +passengers looked up and at one another; the Pullman conductor stepped +out to make inquiries. + +The silence continued, and became embarrassing. Phebe dropped her +scissors. This time the young man sat still, but the flush rose to his +forehead as before. The old gentleman's breathing could be heard behind +his curtains; the porter rattling plates in the cooking-closet; the soft +rustling of the snow outside. Phebe stepped to her father's berth, and +peeped between his curtains; he was still sleeping. Her voice was hushed +to the note of a sick-room as she asked,-- + +"Where are we now, do you know?" + +The young man was looking at her, and to him she addressed the question. + +With a glance at his companion, he crossed to her side of the car, and +took the seat in front of her. + +"We are in the Bear Lake valley, just over the border of Idaho, about +fifteen miles from the Squaw Creek divide," he answered, sinking his +voice. + +"Did you hear what that person said in the night, when a train passed +us, about our not getting through?" + +"I wondered if you heard that." He smiled. "You did not rest well, I'm +afraid." + +"I was anxious about father. This weather is a great surprise to us. We +were told the winters were short in southern Idaho--almost like +Virginia; but look at this!" + +"We have nearly eight thousand feet of altitude here, you must remember. +In the valleys it is warmer. There the winter does break usually about +this time. Are you going on much farther?" + +"To a place called Volney." + +"Volney is pretty high; but there is Boise, farther down. Strangers +moving into a new country very seldom strike it right the first time." + +"Oh, we shall stay at Volney, even if we do not like it; that is, if we +_can_ stay. I have a married sister living there. She thought the +climate would be better for father." + +After a pause she asked, "Do you know why we are stopping here so long?" + +"Probably because we have had orders not to go any farther." + +"Do you mean that we are blocked?" + +"The train ahead of us is. We shall stay here until that gets through." + +"You seem very cheerful about it," she said, observing his expression. + +"Ah, I should think so!" + +His short lip curled in the first smile she had seen upon his strong, +brooding face. She could not help smiling in response, but she felt +bound to protest against his irresponsible view of the situation. + +"Have you so much time to spend upon the road? I thought the men of this +country were always in a hurry." + +"It makes a difference where a man is going, and on what errand, and +what fortune he meets with on the way. _I_ am not going to Volney." + +She did not understand his emphasis, nor the bearing of his words. His +eyes dropped to her hands lying in her lap, still holding the glove she +had been mending. + +"How nicely you do it! How can you take such little stitches without +pricking yourself, when the train is going?" + +"It is my business to take little stitches. I don't know how to do +anything else." + +"Do you mean it literally? It is your business to sew?" + +The notion seemed to surprise him. + +"No; I mean in a general sense. Some of us can do only small things, a +stitch at a time,--take little steps, and not know always where they are +going." + +"Is this a little step--to Volney?" + +"Oh, no; it is a very long one, and rather a wild one, I'm afraid. I +suppose everybody does a wild thing once in a lifetime?" + +"How should _you_ know that?" + +"I only said so. I don't say that it is true." + +"People who take little steps are sometimes picked up and carried off +their feet by those who take long, wild ones." + +"Why, what are we talking about?" she asked herself, in surprise. + +"About going to Volney, was it not?" he suggested. + +"What is there about Volney, please tell me, that you harp upon the +name? I am a stranger, you know; I don't know the country allusions. Is +there anything peculiar about Volney?" + +"She is a deep little innocent," he said within himself; "but oh, so +innocent!" And again he appeared to gather himself in pained resistance +to some thought that jarred with the thought of Phebe. He rose and +bowed, and so took leave of her, and settled himself back into his +corner, shading his eyes with his hand. + +He ate no luncheon, Phebe noticed, and he sat so long in a dogged +silence that she began to cast wistful glances across the aisle, +wondering if he were ill, or if she had unwittingly been rude to him. +Any one could have shaken her confidence in her own behavior; moreover, +she reminded herself, she did not know the etiquette of an overland +train. She had heard that the Western people were very friendly; no +doubt they expected a frank response in others. She resolved to be more +careful the next time, if the moody young man should speak to her again. + +Her father was awake now, dressed and sitting up. He was very chipper, +but Phebe knew that his color was not natural, nor his breathing right. +He was much inclined to talk, in a rambling, childish, excited manner +that increased her anxiety. + +The young man in No. 8 had evidently taken his fancy; his formal, +old-fashioned advances were modestly but promptly met. + +"I suppose it is not usual, in these parts, for travelers to inquire +each other's names?" the old gentleman remarked to his new acquaintance; +"but we seem to have plenty of time on our hands; we might as well +improve it socially. My name is David Underhill, and this is my daughter +Phebe. Now what might thy name be, friend?" + +"My name is Ludovic," said the youth, looking a half-apology at Phebe, +who saw no reason for it. + +"First or family name?" + +"Ludovic is my family name." + +"And a very good name it is," said the old gentleman. "Not a common name +in these parts, I should say, but one very well and highly known to me," +he added, with pleased emphasis. "Phebe, thee remembers a visit we had +from Martin Ludovic when we were living at New Rochelle?" + +"Thee knows I was not born when you lived at New Rochelle, father dear." + +"True, true! It was thy mother I was thinking of. She had a great esteem +for Martin Ludovic. He was one of the world's people, as we say--in the +world, but not of the world. Yet he made a great success in life. He +was her father's junior partner--rose from a clerk's stool in his +counting-room; and a great success he made of it. But that was after +Friend Lawrence's time. My wife was Phebe Lawrence." + +Young Ludovic smiled brightly in reply to this information, and seemed +about to speak, but the old gentleman forestalled him. + +"Friend Lawrence had made what was considered a competence in those +days--a very small one it would be called now; but he was satisfied. +Thee may not be aware that it is a recommendation among the Friends, and +it used to be a common practice, that when a merchant had made a +sufficiency for himself and those depending on him, he should show his +sense of the favor of Providence by stepping out and leaving his chance +to the younger men. Friend Lawrence did so--not to his own benefit +ultimately, though that was no one's fault that ever I heard; and Martin +Ludovic was his successor, and a great and honorable business was the +outcome of his efforts. Now does thee happen to recall if Martin is a +name in thy branch?" + +"My grandfather was Martin Ludovic of the old New York house of Lawrence +and Ludovic," said the cadet of that name; but as he gave these +credentials a profound melancholy subdued his just and natural pride. + +"Is it possible!" Friend Underhill exulted, more pleased than if he had +recovered a lost bank-note for many hundreds. There are no people who +hold by the ties of blood and family more strongly than the Friends; and +Friend Underhill, on this long journey, had felt himself sadly insolvent +in those sureties that cannot be packed in a trunk or invested in +irrigable lands. It was as if on the wild, cold seas he had crossed the +path of a bark from home. He yearned to have speech with this graciously +favored young man, whose grandfather had been his Phebe's grandfather's +partner and dearest friend. The memory of that connection had been +cherished with ungrudging pride through the succeeding generations in +which the Ludovics had gone up in the world and the Lawrences had come +down. Friend Underhill did not recall--nor would he have thought it of +the least importance--that a Lawrence had been the benefactor in the +first place, and had set Martin Ludovic's feet upon the ladder of +success. He took the young man's hand affectionately in his own, and +studied the favor of his countenance. + +"Thee has the family look," he said in a satisfied tone; "and they had +no cause, as a rule, to be discontented with their looks." + +Young Ludovic's eyes fell, and he blushed like a girl; the dark-red +blood dyed his face with the color almost of shame. Phebe moved uneasily +in her seat. + +"Make room beside thee, Phebe," said her father; "or, no, friend +Ludovic; sit thee here beside me. If the train should start, I could +hear thee better. And thy name--let me see--thee must be a Charles +Ludovic. In thy family there was always a Martin, and then an Aloys, and +then a Charles; and it was said--though a foolish superstition, no +doubt--that the king's name brought ill luck. The Ludovic whose turn it +was to bear the name of the unhappy Stuart took with it the misfortunes +of three generations." + +"A very unjust superstition I should call it," pronounced Phebe. + +"Surely, and a very idle one," her father acquiesced, smiling at her +warmth. "I trust, friend Charles, it has been given thee happily to +disprove it in thy own person." + +"On the contrary," said Charles Ludovic, "if I am not the unluckiest of +my name, I hope there may never be another." + +He spoke with such conviction, such energy of sadness, only silence +could follow the words. Then the old gentleman said, most gently and +ruefully:-- + +"If it be indeed as thee says, I trust it will not seem an intrusion, in +one who knew thy family's great worth, to ask the nature of thy +trouble--if by chance it might be my privilege to assist thee. I feel of +rather less than my usual small importance--cast loose, as it were, +between the old and the new; but if my small remedies should happen to +suit with thy complaint, it would not matter that they were +trifling--like Phebe's drops and pellets she puts such faith in," he +added, with a glance at his daughter's downcast face. + +"Dear sir, you _have_ helped me, by the gift of the outstretched hand. +Between strangers, as we are, that implies a faith as generous as it is +rare." + +"Nay, we are not strangers; no one of thy name shall call himself +stranger to one of ours. Shall he, Phebe? Still, I would not importune +thee"-- + +"I thank you far more than you can know; but we need not talk of my +troubles. It was a graceless speech of mine to obtrude them." + +"As thee will. But I deny the lack of grace. The gracelessness was mine +to bring up a foolish saying, more honored in the forgetting." + +Here Phebe interposed with a spoonful of the medicine her father had +referred to so disparagingly. "I would not talk any more now, if I were +thee, father. Thee sees how it makes thee cough." + +At this, Ludovic rose to leave them; but Phebe detained him, shyly doing +the honors of their quarters in the common caravan. He stayed, but a +constrained silence had come upon him. The old gentleman closed his +eyes, and sometimes smiled to himself as he sat so, beside the younger +man, and Phebe had strange thoughts as she looked at them both. Her +imagination was greatly stirred. She talked easily and with perfect +unconsciousness to Ludovic, and told him little things she could +remember having heard about the one generation of his family that had +formerly been connected with her own. She knew more about it, it +appeared, than he did. And more and more he seemed to lose himself in +her eyes, rather than to be listening to her voice. He sat with his back +to his companion across the aisle; at length the latter rose, and +touched him on the shoulder. He turned instantly, and Phebe, looking up, +caught the hard, roused expression that altered him into the likeness of +another man. + +"I am going outside." No more was said, but Ludovic rose, bowed to +Phebe, and followed his curt fellow-passenger. + +"What can be the connection between them?" thought the girl. "They seem +inseparable, yet not friends precisely. How could they be friends?" And +in her prompt mental comparison the elder man inevitably suffered. She +began to think of all the tragedies with which young lives are +fatalistically bound up; but it was significant that none of her +speculations included the possibility of anything in the nature of error +in respect to this Charles Ludovic who called himself unhappy. + + +II + +"Stop a moment. I want to speak to you," said Ludovic. The two men were +passing through the gentlemen's toilet-room; Ludovic turned his back to +the marble washstand, and waited, with his head up, and the tips of his +long hands resting in his trousers' pockets. "I have a favor to ask of +you, Mr. Burke." + +"Well, sir, what's the size of it?" + +"You must have heard some of our talk in there; you see how it is? They +will never, of themselves, suspect the reason of your fondness for my +company. Is it worth while, for the time we shall be together, to put +them on to it? It's not very easy, you see; make it as easy as you can." + +"Have I tried to make it hard, Mr. Ludovic?" + +"Not at all. I don't mean that." + +"Am I giving you away most of the time?" + +"Of course not. You have been most awfully good. But you're--you're +damnably in my way. I see you out of the corner of my eye always, when +you aren't square in front of me. I can't make a move but you jump. Do +you think I am such a fool as to make a break now? No, sir; I am going +through with this; I'm in it most of the time. Now see here, I give you +my word--and there are no liars of my name--that you will find me with +you at Pocatello. Till then let me alone, will you? Keep your eyes off +me. Keep out of range of my talk. I would like to say a word now and +then without knowing there's a running comment in the mind of a man +across the car, who thinks he knows me better than the people I am +talking to--understand?" + +"Maybe I do, maybe I don't," said Mr. Burke, deliberately. "I don't know +as it's any of my business what you say to your friends, or what they +think of you. All I'm responsible for is your person." + +"Precisely. At Pocatello you will have my person." + +"And have I got your word for the road between?" + +"My word, and my thanks--if the thanks of a man in my situation are +worth anything." + +"I'm dum sorry for you, Mr. Ludovic, and I don't mind doing what little +I can to make things easy"--Mr. Burke paused, seeing his companion +smile. "Well, yes, I know it's hard--it's dooced almighty hard; and it +looks like there was a big mistake somewheres, but it's no business of +mine to say so. Have a cigar?" + +Young Mr. Ludovic had accepted a number of Mr. Burke's palliative offers +of cigars during their journey together; he accepted the courtesy, but +he did not smoke the cigars. He usually gave them to the porter. He had +an expensive taste in cigars, as in many other things. He paid for his +high-priced preferences, or he went without. He was never willing to +accept any substitute for the thing he really wanted; and it was very +hard for him, when he had set his heart upon a thing, not to approach it +in the attitude that an all-wise Providence had intended it for him. + +About dusk the snow-plow engines from above came down for coal and +water. They brought no positive word, only that the plows and shovelers +were at work at both ends of the big cut, and they hoped the track would +be free by daybreak. But the snow was still falling as night set in. + +Ludovic and Phebe sat in the shadowed corner behind the curtains of No. +7. Phebe's father had gone to bed early; his cough was worse, and Phebe +was treating him for that and for the fever which had developed as an +attendant symptom. She was a devotee in her chosen school of medicine; +she knew her remedies, within the limits of her household experience, +and used them with the courage and constancy that are of no school, but +which better the wisdom of them all. + +Ludovic observed that she never lost count of the time through all her +talk, which was growing more and more absorbing; he was jealous of the +interruption when she said, "Excuse me," and looked at her watch, or +rose and carried her tumblers of medicine alternately to the patient, +and woke him gently; for it was now a case for strenuous treatment, and +she purposed to watch out the night, and give the medicines regularly +every hour. + +Mr. Burke was as good as his word; he kept several seats distant from +the young people. He had a private understanding, though, with the car +officials: not that he put no faith in the word of a Ludovic, but +business is business. + +When he went to his berth about eleven o'clock he noticed that his +prisoner was still keeping the little Quaker girl company, and neither +of them seemed to be sleepy. The table where they had taken supper +together was still between them, with Phebe's watch and the medicine +tumblers upon it. The panel of looking-glass reflected the young man's +profile, touched with gleams of lamplight, as he leaned forward with his +arms upon the table. + +Phebe sat far back in her corner, pale and grave; but when her eyes were +lifted to his face they were as bright as winter stars. + +It was Ludovic's intention, before he parted with Phebe, to tell her his +story--his own story; the newspaper account of him she would read, with +all the world, after she had reached Volney. Meantime he wished to lose +himself in a dream of how it might have been could he have met this +little Phebe, not on a side-track, his chance already spoiled, but on +the main line, with a long ticket, and the road clear before them to the +Golden Gate. + +Under other circumstances she might not have had the same overmastering +fascination for him; he did not argue that question with himself. He +talked to her all night long as a man talks to the woman he has chosen +and is free to win, with but a single day in which to win her; and +underneath his impassioned tones, shading and deepening them with tragic +meaning, was the truth he was withholding. There was no one to stand +between Phebe and this peril, and how should she know whither they were +drifting? + +He told her stories of his life of danger and excitement and contrasts, +East and West; he told her of his work, his ambitions, his +disappointments; he carried her from city to city, from camp to camp. He +spoke to sparkling eyes, to fresh, thrilling sympathies, to a warm +heart, a large comprehension, and a narrow experience. Every word went +home; for with this girl he was strangely sure of himself, as indeed he +might have been. + +And still the low music of his voice went on; for he did not lack that +charm, among many others--a voice for sustained and moving speech. +Perhaps he did not know his own power; at all events, he was unsparing +of an influence the most deliberate and enthralling to which the girl +had ever been subjected. + +He was a Ludovic of that family her own had ever held in highest +consideration. He was that Charles Ludovic who had called himself +unhappiest of his name. Phebe never forgot this fact, and in his pauses, +and often in his words, she felt the tug of that strong undertow of +unspoken feeling pulling him back into depths where even in thought she +could not follow him. + +And so they sat face to face, with the watch between them ticking away +the fateful moments. For Ludovic, life ended at Pocatello, but not for +Phebe. + +What had he done with that faith they had given him--the gentle, +generous pair! He had resisted, he thought that he was resisting, his +mad attraction to this girl--of all girls the most impossible to him +now, yet the one, his soul averred, most obviously designed for him. His +wild, sick fancy had clung to her from the moment her face had startled +him, as he took his last backward look upon the world he had forfeited. + +His prayer was that he might win from Phebe, before he left her at +Pocatello, some sure token of her remembrance that he might dwell upon +and dream over in the years of his buried life. + +It would not have been wonderful, as the hours of that strange night +flew by, if Phebe had lost a moment, now and then, had sometimes +wandered from the purpose of her vigil. Her thoughts strayed, but they +came back duly, and she was constant to her charge. Through all that +unwholesome enchantment her hold upon herself was firm, through her +faithfulness to the simple duties in which she had been bred. + +Meanwhile the train lay still in the darkness, and Ludovic thanked God, +shamelessly, for the snow. How the dream outwore the night and +strengthened as morning broke gray and cold, and quiet with the +stillness of the desert, we need not follow. More and more it possessed +him, and began to seem the only truth that mattered. + +He took to himself all the privileges of her protector; the rights, +indeed--as if he could have rights such as belong to other men, now, in +regard to any woman. + +If the powers that are named of good or evil, according to the will of +the wisher, had conspired to help him on, the dream could not have drawn +closer to the dearest facts of life; but no spells were needed beyond +those which the reckless conjurer himself possessed--his youth, his +implied misfortunes, his unlikeness to any person she had known, his +passion, "meek, but wild," which he neither spoke nor attempted to +conceal. + +And Phebe sat like a charmed thing while he wove the dream about her. +She could not think; she had nothing to do while her father slept; she +had nowhere to go, away from this new friend of her father's choosing. +She was exhausted with watching, and nervously unstrung. Her hands were +ice; her color went and came; her heart was in a wild alarm. She blushed +almost as she breathed, with his eyes always upon her; and blushing, +could have wept, but for the pride that still was left her in this +strange, unwholesome excitement. + +It was an ordeal that should have had no witnesses but the angels; yet +it was seen of the porter and the conductor and Mr. Burke. The last was +not a person finely cognizant of situations like this one; but he felt +it and resented it in every fibre of his honest manhood. + +"What's Ludovic doing?" he asked himself in heated soliloquy. "He's out +of the running, and the old man's sick abed, and no better than an old +woman when he's well. What's the fellow thinking of?" + +Mr. Burke took occasion to ask him, when they were alone +together--Ludovic putting the finishing touches to a shave; the time was +not the happiest, but the words were honest and to the point. + +"I didn't understand," said Mr. Burke, "that the little girl was in it. +Now, do you call it quite on the square, Mr. Ludovic, between you and +her? I don't like it, myself; I don't want to be a party to it. I've got +girls of my own." + +Ludovic held his chin up high; his hands shook as he worked at his +collar-button. + +"Have you got any boys?" he flung out in the tone of a retort. + +"Yes; one about your age, I should guess." + +"How would you like to see him in the fix I'm in?" + +"I couldn't suppose it, Mr. Ludovic. My boy and you ain't one bit +alike." + +"Are your girls like her?" + +"No, sir; they are not. I ain't worrying about them any, nor wouldn't if +they was in her place. But there's points about this thing"-- + +"We'll leave the points. Suppose, I say, your boy was in my fix: would +you grudge him any little kindness he might be able to cheat heaven, +we'll say, out of between here and Pocatello?" + +"Heaven can take care of itself; that little girl is not in heaven yet. +And there's kindnesses and kindnesses, Mr. Ludovic. There are some that +cost like the mischief. I expect you're willing to bid high on kindness +from a nice girl, about now; but how about her? Has kindness gone up in +her market? I guess not. That little creetur's goods can wait; she'd be +on top in any market. I guess it ain't quite a square deal between her +and you." + +Ludovic sat down, and buried his hands in his pockets. His face was a +dark red; his lips twitched. + +"Are you going to stick to your bargain, or are you not?" he asked, +fixing his eyes on a spot just above Mr. Burke's head. + +"You've got the cheek to call it a bargain! But say it was a bargain. I +didn't know, I say, that the little girl was in it. Your bank's broke, +Mr. Ludovic. You ought to quit business. You've got no right to keep +your doors open, taking in money like hers, clean gold fresh from the +mint." + +"O Lord!" murmured Ludovic; and he may have added a prayer for patience +with this common man who was so pitilessly in the right. A week ago, and +the right had been easy to him. But now he was off the track; every turn +of the wheels tore something to pieces. + +"There are just two subjects I cannot discuss with you," he said, +sinking his voice. "One is that young lady. Her father knows my people. +She shall know me before I leave her. They say we shall go through +to-night. You must think I am the devil if you think that, without the +right even to dispense with your company, I can have much to answer for +between here and Pocatello." + +"You are as selfish as the devil, that's what I think; and the worst of +it is, you look as white as other folks." + +"Then leave me alone, or else put the irons on me. Do one thing or the +other. I won't be dogged and watched and hammered with your infernal +jaw! You can put a ball through me, you can handcuff me before her face; +but my eyes are my own, and my tongue is my own, and I will use them as +I please." + +Mr. Burke said no more. He had said a good deal; he had covered the +ground, he thought. And possibly he had some sympathy, even when he +thought of his girls, with the young fellow who had looked too late in +the face of joy and gone clean wild over his mischance. + +It was his opinion that Ludovic would "get" not less than twenty-five +years. There were likely to be Populists on that jury; the prisoner's +friends belonged to a clique of big monopolists; it would go harder +with him than if he had been an honest miner, or a playful cow-boy on +one of his monthly "tears." + +When Ludovic returned to his section, Phebe had gone to sleep in the +corner opposite, her muff tucked under one flushed cheek; the other +cheek was pale. Shadows as delicate as the tinted reflections in the +hollow of a snow-drift slept beneath her chin, and in the curves around +her pathetic eyelids, and in the small incision that defined her pure +red under lip. Again the angels, whom we used to believe in, were far +from this their child. + +Ludovic drew down all the blinds to keep out the glare, and sat in his +own place, and watched her, and fed his aching dream. He did not care +what he did, nor who saw him, nor what anybody thought. + +In the afternoon he took her out for a walk. The snow had stopped; her +father was up and dressed, and very much better, and Phebe was radiant. +Her sky was clearing all at once. She charged the porter to call her in +"just twenty minutes," for then she must give the medicine again. On +their way out of the car Ludovic slipped a dollar into the porter's +hand. Somehow that clever but corrupted functionary let the time slip +by, to Phebe's innocent amazement. Could he have gone to sleep? Surely +it must be more than twenty minutes since they had left the car. + +"He's probably given the dose himself," said Ludovic. "A good porter is +always three parts nurse." + +"But he doesn't know which medicine to give." + +"Oh, let them be," he said impatiently. "He's talking to your father, +and making him laugh. He'll brace him up better than any medicine. They +will call you fast enough if you are needed." + +They walked the platform up and down in front of the section-house. They +were watched, but Ludovic did not care for that now. + +"Will you take my arm?" + +She hesitated, in amused consideration of her own inexperience. + +"Why, I never _did_ take any one's arm that I remember. I don't think I +could keep step with thee." + +The intimate pronoun slipped out unawares. + +"I will keep step with _thee_." + +"I don't know that I quite like to hear you use that word." + +"But you used it, just now, to me." + +"It was an accident, then." + +"Your father says 'thee' to me." + +"He is of an older generation; my mother wore the Friends' dress. But +those customs had a religious meaning for them to which I cannot +pretend. With me it is a sort of instinct; I can't explain it, nor yet +quite ignore it." + +"Have I offended that particular instinct of yours which attaches to the +word 'thee'?" + +He seemed deeply chagrined. He was one who did not like to make +mistakes, and he had no time to waste in apologizing and recovering lost +ground. + +"People do say it to us sometimes in fun, not knowing what the word +means to us," said Phebe. + +In the fresh winter air she was regaining her tone--escaping from him, +Ludovic felt, into her own sweet, calm self-possession. + +"Then you distinctly refuse me whatever--the least--that word implies? I +am one of those who 'rush in'?" + +"Oh, no; but you are much too serious. It is partly a habit of speech; +we cannot lose the habit of speaking to each other as strangers in three +days." + +"You were never a stranger to me. I knew you from the first moment I saw +you; yet each moment since you have been a fresh surprise." + +"I cannot keep up with you," she said, slipping her hand out of his arm. +In the grasp of his passionate dream he was striding along regardless, +not of her, but of her steps. + +"Oh, little steps," he groaned within himself--"oh, little doubting +steps, why did we not meet before?" + +Oh, blessed hampering steps, how much safer would his have gone beside +them! + +"What a charming pair!" cried a lady passenger from the forward sleeper. +She too was walking, with her husband, and her eye had been instantly +taken by the gentle girl with the delicate wild-rose color, halting on +the arm of a splendid youth with dare-devil eyes, who did not look as +happy as he ought with that sweet creature on his arm. + +"Isn't it good to know that the old stories are going on all the same?" +said the sentimental traveler. "What do you say--will that story end in +happiness?" + +"I say that he isn't good enough for her," the husband replied. + +"Then he'll be sure to win her," laughed the lady. "He has won her, I +believe," she added more seriously, watching the pair where they stood +together at the far end of the platform; "but something is wrong." + +"Something usually is at that stage, if I remember. Come, let us get +aboard." + +The sun was setting clear in the pale saffron west. The train from the +buried cut had been released, and now came sliding down the track, +welcomed by boisterous salutations. Behind were the mighty snow-plow +engines, backing down, enwreathed and garlanded with snow. + +"A-a-all aboard!" the conductor drawled in a colloquial tone to the +small waiting group upon the platform. + +Slowly they crept back upon the main track, and heavily the motion +increased, till the old chant of the rails began again, and they were +thundering westward down the line. + + +III + +Phebe was much occupied with her father, perhaps purposely so, until his +bed-time. She made him her innocent refuge. Ludovic kept subtly away, +lest the friendly old gentleman should be led into conversation, which +might delay the hour of his retiring. He went cheerfully to rest about +the time the lamps were lighted, and Phebe sought once more her corner +in the empty section, shaded by her father's curtains. + +Ludovic, dropping his voice below the roar of the train, asked if he +might take the seat beside her. + +He took it, and turned his back upon the car. He looked at his watch. He +had just three hours before Pocatello. The train was making great speed; +they would get in, the conductor said, by eleven o'clock. But he need +not tell her yet. Half an hour passed, and his thoughts in the silence +were no longer to be borne. + +She was aware of his intense excitement, his restlessness, the nervous +action of his hands. She shrank from the burning misery in his +questioning eyes. Once she heard him whisper under his breath; but the +words she heard were, "_My love! my love!_" and she thought she could +not have heard aright. Her trouble increased with her sense of some +involuntary strangeness in her companion, some recklessness impending +which she might not know how to meet. She rose in her place, and said +tremulously that she must go. + +"Go!" He sprang up. "Go where, in Heaven's name? Stay," he implored, +"and be kind to me! We get off at Pocatello." + +"We?" she asked with her eyes in his. + +"That man and I. I am his prisoner." + +She sank down again, and stared at him mutely. + +"He is the sheriff of Bingham County, and I am his prisoner," he +repeated. "Do the words mean nothing to you?" He paused for some sign +that she understood him. She dropped her eyes; her face had become as +white as a snowdrop. + +"He is taking me to Pocatello for the preliminary examination--oh, must +I tell you this? If I thought you would never read it in the ghastly +type"-- + +"Go on," she whispered. + +"Examination," he choked, "for--for homicide. I don't know what the +judge will call it; but the other man is dead, and I am left to answer +for the passion of a moment with my life. And you will not speak to me?" + +But now she did speak. Leaning forward so that she could look him in the +eyes, she said:-- + +"I thought when I saw that man always with you, watching you, that he +might be taking you, with your consent, to one of those places where +they treat persons for--for unsoundness of the mind. I knew you had some +trouble that was beyond help. I could think of nothing worse than that. +It haunted me till we began to speak together; then I knew it could not +be; now I wish it had been." + +"I do not," said Ludovic. "I thank God I am not mad. There is passion in +my blood, and folly, perhaps, but not insanity. No; I am responsible." + +She remained silent, and he continued defensively:-- + +"But I am not the only one responsible. Can you listen? Can you hear the +particulars? One always feels that one's own case is peculiar; one is +never the common sinner, you know. + +"I have a friend at Pocatello; he is my partner in business. Two years +ago he married a New York girl, and brought her out there to live. If +you knew Pocatello, you would know what a privilege it was to have their +house to go to. They made me free of it, as people do in the West. There +is nothing they could not have asked of me in return for such +hospitality; it was an obligation not less sacred on my part than that +of family. + +"When my friend went away on long journeys, on our common business, it +was my place in his absence to care for all that was his. There are many +little things a woman needs a man to do for her in a place like +Pocatello; it was my pride and privilege to be at all times at the +service of this lady. She was needlessly grateful, but she liked me +besides: she was one who showed her likes and dislikes frankly. She had +grown up in a small, exclusive set of persons who knew one anther's +grandfathers, and were accustomed to say what they pleased inside; what +outsiders thought did not matter. She had not learned to be careful; she +despised the need of it. She thought Pocatello and the people there were +a joke. But there is a serious side even to Pocatello: you cannot joke +with rattlesnakes and vitriol and slow mines. She made enemies by her +gay little sallies, and she would never condescend to explain. When +people said things that showed they had interpreted her words or actions +in a stupid or a vulgar way, she gave the thing up. It was not her +business to adapt herself to such people; it was theirs to understand +her. If they could not, then it did not matter what they thought. That +was her theory of life in Pocatello. + +"One night I was in a place--not for my pleasure--a place where a lady's +name is never spoken by a gentleman. I heard her name spoken by a fool; +he coupled it with mine, and laughed. I walked out of the place, and +forgot what I was there for till I found myself down the street with my +heart jumping. That time I did right, you would say. + +"But I met him again. It was at the depot at Pocatello. I was seeing a +man off--a stranger in the place, but a friend of my friends; we had +dined at their house together. This other--I think he had been +drinking--I suppose he must have included me in his stupid spite against +the lady. He made his fool speech again. The man who was with me heard +him, and looked astounded. I stepped up to him. I said--I don't know +what. I ordered him to leave that name alone. He repeated it, and I +struck him. He pulled a pistol on me. I grabbed him, and twisted it out +of his hand. How it happened I cannot tell, but there in the smoke he +lay at my feet. The train was moving out. My friend pulled me aboard. +The papers said I ran away. I did not. I waited at Omaha for Mr. Burke. + +"And there I met you, three days ago; and all I care for now is just to +know that you will not think of me always by that word." + +"What word?" + +"Never mind; spare me the word. Look at me! Do I seem to you at all the +same man?" + +Phebe slowly lifted her eyes. + +"Is there nothing left of me? Answer me the truth. I have a right to be +answered." + +"You are the same; but all the rest of it is strange. I do not see how +such a thing could be." + +"Can you not conceive of one wild act in a man not inevitably always a +sinner?" + +"Oh, yes; but not that act. I cannot understand the impulse to take a +life." + +"I did not think of his miserable life; I only meant to stop his +talking. He tried to take mine. I wish he had. But no, no; I should have +missed this glimpse of you. Just when it is too late I learn what life +is worth." + +"Do men truly do those things for the sake of women? Were you thinking +of your friend's wife when you struck him?" + +"I was thinking of the man--what a foul-mouthed fool he was--not fit +to"--He stopped, seeing the look on Phebe's face. + +"Oh, I'm impossible, I know, to one like you! It's rather hard I should +have to be compared, in your mind, to a race of men like your father. +Have you never known any other men?" + +"I have read of all the men other people read of. I have some +imagination." + +"I suppose you read your Bible." + +"Yes: the men in the Bible were not all of the Spirit; but they +worshiped the Spirit--they were humble when they did wrong." + +"Did women ever love them?" + +Phebe was silent. + +"Do not talk to me of the Spirit," Ludovic pleaded. "I am a long way +from that. At least I am not a hypocrite--not yet. Wait till I am a +'trusty,' scheming for a pardon. Can you not give me one word of simple +human comfort? There are just forty minutes more." + +"What can I say?" + +"Tell me this--and oh, be careful! Could you, if it were permitted a +criminal like me to expiate his sin in the world among living men, in +human relations with them--could we ever meet? Could you say 'thee' to +me, not as to an afflicted person or a child? Am I to be only a text, +another instance"-- + +"Many would not blame you. Neither do I blame you, not knowing that +life or those people," said Phebe. "But there was One who turned away +from the evil-speakers, and wrote upon the sand." + +"But those evil-speakers spoke the truth." + +"Can a lie be stopped by a pistol-shot? But we need not argue." + +"No; I see how it is. I shall be to you only another of the wretched +sons of Cain." + +"I am thy sister," she said, and gave him her hand. + +He held it in his strong, cold, trembling clasp. + +"Darling, do you know where I am going? I shall never see you, never +again--unless you are like the sainted women of your faith who walked +the prisons, and preached to them in bonds." + +"Thy bonds are mine: but I am no preacher." + +The drowsy lights swayed and twinkled, the wheels rang on the frozen +rails as the wild, white wastes flew by. + +"Father shall never know it," Phebe murmured. "He shall never know, if I +can help it, why you called yourself unhappy." + +"Is it such an unspeakable horror to you?" He winced. + +"He has not many years to live; it would only be one disappointment +more." She was leaning back in her seat; her eyes were closed; she +looked dead weary, but patient, as if this too were life, and not more +than her share. + +"Has your father any money, dear?" + +She smiled: "Do we look like people with money?" + +"If they would only let me have my hands!" he groaned. "To think of +shutting up a great strong fellow like me"-- + +It was useless to go on. He sat, bitterly forecasting the fortunes of +those two lambs who had strayed so far from the green pastures and still +waters, when he heard Phebe say softly, as if to herself,-- + +"We are almost there." + +Mr. Burke began to fold his newspapers and get his bags in order. His +hands rested upon the implements of his office--he carried them always +in his pockets--while he stood balancing himself in the rocking car, and +the porter dusted his hat and coat. + +The train dashed past the first scattered lights of the town. + +"Po-catello!" the brakeman roared in a voice of triumph, for they were +"in" at last. + +The porter came, and touched Ludovic on the shoulder. + +"Gen'leman says he's ready, sir." + +He rose and bent over Phebe. If she had been like any other girl he must +have kissed her, but he dared not. He had prayed for a sign, and he had +won it--that look of dumb and lasting anguish in her childlike eyes. + +Yet, strange passion of the man's nature, he was not sorry for what he +had done. + +Mr. Burke took his arm in silence, and steered him out of the car; both +doors were guarded, for he had feared there might be trouble. He was +surprised at Ludovic's behavior. + +"What's the matter with him?" the car-conductor asked, looking after the +pair as they walked up the platform together. "Is he sick?" + +"Mashed," said the porter, gloomily; for Ludovic had forgotten the +parting fee. "Regular girl mash, the worst I ever saw." + +"He's late about it, if he expects to have any fun," said the conductor; +and he began to dance, with his hands in his great-coat pockets, for the +night air was raw. He was at the end of his run, and was going home to +his own girl, whom he had married the week before. + + * * * * * + +Friends and family influence mustered strong for Ludovic at the trial +six weeks later. His lawyer's speech was the finest effort, it was said, +ever listened to by an Idaho jury. The ladies went to hear it, and to +look at the handsome prisoner, who seemed to grow visibly old as the +days of the trial went by. + +But those who are acquainted with the average Western jury need not be +told that it was not influence that did it, nor the lawyer's eloquence, +nor the court's fine-spun legal definitions, nor even the women's tears. +They looked at the boy, and thought of their own boys, or they looked +inside, and thought of themselves; and they concluded that society might +take its chances with that young man at large. They stayed out an hour, +out of respect to their oath, and then brought in a verdict of "Not +guilty;" and the audience had to be suppressed. + +But after the jury's verdict there is society, and all the tongues that +will talk, long after the tears are dry. And then comes God in the +silence--and Phebe. + + * * * * * + +The men all say she is too good for him, whose name has been in +everybody's mouth. They say it, even though they do not know the cruel +way in which he won her love. But the women say that Phebe, though +undeniably a saint (and "the sweetest thing that ever lived"), is yet a +woman, incapable of inflicting judgment upon the man she loves. + +The case is in her hands now. She may punish, she may avenge, if she +will; for Ludovic is the slave of his own remorseless conquest. But +Phebe has never discovered that she was wronged. There is something in +faith, after all; and there is a good deal in blood, Friend Underhill +thinks. "Doubtless the grandson of Martin Ludovic must have had great +provocation." + + + + +THE TRUMPETER + + +I + +When the trumpets at Bisuka barracks sound retreat, the girls in the +Meadows cottage, on the edge of the Reservation, begin to hurry with the +supper things, and Mrs. Meadows, who has been young herself, says to her +eldest daughter, "You go now, Callie; the girls and I can finish." Which +means that Callie's colors go up as the colors on the hill come down; +for soon the tidy infantrymen and the troopers with their yellow stripes +will be seen, in the first blush of the afterglow, tramping along the +paths that thread the sagebrush common between the barracks and the +town; and Callie's young man will be among them, and he will turn off at +the bridge that crosses the acequia, and make for the cottage gate by a +path which he ought to know pretty well by this time. + +Callie's young man is Henniker, one of the trumpeters of K troop, --th +cavalry; _the_ trumpeter, Callie would say, for though there are two of +the infantry and two of the cavalry who stand forth at sunset, in front +of the adjutant's office, and blow as one man the brazen call that +throbs against the hill, it is only Henniker whom Callie hears. That +trumpet blare, most masculine of all musical utterances, goes straight +from his big blue-clad chest to the heart of his girl, across the +clear-lit evening; but not to hers alone. There is only one Henniker, +but there is more than one girl in the cottage on the common. + +At this hour, nightly, a small dark head, not so high above the sage as +Callie's auburn one, pursues its dreaming way, in the wake of two cows +and a half-grown heifer, towards the hills where the town herd pastures. +Punctually at the first call it starts out behind the cows from the home +corral; by the second it has passed, very slowly, the foot-bridge, and +is nearly to the corner post of the Reservation; but when "sound off" is +heard, the slow-moving head stops still. The cheek turns. A listening +eye is raised; it is black, heavily lashed; the tip of a silken eyebrow +shows against the narrow temple. The cheek is round and young, of a +smooth clear brown, richly under-tinted with rose,--a native wild flower +of the Northwest. As the trumpets cease, and the gun fires, and the +brief echo dies in the hill, the liquid eyes grow sad. + +"Sweet, sweet! too sweet to be so short and so strong!" The dumb +childish heart swells in the constriction of a new and keener sense of +joy, an unspeakable new longing. + +What that note of the deep-colored summer twilight means to her she +hardly understands. It awakens no thought of expectation for herself, no +definite desire. She knows that the trumpeter's sunset call is his +good-by to duty on the eve of joy; it is the paean of his love for +Callie. Wonderful to be like Callie; who after all is just like any +other girl,--like herself, just as she was a year ago, before she had +ever spoken to Henniker. + +Henniker was not only a trumpeter, one of four who made music for the +small two-company garrison; he was an artist with a personality. The +others blew according to tactics, and sometimes made mistakes; Henniker +never made mistakes, except that he sometimes blew too well. Nobody with +an ear, listening nightly for taps, could mistake when it was Henniker's +turn, as orderly trumpeter, to sound the calls. He had the temperament +of the joyous art: and with it the vanity, the passion, the +forgetfulness, the unconscious cruelty, the love of beauty, and the love +of being loved that made him the flirt constitutional as well as the +flirt military,--which not all soldiers are, but which all soldiers are +accused of being. He flirted not only with his fine gait and figure, and +bold roving glances from under his cap-peak with the gold sabres crossed +above it; he flirted in a particular and personal as well as promiscuous +manner, and was ever new to the dangers he incurred, not to mention +those to which his willing victims exposed themselves. For up to this +time in all his life Henniker had never yet pursued a girl. There had +been no need, and as yet no inducement, for him to take the offensive. +The girls all felt his irresponsible gift of pleasing, and forgot to be +afraid. Not one of the class of girls he met but envied Callie Meadows, +and showed it by pretending to wonder what he could see in her. + +It was himself Henniker saw, so no wonder he was satisfied, until he +should see himself in a more flattering mirror still. The very first +night he met her, Callie had informed him, with the courage of her +bright eyes, that she thought him magnificent fun; and he had laughed in +his heart, and said, "Go ahead, my dear!" And ahead they went headlong, +and were engaged within a week. + +Mother Meadows did not like it much, but it was the youthful way, in +pastoral frontier circles like their own; and Callie would do as she +pleased,--that was Callie's way. Father Meadows said it was the women's +business; if Callie and her mother were satisfied, so was he. + +But he made inquiries at the post, and learned that Henniker's record +was good in a military sense. He stood well with his officers, had no +loose, unsoldierly habits, and never was drunk on duty. He did not save +his pay; but how much "pay" had Meadows ever saved when he was a single +man? And within two years, if he wanted it, the trumpeter was entitled +to his discharge. So he prospered in this as in former love affairs that +had stopped short of the conclusive step of marriage. + +Meta, the little cow-girl, the youngest and fairest, though many shades +the darkest, of the Meadows household, was not of the Meadows blood. On +her father's side, her ancestry, doubtless, was uncertain; some said +carelessly, "Canada French." Her mother was pure squaw of the Bannock +breed. But Mother Meadows, whose warm Scotch-Irish heart nourished a +vein of romance together with a feudal love of family, upheld that Meta +was no chance slip of the murky half-bloods, neither clean wild nor +clean tame. Her father, she claimed to know, had been a man of education +and of honor, on the white side of his life, a well-born Scottish +gentleman, exiled to the wilderness of the Northwest in the service of +the Hudson's Bay Company. And Meta's mother had broken no law of her +rudimentary conscience. She had not swerved in her own wild allegiance, +nor suffered desertion by her white chief. He had been killed in some +obscure frontier fight, and his goods, including the woman and child, +were the stake for which he had perished. But Father Josette, who knew +all things and all people of those parts, and had baptized the infant by +the sainted name of Margaret, had traced his lost plant of grace and +conveyed it out of the forest shades into the sunshine of a Christian +white woman's home. Father Josette--so Mrs. Meadows maintained--had +known that the babe would prove worthy of transplantation. + +She made room for the little black-headed stranger, with soft eyes like +a mouse (by the blessing of God she had never lost a child, and the nest +was full,) in the midst of her own fat, fair-haired brood, and cherished +her in her place, and gave her a daughter's privilege. + +In a wild, woodlandish way Meta was a bit of an heiress in her own +right. She had inherited through her mother a share in the yearly +increase of a band of Bannock ponies down on the Salmon meadows; and +every season, after grand round-up, the settlement was made,--always +with distinct fairness, though it took some time, and a good deal of +eating, drinking, and diplomacy, before the business could be +accomplished. + +"What is a matter of a field worth forty shekels betwixt thee and me?" +was the etiquette of the transaction, but the outcome was practically +the same as in the days of patriarchal transfers of real estate. + +Father Meadows would say that it cost him twice over what the maiden's +claim was worth to have her cousins the Bannocks, with their wives and +children and horses, camped on his borders every summer; for Meta's +dark-skinned brethren never sent her the worth of her share in money, +but came themselves with her ponies in the flesh, and spare ponies of +their own, for sale in the town; and on Father Meadows was the burden of +keeping them all good-natured, of satisfying their primitive ideas of +hospitality, and of pasturing Meta's ponies until they could finally be +sold for her benefit. No account was kept, in this simple, generous +household, of what was done for Meta, but strict account was kept of +what was Meta's own. + +The Bannock brethren were very proud of their fair kinswoman who dwelt +in the tents of Jacob. They called her, amongst themselves, by the name +they give to the mariposa lily, the closed bud of which is pure white as +the whitest garden lily; but as each Psyche-wing petal opens it is +mooned at the base with a dark, purplish stain which marks the flower +with startling beauty, yet to some eyes seems to mar it as well. With +every new bud the immaculate promise is renewed; but the leopard cannot +change his spots nor the wild hill lily her natal stain. + +This year the sale of pony flesh amounted to nearly a hundred dollars, +which Father Meadows put away for Meta's future benefit,--all but one +gold piece, which the mother showed her, telling her that it represented +a new dress. + +"You need a new white one for your best, and I shall have it made long. +You're filling out so, I don't believe you'll grow much taller." + +Meta smiled sedately. In spite of the yearly object lesson her dark +kinsfolk presented, she never classed herself among the hybrids. She +accepted homage and tribute from the tribe, but in her consciousness, at +this time, she was all white. This was due partly to Mother Meadows's +large-hearted and romantic theories of training, and partly to an +accident of heredity. The woman who looks the squaw is the squaw, when +it comes to the flowering time of her life. To Meta had succeeded the +temperament of her mother expressed in the features of her father; +whether Canadian trapper or Scotch grandee, he had owned an admirable +profile. + +A great social and musical event took place that summer in the town, and +Meta's first long dress was finished in time to play its part, as such +trifles will, in the simple fates of girlhood. It was by far the +prettiest dress she had ever put over her head: the work of a +professional, to begin with. Then its length persuaded one that she was +taller than nature had made her. Its short waist suited her youthful +bust and flat back and narrow shoulders. The sleeves were puffed and +stood out like wings, and were gathered on a ribbon which tied in a bow +just above the bend of her elbow. Her arms were round and soft as satin, +and pinkish-pale inside, like the palms of her small hands. All her +skin, though dark, was as clear as wine in a colored glass. The neck was +cut down in a circle below her throat, which she shyly clasped with her +hands, not being accustomed to feel it bare. And as naturally as a bird +would open its beak for a worm, she exclaimed to Mother Meadows, "Oh, +how I wish I had some beads!" And before night she had strung herself a +necklace of the gold-colored pom-pons with silver-gray stems that +spangle the dry hills in June,--"butter-balls" the Western children call +them,--and, in spite of the laughter and gibes of the other girls, she +wore her sylvan ornament on the gala night, and its amazing becomingness +was its best defense. + +So Meta's first long dress went, in company with three other unenvious +white dresses and Father Meadows's best coat, to hear the "Coonville +Minstrels," a company of amateur performers representing the best +musical talent in the town, who would appear "for one night only," for +the benefit of the free circulating library fund. + +Henniker was not in attendance on his girl as usual. + +"What a pity," the sisters said, "that he should have to be on guard +to-night!" But Meta remembered, though she did not say so, that +Henniker had been on guard only two nights before, so it could not be +his turn again, and that could not explain his absence. + +But Callie was as gay as ever, and did not seem put out, even at her +father's bantering insinuations about some other possible girl who might +be scoring in her place. + +The sisters were enraptured over every number on the programme. The +performers had endeavored to conceal their identity under burnt cork and +names that were fictitious and humorous, but everybody was comparing +guesses as to which was which, and who was who. The house was packed, +and "society" was there. The feminine half of it did not wear its best +frock to the show and its head uncovered, but what of that! A girl knows +when she is looking her prettiest, and the young Meadowses were in no +way concerned for the propriety of their own appearance. Father Meadows, +looking along the row of smiling faces belonging to him, was as well +satisfied as any man in the house. His eyes rested longer than usual on +little Meta to-night. He saw for the first time that the child was a +beauty; not going to be,--she was one then and there. Her hair, which +she was accustomed to wear in two tightly braided pigtails down her +back, had been released and brushed out all its stately maiden length, +"crisped like a war steed's encolure." It fell below her waist, and made +her face and throat look pale against its blackness. A spot of white +electric light touched her chest where it rose and fell beneath the +chain of golden blossom balls,--orange gold, the cavalry color. She +looked like no other girl in the house, though nearly every girl in town +was there. + +Part I. of the programme was finished; a brief wait,--the curtain rose, +and behold the colored gentlemen from Coonville had vanished. Only the +interlocutor remained, scratching his white wool wig over a letter which +he begged to read in apology for his predicament. His minstrelsy had +decamped, and spoilt his show. They wrote to inform him of the obvious +fact, and advised him facetiously to throw himself upon the indulgence +of the house, but "by no means to refund the money." + +Poor little Meta believed that she was listening to the deplorable +truth, and wondered how Father Meadows and the girls could laugh. + +"Oh, won't there be any second part, after all?" she despaired; at which +Father Meadows laughed still more, and pinched her cheek, and some +persons in the row of chairs in front half turned and smiled. + +"Goosey," whispered Callie, "don't you see he's only gassing? This is +part of the fun." + +"Oh, is it?" sighed Meta, and she waited for the secret of the fun to +develop. + +"Look at your programme," Callie instructed her. "See, this is the +Impressario's Predicament. The Wandering Minstrel comes next. He will be +splendid, I can tell you." + +"Mr. Piper Hide-and-Seek," murmured Meta, studying her programme. "What +a funny name!" + +"Oh, you child!" Callie laughed aloud, but as suddenly hushed, for the +sensation of the evening, to the Meadows party, had begun. + +A very handsome man, in the gala dress of a stage peasant, of the +Bavarian Highlands possibly, came forward with a short, military step, +and bowed impressively. There was a burst of applause from the bluecoats +in the gallery, and much whistling and stamping from the boys. + +"Who is it?" the lady in front whispered to her neighbor. + +"One of the soldiers from the post," was the answer. + +"Really!" + +But the lady's accent of surprise conveyed nothing, beside the +speechless admiration of the Meadows family. Callie, who had been in the +exciting secret all along, whispered violently with the other girls, but +Meta had become quite cold and shivery. She could not have uttered a +word. + +Henniker made a little speech in an assumed accent which astonished his +friends almost more than his theatrical dress and bearing. He said he +was a stranger, piping his way through a foreign land, but he could +"spik ze Engleesh a leetle." Would the ladies and gentlemen permit him, +in the embarrassing absence of better performers, to present them with a +specimen of his poor skill upon a very simple instrument? Behold! + +He flung back his short cloak, and filled his chest, standing lightly on +his feet, with his elbows raised. + +No rattling trumpet blast from the artist's lips to-night, but, still +and small, sustained and clear, the pure reed note trilled forth. Willow +whistles piping in spring-time in the stillness of deep meadow lands +before the grass is long, or in flickering wood paths before the full +leaves darken the boughs--such was the pastoral simplicity of the +instrument with which Henniker beguiled his audience. Such was the +quality of sound, but the ingenuity, caprice, delicacy, and precision of +its management were quite his own. They procured him a wild encore. + +Henniker had been nervous at the first time of playing; it would have +embarrassed him less to come before a strange house; for there were the +captain and the captain's lady, and the lieutenants with their best +girls; and forty men he knew were nudging and winking at one another; +and there were the bonny Meadowses, with their eyes upon him and their +faces all aglow. But who was she, the little big-eyed dark one in their +midst? He took her in more coolly as he came before the house the second +time; and this time he knew her, but not as he ever had known her +before. + +Is it one of nature's revenges that in the beauty of their women lurks +the venom of the dark races which the white man has put beneath his +feet? The bruised serpent has its sting; and we know how, from Moab and +Midian down, the daughters of the heathen have been the unhappy +instruments of proud Israel's fall; but the shaft of his punishment +reaches him through the body of the woman who cleaves to his breast. + +That one look of Henniker's at Meta, in her strange yet familiar beauty, +sitting captive to his spell, went through his flattered senses like the +intoxication of strong drink. He did not take his eyes off her again. +His face was pale with the complex excitement of a full house that was +all one girl and all hushed through joy of him. She sat so close to +Callie, his reckless glances might have been meant for either of them; +Callie thought at first they were for her, but she did not think so +long. + +Something followed on the programme at which everybody laughed, but it +meant nothing at all to Meta. She thought the supreme moment had come +and gone, when a big Zouave in his barbaric reds and blues marched out +and took his stand, back from the footlights, between the wings, and +began that amazing performance with a rifle which is known as the +"Zouave drill." + +The dress was less of a disguise than the minstrel's had been, and it +was a sterner, manlier transformation. It brought out the fighting look +in Henniker. The footlights were lowered, a smoke arose behind the +wings, strange lurid colors were cast upon the figure of the soldier +magician. + +"The stage is burning!" gasped Meta, clutching Collie's arm. + +"It's nothing but red fire. You mustn't give yourself away so, Meta; +folks will take us for a lot of sagebrushers." + +Meta settled back in her place with a fluttering sigh, and poured her +soul into this new wonder. + +But Henniker was not doing himself justice to-night, his comrades +thought. No one present was so critical of him or so proud of him as +they. A hundred times he had put himself through this drill before a +barrack audience, and it had seemed as if he could not make a break. But +to-night his nerve was not good. Once he actually dropped his piece, and +a groan escaped the row of uniforms in the gallery. This made him angry; +he pulled himself up and did some good work for a moment, and +then--"Great Scott! he's lost it again! No, he hasn't. Brace up, man!" +The rifle swerves, but Henniker's knee flies up to catch it; the sound +of the blow on the bone makes the women shiver; but he has his piece, +and sends it savagely whirling, and that miss was his last. His head was +like the centre of a spinning top or the hub of a flying wheel. He felt +ugly from the pain of his knee, but he made a dogged finish, and only +those who had seen him at his best would have said that his drill was a +failure. + +Henniker knew, if no one else did, what had lost him his grip in the +rifle act. His eyes, which should have been glued to his work, had been +straying for another and yet one more look at Meta. Where she sat so +still was the storm centre of emotion in the house, and when his eyes +approached her they caught the nerve shock that shook his whole system +and spoiled his fine work. He cared nothing for the success of his +piping when he thought of the failure of his drill. The failure had come +last, and, with other things, it left its sting. + +On the way home to barracks, the boys were all talking, in their free +way, about Meta Meadows,--the little broncho, they called her, in +allusion to her great mane of hair,--which made Henniker very hot. + +He would not own that his knee pained him; he would not have it referred +to, and was ready, next day, to join the riders in squad drill, a new +feature of which was the hurdles and ditch-jumping and the mounted +exercises, in which as usual, Henniker had distinguished himself. + +The Reservation is bounded on the south-east side, next the town, by an +irrigation ditch, which is crossed by as many little bridges as there +are streets that open out upon the common. (All this part of the town is +laid out in "additions," and is sparsely built up.) Close to this +division line, at right angles with it, are the dry ditches and hurdle +embankments over which the stern young corporals put their squads, under +the eye of the captain. + +Out in the centre of the plain other squads are engaged in the athletics +of horsemanship,--a series of problems in action which embraces every +sort of emergency a mounted man may encounter in the rush and throng of +battle, and the means of instantly meeting it, and of saving his own +life or that of a comrade. So much more is made in these days of the +individual powers of the man and horse that it is wonderful to see what +an exact yet intelligently obedient combination they have become; no +less effective in a charge, as so many pounds of live momentum to be +hurled on the bayonet points, but much more self-reliant on scout +service, or when scattered singly, in defeat, over a wide, strange field +of danger. + +On the regular afternoons for squad and troop drill, the ditch bank on +the town side would be lined with spectators: ladies in light cotton +dresses and beflowered hats, small bare-legged boys and muddy dogs, the +small boys' sisters dragging bonnetless babies by the hand, and +sometimes a tired mother who has come in a hurry to see where her little +truants have strayed to, or a cow-boy lounging sideways on his peaked +saddle, condescending to look on at the riding of Uncle Sam's boys. The +crowd assorts itself as the people do who line the barriers at a +bull-fight: those who have parasols, to the shadow; those who have +barely a hat, to the sun. + +Here, on the field of the gray-green plain, under the glaring tent roof +of the desert sky, the national free circus goes on,--to the screaming +delight of the small boys, the fear and exultation of the ladies, and +the alternate pride and disgust of the officers who have it in charge. + +A squad of the boldest riders are jumping, six in line. One can see by +the way they come that every man will go over: first the small ditch, +hardly a check in the pace; then a rush at the hurdle embankment, the +horses' heads very grand and Greek as they rear in a broken line to take +it. Their faces are as strong and wild as the faces of the men. Their +flanks are slippery with sweat. They clear the hurdles, and stretch out +for the wide ditch. + +"Keep in line! Don't crowd!" the corporal shouts. They are doing well, +he thinks. Over they all go; and the ladies breathe again, and say to +each other how much finer this sport is because it is work, and has a +purpose in it. + +Now the guidon comes, riding alone, and the whole troop is proud of him. +The signal flag flashes erect from the trooper's stirrup; the horse is +new to it, and fears it as if it were something pursuing him; but in the +face of horse and man is the same fixed expression, the sober +recklessness that goes straight to the finish. If these do not go over, +it will not be for want of the spur in the blood. + +Next comes a pale young cavalryman just out of the hospital. He has had +a fall at the hurdle week before and strained his back. His captain sees +that he is nervous and not yet fit for the work, yet cannot spare him +openly. He invents an order, and sends him off to another part of the +field where the other squads are manoeuvring. + +If it is not in the man to go over, it will not be in his horse, though +a poor horse may put a good rider to shame; but the measure of every man +and every horse is taken by those who have watched them day by day. + +The ladies are much concerned for the man who fails,--"so sorry" they +are for him, as his horse blunders over the hurdle, and slackens when he +ought to go free; and of course he jibs at the wide ditch, and the rider +saws on his mouth. + +"Give him his head! Where are your spurs, man?" the corporal shouts, and +adds something under his breath which cannot be said in the presence of +his captain. In they go, floundering, on their knees and noses, horse +and man, and the ladies cannot see, for the dust, which of them is on +top; but they come to the surface panting, and the man, whose uniform is +of the color of the ditch, climbs on again, and the corporal's disgust +is heard in his voice as he calls, "Ne-aaxt!" + +It need not be said that no corporal ever asked Henniker where were +_his_ spurs. To-day the fret in his temper fretted his horse, a young, +nervous animal who did not need to know where his rider's heels were +quite so often as Henniker's informed him. + +"Is that a non-commissioned officer who is off, and his horse scouring +away over the plain? What a dire mortification," the ladies say, "and +what a consolation to the bunglers!" + +No, it is the trumpeter. He was taking the hurdle in a rush of the whole +squad; his check-strap broke, and his horse went wild, and slammed +himself into another man's horse, and ground his rider's knee against +his comrade's carbine. It is Henniker who is down in the dust, cursing +the carbine, and cursing his knee, and cursing the mischief generally. + +The ladies strolled home through the heat, and said how glorious it was +and how awfully real, and how one man got badly hurt; and they described +in detail the sight of Henniker limping bareheaded in the sun, holding +on to a comrade's shoulder; how his face was a "ghastly brown white," +and his eyes were bloodshot, and his black head dun with dust. + +"It was the trumpeter who blew so beautifully the other night,--who hurt +his knee in the rifle drill," they said. "It was his knee that was hurt +to-day. I wonder if it was the same knee?" + +It was the same knee, and this time Henniker went to hospital and stayed +there; and being no malingerer, his confinement was bitterly irksome and +a hurt to his physical pride. + +The post surgeon's house is the last one on the line. Then comes the +hospital, but lower down the hill. The officer's walk reaches it by a +pair of steps that end in a slope of grass. There are moisture and shade +where the hospital stands, and a clump of box-elder trees is a boon to +the convalescents there. The road between barracks and canteen passes +the angle of the whitewashed fence; a wild syringa bush grows on the +hospital side, and thrusts its blossoms over the wall. There is a broken +board in the fence which the syringa partly hides. + +After three o'clock in the afternoon this is the coolest corner of the +hospital grounds; and here, on the grass, Henniker was lying, one day of +the second week of his confinement. + +He had been half asleep when a soft, light thump on the grass aroused +him. A stray kitten had crawled through the hole in the fence, and, +feeling her way down with her forepaws, had leaped to the ground beside +him. + +"Hey, pussy!" Henniker welcomed her pleasantly, and then was silent. A +hand had followed the kitten through the hole in the fence,--a smooth +brown hand no bigger than a child's, but perfect in shape as a woman's. +The small fingers moved and curled enticingly. + +"Pussy, pussy? Come, pussy!" a soft voice cooed. "Puss, puss, puss? +Come, pussy!" The fingers groped about in empty air. "Where are you, +pussy?" + +Henniker had quietly possessed himself of the kitten, which, moved by +these siren tones, began to squirm a little and meekly to "miew." He +reached forth his hand and took the small questing one prisoner; then he +let the kitten go. There was a brief speechless struggle, quite a +useless one. + +"Let me go! Who is it? Oh _dear_!" + +Another pull. Plainly, from the tone, this last was feminine profanity. + +Silence again, the hand struggling persistently, but in vain. The soft +bare arm, working against the fence, became an angry red. + +"Softly now. It's only me. Didn't you know I was in hospital, Meta?" + +"Is it you, Henniker?" + +"Indeed it is. You wouldn't begrudge me a small shake of your hand, +after all these days?" + +"But you are not in hospital now?" + +"That's what I am. I'm not in bed, but I'm going on three legs when I'm +going at all. I'm a house-bound man." A heavy sigh from Henniker. + +"Haven't you shaken hands enough now, Henniker?" beseechingly from the +other side. "I only wanted kitty; please put her through the fence." + +"What's your hurry?" + +"Have you got her there? Callie left her with me. I mustn't lose her. +Please?" + +"Has Callie gone away?" + +"Why, yes, didn't you know? She has gone to stay with Tim's wife." (Tim +Meadows was the eldest, the married son of the family.) "She has a +little baby, and they can't get any help, and father wouldn't let +mother go down because it's bad for her to be over a cook stove, you +know." + +"Yes, I know the old lady feels the heat." + +"We are quite busy at the house. I came of an errand to the +quartermaster-sergeant's, and kitty followed me, and the children chased +her. I must go home now," urged Meta. "Really, I did not think you would +be so foolish, Henniker. I can't see what fun there is in this!" + +"Yes, but Meta, I've made a discovery,--here in your hand." + +"In my hand? What is it? Let me see." A violent determined pull, and a +sound like a smothered explosion of laughter from Henniker. + +"Softly, softly now. You'll hurt yourself, my dear." + +"Is my hand dirty? It was the kitten, then; her paws were all over +sand." + +"Oh, no. Great sign! It's worse than that. It'll not come off." + +"I _will_ see what it is!" + +"But you can't see unless I was to tell you. I'm a hand reader, did you +know it? I can tell your fortune by the lines on your palm. I'm reading +them off here just like a book." + +"Good gracious! what do you see?" + +"Why, it's a most extraordinary thing! Your head line is that mixed up +with your heart line, 'pon me word I can't tell which is which. Which is +it, Meta? Do you choose your friends with your head entirely, or is it +the other way with you, dear?" + +"Oh, is that all? I thought you could tell fortunes really. I don't care +what I _am_; I want to know what I'm going to _do_. Don't you see +anything that's going to happen to me?" + +"Lots of things. I see something that's going to happen to you right +now. I wonder did it ever happen to you before?" + +"What is it? When is it coming?" + +"It has come. I will put it right here in your hand. But I shall want it +back again, remember; and don't be giving it away, now, to anybody +else." + +A mysterious pause. Meta felt a breath upon her wrist, and a kiss from a +mustached lip was pressed into the hollow of her hand. + +"Keep that till I ask you for it," said Henniker quite sternly, and +closed her hand tight with his own. The hand became an expressive little +fist. + +"I think you are just as mean and silly as you can be! I'll never +believe a word you say again." + +"Pussy," remarked Henniker, in a mournful aside, "go ask your mistress +will she please forgive me. Tell her I'm not exactly sorry, but I +couldn't help it. Faith, I couldn't." + +"I'm not her mistress," said Meta. + +It was a keen reminder, but Henniker did not seem to feel it much. + +"Go tell Meta," he corrected. "Ask her please to forgive me, and I'll +take it back,--the kiss, I mean." + +"I'm going now," said Meta. "Keep the kitten, if you want her. She isn't +mine, anyway." + +But now the kitten was softly crowded through the fence by Henniker, and +Meta, relenting, gathered her into her arms and carried her home. + +It was certainly not his absence from Callie's side that put Henniker in +such a bad humor with his confinement. He grew morbid, and fell into +treacherous dreaming, and wondered jealously about the other boys, and +what they were doing with themselves these summer evenings, while he was +loafing on crutches under the hospital trees. He was frankly pining for +his freedom before Callie should return. He wanted a few evenings which +he need not account for to anybody but himself; and he got his freedom, +unhappily, in time to do the mischief of his dream,--to put vain, +selfish longings into the simple heart of Meta, and to spoil his own +conscience toward his promised wife. + +Henniker knew the ways of the Meadows cottage as well as if he had been +one of the family. He knew that Meta, having less skill about the house +than the older girls, took the part of chore-boy, and fetched and drove +away the cows. + +It were simple enough to cross her evening track through the pale +sagebrush, which betrayed every bit of contrasting color, the colors of +Meta's hair-ribbon and her evening frock; it were simple enough, had she +been willing to meet him. But Meta had lost confidence in the hero of +the household. She had seen Henniker in a new light; and whatever her +heart line said, her head line told her that she had best keep a good +breadth of sagebrush between herself and that particular pair of broad +blue shoulders that moved so fast above it. So as Henniker advanced the +girl retreated, obscurely, with shy doublings and turnings, carefully +managed not to reveal that she was running away; for that might vex +Henniker, and she was still too loyal to the family bond to wish to show +her sister's lover an open discourtesy. She did not dream of the +possibility of his becoming her own lover, but she thought him capable +of going great lengths in his very peculiar method of teasing. + +As soon as he understood her tactics Henniker changed his own. Without +another glance in her direction he made off for the hills, but not too +far from the trail the cows were taking; and choosing a secluded spot, +behind a thick-set clump of sage, he took out his rustic pipe and +waited, and when he saw her he began to play. + +Meta's heart jumped at the first note. She stole along, drinking in the +sounds, no one molesting or making her afraid. Ahead of her, as she +climbed, the first range of hills cast a glowing reflection in her +face; but the hills beyond were darker, cooler, and the blue-black pines +stood out against the sky-like trees of a far cloud-country cut off by +some aerial gulf from the most venturesome of living feet. + +Henniker saw the girl coming, her face alight in the primrose glow, and +he threw away all moments but the present. His breath stopped; then he +took a deep inspiration, laid his lips to the pipe, and played, softly, +subtly, as one who thinks himself alone. + +She had discovered him, but she could not drag herself very far away +from those sounds. At last she sat down upon the ground, and gave +herself up to listening. A springy sagebush supported her as she let +herself sink back; one arm was behind her head, to protect it from the +prickly shoots. + +"Meta," said Henniker, "are you listening? I'm talking to you now." + +It was all the same: his voice was like another phrase of music. He went +on playing, and Meta did not stir. + +Another pause. "Are you there still, Meta? I was lonesome to-night, but +you ran away from me. Was that friendly? You like my music; then why +don't you like me? Well, here's for you again, ungrateful!" He went on +playing. + +The cows were wandering wide of the trail, towards the upper valley. +Meta began to feel herself constrained, and not in the direction of her +duty. She rose, cast her long braids over her shoulder, and moved +resolutely away. + +Henniker was absorbed in what he was saying to her with his pipe. When +he had made a most seductive finish he paused, and spoke. He rose and +looked about him. Meta was a long way off, down the valley, walking +fast. He bounded after her, and caught her rudely around the waist. + +"See here, little girl, I won't be made game of like this! I was playing +to you, and you ran off and left me tooting like a fool. Was that +right?" + +"I had to go; it is getting late. The music was too sweet. It made me +feel like I could cry." She lifted her long-lashed eyes swimming in +liquid brightness. Henniker caught her hand in his. + +"I was playing to you, Meta, as I play to no one else. Does a person +steal away and leave another person discoursin' to the empty air? I +didn't think you would want to make a fool of me." + +Meta drew away her hand and pressed it in silence on her heart. No woman +of Anglo-Saxon blood, without a vast amount of training, could have said +so much and said it so naturally with a gesture so hackneyed. + +Henniker looked at her from under his eyebrows, biting his mustache. He +took a few steps away from her, and then came back. + +"Meta," he said, in a different voice, "what was that thing you wore +around your neck, the other night, at the minstrels,--that filigree gold +thing, eh?" + +The girl looked up, astonished; then her eyes fell, and she colored +angrily. No Indian or dog could hate to be laughed at more than Meta; +and she had been so teased about her innocent make-believe necklace! Had +the girls been spreading the joke? She had suddenly outgrown the +childish good faith that had made it possible for her to deck herself in +it, and she wished never to hear the thing mentioned again. She hung +her head and would not speak. + +Henniker's suspicions were characteristic. Of course a girl like that +must have a lover. Her face confessed that he had touched upon a tender +spot. + +"It was a pretty thing," he said coldly. "I wonder if I could get one +like it for Callie?" + +"I don't think Callie would wear one even if you gave it to her," Meta +answered with spirit. + +"I say, won't you tell me which of the boys it is, Meta?--Won't I wear +the life out of him, just!" he added to himself. + +"Is what?" + +"Your best fellah; the one who gave you that." + +"There isn't any. It was nothing. I won't tell you what it was! I made +it myself, there! It was only 'butter-balls.'" + +"Oh, good Lord!" laughed Henniker. + +Meta thought he was laughing at her. It was too much! The sweetness of +his music was all jangled in her nerves. Tears would come, and then more +tears because of the first. + +Had Meta been the child of her father, she might have been sitting that +night in one of the vine-shaded porches of the houses on the line, with +a brace of young lieutenants at her feet, and in her wildest follies +with them she would have been protected by all the traditions and +safeguards of her class. As she was the child of her mother, instead, +she was out on the hills with Henniker. And how should the squaw's +daughter know the difference between protection and pursuit? + +When Henniker put his arm around her and kissed the tears from her eyes, +she would not have changed places with the proudest lady of the +line,--captain's wife, lieutenant's sweetheart, or colonel's daughter of +them all. Her chief, who blew the trumpet, was as great a man in Meta's +eyes as the officer who buckled on his sabre in obedience to the call. + +As for Henniker, no girl's head against his breast had ever looked so +womanly dear as Meta's; no shut eyelids that he had ever kissed had +covered such wild, sweet eyes. He did not think of her at all in words, +any more than of the twilight afterglow in which they parted, with its +peculiar intensity, its pang of color. He simply felt her; and it was +nearest to the poetic passion of any emotion that he had ever known. + +That night Meta deceived her foster-mother, and lying awake beside +Callie's empty cot, in the room which the two girls shared together, she +treacherously prayed that it might be long before her sister's return. +The wild white lily had opened, and behold the stain! + +It had been a hard summer for Tim Meadows's family,--the second summer +on a sagebrush ranch, their small capital all in the ground, the first +hay crop ungathered, and the men to board as well as to pay. The +boarding was Mrs. Tim's part; yet many a young wife would have thought +that she had enough to do with her own family to cook and wash for, and +her first baby to take care of. + +"You'll get along all right," the older mothers encouraged her. "A +summer baby is no trouble at all." + +No trouble when the trouble is twenty years behind us, among the joys of +the past. But Tim's wife was wondering if she could hold out till cool +weather came, when the rush of the farm work would be over, and her +"summer baby" would be in short clothes and able to sit alone. The heat +in their four-roomed cabin, in the midst of the treeless land, was an +ordeal alone. To sleep in the house was impossible; the rooms and the +windows were too small to admit enough air. They moved their beds +outside, and slept like tramps under the stars; and the broad light +awoke them at earliest dawn, and the baby would never sleep till after +ten at night, when the dry Plains wind began to fan the face of the +weary land. Even Callie, whose part in the work was subsidiary, lost +flesh, and the roses in her cheeks turned sallow, in the month she +stayed on the ranch; but she would have been ashamed to complain, though +she was heartsick for a word from Henniker. He had written to her only +once. + +It was Mrs. Meadows who thought it high time that Callie should come +home. She had found a good woman to take her daughter's place, and +arranged the matter of pay herself. Tim had said they could get no help, +but his mother knew what that meant; such help as they could afford to +pay for was worse than none. + +It seemed a poor return to Callie, for her sisterly service in the +valley, to come home and find her lover a changed man. Mrs. Meadows said +he was like all the soldiers she had ever known,--light come, light go. +But this did not comfort Callie much, nor more to be reminded what a +good thing it was she had found him out in time. + +Henniker was not scoundrel enough to make love to two girls at once, two +semi-sisters, who slept in the same room and watched each other's +movements in the same looking-glass. It was no use pretending that he +and Callie could "heat their broth over again;" so the coolness came +speedily to a breach, and Henniker no longer openly, in fair daylight, +took the path to the cottage gate. But there were other paths. + +He had found a way to talk to Meta with his trumpet. He sent her +messages at guard-mounting, as the guard was forming, when, as senior +trumpeter, he was allowed a choice in the airs he played; and when he +was orderly trumpeter, and could not come himself to say it, he sent +her his good-night in the plaintive notes of taps. + +This was the climax of Henniker's flirtations: all that went before had +been as nothing, all that came after was not much worse than nothing. It +was the one sincere as it was the one poetic passion of his life; and +had it not cost him his self-respect through his baseness to Callie, and +the treachery and dissimulation he was teaching to an innocent child, it +might have made him a faithful man. As it was, his soldier's honor +slept; it was the undisciplined part of him that spoke to the elemental +nature of the girl; and it was fit that a trumpet's reckless summons, or +its brief inarticulate call, like the note of a wild bird to its mate, +should be the language of his love. + + * * * * * + +Retreat had sounded, one evening in October, but it made no stir any +more in the cottage where the girls had been so gay. Callie, putting the +tea on the table, remembered, as she heard the gun fire, how in the the +spring Henniker had said that when "sound off" was at six he would drop +in to supper some night, and show her how to make _chili con carne_, a +dish that every soldier knows who has served on the Mexican border. Her +face grew hard, for these foolish, unsleeping reminders were as constant +as the bugle calls. + +The women waited for the head of the house; but as he did not come, they +sat down and ate quickly, saving the best dish hot for him. + +They had finished, and the room was growing dusk, when he came in +breezily, and called at once, as a man will, for a light. Meta rose to +fetch it. The door stood open between the fore-room and the kitchen, +where she was groping for a lamp. Mr. Meadows spoke in a voice too big +for the room. He had just been conversing across the common with the +quartermaster-sergeant, as the two men's footsteps diverged by separate +paths to their homes. + +"I hear there's going to be a change at the post;" he shouted. "The --th +is going to leave this department, and C troop of the Second is coming +from Custer. Sergeant says they are looking for orders any day now." + +Mrs. Meadows, before she thought, glanced at Callie. The girl winced, +for she hated to be looked at like that. She held up her head and began +to sing audaciously, drumming with her fingers on the table:-- + + "'When my mother comes to know + That I love the soldiers so, + She will lock me up all day, + Till the soldiers march away.'" + +"What sort of a song is that?" asked her father sharply. + +Callie looked him in the eyes. "Don't you know that tune?" said she. +"Henniker plays that at guard-mount; and sometimes he plays this:-- + + 'Oh, whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad, + Though father and mither and a' should go mad.'" + +"Let him play what he likes," said the father angrily. "His saucy jig +tunes are nothing to us. I'm thankful no girl of mine is following after +the army. It's a hard life for a woman, I can tell you, in the ranks." + +Callie pushed her chair back, and looked out of the window as if she had +not heard. + +"Where's Meta with that lamp? Go and see what's keeping her." + +"Sit still," said Mrs. Meadows. She went herself into the kitchen, but +no one heard her speak a word; yet the kitchen was not empty. + +There was a calico-covered lounge that stood across the end of the room; +Meta sat there, quite still, her back against the wall. Mrs. Meadows +took one look at her; then she lighted the lamp and carried it into the +dining-room, and went back and shut herself in with Meta. + + "'When my mother comes to know,'" + +hummed Callie. Her face was pale. She hardly knew that she was singing. + +"Stop that song!" her father shouted. "Go and see what's the matter with +your sister." + +"Sister?" repeated Callie. "Meta is no sister of mine." + +"She's your tent-mate, then. Ye grew nest-ripe under the same mother's +wing." + +"Meta can use her own wings now, you will find. She grew nest-ripe very +young." + +Father Meadows knew that there was trouble inside of that closed door, +as there was trouble inside the white lips and shut heart of his frank +and joyous Callie, but it was "the women's business." He went out to +attend to his own. + +Irrigation on the scale of a small cottage garden is tedious work. It +has intervals of silence and leaning on a hoe while one little channel +fills or trickles into the next one; and the water must be stopped out +here, and floated longer there, like the bath over the surface of an +etcher's plate. Water was scarce and the rates were high that summer, +and there was a good deal of "dry-point" work with a hoe in Father +Meadows's garden. + +He had come to one of the discouraging places where the ground was +higher than the water could be made to reach without a deal of propping +and damming with shovelfuls of earth. This spot was close to the window +of the kitchen chamber, which was "mother's room." She was in there +talking to Meta. Her voice was deep with the maternal note of +remonstrance; Meta's was sharp and high with excitement and resistance. +Her faintness had passed, but Mother Meadows had been inquiring into +causes. + +"I am married to him, mother! He is my husband as much as he can be." + +"It was never Father Magrath married you, or I should be knowing to it +before now." + +"No; we went before a judge, or a justice, in the town." + +"In town! Well, that is something; but be sure there is a wrong or a +folly somewhere when a man takes a young girl out of her home and out of +her church to be married. If Henniker had taken you 'soberly, in the +fear of God'"-- + +"He _was_ sober!" cried Meta. "I never saw him any other way." + +"Mercy on us! I was not thinking of the man's habits. He's too good to +have done the way he has. That's what I have against him. I don't know +what I shall say to Father Josette. The disgrace of this is on me, too, +for not looking after my house better. 'Never let her be humbled through +her not being all white,' the father said when he brought you to me, and +God knows I never forgot that your little heart was white. I trusted you +as I would one of my own, and was easier on you for fear of a mother's +natural bias toward her own flesh and blood; and now to think that you +would lie to me, and take a man in secret that had deceived your sister +before you,--as if nothing mattered so that you got what you wanted! And +down in the town, without the priest's blessing or a kiss from any of us +belonging to you! It's one way to get married, but it's not the right +way." + +"Did no white girl ever do as I have?" asked Meta, with a touch of +sullenness. + +"Plenty of them, but they didn't make their mothers happy." + +Meta stirred restively on the bed. "Will Father Magrath have to talk to +me, and Father Josette, and _all_ the fathers?" she inquired. "He said +he never would have married Callie anyway,--not even if he couldn't +have had me." + +"And the more shame to him to say such a thing to one sister of another! +Callie is much the best off of you two." Mrs. Meadows rose and moved +heavily away from the bed. "Well," she said, "most marriages are just +one couple more. It's very little of a sacrament there is about the +common run of such things, but I hoped for something better when it came +to my girls' turn. However, sorrow is the sacrament God sends us, to +give us a chance to learn a little something before we die. I expect +you'll learn your lesson." + +She came back to the bed, and Meta moaned as she sat down again, to +signify that she had been talked to enough. But the mother had something +practical to say, though she could not say it without emotional +emphasis, for her outraged feelings were like a flood that has come +down, but has not yet subsided. + +"If there's any way for you to go with Henniker when the troop goes, +it's with him you ought to be; but if he has married without his +captain's consent, he'll get no help at barracks. Do you know how that +is, Meta?" + +Meta shook her head; but presently she forced herself to speak the +truth. She did know that Henniker had told no one at the post of his +marriage. She had never asked him why, nor had thought that it mattered. + +"Oh my! I was afraid of that," said Mrs. Meadows. "The colonel knows it +was Callie he was engaged to. Father went up to see him about Henniker, +and the colonel as good as gave his word for him that he was a man we +could have in the family. A commanding officer doesn't like such +goings-on with respectable neighbors." + +Mrs. Meadows possibly overestimated the post commandant's interest in +these matters, but she had gratefully remembered his civility to her +husband when he went to make fatherly inquiries. The colonel was a +father himself, and had seemed to appreciate their anxiety about +Callie's choice. It was just as well that Meta should know that none of +the constituted authorities were on the side of her lover's defection. + +Meta said nothing to all this. It did not touch her, only as it bore on +the one question, Was Henniker going to leave her behind him? + +"How long is it since you have seen him, that he hasn't told you this +news himself?" asked the mother. + +"Last night; but perhaps he did not know." + +Henniker had known, as Mrs. Meadows supposed, but having to shift for +himself in the matter of transportation for the wife he had never +acknowledged, and seeing no way of providing for her without +considerable inconvenience to himself, he had put off the pain of +breaking to her the parting that must come. In their later consultations +Meta had mentioned her "pony money," as she called it, and Henniker had +privately welcomed the existence of such a fund. It lightened the +pressure of his own responsibility in the future, in case--but he did +not formulate his doubts. There are more uncertainties than anything +else, except hard work, in the life of an enlisted man. + +Father Meadows purposely would not speak of Meta's resources. He felt +that Henniker had not earned his confidence in this or any other respect +where his girls were concerned. Till Meta should come of age,--she was +barely sixteen,--or until it could be known what sort of a husband she +had got in Henniker, her bit of money was safest in her guardian's +hands. + +So the orders came, and the transfer of troops was made; and now it was +the trumpeter of C troop that sounded the calls, and Henniker's bold +messages at guard-mounting and his tender good-night at taps called no +more across the plain. The summer lilies were all dead on the hills, and +the common was white with snow. But something in Meta's heart said,-- + + "'Weep no more! Oh, weep no more! + Young buds sleep in the root's white core.'" + +And she dried her eyes. The mother was very gentle with her; and Callie, +hard-eyed, saying nothing, watched her, and did her little cruel +kindnesses that cut to the quick of her soreness and her pride. + +When the Bannock brethren came, late in September, the next year, she +walked the sagebrush paths to their encampment with her young son in her +arms. They looked at the boy and said that it was good; but when they +asked after the father, and Meta told them that he had gone with his +troop to Fort Custer, and that she waited for word to join him, they +said it was not good, and they turned away their eyes in silence from +her shame. The men did, but the women looked at her in a silence that +said different things. Her heart went out to them, and their dumb soft +glances brought healing to her wounds. What sorrow, what humiliation, +was hers that they from all time had not known? The men took little +notice of her after that: she had lost caste both as maid and wife; she +was nothing now but a means of existence to her son. But between her +and her dark sisters the natural bond grew strong. Old lessons that had +lain dormant in her blood revived with the force of her keener +intelligence, and supplanted later teachings that were of no use now +except to make her suffer more. + +It was impossible that Mother Meadows should not resent the wrong and +insult to her own child; she felt it increasingly as she came to realize +the girl's unhappiness. It grew upon her, and she could not feel the +same towards Meta, who kept herself more and more proudly and silently +aloof. She was one alone in the house, where no one spoke of the past to +reproach her, where nothing but kindness was ever shown. The kindness +was like the hand of pardon held out to her. Why did they think she +wanted their forgiveness? She was not sorry for what she had done. She +wanted nothing, only Henniker. So she crept away with her child and sat +among the Bannock women, and was at peace with them whom she had never +injured; who beheld her unhappiness, but did not call it her shame. + +When she walked the paths across the common, her eyes were always on the +skyward range of hills that appeared to her farther away than +ever,--beyond a wider gulf, now that their tops were white, and the +clouds came low enough to hide them. Often yellow gleams shot out +beneath the clouds and turned the valleys green. It seemed to her that +Henniker was there; he was in the cold, bright north, and the trumpets +called her, but she could not go, for the way was very long. Such words +as these she would sometimes whisper to her dark sisters by the +camp-fire, and once they said to her, "Get strong and go; we will show +you the way." + + * * * * * + +Henniker was taking life as it comes to an enlisted man in barracks. He +thought of Meta many times, and of his boy, very tenderly and +shamefully; and if he could have whistled them to him, or if a wind of +luck could have blown them thither, he would have embraced them with +joy, and shared with them all that he had. There was the difficulty. He +had so little besides the very well fitting clothes on his back. His pay +seemed to melt away, month by month, and where it went to the mischief +only knew. Canteen got a good deal of it. Henniker was one of the +popular men in barracks, with his physical expertness, his piping and +singing and story-telling, and his high good humor at all times with +himself and everybody else. He did not drink much, except in the way of +comradeship, but he did a good deal of that. He was a model trumpeter, +and a very ornamental fellow when he rode behind his captain on +full-dress inspection, more bedight than the captain himself with gold +cords and tags and bullion; but he was not a domestic man, and the only +person in the world who might perhaps have made him one was a very +helpless, ignorant little person, and--she was not there. + +It was a bad season for selling ponies. The Indians had arrived late +with a larger band than usual, which partly represented an unwise +investment they had made on the strength of their good fortune the year +before. Certain big ditch enterprises had been starting then, creating a +brisk demand for horses at prices unusual, especially in the latter end +of summer. This year the big ditch had closed down, and was selling its +own horses, or turning them out upon the range, and unbroken Indian +ponies could hardly be given away. + +The disappointment of the Bannocks was very great, and their +comprehension of causes very slow. It took some time for them to satisfy +themselves that Father Meadows was telling them a straight tale. It took +still more time for consultations as to what should now be done with +their unsalable stock. The middle of October was near, and the grumbling +chiefs finally decided to accept their loss and go hunting. The squaws +and children were ordered home to the Reservation by rail, as wards of +the nation travel, to get permission of the agent for the hunt, and the +men, with ponies, were to ride overland and meet the women at Eagle +Rock. + +Thus Meta learned how an Indian woman may pass unchallenged from one +part of the country to another, clothed in the freedom of her poverty. +In this way the nation acknowledges a part of its ancient indebtedness +to her people. No word had come from Henniker, though he had said that +he should get his discharge in October. Meta's resolve was taken. The +Bannock women encouraged her, and she saw how simple it would be to copy +their dress and slip away with them as far as their roads lay together; +and thence, having gained practice in her part and become accustomed to +its disguises, to go on alone to Custer, where her chief, her beautiful +trumpeter, was sounding his last calls. She was wise in this +resolution--to see her husband, at whatever cost, before the time of his +freedom should come; but she was late in carrying it out. + +Long before, she had turned over fruitlessly in her mind every means of +getting money for this journey besides the obvious way of asking Father +Meadows for her own. She had guessed that her friends were suspicious of +Henniker's good faith, and believed that if they should come to know of +her intention of running away to follow him they would prevent her for +her own good,--which was quite the case. + +That was the point Father Meadows made with his wife, when she argued +that Meta, being a married woman now, ought to learn the purchasing +power of money and its limitations by experimenting with a little of her +own. + +"We shall do wrong if we keep her a child now," she said. + +"But if she has money, she'll lay it by till she gets enough to slip off +to her soldier with. There's that much Injun about her; she'll follow to +heel like a dog." + +Father Meadows could not have spoken in this way of Meta a year ago. She +had lost caste with him, also. + +"Don't, father," the mother said, with a hurt look. "She'll not follow +far with ten dollars in her pocket; but that much I want to try her +with. She's like a child about shopping. She'll take anything at all, if +it looks right and the man persuades her. And those Jew clerks will +charge whatever they think they can get." + +Mrs. Meadows had her way, and the trial sum was given to Meta one day, +and the next day she and the child were missing. + +At dusk, that evening, a group of Bannock squaws, more or less +encumbered with packs, and children, climbed upon one of the flat cars +of a freight train bound for Pocatello. The engine steamed out of the +station, and down the valley, and away upon the autumn plains. The next +morning the Bannocks broke camp, and vanished before the hoar frost had +melted from the sage. Their leave-taking had been sullen, and their +answers to questions about Meta, with which Father Meadows had routed +them out in the night, had been so unsatisfactory that he took the first +train to the Fort Hall Agency. There he waited for the party of squaws +from Bisuka; but when they came, Meta was not with them. They knew +nothing of her, they said; even the agent was deceived by their +counterfeit ignorance. They could tell nothing, and were allowed to join +their men at Eagle Rock, to go hunting into the wild country around +Jackson's Hole. + +Father Meadows went back and relieved his wife's worst fear,--that the +girl had fulfilled the wrong half of her destiny, and gone back to hide +her grief in the bosom of her tribe. + +"Then you'll find her at Custer," said she. "You must write to the +quartermaster-sergeant. And be sure you tell him she's married to him. +He may be carrying on with some one else by this time." + +Traveling as a ward of the nation travels; suffering as a white girl +would suffer, from exposure and squalor, weariness and dirt, but bearing +her misery like a squaw, Meta came at last to Custer station. In five +days, always on the outside of comforts that other travelers pay for, +she had passed from the lingering mildness of autumn in southern Idaho +into the early winter of the hard Montana north. + +She was fit only for a sick-bed when she came into the empty station at +Custer, and learned that she was still thirty miles away from the fort. +In her make-believe broken English, she asked a humble question about +transportation. The station-keeper was called away that moment by a +summons from the wire. It was while she stood listening to the tapping +of the message, and waiting to repeat her question, that she felt a +frightening pain, sharp, like a knife sticking in her breast. She could +take only short breaths, yet longed for deep ones to brace her lungs and +strengthen her sick heart. She stepped outside and spoke to a man who +was wheeling freight down the platform. She dared not throw off her +fated disguise and say, "I am the wife of Trumpeter Henniker. How shall +I get to the fort?" for she had stolen a ride of a thousand miles, and +she knew not what the penalty of discovery might be. She had borrowed a +squaw's wretched immunity, and she must pay the price for that which she +had rashly coveted. She pulled her blanket about her face and muttered, +"Which way--Fort Custer?" + +The freight man answered by pointing to the road. Dark wind clouds +rolled along the snow-white tops of the mountains. The plain was a +howling sea of dust. + +"No stage?" she gasped. + +The man laughed and shook his head. "There's the road. Injuns walk." He +went on with his baggage-truck, and did not look at her again. He had +not spoken unkindly: the fact and his blunt way of putting it were +equally a matter of course, Squaws who "beat" their way in on freight +trains do not go out by stage. + +Meta crept away in the lee of a pile of freight, and sat down to nurse +her child. The infant, like herself, had taken harm from exposure to the +cold; his head passages were stopped, and when he tried to nurse he had +to fight with suffocation and hunger both, and threw himself back in the +visible act of screaming, but his hoarse little pipe was muted to a +squeak. This, which sounds grotesque in the telling, was acute anguish +for the mother to see. She covered her face with her blanket and sobbed +and coughed, and the pain tore her like a knife. But she rose, and began +her journey. She had little conception of what she was under-taking, but +it would have made no difference; she must get there on her feet, since +there was no other way. + +She no longer carried her baby squaw fashion. She was out of sight of +the station, and she hugged it where the burden lay heaviest, on her +heart. Her hands were not free, but she had cast away her bundle of +food; she could eat no more; and the warmth of the child's nestling body +gave her all the strength she had,--that and her certainty of Henniker's +welcome. That he would be faithful to her presence she never doubted. He +would see her coming, perhaps, and he would run to catch her and the +child together in his arms. She could feel the thrill of his eyes upon +her, and the half groan of joy with which he would strain her to his +breast. Then she would take one deep, deep breath of happiness,--ah, +that pain!--and let the anguish of it kill her if it must. + +The snows on the mountains had come down and encompassed the whole +plain; the winter's siege had begun. The winds were iced to the teeth, +and they smote like armed men. They encountered Meta carrying some +hidden, precious thing to the garrison at Custer; they seized her and +searched her rudely, and left her, trembling and disheveled, sobbing +along with her silly treasure in her arms. The dust rose in columns, and +traveled with mocking becks and bows before her, or burst like a bomb in +her face, or circled about her like a band of wild horses lashed by the +hooting winds. + +Meantime, Henniker, in span-new civilian dress, was rattling across the +plain on the box seat of the ambulance, beside the soldier driver. The +ambulance was late to catch the east-bound train, and the pay-master was +inside; so the four stout mules laid back their ears and traveled, and +the heavy wheels bounded from stone to stone of the dust-buried road. +Henniker smoked hard in silence, and drew great breaths of cold air into +his splendid lungs. He was warm and clean and sound and fit, from top to +toe. He had been drinking bounteous farewells to a dozen good comrades, +and though sufficiently himself for all ordinary purposes, he was not +that self he would have wished to be had he known that one of the test +moments of his life was before him. It was a mood with him of headlong, +treacherous quiet, and the devil of all foolish desires was showing him +the pleasures of the world. He was in dangerously good health; he had +got his discharge, and was off duty and off guard, all at once. He was a +free man, though married. He was going to his wife, of course. Poor +little Meta! God bless the girl, how she loved him! Ah, those black-eyed +girls, with narrow temples and sallow, deep-fringed eyelids, they knew +how to love a man! He was going to her by way of Laramie, or perhaps the +coast. He might run upon a good thing over there, and start a bit of a +home before he sent for her or went to fetch her; it was all one. She +rested lightly on his mind, and he thought of her with a tender, +reminiscent sadness,--rather a curious feeling considering that he was +to see her now so soon. Why was she always "poor little Meta" in his +thoughts? + +Poor little Meta was toiling on, for "Injuns walk." The dreadful pain of +coughing was incessant. The dust blinded and choked her, and there was a +roaring in her ears which she confused with the night and day burden of +the trains. She was in a burning fever that was fever and chill in one, +and her mind was not clear, except on the point of keeping on; for once +down, she felt that she could never get up again. At times she fancied +she was clinging to the rocking, roaring platforms she had ridden on so +long. The dust swirled around her--when had she breathed anything but +dust! The ground swam like water under her feet. She swayed, and seemed +to be falling,--perhaps she did fall. But she was up and on her feet, +the blanket cast from her head, when the ambulance drove straight +towards her, and she saw him-- + +She had seen it coming, the ambulance, down the long, dizzy rise. The +hills above were white as death; a crooked gash of color rent the sky; +the toothed pines stood black against that gleam, and through the +ringing in her ears, loud and sweet, she heard the trumpets call. The +cloud of delirium lifted, and she saw the uniform she loved; and beside +the soldier driver sat her white chief, looking down at her who came so +late with joy, bringing her babe,--her sheaves, the harvest of that +year's wild sowing. But he did not seem to see her. She had not the +power to speak or cry. She took one step forward and held up the child. + +Then she fell down on her face in the road, for the beloved one had seen +her, and had not known her, and had passed her by. And God would not let +her make one sound. + +How in Heaven's name could it have happened! Could any man believe it of +himself? Henniker put it to his reason, not to speak of conscience or +affection, and never could explain, even to himself, that most unhappy +moment of his life. If he had not a heart for any helpless thing in +trouble, who had? He was the joke of the garrison for his softness about +dogs and women and children. Yet he had met his wife and baby on the +open road, and passed them by, and owned them not, and still he called +himself a man. + +What he had seen at first had been the abject figure of a little squaw +facing the wind, her bowed head shrouded in her blanket, carrying +something which her short arms could barely meet around,--a shapeless +bundle. He did not think it a child, for a squaw will pack her baby +always on her back. He had looked at her indifferently, but with +condescending pity; for the day was rough, and the road was long, even +for a squaw. Then, in all the disfigurement of her dirt and wretchedness +and wild attire, it broke upon him that this creature was his wife, the +rightful sharer of his life and freedom; and that animal-like thing she +held up, that wrung its face and squeaked like a blind kitten, was his +son. + +Good God! He clutched the driver's arm, and the man swore and jerked his +mules out of the road, for the woman had stopped right in the track +where the wheels were going. The driver looked back, but could not see +her; he knew that he had not touched her, only with the wind of his +pace, so he pulled the mules into the road again, and the ambulance +rolled on. + +"Stop; let me get off. That woman is my wife." Henniker heard himself +saying the words, but they were never spoken to the ear. "Stop; let me +get down," the inner voice prompted; but he did not make a sound, and +the curtains flapped and the wheels went bounding along. They were a +long way past the spot, and the station was in sight, when Henniker was +heard to say hoarsely, "Pick her up, as you go back, can't you?" + +"Pick up which?" asked the driver. + +"The--that woman we passed just now." + +"I'll see how she's making it," the man answered coolly. "I ain't much +stuck on squaws. Acted like she was drunk or crazy." + +Henniker's face flushed, but he shuddered as if he were cold. + +"Pick her up, for the child's sake, by God!" No man was ever more +ashamed of himself than he as he took out a gold piece and handed it to +the soldier. "Give her this, Billy,--from yourself, you know. I ain't in +it." + +Billy looked at Henniker, and then at the gold piece. It was a double +eagle; all that the husband had dared to offer as alms to his wife, but +more than enough to arouse the suspicions that he feared. + +"Ain't in it, eh?" thought the soldier. "You knew the woman, and she +knew you. This is conscience money." But aloud he said, "A fool and his +money are soon parted. How do you know but I'll blow it in at canteen?" + +"I'll trust you," said Henniker. + +The men did not speak to each other again. + +"She's one of them Bannocks that camped by old Pop Meadows's place, down +at Bisuka, I bet," said the soldier to himself. + +Henniker went on fighting his fight as if it had not been lost forever +in that instant's hesitation. A man cannot bethink himself: "By the way, +it strikes me that was my wife and child we passed on the road!" What he +had done could never be explained without grotesque lying which would +deceive nobody. + +It could not be undone; it must be lived down. Henniker was much better +at living things down than he was at explaining or trying to mend them. + +After all, it was the girl's own fault, putting up that wretched squaw +act on him. To follow him publicly, and shame him before all the +garrison, in that beastly Bannock rig! Had she turned Bannock altogether +and gone back to the tribe? In that case let the tribe look after her; +he could have no more to do with her, of course. + +He stepped into the smoking-car, and lost himself as quickly as possible +in the interest of new faces around him, and the agreeable impressions +of himself which he read in eyes that glanced and returned for another +look at so much magnificent health and color and virility. His spot of +turpitude did not show through. He was still good to look at; and to +look the man that one would be goes a long way toward feeling that one +is that man. + + +II + +It was at Laramie, between the mountains, and Henniker was celebrating +the present and drowning the past in a large, untrammeled style, when he +received a letter from the quartermaster-sergeant at Custer,--a plain +statement until the end, where Henniker read:-- + +"If you should happen at any time to wish for news of your son, Meadows +and his wife have taken the child. They came on here to get him, and +Meadows insisted on standing the expense of the funeral, which was the +best we could give her for the credit of the troop. He put a handsome +stone over her, with 'Meta, wife of Trumpeter Henniker, K Troop, --th U. +S. Cavalry,' on it; and there it stands to her memory, poor girl, and to +your shame, a false, cruel, and cowardly man in the way you treated her. +And so every one of us calls you, officers and men the same,--of your +old troop that walked behind her to her grave. And where were you, +Henniker, and what were you doing this day two weeks, when we were +burying your poor wife? The twenty dollars you sent her by Billy, +Meadows has, and says he will keep it till he sees you again. Which some +of us think it will be a good while he will be packing that Judas piece +around with him.--And so good-by, Henniker. I might have said less, or I +might have said nothing at all, but that the boy is a fine child, my +wife says, and must have a grand constitution to stand what he has +stood; and I have a fondness for you myself when all is said and done. + +"P. S. I would take a thought for that boy once in a while, if I was +you. A man doesn't care for the brats when he is young, but age cures us +of all wants but the want of a child." + +But Henniker was not ready to go back to the Meadows cottage and be +clothed in the robe of forgiveness, and receive his babe like a pledge +of penitence on his hand. + +The shock of the letter sobered him at first, and then the sting of it +drove him to drinking harder than ever. He did not run upon that "good +thing" at Laramie, nor in any of the cities westward, that one after +another beheld the progress of his deterioration. It does not take long +in the telling, but it was several years before he finally struck upon +the "Barbary Coast" in San Francisco, where so many mothers' sons who +never were heard of have gone down. He went ashore, but he did not quite +go to pieces. His constitution had matured under healthy conditions, and +could stand a good deal of ill-usage; but we are "no stronger than our +weakest part," and at the end of all he found himself in a hospital bed +under treatment for his knee,--the same that had been mulcted for him +twice before. + +He listened grimly to the doctor's explanations,--how the past sins of +his whole impenitent system were being vicariously reckoned for through +this one afflicted member. It was rough on his old knee, Henniker +remarked; but he had hopes of getting out all right again, and he made +the usual sick-bed promises to himself. He did get out, eventually, +without a penny in the world, and with a stiff knee to drag about for +the rest of his life. And he was just thirty-four years old. + +His splendid vitality, that had been wont to express itself in so many +attractive ways, now found its chief vent in talk--inexpensive, +inordinate, meddlesome discourse--wherever two or three were gathered +together in the name of idleness and discontent. The members of these +congregations were pessimists to a man. They disbelieved in everybody +and everything except themselves, and secretly, at times, they were even +a little shaken on that head; but all the louder they exclaimed upon +the world that had refused them the chance to be the great and +successful characters nature had intended them to be. + +It need hardly be said that when Henniker raved about the inequalities +of class, the helplessness of poverty, the tyranny of wealth, and the +curse of labor; and devoted in eloquent phrases the remainder of a +blighted existence to the cause of the Poor Man, he was thinking of but +one poor man, namely, himself. He classed himself with Labor only that +he might feel his superiority to the laboring masses. There were few +situations in which he could taste his superiority, in these days. The +"ego" in his Cosmos was very hungry; his memories were bitter, his hopes +unsatisfied; his vanity and artistic sense were crucified through +poverty, lameness, and bad clothes. Now all that was left him was the +conquests of the mind. For the smiles of women, give him the hoarse +plaudits of men. The dandy of the garrison began to shine in saloon +coteries and primaries of the most primary order. He was the star of +sidewalk convocations and vacant-lot meetings of the Unemployed. But he +despised the mob that echoed his perorations and paid for his drinks, +and was at heart the aristocrat that his old uniform had made him. + + * * * * * + +In the summer of 1894, a little black-eyed boy with chestnut curls used +to swing on the gate of the Meadows cottage that opens upon the common, +and chant some verses of domestic doggerel about Coxey's army, which was +then begging and bullying its way eastward, and demanding transportation +at the expense of the railroads and of the people at large. + +He sang his song to the well-marked tune of Pharaoh's Army, and thus the +verses ran:-- + + "The Coxeyites they gathered, + The Coxeyites they gathered, + And stole a train of freight-cars in the morn, + And stole a train of freight-cars in the morning, + And stole a train of freight-cars in the morn. + + "The engine left them standing, + The engine left them standing, + On the railroad-track at Caldwell in the morn. + Very sad it was for Caldwell in the morning + To feed that hungry army in the morn. + + "Where are all the U. S. marshals, + The deputy U. S. marshals, + To jail that Coxey army in the morn, + That 'industrious, law-abiding' Coxey's army + That stole a train of freight-cars in the morn?" + +Where indeed were all the U. S. marshals? The question was being asked +with anxiety in the town, for a posse of them had gone down to arrest +the defiant train-stealers, and it was rumored that the civil arm had +been disarmed, and the deputies carried on as prisoners to Pocatello, +where the Industrials, two hundred strong, were intrenched in the +sympathies of the town, and knocking the federal authorities about at +their law-abiding pleasure. Pocatello is a division town on the Union +Pacific Railroad; it is full of the company's shops and men, the latter +all in the American Railway Union or the Knights of Labor, and solid on +class issues, right or wrong; and it was said that the master workman +was expected at Pocatello to speak on the situation, and, if need arose, +to call out the trades all over the land in support of the principle +that tramp delegations shall not walk. Disquieting rumors were abroad, +and there was relief in the news that the regulars had been called on +to sustain the action of the federal court. + +The troops at Bisuka barracks were under marching orders. While the town +was alert to hear them go they tramped away one evening, just as a +shower was clearing that had emptied the streets of citizens; and before +the ladies could say "There they go," and call each other to the window, +they were gone. + +Then for a few days the remote little capital, with Coxeyites gathering +and threatening its mails and railroad service, waited in apprehensive +curiosity as to what was going to happen next. The party press on both +sides seized the occasion to point a moral on their own account, and +some said, "Behold the logic of McKinleyism," and others retorted, +"Behold the shadow of the Wilson Bill stalking abroad over the land. Let +us fall on our faces and pray!" But most people laughed instead, and +patted the Coxeyites on the back, preferring their backs to their faces. + +It seemed as if it might be time to stop laughing and gibing and +inviting the procession to move on, when a thousand or more men, +calling themselves American citizens, were parading their idleness +through the land as authority for lawlessness and crime, and when our +sober regulars had to be called out to quell a Falstaff's army. The +regulars, be sure, did not enjoy it. If there is a sort of service our +soldiers would like to be spared, doubtless it is disarming crazy +Indians: but they prefer even that to standing up to be stoned and +insulted and chunked with railroad iron by a mob which they are ordered +not to fire upon, or to entering a peaceful country which has been sown +with dynamite by patriotic labor unions, or prepared with cut-bridges by +sympathetic strikers. + +We are here to be hurt, so the strong ones tell us, and perhaps the best +apology the strong can make to the weak for the vast superiority that +training gives is to show how long they can hold their fire amidst a mob +of brute ignorances, and how much better they can bear their hurts when +the senseless missiles fly. We love the forbearance of our "unpitied +strong;" it is what we expect of them: but we trust also in their +firmness when the time for forbearance is past. + +Little Ross Henniker--named for that mythical great Scotchman, his +supposed grandfather--was deeply disappointed because he did not see the +soldiers go. To have lived next door to them all his life, seven whole +years, and watched them practicing and preparing to be fit and ready to +go, and then not to see them when they did march away for actual service +in the field, was hard indeed. + +Ross was not only one of those brightest boys of his age known to +parents and grand-parents by the million, but he was really a very +bright and handsome child. If Mother Meadows, now "granny," had ever had +any doubts at all about the Scottish chief of the Hudson's Bay Company, +the style and presence of that incomparable boy were proof enough. It +was a marked case of "throwing-back." There was none of the Bannock +here. Could he not be trusted like a man to do whatever things he liked +to do; as riding to fetch the cows and driving them hillward again, on +the weird little spotted pony, hardly bigger than a dog, with a huge +head and a furry cheek and a hanging under-lip, which the tributary +Bannocks had brought him? It was while he was on cow-duty far away, but +not out of sight of the post, that he saw the column move. "Great +Scott!" how he did ride! He broke his stick over the pony's back, and +kicked him with his bare heels, and slapped him with his hat, till the +pony bucked him off into a sagebush whence he picked himself up and flew +as fast as his own legs would spin; but he was too late. Then, for the +first time in six months at least, he howled. Aunt Callie comforted him +with fresh strawberry jam for supper, but the lump of grief remained, +until, as she was washing the dishes, she glanced at him, laughing out +of the corner of her eye, and began to make up the song about Coxey's +army. For some time Ross refused to smile, but when it came to the +chorus about the soldiers who were going + + "To turn back Coxey's army, hallelujah! + To turn back Coxey's army, halleloo!" + +he began to sing "hallelujah" too. Then gun-fire broke in with a +lonesome sound, as if the cavalry up on the hill missed its comrades of +the white stripes who were gone to "turn back" that ridiculous army. + +Mother Meadows wished "that man Coxey had never been born," so weary did +she get of the Coxey song. Coxeyism had taken complete possession of the +young lord of the house, now that his friends the soldiers had gone to +take a hand in the business. + +In a few days the soldiers came back escorting the Coxey prisoners. The +"presence of the troops" had sufficed. The two hundred Coxeyites were to +be tried at Bisuka for crimes committed within the State. They were +penned meanwhile in a field by the river, below the railroad track, and +at night they were shut into a rough barrack which had been hastily put +up for the purpose. A skirt of the town little known, except to the +Chinese vegetable gardeners and makers of hay on the river meadows and +small boys fishing along the shore, now became the centre of popular +regard; and "Have you been down to the Coxey camp?" was as common a +question as "Are you going to the Natatorium Saturday night?" or "Will +there be a mail from the west to-day?" + +One evening, Mother Meadows, with little Ross Henniker by the hand, +stood close to the dead-line of the Coxey field, watching the groups on +the prisoners' side. The woman looked at them with perplexed pity, but +the child swung himself away and cried, "Pooh! only a lot of dirty +hobos!" and turned to look at the soldiers. + +The tents of the guard of regulars stood in a row in front of a rank of +tall poplar-trees, their tops swinging slow in the last sunlight. Behind +the trees stretched the green river flats in the shadow. Frogs were +croaking; voices of girls could be heard in a tennis-court with a high +wall that ran back to the street of the railroad. + +Roll-call was proceeding in front of the tents, the men firing their +quick, harsh answers like scattering shots along the line. Under the +trees at a little distance the beautiful sleek cavalry horses were +grouped, unsaddled and calling for their supper. Ross Henniker gazed at +them with a look of joy; then he turned a contemptuous eye upon the +prisoners. + +"Which of them two kinds of animals looks most like what a man ought to +be?" he asked, pointing to the horses and then to the Coxeyites, who in +the cool of the evening were indulging in unbeautiful horse-play, not +without a suspicion of showing off before the eyes of visitors. The +horses in their free impatience were as unconscious as lords. + +"What are you saying, Ross?" asked Mrs. Meadows, rousing herself. + +"I say, suppose I'd just come down from the moon, or some place where +they don't know a man from a horse, and you said to me: 'Look at these +things, and then look at them things over there, and say which is boss +of t'other.' Why, I'd say _them_ things, every time." Ross pointed +without any prejudice to the horses. + +"My goodness!" cried Mrs. Meadows, "if these Coxeys had been taken care +of and coddled all their lives like them troop horses, they might not be +so handsome, but they'd look a good deal better than what they do. And +they'd have more sense," she added in a lower voice. "Very few poor +men's sons get the training those horses have had. They've learned to +mind, for one thing, and to be faithful to the hand that feeds them." + +"Not all of them don't," said Ross, shaking his head wisely. "There's +kickers and biters and shirks amongst them; but if they won't learn and +can't learn, they get 'condemned.'" + +"And what becomes of them then?" + +"Why, _you_ know," answered the boy, who began to suspect that there was +a moral looming in the distance of this bold generalization. + +"Yes," said Mother Meadows, "I know what becomes of some of them, +because I've seen; and I don't think a condemned horse looks much better +in the latter end of him than a condemned man." + +"But you can't leave them in the troop, for they'd spoil all the rest," +objected the boy. + +"It's too much for me, dear," replied the old woman humbly. "These +Coxeys are a kind of folks I don't understand." + +"I should think you might understand, when the troops have to go out and +run 'em in! I'm on the side of the soldiers, every time." + +"Well, that's simple enough," said Mrs. Meadows. She was a very mild +protagonist, for she could never confine herself to one side of a +question. "I'm on the side of the soldiers, too. A soldier has to do +what he's told, and pays with his life for it, right or wrong." + +"And I think it's a shame to send the beautiful clean soldiers to shove +a lot of dirty hobos back where they belong." + +"My goodness! Hush! you'd better talk less till you get more sense to +talk with," said Mrs. Meadows sternly. A man standing near, with his +back to them, had turned around quickly, and she saw by his angry eye +that he had overheard. She looked at him again, and knew the man. It was +the boy's father. Ross had bounded away to talk to his friend Corporal +Niles. + +"Henniker!" exclaimed Mrs. Meadows in a low voice of shocked amazement. +"It don't seem as if this could be you!" + +"Let that be!" said Henniker roughly. "I didn't enlist by that name in +this army. Who's that young son of a gun that's got so much lip on him?" + +"God help you! don't you know your own son?" + +"What? No! Has he got to be that size already?" The man's weather-beaten +face turned a darker red under the week-old beard that disfigured it. He +sat down on the ground, for suddenly he felt weak, and also to hide his +lameness from the woman who should have hated him, but who simply pitied +him instead. Her face showed a sort of motherly shame for the change +that she saw in him. It was very hard to bear. He had not fully realized +the change in himself till its effect upon her confronted him. He tried +to bluff it off carelessly. + +"Bring the boy here. I have a word to say to him." + +"You should have said it long ago, then." Mrs. Meadows was hurt and +indignant at his manner. "What has been said is said, for good and all. +It's too late to unsay it now." + +"What do you mean by that, Mrs. Meadows? Am I the boy's father or am I +not?" + +"You are not the father he knows. Do you think I have been teaching him +to be ashamed of the name he bears?" + +"Old lady," cried Henniker the Coxeyite, "have you been stuffing that +boy about his dad as you did the mother about hers?" + +"I have told him the truth, partly. The rest, if it wasn't the truth, it +ought to have been," answered Mrs. Meadows stoutly. "I have put the +story right, as an honest man would have lived it. Whatever you've been +doing with yourself these years, it's your own affair, not the boy's nor +mine. Keep it to yourself now. You were too good for them once,--the +mother and the child; they can do without you now." + +"That's all right," said Henniker, wincing; "but as a matter of +curiosity let me hear how you have put it up." + +"How I have what?" + +"How you have dressed up the story to the boy. I'd like to see myself +with a woman's eyes once more." + +Mrs. Meadows looked him over and hesitated; then her face kindled. "I've +told him that his father was a beautiful clean man," she said, using +unconsciously the boy's own words, "and rode a beautiful horse, and +saluted his captain so!" She pointed to the corporal of the guard who +was at that moment reporting. "I told him that when the troops went you +had to leave your young wife behind you, and she could not be kept from +following you with her child; and by a cruel mischance you passed each +other on the road, and you never knew till you had got to her old home +and heard she was dead and buried; and you were so broke up that you +couldn't bear your life in the place where you used to be with her; and +you were a sorrowful wandering man that he must pray for, and ask God to +bring you home. You never came near us, Henniker, nor thought of coming; +but could I tell your own child that? Indeed, I would be afraid to tell +him what did happen on that road from Custer station, for fear when he's +a man he'd go hunting you with a shotgun. Now where is the falsehood +here? Is it in me, or in you, who have made it as much as your own life +is worth to tell the truth about you to your son? _Was_ it the truth, +Henniker? Sure, man, you did love her! What did you want with her else? +Was it the truth that they told us at Custer? There are times when I +can't believe it myself. If there is a word you could say for +yourself,--say it, for the child's sake! You wouldn't mind speaking to +an old woman like me? There was a time when I would have been proud to +call you my son." + +"You are a good woman, Mrs. Meadows, but I cannot lie to you, even for +the child's sake. And it's not that I don't know how to lie, for God +knows I'm nothing but a lie this blessed minute! What do I care for such +cattle as these?" He had risen, and waved his hand contemptuously toward +his fellow-martyrs. "Well, I must be going. I see they're passin' around +the flesh-pots. We're livin' like fighting-cocks here, on a restaurant +contract. There'll be a big deal in it for the marshal, I suspect." +Henniker winked, and his face fell into the lowest of its demoralized +expressions. + +"There's no such a thing!" said Mrs. Meadows indignantly. "Some folks +are willing to work for very little these hard times, and give good +value for their money. You had better eat and be thankful, and leave +other folks alone!" + +Little Ross coming up heard but the last words, and saw his granny's +agitation and the familiar attitude of the strange Coxeyite. His quick +temper flashed out: "Get out with you! Go off where you belong, you +dirty man!" + +Mrs. Meadows caught the boy, and whirled him around and shook him. +"Never, never let me hear you speak like that to any man again!" + +"Why?" he demanded. + +"I'll tell you why, some day, if I have to. Pray God I may never need to +tell you!" + +"Why?" repeated the boy, wondering at her excitement. + +"Come away,--come away home!" she said, and Ross saw that her eyes were +red with unshed tears. He hung behind her and looked back. + +"He's lame," said he, half to himself. "I wouldn't have spoken that way +if I'd known he had a game leg." + +"Who's lame?" asked Mrs. Meadows. + +"The Coxeyite. See. He limps bad." + +"Didn't I tell you! We never know, when we call names, what sore spots +we may be hitting. You may have sore spots of your own some day." + +"I hope I sha'n't be lame," mused the boy. "And I hope I sha'n't be a +Coxey." + +The Coxeyites had been in camp a fortnight when their trial began. Twice +a day the prisoners were marched up the streets of Bisuka to the +courthouse, and back again to camp, till the citizens became accustomed +to the strange, unrepublican procession. The prisoners were herded along +the middle of the street; on either side of them walked the marshals, +and outside of the line of civil officers the guard of infantry or +cavalry, the officers riding and the men on foot. + +This was the last march of the Coxeyites. Many citizens looking on were +of the opinion that if these men desired to make themselves an +"object-lesson" to the nation, this was their best chance of being +useful in that capacity. + +For two weeks, day by day, in the prisoner's field, Henniker had been +confronted with the contrast of his old service with his present +demoralization. He had been a conspicuous figure among the Industrials +until they came in contact with the troops; then suddenly he subsided, +and was heard and seen as little as possible. Not for all that a +populist congress could vote, out of the pockets of the people into the +pockets of the tramp petitioners, would he have posed as one of them +before the eyes of an officer, or a man, of his old regiment, who might +remember him as Trumpeter Henniker of K troop. But the daily march to +the courthouse was the death-sickness of his pride. Once he had walked +these same streets with his head as high as any man's; and it had been, +"How are you, Henniker?" and "Step in, Henniker;" or Callie had been +laughing and falling out of step on his arm, or Meta--poor little +Meta--waiting for him when the darkness fell! + +Now the women ran to the windows and crowded the porches, and stared at +him and his ill-conditioned comrades as if they had been animals +belonging to a different species. + +But Henniker was mistaken here. The eyes of the pretty girls were for +the "pretty soldiers." It was all in the day's work for the soldiers, +who tramped indifferently along; but the officers looked bored, as if +they were neither proud of the duty nor of the display of it which the +times demanded. + +On the last day's march from the courthouse to the camp, there was a +clamor of voices that drowned the shuffling and tramping of the feet. +The prisoners were all talking at once, discussing the sentences which +the court had just announced: the leaders and those taken in acts of +violence to be imprisoned at hard labor for specified terms; the rank +and file to be put back on their stolen progress as far westward, whence +they came, as the borders of the State would allow; there to be staked +out, as it were, on the banks of the Snake River, and guarded for sixty +days by the marshals, supported by the inevitable "presence of the +troops." + +But the sentence that Henniker heard was that private one which his own +child had spoken: "Get out with you! Go back where you belong, you dirty +man!" He had wished at the time that he could make the proud youngster +feel the sting of his own lash: but that thought had passed entirely, +and been merged in the simple hurt of a father's longing for his son. +"If he were mine," he bitterly confessed, "if that little cock-a-hoop +rascal would own me and love me for his dad, I swear to God I could +begin my life again! But now, what next?" + +There had been a stoppage ahead, the feet pressing on had slackened +step, when there, with his back to the high iron gates of the +capitol-grounds, was the beautiful child again. A young woman stood +beside him, a fine, wholesome girl like a full-blown cottage rose, with +auburn hair, an ivory-white throat, and a back as flat as a trooper's. +It was Callie, of course, with Meta's child. The cup of Henniker's +humiliation was full. + +The boy stood with his chin up, his hat on the back of his head, his +plump hands spread on the hips of his white knickerbockers. He was +dressed in his best, as he had come from a children's fete. Around his +neck hung a prize which he had won in the games, a silver dog-whistle on +a scarlet ribbon. He caught it to his lips and blew a long piercing +trill, his dark eyes smiling, the wind blowing the short curls across +his cheek. + +"There he is, the lame one! I made him look round," said Ross. + +Henniker had turned, for one long look--the last, he thought--at his +son. All the singleness and passion of the mother, the fire and grace +and daring of the father, were in the promise of his childish face and +form. He flushed, not a self-conscious, but an honest, generous blush, +and took his hat away off his head to the lame Coxeyite--"because I was +mean to him; and they are down and done for now, the Coxeys." + +"Whose kid is that?" asked the man who walked beside Henniker, seeing +the gesture and the look that passed between the man and the boy. "He's +as handsome as they make 'em," he added, smiling. + +Henniker did not reply in the proud word "Mine." A sudden heat rushed to +his eyes, his chest was tight to bursting. He pulled his hat down and +tramped along. The shuffling feet of the prisoners passed on down the +middle of the street; the double line of guards kept step on either +side. The dust arose and blended the moving shapes, prisoners and guards +together, and blotted them out in the distance. + +Callie had not seen her old lover at all. "Great is the recuperative +power of the human heart." She had been looking at Corporal Niles, who +could not turn his well-drilled head to look at her. But a side-spark +from his blue eye shot out in her direction, and made her blush and +cease to smile. Corporal Niles carried his head a little higher and +walked a little straighter after that; and Callie went slowly through +the gates, and sat a long while on one of the benches in the park, with +her elbow resting on the iron scroll and her cheek upon her hand. + +She was thinking about the Coxeyites' sentence, and wondering if the +cavalry would have to go down to the stockade prison on the Snake; for +in that case Corporal Niles would have to go, and the wedding be +postponed. Everybody knows it is bad luck to put off a wedding-day; and +besides, the yellow roses she had promised her corporal to wear would +all be out of bloom, and no other roses but those were the true cavalry +yellow. + +But the cavalry did not go down till after the wedding, which took place +on the evening appointed, at the Meadows cottage, between "Sound off" +and "Taps." The ring was duly blessed, and the father's and mother's +kiss was not wanting. The primrose radiance of the summer twilight shone +as strong as lamplight in the room, and Callie, in her white dress, with +her auburn braids gleaming through the wedding-veil and her lover's +colors in the roses on her breast, was as sweet and womanly a picture +as any mother could wish to behold. + +When little Ross came up to kiss the bride, he somehow forgot, and flung +his arms first around Corporal Niles's brown neck. + +"Corporal, I'm twice related to the cavalry now," said he. "I had a +father in it, and now I've got an uncle in it." + +"That's right," the corporal agreed; "and if you have any sort of luck +you'll be in it yourself some day." + +"But not in the ranks," said Ross firmly. "I'm going to West Point, you +know." + +"Bless his heart!" cried Callie, catching the boy in her arms; "and how +does he think he's going to get there?" + +"I shall manage it somehow," said Ross, struggling. He was very fond of +Aunt Callie, but a boy doesn't like to be hugged so before his military +acquaintances, and in Ross's opinion there had been a great deal too +much kissing and hugging, not to speak of crying, already. He did not +see why there should be all this fuss just because Aunt Callie was going +up to the barracks to live, in the jolliest little whitewashed cabin, +with a hop-vine hanging, like the veil on an old woman's bonnet, over +the front gable. He only wished that the corporal had asked him to go +too! + +A slight misgiving about his last speech was making Ross uncomfortable. +If there was a person whose feelings he would not have wished to hurt +for anything in the world, it was Corporal Niles. + +"Corporal," he amended affectionately, "if I should be a West Pointer, +and should be over you, I shouldn't put on any airs, you know. We should +be better friends than ever." + +"I expect we should, captain. I'm looking forward to the day." + + * * * * * + +A mild species of corvee had been put in force down on the Snake River +while the stockade prison was building. The prisoners as a body rebelled +against it, and were not constrained to work; but a few were willing, +and these were promptly stigmatized as "scabs," and ill treated by the +lordly idlers. Hence they were given a separate camp and treated as +trusties. + +When the work was done the trusties were rewarded with their freedom, +either to go independently, or to stay and eat government rations till +the sixty days of their sentence had expired. + +Henniker, in spite of his infirmity, had been one of the hardest +volunteer workers. But now the work was done, and the question returned, +What next? What comes after Coxeyism when Coxeyism fails? + +He sat one evening by the river, and again he was a free man. A dry +embankment, warm as an oven to the touch, sloped up to the railroad +track above his head; tufts of young sage and broken stone strewed the +face of it; there was not a tree in sight. He heard the river boiling +down over the rapids and thundering under the bridge. He heard the +trumpets calling the men to quarters. "Lights out" had sounded some time +before. He had been lying motionless, prone on his face, his head +resting on his crossed arms. The sound of the trumpets made him choke up +like a homesick boy. He lay there till, faintly in the distance, "Taps" +breathed its slow and sweet good-night. + +"Last call," he said. "Time to turn in." He rolled over and began to +pull off the rags in which his child had spurned him. + +"The next time I'm inspected," he muttered, "I shall be a clean man." +So, naked, he slipped into the black water under the bank. The river +bore him up and gave him one more chance, but he refused it: with two +strokes he was in the midst of the death current, and it seized him and +took him down. + + + + +_BOOKS OF FICTION._ + + +Books by Mary Hallock Foote. + + THE CHOSEN VALLEY. A Novel. + THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. Illustrated. + JOHN BODEWIN'S TESTIMONY. + THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL, and THE FATE OF A VOICE. + IN EXILE, AND OTHER STORIES. + COEUR D'ALENE. A Novel. + THE CUP OF TREMBLING, AND OTHER STORIES. + + +Clara Louise Burnham. + + Young Maids and Old. + Next Door. + Dearly Bought. + No Gentlemen. + A Sane Lunatic. + The Mistress of Beech Knoll. + Miss Bagg's Secretary. + Dr. Latimer. + Sweet Clover: A Romance of the White City. + The Wise Woman. + + +Edwin Lassetter Bynner. + + Zachary Phips. + Agnes Surriage. + The Begum's Daughter. + + These three Historical Novels: + Penelope's Suitors. + Damen's Ghost. + An Uncloseted Skeleton. (Written with Lucretia P. Hale.) + + +Rose Terry Cooke. + + Somebody's Neighbors. Stories. + Happy Dodd. + The Sphinx's Children. Stories. + Steadfast. + Huckleberries. Gathered from New England Hills. Short Stories. + + +Charles Egbert Craddock [Mary N. Murfree]. + + In the Tennessee Mountains. Short Stories. + Down the Ravine. For Young People. Illustrated. + The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains. + In the Clouds. + The Story of Keedon Bluffs. + The Despot of Broomsedge Cove. + Where the Battle was Fought. + His Vanished Star. + The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain, and Other Stories. + + +Oliver Wendell Holmes. + + Elsie Venner. + The Guardian Angel. + A Mortal Antipathy. + + +Augustus Hoppin. + + Recollections of Auton House. Illustrated by the Author. + A Fashionable Sufferer. Illustrated by the Author. + Two Compton Boys. Illustrated by the Author. + + +Henry James. + + Watch and Ward. + A Passionate Pilgrim, and other Tales. + Roderick Hudson. + The American. + The Europeans. + Confidence. + The Portrait of a Lady. + The Author of Beltraffio; Pandora; Georgina's Reasons; Four Meetings, + etc. + The Siege of London; The Pension Beaurepas; and The Point of View. + Tales of Three Cities (The Impressions of a Cousin; Lady Barberina; + A New England Winter) + Daisy Miller: A Comedy. + The Tragic Muse. + + +Sarah Orne Jewett. + + The King of Folly Island, and other People. + Tales of New England. In Riverside Aldine Series. + A White Heron, and Other Stories. + A Marsh Island. + A Country Doctor. + Deephaven. + Old Friends and New. + Country By-Ways. + The Mate of the Daylight, and Friends Ashore. + Betty Leicester. + Strangers and Wayfarers. + A Native of Winby. + The Life of Nancy, and Other Stories. + + +Ellen Olney Kirk. + + The Story of Lawrence Garthe. + Ciphers. + The Story of Margaret Kent. + Sons and Daughters. + Queen Money. + Better Times. Stories. + A Midsummer Madness. + A Lesson in Love. + A Daughter of Eve. + Walford. + + +Elizabeth Stuart Phelps [Mrs. Ward]. + + The Gates Ajar. + Beyond the Gates. + The Gates Between. + Men, Women, and Ghosts. Stories. + Hedged In. + The Silent Partner. + The Story of Avis. + Sealed Orders, and other Stories. + Friends: A Duet. + Dr. Zay. + An Old Maid's Paradise, and Burglars in Paradise. + The Master of the Magicians. Collaborated by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps + and Herbert D. Ward. + Come Forth. Collaborated by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Herbert D. + Ward. + Fourteen to One. Short Stories. + Donald Marcy. + The Madonna of the Tubs. With Illustrations. + Jack the Fisherman. Illustrated. + A Singular Life. + + +F. Hopkinson Smith. + + Colonel Carter of Cartersville. With Illustrations. + A Day at Laguerre's, and other Days. + A Gentleman Vagabond, and other Stories. + + +Octave Thanet. + + Knitters in the Sun. + Otto the Knight, and other Stories. + + +William Makepeace Thackeray. + + Complete Works. _Illustrated Library Edition._ + With Biographical and Bibliographical Introductions, + Portrait, and over 1600 Illustrations. + + +Gen. Lew Wallace. + + The Fair God; or, The Last of the 'Tzins. A Tale of the Conquest of + Mexico. + + +Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney. + + Faith Gartney's Girlhood. + Hitherto. + Patience Strong's Outings. + The Gayworthys. + A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. + We Girls. + Real Folks. + The Other Girls. + Sights and Insights. + Odd or Even? + Bonnyborough. + Homespun Yarns. Stories. + Ascutney Street. + A Golden Gossip. + Boys at Chequasset. + Mother Goose for Grown Folks. + + +Kate Douglas Wiggin. + + The Birds' Christmas Carol. With Illustrations. + The Story of Patsy. Illustrated. + Timothy's Quest. + A Summer in a Canon. Illustrated. + A Cathedral Courtship, and Penelope's English Experiences. + Illustrated. + Polly Oliver's Problem. Illustrated. + The Story Hour. Illustrated. + Timothy's Quest. _Holiday Edition._ Illustrated by Oliver Herford. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cup of Trembling and Other Stories, by +Mary Hallock Foote + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CUP *** + +***** This file should be named 36625.txt or 36625.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/6/2/36625/ + +Produced by Katherine Ward, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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