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diff --git a/40587-0.txt b/40587-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3fc1842 --- /dev/null +++ b/40587-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7732 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40587 *** + + YELLOWSTONE NIGHTS + + By HERBERT QUICK + + AUTHOR OF "ALLADIN & CO.," "VIRGINIA OF THE AIR LANES," ETC. + + + GROSSET & DUNLAP + PUBLISHER NEW YORK + + COPYRIGHT 1911 + THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY + + + + +YELLOWSTONE NIGHTS + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +It was August the third--and the rest of it. Being over Montana, and the +Rockies, the skies were just as described by Truthful James. In the +little park between the N. P. Station and the entrance to Yellowstone +Park a stalwart young fellow and a fluffy, lacy, Paquined girl floated +from place to place with their feet seven or eight inches from the +earth--or so it seemed. They disappeared behind some shrubbery and sat +down on a bench, where the young man hugged the girl ferociously, and +she, with that patient endurance which is the wonder and glory of +womanhood, suffered it uncomplainingly. In fact she reciprocated it. + +Note that we said a moment ago that they disappeared. From whose gaze? +Not from ours, for we saw them sit and--and what followed. Their +disappearance was from the view of a slender man of medium height who +was off toward the station, inspecting the salvias, the phloxes, the +cannas, the colei, the materials with which the walks were paved, and +the earth in the flower-beds. He looked the near things over with a +magnifying-glass, and scrutinized the far landscape with field-glasses. +When he removed his traveling cap, one saw that he was bald, though not +so bald as he seemed--his weak and neutral hair blended so in color with +the neutral shades of his face and garb. + +As he looked at things near and far, from the formal garden of the +little park to the towering peak of Electric Mountain, which flew a +pennon of cloud off to the west, or Sepulcher Mountain, half lost in an +unaccustomed haze to the south, but displaying above the blue its +enormous similitude of a grave, with the stone at head and foot, he made +notes in his huge pocket-book, and in making notes he approached closer +and closer to the big boy and little girl on the bench. In fact, he +stopped on the other side of the bush, and as the lovers kissed for the +tenth time, at least, he stepped round toward them, peering into the top +of the bushes, pencil poised to jot down the cause of the chirping +sound which had greeted his ears. + +"I think I heard young birds in this bush," said he. + +"You did," responded the young man, blushing. + +"This park is full of them," said the girl, rather less embarrassed. + +"Did you note the species?" queried he of the glasses. "I seem quite +unable to catch sight of them." + +"They are turtle-doves," said the girl. + +"Gulls!" said the man. + +The girl giggled hysterically. The naturalist was protesting that gulls +never nest in such places, and the young man was becoming hopelessly +confused, when a fourth figure joined the group. He was clad in garments +of the commonest sort--but the girl was at once struck by the fact that +he wore a soft roll collar on his flannel shirt, and a huge red silk +neckerchief. Moreover, he carried a long whip which he trailed after him +in the grass. + +"Local color at last!" she whispered to her lover. "I know we're going +to have a shooting or a cow-boy adventure!" + +"Well," the new-comer said, "do you go with us, or not, Doc?" + +"Go with you?" asked the ornithologist. "Go where?" + +"Tour of the Park?" replied the man with the whip. "I'm having hard work +to get a load." + +"I think," said the person addressed, "that I can finish my inspection +of the Park on foot. It is, in fact, surprisingly small, and not at all +what I had expected. I have been pacing it off. There are very few acres +in it--" + +"I'll be dog-goned," said the man with the whip, "if he don't think +_this_ is the Yellowstone Park! Stranger, look at yon beautiful arch, +erected by Uncle Sam out of hexagonal blocks of basalt! That marks the +entrance to the Wonderland of the World, a matchless nat'ral park of +more'n three thousand square miles, filled with unnat'ral wonders of +nature! This is the front yard of the railroad station. It'll take you +days and days to do the Park--an' years to do it right." + +"Oh, in that case," responded the investigator, "of course you may rely +upon my joining you!" + +"I want two more, lady," said the driver. "What say?" + +"No," said the young man. "We've decided to cut the Park out." + +"I've changed my mind, I believe," said the girl. "Let's go!" + +"But I thought--" + + * * * * * + +And so the party was made up. It was like one of those strange meetings +that take place on shipboard, on the wharves of ports--wherever fate +takes men in her hands, shakes them like dice, and throws them on the +board--and peeps at them to see what pairs, threes, flushes and other +harmonies make up the strength of the cast. + +There were seven of them. In the rear seat of the surrey sat two young +men wearing broad-brimmed Stetsons, and corduroys. Their scarfs were +pronouncedly Windsor, and the ends thereof streamed in the breeze as did +the pennon of cloud from the top of Electric Peak off there in the west. +The one with the long hair and the Dresden-china complexion starting to +peel off at the lips, was the Minor Poet who eked out a living by the +muck-raker's dreadful trade. He spoke of our malefactors of great wealth +as "burglars" and grew soft-eyed and mute as the splendors of the +Yellowstone Wonderland grew upon him. With him was a smaller man, +shorter of hair, and younger in years--which youth was advertised by +its disguise: a dark, silky Vandyke. He was an artist who was known to +the readers of _Puck_, _Judge_ and _Life_ for his thick-lipped "coons" +and shapeless hoboes, and who was here in the Park with the Poet for the +purpose of drawing pictures for a prose poem which should immortalize +both. So much for the rear seat. + +The next seat forward was sacred to love. That is, it was occupied by +the Bride and Groom, who called each other by the names of "Billy" and +"Dolly," and tried to behave as if very mature and long-married--with +what success we have seen. It was in pursuance of this scheme that they +deliberately refused to take the rear seat when it was pointedly offered +them by the Poet and the Artist. They were very quiet now, the Bride in +stout shoes, mountain-climbing skirt and sweater, the Groom in +engineer's boots and khaki. In the next seat forward sat the man of +note-books, field-glasses, magnifying-glasses and drabs. The driver +called him at first "Doc"; but soon adopted the general usage by which +he was dubbed "Professor." He was myopic; but proud of his powers of +observation. So wide was his reading that he knew nothing. His tour of +the Park was made as a step toward that mastery of all knowledge which +he had adopted as his goal. At once he saw that the rest of the party +were light-minded children, frittering life away; and at once they took +his measure. This made for mutual enjoyment. Nothing so conduces to good +relations as the proper niching of the members of the party. + +With him sat Colonel Baggs, of Omaha, who smoked all the time and quoted +Blackstone and Kent for his seat-mate's Epictetus and Samuel Smiles. +Whenever time hung heavy on the party for sheer lack of power to wonder, +Colonel Baggs restored tonicity to their brains by some far-fetched +argument to which he provoked Professor Boggs, wherein the Colonel +violated all rules and escaped confusion by the most transparent fakir's +tricks, solemnly regarding the Professor with one side of his face, and +winking and grimacing at those behind with the other. + +In the driver's seat sat Aconite Driscoll, erstwhile cow-boy, but now +driver of a Yellowstone surrey, with four cayuses in hand, and a whip in +place of the quirt of former years. When you tour the Yellowstone may he +be your guide, driver, protector, entertainer and friend. + +So they were seven, as I remarked. The Bride counted out as for I-spy, +"'One, two, three, four, five, six, seven; All good children go to +heaven!'" The Minor Poet said, "'We are seven.'" The Artist quoted, +"'Seven men from all the world'"--and looked at the Bride. "'Back to +Docks again,'" she continued, knowing her Kipling, "'Rolling down the +Ratcliffe Road, drunk and raising Cain.' Thanks for including me as a +man." The Artist bowed. "Anyhow," said the Poet, "'We are seven.'" + +They were all in the surrey and Aconite had the reins in hand, his whip +poised, and his lips pursed for the initiatory chirrup, when there put +his foot on the hub the Hired Man, who looked the part and presently +explained that he worked on farms as a regular thing, and who was to be +number eight. "If this seven business is eatin' yeh so bad," said he, +"kain't I make a quadrille of it? I never pay fare, nowheres; but I kin +cook, 'n drive, 'n rustle firewood, 'n drive tent-pins--an' you seem to +have an empty seat. What say?" Aconite looked back into the faces of his +load. All looked at the Bride as commander-in-chief--the Bride nodded. +"Shore!" said Aconite. "Hop in!" + +They rolled through the great arch at the entrance, and bowled along the +road in breath-taking style as they crossed bridge after bridge, the +walls of Gardiner Cañon towering on each side with its left-hand copings +crumbling into pinnacles like ruined battlements, on which sat +fishing-eagles as sentinels, their eyes scanning the flashing stream +below. The wild roses were still in sparse bloom; the cottonwood groves +showed splotches of brilliant yellow; the cedars gloomed in steady and +dependable green. Autumn leaves and spring flowers, and over all a sky +of ultramarine. + +"See there!" exclaimed the Bride, pointing at the huge stream of hot +water where Boiling River bursts from its opening in the rocks, and +falls steaming into the Gardiner. "What in the world is it--a geyser?" + +"That there little spurt," said Aconite, "is where the sink-pipe dreens +off from Mammoth Hot Springs. Don't begin bein' surprised at things like +them!" + +The Professor made notes. Colonel Baggs asserted that hot water is hot +water, no matter where found or in whatever quantities, and couldn't be +considered much of a wonder. The Professor took up the gage of battle, +while the carriage wound up the hill, away from the river; but even he +forbore discourse, when the view opened, as the afternoon sun fell +behind the hills, on the steaming terraces and boiling basins of Mammoth +Hot Springs. + +They scattered to the near-by marvels, and returned to camp where +Aconite, assisted by the Hired Man, had prepared camp fare for the +party. The Bride and Groom announced their intention to take pot luck +with the rest, though the great hotel was ready for their reception. + +"We are honored, I am sure," said Colonel Baggs. "Would that we had a +troupe of performing nightingales to clothe the night with charm fit for +so lovely a member of the party." + +"Oh, thank you ever so much," said the Bride, "but I've just proposed to +Billy a plan that will be better than any sort of troupe. We can make +this trip a regular Arabian Nights' entertainment. Tell them, Billy!" + +"We're to make a hat pool," said Billy, "and the loser tells a story." + +"Good thought!" said the Poet + +"I don't understand," protested the Professor. + +"Well, then, here you are!" said Billy. "I write all our names on these +slips of paper--Driver, Poet, Artist, Professor--and the rest of us. I +mix them in this Stetson. I pass them to the most innocent of the +party, and one is drawn--" + +"Well, let me draw, then!" said the Bride. + +"Not on your life!" said Billy. "Here, Professor!" + +Amid half-hidden chuckling, the Professor took a slip from the hat and +handed it to the Groom. + +"On this ballot," said he, "is written 'The Poet.' That gentleman will +now favor the audience, ladies and gentlemen, with a story." + +The moon was climbing through the lodge-pole pines, and the camp was +mystic with the flicker of the firelight on the rocks and trees. The +Poet looked about as if for an inspiration. His eyes fell on the Bride, +so sweet, so cuddleable, so alluring. + +"I will tell you a story that occurred to me as we drove along," said +he. "If you don't like tragedy, don't call on a poet for entertainment +in a tragic moment." + + +A TELEPATHIC TRAGEDY + +BEING THE STORY TOLD BY THE MINOR POET + +He sat reading a magazine. Chancing upon a picture of the bronze Sappho +which, if you have luck, you will find in the museum at Naples, he +began gazing at it, first casually, then intently, then almost +hypnotically. The grand woman's head with its low masses of hair; the +nose so high as to be almost Roman, so perfect in chiseling as to be +ultra-Greek; the mouth eloquent of divinest passion; the neck, sloping +off to strong shoulders and a bust opulent of charm--it shot through him +an unwonted thrill. It may have arisen from memories of Lesbos, +Mytilene, and the Leucadian Rock. It may have been the direct influence +from her peep-hole on Olympus of Sappho's own Aphrodite. Anyhow, he felt +the thrill. + +Possibly it was some subtle effluence from things nearer and more +concrete than either, for as he closed the magazine that he might rarefy +and prolong this pulsing wave of poetry by excluding the distracting +pages from his sight, his vision, resting for an instant upon the ribbon +of grass and flowers flowing back beside the train, swept inboard and +was arrested by a modish hat, a pile of ruddy hair, a rosy ear, the +creamy back and side of a round neck, and the curve of a cheek. A most +interesting phenomenon in wave-interference at once took place. The +hypnotic vibrations of the Sapphic thrill were affected by a new series, +striking them in like phases. The result was the only possible one. The +vibrations went on, in an amplitude increased to the height of their +superimposed crests. No wonder things happened: it is a matter of +surprise that the very deuce was not to pay. + +For the hair combined with the hat in a symmetrical and harmonious +whole, in an involved and curvilinear complexity difficult to describe; +but the effect is easy to imagine--I hope. The red-brown coils wound in +and out under a broad brim which drooped on one side and on the other +curled jauntily up, as if consciously recurving from the mass of +marvelous bloom and foliage under it. Dark-red tones climbed up to a +climax of quivering green and crimson in a natural and, indeed, +inevitable inflorescence. But, engrossed by sundry attractive details +below it, his attention gave him a concept of the millinery vastly more +vague and impressionistic than ours. + +The sunburst of hair was one of the details. It radiated from a core of +creamy skin from some mystic center concealed under fluffy laciness. +The ear, too, claimed minute attention. It was a marvel of curves and +sinuosities, ivory here, pearl-pink there, its lines winding down to a +dainty lobe lit by a sunset glow, a tiny flame from the lambent furnace +of the heart. Cold science avers that these fairy convolutions are +designed for the one utilitarian purpose of concentrating the +sound-waves for a more efficient impact upon the auditory nerve; but +this is crudely false. They are a Cretan labyrinth for the amazing of +the fancy that the heart may be drawn after--and they are not without +their Minotaur, either! + +"Pshaw!" said he to himself. "What nonsense! I'll finish my magazine!" + +This good resolution was at once acted upon. He turned his eyes back +along the trail by which they had so unwarrantably wandered--along the +line of coiffure, window, landscape, page, Sappho; describing almost a +complete circle--or quite. As he retraced this path so virtuously, the +living picture shifted and threw into the problem--for a problem it had +now become--certain new factors which seemed to compel a readjustment of +plans. These were a fuller view of the cheek, a half profile of the +nose, and just the tiniest tips of the lips and chin. He forgot all +about Sappho, but the Sapphic vibrations went on increasingly. + +The profile--the new one--was, so far, Greek, also. It was still so +averted that there was no danger in amply verifying this conclusion by a +prolonged gaze. + +No danger? + +Foolhardy man, more imminent peril never put on so smooth a front! Read +history, rash one, and see thrones toppled over, dungeons filled with +pale captives, deep accursed tarns sending up bubbling cries for +vengeance, fleets in flames, plains ravaged, city walls beaten down, +palaces looted, beauty dragged at the heels of lust, all from such gazes +as this of thine. And if you object to history, examine the files of the +nearest _nisi prius_ court. It all comes to the same thing. + +Would she turn the deeper seduction of those eyes and lips to view? +Seemingly not, for with every sway of the car they retreated farther +behind the curve of the cheek. This curve was fair and rounded, and for +a while it satisfied the inquiry. What if another cheek be pressed +against that tinted snowy fullness! And what if that other were the +cheek we wot of! + +Clearly, said the inward monitor, this will never do! This +Sappho-Aphrodite-Sunburst Syndicate must be resisted. + +At the same time--the half concealed being traditionally the most potent +snare of the devil--would it not be in every way safer, as well as more +satisfactory, to have a full view of the face? Were there any truth in +the theory of telepathy the thing might be accomplished. A strong and +continuous exercise of the will acting upon that other will, and the +thing is done. + +You see the extent to which the nefarious operations of the syndicate +have been pushed? Unaffected by the malign influence of those waves +meeting in like phases, he would have felt himself no more at liberty to +do this thing than to put his rude hand under the dimpled chin and +ravish a look from the violated eyes. + +For all that, he found himself fixing his will upon the turning of that +head. He fancied he saw a rosier glow in the cheek and ear. Surely this +can be no illusion--even the creamy neck glows faintly roseate. And +still he sent out, or imagined he sent out, the thought-waves +commanding the face to turn. And mingled with it was the sense of battle +and the prevision of victory. + +Slowly, slowly, like a blossom toward the sun, the head turned, the eyes +directed upward, the lips a little apart. The mouth, the chin, the Greek +nose, the violet eyes, enthralled him for a moment, and swung back out +of sight again. He had won, and, winning, had lost. The neck was rosy +now. He felt himself tremble as once more she turned her head until the +fringed mystery of those upturned eyes lay open to his gaze, though her +glance never really met his. He saw, in one intense, lingering look, the +blue irises, the lighter border about the pupils, the wondrous rays +emanating from those black, mystic flowers; he saw the fine dilated +nostrils, the rosy, perfect lips; he saw the evanescent quiver of +allurement at the corners of the mouth, the white teeth just glinting +from their warm concealment. He saw-- + +"Oak Grove! All out for Oak Grove! Remember your umbrellas and parcels!" + +Thus the brakeman raucously rescuing the victims of wave-interference. +Thus Terminus baffling Aphrodite. Yet not without a struggle do the +sea-born goddess and the sea-doomed poet surrender their unaccomplished +task. He rose, stepped into the aisle, and passed her; then he turned, +looked gravely for a moment into her eyes, and sadly whispered, +"Good-by!" + +If surprised, she did not show the fact by the slightest start. Soberly +she dropped her eyelids, seriously she raised them, and with the manner +of one who, breaking intimate converse at the parting-place, bids +farewell to a dear companion, she breathed, "Good-by!" + +Said the lady who drove him from the station, "My dear, is it a guilty +conscience or the fate of the race that makes you so--abstracted?" + +"A guilty conscience," he laughed, laying a hand on hers. He looked +after the flying train, and smiled, and sighed. "After all," he added, +"I believe it's the fate of the race!" + + * * * * * + +"Is that all?" asked the Hired Man. + +The pipes went on glowing and dying like little volcanoes with ephemeral +periods of activity and quiescence. The campers rose one by one and went +to their tents. + +"Wasn't that a curious tale?" asked the Bride when they were alone. +"What do you suppose made him think of it as we drove along?" + +"Dunno," returned the Groom, kissing the back of her neck. "Don't you +think we'd better take the rear seat to-morrow?" + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +"I shall never, never be able to feel anything like astonishment again!" + +So said the Bride as the party took the road again after two days at +Mammoth Hot Springs. Bunsen Mountain had been circumnavigated. Cupid's +Cave had charmed. The Devil's Kitchen had stimulated a flagging faith in +a Personal Adversary, dealing with material utensils of vengeance. The +Stygian Cave, whose deadly vapors had strewed its floor with dead birds, +had been pronounced another of his devices and satanically "horrid." The +iridescent springs, each of which has built up its own basin, like +hanging fountains, were compared to the hanging gardens of Babylon, and +pronounced far more worthy of place among the wonders of the world. The +lovely Undine Falls had comforted them with prettiness after wildness; +and the ogreous Hoodoo Rocks had turned them back to the realm of +shivers. The Professor's note-books were overflowing with memoranda; +and Colonel Baggs alone went unastounded. + +"If the place only had a history," said the Minor Poet, "like the +Venusberg, or almost any spot in Europe--" + +"Well," said the Colonel, "it's got some history, anyhow. When I was +here before--" + +"When was that?" asked the Artist, adding a line or two to a +surreptitious sketch of the Colonel. + +"It was thirty-three years ago the latter part of this month," said the +Colonel. "I carried a knapsack in the chase after Chief Joseph and the +Nez Percès. There were pretty average lively times right in this +vicinity with the first tourists, so far as I know, that ever came into +the Park. Some fellows had been up in the Mount Everts country, and to +the lower falls. The Nez Percès rushed them. A fellow named Stewart +found himself looking into the muzzle of the rifle of a Nez Percè, and +made the sign of the cross. The red with the gun, being a pretty fair +Christian as Christians go--the tribe had been converted for thirty +years--as conversions go--refrained from shooting when he saw the sign. +Stewart had a horse that was wild and hard to catch--was wounded and had +no idea he could get within reach of the steed; but when he called, the +horse came to him and stood for him to climb on, for the first and last +time in the history of their relations. Stewart got off with his life." + +"Very remarkable," said the Professor, jotting down a note. "Now, how do +you account for that on any known scientific law?" + +"It simply wasn't Stewart's time," said the Colonel. "Or there's an +intelligence that operates on other intelligences--even those of +beasts--for our protection. Or we have guardian spirits that can tame +horses. Take your choice, Professor. And right here--maybe where we are +camped--another bit of history was enacted that in the childhood of the +race might ripen into one of those legends the artists deplore the lack +of. The campers here had a nigger cook named Stone--Ben Stone--I +arrested and confined for giving thanks to the Lord after we picked him +up. He was here at Mammoth Hot Springs when a fellow--I forget his +name--was shot. The Nez Percès went by one day and saw him here. Next +day they came back more peeved than before and shot the man. Ben, the +cook, ran, and they after him. He shinned up into one of these +trees--maybe that one there. The Indians lost sight of him, and stopped +under the tree for a conference. Stone nearly died of fright for fear +they would hear his heart beating. He said it sounded like a horse +galloping over rocks. They gave him up and went away. The coast being +clear, a bear--probably an ancestor of these half-tamed beasts that the +Bride photographed last evening--came along and began snuffing about the +trees. Ben's heart began galloping again. The bear reared up and +stretched as if he meant to climb the tree. Ben's heart stopped. After a +while the bear went away. After a day or so the cook came into our camp +and went about giving thanks to the Lord continually, and howling +hallelujahs until nobody could sleep. So we put him under guard, and I +watched him under orders to bust his head if he bothered the throne of +grace any more." + +"The army is an irreverent organization," said the Professor. + +"It isn't what you'd call devout," assented the Colonel. + +"Confound this modern world, anyway!" complained the Poet. "Five hundred +years ago, we'd have evolved a cycle of legends out of those +occurrences!" + +"The tales are just as astonishing without legends," insisted the Bride, +"as anything in the world, no matter how deep in fable." + +Faring on southward, they passed toward Norris Basin in unastonished +quietude. A flock of pelicans on Swan Lake created no sensation. A trio +of elk in Willow Park crossed the road ahead of the surrey with no +further effect than to arouse the Artist to some remarks on their +anatomical perfection, and to bring to the surface the buried note-book +of Professor Boggs. They stopped at Apollinaris Spring for refreshment, +where the Groom held forth on the commercial possibilities of the +waters, if the government would get off the lid, and let the country be +developed. + +"Nix on this conservation game," said he; and nobody argued with him. + +At Obsidian Cliff, Mr. Driscoll whoaed up his cayuses to call the +attention of his fares to the fact that here is the only glass road in +the world. + +"Glass?" queried the Professor, alighting, microscope in hand. "Really?" + +"Shore," assured Aconite. "They cracked the road out of the cliff by +building fires to heat the glass and splashin' cold water to make the +chunks pop out--jelluk breakin' a tumbler washin' up the dishes." + +"Oh, I see," said Professor Boggs. "Merely obsidian." + +"Merely!" repeated Aconite. "Some folks always reminds me of the folks +that branded old Jim Bridger as a liar becuz o' what he told of this +here region eighty or ninety years ago. He built Fort Bridger, and +Bridger's Peak was named after him, and he discovered Great Salt Lake, +and I guess he wouldn't lie. He found this glass cliff and told about it +then--and everybody said he was a liar. An' he found lots o' things that +ain't on the map. We see a little thread o' country along this road, but +the reel wonders of this Park hain't been seen sence Jim Bridger's +time--an' not then. W'y, once back in this glass belt, he saw an elk +feedin' in plain sight. Blazed away an' missed him. Elk kep' on feedin'. +Blazed away ag'in. Elk unmoved. Bridger made a rush at the elk with his +knife, and run smack into a mountain of this glass so clear that he +couldn't see it, and shaped like a telescope glass that brought things +close. That elk was twenty-five miles off." + +"Giddap!" said Colonel Baggs to the horses. "Time to be on our way." + +"After all," said the Poet, "we may not have lost the power to create a +mythology." + +"Bridger for my money," said the Artist, with conviction. + +"Jim Bridger said that," asserted Aconite, "an' I believe him. They +found Great Salt Lake where he said it was, all right, an' Bridger's +Peak, an' the few things we've run across here. You wouldn't believe a +mountain would whistle like a steam engine, would yeh? Well, I'll show +you one--Roarin' Mountain--in less'n four miles ahead--in the actual act +of tootin'." + +"I believe all you said, Mr. Driscoll," said the Bride as they sat about +the fire that night. "The glass mountain, the elk and all. After those +indescribable Twin Lakes, the Roaring Mountain, and the Devil's Frying +Pan, stewing, stewing, century after century--that's what makes it so +inconceivable--the thought of time and eternity. The mountains are here +for ever--that's plain; but these things in action--to think that they +were sizzling and spouting just the same when Mr. Bridger was here +ninety years ago, and a million years before that, maybe--it +flabbergasts me!" + +"Yes'm," said Aconite. "It shore do." + +"You're it, Bride!" said the Hired Man, handing her a slip with "Bride" +written upon it. + +"I'm what?" asked the Bride. + +"They've sawed the story off on you," returned the Hired Man. "I hope +you'll give a better one than that there Poet told. I couldn't make head +nor tail to that." + +"It _was_ rotten," said the Poet, looking at the Bride, "wasn't it?" + +"I'm still living in a glass house," said the Bride. "Don't you know +there's only one story a bride can tell?" + +"Tell it, tell it!" was the cry--from all but the Poet and the Groom. + +"I think I'll retire," said the Groom. + +"Off with you into the shadows," said the Poet. "I'll contribute my last +cigar--and we'll smoke the calumet on the other side of the tree where +we can hear unseen." + +About them the earth boiled and quivered and spouted. Little wisps of +steam floated through the treetops. There were rushings and spoutings in +the air--for they were in the Norris Geyser Basin. And here the Bride, +sitting in the circle of men, her feet curled under her on a cushion of +the surrey laid on the geyser-heated ground, fixed her eyes on the +climbing moon and told her story. + + +THE TRIUMPH OF BILLY HELL + +THE STORY TOLD BY THE BRIDE + +Now that so many of the girls are writing, the desire to express myself +in that way comes upon me awfully strongly, sometimes. + +She looked at the Poet, who nodded encouragement and understanding. + +And yet a novel seems so complex and poky in the writing, as compared +with a play, which brings one ever so much more exciting success. Louise +Amerland says that all literature is autobiographical. If this is so, +why can't I use my own romance in making a play? I think I could, if I +could once get the scenario to--to discharge, as Billy says. He calls me +a million M. F. condenser of dramatic electricity, but says that it's +all statical, when it ought to flow. But the scenario must be possible, +if I could only get the figures and events juggled about into place. +There's Billy for the hero, and Pa, and the Pruntys, and me for the +heroine, and comic figures like the butler and Miss Crowley and Atkins, +and the crowds in Lincoln Park. I want the statue of Lincoln in it for +one scene. + +"That would be great," said the Artist. + +After I was "finished" at St. Cecilia's I went into Pa's office as his +secretary. He wasn't very enthusiastic, but I insisted on account of the +sacredness of labor and its necessity in the plan of woman's life having +revealed themselves to me as I read one of Mrs. Stetson's books. Pa +fumed, and said I bothered him; but I insisted, and after a while I +became proficient as a stenographer, and spelled such terms as +"kilowatt," and "microfarad," and "electrolyte," in a way that forced +encomiums from even Pa. Upon this experience I based many deductions as +to the character of our captains of industry, one of which is that they +are the most illogical set in the world, and the more illogical they are +the more industry they are likely to captain. + +Take Pa, for instance. He began with a pair of pliers, a pair of +climbers, a lineman's belt, and a vast store of obstinacy; and he has +built up the Mid-Continent Electric Company--for we are an electric +family, though Billy says magnetic is the term. + +"Spare me!" prayed the Groom. + +But how does Pa order his life? He sends me to St. Cecilia's, which has +no function but to prepare girls for the social swim, and is so +exclusive that he had to lobby shamefully to get me in: and all the time +he gloats--simply _gloats_--over the memory of the pliers, the climbers, +the lineman's belt, and the obstinacy--no, not over the obstinacy, of +course: that is merely what makes him gloat. And he hates Armour +Institute graduates and Tech men poisonously, and wants his force made +up of electricians who have come up, as he says, by hard knocks, and +know the practical side. As if Billy Helmerston--but let me begin at the +beginning. + +I was in the office one day superintending Miss Crowley, the chief +stenographer, in getting together the correspondence about an electric +light and power installation in Oklahoma, when, just at the door of the +private office, I met a disreputable figure which towered above me so +far that I could barely make out that it had good anatomical lines and a +black patch over one eye. + +I will here deceive no one: it was Billy. He explained afterward that he +possessed better clothes, but had mislaid them somehow, and that the cut +over his eye he got in quelling a pay-night insurrection in his +line-gang out in Iowa, one of whom struck him with a pair of four-hole +connectors. I am sorry to confess that I once felt pride in the fact +that Billy knocked the linemen's heads together--and yet Pa talks of +hard knocks!--until they subsided, the blood, meanwhile, running all +down over his face and clothing and theirs. It was very brutal, in +outward seeming, no matter what plea of necessity may be urged for it. + +I almost fell back into the doorway, he was so near and so big. His way +of removing his abominable old hat, and his bow, gave me a queer little +mental jolt, it was so graceful and elegant, in spite of the overalls +and the faded shirt. + +"I was referred to this place as Mr. Blunt's office," said he. "Can you +direct me to him?" + +Now Pa is as hard to approach as any Oriental potentate; but I supposed +that Billy was one of the men from the factory, and had business, and I +was a little fluttered by the wonderful depth and sweetness of his +voice; so I just said: "This way, please"--and took him in to where Pa +was sawing the air and dictating a blood-curdling letter to a firm of +contractors in San Francisco, who had placed themselves outside the pale +of humanity by failing to get results from our new Polyphase Generator. +(Billy afterward told them what was the matter with it.) I saw that my +workman had picked out an exceedingly unpsychological moment, if he +expected to make a very powerful appeal to Pa's finer instincts. + +"Well," roared Pa, turning on him with as much ferocity as if he had +been a San Francisco contractor of the deepest dye, "what can I do for +you, sir?" + +"My name is Helmerston," started Billy. + +"I'm not getting up any directory," shouted Pa. "What do you want?" + +"I'm just through with a summer's line-work in the West," answered +Billy, "and I took the liberty of applying for employment in your +factory. I have--" + +"The blazes you did!" ejaculated Pa, glaring at Billy from under his +eyebrows. "How did you get in here?" + +I was over at the filing-cases, my face just burning, for I was +beginning to see what I had done. Billy looked in my direction, and as +our eyes met he smiled a little. + +"I hardly know, Mr. Blunt," said he. "I just asked my way and followed +directions. Is it so very difficult to get in?" + +I saw at once that he was a good deal decenter than he looked. + +"Well, what can you do?" shouted Pa. + +"Almost anything, I hope," answered Billy. "I've had no practical +experience with inside work; but I have--" + +"Oh, yes, I know!" said Pa, in that unfeeling way which experience and +success seem to impart to the biggest-hearted men--and Pa is surely one +of these. "It's the old story. As soon as a dub gets so he can cut over +a rural telephone, or put in an extension-bell, or climb a twenty-five +without getting seasick, he can do 'almost anything.' What one, +definite, concrete thing can you do?" + +"For one thing," said Billy icily, "I think I could help some by taking +a broom to this factory floor out here." + +"All right," said Pa, after looking at him a moment. "The broom goes! +Give this man an order for a broom. Put him on the pay-roll at seven +dollars a week. Find out who let him in here, and caution whoever it was +against letting it occur again. Call up Mr. Sweet, and tell him I want a +word with him on those Winnipeg estimates. Make an engagement with Mr. +Bayley of the street-car company to lunch with me at the club at two." +And Pa was running in his groove again. + +"I'm sorry," he whispered, as he passed me going out. + +"Thank you," I answered. "It's of no consequence--" + +And then I noticed that he was looking into my eyes in a wistful and +pathetic way, as if protesting against going out. I blushed as I showed +him to the door: and he wasn't the first whose eyes had protested, +either. + +"You mustn't violate the rules, Dolly," said Pa, as we crossed the +bridge in the bubble, going home. "You know perfectly well that I can't +say 'no' to these tramps--" + +"He wasn't a tramp," said I. + +"A perfect hobo," answered Pa. "I know the type well. I have to let +Burns handle them." + +"He was very graceful," said I. + +"Any lineman is," replied Pa. "They have the best exercise in the world. +If he steals anything, you're responsible, my dear." + +I supposed the incident to be closed with my statement that he had nice +eyes, and Pa's sniff; but, in a few days, Pa, who watches the men like a +cat, surprised me by saying that my graceful hobo was all right. + +"He gathered up and saved three dollars' worth of beeswax the other men +were wasting, the first day," said Pa. "Melted and strained and put it +in the right place without asking any questions. And then he borrowed a +blow-torch and an iron, and began practising soldering connections. He +looks good to me." + +"Me, too," said I. + +"Blessed be the hobo," said the Colonel, "for he shall reach paradise!" + +It seems strange, now, to think of my hearing these things unmoved. The +dreadful humiliation to which Billy was subjected, the noble fortitude +with which he bore it, and the splendid way in which he uplifted the +menial tasks to which he was assigned, have always reminded me of Sir +Gareth serving as a scullion in Arthur's kitchen. It is not alone in the +chronicles of chivalry--but I must hasten this narrative. + +I must not delay even to inform you of the ways in which it was +discovered that Billy could do all sorts of things; that there was no +blue-print through which his keen eye could not see, and no engineering +error--like that in the Polyphase Generator--that he couldn't detect; or +how he was pushed up and up by force of sheer genius, no one knowing +who he was until he found himself, like an eagle among buzzards, at the +head of a department, and coming into the office to see Pa quite in a +legitimate way. + +"Hooray! Hooray!" came from behind the tree. + +"Shut up, Poet!" commanded the Artist, "or I'll come back there!" + +I didn't know these things personally, because I had left the office. I +had found out that there seemed to be more soul-nurture in artistic +metal work than in typewriting, and had fitted up a shop in the Fine +Arts Building, where Louise Amerland and I were doing perfectly +enchanting stunts in hammered brass and copper--old Roman lamps and +Persian lanterns, after designs we made ourselves. Pa parted with his +secretary with a sigh, the nature of which may be a question better left +unsettled. + +This romance really begins with my visit, after months and months of +absence, to the restaurant which I had dinged at Pa until he had +instituted for the help. I told him that the social side of labor was +neglected shamefully, and for the work people to eat at the same table +with their superintendents and employers would be just too dear and +democratic, and he finally yielded growlingly. He was awfully pleased +afterward when the papers began to write the thing up. He said it was +the cheapest advertising he ever got, and patted me on the shoulder and +asked me if I wasn't ashamed to be so neglectful of my great invention. +So one day I got tired of working out Rubáiyát motifs in brass, and I +went over to the café for luncheon, incog. And what do you think? Billy +came in and sat down very informally right across from me! + +"Hello!" said he, putting out his hand. "I've been looking for you for +eons, to--to thank you, you know. Don't you remember me?" + +Before I knew it I had blushingly given him my hand for a moment. + +"Yes," I replied, taking it away, and assuming a more properly dignified +air. "I hope you have risen above seven a week and a broom; and I am +glad to see that your head has healed up." + +"Thank you," he replied. "I am running the installation department of +the dynamo end of the business. And you? I'm no end glad to see you +back. Did you get canned for letting me in? I've had a good many bad +half-hours since I found you gone, thinking of you out hunting a job +on--on my account. You--pardon me--don't look like a girl who would +have the E. M. F. in the nerve-department to go out and compete, you +know." + +I was amazed at the creature's effrontery, at first; and then the whole +situation cleared up in my mind. I saw that I had an admirer (_that_ was +plain) who didn't know me as Rollin Blunt's heiress at all, but only as +a shop-mate in the Mid-Continent Electric Company's factory--a +stenographer who had done him a favor. It was more fun than most girls +might think. + +"How did you find out," said I, "that I had been--ah--canned?" + +"I watched for you," he replied. "Began as soon as my promotion to the +switchboard work made it so I could. After a couple of months' +accumulation of data I ventured upon the generalization that the old +man--" + +"The who?" + +"Mr. Blunt, I mean, of course," he amended, "had fired you for letting +me in. Out of work long?" + +"N-no," said I; "hardly a week." + +"Where are you now?" he asked. + +"I'm in a shop," I stammered, "in Michigan Avenue." + +I looked about to see if any of the employees who knew me were present, +but could see none except Miss Crowley, who wouldn't meet a man in the +same office in a year, and a dynamo-man never, and who is near-sighted, +anyhow. So I felt safe in permitting him to deceive himself. It is thus +that the centuries of oppression which women have endured impress +themselves on our more involuntary actions in little bits of +disingenuousness against which we should ever struggle. At the time, +though, to sit chatting with him in the informal manner of co-laborers +at the noon intermission was great fun. It was then that I began to +notice more fully what a really fine figure he had, and how brown and +honest and respectful his eyes were, even when he said "Hello" to me; as +if I were a telephone, and how thrilling was his voice. + +"I'd like," said he, "to call on you--if I might." + +I was as fluttered as the veriest little chit from the country. + +"I--I can't very well receive you," said I. "My--the people where I--I +stop wouldn't like it." + +"I'm quite a respectable sort of chap," said he. "My name's Helmerston, +and my people have been pretty well known for two or three hundred years +up in Vermont, where we live--in a teaching, preaching, book-writing, +rural sort of way, you know. I'm a Tech man--class of '08--but I haven't +anything to boast of on any score, I'm merely telling you these things, +because--because there seems to be no one else to tell you, and--and I +want you to know that I'm not so bad as I looked that morning." + +"Oh, this is quite absurd!" cried I. "I really--it doesn't make any +difference; but I'm quite ready to believe it! I must go, really!" + +"May I see you to your car?" said he; and I started to tell him that I +was there in the victoria, but pulled up, and took the street-car, after +he had extracted from me the information that I lived close to Lincoln +Park. But when he asked if I ever walked in the park, I just refused to +say any more. One really must save one's dignity from the attacks of +such people. I had to telephone Roscoe where to come with the victoria. + +Soon after, quite by accident, I saw him on two successive evenings in +Lincoln Park, both times near the Lincoln statue. I wondered if my +mentioning the south entrance had anything to do with this. He never +once looked at the motorists, and so failed to see me; but I could see +that he took a deep interest in the promenaders--especially slender +girls with dainty dresses and blond hair. It appeared almost as if he +were looking for some one in particular, and I smiled at the thought of +any one being so silly as to search those throngs on the strength of any +chance hint any person might have dropped. I was affected by the pathos +of it, though. It seemed so much like the Saracen lady going from port +to port hunting for Thomas à Becket's father--though, of course, he +wasn't any one's father then, but I can't think of his name. + +The next evening I took Atkins, my maid, and walked down by the Lincoln +monument to look at some flowers. It seems to me that we Chicagoans owe +it to ourselves to become better acquainted with one another--I mean, of +course, better acquainted with our great parks and public places and +statues. They are really very beautiful, and something to be proud of, +provided as they are for rich and poor alike by a paternal government. + +Strangely fortuitous chance: we met Billy! + +"Well, _well_!" exclaimed Aconite. + +He came striding down the path to meet me--Atkins had fallen behind--his +face perfectly radiant with real joy. + +"At last!" he ejaculated. "I wondered if we were _ever_ to meet again, +Miss--Miss--" + +"Blunt," said I, heroically truthful, and suppressing one of those +primordial impulses which urged me to say Wilkinson--now, as a +scientific problem, why Wilkinson? But I did not wish to lose Atkins' +respect by conversing with a man who did not know my name. + +"Miss Blunt?" cried he interrogatively. "That's rather odd, you know. +It's not a very common name." + +"Oh, I don't know," said I, uncandid again, as soon as I saw a chance to +get through with it--little cat. "It seems awfully common to me. Why do +you say that it's odd?" + +"Because I happen to have a letter of introduction to Miss Blunt, +daughter of the old--of Mr. Blunt of the Mid-Continent--" + +"You have?" I broke in. "From whom?" + +"From my cousin, Amelia Wyckoff," said he, "who went to school with her +at St. Cecilia's." + +"Well, of all things!" I began; and then, with a lot of presence of +mind, I think, I paused. "Why don't you present it?" I asked. + +"Well, it's this way," said Billy. "You saw how Mr. Blunt sailed into +me and put me in the broom-brigade without a hearing? I didn't have the +letter then, and when I got it I didn't feel like pulling on the social +strings when I was coming on pretty well for a dub lineman and learning +the business from the solder on the floor to the cupola, by actual +physical contact. And then there's another thing, if you'll let me say +it: since that morning I've had no place in my thoughts for any girl's +face but one." + +We were sitting on a bench. Atkins was looking at the baby leopards in +the zoo, ever so far away. Billy didn't seem to miss her. He was looking +right at me. My heart fluttered so that I knew my voice would quiver if +I spoke, and I didn't dare to move my hands for fear he might notice +their trembling. The idea of _my_ behaving in that way! + +I was glad to find out that he was Amelia's cousin; for that insured his +social standing. That was what made me feel so sort of agitated. One +laborer ought not to feel so of another, for we are all equal; but it +_was_ a relief to know that he was Amelia's aunt's son, and not a tramp. + +"I must be allowed to call on you!" he said with suppressed intensity. +"You don't dislike me very much, do you?" + +"I--I don't like cuts over the eye," said I, evading the question. + +"I don't have 'em any more," he urged. + +And then he explained about the émeute in the line-gang, and the +four-hole connectors, and confessed to the violent and sanguinary manner +in which he had felt called upon to put down the uprising. I could feel +my face grow hot and cold by turns, like Desdemona's while Othello was +telling the same kind of things; and when I looked for the scar on his +forehead he bowed his head, and I put the curls aside and found it. I +would have given worlds to--it was so much like a baby coming up to you +and crying about thumping its head and asking you to kiss it well. Once +I had my lips all puckered up--but I had the self-control to refrain--I +was so afraid. + +It was getting dusk now, and Billy seized my hand and kissed it. I was +quite indignant until he explained that his motives were perfectly +praise-worthy. Then I led him to talk of the rich Miss Blunt to whom he +had a letter of introduction, and advised him to present it, and argued +with appalling cogency that one ought to marry in such a way as to +better one's prospects, and Billy got perfectly furious at such a view +of love and marriage--explaining, when I pretended to think he was mad +at me, that he knew I was just teasing. And then he began again about +calling on me, and seeing my parents, or guardians, or assigns, or _any +one_ that he ought to see. + +"Because," said he, "you're a perfect baby, with a baby's blue eyes and +hair of floss, and tender skin, and trustfulness; and I ought to be +horsewhipped for sitting here in the park with you in--in this way, with +no one paying any attention but Mr. Lincoln, up there." + +Then I did feel deeply, darkly crime-stained; and I could have hugged +the dear fellow for his simplicity--_me_ helpless, with Atkins, and the +knowledge of Amelia Wyckoff's letter; not to mention Mr. Lincoln--bless +him!--or a park policeman who had been peeking at us from behind a bunch +of cannas! I could have given him the addresses of several gentlemen who +might have certified to the fact that I wasn't the only one whose peace +of mind might have been considered in danger. + +I grew portentously serious just before I went home, and told Billy that +he must see me on my own terms or not at all, and that he mustn't follow +me, or try to find out where I lived, but must walk around the curve to +the path and let me mingle with the landscape. + +"May I not hope," said he, "to see you again soon?" + +"I may feed the elephant some peanuts," said I, "on Thursday +evening--no, I shall play in a mixed foursome, and then dine on Thursday +afternoon at the Onwentsia--" + +"Where?" said he, in a sort of astonished way. + +"I believe I could make you believe it," said I with more presence of +mind, "if I stuck to it. But I can't come on Thursday. Let us say on +Friday evening." + +He insisted that Friday is unlucky, and we compromised on Wednesday. +This conversation was on Tuesday. + +"May I turn for just one look at my little wood nymph," said he, "when I +get to the curve?" + +Of course I said "Yes"--and he turned at the curve, and came striding +back with such a light in his eyes that I had to allow him to kiss my +hand again, under the pretense that I had got a sliver in my finger. + +I went back Wednesday, and again and again, and sneaked off once with +him to an orchestra concert, and it wasn't long before Billy knew that +his little stenographer was willing to allow him to hope. But I refused +to let him call it an engagement until he promised me that he would +present the letter to the other Miss Blunt. + +"Why, Dolly? Why, sweetheart?" he asked; for it had got to that stage +now. Oh, it progressed with dizzying rapidity! + +"Because," I replied, "you may like her better than you do me." + +"Impossible!" he cried with a gesture absolutely tragic in its +intensity. "I dislike her very name--'Miss Aurelia Blunt!'" + +"That's unjust!" I cried, really angry, "Aurelia is a fine name; and she +may have a pet name, you know." + +"Only one Miss Blunt with a pet name for little Willie!" said he. "My +little Dolly!" + +But I tied him down with a promise that before he saw me again he'd call +on Aurelia. When I saw him next he looked guilty, and said he had found +her out when he called. I scolded him cruelly, and made him promise +again. The fact was that when he called I couldn't find it in my heart +to sink to the prosaic level of Miss Aurelia Blunt. I had had the +sweetest, most delicious courtship that any girl _ever_ had, up to this +time, and I was afraid of spoiling it all. I was afraid sort of on +general principles, you know, and so was "out." And after he went away I +stole down into the park in my electric runabout and talked to Mr. +Lincoln about it. He seemed to know. When I went away, I left a little +kiss on the monument. + +Billy was perfectly cringing that next day when he had to confess that +he had failed on what he called "this Aurelia proposition." He begged to +be let off. + +"You see," said he, "she may give me a frigid reception, and take +offense at my delay in presenting this letter. Amelia may have written +her, and she may be furious. There may be some sort of social statute of +limitations on letters of introduction, and the thing may have run out, +so that I'll be ejected by the servants, dearie. And, anyhow, it will +place me in an equivocal position with Mr. Blunt--my coming to him as a +tramp, and holding so very lightly the valuable social advantage of an +acquaintance with the family. He won't remember that he jumped on me +with both feet and gave me six months on bread and water. It--it may +queer me in the business." + +I here drew myself up to my full height, and froze him as I have seldom +done. + +"Mr. Helmerston," said I, "I have indicated to you a fact which I had +supposed might have some weight with you as against sordid and merely +prudential considerations--I mean my preferences in this matter. It +seems, however, that--that you don't care the least little bit what _I_ +want, and I just know that you don't--care for me at all as you say you +do; and I'm going home at once!" + +Well, he was so abject, and so sorry to have given me pain, that I +wanted to hug him, but I didn't. + +Oh, I almost neglected to say that all our behavior had been of the most +proper and self-contained sort. I would almost be willing to have Miss +Featherstonehaugh at St. Cecilia's use a kinetoscope picture of all our +meetings in marking me in deportment. Of course, conversations in parks +and at concerts do not lend themselves to transports very well, and the +kinetoscopes do not reproduce what is said, do they? Or the way one +feels when one is grinding into the dust, in that manner, the most +splendid fellow in the whole terrestrial and stellar universe. + +"I'll go, by George!" he vowed. "And I'll sit on Aurelia's doorstep +without eating or drinking until she comes home and kicks me down the +stairs!" I was wondering as I went home how soon he would come; but I +was astonished to learn that Mr. Helmerston was in my reception-room. + +"Hi informed 'im," said the footman, "that you would 'ardly be 'ome +within a reasonable time of waiting; but 'e said 'e would remain until +you came, Miss, nevertheless." + +I went down to him just as I was, in my simple piqué dress, wearing the +violets he had given me. "Mr. Helmerston," said I, "I must apologize for +the difficulty I have given you in obtaining the very slight boon of +meeting me, and say how good you are to come again--and wait. Any friend +of dearest Amelia's, not to mention her cousin, is--" + +He had stood in a state of positive paralysis until now. + +"Dolly! Dolly! Dearest, dearest Dolly!" he cried, coming up to me and +taking--and doing what he hadn't had a chance to do before. "Oh, my +darling, are _you_ here?" + +After quite a while he started up as if he had forgotten something. + +"What is it?" said I. "There isn't a promenader or a policeman this side +of the park, sweetheart!" + +"No," he answered after another interval--for I hadn't called him +anything like that before--"but I was thinking that--that Aurelia--is a +long time in coming home." + +"Why, don't you know _yet_, you goosey," said I. "_I'm_ Aurelia!" + + * * * * * + +And this brings me to the point where dalliance must cease--most of the +time--while the drama takes on the darker tinge given it by Pa's cruel +obstinacy, and the misdeeds of the Pruntys--whom I should have brought +on in the first act, somehow, on a darkened stage, conspiring across it +over a black bottle, and once in a while getting up to peek up and down +the flies, meanwhile uttering the villain's sibilant "Sh!" I don't +suppose it is artistic, from the Augustus Thomas viewpoint, but I wanted +the honeyed sweets of this courtship of mine without a tang of bitter; +and, honestly now, isn't it a lovely little plot for a love-drama? + + * * * * * + +"Gee!" exclaimed the Hired Man. "I was afraid you was through!" + +"I am," said the Bride softly, "for to-night. If you'll excuse me now. +Maybe I'll tell the rest of it at the next camp--if you want me to." + +"I assure you," said the Professor, "that your tale does credit to your +teachers in elocution." + +"We all thank you," said the Artist, "for what we've had--and won't you +continue at the next session--Scheherazade?" + +"I'll see," said she. "Billy! Where are you!" + +"I have mysteriously disappeared," replied the Groom from behind the +tree. "Come hunt me!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +At the behest of Aconite, the party refrained from expressions of more +than mild interest at the Norris Basin. Aconite assured them that they +ought to save their strong expressions for things farther on. The Poet +wrote some verses for the purpose of creating a legend to account for +the fact that the Monarch Geyser ceased to spout some ten years ago. But +when he came to the Growler, and the Hurricane, and the new Roaring +Holes, which are really gigantic steam whistles, he dismounted from his +Pegasus and threaded his way through the dead forest--killed by escaping +steam--in a trance of wonder. But Aconite's advice to economize language +until the Lower Geyser Basin should be reached was followed so far as +superlatives were concerned. Night found them scattered, and it was only +when they took the road once more that the party was whole again. The +Artist stopped the surrey at the Gibbon Paint Pots so that he might use +some of their bubbling sediment as a pigment with which to paint a +souvenir picture for each of the party. Cañons, boiling springs and +waterfalls--rocks, mountains, wild beauty on every hand--all these they +were assured were inconsiderable parts of the prelude to the marvels +awaiting them at the next halt. But when they came to the crossing of +Nez Percè Creek, the Bride expressed a desire to wait, to stop, to rest +her eyes and quiet her spirits before anything more striking should be +imposed upon her powers of observation. + +"I fell like Olger the Dane and King Desiderio, when they watched on the +tower for Charlemagne; and if we go on, I shall, like Olger, fall 'as +one dead at Desiderio's feet!'" + +The Poet looked in the Bride's eyes, and nodded sympathetically. Mr. +Driscoll pondered the mysteries of the Bride's statement for a while, +and threw down his lines. + +"If that's the way the Bride feels," said he, "we'll stop here and grub +our systems up a little." + +"The champion hard-luck story of this or any other age," said the +Colonel, as they lighted their pipes after dinner, "was enacted right up +this creek in that Nez Percè uprising wherein I fought and bled and +died." + +"More matter for myths," said the Artist. "Let's have it, e'en though it +be as dolorous as the tale of the Patient Griselda." + +"I don't recall more of Griselda's story," said the Colonel, "than that +she was given the worst of it by her husband, the king. But this Nez +Percè Creek story isn't any tale of the perfidy of our nearest and +dearest, but of things just unanimously breaking bad for a man from +Radersburg, Mr. Cowan. He and his wife and some friends were camped down +here a couple of miles at the Lower Geyser Basin, right close by the +Fountain Geyser, just beyond the hotel--only there wasn't any hotel yet +for thirty years. Chief Joseph and his Nez Percès came through trying to +get away from the United States. They picked up the Cowan party, and +brought them right along where we now are, and a few miles up this +creek, where Joseph, Looking-Glass, and the other chiefs held a +conference and decided to let the Cowan party go, after destroying their +transportation system by cutting the spokes out of their buggies. This +they did, and the Indians went on. Some of the bucks, feeling that it +was careless of the chiefs to overlook a bet like this, came back, and +in process of correcting their leaders' mistake shot Mr. Cowan in the +thigh--which was bad luck Item one. He slipped from his horse, stunned +by the shock, and his wife ran to him and tried to shelter him from +further harm. But in spite of her efforts another Indian shot him in the +head, holding his rifle so close that the powder burned the flesh. He +was not killed, however, though all parties to the affair supposed he +was, and Mrs. Cowan was removed from the corpse to which she clung, and +carried away by her friends. You see, the Indians were not unanimously +for these killings, and allowed most of the whites to go. The Indians +threw a cord or so of rocks on Cowan's head and went on with a +consciousness of good work well and thoroughly done. + +"Cowan revived, pulled his head from among the rocks, and drew himself +to a standing posture by the limb of a tree. An Indian happening along, +shot him with much care in the back, and left him for dead again. + +"Cowan, however, refused to die, and though without food, and wounded in +the thigh, the head, and the back, and with his head hammered to a jelly +by the rocks thrown on it, started to crawl back to camp. He met +Indians, and hid from them. He crawled day after day--being unable to +walk a step. He had a chance--for an uninjured man--to catch a Nez +Percè pony which had been abandoned, but could not walk. Hard luck, +indeed! He met a body of friendly Bannock scouts who would have taken +care of him, but he supposed them to be hostiles and hid from them. +Harder luck still! After crawling seven or eight miles, which took +several days, he reached his old camp and there was reunited to his +faithful dog, which at first snapped at and then welcomed him. + +"At the camp his first good luck came--he found matches, coffee and some +food--not to mention the dog, which I venture to state helped him almost +as much as the provisions. Next day he met some scouts sent out to trail +the hostiles and incidentally with instructions to bury Cowan--but they +praised him instead. They fixed him up as well as they could, and left +him by their camp-fire to await the coming of General Howard with the +main body of troops. The ground was peaty, and full of dead vegetable +matter, and after a nap, Cowan awakened to find that the earth all about +him was on fire, and wounded as he was he had to roll out of the fire +zone, getting burned scandalously as he rolled." + +"Here," said the Hired Man. "You tell the rest of this to marines!" + +"I'm telling you," said the Colonel, "the historic truth. General Howard +came along and the surgeons gave Cowan all the care they were able to +afford him. They took him up to Bottler's Ranch, north of the Park, and +there Mrs. Cowan rejoined the remains and fragments of her still living +spouse. They went to Bozeman after a while, carrying Cowan in a wagon. +At the top of the hill down which they had to go, the neck-yoke broke +and the horses ran away, and spilled Cowan out on the rocks and the +generally unyielding surface of Montana. A conveyance was brought from +Bozeman, and the much-murdered man was taken to a hotel." + +"Thank God!" breathed the Poet. "Even a Montana hotel was a sweet boon +as bringing the end of these troubles." + +"Who said it was the end?" inquired the Colonel. "It wasn't. In the +hotel at Bozeman his hoodoo haunted him. People flocked to the hotel to +see him. If the vaudeville stage had been invented then in its present +form, he could have made a fortune. They crowded into his room and sat +on his bed. The bed collapsed, and Cowan was hurled to the floor and +killed again. The hotel-keeper, seeing that even a cat's supply of lives +must be about used up, ordered the crowd out of the place. He said he +thought of throwing Cowan out, too, being afraid his hotel would burn +up, or be blown away, or something, with such a Jonah aboard. But Cowan +succeeded in getting home. They asked him if he didn't often think of +his soul's salvation while enduring all these sufferings and passing +through all these perils. 'Not by a damned sight!' said the +unreconstructed sinner. 'I had more important things to think of!'" + +"And all that took place right here?" asked the Bride. + +"Here and hereabouts," answered the Colonel. "I was here about the time, +and I know." + +"If Jim Bridger," said Aconite, "had narrated them adventures, what +would folks have said? And yet, the Colonel's correct. The tale are +true!" + +"Here's where you can sleep under a roof, Bride," said the Hired Man, as +they made camp at the Lower Geyser Basin. + +"So you don't want the rest of the story?" she queried. + +"Ma'am," said the Hired Man. "We should all be darned sorry to lose you +from the camp; but--" + +"But me no buts," said the Bride. "I stay with the--with--the what do +you call it, Mr. Driscoll, that I'm staying with?" + +"The outfit, Miss Bride," said Aconite. "And the outfit's shore +honored." And after the tasks of camp had been done, amid the strange +and daunting surroundings of the wonderful geyser basin, when the camp +reached that lull that precedes slumber, and which over all the world, +whether on prairie, in forest, or on desert, is devoted to tobacco, +music and tales, the Bride went on with her story. + + +THE TRIUMPH OF BILLY HELL + +THE SECOND PART OF THE BRIDE'S STORY + +The Pruntys live near Saint Joe, where they have a town and stockyards +and grain-elevators, and thousands and thousands of acres of land all of +their own, just like mediæval barons--only instead of having a castle +with a donjon-keep with battlements and mysterious oubliettes and +drizzly cells and a moat, they live in a great wooden house with +verandas all round, and of a sort of composite architecture--Billy says +that it is Queen Anne in front and Mary Ann at the rear--and hot and +cold water in every room, and with a stone windmill-tower with a wheel +on the top that you couldn't possibly put in a picture, it is so round +and machiney-looking. Old Mr. Prunty says it cost twenty-seven thousand +five hundred and eighty-three dollars and thirty-six cents--says it +every chance he gets, without the variation of a cent. The Pruntys are +scandalously rich. Their riches bought them a place in this play. + +When Pa had begun to forge to the front in Peoria, where he began, he +had all the knack he ever possessed for getting business, but he didn't +have much money. I don't see any reason why we shouldn't confess this +here. So he went to old Mr. Prunty, with whom he had become acquainted +while he was putting in a town lighting-plant in the Prunty private +village, and showed him how remunerative it would be to put money into +Pa's business. This Mr. Prunty did, and I once saw the balance-sheet +showing the profits he made. They were something frightful to a mind +alive to the evils of the concentration of wealth--and the necessity of +dividing with other people; but I shouldn't care so much for _that_, I +am afraid, if it hadn't brought us into relations with Enos Prunty, +Junior, who was brought up to the business of taking over the +Mid-Continent Electric Company, and incidentally, me. The very idea! + +I must not be disingenuous any more, and therefore I will admit that at +one time I should have consented to the merger if it hadn't been for +Enos' perfectly impossible name. Not that I loved him; not at all. But +he wasn't bad looking, and he had overcome a good deal of the Prunty +_gaucherie_--I should think he ought to, the schools he had been +through--and a girl really does like to think of trousseaux, and +establishments and the like. One day, though, I hired a card-writer on +the street to write out for me the name, "Mrs. Enos Prunty, Jr.," upon +looking at which I fled as from a pestilence, and threw it into the +grate, and had a fire kindled, although it was one of those awful days +when the coroner never can tell whether it was the heat or the humidity. + +I had met Billy in the restaurant the day before. + +But Pa liked Enos, and sort of treated the matter as if it were all +arranged; and when Billy came into the spotlight as our social +superior--which the Helmerstons would be by any of the old and outworn +standards--I began to pet Pa one evening, and ask him how he liked Mr. +Helmerston; whereupon Pa exploded with a terrific detonation, and said +he wanted the relations of Mr. Helmerston with the Blunt family confined +strictly to the field of business; that he hated and despised all the +insufferable breed of dubs--I never could get Pa to say "cad"--who crept +into employments like spies, under false pretenses, and called an +Institute of Technology a "Tech," and looked down on better electricians +who had come up by hard knocks. And Pa insisted that a man must have +been pretty tough who had acquired in college circles from the Atlantic +to the Missouri the _nom de guerre_ of "Billy Hell." + +Pa is a good business man, and has exceptional facilities for looking up +people's records; but it seemed a little sneaky to use them on Billy, +and to know so much, when we were so sure he never suspected a thing. I +told him so, too, but all he said was "Huh." I was very angry, and when +Mr. Prunty, Junior, came to see me next time I repulsed his addresses +with such scorn that he went away in a passion. He said he laid no claim +to being a human being, but he was, at least, a member of the animal +kingdom, and that my way of treating him would have been inhuman had he +been a toadstool. I retorted that I'd concede him a place among the +mushrooms--fancy _my_ twitting any one of mushroomery! But the +old-family attitude of the Helmerstons was getting into my mental +system. + +Pa, in the meantime, was preparing to shunt Billy off to Mexico to +superintend the installation of the Guadalanahuato power plant--a two +years' job--at a splendid salary. But our Mr. Burns went over to the +Universal Electric Company (after we had made him what he was!) and Mr. +Aplin proved quite incapable of running the business, although he was +_such_ a genius in watts and farads and ohms and the coefficient of +self-induction, and Billy was simply forked into the general charge of +the main office, against his will, and shockingly against Pa's. + +I forgot to say that Pa was ill, and confined to his room for a long +time. This touches a tender spot in Pa's feelings, but the truth must be +told; and you must understand that all his illness came from an +ingrowing toe-nail. He had to have an operation, and then he had to stay +in the house because it wouldn't heal; and there he was, using language +which is really scandalous for a good church-worker like Pa, while Billy +attended to the business. + +I heaped coals of fire on Pa's head by staying with him hours and hours +every day, and reading to him, until he asked me for goodness' sake to +stop until he got the cross-talk out of his receiver. I said I'd be glad +to dispense with all his cross talk, and he said: "There, now, don't +cry"--and we had a regular love feast. Pa was a little difficult at this +period. However, that day he got more confidential than he ever was +before, and told me that serious business troubles were piling up, and +worried him. We were likely, he said, to be spared the disgrace of dying +rich. This was irony, for Pa despises this new idea that one should +apologize for one's success. + +He went on to tell me that Mr. Prunty had always had the most stock in +the Mid-Continent, and that now that Enos had got so conceited about +being able to run the business, and not being allowed to, the Pruntys +seemed to want the whole thing, and hinted around about withdrawing, or +buying Pa out. + +I have this scene all in my mind for the play, with me sitting in "a dim +religious light" and listening to the recital of our ruin and crying +over Pa's sore foot. I did cry a good deal about this, truly, for I knew +perfectly well that it was the nasty way I had treated Enos that made +them so mean; but I still wished from the bottom of my heart that he +would come back so I could search my soul for worse things to do to +him. I told Billy about this trouble, and explained that Pa couldn't +possibly raise money to buy out the Pruntys, and that they could be +calculated upon not to pay Pa anything like what his stock was worth. + +"I see," said Billy, "you are being squeezed by the stronger party." + +He was looking out of the window in an abstracted sort of way, but he +came to when I answered that, personally, I hadn't been conscious of +anything of the sort. + +When the conversation got around to the business again, Billy told me +that Goucher--a Missourian that the Pruntys had injected into the +business, and who was perfectly slavish in his subserviency to Enos--had +been quizzing around Billy, trying to find out what ailed Pa, and if it +was anything serious. + +"I didn't like the little emissary," said Billy, "and so I told him that +Mr. Blunt was precariously ill, with a complication of Bright's disease +in its tertiary stage, and locomotor ataxia. He wrote down the Bright's +disease and asked me how to spell the other. I told him that the +Bright's disease would probably terminate fatally before he could master +so much orthography; and still he didn't tumble! Goucher went away +conscious of having performed well an important piece of work. I can't +help thinking now that this incident has more significance than I then +supposed." + +He sat puckering up his brows for a long time, and I let him pucker. + +At last he said: "Dolly, I shouldn't a bit wonder if they are trying to +take some advantage of a dying man. I can see how they work the problem +out. 'Here is a sick man,' they say, 'who has been doing the work of +half a dozen for twenty years. He is going to pieces physically. If he +has some fatal disease, and knows it, we can settle with him, and make +him pay a few hundred thousand dollars for the privilege of getting his +daughter's inheritance disentangled from a business which she can't run, +and in which she will be at the mercy of--of people with whom her +relations are a little strained. But first, we'll find out just how sick +he is, and whether he's likely to get well soon, or at all.' And so they +send Goucher mousing about; and he reports Bright's disease, and +something else he can't spell, and they make an appointment with +Helmerston for to-morrow morning to find out more about it, Mr. Goucher +not being very clear. And your father's rather fierce manner of hiding +what his ailment really is makes them all the more suspicious." + +"You tell them," said I, firing up, "that Pa is still able--" + +But I saw that Billy had one of those epoch-making ideas which mark the +crises of history, and I stopped spellbound. He finally struck himself a +fearful blow upon the knee, and said that he had it, and one looking at +him could easily believe it. Then he explained to me his plan for +discomfiting the Pruntys and hoisting them by their own petard. This is +deeply psychological, being based upon an intuitive perception of what a +Prunty would do when he believed certain things and had money at stake. + +"I must take responsibility in this," said Billy, squaring his +shoulders, "and bet my job on my success, and put our happiness in +jeopardy. But, if we win, Mr. Blunt can never again say that I am an +engineer only, with no head for practical business; and I shall have +outlived the disgrace of my Tech training--and the nickname. You must +handle your father, and keep me informed of any engagement the Pruntys +make with him. I must do the rest. And, if I lose, it's back to climbing +poles again!" + +I asked Billy if I couldn't do something in line work, and he said I +might carry the pliers. And when I said I meant it, he behaved +beautifully, and called me his angel, and--and violated the rules, you +know--and went away in a perfect frenzy of determination. I felt a +solemn joy in spying on Pa and reporting to Billy. It seemed like a +foretaste of a life all bound up and merged with his. And this is what +took place: + +The elder Mr. Prunty called on Billy and said he was appalled at the +news Mr. Goucher brought that Mr. Blunt had Bright's disease; and was +there any hope that the doctors might be mistaken? + +Billy told him that the recent progress in bacteriological science, with +which Mr. Prunty was no doubt fully conversant, seemed to make the +diagnosis a cinch. By this he meant that they were sure about it. + +"I see," said the driver. "I've heared the word afore." + +He used a term that Mr. Prunty understood, Billy said, owing to his +having done business all his life with reference to it. + +Mr. Prunty suggested that people live a long time with Bright's disease, +sometimes. + +Billy, who is really a great actor, here grew mysterious, and told Mr. +Prunty that, being mixed up with Mr. Blunt in business, it seemed a pity +that he, Mr. Prunty, should have the real situation concealed from him, +and that, as a matter of fact, Mr. Blunt's most pronounced outward +symptom was a very badly ulcerated index toe. This of Billy's own +knowledge, and Mr. Prunty might depend upon it. + +Mr. Prunty studied on this for a long time, and then remarked that he +had known several people to recover from sore toes. + +Billy then pulled a book--a medical work he had borrowed--from under the +desk, and showed Mr. Prunty a passage in which it was laid down that +people's toes come off sometimes, in a most inconvenient way, in the +last stages of Bright's disease. Mr. Prunty read the whole page, +including a description of the way that dread disease ruins the +complexion, by making it pasty and corpselike, and then laid the book +down with conviction in his eyes. + +"From this," said he, motioning at the book with his glasses, "it would +seem to be all off." + +"If it's Bright's disease," said Billy, "that causes this lesion of the +major lower digit, the prognosis is, no doubt, extremely grave. But +while there's life, you know--" + +"Yes," answered Mr. Prunty, "that is a comfort, of course. Does he know +what ails him?" + +"He is fully aware of his condition," said Billy, "but, unfortunately, +not yet resigned to it." (I should think not.) + +"I see you have been studying this thing out," said Mr. Prunty, "as +exactly as if it had been an engineering problem; and I want to say, Mr. +Helmerston, that I like your style. If we ever control this business the +future of such careful and competent and far-sighted men as yourself--in +fact, I may say _your_ future--will be bright and assured. Have you any +more information for me as to this--this sad affair of Blunt's?" + +Billy thanked him, and said he hadn't, at present, and Mr. Prunty went +away, trying to look sad. Billy went to the bank in Pa's name and +arranged for a lot of money to be used in acquiring the Prunty stock, if +it should be needed. The stock was worth twice as much, and the bank +people knew it, and couldn't have believed, of course, that we would get +it for _that_. Then the Pruntys made an engagement with me for Pa over +the telephone, for a certain hour of a certain day, and I told Billy. + +"The time has come," said Billy, when the plot began thickening in this +way, "for Little Willie to beard the lion in his den. Smuggle me into +the room an hour before the Pruntys are due, darling, and we'll cast the +die." + +I was all pale and quivery when I kissed Billy--in that sort of serious +way in which we women kiss people we like, when we tell them to come +back with their shields or on them--and pushed him into the room. + +I heard all they said. It was dark in there, and Pa thought at first +that it was a Prunty. Pa was sitting in the Morris chair, with his foot +on a rest. + +"That you, Enos?" said he. "Help yourself to a chair. I'm kind of laid +up for repairs." + +"It's Helmerston," said Billy. "I called to talk to you about this +affair with Mr. Prunty. I have some information which may be of value to +you." + +Pa sat as still as an image for perhaps a minute. I could almost hear +his thoughts. He was anathematizing Billy mentally for butting in, but +he was too good a strategist to throw away any valuable knowledge. + +"Well," said he at last, "I'm always open to valuable information. Turn +it loose!" + +Then Billy told him all you know, and a good deal more, which I shall +not here state, because it is not necessary to the scenario, and I did +not understand it, anyhow. There was some awfully vivid conversation at +times, though, when Pa went up into the air at what Billy had done, and +Billy talked him down. + +"Do you mean to say, you--you young lunatic," panted Pa, "that you've +told Prunty that he's got a living corpse to deal with, when I need all +the prestige I've won with him to hold my own?" + +But Billy explained that he'd taken the liberty of thinking the whole +thing out; and, anyhow, had merely refrained from removing a mistaken +notion from Prunty's mind. + +"But," said he, "you can assure him when he gets here that you are +really in robust health." + +"Assure him!" roared Pa. "He'd be dead sure I was trying to put myself +in a better light for the dicker. I couldn't make him believe anything +at all. I know Prunty." + +Billy said that the psychology of the situation was plain. Mr. Prunty +was convinced that Pa was in such a condition that he never could go +back to the office, and could no more take sole ownership of the +Mid-Continent than a baby could enter a shot-putting contest. What would +they do when it came to making propositions? They would offer something +that they were sure a case in the tertiary stage couldn't accept. They +would probably offer to give or take a certain price for the stock. +Believing that Pa wasn't in position to buy, but was really forced to +sell, they would name a frightfully low price, so that when Pa accepted +it perforce they would be robbing him out of house and home, almost. +This was the way with these shrewd traders always, and to whipsaw a +dying man would be nuts for a man like Prunty. (I am here falling into +Billy's dialect when he was in deadly earnest.) Then the conversation +grew mysterious again with Pa listening, and once admitting that "that +would be like old Enos." + +"But he'll back out," said Pa, "if he's thief enough ever to start in." + +"Have him make a memorandum in writing, and sign it," answered Billy. + +"But," rejoined Pa, in a disgusted way, as if to ask why he condescended +to argue with this young fool, "you don't know Prunty. Unless he has +the cash in hand he'll go to some lawyer and find a way out." + +"I thought of that, too," said Billy; "and so I took the liberty of +going to the bank and getting the cash--for temporary use, you know." + +"I like your nerve!" moaned Pa angrily. "Do you know, young man, that +you've built up a situation that absolutely forces me to adopt your fool +plans? Absolutely infernal nonsense! To imagine it possible to get the +Prunty stock at any such figures is--" And Pa threw up wild hands of +desperation to an unpitying sky. + +"Is it possible to imagine," said Billy, "such a thing as the Pruntys +trying to get your stock at that figure? That's the thing I'm looking +for and counting on." And when Pa failed to reply, but only chewed his +mustache, Billy went on: "I thought the logic of the situation would +appeal to you," said he. "And now let us set the stage. The time is +short." + +And then came the most astounding thing, and the thing that showed +Billy's genius. First he took out the electric-light bulbs of the +electrolier, and screwed in others made of a sort of greenish +glass--just a little green tinge in it. He took some stage appliances +and put just a little shade of dark under Pa's eyes, and at the corners +of his mouth; and when the green lights were turned on Pa had the most +ghastly, ghostly, pasty, ghoulish look any one ever saw. I was actually +frightened when I came in: it was as bad as Doctor Jekyll turned to Mr. +Hyde. Pa looked rather cheap while Billy was doing this, but the time +was getting short, and he was afraid the Pruntys would come bursting in +and catch them at it. Billy placed Pa right under the green lights, and +shaded them so that the rest of us received only the unadulterated +output of the side lamps. Then they arranged their cues, and Billy +stepped into the next room. As he went, Pa swore for the first time +since he quit running the line-gang, when, he claims, it was necessary. + +"If this goes wrong, as it will," he hissed through his livid lips, +"I'll kick you from here to the city-limits if it blows the plug in the +power-house!" + +"Very well, sir," answered Billy--and the footman announced the Pruntys. + +I was as pale as a ghost, and my eyes were red, and the look of things +was positively sepulchral when they came in, Enos tagging at his +father's heels as if he was ashamed. The footman turned on the light, +and almost screamed as he looked at poor Pa, with the pasty green in +his complexion, and the cavernous shadows under his eyes. Billy had seen +to it that the Pruntys had had plenty of literature on the symptoms of +Bright's disease, and I could see them start and exchange looks as Pa's +state dawned on them. + +"I'm sorry to see you in this condition," said Mr. Prunty, after Pa had +weakly welcomed them and told them to sit down. + +"What condition?" snapped Pa, the theatricality wearing off. "I'm all +right, if it wasn't for this blamed toe!" + +"Is it very bad?" asked Mr. Prunty. + +"It won't heal," growled Pa, and the visitors exchanged glances again. +"But you didn't come here to discuss sore toes. Let's get down to +business." + +Then Mr. Prunty, in a subdued and sort of ministerial voice, explained +to Pa that he was getting along in years, and that Pa wasn't long--that +is, that Pa was getting along in years, too--and both parties would, no +doubt, be better satisfied if their interests were separated. Therefore +he had decided to withdraw his capital from the business, and place it +in some other enterprise which would give his son a life work along +lines laid out in his education and training. He didn't want to sell +his stock to the Universal Electric Company as he had a chance to do (Pa +started fiercely here, for he was afraid of the Universal Electric); +although the old agreement by which neither party was to sell out to a +competitor was probably no longer binding; and so they had come as man +to man to talk adjustment. + +"But," says Pa, "this takes me by surprise. I don't quite see my way +clear to taking on such a load as carrying all the stock would be. +Mid-Continent stock is valuable." + +They exchanged glances again, as much as to say that Pa was evidently +anxious to sell rather than buy, and was crying the stock up +accordingly, so as to get as much money as he could for me before he +died. + +"We may not be so grasping as you think," said Mr. Prunty; and then +nothing was said for quite a while. + +Pa was looking awfully sick, and Mr. Prunty was just exuding love and +kindness and magnanimity from every pore. + +"You had some proposition thought out," interrogated Pa, feeling +anxiously for his own pulse, "or you wouldn't have come. What is it, +Prunty?" + +"Well," answered Mr. Prunty, gazing piercingly at Pa, as if to ask if +such a cadaverous person _could_ possibly take on the sole control of +the Mid-Continent even if he had the money--"well, we had thought of it +a little, that's a fact. We thought we'd make you an offer to buy or +sell--" + +"Hurrah for Billy!" my heart shouted. For this was just what he said +would happen. But, instead of hurrahing, I came to the front and gave Pa +a powder. It was mostly quinine, and was dreadfully bitter. + +"To buy or sell," went on Mr. Prunty, "at a price to be named by us. If +it's a reasonable figure, take our stock and give us our money. If it's +too high, why, sell us yours. That's fair, ain't it?" + +Pa lay back and looked green and groaned. He was doing it nobly. + +"What is fair in some circumstances," he moaned, "is extortion in +others; and I--er--yes, I suppose it would be called fair. What's your +give-or-take price, Prunty?" + +"We are willing," said Mr. Prunty, "to give or take seventy-five for the +stock." + +Pa was so still that I had to rouse him, and Mr. Prunty repeated his +offer. + +"I--I'm getting a little forgetful," said Pa, "and I'd like to have you +put it in writing, so I can consider it, and be sure I have it right, +you know." + +The Pruntys consulted again, and again they came forward. Enos wrote +down the proposition, and Mr. Prunty signed it. I didn't understand it +very well, and the strain was so frightful that I expected to fly all to +pieces every instant, but I didn't. + +When Enos handed the paper to Pa, Pa cleared his throat in a kind of +scraping way, and in stepped Billy with a great box under his arm. + +"Mr. Helmerston," said Pa, as calmly as General Grant at--any place +where he was especially placid--"I want you and my daughter to be +witnesses to the making of the proposition in this writing, from Mr. +Prunty to me." + +Billy read the paper, and said he understood that it was a give-or-take +offer of seventy-five for all the stock of the Mid-Continent. Mr. Prunty +said yes, looking rather dazed, and not so sympathetic. + +"I accept the proposition," snapped Pa, his jaw setting too awfully firm +for the tertiary stage. "I'll take your stock at seventy-five. +Helmerston, pay 'em the money!" + +Billy had the cash in ten-thousand-dollar bundles; and I was so +fascinated at the sight of so much treasure being passed over like +packages of bonbons, that for a while I didn't see how funny Mr. Prunty +was acting. When I did look, he was holding his nose in the air and +gasping like one of Aunt Maria's little chickens with the pip. He seemed +to have a sort of progressive convulsions, beginning low down in +wrigglings of the legs, and gradually moving upward in jerks and gurgles +and gasps, until it went off into space in twitchings of his mouth and +eyes and nose and forehead. Enos had the bundles of money counted, and a +receipt written, before he noticed that his father was having these +fits, and then _he_ seemed scared. I suppose these people have a sort of +affection for each other, after all. + +"Father," said he--"Father, what's the matter?" + +"Matter?" roared Mr. Prunty. "Does the fool ask what's the matter? Don't +you see we're done brown? Look at the basketful they brought, that we +might just as well have had as not, if it hadn't been for--Blast you, +Blunt, I'll show you you can't chisel old Enos Prunty out of his good +money like this, I will! I'll put the whole kit and boodle of yeh in +jail! That stock is worth a hundred and fifty, if it's worth a cent. +Ene, if you'll stand by like a stoughton bottle and see your old father +hornswoggled out of his eye-teeth by a college dude and this old +confidence-man, you'll never see a cent of my money, never! Do you hear, +you ass? He's no more sick than I am! That's false pretenses, ain't it? +He's got some darned greenery-yallery business on that face of his! +Ain't that false? Blunt, if you don't give me the rest in the basket +there I'll law you to the Supreme Court!" + +"Hush, father," said Enos; "Aurelia's here." + +"When you get everything set," said Pa, with a most exasperating smile, +"just crack ahead with your lawsuit. We'll trot you a few heats, anyhow. +You'd better take your pa away, Enos, and buy him a drink of something +cool." + +"I want to compliment you, Mr. Helmerston," said Enos, quite like a +gentleman, "on the success of your little stage-business, and especially +on your careful forecast of the play of human motives. I can see that a +man with only ordinary business dishonesty, like myself, need not be +surprised at defeat by such a master of finesse as you." + +He bowed toward me. Billy flushed. + +"If you mean, sir--" he began. + +"Oh, I mean nothing offensive," answered Enos. "I will be in the office +in the morning, and shall be ready, as secretary, to transfer this stock +on the books, previous to resigning. Come, father, we've got our +beating; but we can still have the satisfaction of being good losers. +Good-by, Miss Blunt; I wish you joy!" + +Pa came out of the green light as they disappeared, limping on his +wrapped-up foot, and shouted that he had always said that Enos was a +brick, and now he knew it. I ran up to him and kissed him. Then I threw +myself into Billy's arms. + +"Aurelia!" said Pa, looking as cross as a man _could_ look in such +circumstances, "I should think you'd be ashamed of yourself!" + +I dropped into a chair and covered up my face, while Pa went on +addressing Billy, trying to be severe on him for letting me kiss him, +and to beam on him at the same time for helping him with the Pruntys. + +"Young man," said he, "I owe you a great deal. This tomfoolery happened +to work. Please to consider yourself a part of the Mid-Continent +Electric Company in any capacity you choose." + +"Yes, sir," said Billy, gathering up the money. "Is that all, sir?" + +"I should like to have you take Enos' place as secretary," added Pa. + +"Thank you," said Billy. "I shall be pleased and honored. Is that all? +Do I still go to Mexico?" + +Pa pondered and fidgeted, and acted awfully ill at ease. + +"Yes," said he at last. "You're the only competent engineer we've got +who understands the plans. You'll have to go for a few months--if you +don't mind--anyhow." + +"Pa," said I, "I'm tired of metal work, and I need a vacation in new and +pleasant surroundings, and--and associations. Billy is awfully pleasant +to associate with, and--and be surrounded by; and I've never, never been +in Guadalanawhat-you-may-call-it; and--and--may we Pa?" + +"Young woman!" glared Pa, "who have you the effrontery to call +'Billy'?"--Pa could never acquire what he calls "the 'whom' habit." + +Billy stepped manfully forward. + +"You would recognize the name 'Billy,'" said he, "if it were joined with +the rather profane surname with which it is, unfortunately, connected, +'from the Atlantic to the Missouri.' Mr. Blunt, you can not be ignorant +of the sweet dream in which I have indulged myself with reference to +your daughter. I know I am unworthy of her--" + +"Oh, cut that short!" said Pa. "Take this grease off my face, and remove +these infernal stage lights! There, Dolly--there! Mr. Helmerston, +er--Billy--will start for Mexico within a month. If you--if you really +want to go with him, why go!" + +And so we're going, by way of Yellowstone Park. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +"You see," said Mr. Driscoll, when, after three days of independent +wonder-gazing in the thirty square miles of the Lower Geyser Basin, his +seven fares came together for departure, "as I told yeh, this trip is +just gettin' good." + +"I have seen," said the Poet, "a spring from the bottom of which fires +leap in lambent flames, to be quenched by the air when they reach the +surface. Let me die, now!" + +"I have seen," said the Artist, "the Mammoth Paint Pots from which we +may dip our colors in that day 'when earth's last picture is painted, +and the tubes are twisted and dried.'" + +"I have seen," said the Bride, "a lake perched upon a marble platform, +the slopes of which it drapes with a lace of runnels--like the web that +was woven by the Lady of Shalott while she looked in her magic mirror." + +"In that day when we perfect our mythology," said the Poet, "we shall +know of the nymph of this lake, who uses it as a mirror, and will die if +she looks away from the image to gaze on the real knight as he passes." + +"I question that, really," said the Professor. "In an age of pure +science--" + +"Scat!" said the Colonel. "I have seen a pool that goes mad when any +passing idiot throws gross material into its pure idealism--and I +sympathize with it." + +"I have seen," went on Professor Boggs, "a natural object--I refer to +the Fountain Geyser--which gives us a valuable lesson in steady +performance, with no eccentricities. Every four hours it plays for +fifteen minutes, shooting its water to a height of sixty feet. Note the +mathematical correspondence--the feet correspond to the minutes in the +hour--the hours are four--four into sixty goes fifteen times, the number +of minutes the geyser plays--I shall work this out in an essay--it seems +very significant." + +"I have seen," said the Groom, "in the Great Fountain Geyser, a natural +power installation. It throws its huge volume of water to a height of +one hundred feet. It is on a pedestal like an emplacement for a +monument, and its crater looks like the hole in which to set the shaft. +That makes the matter of utilizing the power a cinch. I figure--" + +"Billy!" said the Bride. "Aren't you ashamed?" + +"The Professor and myself," answered the Groom, "represent the spirit of +the age. We only are sane." + +"You, Billy Helmerston," said the Bride, "are a fraud!" + + * * * * * + +Nine miles to the Upper Geyser Basin--passing the Midway Basin +half-way--and the tourists found their tents already pitched by Aconite +who had preceded them with the impedimenta, and returned light for the +drive. They took a whole day for the journey, and even so felt as if +they were committing an atrocity in negligence. The Jewell Geyser, the +Sapphire Pool and the Mystic Falls seemed small by comparison with the +gigantic phenomena of the Lower Basin, and smaller still next day +compared with the stupendous marvels of the Upper Basin. At the Mystic +Falls, the Bride insisted on taking luncheon. + +"It's like the really normal loveliness of earth," said she. "It goes +better with humanity, and luncheon, and flowers and fairies and gentle +things. I want to eat a meal in neither Paradise nor the Inferno--and we +seem to be in one or the other most of the time." + +At luncheon, Professor Boggs came forward with an original and practical +idea with relation to the Yellowstone Nights' Entertainment, as they had +come to call their camp-fire stories. + +"I hold," said he, "that one is entitled to time for putting his +thoughts in order before presuming to deliver an address, even of the +narrative sort. I find myself apprehensive of being called upon next, +and this interferes with my powers of observation. I suggest that we +cast lots for the next tale now, and thus free the minds of all but the +narrator, who may retire if he choose, and collate his data." + +"It's a good thought," said the Groom. "Poet, perform your office!" + +The Poet passed the hat to the Bride, who closed her eyes and felt about +discriminatingly, saying she was trying to find Billy in the hat. The +Poet read the ballot and handed it to the Artist. + +"Groom!" read the Artist, handing the slip of paper to Billy. "You're +nominated." + +"Stung!" ejaculated Billy. + + +THE HEART OF GOLIATH + +THE STORY TOLD BY THE GROOM + +"I often think," said the Groom, in beginning his tale that night, "when +this adventure recurs to me, what a different world it would be if we +could see into one another's minds, and telepathically search one +another's hearts. I don't know whether it would be better or not; but +that it would be different, this story proves. It is a tale that came to +me when I was traveling about in the Missouri Valley, earning the money +for my Tech course, and long before my time with the Mid-Continent +Electric Company. It shows how a soul that is pitchy darkness to its +nearest and dearest, may be illumined by the electric light of +self-revelation to the eye of the chance-met stranger." + + * * * * * + +I first saw him on the platform just before my train pulled out from +Sioux City to Aberdeen. He was a perfect mountain--an Alp, a +Himalaya--of man. He must have been well toward seven feet tall; and so +vast were his proportions that as he stooped to the window to buy his +ticket he reminded me of a mastiff peering into a mouse's hole. From a +distance--one could scarcely take in the details at close range--I +studied him as a remarkable specimen of the brawny western farmer, whose +score in any exhibition would be lowered by one fact only: lofty as his +height was, he was getting too heavy for it. + +I had to go into the smoking-car to find a vacant seat, and there I +could see but one. I had but just slipped into it when in came the +Gargantuan farmer and sat down all over me, in a seemingly ruthless +exercise of his undoubted right to half the seat, and his unquestionable +ability to appropriate as much more as his dimensions required. Falstaff +with his page reminded himself of a sow that had overwhelmed all her +litter save one: I felt like the last of the litter in process of +smothering. And he was as ignorant of my existence, apparently, as could +possibly be required by the comparison. + +He wore with bucolic negligence clothes of excellent quality. His hat +was broad as a prairie. I have no idea where such hats are bought. I am +sure I never saw one of such amplitude of brim on sale anywhere. It was +of the finest felt, and had a band of heavy leather pressed into a +design in bas-relief. A few dried alfalfa leaves had lodged in the +angle between the crown and the brim, and clung there, even when he took +the hat off to wipe his brow, thus giving me a view of the plateau of +felt, which I should never have obtained otherwise. + +His face was enormous but not puffy; and the red veinlets on the cheek +and nose had acquired their varicosity by weathering rather than by +indulgence. His hair was clipped short, as though he had had a complete +job done as a measure of economizing time. He had a high beak of a nose, +with rugged promontories of bone at the bridge, like the shoulders of a +hill; and his mouth was a huge but well-shaped feature, hard and +inflexible like the mouth of a cave. + +His shirt was of blue flannel, clean and fine, and its soft roll collar +fell away from his great muscular neck unconfined and undecorated by any +sort of cravat. His tun of a torso bulged roundly out in front of me +like the sponson of a battleship. Stretched across the immense waistcoat +was a round, spirally-fluted horsehair watchguard as big as a rope, with +massive golden fastenings; and suspended from it was a golden steer made +by some artificer who had followed Cellini afar off, if at all, and +which gave the area (one must use geographical terms in describing the +man), an auriferous and opulent appearance. + +His trousers were spotted with the stains of stables; and his huge +boots, like barges, had similar discolorations overlaying a brilliant +shine. He carried one of those heavy white sticks with which the drovers +and dealers at the Sioux City stockyards poke the live stock and take +the liberties accorded to prospective purchasers with pigs and bullocks. +On the crook of this he rested his great hands, one piled upon the +other, and stared, as if fascinated by them, at four soldiers returning +from service in the Philippines, who had two seats turned together, and +were making a gleeful function of their midday meal, startling the South +Dakota atmosphere with the loud use of strange-sounding expressions in +Tagalog and Spanish, and, with military brutality, laughing at the dying +struggles of a fellow-man being slowly pressed to death under that human +landslide. I resented their making light of such a subject. + +My oppressor stared at them with a grim and unwavering gaze that finally +seemed to put them out and set them ill at ease; for they became so +quiet that we could hear noises other than theirs. Once in a while, +however, they winked at me to show their appreciation of my agonies, +and made remarks about the water-cure and the like, meant for my ears. +My incubus seemed not to hear a word of this badinage. I wondered if he +were not deaf, or a little wrong in his intellect. The train stopped at +a little station just as I had become quite desperate, and two men +sitting in front of us got off. With the superhuman strength of the last +gasp I surged under my tormentor--and he noticed me. I verily believe +that until that instant he had not known of my presence; he gave such a +deliberate sort of start. + +"Excuse me!" said he. "Forgot they was any one here--let me fix you!" + +He had already almost done so; but he meant well. He rose to take the +vacated seat; but with a glance at the soldiers he threw the back over, +turned his back to them and his face to me, and sat down. His ponderous +feet like valises rested on each side of mine, his body filled the seat +from arm to arm. For a while, even after discovering me, he stared past +me as if I had been quite invisible. I saw a beady perspiration on his +brow as if he were under some great stress of feeling. It was getting +uncanny. I understood now how the soldiers, now breaking forth into riot +again, had been suppressed by that stony regard. When he spoke, +however, it was in commonplaces. + +"They're lots of 'em comin' back," said he. + +A slow thrust of the bulky thumb over his shoulder indicated that he +meant soldiers. I nodded assent. A great many were returning just then. + +"Jack's come back," said he; "quite a while." + +His voice was in harmony with his physique--deep, heavy, rough. Raised +in rage it might have matched the intonations of Stentor, and terrified +a thousand foes; for it was a phenomenal voice. The rumble of the train +was a piping treble compared with it. + +"You don't know Jack, do yeh?" he asked. + +"I think not," said I. + +"Course not," he replied. "Fool question! An' yit, he used to know most +of you fellers." + +I wondered just what he might mean by "you fellows," but he was silent +again. + +"You don't live near here," he stated at last. + +"No," said I. "I am just passing through." + +"If you lived in these parts," said he, "you'd know him." + +"I dare say," I replied. "Who is Jack?" + +I was a little piqued at his rudeness; for he returned no reply. Then I +saw that he was gazing into vacancy again so absently that I should have +pronounced his case one of mental trouble if his appearance had not been +so purely physical. He took from a cigar-case a big, dark, massive +cigar, clubhouse shape like himself, gave it to me and lighted the twin +of it. I thought myself entitled to reparation for his maltreatment of +me, and, seeing that it was a good cigar, I took it. As for any further +converse, I had given that up, when there rumbled forth from him a +soliloquy rather than a story. He appeared to have very little +perception of me as an auditor. I think now that he must have been in +great need of some one to whom he might talk, and that his relations to +those about him forbade any outpouring of expression. He seemed all the +time in the attitude of repelling attack. He did not move, save as he +applied the cigar to his lips or took it away; and his great voice +rolled forth in subdued thunder. + +"I've got four sections of ground," said he, "right by the track.... +Show you the place when we go through. Of course I've got a lot of other +truck scattered around.... Land at the right figger you've got to +buy--got to.... But when I hadn't but the four sections--one section +overruns so they's a little over twenty-six hundred acres--I thought +'twas about the checker f'r a man with three boys.... One f'r each o' +them, you understand, an' the home place f'r mother if anything +happened.... Mother done jest as much to help git the start as I did.... +Plumb as much--if not more. + +"Tom an' Wallace is good boys--none better. I'd about as quick trust +either of 'em to run the place as to trust myself." + +There was a candid self-esteem in the word "about" and his emphasis on +it. + +"I sent Wallace," he resumed, "into a yard of feeders in Montana to pick +out a trainload o' tops with a brush and paint-pot, an' I couldn't 'a' +got a hundred dollars better deal if I'd spotted 'em myself.... That's +goin' some f'r a kid not twenty-five. Wallace knows critters ... f'r a +boy ... mighty well.... An' Tom's got a way of handlin' land to get the +last ten bushel of corn to the acre that beats me with all my +experience.... These colleges where they study them things do some good, +I s'pose; but it's gumption, an' not schoolin', that makes boys like Tom +an' Wallace.... They're all right.... They'd 'a' made good anyhow." + +I could feel an invidious comparison between Tom and Wallace, of whom he +spoke with such laudatory emphasis, and some one else whom I suspected +to be the Jack who had come back from the Philippines; and his next +utterance proved this instinctive estimate of the situation to be +correct. He went on, slower than before, with long pauses in which he +seemed lost in thought, and in some of which I gave up, without much +regret, I confess, the idea of ever hearing more of Jack or his +brothers. + +"Jack was always mother's boy," said he. "Mother's boy ... you know how +it is.... Make beds, an' dust, an' play the pianah, an' look after the +flowers!... Wasn't bigger'n nothin', either.... Girl, I always thought, +by good rights. I remember ... mother wanted him to be a girl.... She +was on the square with the children ... but if any boy got a shade the +best of it anywhere along the line, it was Jack.... I don't guess Tom +an' Wallace ever noticed; but maybe Jack got a leetle the soft side o' +things from mother.... Still, she's al'ays been dumbed square.... + +"I seen as soon as he got old enough to take holt, an' didn't, that he +wasn't wuth a cuss.... Never told mother, an' never let on to the boys; +but I could see he was no good, Jack wasn't.... Some never owns up when +it's their own folks ... but what's the use lyin'?... Hed to hev a +swaller-tail coat, an' joined a 'country club' down to town--an' him +a-livin' in the middle of a strip o' country a mile wide an' four long, +wuth a hundred dollars an acre ... all ourn ... goin' out in short pants +to knock them little balls around that cost six bits apiece. I didn't +let myself care much about it; but 'country club!'--Hell!" + +He had visualized for me the young fellow unfitted to his surroundings, +designed on a scale smaller than the sons of Anak about him, deft in +little things, finical in dress, fond of the leisure and culture of the +club, oppressed with the roughnesses and vastnesses about his father's +farms, too tender for the wild winds and burning suns, with nerves +attuned to music and art rather than to the crushing of obstacles and +the defeat of tasks: and all the while the image of "mother" brooded +over him. All this was vividly in the picture--very vividly, considering +the unskilful brush with which it had been limned--but just as it began +to appeal to me, Anak fell quiescent. + +"I never thought he was anything wuss than wuthless," he went on, at +last, "till he come to me to git some money he'd lost at this here +club.... Thirty-seven dollars an' fifty cents.... Gamblin'.... I told +him not by a damned sight; an' he cried--cried like a baby.... I'd 'a' +seen him jugged 'fore I'd 'a' give him thirty-seven fifty of my good +money lost that way.... Not me. + +"... Wallace give him the money f'r his shotgun.... An' mother--she +al'ays knowed when Jack had one o' his girl-cryin' fits--she used to go +up after Jack come in them nights, an' when he got asleep so he wouldn't +know it she'd go in and kiss him.... Watched and ketched her at it, but +never let on.... She run down bad--gittin' up before daylight an' broke +of her rest like that.... I started in oncet to tell her he was no good, +but I jest couldn't.... Turned it off on a hoss by the name o' Jack we +had, an' sold him to make good f'r twenty-five dollars less'n he was +wuth, ruther'n tell her what I started to.... She loved that wuthless +boy, neighbor--there ain't no use denyin' it, she did love him." + +He paused a long while, either to ponder on the strange infatuation of +"mother" for "Jack" or to allow me to digest his statement. A dog--one +of the shaggy brown enthusiasts that chase trains--ran along by the cars +until distanced, and then went back wagging his tail as if he had +expelled from the neighborhood some noxious trespasser--as he may have +conceived himself to have done. Goliath watched him with great apparent +interest. + +"Collie," said he, at last. "Know anything about collies? Funny dogs! +Lick one of 'em oncet an' he's never no good any more.... All kind o' +shruvle up by lickin', they're that tender-hearted.... Five year ago +this fall Tom spiled a fifty-dollar pedigreed collie by jest slappin' +his ears an' jawin' him.... Some critters is like that ... Jack ... +was!" + +He faltered here, and then flamed out into pugnacity, squaring his huge +jaw as if I had accused him--as I did in my heart, I suspect. + +"But the dog," he rumbled, "was wuth somethin'--Jack never was.... +Cryin' around f'r thirty-seven fifty!... Talkin' o' debts o' honor!... +That showed me plain enough he wasn't wuth botherin' with.... Got his +mother to come an' ask f'r an allowance o' money--so much a month.... +Ever hear of such a thing? An' him not turnin' his hand to a lick of +work except around the house helpin' mother.... Tom an' Wallace bed +quite a little start in live stock by this time, an' money in bank.... +Jack hed the same lay, but he fooled his away--fooled it away.... Broke +flat all the time, an' wantin' an allowance.... Mother said the young +sprouts at the club had allowances ... an' he read in books that laid +around the house about fellers in England an' them places havin' +allowances an' debts of honor.... Mother seemed to think one while that +we was well enough off so we could let Jack live like the fellers in the +books.... He lived more in them books than he did in South Dakoty, an' +talked book lingo all the time.... Mother soon seen she was wrong. + +"She was some hurt b'cause I talked to the neighbors about Jack bein' +plumb no good.... I don't know who told her.... I didn't want the +neighbors to think I was fooled by him.... I never said nothing to +mother, though.... She couldn't f'rgit thet he was her boy, an' she kep' +on lovin' him.... Nobody orto blame her much f'r that, no matter what +he done.... You know how it is with women. + +"One time purty soon after the thirty-seven fifty deal a bad check f'r +two hundred come into my bundle o' canceled vouchers at the bank, an' I +knowed in a minute who'd done it.... Jack had been walkin' the floor +nights f'r quite a spell, an' his eyes looked like a heifer's that's +lost her calf.... He hed a sweetheart in town.... Gal from the East ... +big an' dark an' strong enough to take Jack up an' spank him.... It was +her brother Jack had lost the money to. Jack jest wrote my name on a +check--never tried to imitate my fist much--an' the bank paid it.... +When I come home a-lookin' the way a man does that's been done that way +by a boy o' his'n, mother told me Jack was gone, an' handed me a letter +he left f'r me.... I never read it.... Went out to the barn so mother +wouldn't see me, an' tore it up.... I'd 'a' been damned before I'd 'a' +read it!" + +He gloomed out over my head in an expressionless way that aroused all +the curiosity I am capable of feeling as to the actual workings of +another's mind. He seemed to be under the impression that he had said a +great many things in the pause that ensued; or he regarded my +understanding as of small importance; for he recommenced at a point far +advanced in his narrative. + +"--'N' finely," said he very calmly, "we thought she was goin' to die. I +asked the doctor what we could do, an' he told me what.... Knowed all +the boys since he helped 'em into the world, you know--a friend more'n a +doctor--an' he allowed it was Jack she was pinin' f'r. So I goes to her, +a-layin' in bed as white as a sheet, an' I says, 'Mother, if they's +anything you want, you can hev it, if it's on earth, no matter how +no-account I think it is!' ... A feller makes a dumb fool of himself +such times, neighbor; but mother was good goods when we was poor an' +young--any one of the neighbors can swear to that.... She looks up at +me ... an' whispers low ... 'Go an' find him!' ... An' I went. + +"I knowed purty nigh where to look. I went to Chicago. He'd dropped +clean down to the bottom, neighbor.... Playin' a pianah ... f'r his +board an' lodgin' an' beer ... in ... in a beer hall." + +I was quite sure, he paused so long, that he had told all he had to +narrate of this history of the boy who could not stand punishment, and +was so much like a collie; and I knew from the manner in which he had +lapsed into silence, more than from what he had said, what a dark +passage it was. + +"Well," he resumed finally, "I hed my hands spread to strangle him right +there.... I could 'a' done it all right--he was that peaked an' +little.... He wouldn't 'a' weighed more'n a hundred an' fifty--an' _my_ +son!... I could 'a' squushed the life out of him with my hands--an' it +was all right if I hed.... You bet it was!... Not that I cared f'r the +two hundred dollars. I could spare that all right. I'll lose that much +on a fair proposition any time.... But to take that thing back to +mother ... from where I picked it up from! + +"I reckon I was ruther more gentle with Jack goin' home than I ever was +before.... I hed to be. They was no way out of it except to be easy with +him--'r lam the life out of him an' take him home on a cot ... an' +mother needed him in runnin' order. So I got him clothes, an' had him +bathed, an' he got shaved as he used to be--he had growed a beard--an' I +rode in one car and him in another.... When mother seed him, her an' +him cried together f'r I suppose it might have been two hours 'r two and +a quarter, off an' on, an' whispered together, an' then she went to +sleep holdin' his hand, an' begun to pick up, an' Jack went back to his +own ways, an' the rest of us to ourn, an' it was wuss than ever.... An' +when he sold a team o' mine and skipped ag'in, I was glad, I tell you, +to be shet of him.... An' they could do the mile to the pole in twenty, +slick as mice. + +"Next time mother and Wallace went an' got him.... Mother found out some +way that he was dyin' in a horsepittle in Minneapolis.... He claimed +he'd been workin f'r a real estate firm; but I had the thing looked +up ... an' I couldn't find where any of our name had done nothing.... An' +it seemed as ef we'd never git shet of him.... That sounds hard; but he +was a kind of a disease by this time--a chronic, awful painful, worryin' +disease, like consumption.... An' we couldn't git cured of him, an' we +couldn't die.... It was kind o' tough. He moped around, an' mother had +some kind o' promise out of him that he wouldn't leave her no more, an' +he was pleadin' with her to let him go, an' Tom an' Wallace an' me +never sayin' a word to him, when this here Philippine War broke out ... +you know what it's about--I never did ... an' Jack wanted to enlist. + +"'I can't let him go!' says mother. + +"'Let him go,' says I. 'If he'll go, let him!' + +"Mother looks at me whiter'n I ever expect to see her again but once, +maybe; an' the next morning she an' Jack goes to the county seat an' he +enlists. I went down when the rig'ment was all got together. Mother an' +me has always had a place where we kep' all the money they was in the +house, as much hern as mine, an' she took five twenty-dollar gold pieces +out of the pile, an' sewed 'em in a chamois-skin bag all wet with her +cryin' ... an' never sayin' a word ... an' she hangs it round his neck, +an' hung to him an' kissed him till it sorter bothered the boss of the +rig'ment--some kind of colonel--because he wanted the men to march, you +know, an' didn't seem to like to make mother fall back.... She seemed to +see how it was, finely, an' fell back, an' this colonel made the motion +to her with his sword they do to their superiors, an' they marched.... +Jack stood straighter than any one in the line, an' he had a new sort of +look to him. He everidged up purty good, too, in hithe ... I don't see +much to this soldier business.... Maybe that's why he looked the part so +well.... I give the captain a hundred f'r him.... Jack sent it back from +a place called Sanfrisco, without a word. 'So much saved!' says I. He +was wuthless as ever." + +The immense voice labored, broke, stopped--the man seemed weary and +overcome. To afford him an escape from the story that seemed to have +mastered him, like the Ancient Mariner's, I called his attention to what +the four soldiers were doing. They had dressed as if for inspection, and +were evidently going out upon the platform. The noticeable thing in +their appearance was the change in their expressions from the hilarity +and riotousness of a few moments ago, to a certain solemnity. One of +them carried a little box carefully wrapped up, as a devotee might carry +an offering to a shrine. The huge farmer glanced casually at them as if +with full knowledge of what they were doing, and, ignoring my +interruption, seemed to resume his monologue--as might the habitué of a +temple pass by the question of a stranger concerning a matter related to +the mysteries--something not to be discussed, difficult to be explained, +or not worth mention. He pointed out of the window. + +"Our land," said he; "both sides ... tiptop good ground.... Didn't look +much like this when mother an' me homesteaded the first +quarter-section.... See that bunch of box-elders? Me an' her camped +there as we druv in.... Never cut 'em down.... Spoil an acre of good +corn land, too; to say nothin' o' the time wasted cultivatin' 'round +'em.... Well, a man's a fool about some things!" + +It was a picture of fulsome plenty and riotous fertility. Straight as +the stretched cord by which they had been dropped ran the soldierly rows +of corn, a mile along, their dark blades outstretched in the unwavering +prairie wind, as if pointing us on to something noteworthy or mysterious +beyond. Back and forth along the rows plodded the heavy teams of the +cultivators, stirring the brown earth to a deeper brownness. High fences +of woven wire divided the spacious fields. On a hundred-acre meadow, as +square and level as a billiard table, were piled the dark cocks of a +second crop of alfalfa. One, two, three farmsteads we passed, each with +its white house hidden in trees, its big red barns, its low hog-houses, +its feed yards, with their racks polished by the soft necks of feasting +steers. And everywhere was the corn--the golden corn of last year in +huge cribs like barracks; the emerald hosts of the new crop in its ranks +like green-suited lines-of-battle arrested in full career and held as by +some spell, leaning onward in act of marching, every quivering sword +pointing mysteriously forward. My heart of a farmer swelled within me at +the scene, which had something in it akin to its owner, it was so huge, +so opulent, so illimitable. Somehow, it seemed to interpret him to me. + +"Purty good little places," said he; "but the home place skins 'em all. +We'll be to it in a minute. Train slows up f'r a piece o' new track +work. We'll git a good view of it." + +Heaving himself up, he went before me down the aisle of the slowing +train. There stood the soldiers on the steps and the platform. We took +our places back of them. I was absorbed in the study of the splendid +farm, redeemed from the lost wilderness by this man who had all at once +become worth while to me. Back at the rear of the near-by fields was a +row of lofty cottonwoods, waving their high crests in the steady wind. +All about the central grove were pastures, meadows, gardens and +orchards. A dense coppice of red cedars enclosed on three sides a big +feed-yard, in which, stuffing themselves on corn and alfalfa, or lying +in the dusty straw, were grouped a hundred bovine aristocrats in stately +unconcern of the rotund Poland-Chinas about them. In the pastures were +colts as huge as dray-horses, shaking the earth in their clumsy play. +There were barns and barns and barns--capacious red structures, with +hay-forks rigged under their projecting gables; and, in the midst of all +this foison, stood the house--square, roomy, of red brick, with a broad +porch on two sides covered with climbing roses and vines. + +On this veranda was a thing that looked like a Morris chair holding a +figure clad in khaki. A stooped, slender, white-haired woman hovered +about the chair; and down by the track, as if to view the passing train, +stood a young woman who was tall and swarthy and of ample proportions. +Her dress was artistically adapted to country wear; she looked +well-groomed and finished. She was smiling as the train drew slowly +past, but I was sure that her eyes were full of tears. I wondered why +she looked with such intentness at the platform--until I saw what the +soldiers were doing. They stood at attention, their hands to their +service-hats, stiff, erect, military. The girl returned the salute, and +pointed to the chair on the veranda, put her handkerchief to her eyes, +and shook her head as if in apology for the man in khaki. And while she +stood thus the man in khaki leaned forward in the Morris chair, laid +hold of the column of the veranda, pulled himself to his feet, staggered +forward a step, balanced himself as if with difficulty, and--saluted. + +The soldiers on the platform swung their hats and cheered, and I joined +in the cheer. One of the good fellows wiped his eyes. The big farmer +stood partly inside the door, effectually blocking it, and quite out of +the girl's sight, looking on, as impassive as a cliff. The pretty young +woman picked up a parcel--the offering--which one of the soldiers tossed +to her feet, looked after us smiling and waving her handkerchief, and +ran back toward the house. The train picked up speed and whisked us out +of sight just as the khaki man sank back into the chair, eased down by +the woman with the white hair. I seemed to have seen a death. + +"That was mother," said the man of the broad farms, as we resumed our +seats--"mother and Jack ... jest as it always hes been.... Al'ays +mother's boy.... The soldiers comin' from the war al'ays stand on the +platform as they go by--if they's room enough--with their fingers to +their hats in that fool way.... All seem to know where Jack is someway, +no matter what rig'ment they belong to.... Humph! + +"It's something he done in the Philippines ... in the islands.... I +don't know where they are.... Off Spain way, I guess.... They's a kind +of yellow nigger there, an' Jack seemed to do well fightin' 'em.... +They're little fellers something like his size, you know.... Some high +officer ordered him to take a nigger king on an island once; an' as I +understand it, the niggers was too many f'r his gang o' soldiers. So +Jack went alone an' took him right out of his own camp.... I reckon any +one could 'a' done the same thing with Uncle Sam backin' him; but the +president, 'r congress, 'r the secretary of war thought it was quite a +trick.... I s'pose Jack's shootin' a nigger officer right under the +king's nose made it a better grand-stand play.... Anyhow, Jack went out +a private, an' come back a captain; an' every soldier that rides these +cars salutes as he passes the house, whuther Jack's in sight 'r not.... +Funny!... All kinds o' folks to make a world!" + +"Then," said I, for I knew the story, of course, when he mentioned the +circumstances, "your son Jack is Captain John Hawes?" + +He nodded slowly, without looking at me. + +"And that beautiful, strong girl?" I inquired. + +"Jack's wife," said he. "All right to look at, ain't she? Lived in New +York ... 'r Boston, I f'rgit which.... Folks well fixed.... Met Jack in +Sanfrisco and married him when he couldn't lift his hand to his head.... +She'd make a good farm woman.... Good stuff in her.... What ails him? +Some kind o' poison that was in the knife the nigger soaked him with +when he took that there king ... stabbed Jack jest before Jack shot.... +Foolish to let him git in so clost; but Jack never hed no decision.... +Al'ays whifflin' around.... If he pulls through, though, that girl'll +make a man of him if anything kin.... She thinks he's all right now ... +proud of him as Chloe of a yaller dress.... Went to Sanfrisco when he +was broke an' dyin', they thought, an' all that, an' begged him as an +honor to let her bear his name an' nuss him.... And she knew how +wuthless he was before the war, an' throwed him over.... Sensible +girl ... then ... I--" + +He was gazing at nothing again, and I thought the story ended, when he +began on an entirely new subject, as it seemed to me, until the relation +appeared. + +"Religion," said he, "is something I don't take no stock in, an' never +did.... Religious folks don't seem any better than the rest.... But +mother al'ays set a heap by religion.... I al'ays paid my dues in the +church and called it square.... May be something in it f'r some, but not +f'r me. I got to hev something I can git a-holt of.... Al'ays looked a +good deal like graft to me ... but I pay as much as any one in the +congregation, an' maybe a leetle more--it pleases mother.... An' so does +Jack's gittin' religion.... Got it, all right.... Pleases mother, +too.... Immense!... But I don't take no stock in it. + +"The doc says he's bad off." + +I had not asked the question; but he seemed to feel a necessary inquiry +in the tableau I had seen. + +"He used to come down to the track when he first got back an' perform +that fool trick with his hand to his hat when the soldiers went by an' +they let him know.... Too weak, now; ... failin'.... Girl's al'ays +there, though, when she knows.... Kind o' hope he'll--he'll--he'll ... +You know, neighbor, from what she's done f'r him, how mother must love +him!" + +We had come to the end of his journey, now--a little country +station--and he left the train without a word to me or a backward look, +his huge hat drawn down over his eyes. I felt that I had seen a curious, +dark, dramatic, badly-drawn, wildly-conceived and Dantesque painting. He +climbed into a carriage which stood by the platform, and to which was +harnessed a pair of magnificent coach-bred horses which plunged and +reared fearfully as the train swept into the station, and were held, +easily and by main strength, like dogs or sheep, by a giant in the +conveyance who must have been Tom or Wallace. From time to time, the +steeds gathered their feet together, trampled the earth in terror, and +then surged on the bits. The giant never deigned even to look at them. +He held the lines, stiff as iron straps, in one hand, took his father's +bag in the other, threw the big horses to the right by a cruel wrench of +the lines to make room for his father to climb in, which he did without +a word. As the springs went down under the weight the horses dashed away +like the wind, the young man guiding them by that iron right hand with +facile horsemanship, and looking, not at the road, but at his father. As +they passed out of sight the father of Captain Hawes turned, looked at +me, and waved his hand. I thought I had seen him for the last time, and +went back to get the story from the soldiers. + +"It wasn't so much the way he brought the datto into camp," said one of +them, "or the way he always worked his way to the last bally front peak +of the fighting line. It takes a guy with guts to do them things; but +that goes with the game--understand? But he knew more'n anybody in the +regiment about keepin' well. He made the boys take care of themselves. +When a man is layin' awake scheming to keep the men busy and healthy, +there's always a job for him.... And he had a way of making the boys +keep their promises.... And he's come home to die, and leave that girl +of his--and all the chances he's had in a business way if he wants to +leave the army. It don't seem right! The boys say the president has +invited him to lunch; and he's got sugar-plantation and minin' jobs open +to him till you can't rest.... And to be done by a cussed poison Moro +kris! But he got Mr. Moro--played even; an' that's as good as a man can +ask, I guess. Hell, how slow this train goes!" + +As I have said, I never expected to see my big farmer again; but I did. +I completed my business; returned the way I came, passed the great farm +after dusk, and the next morning was in the city where I first saw him. +Looking ahead as I passed along the street I noticed, towering above +every form, and moving in the press like a three-horse van among baby +carriages, the vast bulk of the captain's father. He turned aside into a +marble-cutter's yard, and stood, looking at the memorial monuments which +quite filled it until it looked like a cemetery vastly overplanted. I +felt disposed to renew our acquaintance, and spoke to him. He offered me +his hand, and when I accepted it he stood clinging to mine, standing a +little stooped, the eyes bloodshot, the iron mouth pitifully drooped at +the corners, the whole man reminding me of a towering cliff shaken by an +earthquake, but mighty and imposing still. He held a paper in his free +hand, which he examined closely while retaining the handclasp, and in a +way I had come to expect of him, he commenced in the midst of his +thought and without verbal salutation. + +"We've buried Jack!" said he. + +"I'm deeply sorry!" said I. + +"Well," said he, "maybe it's just as well.... He was ... you know!... +But mother takes it hard--hard!... I'm contractin' f'r a tombstun.... He +wanted to see me ... at the last.... 'Dad,' says he, jest as he used to +when he was ... was a little feller, ... 'I want you to forgive me +before I die.... It's a big country where I'm going, ... an' ... you and +I may never run into each other--so forgive me! Mother'll find +me--wherever I go ... but you, Dad, ... for fear it's our last chance, +let's square up now!' ... I ... I ..." + +He went out among the stones and seemed to be looking the stock over. +Presently, he returned and showed me the paper. It was what a printer +would call "copy" for an inscription--the name, the dates, the age of +Captain John Hawes--severe, laconic. At the bottom were two or three +lines scrawled in a heavy, ponderous hand, with the half-inch lead of a +lumber pencil. Only one fist could produce that Polyphemus chirography. + +"_He went out a private_," it read, "_and came back a captain._" And +then, as if by afterthought, and in huge capitals, came the line: "_And +died a Christian._" + +"Is that all right?" he asked. "Is the spellin' all right?... I +don't care much about this soldier business ... an' the +Christian game ... don't interest me ... a little bit, ... but, +neighbor, you don't know how that'll please mother! 'Died a +Christian!' ... Someway ... mother ... always loved Jack!" + +At the turning of the street I looked and saw the last scene of the +drama--one that will play itself before me from time to time in +retrospect for ever. The great, unhewn, mountainous block was still +there, standing among his more shapely and polished brother stones, a +human monolith, the poor, pitiful paper in his trembling hand. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +"I find myself," said the Driver, at the next session of the +Scheherazade Society, as Colonel Baggs called their camp-fires, "in a +whale of a dilemmer. I have never had nothin' happen to me worth +tellin'. I have punched cows till this dry farmin' made it necessary to +take to some more humble callin', and there's nothin' to cow-punchin' +that is interestin'. + +"I have showed you here in the Upper Geyser Basin fifteen geysers of the +first magnitude, an' a hundred smaller ones; I have showed you Old +Faithful, the Giant, the Giantess, the Fan and the Riverside. I have +showed you the Grotto Geyser, which is a cross between a geyser and a +cave. I have showed you the quiescent spring at its best--the Morning +Glory pool with more colors than any rainbow ever had. I've showed you +jewels and giants and ogres and sprites, and--" + +"Here!" shouted the Groom. "Saw off on that professional patter! You're +not the driver now, but Aconite Driscoll, the Cow-boy, and telling us +the story of your life. We have seen more things here than Münchhausen, +Gulliver, Mandeville, Old Jim Bridger and the whole brood of romancers +ever could imagine. Give us some North American facts, now." + +"Well, if I must, I must," said poor Aconite. "But there's nothin' to +it. I reckon I'd better narrate to you some of the humble doin's of the +J-Up-And-Down Ranch over on Wolf Nose Crick, in the foot-hills of the +Black Hills--in the dear, dead past beyond recall--thanks to the +Campbell method of dry farmin'." + + +THE TALE OF TEN THOUSAND DOGIES + +THE TALE TOLD BY THE DRIVER + +The way I gets into this story is a shame an' disgrace, an' is +incompetent, irreverent, an' immaterial, an' not of record in this case. + +Eh? Adds color to the--which? Narrative! Well, I d'n' know about that. I +reely couldn't say as it does. + +But mentionin' color, the thought of that little affair do make my face +as red as a cow-town on pay-day. When I turn that tale loose we'll make +a one-night stand of it by the grub-wagon. It comprises a shipper's pass +to Sioux City, a sure-thing game in that moral town, which I win out by +backin' my judgment with my Colt, an' a police court wherein the bank +roll and my pile was rake-off for the court. Charge, gamblin'. All hands +plead guilty. All correct says you, an' quite accordin' to the statues +made an' pervided; an' so says I, ontil I casually picks up a paper in +Belle Fourche, an' sees that it was a phoney police court, not only +owned and controlled by the shell men, which wouldn't be surprisin', but +privately installed as a sort of accident insurance on their other game. + +"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," Mr. Elkins remarks to me one +day, but all that is goin' to be changed when I ketch up with that +police judge. + +Ridin' the range makes a man talkative with the scenery, an' when I sees +that Sioux City paper, I turns loose some remarks in the presence of a +gentleman who subsequently turns out to be Mr. Elkins. + +"Thanks," says he. + +"When did you acquire any chips in this little solitaire blasphemy +game?" says I, mad, as a man allus is if he's ketched solloloquisin' to +himself. + +"A man," says he, "with all the sidetracks filled with cars o' cattle +an' more comin', an' no gang, is in, _ex proprio vigore_," says he, +whatever that means, "anywhere where cuss-words is trumps." + +He never smiled except back in his eyes, an' I, likin' his style, hires +out to him, an' was third man on the J-Up-And-Down Ranch from the day +the dogies begun to be unloaded, till James R. Elkins went to New York, +with a roll that would choke a blood-sweatin' hippopotamus. + +Third man, says I, an' if you think the first was the Old Man, J. R. E., +you know, you've got another conjecture comin'. Number One was Mrs. +Elkins, an' I reckon some of her New York friends'll enter into +conniptions to know that, in lessn' a year, half the boys called her +Josie--in their dreams, at least--an' some on 'em to her face; but none +to her back, by a damsite! The Old Man--a lot of us called him Jim +habitual--was a one-lunger when this dogie enterprise started, all +mashed in body in the collapse of the boom at Lattimore; an' them as +thinks I refer to any loggin' accident is informed that I mean the +town-lot boom in the city of Lattimore, as is more fully set forth +elsewhere, the same bein' made by reference a part hereof, marked +"Exhibit A," which explains the broken bones aforesaid-- + +"If there's no objection," said Colonel Baggs, in a high court-room +singsong, "'Exhibit A' will be received in evidence. G'long, Aconite!" + +Financially, he was millions worse than nothing, if you can understand +that. Personally, I caint. Zero is the bottom of the spondulix scale fer +me, although the thummometer seems to prove it ain't necessarily thus. +Anyhow, the Old Man had Josie, an' any man from Sturgis to Dog Den +Buttes would have shouldered all Mr. Elkins' shrinkages, especially the +below-zero part, to've had her jest once smooth the hair off his beaded +brow, let alone take charge of him like a Her'ford heifer does her fust +calf. Which is sure the manner Josie took a-holt and managed the Old +Man. But this hain't no love story. Quite the reverse. It's the "Tale of +Ten Thousand Dogies." + +I found out that when Mr. E. went into the bulb in a business way, this +Wolf Nose Crick Ranch went around bankruptcy, instid of through it, +becuz, mostly, nobody thought it wuth a--a thought. An' to them as +think strange of ten thousand steers, even dogies, bein' bought by a +busted boomer, I'll state that any man with the same range, an' not +absolutely a convicted hoss-thief, could've got 'em by givin' the same +cutthroat chattel mawgitch. Old Aleck Macdonald did sure sell 'em to Mr. +Elkins reasonable, though, because James R. had made him a good deal of +money in this boom, an' they was only dogies anyhow. + +Now, this bein' my evenin' fer tellin' the truth, I'll state that ten +thousand dogies is sure a complicated problem on the range. The +distinction between them an' reg'lar native range cows lays in the lap +o' luxury in which the dogies is dangled in the farmin' regions where +they originate. The first little blizzard, they'll hump up an' blat fer +home an' mother. They'll gaze fondly at a butte ten mile off, expectin' +doors in it to slide open, an' racks full of clover an' timothy to pull +out an' be forked out to 'em. They look grieved an' wring their jaws +becuz water with the chill took off ain't piped to their stalls, an' +they moan 'cause they ain't no stalls. I'd as soon run a Women's an' +Babies' Home. You cain't get it into their heads where the water-holes +is, an' it's allus an even break whuther they'll stan' an' freeze in +their tracks, or chase after some bunch of 2:10 natives ontil their +hooves drop off. That's why Macdonald talked as he did about 'em, as I'm +informed. + +"Take 'em," says he, "an' don't flatter yourself I'm donatin' anything. +They's no feed fer 'em in their native Iowa at any livin' price, an' on +the other hand, fifty per cent. of 'em'll die gettin' over their +homesickness on the range. You'll have it in fer me fer stickin' you, +when you know more about the cattle business. Fer the Lord's sake take +'em before they eat me out of every dollar I've got left!" + +Some of this was straight goods, an' some stall; but that first winter +was a special providence if they ever was one. So mild and barmy from +September to March that the prairie-dogs forgot to hole up, an' Mrs. +Elkins served Thanksgivin' dinner in the open air on the pizziazzy at +the Ranch. An' she rode the range with Jim consecutively, an' said she'd +found her 'finity in this cattle biz. As for him, the main thing the +matter was that failure o' his a-millin' through his mental facilities. +But this was their honeymoon, we found, an' that, an' no losses on the +range, helped his case, an' by spring he begun to shoot the persiflage +into the gang, an' set up an' reach for things to beat fours. As for +the dogies, none of 'em had the faintest show fer a beller. The grass +was like new-mown hay; every little snow was follered by a chinook; the +water-holes was brimmin'; an' all went merry as a marriage bell. + +"The fact is, Aconite," says Mr. Elkins, addressin' me, "I knew when I +heard that burst of phonetic lava from your lips at Belle Fourche, that +there'd be no fear of low temperatures if you could be induced to stay +by the cows, and blow off once in a while." + +He had the hot air under wonderful control, hisself, an' felt good at +the way the stock was comin' on--March, April, May, an' fresh feed, +ponds full o' ducks, cute little young wolves about the dens, an' every +one o' the ten thousand dogies stretchin' to see hisself grow. But the +fall--the fall was sure a bad one fer both feed an' water. The dogies, +however, couldn't fairly be called such any longer, havin' recovered +from what Jim called their acute nostalgia, an' bein' pret' near's good +rustlers as natives. An' well it was fer 'em, fer grass was sca'ce, an' +a son-of-a-gun of a while between drinks. After you got away from the +crick--an' you jist _had_ to git away f'r grass--it was a good day's +ride to water, east, west, north, south, up'r down. On the hay-slews we +had to prime the rake with old hay 'fore we could make a windrow. Laff +if you want to, but they was whole outfits with less hay than some folks +has gover'ment bonds. We had about enough to wad a shotgun, an' was +merchant princes in the fodder line. The steers, lookin' like +semi-animated hat-racks, as the Old Man said, come through the cold +weather in a shrinkin' an' sylph-like way, so thin that you could throw +a bull by the tail a dum sight furder'n I'd trust some folks, an' that's +no dream! + +By this time Mr. Elkins was a sure-enough cow-man, president of the +Association and the biggest man from Spearfish to Jackson's Hole. He +knew some confounded joke on every man in the cow-country, an' not only +called 'em all by their fust name, but had one of his own f'r most of +'em. Mrs. Elkins, havin' pulled him through his own dogy stage, dropped +out of the cow business, an' devoted herself to kids. I knew that this +dogy proposition was a sort of a straw that Jim Elkins grabbed at as he +went under, an' it done me an' all the fellers good to see the +percentage of loss so small, even if the brutes wasn't puttin' on weight +as they orto, an' the price was away down, an' we knew we shouldn't be +ready to sell when the mawgitch got ripe. Old Macdonald was Jim's +friend, though, an' would sure extend the note when it come of age; an' +fur's we could see, these dry seasons was only delayin' the clean-up. + +So I thought, an' so thought the Elkins family, as peaceful as a Injun +summer morn, an' as happy as skunks. But along in June of the third +year, just in the last of the round-up, out comes what Elkins called our +Nemmysis in the form of a jackleg lawyer with news of Macdonald's death, +and papers to prove it, an' him appointed executioner of the estate of +A. Macdonald, diseased. He wanted to see the cattle the estate had a +mawgitch on. I was app'inted as his chaperon to show him the stock, an' +it bein' a hurryin' time o' year, I exhibited to him ten 'r 'leven +thousand head of mixed pickles, and called it square. He didn't know a +cow-brand from one plucked from the burnin', an' credited us with a +township or two of O-Bar-X cow stuff I run him into the first day out. I +didn't feel that he was wuth payin' much notice to, if he hadn't had the +say about the Old Man's mawgitch. + +I gathered from him that he was goin' to rearlize on the outfit in the +fall. I went so fur as to p'int out what a grave-robbin' scheme this +was, an' how this dogy stuff had been kep' in the livin' skelliton +department f'r two years by drouth an' a hell-slew of other troubles, +an' couldn't possibly do more than pay off the mawgitch, an' leave us +holdin' the bag in the wust country f'r snipe outside of the Mojave +desert. + +"They'll pay out," says he, "an' that's all I'm required to look out +fer." + +I swear, I was prospectin' f'r a good hole to plant him in all the rest +o' the trip. I goes right to the ranch when we pulled in. The Old Man +an' Josie was a-sittin' in the firelight, an' she had the baby, a +yearlin' on her lap, and the boy, a long two-year-old, in the crib. +Outside of a nest o' young wild ducks, I never seen anything softer and +cuter. I reports an' asks instructions as to the best way of disposin' +of Mr. Jackleg's remains. + +"Quicklime," says he ruminatin'ly, "is a good and well-recognized +scheme; but we haven't any, Aconite, have we? Or we might incorporate +him into that burnin' lignite bed over in the butte. Boxin' him up an' +shippin' him to fictitious consignees involves a trip to the railroad, +an' creatin', as it does, a bad odor, an' stickin' a strugglin' railroad +company for the freight, it never seemed to me quite the Christian +thing. Don't you agree with me, Aconite?" + +"Now, the God's truth is, I was speakin' parabolically about this +projected homicide, but no man can bluff _me_, an' when the Old Man +seemed to fall in with it in that heart-to-heart way, I made a lightnin' +cat-hop, an' told him as sober as a Keeley alumnus that the lignite bed +seemed most judicious to me, an' when should we load up the catafalque? +Then Mrs. E. breaks in with a sort o' gugglin' laugh. + +"Jim," says she, "you ought to be ashamed of yourself! Mr. Driscoll," +addressin' me by my name, which never was Aconite, reely, "Mr. Driscoll, +Mr. Elkins is not serious in his remarks." + +"Neither'm I," says I. + +"Of course not," says she. "We fully understand that." + +"Sure," says the Old Man. "Let the lawyer take its course. Which will be +assumin' possession of the ten thousand dogies; and I feel sure he'll +want to leave you in charge of 'em. He's stuck on you, Aconite." + +"See him in Helena fust," says I. + +"But wait a minute," says Mr. Elkins. "Somebody's got to take charge of +this stuff for the mortgagee, if he keeps on thinkin' as he does now. +You're our friend. It'll be more agreeable in every way to have you +than, say, Bill Skeels, of the O-Bar-X." + +Of course I gets roped, throwed an' branded at last, an' Mr. Jackleg +goes away takin' my receipt f'r ten thousand head, more or less, of +steers branded "J" known in the cattle business as "J-Up-And-Down," the +same bein' on the ranges at the head-waters of the Cheyenne, Moreau, +Little Missouri, an' other streams, an' God knows where else, more +definitely described in a certain indenture of mawgitch, and so forth +and so on, till death comes to your relief. An' James R. Elkins was +reduced to a few hundred white faces he'd put in as a side-line, an' I +feelin' like a sheepman unmasked! + +Mr. Jackleg--his real name turned out to be Witherspoon--give me his +instructions from the buckboard as he prepares to pull out, in the +presence of the Old Man an' Mrs. E. + +"I was fetched up on a farm," says he, an' he looked the part, "an' I +know a good deal about cattle. Every animal should hev water at least +twice a day." + +"I'll personally see to it," says I, winkin' at the Old Man, "that +every steer has a crack at the growler at least semi-daily." + +"Another thing," says he; "I knew a herd-boy that run a bunch of fifty +cows practically dry by holdin' 'em in too close a bunch on the prairie. +Let 'em spread out so's to give 'em room to graze." + +"Well, fer Gawd's sake!" says I, thinkin' of the feller's sanity; an' +before I could finish my yawp, off he pelts, leavin' me gaspin'. + +"Wake up," says Elkins, shakin' me by the shoulder. "If you git 'em all +watered by bed-time, you'll have to git busy." + +He sure is a good loser, thinks I, ontil I figgered that with Josie an' +the kids counted in, he hadn't been pried loose from any great +percentage of his holdin's after all. + +Now, the idee was to round up an' ship about the first of December, so +the estate could be wound up at the January term o' court. Pretty soon +things seemed about as they was before. I went to the Old Man for +orders, an' Mr. Jackleg's visit seemed, as Mrs. E. once said, like a +badly-drawn dream. Every time I went to J. R. E. he says to me that I'm +boss, an' to remember my instructions. + +"Obey orders," says he, "if it busts owners." + +Grass an' water was plenty ag'in, and the dogies was fattin' up. +Round-up was drawin' on just as prospects f'r profit begins to brighten. +It seemed a sort of a hash of midnight assassination, poisonin' +water-holes, givin' away a podner, an' keepin' sheep, to ship them ten +thousand then. An' all the time the Old Man was a-bearin' down about +obeyin' orders, and beggin' me to remember Mr. Jackleg's partin' words, +an' repeatin' that sayin' about obeyin' orders if it busted owners. The +thing kep' millin' an' millin' in my brain till I got into the habit of +settin' around an' sweatin' heinyous, ontil I'd come to with a start, in +the middle of a pool of self-evolved moisture filled with wavin' rushes, +an' embosomin' acres of floatin' water-lilies! That's the sort of +sweater I am when a little worried. Fin'ly I turned on the Old Man like +a worm--a reg'lar spiral still-worm. + +"How in everlastin' fire," says I, not just like that, "am I to see that +every dogy gits two swigs a day on these prairies, an' wherein am I to +take any notice of that shyster's fool talk about rangin' wide?" + +"Well," says he, "you know there's pools an' water-holes scattered from +here to the Canada line, an' from the Missouri to the Continental +Divide. A few head, dropped here an' there, handy to water, would be +apt to live more accordin' to the hydropathic ideas of the executor of +the will of A. Macdonald, diseased. At the same time you would be +conformin' to his remarkable correct hyjeenic notions as to +segregation." + +"Hyjeenic y'r grandmother!" says I, f'r the sitiwation called f'r strong +language. "They couldn't be rounded up in a year; an' it's damn +nonsense, anyhow, to foller the so-called idees of a--" + +"Oh, I see," says he, in a sort of significant way. "I see: it would be +a slow round-up. Maybe my intrusts blinds me to those of the people you +represent. A slow round-up wouldn't hurt me any! But, of course, you +stan' f'r the mawgitchee's intrusts, an' are nat'rally hostyle--" + +I set sort o' numbed f'r a minute. A new thing was a-happenin' to me, to +wit, an idee was workin' itself into my self-sealin', air-tight, +shot-proof, Harveyized skull. Talk about your floods o' light! I got +what Doc calls a Noachian deluge of it right then. + +"Sir," says I, "'an' Madam, truly'"--quotin' from a pome Mrs. E. had +been readin'--"I _think_ I see my duty clear at last! If I fin'ly _hev_ +grasped it, my labors requires my absence," says I, "an' I'll see you +later." + +Mr. Elkins laughed a sort of a Van Triloquist's chuckle. Josie Elkins +comes up, an' stannin' close to me in that maddenin' way o' hern, sort +o's if she's climbin' into your vest pocket, she squose my hand, an' +says she, "Mr. Driscoll, we know that you'll be true to any trust +reposed in you! An' to your friends!" An' at the word "friends" she sort +of made sunbeams from her eyes to mine, an' pressed my hand before +breakin' away, as much as to say that, speakin' o' friends, the ones +that had reely drunk from the same canteen an' robbed watermelon patches +together from earliest infancy was her an' me. Holy Mackinaw! I went out +into the wilderness givin' thanks an' singin' an' cussin' myself, at +peace with all the world. + +I flatter myself that the work done upon, or emanatin' from the +J-Up-And-Down Ranch from that time, f'r a spell, stands in a class by +itself in cow-country annuals. It begins with a sort o' quarterly +conference of the punchers. I gives 'em a sermon something as follers: + +"Fellers," says I, "it's been borne in upon me that these dogies need +drivin' where they's fewer cows to the cubic inch o' water. Moreover, +they're in too much of a huddle. Here's the hull ten thousand cooped up +within twenty to thirty mile of the spot whereon we stand. You cain't +swing a bob-cat by the tail," says I, "without scratchin' their eyes +out. It vi'lates the crowded tenement laws. It corrupts the poor little +innercent calves. It's a Mulberry Street shame. You are therefore +ordered an' directed to disseminate these beeves over a wider expanse of +the moral heritage. You, Doc, take Ole an' the Greaser, an' goin' south +an' west with as many as you can round up, drop off a carload 'r so at +every waterin' place an' summer resort up the Belle Fourche an' the +North Fork, over onto the Powder, an' as fur as Sheridan. When yeh git +short o' cows, come back f'r more. There ain't no real limits to yer +efforts short o' the Yellowstone. We must obey Mr. Jackleg's orders +about huddlin'. I'll give Absalom an' Pike the Little Missouri, the +Cannon Ball and the Grand valleys. Git what help you need; I grant power +to each of yeh to send f'r persons an' papers an' administer oaths, if +necessary. I'll take my crew an' try to gladden the waste places along +the Moreau an' Cheyenne an' White Rivers with dogies. Get your gangs, +an' scatter seeds o' kindness an' long four-year-olds from hell to +breakfast. For as yeh sow even shall yeh reap. If a critter smothers +from crowdin' sev'ral to a township these hot nights, somebody's goin' +to be held personally responsible to me. You hear, I s'pose?" + +"Is this straight goods, Aconite?" says Doc. + +"Am I a perfessional humorist," says I, "or am I the combined Fresh Air +Fund, S. P. C. A., and Jacob A. Riis of these yere hills? Am I the main +squeeze of this outfit, an' the head of a responsible gover'ment, or am +I not? Hit the grit," says I, "an' begin irradiatin' steers." + +Obedience is a lovely thing, fellers, an' a man poised in an air-ship a +few thousan' feet above a given pi'nt som'eres in the neighborhood o' +the Hay Stack Buttes, armed with a good long-range peekeriscope, might +have observed a beautiful outbust of it, all that golding autumn, on the +part of a class of men presumably onsubordinate--the ungrammatical but +warm-hearted cow-boys. They preached a mixed assortment o' +fair-to-middlin' steers unto all men. The Ten Thousand was absorbed into +the landscape of four great states, like a ship-load o' Swedes into the +Republican party. The brethren of the ranches heared gladly the gospel +of obeyin' orders, an' wherever a wisp of cows amountin' to more than a +double handful congregated together in one place, there was some +obejient son of a gun in the midst of 'em, movin' 'em along towards the +bubblin' springs, green fields an' pastors new of Mr. Jackleg's orders. +It was touchin'. I never felt so good, so sort o' glory-hallelujahish in +my life, as I did a-ridin' back to Wolf Nose Crick in the brown October +weather, with the dogies off my mind an' the map, thinkin' of how Mrs. +E. had squoze my hand, sort o' weepful on moonlight nights, but +stronger'n onions in a sense o' juty well performed. + +You can sort o' dimly ketch onto the shock it was to me, a-drillin' into +camp at Wolf Nose Crick in this yere peaceful frame of mind, to find Mr. +Jackleg there, madder'n a massasauga, an' perfec'ly shameful in his +feelin's towards _me_. + +"Where's these ten thousand head o'cattle, Driscoll?" he hollers on +seein' me. "Here's your receipt for 'em; where's the stock?" + +"Calm yourself," says I, droppin' my hand to my gun; "the dogies is all +right. The dogies is out yan in the most unhuddled state of any outfit +on the range, fur from the slums of Wolf Nose Crick an' their corruptin' +influences, drinkin' at the pure springs o' four great American +commonwealths, layin' on fat like aldermen, an' in a advanced state of +segregation. Your orders," says I, tickled to think how I'd remembered +langwidge so fur above my station in life, "your orders was to put 'em +next to the damp spots, an' keep 'em fur apart, an' has been obeyed +regardless." + +Up to that time I had looked upon him with contempt; but the way he +turned in an' damned me showed how sorely I'd misjudged him. As my +respect fer him riz, it grew important not to let him go on so, f'r I +couldn't let any reel man talk to me that-a-way, an' in less time than +it takes to mention it, I had the boys a-holdin' me, and Mr. Jackleg +stannin' without hitchin'. + +"I may hev been hasty in my remarks," says he; "but I've been out with +all the men I could git f'r two weeks, an' how many of our herd do you +s'pose I have been enabled to collect?" + +"Not knowin', cain't say," says I. + +"Just a hundred an' fifty-seven!" says he. + +"Good!" says I. "You've got no kick comin'. I couldn't have done better +myself. But you won't git as many in the next two weeks! Cheer up; the +wust is yet to come!" + +An' at that he flies off the handle ag'in, an' lights out f'r the East, +with the estate all unwound, I s'pose. + +Now, everybody knows the rest of this story. Everybody knows how grass +an' water an' winters favored the range-stuff f'r the next two years. +Them dogies was as well off 's if they'd been in upholstered sheds +eatin' gilded hay. When ol' Dakoty starts out to kill stock, she reg'lar +Mountain-Medders-Massacres 'em; but when she turns in to make a +feed-yard of herself, she's a cow paradise without snakes. The hist'ry +of these dogies illustrates this p'int, an' shows our beautiful system +of enforcin' honesty in marketin' range cattle whereby the active +robbery is confined to the stockyards folks and the packers, where it +won't do no moral harm. As was perfec'ly square an' right, the brand +inspectors at Omaha, Sioux City, Chicago an' Kansas City was on the +lookout f'r J-Up-And-Down steers in the intrusts of Mr. Jackleg's +mawgitch; an' after every round-up, some on 'em would dribble in with +the shipments, an' be sold an' proceeds gobbled accordin' to Hoyle. An' +when things got good--dogies about the size of Norman hosses, an' as fat +as Suffolk pigs--the word goes out from Wolf Nose Crick to every ranch +on the range, that the anti-slum crusade was off, an' J-Up-And-Down +stuff was to be shipped as rounded up. F'r weeks an' months, I'm told, +pret' near every car had some of 'em. Top grassers, they was at last, in +weight an' price, an' when the half of 'em was in, the estate of A. +Macdonald, diseased, was wound up, tight as a drum, intrust an' +principal, an' Jim Elkins had left a little trifle o' five thousand +beeves, wuth around a hundred apiece, free an' clear, an' the record of +Aconite Driscoll, as a philanthropist, a humannytarian, an' a +practical-cow-puncher, was once more as clear as a Christian's eye. + +An' this is how Jim Elkins got his ante in this New York game he's +a-buckin' so successful. An' so it was that my little meet-up with a +Sioux City shell-man, which I'm lookin' fer yit, results in a reg'lar +Pullman sleeper trip to Chicago, where I'm the guest of honor at a +feedin' contest instituted by Mr. James R. Elkins, whereat Mr. +Jackleg--Witherspoon, I mean, and dead game after all, if any one should +inquire--makes a talk about the pleasure it affords all of us to see our +old friend Elkins restored to those financial circulars where he was so +well known, an' so much at home; an' alludin' to me as restorer-in-chief +by virtoo of my great feet, an' losin' ten thousand dogies so that +Pinkerton himself couldn't find 'em ontil the wilderness saw fit to +disgorge 'em in its own wild an' woolly way. An' fin'ly I'm called on +an' made to git up, locoed at the strange grazin' ground, but game to do +my best, an' after millin' awhile, "I'm here," says I, "owin' to my +eckstrordinary talent f'r obeyin' orders. I'm told to come hither, an' I +at once set out to prove my effectiveness as a come-hitherer. As f'r +losin' ten thousand dogies, I cain't see what that has to do with my +great feet. An' right here," I says, "I wish to state that I onst lost +something else, to wit, my val'able temper at something done 'r said by +a gentleman now present, for all of which I begs pardon of Mr. +Jackleg--Mr. Witherspoon, I means," says I, an' everybody hollers an' +pounds, him most of all, but redder'n a turkey, "an' I wish to state +that it does me good to feel that harmony and peace between him an' me +is restored. Here in Chicago," says I, "him an' me can git together on +the platform of feedin' in bunches, without dehornin'; with the +paramount issue to go before the people on, however, that old plank o' +his'n declarin' f'r frekent drinks!" + +After that, I don't remember what eventuated--not quite so clear. + + * * * * * + +"I told you," said the Bride, as the party broke up for the night, "that +we'd get some local color." + +"Alas!" replied the Artist. "This is like the local color of Babylon and +the Shepherd Kings--a tradition and a whisper borne on the night breeze, +of things that were. O, Remington! Remington!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Professor Boggs was in a brown study from the time his name emerged from +the hat on starting from the Upper Geyser Basin, until the equipage of +the Seven Wonderers, as the Poet called the party, reached the Thumb +Lunch Station on Yellowstone Lake, nineteen miles to the east--which +drive they made between breakfast and luncheon. The Colonel had +telephoned ahead for a special banquet for the eight that night, at +which Professor Boggs was to tell his story, and civilized life was to +be resumed for the nonce--"To prevent," as the Colonel explained, "our +running wild so that we'll have to be blindfolded and backed onto the +cars when we get back to Gardiner." All up the pleasant Firehole Valley, +the Professor worked at a packet of papers which he took from his bag. + +"I'll bet he gives us an essay on some phase of rural education," +challenged the Artist, with no takers. + +Past the exquisite Kepler Cascade they went, after a stop which filled +all except the Hired Man and the Professor with delight. When the party +alighted for the walk of half a mile to the Lone Star Geyser, these two +remained with the surrey--the Professor busy, the Hired Man lazily +smoking. His mental film-pack was exhausted. Spring Creek Cañon proved +another of those comforting features which relieve the strain of +constant astonishment in the Park--the narrow and winding cañon, with +its homelike rocks and cliffs, topped by inky evergreens, shut them in +like some comforting shelter against the tempest of the marvelous. Down +this wild glen tumbled a clear stream of cold water, bordered with +ferns, willows and alders. The Bride scooped up a little of the water in +her hand and drank it. + +"Isn't it funny?" she asked. + +"Isn't what funny?" asked the Groom. + +"To find water actually cool and clear, and flowing down a glen of just +rocks, with no steam, or rainbow colors, or anything but good earth and +stones? I feel like one just out of some sort of inferno." + +"The first feller to roam these here hollers," said Aconite, "was a guy +named John Colter. He came out with the Lewis and Clark expedition, and +stopped on the way back to trap. That was about 1807. He got into the +Park some way, and when he emerged he told of it. And there was where +the fust reppytation for truth an' veracity was blighted by the +p'isenous exhalations of this region of wonders." + +"Was he Jimbridgered?" asked the Artist. + +"Was he whiched?" + +"Jimbridgered; Marcopoloed; Münchhausened; Mandevilled; Driscolled; +placed in the Ananias Club?" + +"He shore was," replied Aconite. "W'y this place was called Colter's +Hell from Saint Joe to Salt Lake by them as didn't believe in it. +'Whar'd this eventuate?' a puncher'd say to a feller that had seen +something. 'In Colter's Hell' another would say, meanin' that it never +did occur--an' if he didn't smile when he said it, there'd be gun play. +An' hyar was all them marvels that Colter'd seen, and more, all the +time!" + +At Craig Pass, the cayuses were stopped so that all might feast their +eyes on the little Isa Lake, frowned on by stern precipices, but smiling +up into the blue, its surface flecked with water-lilies. + +"An' hyar," said Aconite, "we hev a body of water that at one end +empties into the Atlantic Ocean's tributaries, an' at the other waters +the Pacific slope." + +"Which is which?" asked the Colonel. + +"The east end runs into the Pacific, and the west into the Atlantic," +replied Aconite, quite truthfully. + +"What's that!" exclaimed the Hired Man. "Do yeh mean to say we've got +over on the coast by drivin' east--toward Ioway?" + +"You've said 'er," said Aconite. + +"I tell you," said the Hired Man, as the others began studying their +maps to clear up this geographic anomaly, "I tell you that there ain't +no way of understandin' the 'tother-end-toness of this place, except by +sayin' that the hull thing is a gigantic streak of nature." + +"The most rational explanation," said the Groom, "that I've heard. Mr. +Hired Man sets us all right. Drive on, Aconite!" + +Down Corkscrew Hill they volplaned, thrilled and somewhat scared by the +speed of the cayuses, which flew downward in joyful relief at the +cessation of the uphill pull to the pass. At the bottom there was a +halt to afford a glimpse of Shoshone Lake, and far off to the south the +exquisite Tetons, their summits capped with pearl. The visit to Shoshone +Lake with its gorgeous geysers was to be postponed until after they +should arrive at the thumb of Yellowstone Lake, and make camp. + +An hour of steady driving succeeded. They drowsed in their seats, torpid +from the early start and the days of strenuous sight-seeing. The road +ran through a quiet forest, and there was something not unpleasant in +the fact that the curtain of trees shut off the view--until suddenly at +a turn in the highway, there burst upon their sight that most marvelous +of inland seas, Yellowstone Lake. Straight away extended its waters, for +twenty miles, to the dim shores of Elk Point, where the pines carried +the wonderful landscape upward, their gloom cutting straight across the +view, between the mirror-like sheen of the lake, to timber-line on the +azure Absarokas, standing serenely across the eastern sky, their +serrated summits picked out with snow against the blue. + +A huge chalice lay the lake, reared to a height of a mile and a half +above the dusty and furrowed earth where folk plow and dig and make +their livings, the crown jewel of the continent's diadem, unutterably, +indescribably lovely, filled with crystalline dew. The tourists caught +their breaths. Aconite said nothing. For a long time they stood, until +the horses began to move backward and forward, uneasy at the unwonted +stay. The Bride was holding the Groom's hand, her eyes glistening with +tears. + +They passed the lovely little Duck Lake, unmindful of its prettiness, +and drew up at the lunch station, where they remained unconscious of +their hunger until the memory of the splendors of the lake were first +dulled, and then obliterated by the scent of the bacon which Aconite was +frying. The Hired Man ate valiantly, lighted his pipe, and sighed. + +"That was all right," said he. + +"Thanks," said Aconite. "It cost forty cents a pound, an' orto be good." + +"I meant," said the Hired Man, "that view o' the lake from back yonder." + + * * * * * + +Night brought dinner, and that appetite for it which outdoors gives to +healthy folk, at eight thousand feet above the sea. After the eating was +well and thoroughly done, the Professor responded to the call for his +story. He rose solemnly, bowed to the assemblage, arranged his papers, +cleared his throat, and began. + + +A BELATED REBEL INVASION + +THE PROFESSOR'S STORY + +Unlike the rest of you, I am no mere seeker after pleasure. I am an +outcast from my native Iowa. I have held high and honorable office, and +I have been treated as was Coriolanus of old. I am the victim of the +ingratitude of republics, as expressed in a direct primary in Stevens +County, Iowa. I am on my way to the great new West, where I shall seek +to serve newer communities where perfidy may not be so ingrained in the +nature of the body politic. And I shall shun relations other than +professional ones, with persons of youth, beauty, charm, and feminine +gender. For by these I am a sufferer. I have with me my notes, and to +you is given the first hearing of my side of a case which may become +historic. + +"The contest is unequal," says Epictetus, "between a charming young girl +and a beginner in philosophy." Let this be remembered when I am blamed +for the havoc wrought upon my political educational career in Stevens +County, Iowa, by Miss Roberta Lee Frayn of Tennessee. Not that I am a +beginner in philosophy. The man who, at my age, has been elected county +superintendent of schools is no mere tyro in the field wherein Epictetus +so distinguished himself. But neither does the word "charming" +adequately describe Miss Frayn, unless one trace back the word "charm" +to its more diabolically significant root. I expect to write this, my +_apologia_, and leave the verdict to posterity. + +No citizen of Stevens County is likely to be ignorant of the manner in +which Miss Frayn was deposited in my mother's farmyard by the wrecking +of a railway train, or how her grandfather, Colonel Kenton Yell Frayn, +died there in her arms and left the young girl penniless. Judge +Worthington, hereafter to be mentioned, was on the train and doubtless +assisted in extricating Miss Frayn and her grandfather from the +wreckage, but I feel that my own efforts were more effective than was +reported. We left the young woman in the care of my mother, and I took +the judge with me in my buggy. + +He was much distraught as we rode along. I tried to say something in the +way of furthering my candidacy for the office I now hold; but he +repulsed me. + +"For God's sake, Oscar," I remember him to have said, "don't try to +electioneer me until I can get out of my mind the image of that poor +young girl and her dying grandfather!" + +I do not care to criticize the judiciary, but will say that Judge +Worthington's early promotion to the bench and his undeniable comeliness +of person have in a measure induced in him a certain arrogance. + +I was triumphantly elected. I went to Boston and won recognition so far +as to be placed on the sub-committee for the investigation of +Tone-Deafness in the rural schools, in the superintendents' section of +the National Teachers' Association. + +"Gee!" ejaculated the Hired Man. + +Feeling the growing breadth and fullness of life I returned and assumed +my office. Then it was that the Frayn episode may be said to have begun, +in a letter from my brother Chester, which I have here, and which runs, +using an undignified diminutive: + + "DEAR OC: + + "We would like to see you. Mother and all are well, and glad you + pulled through, even if you did run behind the ticket so. Am + feeding three loads of steers, and they are making a fine gain. + Middlekauff's look rough, and all the feeders think he'll lose + money on them. He paid four cents for them. This is about all the + news. Can't you appoint me your deputy down here to examine Miss + Frayn, whose grandfather got killed in that wreck? She wants to + teach. She is a Southerner, but an awful nice lady, and just as + smart as one of us. She dreads to go to Pacific City to be + examined, as she won't let ma get her hardly any clothes. She is + very sensitive about money matters, and I had to lie to her about + the funds to bury her grandfather with, and tried to slip in $250 + more, but she caught me at it and cried. I will be strict and make + her write out the examination properly; so send along the + questions, and the appointment. + + "Yours truly, CHET. + + "P. S.--Judge Worthington's office is so near yours, you might + leave the appointment and the questions in there. The judge will + bring them down. He comes down quite often now, because he says + that the Boggses and the Worthingtons moved into Iowa in the same + wagon train in an early day, and he thinks it strange that that + accident that killed Colonel Frayn should have brought the families + together again. He thinks that Miss Frayn will make a first-rate + teacher, so you need not be backward about the appointment and the + questions." + +Not abating one jot or tittle of my official strictness, I informed +Chester that Miss Frayn must appear and be examined as did others in the +same situation. Chester is an Ames man, and a fine judger and feeder of +cattle, but not fitted for responsibility in _belles-lettres_. + +Professor Dustin, an elderly and myopic educator and the author of a +monograph on the Grübe method, had charge of the examination when Miss +Frayn appeared. I found Chester smoking a vile pipe in my lodgings when +I came home. + +"Say, Oc," said he, "this four-eyed old trilobite won't do. You've got +to get in here and do business yourself." + +Conjecturing that he meant Professor Dustin, I inferred that Miss +Frayn's papers had been rejected. A glance justified the professor. She +had given Richmond as the capital of the United States. A question in +physiology called for a description of the iris, and Miss Frayn had +answered that, further than that, "she" was a naiad, a dryad, or a +nymph, and was pursued by Boreas, or Eolus, or Zephyrus until, turned +into a flower, she could say nothing about Iris. The handwriting and +drawing were beautiful; but the pages of mathematics were mostly blank, +save for certain splashy discolorations presumably of lachrymatory +origin, denoting lack of self-control and scholastic weakness. + +"It is absurd," said I, "to think of certifying her. While she has a +certain measure of intelligence--" + +"A certain measure!" shouted Chester. "If you weren't a natural-born +saphead, I'd--! Come up to Aunt Judith's!" + +I went with him, firm in that solid self-control which gives fixity of +character to my nature. I saw in its true light the amiable weakness of +my relatives which made them slaves to this girl. I felt as stern and +austere as a public officer should, and looked it, I believe, for mother +was quite in a flutter as she asked me to read a clipping from an +eastern Tennessee paper describing the departure from that region of the +Frayns. + +From this I learned that Miss Frayn and the colonel had been the last of +the Frayns, the family having been exterminated in the Frayn-Harrod +feud. The colonel had been an engineer in Lee's army. He had given +public notice on leaving that at noon he would nail to the front door of +the court-house, with the revolver of Boone Harrod, the last enemy shot +by the colonel, his version of the origin of the feud. He had carried +out this parting piece of bravado with no disturbance except an exchange +of shots as the train moved away from the station. I was horrified. Was +a person in this barbarous state of culture asking me, Oscar Boggs, +member of the National Sub-Committee on Tone-Deafness--! + +"Okky," said my mother, from behind, "this is Miss Frayn!" + +I looked at her, and was suddenly impressed with the non-existence of +the material universe, except as centered in and consisting of eyes of a +ruddy brown like those of fine horses, rufous hair surrounding the small +head like a nimbus, and a fused mass of impressions made up of the +abstract concepts of trimness, fire, elegance, and unconquerability. I +have reported the matter to the society for psychical research, but have +received no answer as yet. It was clearly abnormal. + +She placed her arm about my mother's waist and looked most respectfully +at me. + +"You ah the great man," said she, "of the family Ah have so much cause +to love." Here she stopped as if to regain self-control. "Ah wish mah +po' papahs," she went on, "had--" + +"There, there!" said my mother, patting her arm. "It'll be all right +anyway, dear!" + +I was considering what to say. Her skin was clear, white, daintily +transparent, and of a delicacy our western girls seldom display (owing, +I surmise, to climatic influences); she stood there on Aunt Judith's +Persian rug, her petite figure with its rounded curves, half-levitated, +like Atalanta upon the oat-heads--and there returned upon me the mental +vertigo, the lack of cerebral coördination, and the obliteration of the +material universe. + +"Am Ah so igno'ant, really?" said she. "Ah'm fond of children; and Ah +_must_ find wohk!" + +Why did I hate Dustin? Why could I not command my speech? I always rally +at the crises, however, and did so in this instance. + +"As for ignorance," said I, "Sir John Lubbock says: 'Studies are a +means, not an end.' And Lord Bacon hath it: 'To spend too much time in +studies is sloth.' I see that you have acted on these maxims. Professor +Dustin's astigmatism and myopia rendered it impossible for him to see +you." + +I stopped in some returning confusion. + +"Those dreadful cube roots and quadratics--" said she. + +"The personality of the teacher," said I, "controls the matter." + +I heard her laugh, a little delighted laugh, and found myself agreeing +to the heresy that, after all, the chief thing is to train the girls to +be gentle, and the boys brave! Then I gave her my arm in to dinner. +Chester, who had never offered a girl his arm except at a dance or +after dark, glared at me. Mother was uneasy at the stirring of the old +brotherly antagonisms. I expanded, and told Miss Frayn that if all +southern women were like the only one I had met, I didn't wonder at the +feuds. Then seeing whither I was drifting, I asked her plans as to the +school she would take, when I sent her her certificate. She said that +"Mistah Chestah" was going to let her have the home school. + +"A boy like Chester," said I, "will have little influence with Mr. +Middlekauff, the director." + +"Oh, cut it out, Oc!" burst in Chester. "I've got it all framed up to be +elected director!" + +"My political plans," said I, "will not allow of a breach between my +family and Mr. Middlekauff." + +"Well, mine do," retorted Chester. "You'll take your chances with the +Middlekauffs, just as I do!" + +It was not the occult influence, but a desire to benefit educational +conditions, that led me to visit Miss Frayn's school the week Chester's +insurgency placed her in it. My memory is hazy as to the matter, but my +notes show that her weakness was in the matter of organization. + +"Oh," said she, when I mentioned this, "do you all prefeh things so +regulah and poky? It's so much mo' pleasant foh the little things to be +free!" She called most of the little ones "Honey," and allowed much +latitude in whispering and moving about. They crowded around her like +ants to a lump of sugar. Some of them were beginning to evince a laxity +of pronunciation, sounding the personal pronoun "I" like the +interjection "Ah." + +In a few days I went back--Chester sneered at me as I went by--to tell +Miss Frayn of the necessity of teaching the effects of stimulants and +narcotics according to the Iowa law. She was greatly surprised when I +told her of this requirement. + +"What, _daily_, Mr. Supe'intendent!" she exclaimed. + +"Daily teaching," said I. "Our law requires it." + +"It seems _so_ unnecessa'y," she said in perplexity. "The young +gentlemen will find out all about it in due time: and is it raght to +expe'iment with the littlest ones? And wheiah shall I obtain the liquoh +foh the demonstrations?" + +I felt strangely overcome at this astounding speech, by an indescribable +mixture of tender solicitude for her welfare, and horror at her fearful +mistake; but I reproved her for jesting at the vice of drinking. + +"Vice!" said she, with a bubbling laugh. "Why, down home we-all regyahd +it as an accomplishment! But Ah reckon you ah jokin' about teachin' it. +Youah jokes and use of the lettah 'ah' ah things Ah shall nevah get used +to, Ah'm afraid; but Ah'm glad you don't mean that about the drinkin'." + +Despairing of making her understand, I left her, again conscious of +being under occult and abnormal control. I was astonished to see in the +school several large boys who must have been greatly needed in the +fields. They looked at each other sheepishly as I came in, but most of +the time they gazed at the teacher, rather than at their books. Not +having the gift of prophecy, I could not see in their presence the cloud +that would soon overshadow my official life. I took their attendance as +proof of the popularity of the school. I studied the philosophers, and +sought calm of spirit. Learning from Epictetus that the earthen pitcher +and the rock do not agree, and from Lubbock that love at first sight is +thought by great minds actually to occur, I reëxamined my abnormal +psychic symptoms in Miss Frayn's presence, and prudently refrained from +seeking her society. Poise alone makes possible a consistent career, and +this I had in large measure reconquered, when, like a bolt from the +blue--or at least with much abruptness--into my quiet office burst a +committee from the Teal Lake Township School Board, accompanied by a +number of patrons of the Boggs school--all old neighbors of ours--headed +by the defeated Mr. Elizur Middlekauff. This could mean but one +thing--Miss Frayn! The rebel invasion was at the door. + +"Mr. Middlekauff," said one, "is the spokesman." + +"We've got a grievyance," said Mr. Middlekauff, "a whale of a grievyance +in our deestrict; and we've come right to the power-house to fix it." + +"It shall command my most careful consideration," said I. "Please state +the case." + +"That 'ere railroad wreck," said Mr. Middlekauff, who was a very +forcible speaker at caucuses, "let loose on our people a scourge in +caliker more pestilential than the Huns and Vandals. We come to you as +clothed with a little brief authority, an' accessory after the fact to +this scourge business." + +"I fail," said I, "to catch your meaning." + +"I mean," said he, growing loud, "that peaches-an'-cream invader from +the states lately in rebellion that you've give a stiffkit, an' your +brother Chet by stratagems an' spiles has got himself elected an' put +into our school. That's what I mean!" + +"I infer," said I, "some implied strictures upon the character or school +management or educational qualifications of Miss Roberta Lee Frayn." + +"W'l you infer surprisin'ly clus to the truth!" replied Mr. Middlekauff +offensively. "We're a-complainin' of this schoolma'am with the rebil +name; and of her onrivaled facilities f'r spreadin' treason an' +emotional insanity! Try to git that through your hair!" + +Like lightning a course of policy occurred to me. + +"Are the defendant," said I, looking them over, "and Mr. Boggs, the +director, among your numbers?" + +"No," said Mr. Middlekauff. "This is kinder informal. An' besides, we'd +crawl out right where we went in if she was here. I tell you she's +a--a--irresistible force." + +"It is elementary," said I, "that no _ex parte_ investigation can have +any validity." + +"Now, see here, Oc Boggs!" hissed he, "I don't take any high-an'-mighty +stand-off from a lunkhead that's stole my melons when he was a kid! +You'll hear this complaint, see?" + +I did not weaken, but I allowed his standing in the community and party +to outweigh offensive orthoepy, rhetoric, and manners. Unofficially, I +took down the complaint, reserving my ruling. As the horrid tale was +told I grew sick at the problem before me. I glean the details of the +situation from my notes: + +Miss Frayn (all these things are set down as _asserted_) had assigned +William Middlekauff, whose father was a member of the G. A. R., the +Confederate side of a debate on the comparative greatness of Washington +and Robert E. Lee, and had said: "She reckoned Mr. William ought to have +won, as he had the strong side." Complained of as against public policy, +adhering to armed insurrection, and giving aid and comfort to the enemy. +_Quoere_ (per O. B.): Is complaint good after forty years of peace, +and Reconstruction? + +All members of the committee said that every boy in the district of more +than sixteen years of age was irresistibly attracted to her (exact +language, "be-daddled over her," O. B.). Hence, her character must be +"wrong" somehow. Two boys, each claiming an exclusive franchise to sweep +out for her, had met in Allen's feed-lot to fight a duel, and been +discovered in the act of firing and tied to the feed-rack by Allen's +hired man, and spanked with the end-gate of his wagon. Clarence Skeen +was poorly, and had been found kneeling before a bench calling it his +darling Roberta and begging it to be his. Columbus Smith had turned +somnambulist, and his father had lost ten tons of timothy which "Clumb" +had failed to put up in cock. When sleep-walking Clumb had been heard by +Vespucci, his brother (known as "Spootch"), to protest with sighs and +groans that his heart was broken and to ask "Roberta" to shed one tear +over his grave. Twitted of this by his young sister, Semiramis, Clumb +had slapped her and, cursing profanely, had assaulted Spootch, who +reproved him, and had fled to the Wiggly Creek woods with no subsistence +but a loaf of salt-rising bread, a box of paper collars, and a book of +poems. Letter from Mrs. Smith asking that this Jezebel's certificate be +revoked before all should be lost. + +Whipple Cavanaugh had been idle and "lawless" since attending school. +Refused nourishment. Pillow wet with tears. Kissed Cavanaugh's mare, +"Old Flora," on nose after Miss Frayn had patted her on said spot. Had +written a poem to Roberta, and rather than have it read publicly by the +hired girl, who had found it under his pillow, had eaten it, paper, ink, +and all. Doctor Dilworthy called in; pronounced him in danger of +gastritis and love-sickness with grave prognosis. + +Names of fifteen boys given, known as "Frayn Mooners," who haunted the +shrubbery about the home of Mrs. Jane D. Boggs, where the teacher +boarded. Six fights were known to have occurred among them. Tension in +the neighborhood was unbearable because of the loosing by Chester Boggs, +"in violation of his official oath," of a bulldog which had bitten +Albert Boyer, and thrown his mother into nervous prostration. + +This epidemic of "worthlessness and sentimentality" was spreading +outside the district, as evidenced by an excerpt found in the dog's +possession, from the upper rear elevation of the Sunday trousers of +Boliver Fromme, living in District No. 4. Progress in the studies of the +boys confined to amatory poetry and pugilism, both unrelated to their +life work. _Iowa, My Iowa_, Major Byers' stirring lyric, had been +supplanted by _Maryland, My Maryland_, in school singing. Chester Boggs, +the director, refused to receive complaints, and was condemned as +equally affected with the disease, and probably a "Mooner" himself. +There was a certificate of Doctor Dilworthy of Teal Lake as to the +existence of many cases of "extreme mental exaltation accompanied by +explosive and fulminant cerebral disturbances traceable to mediate or +immediate association with one Roberta Lee Frayn, an individual +seemingly possessed of an abnormal power in the way of causing +obsessions, fixed ideas, aberrant cranio-spinal functionings, and +cranial tempests, in those of her associates resembling her in the +matter of age, and differing from her in social habits, hereditary +constitution, and sex." + +I sank back in my chair horrified, with a sinking in the region of the +epigastric plexus. + +"We kind o' thought, Oc," said Mr. Middlekauff, "that thet would hold +yeh f'r a while." + +I saw the muddled political relations with which this imbroglio teemed, +and clung to delay as my sole hope. + +"I am inexpressibly shocked," said I, "and as soon as we can meet with +the defendant and the director--" + +"What!" shrieked Mr. Middlekauff. "_Her_ present! Arter what them papers +says? And everybody follerin' her, if she jest smiles, like a caff arter +salt! Why, dad ding me, if I'd trust _myself_ f'r more'n a smile or two. +She'll bamboozle the hull thing if she's there. I b'lieve _you've_ got +it, you conceited young sprout! No, sir; decide this thing now!" + +"I regret the necessity," said I, "of asking time to get the opinion of +the county attorney, and to--to--" + +"Not by a dum sight!" roared Mr. Middlekauff. "We'll see what the court +has to say on this. An' when you're up f'r election ag'in, come round, +an' we'll consider it f'r a while--an' then you won't know you're +runnin'!" + +I was torn by conflicting emotions when they went away. I knew that +Middlekauff was a man of influence. I was not averse to seeing Chester +rebuked for his fatuous behavior, and for tempting me to a deviation +from strict duty. I felt that in taking my stand with the "Mooners" I +might be siding with the heaviest body of voters after all. By these +whiffling winds of the mind was I baffled, finding no rest in my works +on didactics and pedagogics, wondering what Middlekauff would do--until +all doubts were settled by the filing of the case of The School Board of +Teal Lake versus Frayn; and in a few days it came on for trial before +Judge Worthington. + +Chester telephoned, asking to see me. He came in looking thinner than I +had ever seen him. + +"Do you know," said he, "that this case old Middlekauff's got plugged up +comes off this morning?" + +"Having been summonsed by writ of subpoena," said I severely, "I am +aware that your wilfulness in placing an untried importation in charge +of our school, regardless of her unfitness, or of my political +well-being, is this morning bearing its legitimate fruit in the hearing +which comes _on_--not _off_! And I hope your lack of consideration for +the welfare of the school system, so largely wrapped up in my career, +will--" + +That Chester was temporarily insane is clear. He flew at me, seized my +trachea in his iron hands, compressed it so as greatly to impede +respiration, and knocked my head against the wall, using incoherently +certain technical terms he had learned at Ames. + +"Shut up!" he cried. "You +duplex--polyphase--automatic--back-action--compound-wound--multipolar +_Ass_! Shut up!" + +An anatomical chart on the wall preserved my head, and I retained my +self-possession. When he let me down I took my station on the other side +of a table and looked him in the eye, strongly willing that he quiet +down. + +"Forgive me, Oc," said he humbly, "I promised myself eight years ago +not to lick you any more! Pardon me." + +I forgave him, and we have ever since remained reconciled. He explained +that he wanted to consult as to methods of concealing from Miss Frayn +the nature of the suit. + +"Am I to understand," said I, "that she does not know that the relief +sought is her expulsion from the school?" + +"Of course she don't!" replied Chester. "Do you think I'd let her know? +She thinks everybody loves her. Nobody ever dared tell her anything +else, either here or down where she was raised. The boys down there +always were in love with her. She don't see anything strange in it--and +there isn't." + +"A change," said I, "would be wholesome for her." + +"She wouldn't know what to do," replied Chester. "And if she were to +hear these charges--against herself! Why, I don't know what she might +not do! She'd be absolutely desperate. She'd think she had no one to +defend her--and you know the Frayn way." + +"I shall not endeavor," said I, after consideration, "to reconcile +medieval notions of honor and personal dignity with proceedings under +the Iowa Code. Neither do I feel it prudent for me to see this person." + +For a few minutes Chester sat grinding his teeth and gripping the desk, +and then rushed from the office calling me a white-livered dub, and +telling me to go plumb to some place the name of which was cut off by +the door's slamming. I sat in the office feeling a sense of unrest, +until the time for going to court, where I found Judge Worthington on +the bench, Chester sitting at the defendant's table, and no Miss Frayn. + +"Are both sides ready in the next case?" asked the judge, without +looking at the calendar. + +"We wish to put the defendant on the stand for a few questions," said +Beasley, Middlekauff's lawyer. "I don't see her in court, your Honor." + +"Call the witness!" said the judge; and the bailiff shouted three times: +"Robert Lefrayne!" + +"Has this man Lefrayne been subpoenaed?" asked the judge; "as he is +defendant, I don't suppose you thought it necessary, Mr. Beasley." + +We could all see that the mispronunciation of the name had misled the +judge as to the identity of the defendant. + +"To make sure," said Beasley, "we subpoenaed the party. Here is the +writ, your Honor, with proof of service." + +"Mr. Clerk," said the judge, frowning sternly, "issue a bench warrant! +Mr. Sheriff, attach this witness, and produce him at two. Some of these +tardy witnesses will go to jail for contempt if this is repeated! Call +your next!" + +Chester was pale as a ghost, and accosted the bailiff as he went out +with the warrant. Then he came back and listened with flushes of anger +and clenched teeth to the reading of the pleadings, to which the judge +seemed to pay no attention. At two, after the intermission, the bailiff, +Captain Winfield, an old G. A. R. man, appeared with Miss Frayn on his +arm. He was blushing and fumbling his bronze button, while she smiled up +at him in a charming, daughterly way that brought back dangerous +symptoms of relapse in my psychic nature. + +"Call the witness Lefrayne!" cried the judge. + +Light, airy, daintily flushed, she floated up to the bench. The fine for +contempt died in Forceythe Worthington's breast, as he stared in a sort +of delighted embarrassment. + +"It was raght kahnd of you, Judge Wo'thin'ton," she said, looking up +into his face, "to send Captain Winfield to remahnd me of mah +engagement hyah. Why, he was at Franklin, and Chickamauga, and knows +Tennessee! And now, gentlemen, what can Ah do foh you-all?" + +The judge stepped down from the bench and handed Miss Frayn to the +witness chair like a lord chancellor placing a queen on her throne. +Beasley looked at the witness as if fascinated. Middlekauff seized him +by the lapel of his coat. + +"Don't look at her, Beasley, more'n yeh c'n help!" he whispered. "I tell +yeh, it's dangerous!" + +And yet _I_ am selected to bear blame for a momentary weakness of the +prevailing sort! + +"Proceed, gentlemen!" said Judge Worthington. + +Beasley gathered up his papers. "Are you the defendant?" asked he. + +"Ah don't quite gathah youah meanin' suh," said she, "but Ah think not, +suh." + +"You're the teacher of the Boggs School, in Teal Lake Township?" + +"Oh, yes, suh!" said she. "Pahdon me! I thought you inquiahed about +something else." + +Judge Worthington started as if struck by a dart. + +"Let me see the papers in the case," said he excitedly. + +Beasley handed them up, and the judge examined them carefully. Then he +handed them down, turned his back on Miss Frayn, and spoke in a low +tone, like one greatly shocked. + +"Proceed!" said he. + +Something in his tone or in the turning of his back seemed to strike +upon the senses of Miss Frayn as unpleasant or hostile. The few +questions put to her by the lawyer to lay the foundation for some other +bit of evidence did not appear to affect her at all; and when she took +her seat between Chester and my mother, and was reassured by their +whispered communications, she looked serene, save when she noted the +judge's averted face. Chester's lawyer spoke insinuatingly of spite, +prejudice, and unreasonable provincialism as being at the bottom of the +case. + +"And," he added, "I may add jealousy--jealousy, your Honor, of the +defendant's charms of person, which, as a part of the _res gestæ_, are +evidence in this case, if your honor only would observe them." + +The judge started and blushed, but still looked steadily away. Mr. +Middlekauff looked relieved. Miss Frayn fretted the linoleum with little +taps of her toe, and her delicate nostrils fluttered. There was a mystic +tension in the air. + +"Mr. Chestah," said the girl, in a low voice, "he seems to be alludin' +to--what does he mean?" + +Judge Worthington rapped for silence. Miss Frayn's eyes grew bright, and +her cheek showed a spot of crimson which deepened as the reading of the +affidavit went on. As the legal verbiage droned through the story of the +boys' infatuation, I looked at her, and knew that her indignation was +swelling fiercely at she scarcely knew what. I began repeating to myself +a passage from Seneca. + +"Objected to," roared Chester's lawyer, "as incompetent, irrelevant, +immaterial, impertinent, and grossly scandalous!" + +Miss Frayn clenched her hands and held her breath as if at the +realization of her worst fears. Then the judge spoke. "The affidavit," +said he, "attributes to Miss Frayn a malign and corrupting influence +over the whole neighborhood, and--" + +"Suh!" she gasped. + +Again did the judge rap for order. + +"Ruling reserved," said he. "Proceed." + +Triumphantly Beasley went on with the resolutions. At last Miss Frayn +seemed to understand. She rose, stilled Beasley with a gesture, and in +frozen dignity addressed the court. + +"Judge Wo'thin'ton," said she, "Ah'm not quite ce'tain Ah get the full +meanin' of this, but Ah feel that Ah cain't pe'mit it to go fu'thah. Ah +desiah to say to you as a gentleman and an acquaintance, if not a +friend, that these ah things that can not be said of a lady, suh!" + +"The defendant," said the judge, after two or three ineffectual attempts +to speak, "will be heard through her counsel--proceed!" + +She was hurt and desperate as she sat down, and in a cold and livid +fury. With her eyes level and shining like knife-points, she put off, +with a look like a blow, Chester's efforts to comfort her. She sat, an +alien in an inhospitable land, hedged about by a wall of displeasure at +some formless insult, and at friends without chivalry. The judge began +stating his decision, giving the argument for the one side and then for +the other, as judges do. + +"The evidence tends to prove," said he, "that Roberta Lee Frayn has a +malign fascination over her pupils--the larger boys especially; that she +has lured them into personal attendance upon her rather than to study; +that she has incited young men to duels, brawls, breaches of the peace, +and--" + +I could see that she thought the phrase "it tends to prove" an +expression of his belief in the charges; and as he went on her face +flamed red once more, and then went white as snow. She stepped back from +the table as if to clear for action, one little hand lifted, the other +in the folds of her dress. + +"Suh!" she cried, in a passion of indignation which was splendid and +terrible. "This must stop! If mah false friends lack the chivalry to +protect me and mah good name, Ah'll defend mahself, suh!" + +Chester half rose, as if to throw himself into the hopeless contest. + +"The defendant does not understand," said the judge. "The defendant will +resume her seat! The evidence tends to prove that--" + +But the decision was never finished; for the girl drew a short, small +pistol and aimed at him. We were frozen in horror. Judge Worthington +looked unwaveringly into the muzzle. + +"Roberta!" said he. + +I then saw a rush by Captain Winfield to strike her arm; the pistol +roared out in the court-room like a cannon; and as Miss Frayn sank back +into my mother's arms, Judge Worthington stepped down with a rent across +his shoulder, from which he withdrew his fingers stained red. From under +the table, where irresistible force had thrown me, I saw him take her +unresisting hand, and heard him whisper to her. + +"Darling!" said he. "You don't understand! Let me explain, sweetheart, +and then if you want the pistol back I'll give it to you, loaded!" + +Then he stood up and took command. + +"The bailiff," said he, "will remove the defendant and Mrs. Boggs to my +chambers. I shall investigate this _in camera_. I am not hurt, +gentlemen, more than a pin's prick, and am able to go on and take such +measures as are necessary to protect the court. Remain here until I +resume the trial!" + +"I tell you," said Middlekauff, "we'll crawl out where we went in. +Nobody can stand ag'in her at clus range like that!" + +Captain Winfield's face bore a puzzled and mysterious smile as he +emerged from the chambers. + +"You can't subdue these Southerners, Oc," said he. + +"The verdict of history," said I, "is otherwise." + +"We just reconstructed and absorbed 'em," said he. "I was there, an' I +know. The judge thinks we've got to handle this Frayn invasion the same +way." + +"I fail to get your meaning," said I. + +"The way to absorb this rebel host," said the captain, "is to marry it. +It's the only way to ground her wire and demagnetize her. I can't +undertake the job, for reasons known to all. You're sort of responsible +for her devastatin' course, an' I think it'll cipher itself down to +Oscar Boggs as a bridegroom for the good of Teal Lake Township, and the +welfare of the Boggs School." + +My emotions were tumultuous. No such marriage could be forced on me, of +course; but duty, duty! Marriage had been to me an asset to be used in +my career, some time after my doctor's degree, like casting in chess. I +thought of Miss Frayn's untamable nature; and then of her sweetly tender +way with the little ones, how they clambered over her while she called +them "honey." + +"On the main point," said the captain, "the court had its mind made up +when I came out. This marryin' has got to be did. Who's to do it is what +they're figgerin' on!" + +"Captain Winfield," said I, "if the public interests require it, if my +constituents demand it, I will make the sacrifice! Doctor Johnson said +that marriages might well be arranged by the Lord Chancellor, and Judge +Worthington is now sitting in chancery. I will marry the defendant, _pro +bono publico_!" + +"Oc," said the captain, in a properly serious manner, though some +tittered, "you're a livin' marvel! I'll go back and report." + +Almost immediately, as my heart-beats stifled me, they emerged from the +chambers. My mother was in tears. Worthington bore Miss Frayn on his +arm, and both looked exaltedly happy. Roberta, as I called her in my +thoughts, shrank back bashfully, more beautiful than I had ever seen +her. It was a great, a momentous hour for me. I felt that I had settled +the case. + +"I shall ask the plaintiff," said the judge, "to dismiss this case!" + +"On what grounds?" interrogated Beasley sharply. + +"Don't tell, Forceythe!" said Roberta, hiding her face on the judge's +arm as I approached. + +"Because the defendant," the judge replied to Beasley, "has resigned. +She is about to be married!" + +"Didn't I tell you, Oc," said Winfield, slapping me on the back--which +in the delightful embarrassment of the occasion I did not resent--"that +it was up to you?" + +A boy in the audience--I think it was William Middlekauff--caught the +judge's statement, and ungrammatically shouted: "Who to?" + +"The lucky man?" shouted the crowd. "Name him!" + +As it seemed proper for me to do under the circumstances, I went forward +to take Roberta's hand in anticipation of the announcement. Then all +went dark before my eyes. + +"I am happy," said Judge Worthington, "happy and inexpressibly honored +to say that the defendant is to be married to me!" + + * * * * * + +The Hired Man was asleep as the Professor concluded his tale, and some +of the rest were nodding. They rose to retire. + +"I suppose," said the Groom, "that the only safe way is to let them +entirely alone, Professor?" + +The Professor, embarrassed by the presence of the Bride, could only bow. + +"Gad!" said Colonel Baggs, taking his hand. "Your case goes into the +hard-luck file with that of the Nez Percè victim, Mr. Cowan of +Radersburg." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +"On this lake," declaimed the Colonel, "farther from tide water than any +other like body of water on this earth, could float our entire navy." + +"Safest place in the world for it, too," declared the Groom. + +"I know some awfully nice navy men," protested the Bride; "so don't be +cattish about the navy." + +They had spent many hours on Yellowstone Lake, and days in its vicinity. +Paint pots, geysers, and iridescent springs were no longer recorded in +the log-book; but when, at the Fishing Cone, the Hired Man came into +camp asking for salt, with a cooked trout on his line, and the Bride +learned that he had hooked the fish in cold water, and cooked it in hot +without moving from the spot, wonder at the marvel was swallowed up in +protest on the Bride's part, against such an atrocity. + +"Oh, Mr. Snoke, Mr. Snoke!" said she, almost tearful. "How could you! +How could you! How would you like to have a thing like that done to +you--cooked alive. Oh!" + +"Well," said Mr. Snoke. "If you put it that way, I wouldn't be very +strong for bein' hooked, let alone cooked. After I'd been snaked out of +the drink, I wouldn't care, Bride." + +"Well, I move we don't cook any more of 'em until they have gasped out +their lives slowly and in the ordinary mode," said the Artist. + +"Shore," said Aconite, "no more automobiles de fe for the trout--hear +that, Bill? An' speakin' of cookin' fish that-a-way," he went on, +creating a conversational diversion. "Old Jim Bridger found a place out +here som'eres, where the water was shore deep. At the bottom it was +cold, and on the top hot--hot as it is in the Fish Cone over yon. He +used to hook trout down in the cold water, and they'd cook to a turn +while he was bringin' 'em to the surface an' playin' 'em." + +"That sounds to me all right," assented the Colonel. + +"The hot water," observed the Professor, "would naturally be at the +surface; but as for the tale itself--" + +"It would, eh?" queried Aconite. "Well, I've forded the Firehole where +the bottom was hot, an' the top cold. An' Old Jim Bridger knowed of a +place where the water of a cold spring starts at the top of a mountain, +and slides down so fast that the friction heats the water hot--just +rubbin' on the rocks comin' down. It's here in these hills som'eres, +yet!" + +The Artist, the Groom and the Colonel fished industriously for one day +and then handed in a unanimous verdict that it was a shame to take +advantage of the trout's verdancy. So the Hired Man and Aconite foraged +for the frying-pan. + +The change to boat from land carriage was so grateful, now, that they +made wondrous voyages, first to the scenes reached by water. They +photographed bears near camp and both deer and elk in the meadows and on +their shore feeding-grounds. It was no longer a strange or startling +thing to see a grizzly bear, and to stalk him with a kodak. The pelicans +on the lake were to them as the swans on a private pond. The sense of +ownership grew upon them. Here was their own pleasure-ground. It was +theirs by virtue of their citizenship. They might not visit it +often--though all declared their intention of coming back every +summer--but, anyhow, it would be fine to know that here on the summit of +the continent was this wonderland, owned by them and each of them. + +They took saddle horses down the southern approach to Heart Lake, and +voted it the loveliest lake in the park. + +"That is," said the Bride, "it doesn't compare with the big lake up +yonder in greatness; but it's just pure joy. Let's camp here for the +night. Let's draw another romance from the library right now; and give +the victim time to compose his thoughts while we go see that Rustic +Geyser, with the stone logs around it." + +Somehow they seemed farther from the haunts of men here than anywhere +else in the Park. The stream of tourists seemed to sweep on past the +Thumb Lunch Station, toward the Lake Hotel; and Heart Lake, with Mount +Sheridan brooding over it, was theirs alone. And it was here that the +Hired Man, with many protests that he wasn't really a member of the +party, but only working his way, told his story--like another Ulysses +returned from Troy and his wanderings. + +FROM ALPHA TO OMEGA + +THE HIRED MAN'S STORY + +It narrows a man to stick around in one place. You broaden out more +pan-handling over one division, than by watching the cars go by for +years. I've been everywhere from Alpha, Illinois, to Omega, Oklahoma, +and peeked over most of the jumping-off places; and Iowa is not the +whole works at all. That's why I'm here now. Good quiet state to moss +over in; but no life! Me for the mountains where the stealing is good +yet, and a man with genius can be a millionaire! + +I was in one big deal, once--the Golden Fountain Mine. Pete Peterson and +I worked in the Golden Fountain and boarded with Brady, a pit boss. Ever +hear of psychic power? A medium told me once that I have it, and that's +why folks tell me their secrets. The second day Brady told me the mine +was being wrecked. + +"How do you know?" said I. + +"They're minin' bird's-eye porphyry," said Brady, "purtendin' they've +lost the lode." + +"Maybe they have," said I. + +"Not them," replied Brady, who never had had any culture. "I can show +you the vein broad's a road an' rich as pudd'n'!" + +I didn't care a whoop, as long as they paid regular; but Brady worried +about the widows and orphans that had stock. I said I had no widows and +orphans contracting insomnia for me, and he admitted he hadn't. But he +said a man couldn't tell what he might acquire. Soon after, a load of +stulls broke loose, knocked Pete Peterson numb, and in the crash Brady +accumulated a widow. It was thought quite odd, after what he'd said. + +The union gave him a funeral, and then we were all rounded up by a +lawyer that insisted on being a pall-bearer and riding with the +mourners, he and Brady had been such dear friends. The widow never heard +of him; but unless he was dear to Brady, why did he cry over the bier, +and pass out his cards, and say he'd make the mine sweat for this? It +didn't seem reasonable, and the widow signed papers while he held in his +grief. + +Then we found he had awful bad luck losing friends. A lot of them had +been killed or hurt, and he was suing companies to beat fours. We were +going over our evidence, and another bunch was there with a doctor +examining to see how badly they were ruined. + +"Beautiful injury!" said the lawyer, thumping a husky Hun on the leg. +"No patellar reflex! Spine ruined! Beautiful! We'll make 'em sweat for +this!" + +He surely was a specialist in corporate perspiration. I asked what the +patellar reflex was, and the doc had Pete sit and cross his legs, and +explained. + +"Mr. Peterson," said he, "has a normal spine. When I concuss the limb +here, the foot will kick forward involuntarily. But in case of spinal +injury, it will not. Now observe!" + +He whacked Pete's shin with a rubber hammer, but Pete never kicked. His +foot hung loose like, not doing a blamed thing that the doc said it +would if his spine was in repair. The doc was plumb dumb-foundered. + +"Most remarkable case of volitional control--" he began. + +"Volitional your grandmother!" yells the lawyer. "Mr. Peterson is ruined +also! He was stricken prone in the same negligent accident that killed +dear Mr. Brady! He is doomed! A few months of progressive induration of +the spinal cord, and breaking up of the multipolar cells, and--death, +friend, death!" + +The widow begun to whimper, and the lawyer grabbed Pete's hand and +bursted into tears. Pete, being a Swede, never opened his face. + +"But," said the lawyer, cheering up, "we'll make them sweat for this. +Shall we not vindicate the right of the working-man to protection, Mr. +Peterson?" + +"Yu bat!" said Pete. "Ay bane gude Republican!" + +"And vindicate his right," went on the lawyer, "to safe tools and +conditions of employment?" + +"Ay tank we windicate," said Pete. + +"Nobly said!" said the lawyer and hopped to it making agreements for +contingent fees and other flimflams. It was wonderful how sort of +patriotic and unselfish and religious and cagey he always was. + +We quit the Golden Fountain, and I got some assessment work for Sile +Wilson. Pete wouldn't go. He was sort of hanging around the widow, but +his brains were so sluggish that I don't believe he knew why. I picked +up a man named Lungy to help. Sile's daughter Lucy kept house for Sile +in camp, and in two days she was calling Lungy "Mr. Addison," and +reproaching me for stringing a stranger that had seen better days and +had a bum lung and was used to dressing for dinner. I told her I most +always allowed to wear something at that meal myself, and she snapped +my head off. He was a nice fellow for a lunger. + +When I had to go and testify in the Brady and Peterson cases against the +Golden Fountain, old Sile was willing. + +"I'd like to help stick the thieves!" he hissed. + +"How did you know they were thieves?" asked I. + +"I located the claim," said he, "and they stole it on a measley little +balance for machinery--confound them!" + +"Well, they're stealing it again," said I; and I explained the lost vein +business. + +"They've pounded the stock away down," said the lunger. "I believe it's +a good buy!" + +"Draw your eighteen-seventy-five from Sile," said I; "and come with me +and buy it!" + +"I think I will go," said he. And he did. He was a nice fellow to travel +with. + +Well, the Golden Fountain was shut down, and had no lawyer against us. +It was a funny hook-up. We proved about the stulls, and got a judgment +for the widow for ten thousand. Then we corralled another jury and +showed that Pete had no patellar reflex, and therefore no spine, and got +a shameful great verdict for him. And all the time the Golden Fountain +never peeped, and Lungy Addison looked on speechless. Our lawyer was +numb, it was so easy. + +"I don't understand--" said he. + +"The law department must be connected in series with the mine +machinery," said I, "and shuts off with the same switch. Do we get this +on a foul?" + +"Oh, nothing foul!" said he. "Default, you see--" + +"No showup at ringside," said I; "9 to 0? How about bets?" + +"Everything is all right," said he, looking as worried. "We'll sell the +mine, and make the judgments!" + +"And get the Golden Fountain," said I, "on an Irish pit boss and a +Swede's spine?" + +"Certainly," said he, "if they don't redeem." + +"Show me," said I; "I'm from Missouri! It's too easy to be square. She +won't pan!" + +"Dat bane hellufa pile money f'r vidder," said Pete when we were alone. +"Ten thousan' f'r Brady, an' twelf f'r spine! Ay git yob vork f'r her in +mine!" + +"You wild Skandihoovian," said I, "that's _your_ spine!" + +"Mae spine?" he grinned. "Ay gass not! Dat leg-yerkin' bane only +effidence. Dat spine bane vidder's!" + +I couldn't make him see that it was his personal spine, and the +locomotor must be attaxing. He smiled his fool smile and brought things +to comfort Mrs. Brady's last days. But she knew, and took him to Father +Mangan, and Pete commenced studying the catechism against the time of +death; but it didn't take. The circuit between the Swedenwegian +intellect and the Irish plan of salvation looks like it's grounded and +don't do business. + +"Very well said," commented the Groom. "I couldn't have put it more +engenerically myself." + +One night the lawyer asked me to tell "the Petersons," as he called +them, that some New Yorker had stuck an intervention or mandamus into +the cylinder and stopped the court's selling machinery. "We may be +delayed a year or so," said he. Pete had gone to the widow's with a +patent washboard that was easy on the spine, and I singlefooted up, too. +And there was that yellow-mustached Norsky holding the widow on his lap, +bridging the chasm between races in great shape. He flinched some, and +his neck got redder, but she fielded her position in big league form, +and held her base. + +"Bein' as the poor man is not long f'r this wicked world," said she, +"an' such a thrue man, swearin' as the l'yer wanted, I thought whoile +the crather stays wid us--" + +"Sure," said I. "Congrats! When's the merger?" + +"Hey?" says Pete. + +"The nuptials," said I. "The broom-stick jumping." + +The widow got up and explained that the espousals were hung up till Pete +could pass his exams with Father Mangan. + +"Marriage," said she, "is a sacrilege, and not lightly recurred. Oh, the +thrials of a young widdy, what wid Swedes, and her sowl, an' the childer +that may be--Gwan wid ye's, ye divvle ye!" + +Now there was a plot for a painter: the widow thinking Pete on the blink +spinally, and he soothing her last days, all on account of a patellar +reflex that an ambulance chaser took advantage of--and the courts full +of quo-warrantoes and things to keep the Jackleg from selling a listed +mine, with hoisting-works and chlorination-tanks! + +I got this letter from Pete, or the widow, I don't know which +[displaying a worn piece of paper], about the third year after that. +Here's what it says: + + "Ve haf yust hat hell bad time, savin' yer prisence, and Ay skal + skip for tjiens of climit to gude pless Ay gnow in Bad Lands. + Lawyer faller sell mine fer 10 tousan to vidder, an thin, bad cess + to him, sells it agin to Pete fer 12000$ an git 2 stifkit off + sheriff an say hae keep dem fer fees, an Ay gnok him in fess an + take stifkit. Hae say hae tell mae spine bane O K all tem, an + thrittened to jug Pete, an the back of me hand and the sole of me + fut to the likes of him, savin' yer prisence, an Fader Mangan call + me big towhead chump an kant lern catty kismus an marry me to + vidder, an Pete, God bliss him, promised to raise the family in + Holy Church, but no faller gnow dem tings Bfour hand, an Ay tank ve + hike to dam gude pless in Bad Lands vun yare till stifkit bane ripe + an Mine belong vidder an Ay bane Yeneral Manager an yu pit Boss vit + gude yob in Yune or Yuly next, yours truely, an may the Blessid + Saints purtect ye, PETER PETERSON. + + "P. S. Vidder Brady mae vife git skar an sine stifkit fer Brady to + lawyer faller like dam fool vooman trik an sattle vit him, but Ay + tink dat leg-yerkin bane bad all sem an yump to Bad Lands if we + dodge inyunction youre frend. PETE." + +"So they got married," said Aconite. + +Just the way I figured it. + +Well, this lunger sleuthed me out when I was prospecting alone next +summer. + +"Hello, Bill," said he, abrupt-like. "Cook a double supply of bacon." + +"Sure," I said. "Got any eating tobacco, Lungy?" + +"Bill," said he, after we had fed our respective faces, "did you ever +wonder why that Swede received such prompt recognition without +controversy for his absent patellar reflex?" + +"Never wonder about anything else," said I. "Why?" + +"It was this way," said he. "The crowd that robbed Sile Wilson found +they had sold too much stock, and quit mining ore to run it down so they +could buy it back. Some big holders hung on, and they had to make the +play strong. So they went broke for fair, and let Brady's widow and Pete +and a lot of others get judgments, and they bought up the certificates +of sale. D'ye see?" + +"Kind of," said I. "It'll come to me all right." + +"It was a stock market harvest of death," said Lungy. "The judgments +were to wipe out all the stock. This convinces me that the vein is +hidden and not lost, as you said." + +"I thought I mentioned the fact," said I, "that Brady showed me the +ore-chute." + +"That's why I'm here," said he. "I want you to find Pete Peterson for +me." + +"Why?" I said. + +"Because," answered Addison, "he's got the junior certificate." + +"Give me the grips and passwords," I demanded; "the secret work of the +order may clear it up." + +"Listen," said he. "Each certificate calls for a deed to the mine the +day it's a year old; but the younger can redeem from the older by paying +them off--the second from the first, the third from the second, and so +on." + +"Kind of rotation pool," said I, "with Pete's claim as ball fifteen?" + +"Yes," said he; "only the mine itself has the last chance. But they +think they know that Pete won't turn up, and they gamble on stealing the +mine with the Brady certificate. Your perspicacity enables you to +estimate the importance of Mr. Peterson." + +"My perspicacity," I said, giving it back to him cold, "informs me that +some jackleg lawyer has been and bunked Pete out of the paper long +since. And he couldn't pay off what's ahead of him any more'n he could +buy the Homestake? Come, there's more than this to the initiation!" + +"Yes, there is," he admitted. "You remember Lucy, of course? No one +could forget her! Well, her father and I are in on a secret pool of his +friends, they to find the money, we to get this certificate." + +"Where does Lucy come in?" said I. + +"I get her," he replied, coloring up. "And success makes us all rich!" + +I never said a word. Lungy was leery that I was soft on Lucy--I might +have been, easy enough--and sat looking at me for a straight hour. + +"Can you find him for me?" said he, at last. + +"Sure!" said I. + +He smoked another pipeful and knocked out the ashes. + +"Will you?" said he, kind of wishful. + +"If you insult me again," I hissed, "I'll knock that other lung out! +Turn in, you fool, and be ready for the saddle at sun-up!" + +We rode two days in the country that looks like the men had gone out +when they had the construction work on it half done, when a couple of +horsemen came out of a draw into the cañon ahead of us. + +"The one on the pinto," said I, "is the perspiration specialist." + +"If he doesn't recognize you," said Lungy, "let the dead past stay +dead!" + +Out there in the sunshine the Jackleg looked the part, so I wondered +how we come to be faked by him. We could see that the other fellow was a +sheriff, a deputy-sheriff, or a candidate for sheriff--it was in his +features. + +"Howdy, fellows!" said I. + +"Howdy!" said the sheriff, and closed his face. + +"Odd place to meet!" gushed the Jackleg, as smily as ever. "Which way?" + +"We allowed to go right on," I said. + +"This is our route," said Jackleg, and moseys up the opposite draw, +clucking to his bronk, like an old woman. + +"What do you make of his being here?" asked Lungy. + +"Hunting Swedes," I said. "And with a case against Pete for robbery and +assault. I hope we see him first!" + +We went on, Lungy ignorantly cheerful, I lost-like to know what was +what, and feeling around with my mind's finger for the trigger of the +situation. Suddenly I whoaed up, shifted around on my hip, and looked +back. + +"Lost anything, Bill?" asked Lungy. + +"Temporarily mislaid my brains," said I. "We're going back and pick up +the scent of the Jackleg." + +Lungy looked up inquiringly, as we doubled back on our tracks. + +"When you kick a covey of men out of this sagebrush," I explained, "they +naturally ask about anything they're after. They inquire if you know a +Cock-Robin married to a Jenny-Wren, or an Owl to a Pussycat, or whatever +marital misdeal they're trailing. They don't mog on like it was Kansas +City or Denver." + +"Both parties kept still," replied Lungy. "What's the answer, Bill?" + +"Both got the same guilty secret," said I, "and they've got it the +worst. They know where Pete is. So will we if we follow their spoor." + +We pelted on right brisk after them. The draw got to be a cañon, with +grassy, sheep-nibbled bottom, and we knew we were close to somewhere. At +last, rolling to us around a bend, came a tide of remarks, rising and +swelling to the point of rough-house and riot. + +"The widow!" said I. "She knows me. You go in, Lungy, and put up a stall +to keep 'em from seeing Pete alone first!" + +I crept up close. The widow was calling the Jackleg everything that a +perfect lady as she was, you know, could lay her tongue to, and he +trying to blast a crack in the oratory to slip a word into. + +"I dislike," said Lungy, "to disturb privacy; but we want your man to +show us the way." + +"Who the devil are you?" said the sheriff. + +"My name--" began Lungy. + +"Whativer it is, sorr," said the widow, "it's a betther name nor his you +shpake to--the black far-down, afther taking me man and lavin' me +shtarve wid me babbies he robbed iv what the coort give! But as long as +I've a tongue in me hid to hould, ye'll not know where he's hid!" + +And just then down behind me comes Pete on a fair-sized cayuse branded +with a double X. + +"Dat bane you, Bill?" said he casual-like. "You most skar me!" + +I flagged him back a piece and told him the Jackleg was there. He ran, +and I had to rope him. + +"You're nervous, Pete," said I, helping him up. "What's the matter?" + +"Dis blame getaway biz," he said, "bane purty tough on fallar. Ay listen +an' yump all tem nights!" + +"How about going back for the mine?" I asked. + +"Dat bane gude yoke!" he grinned. "Ay got gude flock an' planty range +hare, an' Ay stay, Ay tank. Yu kill lawyer fallar, Bill, an' take half +whole shooting-match!" + +"Got that certificate?" I asked. + +It was all worn raw at the folds, but he had it. The Jackleg had an +assignment all ready on the back, and I wrote Addison's name in, and +made Pete sign it. + +"Now," said I. "We'll take care of Mr. Jackleg, and you'll get something +for this, but I don't know what. Don't ever come belly-aching around +saying we've bunked you after Lungy has put up his good money and copped +the mine. These men want this paper, not you. Probably they've got no +warrant. Brace up and stand pat!" + +So we walked around bold as brass. The widow was dangling a +Skandy-looking kid over her shoulder by one foot, and analyzing the +parentage of Jackleg. Lungy was grinning, but the sheriff's face was +shut down. + +"Ah, Mr. Peterson!" said the lawyer. "And our old and dear friend +William Snoke, too! I thought I recognized you this morning! And now, +please excuse our old and dear friend Mr. Peterson for a moment's +consultation." + +"Dis bane gude pless," said Pete. "Crack ahead!" + +"This is a private matter, gentlemen," said Jackleg. + +"Shall we withdraw?" asks Lungy. + +"No!" yells Pete. "You stay--be vitness!" + +"I wish to remind you, dear Mr. Peterson," said he as we sort of settled +in our places, "that your criminal assault and robbery of me has +subjected you to a long term in prison. And I suffered great damage by +interruption of business, and bodily and mental anguish from the wounds, +contusions and lesions inflicted, and especially from the compound +fracture of the inferior maxillary bone--" + +"Dat bane lie!" said Pete. "Ay yust broke your yaw!" + +"He admits the _corpus delicti_!" yelled the lawyer. "Gentlemen, bear +witness!" + +"I didn't hear any such thing," said Lungy. + +"Neither did I," I said. + +"I figure my damages," he went on, "at twelve thousand dollars." + +Pete picked a thorn out of his finger. + +"Now, Mr. Peterson," went on the lawyer, "I don't suppose you have the +cash. But when I have stood up and fought for a man for pure friendship +and a mere contingent fee, I learn to love him. I would fain save you +from prison, if you would so act as to enable me to acquit you of +felonious intent. A prison is a fearful place, Mr. Peterson!" + +"Ay tank," said Pete, "Ay brace up an' stand pat!" + +"If you would do anything," pleaded the Jackleg, "to show good +intention, turn over to me any papers you may have, no matter how +worthless--notes, or--or certificates!" + +Pete pulled out his wallet. Lungy turned pale. + +"Take dis," said Pete. "Dis bane order fer six dollar Yohn Yohnson's +wages. Ay bane gude fallar!" + +"Thanks!" said the Jackleg, pious-like. "And _is_ that long document the +certificate of sale in Peterson _vs._ Golden Fountain, etc.?" + +"Dat bane marryin' papers," said Pete. "Dat spine paper bane N. G. Mae +spine all tem O. K. Dat leg-yerkin' bane yust effidence. Ay take spine +paper to start camp-fire!" + +It was as good as a play. Lungy turned pale and trembled. The lawyer +went up in the air and told the sheriff to arrest Pete, and appealed to +the widow to give up the certificate, and she got sore at Pete, and +called him a Norwegian fool for burning it, and cuffed the bigger kid, +which was more Irish-looking. Pete dug his toe into the ground and +looked ashamed and mumbled something about it not being his spine. The +sheriff told Pete to come along, and I asked him to show his warrant. He +made a bluff at looking in his clothes for it, and rode away with his +countenance tight-closed. + +Lungy and I rode off the other way. + +That night Lungy smiled weakly as I started the fire with paper. + +"Bill," said he, "I shall never burn paper without thinking how near I +came to paradise and dropped plump--" + +"Oh, I forgot," said I. "Here's that certificate." + +Lungy took it, looked it over, read the assignment, and broke down and +cried. + + * * * * * + +"How did it come out?" asked the Bride. + +"Oh," said the Hired Man, "Lungy waited till the last minute, flashed +the paper and the money, and swiped the mine. The company wanted to give +a check and redeem, but the clerk stood out for currency, and it was too +late to get it. He got the mine, and Lucy, and is the big Mr. Addison, +now. No, me for where you can carry off things that are too big for the +grand larceny statutes. This business of farming is too much like +chicken-feed for me!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +"I came on this trip," said Colonel Baggs, "to rest my vocal organs, and +not to talk. In this ambition I have been greatly aided by the +willingness of Professor Boggs to assume the conversational burden in +our seat. However, now that my name has been drawn from the hat, I shall +have the pleasure, and honor, lady and gentlemen, to entertain you for a +very few minutes--after which, thanking you for your very kind attention +and liberal patronage, the hay--the hay, my friends, for me!" + +At the Lake Hotel, to which they had come by boat, they found their +tents pitched and their dinner awaiting them--for which they were +indebted to the efficiency of Aconite and the Hired Man, who had come +overland; and the latter of whom assured them that they had missed the +greatest curiosity of the Park in failing to see the Natural Bridge. + +"On your way, Bill!" said the Groom. "You didn't see the petrified sea +serpent swimming off Gull Point, did you?" + +"Dumb it all, no!" exclaimed Bill. "I never am around when anything good +is pulled off!" + + +THE LAW AND AMELIA WHINNERY + +THE TALE OF COLONEL BAGGS OF OMAHA + +I was much interested (said the Colonel, beginning his story), in the +tale told by my learned brother, Mr. Snoke. The story of the way Mr. +Lungy Addison committed grand larceny in getting away with the Mortal +Cinch mine is one that, falling from the mouth, as it does, of a person +not learned in the law and its beauties, must be true. Nobody but a +lawyer could have invented it--and I assure you that lawyers are too +busy with the strange phases of truth to monkey--if I may use a term not +yet laundered by the philologists--with fiction. The law is the +perfection of human wisdom. Our courts are the God-ordained instruments +by which these perfections are made manifest to the eyes of mere human +beings. To be sure the courts are composed of men who were but even now +lawyers--but that's neither here, there, nor yonder--when the anointment +of their judicial consecration runs down their beard, as did the oil +down that of Aaron, human imperfections are at end with them, and it's +all off with frailty. And this brings me to the brief story which is my +contribution to the Yellowstone Nights' Entertainment. I sing, my +beloved, the saga of The Law and Amelia Whinnery. + +I just got a decision over in Nebraska in the case of Whinnery _vs._ The +C. & S. W. It shows that Providence is still looking out for the +righteous man and his seed. Never heard of Whinnery _vs._ the Railway +Company? Well, it may put you wise to a legal principle or two, and I'll +tell you about it. I was ag'in' the corporations over there, as +associate counsel for the plaintiff. Bob Fink, that studied in my +office, was the fellow the case belonged to, and he being a little +afraid of Absalom Scales, the railroad's local attorney, sent over a +Macedonian wail to me, and said we'd cut up a fifty per cent, contingent +fee if we won. I went. + +Amelia Whinnery was the plaintiff. She was a school-teacher who had got +hold of the physical culture graft, and was teaching it to teachers' +institutes, making forty dollars a minute the year around. + +"How much?" asked the Hired Man. + +"I'm telling you what the record showed as I remember it," said the +Colonel. "We proved that she was doing right well financially when the +railroad put her out of business by failing to ring a bell or toot a +whistle at the crossing coming into Tovala, and catching Bill Williams' +bus asleep at the switch. Miss Whinnery was in the bus. When it was all +over, she was in pretty fair shape--" + +"Naturally," interpolated the Artist. + +"Excepting that her nerves had got some kind of a shock and she was +robbed permanently of the power of speech." + +"How terrible!" exclaimed the Bride. + +On the trial she sat in the court-room in a close-fitting dress, wearing +a picture hat, and would give a dumb sort of gurgle when Scales would +pitch into her case, as if to protest at being so cruelly assaulted +while defenseless. It was pathetic. + +Bob Fink shed tears, while he pictured to the jury in his opening, the +agony of this beautiful girl set off from her kind for life, as the +preponderance, the clear preponderance of the evidence showed she would +be, by dumbness--"an affliction, gentlemen of the jury, which seals her +lips forever as to the real facts, and stops the reply she could +otherwise make to the dastardly attack of my honorable and learned +friend, the attorney for this public-service corporation, which has been +clothed with the power to take away your land, gentlemen of the jury, or +mine, whether we want to sell it or not, and to rob us of our produce by +its extortionate freight rates, and to run its trains into and through +our cities, and over our busses, and to maim and injure our ladies, and +bring them before juries of their peers, who, unless I mistake, will +administer a stinging rebuke to this corporation without a soul to save +or a body to kick, in the only way in which it can be made to feel a +rebuke--in damages, out of that surplus of tainted dollars which its +evil and illegal practices have wrung from the hard hands of toil as +represented by the farmers and laborers who so largely compose this +highly-intelligent jury." + +"Good spiel," commented the Groom. + +Bob was good until the other side had the reporter begin to take his +speech down, so as to show appeals to passion and prejudice--and then he +hugged the record close. The plaintiff sobbed convulsively. Bob stopped +and swallowed, knowing that the reporter couldn't get the sobs and +swallows into the record. The jurors blew their noses and glared at +Scales and the claim-agent. I went over to the plaintiff and gave her a +drink of water, and would have liked to take her in my arms and comfort +her, but didn't. + +"Too bad!" remarked the Poet. + +Well, the jury found for us in about three hours for the full amount, +ten thousand dollars and costs. They would have agreed earlier, only +they waited so the state would have to pay for their suppers. A judgment +was rendered on the verdict, and the railroad appealed. All this time +Bob was getting more and more tender toward the plaintiff. I didn't +think much about it until cards came for their wedding. I sent Bob an +assignment of my share in the verdict for a wedding present--if we ever +got it. Amelia promised to love, honor and cherish by nodding her head, +and walked away from the altar with her most graceful physical culture +gait, while the boys outside with their shivaree instruments ready for +the evening, sang in unison, "Here comes the bride! Get on to her +stride!" It was a _recherché_ affair--but excessively quiet nuptials on +the bride's side. + +That evening Absalom Scales got in the finest piece of work that was +ever pulled off in any lawsuit in Nebraska. The bridal party went away +over the C. & S. W.Omaha Limited, and Amelia and Bob were there looking +as fine as fiddles--Amelia a picture, they said, in her going-away gown. +Scales had fixed up for a crowd of hoodlums to shivaree them as they +went. + +"Mighty mean trick, I should say," said the Hired Man, "for any one but +a corporation lawyer." + +"Wait, Brother Snoke," protested the Colonel, "until you are so far +advised in the premises as to be able to judge whether the end didn't +justify the means." + +In addition to the horse-fiddles and bells and horns, Absalom had +arranged some private theatricals. He had plugged up a deal by which +Bill Williams, the bus man--who'd sold out and was going to Oregon +anyway--came bursting into the waiting-room while they were waiting for +the train--which was held at the water-tank by Scales' procurement and +covin--and presented a bill for the damages to his bus by the accident +which had hurt Amelia's oratorical powers. You see, he'd never been +settled with, being clearly negligent. They tried to get off in Amelia's +case on the doctrine of imputed negligence, but it wouldn't stick. + +Well, Bill comes in with his claim against Amelia and Bob for two or +three hundred dollars for his bus. They disdainfully gave him the ha-ha. + +"Then," says Bill Williams, "I will tell all, woman!" + +Amelia flushed, and looked inquiringly at Bob. Bob walked up to Bill and +hissed: "What do you mean, you hound, by insulting my wife in this way!" + +"She knows what I mean," yelled Bill, turning on Amelia. "Ask your wife +what she an' I was talkin' about when we was a-crossing the track that +time. Ask her if she didn't say to me that I was the perfec'ly +perportioned physical man, an' whether I didn't think that men an' women +of sech perportions should mate; an' if she didn't make goo-goo eyes at +me, ontil I stuck back my head to kiss her, an' whether she wasn't +a-kissin' me when that freight come a pirootin' down an' run over her +talkin' apparatus! Ask her if she didn't say she could die a-kissin' me, +an' if she didn't come danged near doin' it!" + +"How perfectly horrid!" gasped the Bride. + +Well, Bob Fink was, from all accounts, perfectly flabbergasted. There +stood Bill Williams in his old dogskin coat and a cap that reeked of the +stables, and there stood the fair plaintiff, turning redder and redder +and panting louder and louder as the enormity of the thing grew upon +her. And then she turned loose. + +Amelia Whinnery Fink, defendant in error, and permanently dumb, turned +loose. + +She began doubling up her fists and stamping her feet, and finally she +burst forth into oratory of the most impassioned character. + +"Robert Fink!" she said, as quoted in the motion for a reopening of the +case that Scales filed--"Robert Fink, will you stand by like a coward +and see me insulted? That miserable tramp--a perfect--If you don't kill +him, I will. _I_ kiss him? _I_ ask him such a thing? Bob Fink, do you +expect me to go with you and leave such an insult unavenged? No, no, no, +no--" + +"I don't blame her!" interjected the Bride. + +I guess she'd have gone on stringing negatives together as long as the +depot would have held 'em, if Bob hadn't noticed Ike Witherspoon, the +shorthand reporter, diligently taking down her speech and the names of +those present. Then he twigged, and, hastily knocking Bill down, he +boarded the train with Amelia. He wired me from Fremont that it was all +off with the judgment, as they'd tormented Mrs. Fink into making a +public speech. I answered, collect, bidding him be as happy as he could +in view of the new-found liberty of speech and of the press, and I'd +look after the judgment and the appeal. + +"Well," said the Groom, "of course you got licked in the Supreme Court. +It was clear proof that she'd been shamming." + +"You're about as near right on that as might be expected of a layman," +retorted the Colonel. "Just about. The law is the perfection of human +reason. The jury had found that Amelia Whinnery couldn't speak, and +never would be able to. A jury had rendered a verdict to that effect, +and judgment for ten thousand dollars had been entered upon it. I merely +pointed out to the Supreme Court that they could consider errors in the +record only, and that it was the grossest sort of pettifogging and +ignorance of the law for Absalom Scales to come in and introduce such an +impertinence as evidence--after the evidence was closed--that the fair +plaintiff had been shamming and was, in fact, a very free-spoken lady. +The bench saw the overpowering logic of this, and read my authorities, +and Bob and Amelia will henceforth live in the best house in their town, +built out of the C. & S .W. surplus--and Amelia talking sixteen hours a +day. It's locally regarded as a good joke on the railroad." + +"But was it honest?" queried the Bride. + +"Honest, me lady!" repeated the Colonel, _a la_ Othello. "My dear young +lady, the courts are not to be criticized--ever remember that!" + + * * * * * + +"That makes me think," said the Hired Man, "of the darndest thing--" + +"In that case," said the Poet, "your name will be considered drawn for +the next number. Save this darndest thing for its own occasion--which +will be at our next camp. Oneiros beckons, and I go." + +"In that case," said Aconite, "I'd go, you bet!" + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Coming in from the right as they took the open trail again, the Cody +Road beckoned them eastward, as a side road always beckons to the true +wanderer. + +"What does it run to?" asked the Groom. + +"Wyoming," responded Aconite. "It's nothing but scenery and +curiosities." + +"Let's follow it a little way," suggested the Bride, "and see how we +like it" + +Three miles or so on the way, the surrey halted at a beautiful little +lake, which lay like a fragment broken off Yellowstone Lake, the shore +of which lay only a stone's throw to the right. They walked over to the +big lake to bid it farewell. A score of miles to the south lay Frank +Island, and still farther away, shut off by the fringe of rain from a +thunder shower, the South Arm seemed to run in behind Chicken Ridge and +take to the woods. To the southwest stood Mount Sheridan, and peeping +over his shoulder the towering Tetons solemnly refused even to glimmer +a good-by. + +"For all that," said the Bride, "_au revoir_! We'll come back one of +these days, won't we, Billy?" + +"Sure!" said Billy. "I'm coming up to put in a power plant in the Grand +Cañon, one of these days. This scenery lacks the refining touch of the +spillway and the penstock!" + +Fifteen minutes' driving brought them to the second halt, a big basin of +water, from which steam issued in a myriad of vents. Aconite suggested +that they stroll down to the beach and take a look at the water. They +found it in a slow turmoil, the mud rising from the bottom in little +fountains of turbidity, the whole effect being that which might be +expected if some mud-eating giant were watching his evening porridge, +expecting it momentarily to boil. + +"I don't care much for this," said the Bride. + +"I'm not crazy about it myself," assented the Artist. + +"What's the next marvel?" asked the Colonel. + +"Wedded trees," said Aconite. + +"Getting sated with 'em," said the Poet. + +"Apollinaris Springs, Sylvan Lake, fine views of Yellowstone Lake and +the mountains, bully rocks and things clear to Cody." + +"And on the other hand," said the Professor, "what are the features on +the regular road from which we have diverged?" + +"Everything you come to see," responded Aconite. "Mud Volcano, with a +clear spring in the grotto right by it; Mud Geyser, off watch for a year +or more; Trout Creek, doubled around into the N.P. trade-mark; Sulphur +Mountain--we can camp right near there, and see it in the morning, when +we ought to see it--and on beyond, the Grand Cañon and everything. +Besides--unless we go that-a-way, we'll never git back unless we come by +the Burlington around by Toluca and Billings. Of course, it's all the +same to me--I don't keer if we never go back or git anywhere. I'm havin' +a good time." + +"Turn the plugs around," said the Colonel. + +In half an hour or so they were back on the great north road again. The +horses seemed to feel the pull of the stable--still days ahead, for they +trotted briskly along, while the tourists gazed with sated eyes on the +beautiful Yellowstone River on the right hand, its pools splashing with +the plunges of the great trout; and on their left the charming mountain +scenery. Even the grotesque Mud Volcano, with its suggestions of the +horrible and uncouth, failed to elicit the screams from the Bride, or +the ejaculations of amazement from the men which characterized their +deliverances earlier in the journey. Entering Hayden Valley, they were +delighted at the sight in the middle distance of a dozen or more +buffaloes, which held up their heads for a long look, and disappeared +into the bushes. Not ten minutes later, fifty or sixty elk walked down +to the Yellowstone to drink, crossing the road within a minute of the +tourists' passage. Aconite pulled up in the shadow of Sulphur Mountain, +the Hired Man, with the assistance of the party, soon had a fine fire +blazing, and presently a pan of trout, hooked by the Bride, the Groom, +the Artist and the Poet, and dressed by the skilful Aconite, were doing +to a turn on the skillet. + +The Hired Man, realizing that he was under obligation to tell his +version of the "darndest thing" in his experience, was solemn, as befits +a public performer. When the psychological moment was proclaimed by the +falling down into a roseate pile of coals of the last log for the +night, he discharged his duty and told this unimportant tale: + + +HENRY PETERS'S SIGNATURE + +THE HIRED MAN'S SECOND TALE + +The Colonel's story of how the law and the courts work, reminded me of +what happened to old Hen Peters and his forty-second nephew, Hank. It +all arose from a debate at the literary at the Bollinger school-house +back in Iowa. + +You see, old Hen's girl Fanny come home from the State Normal at Cedar +Falls as full of social uplift as a yeast-cake, and framed up this +literary. It was a lulu of a society, and nights when the sledding was +good, the teams just surrounded the lot, and the bells jingled as +uplifting as you could ask. + +The night of the scrap Hank brought Fanny. The debate was on which was +the most terrible scourge, fire or water. Hank was on the negative, and +Fanny's father on the affirmative. Old Hen spoke of the way prairie +fires devastated things in an early day, and read history, and gave a +beautiful tribute to the Chicago fire and the O'Leary cow. Hank coughed +with the dust kicked up when Hen sat down, but he got back with a +rhapsody on the Hoang-Ho floods, and the wet season in Noah's time. He +said that his honorable opponent ought to take a moment or two from time +to time to ascertain the properties of water as a scourge, as an inward +remedy, and as a lotion. + +Now besides having an appetite for red-eye, old Hen was whiskery and +woolly-necked, and handling lots of tame hay, he looked sort of +unwashed. So the crowd yelled shameful and laughed; and when Hen got up +to answer, he was so mad his whiskers stood out like a rooster's hackle, +his words came out in a string like, all lapped on one another, and +blurred, and linked together so you couldn't tell one from the other; +and finally they reversed on the bobbin, and gigged back into his +system, and rumbled and reverberated around in him like a flock of wild +cattle loose in an empty barn; and the crowd got one of those giggly +fits when every one makes the other laugh till they are sore and sick. +Asa Wagstaff fell backward out of a window on to a hitching-post, and +made Brad Phelps' team break loose. Old Hen stood shaking his fist at +them and turning so red in the face that he got blue, and sat down +without saying a syllable that any one could understand. You could hear +folks hollering and screaming in fits of that laughing disease going +home, and getting out and rolling in the snow because they were in +agony, and nothing but rolling would touch the spot. But old Hen Peters +seemed to be immune. + +Now, in a debate, no man is supposed to have friends or relations, and +he floors his man with anything that comes handy, and Hank never dreamed +that Hen would hold hardness when he got over his mad fit. Hank and +Fanny had things all fixed up, and had been pricing things at the Banner +Store, and sitting up as late as two o'clock; but the next Sunday night +she met him at the door and told him maybe he'd better not come into the +sitting-room till her pa cooled off. Hank was knocked off his feet, and +they stood out in the hall talking sort of tragic until old Hen yelled +"Fanny!" from the sitting-room, and they pretty near jumped out of their +skins, and stood farther apart, and Fanny went in. In the spring there +was a row over the line fence, ending in a devil's lane. Fanny looked +pretty blue, only when she was fighting with her pa. Hen would lecture +about the two Peters brothers that came across in 1720, and how all +Peterses that were not descended from them were Nimshies and impostors. +"I despise and hate," says he, "a Nimshi and an impostor." + +Then Fanny would shoot back a remark about the Iowa _Herald's_ college, +and when was her pa going to paint the Peters coat-of-arms on the +hay-rake and the hog-house, using sarcasm that no man could understand +after being out of school as long as her father had been. Sometimes the +old man would forget the spurious registry of the Hank family in the +Peters herd-book, and would argue that relations, even the most remote +and back-fence kind, ought to be prosecuted if they even dreamed of +marrying; and then Fanny would say that it is such a pleasure to know +that folks are not always related when they claim to be. Hen would then +cuss me for not taking care of my horses' shoulders or something, and +things would get no better rapidly. + +Young folks need to meet once in a while in order to keep right with +each other, and Jim Miller and I often spoke of the way old Hen was +splitting Hank and Fanny apart. Then an Illinois man come out and bought +Hank out at a hundred an acre, and Hank wadded his money into his +pocket, and bid good-by to the neighborhood for good and all. He never +crossed the township line again. Fanny flirted like sixty, and cried +when she was alone; but old Hen was as tickled as a colt. + +It seemed like a judgment on Hen for driving as good a man as Hank to +Dakota to have Fillmore Smythe begin yelping on his trail. His first +yelp was a letter, asking Hen to call and pay a three-hundred-dollar +note Fillmore had for collection. And here's where the law begins to +seep into the story. Hen had Fanny type-write a scorching answer, saying +that Hen Peters had discounted his bills since before Fillmore Smythe +was unfortunately born, and didn't owe no man a cent; and Hen was so mad +that he kicked a fifty-dollar collie pup, and hurt its feelings so it +never would work, but went to killing young pigs and sheep the way a +collie will if you ever sour their nature by licking them. Funny about +collies. + +One day old Hen come in from the silo, and saw Fillmore Smythe's team +tied at the gate, and Fillmore sitting with Fanny on the stoop, reading +_Lucile_. + +"I hope I see you well, Mr. Peters," said the lawyer, kind of +smooth-like. + +"None the better for seein' you, sir," said Hen, jamming his mouth shut +when he got through so his mustache and whiskers were all inserted into +each other. + +Now this was no way to treat a person from town, and Fanny began saying +how wonderful the sunset was last night, and asking did he ever see the +moon-vine flowers pop out in bloom in the gloaming, and to curb her neck +and step high the way they do when they're bitted in college. + +"Any partic'lar business here?" asked old Hen. + +"Ah, yes!" said Smythe. "In addition to the pleasure of seeing you and +your accomplished family, I desired a conference as to the curious way +in which that little note--" + +"Well, now that you've seen my accomplished family as much as I want you +to," growled Hen, "you can git. I told you all I'm goin' to about what +you call my note." + +"But," said Fillmore, sort of like he was currying a kicking mule, "if +you'd consent to look at it, I'm sure it would all return to your mind!" + +Hen fired him off the place, though, and he sued Hen. The old man was +affected a good deal like the collie pup, and mulled it over, and got +sour on the world, especially lawyers that blackmailed and forged. He +said he knew well enough that Smythe either did it or knew who did, and +that every lawyer ought to be hung. I argued for imprisonment for the +first offense for a no-account lawyer like Smythe, with a life sentence +if it was proved that he knew any law, and the death penalty for good +lawyers like Judge McKenzie; and Hen was so mad at me for what I said +that he wouldn't let me have the top buggy the next Sunday night when I +needed it the worst way. + +The big doings come off when the case came up to be tried. I quit +hauling ensilage corn, and went with Fanny and the old folks up to the +county seat to give testimony that Hen never signed that note. Fanny +stayed with Phoebe Relyea; but the rest of us stopped at the +Accidental Hotel, where most of the jurors and others tangled up in +court stayed too. + +The lawyer in the case ahead of us was a new-comer, and strung it out +day after day to advertise himself, and yelled so you could hear him +over in the band-stand, to show his ability. Hen, all the time, was +getting more and more morbid, and forgot his temperance vows, and tried +to talk about the case to everybody. About half the time it would be a +juryman he would try to confide in, and this made trouble on account of +their thinking he was trying to influence them. One night Hen was owly +as sin, drinking with Walker Swayne from Pleasant Valley Township; and +when he cried into his beer because Fillmore Smythe was trying to +swindle him and blast his good name, Walker slapped him for approaching +him on a case he might be called to sit on. I put Hen to bed at the +Revere House, and told Mrs. Peters he'd been called home. She 'phoned +out to have him count the young turkeys, and the Swede second man had no +more sense than to say he had not been there, instead of placing him +where they had no telephone, as an honest hired man with any sprawl +would have done. You couldn't trust this Swede as far as you could throw +a thesaurus by the tail. I am not saying that he was corrupt; but he was +just thumb-hand-sided and lummoxy, and blurted, "Hae ain't bane hare" +into the transmitter with never a thought of the danger of telling the +truth. Mrs. Peters didn't know what to be distressed about, and just +because I'm paid the princely salary I get for saying nothing about such +things, she jumped on me like a duck on a June-bug. + +When Hen and I went to McKenzie's office the night before our case came +up, the lawyer was worried. He asked us if we knew who was going to +testify against us. + +"No," snapped Hen; "an' I don't care. Nobody ever saw me sign that note, +and it don't make any matter." + +Then he went on to tell what great friends he and Judge Brockway used to +be, when the judge used to shoot prairie-chickens in Hen's stubble, and +Mrs. Peters cooked the chickens for the judge. + +"Brockway thinks as much of me as a brother," said Hen. "He told me as +much when he was running for judge. He won't see me stuck." + +This didn't seem to impress Judge McKenzie much. He still looked +worried, and said the other side had got every banker in town on their +side as handwriting experts. + +"I don't like the looks of things," said he. + +Hen flew mad at the idea of his lawyer's hinting that any man could get +stuck in such a case. The judge tried to explain, and Hen asked him how +much the other side was paying him, and the judge threw up his job. +Pretty soon, though, Hen got him to take a new retainer of fifteen +dollars, and he opened a new account in his books. This made Hen feel +good, for the judge was great with juries when he was sober. He was +good and sober now, for he had just taken the drinking cure for the +third time. We had lots of faith in Providence and McKenzie, but were +scary as three-year-olds that night at any strange noise in the brush. +You know how it is when you feel that way. + +Things went wrong the next morning. So many of the jurors said that Hen +had talked to them that Judge Brockway just glared at Hen, and said that +the court was not favorably impressed by tactics of that sort. + +Walker Swayne told how he had slapped Hen's chops to drive off his +improper advances, and Judge Brockway said that he could not condone +breaches of the peace; but a juror, like a woman, was justified if any +one; and when old Hen asked Mac for the Lord's sake, were there any +women sitting on this case, Brockway wilted Hen again with a look. + +I asked Hen at recess if he thought Brockway would ask him as a friend +and brother to sit up on the bench, and he flared up and said Brock was +all right, but was disguising his feelings as a judge. + +"He's got a disguise that's a bird," said I, and Hen said I might +consider myself discharged; but wrote me a note after court took up, +hiring me back. + +The next juror up related another case of Hen's vile tactics, and the +judge threatened to send him to jail if anything more bobbed up. Hen +fell back into his chair limpsy, like dropping a wet string,--all spiral +like,--and everybody looked at us in horror for our pollyfoxing with the +jury. As a matter of fact, in his state of beer and overconfidingness, +Hen would have wept on the breast of a wooden Indian that would have +held still while he told of the octopus and its forgeries. In all the +time I worked for him, he never tried once to destroy the jury system or +his country's liberty. + +Finally they found twelve men that didn't know anything about the case +or anything, and had no opinions or prejudices for or against anything, +and the lawyers told the jury what they expected to prove. + +"The sacred system of trial by jury," said Fillmore Smythe, "has been +saved from the attacks of the defendant by an incorruptible court. +Placed on trial before this intelligent jury, what the defendant may do +I can not even guess; but we have here in court his note, signed in his +own proper person." + +"'T ain't so!" busted out Hen, in his own improper person. "You hain't +got no such note!" + +"One more interruption of this sort," said the judge, peeking down at +Hen, "and the example that I'll make of _you_ won't soon be forgotten. +Proceed, Mr. Smythe!" + +"Concealing his love!" whispers I to Hen; and he put the leg of his +chair on my foot and ground it around till I almost yelled. + +When they had marked the note "Exhibit A" the way they do, Smythe said +"Plaintiff rests," though they didn't seem near as tired as our side +was, and the court let out for noon. They let McKenzie take the note +with him to look at. There it was on one of those blanks that it cost me +a good claim in Kansas once to practise writing on, and I never got to +be much of a penman either; it was signed "Henry Peters" as natural as +life. + +"Well," questioned Mac, as Hen turned it over, "what do you say to it, +Henry?" + +I could feel that all the time McKenzie had had a hunch that Hen had +really signed the note, and Hen felt it, too, and he threw to the winds +the remains of his last conversion, and his fear that Mac would strike +again, and talked as bad as if he was learning a calf to drink. + +"Why, you scoundrelly Keeley graduate," he yelled, "what did I tell +you! That's a forgery, as any one but a half-witted pettifogger could +see by lookin' at it!" + +"I sever my connection with this case right now," said Mac, away down in +his chest, and as dignified as a ring-master. "No inebriated litigant +can refer to the struggle and expense I have incurred in lifting myself +to a nobler plane of self-control, and then call for my skill and +erudition in extricating him from the quagmire of the law in which his +imprudences have immeshed him. Go, sir, to some practitioner so far lost +to manhood as to be able to resist the temptation to brain you with his +notary-public's seal. Leave me to my books!" + +Mac went into the next room and shut the door, but did not lock it. + +"I can see," said Colonel Baggs, "the wisdom of leaving it on the +latch." + +I took and apologized for Hen; but Mac stuck his nose in a book and +waved me away. If Hen had been a little drunker he would have cried; and +I went back to woo McKenzie some more. Finally, he agreed to come into +the case again, on payment of another retainer fee of twenty dollars. +Hen was game, and skinned a double-X off his roll without a flinch. Mac +opened up a new account in his books, and Hen, for my successful +diplomacy, raised my wages two dollars a month. It was a great lesson to +me. + +Of course I could see that it was not Hen's signature; for his way of +writing was Spencerian, modified by handling a fork, shucking corn, and +by the ink drying up while he was thinking. The name on the note was +kind of backhand. Mac asked about other Henry Peterses, and Hen told him +that there was a man that passed by that name in the county a year or so +back, but that he never had credit for three hundred cents, never bought +any such machinery, and had escaped to Dakota. + +When old Hen testified, he had one of his spluttery spells of reverse +English caused by his language getting wound on the shafting, and his +denying the signature didn't seem to make much impression on any one. +Smythe made him admit that he had bought the tools, and had no +check-stub of the payment; and when he said he paid Bloxham in cash, +Smythe laid back and grinned, and McKenzie moved that the grin be took +down by the reporter, so he could move to strike it out. + +Everybody just seemed to despise us but Mac; and I was as ashamed as a +dog. This Bloxham, the machine agent, was dead, and most everybody there +had been to his funeral; but it took half an hour to prove his demise. +Two jurors went to sleep on this, and one of them hollered "Whay! whay!" +in his sleep, like he was driving stock, and Brockway pounded and glared +at _us_ for it. I wished I was back with Ole running the silage cutter. + +All this time we kind of lost sight of Mrs. Peters and Fanny. Fanny sent +some word over to the Accidental the second evening, and her mother went +over to Relyea's, and came back kind of fluttery. I was sent to Fanny +with a suit-case of dresses her mother had there, and Fanny was in the +awfullest taking with blushing and her breath fluttering like a +fanning-mill with palpitation of the heart that I couldn't think what +was the matter with her. She had never blushed at seeing me before. I +began to see what a pretty girl she was; but I couldn't think of tying +myself down, even if she did. She came up close to me, shook hands with +me, and bid me good-by when I came away. This was a sign she wanted to +hold some one's hand or was going away; and I knew she wasn't expected +to go away. It set me to thinking. Mac said he wouldn't want her +testimony until the surrey-butter part, if then. I made up my mind I'd +go up and talk with her once in a while, instead of sticking around +down-town. But this trial absorbed my attention when the experts came +on. + +Smythe had had a magnification made of the name on the note, and the one +on old Hen's letter, and every banker in town went on and swore about +these names. John Smythe, Fillmore's half-brother, knew Hen's signature; +and had had to study handwriting so hard in the bank that he had got to +be an expert. He was always thought a kind of a ninny, but here's where +he sure did loom up with the knowledge. He acted just as smart as those +Chicago experts we read about, and living right here in the county all +the time, and never out of the bank a day! A good deal of my ability +comes from dropping into some big city like Fort Dodge or Ottumwa, or +maybe Sioux City, or Des Moines every winter, and getting on to the new +wrinkles and broadening out; but John Smythe was always behind that +brass railing, like a cow in stanchions. And yet he was able to see that +those two signatures just had to be made by the same man. This spiel was +cutting ice with the jury, and Mac roared and pointed out where they +were different; but Smythe hinted that it only seemed so because Mac was +ignorant. He could just see the same man a-making them--the way the stem +of the "P" was made, and the finish of the "y" like a pollywog's tail +made it a cinch. Hen swore under his powerful breath that it was a +dad-burned lie; but it looked awful plausible to me. + +"You notice," said Fillmore, "that the name on the letter is more +scrawly and uneven?" + +"Yes," said John, "but that merely means that he used a different pen or +was nervous. I think I see in the last the characteristic tremor of +anger." + +This looked bad to me, for if ever a man had a right to the +characteristic tremor of anger, it was old Hen when he signed that +letter. It showed Smythe knew what he was at. + +Mac showed them a lot of Hen's real signatures, but the experts said +they only made it clearer. Every one had a little curlicue or funny +business that put Hen deeper in the hole; and he finally chucked the +bunch, all the reporter didn't have, in the stove. Fillmore Smythe +inflated himself and blew up at this; but Brockway, still concealing his +love, said that while it looked bad, and the jury might consider this +destruction of evidence as one of the facts, the papers belonged to +defendant and the court didn't see fit to do anything. Our case looked +as bad as it could, and I didn't see why Smythe hollered so about it. +The jury looked on us as horse-thieves and crooks, and every time old +Hen stepped, he balled things up worse. + +Whitten, of the First National, was stronger than John Smythe. He said +it was physically impossible for any man but the one that signed the +letter to have made that note; and he was an expert from away back. He +pointed out the anger tremor, too. Mac showed him how the +check-signatures all looked like that on the letter, and not like the +one on the note; but Whitten said a man was always calm when he made a +note, and mad as a hatter when he drew a check. Knowing Hen, this looked +plausible to me, and made a hit with the jury. The man that hollered +"Whay!" wrote it down on his cuff. + +Ole Pete Hungerford, the note-shaver, snorted disdainfully that there +was no doubt that the note was genuine. He swore that a bogus check I +made was genuine, too; and got redder than a turkey when he found I had +made it, and said it was the work of a skilful forger. The man that +hollered "Whay!" looked at me in horror, and wrote some more on his +cuff. I felt considerable cheap. + +Every expert said the same thing. I believe that there was one while +when Hen would have admitted he signed the note if they had called him +and raw-hided him enough. Hen had some hopes when Zenas Whitcher of the +Farmers' Bank had some doubts about one signature; but he flattened out +again when he found it was the one on the letter that had old Zenas +guessing, and that he was dead sure the one on the note was a +sure-enough genuine sig, only it looked as if he was trying to disguise +his hand. Fillmore seemed to think pretty well of this, and had them all +go back and swear about this disguise business. They could all see +wiggly spots now and places gone over twice where Hen had doubled on his +trail to throw pursuers off the track and disguise his hand. It begun to +look to me like Hen was up to some skulduggery,--all these smooth guys +swearing like that,--but Hen was paying me my wages and needed friends, +and I stuck. He looked down his nose like an egg-sucking pup. When I +came on to swear that it was not Hen's signature on the note, my mind +was so full of curlicues and polly-wogs' tails, and anger tremors, and +disguises, and the gall of my swearing against these big men that had +money to burn, that I went into buck fever, and was all shot to rags by +Smythe's cross-examination,--any of you fellows would be,--so that I +finally admitted that the note looked pretty good to me, and that I'd +have probably taken it for Hen's note if I'd been a banker and had it +offered to me. Mac threw up his hands, said that was all our evidence, +then went at the jury hammer and tongs, and I looked at poor old Hen all +collapsed down into his chair like a rubber snake, and I went and hid. + +In the morning I crawled out, supposing that it would all be over, and +wondering where I'd find Hen; but I heard Judge McKenzie's closing +argument rolling out of the court-house windows like thunder. I didn't +care for eloquence the way I was feeling, and was just sneaking away, +when who should I run on to but Fanny walking with a fellow down under +the maples. I was shocked, for she was hanging to his arm the way no +nice girl ought to do unless it's dark. I trailed along behind to see +who it was, when the fellow turned his head quick, and I saw it was +Hank. They come up to me, Fanny still shamelessly hanging to his arm, +looking excited and foolish, like they had just experienced religion or +got engaged. + +"Doc," said Hank, "we've just found out about it!" + +"I've knowed it a long time," said I coldly. "What is it?" + +"This lawsuit," said Hank--"is it over, or still running?" + +"It's still running," I said. "Listen at the machinery rumble up there. +It's all over but the shouting, and we've got a man hired to do that. +Why?" + +They never said a word, but scooted up the stairs. I strolled in and +found Mac's machinery throwed out of gear by Hank's interruption. Hen +was still collapsed, and didn't see Hank. Mac turned grandly to the +judge, and told him that a witness he had been laboring to secure the +attendance of from outside the jurisdiction had blowed in, and he wanted +the case reopened. Smythe rose buoyantly into the air and hooted, but +Brockway coldly reopened the case, and Hank was sworn. The juror that +wrote on his cuff looked disgusted, but he wrote Hank's name and age +with the rest of his notes. + +"Where do you live?" asked Mac. + +"South Dakota," answered Hank. + +"Examine 'Exhibit A,'" said Mac proudly, handing Hank the note, "and +tell the jury when if ever you have seen it before!" + +"When it was signed," said Hank. + +Old Hen kind of straightened up. Fanny sat down by him, and put her arm +about him. She sure did look pretty. + +"Who signed that note?" asked Mac, with his voice swelling like a double +B-flat bass tuba. + +"I did," answered Hank. + +"I object," yelled Smythe, trembling like a leaf. + +"Overruled," said Brockway in a kind of tired way. + +"Do you owe this note?" asked Mac. + +"You bet I do," answered Hank, "and got the money to pay it. I went to +Dakota and forgot about the darned note. Bloxham shipped the machinery +out there to me. It's my note all right; Hen Peters never saw it till +Smythe got it." + +The room was full of wilted experts. This did not appeal to them at all. +McKenzie laughed fiendishly, as if he'd had this thing arranged all the +time. The jury looked foolish, all but the one that hollered "Whay!" +and he looked mad. I could see Hen reviving, and throwing off his +grouch at Hank. Fillmore Smythe said he had a question or two in +cross-examination. + +"What kin are you to the defendant?" he asked. + +"That's a disputed point," replied Hank. "I dunno's I'm any by blood." + +"Are you not related to him in any way?" asked Fillmore, prying into +things the way they do. + +"You bet I am," spoke up Hank, looking over at Fanny, and getting red in +the face. "He don't know about it; but since night before last I've been +his son-in-law." + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +It was in camp at Sulphur Mountain that the Artist's fate overtook him. +The gods pulled his name from the hat by the hard hand of the Hired Man. +This mystic event overshadowed the visit to Sulphur Spring--though that +was in every respect a success. It was timed so as to give them the last +of the dawn--the splendid flood of rare light which precedes the first +cast of his noose by the Hunter of the East--and both eye and camera +caught beautifully the myriads of steam spirals ascending from the hill, +each from its own vent. The spring itself, the Poet compared to the +daily press, in that it made a mighty and unceasing pother and dribbled +out a mighty small amount of run-off--and that the output stained +everything with which it came in contact a bright yellow. + +"No matter what it splashes," said he, "stick or stone, church, family +or court, it yellows it." + +"Speaking of courts," said the Artist, "and the law--I think our +friends the Colonel and Bill have dealt altogether too flippantly with +them. I shall give you another view to-night." + + * * * * * + +"Do you notice," said the Bride, "how peaceful and sort of comforting +the river is? It is as placid as a lake--or some deep river--like the +Thames--made for pleasure boats and freighters." + +"See the trout leap!" shouted the Colonel. + +"Well," said Aconite, "you jest watch that river, an' it'll surprise +yeh. It ain't reformed yit, if it hez sobered up. An' right here--Whoa!" + +They were at the crossing of Alum Creek, and Aconite halted to point out +matters of interest. + +"Right hyar," said he, "or in this vicinity, took place one of the most +curious things that ever happened to Old Jim Bridger. This crick is all +alum, 'specially up at the head. Over yon"--pointing to the eastern bank +of the Yellowstone with his whip--"is a stream named Sour Crick comin' +in from the east. It's one or the other of these cricks, 'r one of the +same kind, that Old Jim Bridger was obliged to go up f'r three days on +his bronk, one time. It was a long trip. But on the way back he noticed +that the crick had flooded the country, an' gone down ag'in, an' it +seemed to him that he was makin' better time than goin' up. The hills +that was low an' rounded when he went up, looked to him steeper, and +higher, an' more clustered than they was. He didn't believe this could +be, an' wondered how folks' minds acted when they was goin' crazy. +Finely, he found his first camp, after he had been on the back track +only half a day. He couldn't understand how he could've made the +distance in four hours that it took two days to cover comin' up, and +begun to get the Willies. He come to a bottom that had scattered trees +on comin' up, and it was timbered so thick now that he couldn't go +through it--but it wa'n't furder through than a hedge fence. Then he +noticed that his bronk was hobblin', and observed that his hooves was +drawed down to mere points, but good-shaped hoss's hooves all the +same--they was just little, like the hooves of a toy hoss. At last he +come to a place whar there had been two great boulders that had been +forty rods apart when he went up--he knowed 'em by marks he had made on +'em in his explorin' around--an' danged if they wasn't jammed up agin' +each other so's they touched both stirrups when he rode through between +'em. An' there he was back whar he started from in a little more'n half +a day. He got to studyin' it over, an' found that this crick of alum +water had over-flowed and jest puckered the scenery up, so that the +distances to anywhere along its valley was shrunk up to most nothin'!" + +The Hired Man looked away off to the east, and mentioned that the +fish-hawks were thick this morning. The Bride giggled a very slight +giggle--but the others were impassive. They seemed to be absorbing some +of the taciturnity of the Indian. In the meantime the river did begin to +surprise them. After miles of deep quiet, its valley walls began to +crowd together. + +"Somebody has been sprinkling alum on this scenery," suggested the +Colonel--"eh, Aconite?" + +Aconite clucked solemnly to the team. + +The road was forced to the very edge of the bank. The river became +mildly excited, as if in protest at the constriction. The road grew +wilder and the landscape more rugged; and suddenly, the river, tortured +by the pressure of the narrow trench provided for it, began raging and +foaming, and sending up a hoarse roar, which grew upon them like an +approaching tempest. The road trod first a narrow shelf above the +terrific rapids, and then a bridge hung like a stretched rope over an +awesome abyss. For half a mile the tumult below grew, until it seemed as +if water could bear no more--when suddenly the river, just now ravening +through a mere fifty-foot crack in the rocks, was gone. It turned +abruptly away from the road, and fell away into space. They had passed +the Upper Falls, where the Yellowstone, in a great spouting curve drops +a sheer hundred and twelve feet in a curtain of white water, and sends +up from the bottom of the cañon its hymn to liberty, in a cloud of mist. + +They were no longer the tired sight-seers, with jaded senses; for this +was new. They felt the thrill of power. And as they passed on, promising +themselves a return when camp should be made, they cried out in delight +as the Grand Cañon of the Yellowstone displayed the stupendous sluiceway +into which the river had fallen. At their feet the lovely Crystal Falls +of Cascade Creek played exquisitely, almost unnoted. The roar of the +falls followed them to the Cañon Hotel near which they camped, and +leaving the pitching of the tents to the men, they walked to the brink +of the cañon, and gazed upon the most perfect scene, perhaps, that +water, in its flow to the sea, has anywhere sculptured and painted to +delight the eye of man. The Yosemite has greater heights; the Colorado +offers huger dimensions, the Niagara or the Victoria possess mightier +cataracts; but nowhere else is there such a riot of color, such dizzy +heights, such glooming verdure, and such mad waters, united in one +surpassingly splendid scenic whole. + +They saw it all--that day, and subsequent days. They lingered as though +unable to leave at all. They revisited the Upper Falls before seeing the +lower, so as to view them in fairness and with no injustice to what +seemed unsurpassable beauty. + +"And now," said the Bride, "take me to the greater falls." + +It was as if she had seen all but the Holy of Holies, and felt the +exaltation suitable for higher things. + +They were amazed at the tremendous plunge of more than three hundred +feet which their river (as they now called it) made at the Lower +Falls--even to the foot of which they descended. They looked from +Inspiration Point, from Artist's Point, from Lookout Point. They watched +the stream dwarfed by distance to a trickle, and strangely silent, as it +wandered at the bottom of the gorge. + +And at last the time came to leave. Early in the morning they were to +start; and the last camp-fire was smoldering to ashes on that last night +when the Artist found his audience collected, the demand for payment of +his obligation presented; and without preface, save the statement that +his was the story of a young fool, told his tale. + + +THE RETURN OF JOHN SMITH + +THE STORY NARRATED BY THE ARTIST + +His name was John Smith, but he was not otherwise unworthy of notice. +Out of her vast, tempestuous experience Blanche Slattery admitted this +as she swept into the offices and looked down at the boy, noting the +curl in his hair which speaks of the hidden vein of vanity, the wide +blue eyes which told of a stratum of mysticism, the unsubdued brawn of +hand and wrist which reminded her more of harvests than of field-meets, +the mouth closely shut in purposeful attention to one Mr. Thompson's +_Commentaries on the Law of Corporations_. + +He thought her the stenographer and kept his eyes on the page. She laid +a card on his desk--a card at which he looked with some attention +before rising to meet her eyes with his own, which dilated in a sort of +horror, as she thought. Her cheek actually burned, though it grew no +redder, as she turned aside with the crisp statement of her business. + +"I want to see Judge Thornton," she said. + +Without a word John Smith pushed a button and listened at a telephone. +The judge took his time as usual, and John gazed at the Slattery person +with the receiver pressed against his ear. She was powdered and painted; +the full corsage of her dress glittered with passementerie; in her form +the latest fad was exaggerated into a reminiscence of medieval +torturing-devices. Through the enamel of her skin dark crescents showed +under her great black eyes, the whites of which were mottled here and +there with specks of red. The once sweet lips had lost their softness of +curve with their vermeil tincture and had fallen into hard repose. + +John knew her profession and how she dominated her world of saddest +hilarity--a world which through all mutations of time and institutions +persists as on that day when Samson went to Gaza. He felt that there +emanated from her a sort of authority, like a sinister manifestation of +the atmosphere surrounding men of power and sway--as though by dark and +devious ways this soul, too, had carved out a realm in which it darkly +reigned. She wondered, when he spoke, whether the softness in his voice +were for her or whether it were merely a thing of habit. + +"Judge Thornton is sorry that he can not see you this morning," he said. +"Between ten and eleven to-morrow if it is convenient for you--" + +"All right," she said. "I'll be here at half-past ten. Good morning!" + +The perfume of her presence, the rustling of her departure, the husky +depth of her voice haunting his memory, the vast vistas through which +the mind of the country boy fared forth venturesomely, impelled by the +new contacts of this town in which he had undertaken to scale the +citadel of professional success--all these militated against the sober +enticements of the law of corporations; and when Judge Thornton entered +unheard, John Smith started as though detected in some offense. + +"The law," said the judge, launching the hoary quotation, "is a jealous +mistress." + +John Smith blushed, but saw no lodgment for a denial where there was no +accusation. He had been allowing his thoughts to go wool-gathering; but +now he began questioning the judge on the doctrine of the rights of +minority stock-holders. The judge condescended to a five-minute lecture +which would have been costly had it been given for a client before the +court. In the midst of the talk there bustled in a young man--a boy, in +fact, who accosted the lawyer familiarly. + +"Just a minute, Judge. About that mass-meeting Tuesday--I'm Johnson of +the _News_, you know. Will you speak?" + +"I don't think the readers of the _News_ are lying awake about it," +answered the judge, looking at the boy amusedly. "But my present +intentions go no further than to attend the meeting." + +"What about the movement for cheaper gas?" asked the reporter. "Will the +meeting start anything?" + +"The meeting," said the judge, "will be a law unto itself." + +"Sure," replied Johnson of the _News_. "But a word from you as to the +extortions of the gas company--" + +"Will be addressed to the meeting--if I have any," said the judge. +"I--" + +"Oh, all right!" interrupted the boy. "That's what I wanted! Good-by!" + +John Smith's amazement at the boy's self-possession and ready, impudent +effrontery, passed away in a visualization of Judge Thornton's big, +strong figure at the meeting, fulminating against oppression--the +oppression of to-day--as did Patrick Henry and James Otis against the +wrongs of their times. Now, as of old, thought John Smith, the lawyer is +a public officer, charged with public duties, alert to do battle with +any tyrant or robber. He flushed with pleasure at this conception of the +greatness of the profession. + +"As a science," said the judge, as though in answer to John's thought, +"it's the greatest field of the intellect. It's the practice that's +laborious and full of compromises." + +"Yes," said John Smith, lamenting the interrupted lecture on the rights +of minority stock-holders. Judge Thornton had donned his coat and his +hat. + +"I'm off for the day. Good day to you--oh, I almost forgot. Do you want +to hear a paper on _King Lear_ to-night? Nellie thought you might. Poor +paper--but you'll meet people, and that's a part of the game." + +"Oh, yes!" cried John. "I'd be glad to!" + +"Come to the house about eight," said the judge, "and go with Nellie and +me." + +Ah, this was living! Why, at home he knew scarcely a person who had read +more of Shakespeare than the quarrel scene in the Fifth Reader. Surely +it was good fortune that had made his father and Judge Thornton +playmates in boyhood. And to go with Nellie Thornton, too! + +"Paint out that sign!" he heard some one say. "And what goes in the +place of it, sir?" asked the painter. "'Thornton & Smith,'" replied the +judge's voice. "My son-in-law, Mr. Smith, has been taken into the firm." + +The stenographer saw exaltation in his face as he closed the safe, bade +her good night and went home. + +As he sat beside Nellie that evening, he remembered the fancied colloquy +between her father and the imaginary painter, and shuddered as he +contemplated the possibility of thought-transference and of its ruinous +potentialities. As a protection against telepathy he gave his whole +attention to Judge Thornton's paper on _Lear_. The indescribable agony +of the old king's frenzy, the whirling tempest of the tragedy in which +he wandered to his doom clutched at the boy's heart. The wolfish +Goneril and Regan, the sweet Cordelia, the bared gray head, the storm, +the night--By some occult warning John Smith knew that Nellie was not +pleased with his absorption, and that the discussion had begun. + +"This treatment is _so_ original," said the lady president. "Everybody +must be full of questions. Now let us have a perfectly free +discussion--don't wait to be called upon, please!" + +To John Smith the lady president seemed enthusiasm personified; yet only +a few people rose, and these merely said how much they had enjoyed the +paper. John Smith could see himself on his feet pouring forth comment +and exposition, but he sat close, hoping that no adverse fate might +direct the lady president's attention to him. The discussion was +dragging; one could tell that from the increasing bubbliness of the lady +president's enthusiasm as she strove conscientiously to fulfil her task +of imposing culture upon society. + +"I'm sure there must be something more," she said. "Perhaps the most +precious pearl of thought of the evening awaits just one more dive. Mrs. +Brunson, can you not--" + +"I always feel presumptuous," said Mrs. Brunson, hoarsening her voice +to the pitch she always adopted in public speaking, "when I differ from +other commentators. But I also feel that the true critic must put +himself in the place of the character under examination. Isn't there a +good deal of justification for Goneril and Regan? I do not see, +personally, how Lear could be supposed to need all those hundred +knights, with their drinking and roistering and dogs and--and all that. +I believe Lear's fate was of his own making, and--" + +John Smith, the unsophisticated, was startled. The unutterable fate of +"the old, kind king"--could this Olympian circle hold such treason? + + "No, you unnatural hags, + I will have such revenges on you both, + That all the world shall--I will do such things-- + What they are, yet I know not; but they shall be + The terrors of the earth. You think I'll weep; + No, I'll not weep: + I have full cause of weeping; but this heart + Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws, + Or ere I'll weep. O, fool, I shall go mad!" + +The fiery denunciation rang in the boy's ears in answer to the words of +this modern woman with her silks and plumes, standing here in a church +and, in spite of the softening things of her heritage, sympathizing with +these fierce sisters! Others rose and agreed with her. One read the +words of Regan: + + "O, sir, you are old; + Nature in you stands on the very verge + Of her confine: you should be ruled and led + By some discretion that discerns your state + Better than you yourself." + +These, was the comment, were the really sane words regarding Lear. + +"Oh, well!" said Judge Thornton as John broke his fast and the +abstinence of a lifetime in the parlor, upon the cakes and wine served +by Nellie. "It didn't surprise me a bit. Mrs. Brunson thinks she'd do as +Goneril and Regan did with their father--and she would. She'd avoid the +little peccadilloes with Edmund and so remain technically virtuous--the +best people are the worst, in some things, John, never forget that. It +will be useful to remember it. And the worst are nearly as good as the +best--come into the office when that Slattery person comes in the +morning, and you'll see what I mean. I'll give you some papers to draw +for her." + + * * * * * + +The Slattery person swept into the private office with a rustle of +stiffest silks, reminding the youth of the corn-husks at home in +shucking-time, leaving behind her a whiff of all the Orient. John Smith +walked into her presence, palpitating as at the approach to something +terrible and daunting and mystically fateful to such as himself--as a +sailor might draw warily near the black magnetic rocks, which, +approached too closely, would draw the very nails from his ship and +dissolve his craft in the billows. When Judge Thornton remarked by way +of left-handed introduction that Mr. Smith would draw the papers, the +woman paid John no attention other than to bow and look straight before +her. The youth felt conscious of the same shuddering admiration for her +that he might have felt for some gaudy, bright-eyed serpent. + +"It's a simple matter, I guess," she said. "I want to make over some +property so Abner Gibbs of Bloomington will get fifty dollars sure every +month as long as he lives." + +"Not so very simple," said the judge, "but quite possible. But why don't +you remit it to him yourself?" + +"I want to cinch it while I've the money. You see, it's this way. In--in +my--business"--she looked into John Smith's girlish eyes and +hesitated--"everything is uncertain. It's a feast or a famine. A wave of +reform may strike the town to-morrow, and the lid goes on. The +protection you pay for may be taken from you next week. You've no +rights. You ain't human. So I fix the fifty a month for the old man +while I can, see?" + +"Gibbs--Gibbs!" said the judge. "Relation of yours?" + +"In a way. Does it make any difference?" + +"It goes to the consideration," said the lawyer. "Love and affection, +you know." + +"Well," said the Slattery person, "his son was my solid man--my +side-partner--my husband. The last thing he said when he got his was, +'Blanche, old girl, take care of dad. You know his weakness. Don't let +him starve!' And I ain't going to!" + +"His weakness?" queried the judge. "What did he mean?" + +"Drink," said the Slattery person. "It's in the blood. But he can't last +long--and he's Jim's father!" + +She looked out of the window and dabbed with a lace handkerchief at her +bright eyes, which she dared not wipe for fear of ruin to the appliqué +complexion. Suddenly she had, to the mind of the susceptible John Smith, +become a woman, with a woman's weakness and yearning over the departed +Jim--of the blackness of whose life John had no means of taking the +measure. He felt all at once that this person had shown feelings so like +those he would have expected from his mother that it startled him. + +"Oh, we're all alike!" said the judge when she had gone. "These things +are worth the lawyer's study. Human nature--human nature! We must get +above it and study it! Just ponder on the contradictions in the bases of +life involved in this Slattery person and Mrs. Brunson's feeling toward +Lear. Here's a woman, that no one at the circle last night would touch +with anything shorter than a ten-foot pole or lighter than a club, who +is actually carrying out toward a drunkard in Bloomington a policy of +love and humanity that would be beyond Mrs. Brunson. She'd say: 'Let him +behave the way I say, and I'll take him in!' Any of us moral folks would +do the same, too. No knights and roistering for us! Quite a study--eh, +John?" + +John sat silent, far afloat from his moorings. The judge was too deep, +too ethically acute for him. Perhaps by long association he, John Smith, +might grow in moral height and mental grasp, so as to-- + +"I don't know," said Judge Thornton, "which is the worse--sale of the +body, or barter of the soul. I don't mean that the body can be sold +without the soul going with it, though Epictetus seems a case in point +in favor of the separable-transaction theory; but if it can, sale of the +soul would seem the more ruinous. I--" + +Judge Thornton was interrupted by the opening of the office door and the +entrance of a brisk, capable-looking, Vandyke-bearded man who carried a +cane and bore himself with an ease that seemed somehow at war with +something of restraint--the ease on the surface, the embarrassment +underneath, like a dead swell coming in against the breeze. There was a +triumphant gleam in Judge Thornton's eyes, filmed at once with +self-possession and inscrutable calm. "Come in, Mr. Avery," he said. + +"Just a word with you," said Mr. Avery, "in--" + +"Certainly!" said the judge. "Right in here, Mr. Avery." + +Mr. Avery passed into the private office. Judge Thornton remained for a +word with John Smith. + +"This is the vice-president of the gas company," he said. "Don't mention +his call and don't allow me to be disturbed." + +John Smith was triumphant. The very might of Thornton's ability and +power had brought the gas company to its knees! This crucial stage of +the gas fight thrust entirely out of his mind the deep moral and +ethical consideration of the relations of the Slattery person to the +discussion of Lear. The law, as of old, was a great profession. Would +any of the Boone County folk be able to believe that he, John Smith, was +so near the heart of big things as to sit here while Judge Thornton won +this great bloodless victory for the people? + +Mr. Avery came out, cordially smiling upon Judge Thornton, who looked +triumphant, pleased, uplifted. For a man who had just been throttled, +Mr. Avery looked in rather good form. + +"I'll send all the papers over to you, Judge," he said. "And I'm mighty +glad we've got together. It ought to have been done before; but you know +how it is when you leave things to subordinates." + +"Oh, well," said the judge. "Of course I'm very glad; but the +subordinates may have done the right thing. Maxwell and Wilson are good +men, but local conditions may--" + +They went out into the anteroom, and John Smith heard them go away +together. He felt disquieted. The appearances were so different from +what he had expected. Not that it was in the least degree his affair, +but-- + +The newsboy threw in the evening paper. John Smith looked at once for +the account of the gas fight. + + "The anti-ordinance forces make no secret of their regret that + Judge Thornton has seen fit to withdraw his promise to address the + mass-meeting on Tuesday. Late this afternoon he told a _News_ + representative that he would not attend, and that in his opinion a + study of the gas question will convince any business man that the + illuminant can not be delivered at the meter at anything short of + the rate now paid here. This is regarded by some as a reversal of + Judge Thornton's position; but, as a matter of fact, in all his + public utterances the judge has suspended judgment on the merits of + the question. The outlook for a successful movement can not be + regarded as bright to-day." + +John Smith was looking at the paper as though it were some published +blasphemy, some unspeakable profanation of all things good and holy, +when Judge Thornton returned, whistling like a man at peace with the +world and himself. The judge went into his private office and came out +with a thin slip of paper folded in the palm of one smooth, strong hand. + +"Too bad you're not a full-fledged lawyer, John, instead of a beginner. +I could use you a good deal. My practice is getting more extensive. I've +just been retained as the general counsel of the gas company. Oh, all +you have to do is to wait and make yourself indispensable! _You'll_ be +getting plums like that one of these days. It's a great game! Good +night." + +Good night, indeed! There was no thunder and lightning like that on the +heath when Lear went mad; but, to a boy whose world had suddenly tumbled +into pieces, the snow which drove softly against his cheek and slithered +hissingly along the asphalt was a natural feature to dwell in his memory +for ever. He wandered out through the area of high buildings, past the +residences, to where the snow rattled on the corn-husks that reminded +him of the Slattery person's silks. He had confused visions of Mrs. +Brunson, dressed in Judge Thornton's decent high hat, flaunting gaudy +garments and painting her face for indescribable drinking-bouts. He came +back past the Thornton home, where he paused in the gray dawn and looked +at one lace-curtained window to murmur "Good-by." At the door of the +office-building where his days had been spent since his coming to town, +he went in from force of habit and pushed the button for the elevator. +No sound rewarded the effort, and he pushed again impatiently. Then he +laughed as he noted the elevator-cages about him, all shut down, all +empty, like cells from which the lunatic occupants had escaped. A woman +who had begun scrubbing the marble steps looked at him curiously as his +mirthless laugh sounded through the empty building. + +John Smith climbed flight after flight, opened the door which would +never have "Thornton & Smith" on it, sat down at his desk and wrote: + + "DEAR FATHER: I am quite well. Everything looks favorable for my + studies. Judge Thornton says he wants to do all he can for me, and + I think he does; but I guess I am not cut out for a lawyer. It + isn't quite what I thought it was. If you are still willing to send + me to the state college and give me that agricultural course, I + believe I'll go. There's something about the farm that's always + there; and you know it's there. I'll be home as soon as I can pack + up. + + "Your loving son, + + "JOHN SMITH." + +The party sat for a few moments motionless, as the Artist's voice became +silent. Then the Colonel arose, bade them good night, and took the +Artist's hand. + +"As a legal Slattery person," said he, "I thank you for the tale of the +young fool. Good night!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +The traveler who is wise, going from Grand Cañon Hotel to Tower Falls, +will pass over Mount Washburn--and he starts early. He starts early that +he may take with him the memory of the Upper and Lower Falls wrapped in +the mist which they and night have wrought together, and which the +nocturnal calm has perhaps left hanging wraith-like over the tremendous +slot so filled with the roar of many waters. And he starts early, too, +that he may make the ten-mile climb to Washburn's summit before the +day-wind rises and sweeps the mountain's head with that gale which so +tears the trees and twists them into a permanent declination, like +vegetable dipping needles. + +The Seven Wonderers pursued the way of wisdom, and so they startled deer +and elk from their night beds along the road to Cascade Creek; and began +the climb of Washburn before sunrise. The tops of Dunraven and Hedges +Peaks were rosy with morning when the rested cayuses pulled over the +first rugged spurs of these peaks, and it was morning with the perfect +trees, that stood like spires about them, morning with the columbine and +the larkspur, the forget-me-nots and the asters, the flea-bane and the +paint-brush--and all the wild flowers that enameled the wayside. For +many days they had been in the heart of the Rockies, and yet the scenery +had not seemed like real mountain scenery. Here for the first time, it +became alpine. They threaded Dunraven Pass in the early forenoon, and +took the high road straight over the summit. The team leaned hard into +the squeaking collars, and frequent stops that the horses might breathe +made the tourists glad. Every stop and every turn brought the eye new +delights. The great lake came into view again, like a distant splash of +silver; and as if for another good-by, away off to the south stood Mount +Sheridan, with the three Tetons to the right of it, solemnly overlooking +the Park of which they are a part to the eye only. + +"Oh! Oh!" said the Bride, gasping. "There's the Grand Cañon, like a +crack in the floor!" + +"And," said the Poet, "there's the ghost of wasted power, mistily +brooding over the falls, just as when we left." + +"Ghost of wasted power!" repeated the Groom. "That's not half bad, +Poet." + +Another turn, and the Absarakas notched the eastern horizon; and the +whole huge valley, with titanic slopes as its farther wall, and the +zigzag trench of the cañon as its central drain, lay at their feet. The +air was cooler, now, and the breath came short, as lungs labored for +more of the rare atmosphere. At their feet lay green meadows and open +parks, on which they might have expected to see grazing herds of shaggy +black Highland cattle. + +Again a few starts and stops, and as if turned into view by machinery, +came the northwest quarter of the Park, with all the country they had +traversed--Electric Peak, in whose shadow they had entered upon their +journey, Sepulcher Mountain, with its grave and the monuments at head +and foot no longer to be made out, the valley of Carnelian Creek at +their feet, and beyond it the jagged range, of which Prospect, Folsom +and Storm Peaks are the culminations. + +"That's something you don't always see," said Aconite, pointing to +something away off to the northwest. "That thing is the Devil's Slide." + +"And we saw his Inkstand yesterday," said the Hired Man. "He seems to've +preëmpted a lot of this here region." + +"Well," remarked the Colonel sardonically, "isn't the Park dedicated to +the enjoyment, as well as the benefit of the people?" + +"It started as 'Colter's Hell,'" suggested the Groom. + +"In Old Jim Bridger's time," said Aconite, "it rained fire up here in +these hills one year." + +"I don't doubt it," assented the Artist. "And we've either seen or are +promised a view of Hell Roaring Creek, Hell Broth Springs, Hell's Half +Acre, Satan's Arbor, and a lot of other infernal real estate." + +"It's heavenly up _here_!" said the Bride. + +Once at the summit the Park lay under their eyes like a map--all these +and a thousand other features to be taken in by merely turning about. +The land was sown with every variety of all that is wild and beautiful +and strange; the sky was filled with peaks. Here they had mountains to +spare. They looked, and looked, and grew tired of looking--and then +gazed again. The wind blew up and whipped their faces; and the sun was +far past the meridian, passing south through the silvery splotch of +Yellowstone Lake, when Aconite literally loaded them into the surrey, +and drove down the mighty flanks of Washburn, northwardly, until he +found a place where a fire could be builded and luncheon prepared. + +"You folks mustn't fergit," said he, "that scenery ain't so fillin' f'r +them as looks it every little while, as it is f'r the tenderfoot." + + * * * * * + +The Professor was evidently pleased when his name came from the Stetson +for the second time. He seemed to have something on his mind. Fully a +mile short of Tower Falls, which they planned to visit in the early +morning, they camped in dense forest, with a party of sight-seers just +so far away as to seem neighborly without intrenching on privacy. + +"This is the best camp we've had," said the Bride, hooking her hands +over her knee, and gazing into the fire. + +"Sure," said Billy. "Every camp is the best in life, for me, honey! +Listen to the Professor, now--nobody heard!" + + +THE FEDERAL IMP COMPANY + +THE PROFESSOR'S SECOND TALE + +I can not bring myself to think lightly of devils and imps. Neither can +I believe that the consensus of the opinions of so many millions of +mankind associating eternal punishment with fire can be neglected by the +student of ethnology or theology. These are filled with haunts of +devils--if the opinions of those who named them are worth anything. In +addition to those localities which have been mentioned, I have in my +notes the following: + + The Devil's Frying Pan, + The Devil's Slide, + The Devil's Kitchen, + The Devil's Punch Bowl, + The Devil's Broiler, + The Devil's Bath Tub, + The Devil's Den, + The Devil's Workshop, + The Devil's Stairway, + The Devil's Caldron, + The Devil's Well, + The Devil's Elbow, + The Devil's Thumb, + +and I know not how many of the members of His Satanic Majesty--all in +this Park! And yet we say there is no devil, no brood of imps set upon +the capture of human souls? + +I shall tell you a story that seems worth considering as evidence on the +other side. It is the story of something that occurred when I was +journeying by a branch railway to take the main line to Washington, +after a visit to the Boggses' ancestral farm in Pennsylvania. I had been +at Boston as an attendant upon the sessions of the National Teachers' +Association; with what recognition of my own small ability as an +educator I have already mentioned. I boarded an old-fashioned, +branch-line sleeping-car, and there met the being whose utterances and +actions have so impressed me that I shall never forget them, never. I +feel that this creature, so casually met, may be one of the actors in a +series of events of the most appalling character, and cosmic scope. + +When the porter came snooping about as if desiring to make up my berth, +I went into the smoking compartment. I do not smoke; but it was the only +place to go. I found there a person of striking appearance who told me +the most remarkable story I ever heard in my life, and one which I feel +it my duty to make public. + +He had before him a bottle of ready-mixed cocktails, a glass, and a +newspaper. With his bags and the little card table on which he rested +his elbows, he was occupying most of the compartment. I sidled in +hesitatingly, in that unobtrusive way which I believe to be the +unfailing mark of the retiring and scholastic mind, and for want of a +place to sit down, I leaned upon the lavatory. He was gazing fixedly at +the half-empty bottle, his sweeping black mustaches curling back past +his ears, his huge grizzled eyebrows shot through with the gleam of his +eyes. He looked so formidable that I confess I was daunted, and should +have escaped to the vestibule; but he saw me, rose, and with extreme +politeness began tossing aside baggage to make room. + +"I trust, Sir," said he with a capital S, "that you will pardon my +occupancy of so much of a room in which your right is equal to mine! Be +seated, I beg of you, Sir!" + +I sat down; partly because, when not aroused, I am of a submissive +temperament; and partly because he had thrown the table and grips across +the door. + +"Don't mention it," said I. "Thank you." + +"Permit me, Sir," said he, "to offer you a drink." + +"I hope you will excuse me," I replied, now slightly roused, for I +abhor alcohol and its use. "I never drink!" + +"It is creditable to any man, Sir," said he, "to carry around with him a +correct estimate of his weaknesses." + +This really aroused in me that indignation which sometimes renders me +almost terrible; but his fixed and glittering gaze seemed to hold me +back from making the protest which rose to my lips. + +"Permit me, Sir," said he, "to offer you a cigar." + +It was a strong-looking weed; but although I am not a smoker, I took and +lighted it. He resumed his attention to his bottle and paper. + +"Will you be so kind," said he, breaking silence, "as to read that item +as it appears to you?" + +"'Federal Improvement Company,'" I read. "'Organized under the laws of +New Jersey, on January 4th, with a capital of $1,000,000. Charter powers +very broad, taking in almost every field of business. The incorporators +are understood to be New York men.'" + +"'Imp,'" said he, "isn't it? not 'Improvement.'" + +"I take it, sir," said I, "that the omission of the period is a +printer's error, and that i-m-p means Improvement.'" + +He leaned forward, grasped my wrist and peered like a hypnotist into my +face. + +"Just as badly mistaken," said he, "as if you had lost--as could be! It +means 'Imp' just as it says 'Imp.' Have another drink!" + +This time I really did not feel free to refuse him. He seemed greatly +pleased at my tasting. + +"Sit still," said he, "and I'll tell you the condemdest story you ever +heard. That corporation means that we are now entering a governmental +and sociological area of low pressure that will make the French +Revolution look like a cipher with the rim rubbed out. In the end you'll +be apt to have clearer views as to whether or not 'i-m-p' spells +improvement'!" + +This he seemed to consider a very clever play upon words, and he sat for +some time, laughing in the manner adopted by the stage villain in his +moments of solitude. His Mephistophelean behavior, or something, made me +giddy. His manner was quite calm, however, and after a while we lapsed +back into the commonplace. + +"Ever read a story," said he, "named _The Bottle Imp_?" + +"Stevenson's _Bottle Imp_?" I exclaimed, glad to find a topic of common +interest, and feeling that it could not be a dangerous thing to be shut +into the same smoking compartment with any man who loved such things, no +matter how Captain-Kiddish he might appear. "Why, yes, I have often read +it. I am a teacher of literature and an admirer of Stevenson. He +possesses--" + +"Who? Adlai?" he said. "Did he ever have it?" + +"I mean Robert Louis," said I. "He wrote it, you know." + +"Oh!" said my companion meditatively, "he did, did he? Wrote it, eh? +It's as likely as not he did--I know _Adlai_. Met him once, when I was +putting a bill through down at Springfield: nice man! Well about this +Bottle Imp. You know the story tells how he was shut up in a bottle--the +Imp was--and whoever owned it could have anything he ordered, just like +the fellow with the lamp--" + +"Except long life!" said I, venturing to interrupt. + +"Of course, not that!" replied my strange traveling companion. "If the +thing had been used to prolong life, where would the Imp come in? His +side of the deal was to get a soul to torture. He couldn't be asked to +give 'em length of days, you understand. It couldn't be expected." + +I had to admit that, from the Imp's standpoint, there was much force in +this remark. + +"And that other clause in the contract that the owner could sell it," he +went on. "That had to be in, or the Imp never could have found a man +sucker enough to take the Bottle in the first place." + +The cases of Faust, and the man who had the Wild Ass's Skin seemed to me +authorities against this statement; but I allowed the error to pass +uncorrected. + +"On the other hand," he went on, "it was nothing more than fair to have +that other clause in, providing that every seller must take less for it +than he gave. Otherwise they'd have kept transferring it just before the +owner croaked, and the Imp would never have got his victim. But with +that rule in force the price just had to get down so low sometime that +it couldn't get any lower, and the Imp would get his _quid pro quo_." + +"You speak," said I indignantly, for it horrified me to hear the loss of +a soul spoken of in this light manner; "you speak like a veritable +devil's advocate!" + +"When I've finished telling you of this Federal Imp Company that's just +been chartered," said he, "you'll have to admit that there's at least +one devil that's in need of the best advocate that money'll hire!" + +Here he gave one of his sardonic chuckles, long-continued and rumbling, +and peered into the bottle of cocktails, as if the prospective client of +the advocate referred to had been confined there. + +"When it doesn't cost anything," he added, "there's no harm in being +fair, even with an Imp." + +I failed to come to the defense of my position, and he went on. + +"Well," said he, "do you remember the Bottle Imp's history that this man +Stevenson gives us? Cæsar had it once, and wished himself clear up to +the head of the Roman Empire. Charlemagne, Napoleon, and a good many of +the fellows who had everything coming their way, owed their successes to +the Bottle Imp, and their failures to selling out too soon: got scared +when they got a headache, or on the eve of battle, or something like +that. It was owned in South Africa, and Barney Barnato and Cecil Rhodes +both had it. That accounts for the way _they_ got up in the world. Then +the Bottle and Imp went to the Nob Hill millionaire who bought it for +eighty dollars and sold it to Keawe the Kanaka for fifty. The price was +getting dangerously low, now, and Keawe was mighty glad when he had +wished himself into a fortune and got rid of the thing. Then, just as he +was about to get married, he discovered that he had leprosy, hunted up +the Bottle, which he found in the possession of a fellow who had all +colors of money and insomnia, both of which he had acquired by +purchasing the Bottle Imp for two cents, you remember, and was out +looking for a transferee, and about on the verge of nervous prostration +because he couldn't find one,--not at that price! Keawe became so +desperate from the danger of going to the leper colony and the loss of +his sweetheart, that he bought the Bottle for a cent, in the face of the +fact that, so far as he knew, a cent was the smallest coin in the world, +and the bargain, accordingly, cinched him as the Imp's peculiar +property, for all eternity. I'll be--hanged--if I know whether to +despise him for his foolishness or to admire him for his sand!" + +"You recall," said I, "that his wife directed his attention to the +_centime_--" + +"Yes," said he, "she put him on. And they threw away one transfer by +placing it on the market at four _centimes_. They might just as well +have started it at five." + +"I don't see that," said I. + +"Because you haven't figured on it," said he. "You haven't been +circulating in Imp circles lately, as I have, where these things are +discussed. Listen! A _centime_ is the hundredth part of a franc, and a +franc is about nineteen cents. A cent, therefore, is a fraction more +than five _centimes_. But they started it at four, the chocolate-colored +idiots, after getting rid of their leprosy! When I think how that Bottle +Imp has been mismanaged, I am driven--" + +He illustrated that to which he was driven, by a gesture with the bottle +on the table. He coughed, and took up his _résumé_ of the story. + +"Let that pass. They put it up at four _centimes_, and without Keawe's +knowledge that she had anything to do with it, Keawe's wife got an old +man to buy it, and she took it off his hands at three. The Kanaka soon +found out that he was now carrying his eternal damnation in his wife's +name, and he procured an old skipper or mate, or some such fellow in a +state of intoxication, to buy it of her for two, on the agreement that +he would take it again for one. Here they were, frittering away untold +fortunes, each trying to go to perdition to save the other--it makes me +tired! But the old bos'n or whatever he was, said he was going, you know +where, anyhow, and figured that the Bottle was a good thing to take with +him, and kept it. And there's where the Kanakas got out of a mighty +tight place--" + +"And the Bottle disappeared and passed into history!" I broke in. I was +really absorbed in the conversation, in spite of a slight vertigo, now +that we had got into the field of literature where I felt at home. + +"Passed into--nothing!" he snorted. "Passed into the state of being the +Whole Thing! Became It! Went on the road to the possession of the +Federal Imp Company as the sole asset of the corporation. Folks'll see +now pretty quick, whether it passed into history or not! Yes, I should +say so!" + +"Who's got it now?" I whispered. I was so excited that I found myself +sitting across the table, and us mingling our breaths like true +conspirators. He had a good working majority in the breaths, however. + +"Who's the Charlemagne, the J. Cæsar, the Napoleon of the present day?" +he whispered in reply, after looking furtively over his shoulder. "It +don't need a Sherlock Holmes to tell that, does it?" + +"Not," said I, "not J. P.--" + +"No," said he, "It's John D.--" + +But before he finished the name he crept to the door and peered down the +aisle, and then whispered it in my ear so sibilantly that I felt for a +minute as I used to do when I got water in my ear when swimming. But I +noticed it very little in my astonishment at the fact he had imparted to +me. I felt that I was pale. He rose again and prowled about as if for +eavesdroppers. I felt myself a Guy Fawkes, an Aaron Burr, an--well, +anything covert and dangerous. + +"He bought this Bottle Imp," my companion went on, resuming his seat, +"of the old sailing-master, or whatever he was--the man with the +downward tendency and the jag. What J. D. wanted was power, just as +Cæsar and Napoleon wanted it in their times. But the same kind of power +wouldn't do. Armies were the tools of nations then; now they are the +playthings. Now nations are the tools of money, and wealth runs the +machine. This emperor of ours chose between having the colors dip as he +went by, and owning the fellows that made 'em dip. He gave the +grand-stand the go-by, and took the job of being the one to pull the +string that turned on the current that moved the ruling force that +controlled the power back of the power behind the throne. D'ye +understand?" + +"It's a little complex," said I, "the way you state it, but--" + +"It'll all be clear in the morning," he said. "Anyway, that's what he +chose. And what is he? The Emperor of Coin. He was a modest business man +a few years ago. Suddenly the wealth of a continent began flowing into +his control. It rolled in and rolled in, every coin making him stronger +and stronger, until now the business of the world takes out insurance +policies on his life and scans the reports of his health as if the very +basis of society were John D. You-Know-Who. Emperors court his favor, +and the financial world shakes when he walks. You don't think for a +minute that this could be done by any natural means, do you?" + +"But the price of the bottle was one _centime_!" said I, my altruism +coming uppermost once more. "One _centime_: and he is no longer young!" + +"Exactly," he answered, "and he's got to sell it, or go to--Well, he's +just about got to sell it!" + +"But how?" I queried. "What coin is there smaller than a _centime_--what +he paid?" + +"All been figured out," said he airily. "Who solved the puzzle I don't +know; but I guess it was Senator Depew. Know what a mill is?" + +"A mill? Yes," said I. "A factory? A pugilistic encounter? A money of +account?" + +"Yes," said he, "a 'money of account.' Never coined. One-tenth of a +cent. _One-half a centime!_ Have you heard of Senator Aldrich's currency +bill, S. F. 41144? It's got a clause in it providing for the coinage of +the mill. And there's where I come in. I'm an unelected +legislator--third house, you know. Let the constructive statesman bring +in their little bills. I'm satisfied to put 'em through! S. F. 41144 is +going to be put through, and old J. D.'ll sell his Bottle, Imp and all. +Price, one mill. When this grip epidemic started in, he got a touch of +it, and I'll state that a sick man feels a little nervous with that Imp +in stock. So they wired for me. It's going to be a fight all right!" + +"Why, who will oppose the bill?" said I. "No one will know its object." + +"Lots of folks will oppose it," said he. "Every association of clergymen +in the country is liable to turn up fighting it tooth and nail. There +are too many small coins now for the interests of the people who depend +on contribution boxes. The Sunday-schools will all be against it. And +the street-car companies won't want the cent subdivided. Then it'll be +hard to convince Joe Cannon; he's always looking for a nigger in the +fence, and there _is_ one here, you understand. But the mill's going to +be coined, all the same!" + +"But," said I, "who will buy the diabolical thing for a mill? If Keawe +and his wife had such trouble selling it for a _centime_, it will be +impossible to dispose of it for a mill, absolutely impossible! It's the +irreducible minimum!" + +"I take it, Sir," said he, with a recurrence of the capital S, "that you +are not engaged in what Senator Lodge in our conference last night +called 'hot finance'?" + +"No," I admitted, for in spite of the orthoëpic error, I understood him. +"No, I am not--exactly." + +"I inferred as much from your remark," said he. "When there's anything +to be done, too large for individual power, or dangerous in its nature, +or, let us say, repugnant to some back-number criminal law, or, as in +this case, dangerous to the individual's soul's salvation, what do you +do? Why you organize a corporation, if you know your business, and turn +the whole thing over to it--and there you are. The Federal Imp Company +will take over the Bottle Imp at the price of one mill. Mr. R. won't own +it any more. His stock will be non-assessable, and all paid up by the +transfer of the Imp, and there can't be any liability on it. He can +retain control of it if he wants to--and you notice he generally wants +to, and can laugh in the Imp's face. We've got all kinds of legal +opinions on _that_. And whoever controls that company will rule the +world. That Imp is the greatest corporate asset that ever existed. All +that's needed is for the president of the corporation to wish for +anything, or the board of directors to pass a resolution, and the thing +asked for comes a-running. The railways, steamships, banks, factories, +lands--everything worth having--are just as good as taken over. + +"Why it's the Universal Merger, the Trust of Trusts! The stock-holders of +the Federal Imp Company will be the ruling class of the world, a +perpetual aristocracy; and the man with fifty-one per cent. of the +stock, or proxies for it, will be Emperor, Czar, Kaiser, Everything!" + +"But this is stupendous!" I exclaimed: for, being a student of political +economy--"economics," they call it now--I at once perceived the +significance of his statements. "This is terrible! It is revolution! It +is the end of democracy! Can't it be stopped?" + +"M'h'm," said he quietly, evidently assenting to my rather excited +statement; and then in reply to my question, he added with another +chuckle, "Stop nothing! Federal injunction won't do it: presidential +veto won't do it: nor calling out the militia: nor anything else. For +the Imp controls the courts, the president, _and_ the army; and J. D. R. +runs the Imp--fifty-one per cent. of the Imp stock! The socialists will +go out campaigning in favor of the government's taking over the Federal +Imp Company, but the Imp controls the government--and the socialists, +too, when you come down to brass nails. Oh, it's a cinch, a timelock, +leadpipe cinch! The stuff's off with everybody else, if we can get this +bill through!" + +I was shocked into something like a cataleptic state, and sat dazed for +a while. Either this or the strong cigar, or something, so affected me +that, as he passed the flask to me for the fourth time, the smoking +compartment seemed to swim about me as the train rolled thunderously +onward through the night. To steady myself I gazed fixedly at my +extraordinary fellow traveler as he sat, his now well-nigh empty bottle +before him, peering into it from time to time as if for some potent +servant of his own. Suddenly he leaned back and laughed more +diabolically than ever. + +"Ha, ha, ha!" he roared. "You ought to have been with us last night in +his library! Aldrich and Depew and some of the others were there, and we +were checking over our list of sure votes in the House. The old man had +the grip, as I said a while ago, and privately, I'll state I think he's +scared stiff; for every fifteen minutes we got a bulletin from his +doctors and messages from him to rush S. F. 41144 to its passage, +regardless, or he'd accept a bid he'd got for the Bottle Imp from Sir +Thomas Lipton, who wants it for some crazy scheme regarding lifting the +Cup. All the while, there stood the Bottle with the Imp in it. When the +grip news was coming in there was nothing doing with his Impship. But +whenever we began discussing his transfer to the Company, the way +business picked up in that bottle was a caution! Why, you could hear +him stabbing the stopper with his tail, and grinding his horns against +the sides of the bottle, and fighting like a weasel in a trap, in such a +rage that the Bottle glowed like a red-hot iron. It was shameful! One of +the lawyers took the horrors, and had to be taken home in a +carriage--threw a conniption fit every block! Ha, ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha! +Oh! it was great stuff!" + +"I don't see--" I began. + +"No? Don't you?" he queried, between the satanic chuckles. "Well, by +George, the Imp saw, all right! He saw that modern financial ingenuity +has found a way to flimflam the devil himself. He saw, Sir (here his +voice assumed an oratorical orotund, and the capital S came in again), +that our corporation lawyers have found a spoon long enough so that we +can safely sup with Satan! Why, let me ask you once, what did the Imp go +into the Bottle deal for in the first place? To get the aforesaid soul. +You can see how he'd feel, now that the price is down to the last notch +but one, to have it sold to a corporation, with no more soul than a +rabbit! If--that--don't beat the--the devil, what does?" + +It all dawned upon me now. The reasonableness of the entire story +appealed to me. I reached for the paper. There it was: "Federal Imp +Company: Charter powers very broad, taking in almost the entire field of +business." I looked at the lobbyist. He had dropped asleep with his head +on the table beside the empty cocktail bottle. Again things seemed to +swim, and I lapsed into a state of something like coma, from which I was +aroused by some one shaking me by the shoulder. + +"Berth's ready, suh," said the porter, and passed to my companion. + +"Hyah's Devil's Gulch Sidin', suh," said he, rousing the slumbering +lobbyist. "You get off, hyah, suh!" + +He passed out of the door with a Chesterfieldian bow and good night. I +passed a sleepless and anxious night. The shock, or something, made me +quite ill. I have not yet recovered my peace of mind. An effort which I +made to place the matter before Doctor Byproduct, the president of the +university of which I am an alumnus, led to such a stern reproof that I +was forced to subside. The doctor said that the story was a libel upon a +great and good man who had partially promised the university an +endowment of ten millions of dollars. I am ready, however, to appear +before any congressional committee which may be appointed to investigate +the matter, or before the Interstate Commerce Commission, and to testify +to the facts as above written, if it costs me my career. + + * * * * * + +"By gad, sir!" shouted the Colonel, breaking a long silence. "That +infernal scheme would work!" + +The party went one by one to their tents. Soon no one but the Colonel +and the Hired Man were left. + +"It sounds to me," remarked the Hired Man oracularly. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +"If these lovely little waterfalls," asserted the Bride, as she gazed +upon the graceful Tower Falls, "could only have a fair chance, they +would win fame--but they are overshadowed here--and they don't seem to +care." + +Undine Falls, the Virginia Cascade, Mystic Falls, Kepler Cascade and +Crystal Falls were in the mind of the Bride; but she might have +mentioned many more, which in their incursion into the Park they had not +seen. + +"This," said the Artist, "is no place to look at, and leave--it is a +region for the artist to live in, to study, to make a part of his life, +and finally, to understand." + +"I reckon," said the Hired Man, "that he'd git homesick f'r the corn +country after a winter or so." + +Some competent judges think Tower Falls the most beautiful cascade on +earth. Perhaps it is. Certainly no fault has ever been found with it as +a picture. The Seven Wonderers spent a day near their pretty camp, +resting, exploring, and renewing their acquaintance with the gorge of +the Yellowstone, and forming that of the Needle, slender as a campanile, +and three hundred feet high, marking the end of the Grand Cañon. +Junction Butte, which they crossed the New Bridge to see, standing where +many roads and rivers meet, seemed to the Bride another monument placed +there by the gods with manifest intention. Why otherwise, she queried, +could not the Needle be anywhere else, just as well as at the lower end +of the Grand Cañon, or Junction Butte, in any other place as easily as +in this cross-roads of highways and waters? + +"Why, indeed?" assented the Groom. "When you find a stone stuck on end +at the corner of a parcel of land, you know that the stone was placed +there to mark the corner, don't you?" + +"Reminds me of the providential way that rivers always run past cities, +just where they are needed," carped the Colonel. + +"It isn't the same thing," said the Bride hotly. "You're getting mean, +Colonel!" + +"Honing for the wrangle of the courts, Bride," said he. "I apologize." + +"Well," said Aconite, "there's a lot of bigger mysteries than them in +these regions. Here's the Petrified Trees, over here in a ravine just +off the road. If we don't see the petrified forest up Amethyst Crick +way, maybe you'd like to look at these an' tell me how trees ever turned +to stone that-a-way." + +There they stood, splintered by the elements, indubitably the stubs of +trees, and unquestionably stone. The Professor began an explanation of +the phenomenon of petrifaction, but nobody paid him any attention. + +"Old Jim Bridger," said Aconite, "discovered the Petrified Forest, up in +the Lamar Valley; an' back in the mountains som'eres he found a place +where the grass, birds an' everything else was petrified. Even a +waterfall was petrified, an' stan's thar luk glass." + +"And the roar of it is petrified, and the songs of the birds, and the +sunlight, and the birds singing their petrified songs in the petrified +air, in which they are suspended for ever, by reason of the petrifaction +of the force of gravity, which otherwise would bring them down!" + +Thus the Poet. Aconite looked at him in surprise. + +"Either you've been here before," said he, "or you've knowed some one +that has been!" + +Time refused to serve for an exploration of the regions northeast of the +New Bridge, though the road invited, and the Artist strongly argued for +the trip. He wanted to see the Fossil Forest, and Amethyst Falls, +Amethyst Creek, Amethyst Mountain and Specimen Ridge. But they turned +their backs on these, on Soda Butte and its wonderful cañon, and that of +the Lamar, on the piscatorial delights of Trout Lake, the mystery of +Death Gulch, and the weirdnesses of the Hoodoo Region. The Bride and +Groom were due to take train from Gardiner, and on to San Francisco. At +Yancey's the Bride invited them to a parting dinner when they should +reach Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, and when Aconite and the Hired Man +failed to recognize themselves as included, the Bride assured them that +the occasion would be ruined if they did not attend--and they promised. + +They reached Yancey's early in the afternoon, but the Bride was so +enraptured by its beauties as a camping place that they made camp for +the night, and drawing from the hat the name of Aconite as the +entertainer for the evening, and the Poet for the dinner at the Hotel, +each found himself feeling like one who has sent his luggage to the +station, and awaits the carriage to bear him from home; or like sailors +who have their dunnage ready for the dock at the end of the voyage. + +Their relationship had grown to something very like intimacy in +something more than half a month. And they were about to go their +several ways, like ships that pass in the night. It was their great +good fortune to have so met and acted that every member of the party +felt the companionship a tolerable thing to contemplate as a +permanency--that should they be in any mysterious--though scarcely +improbable--interposition of glass barrier, or fiery lake, or gulf +filled with deadly vapor, shut into this marvelous region, they could be +good friends and good fellows. And they listened respectfully as +Aconite, under the trees at Yancey's, spun the yarn of his love affair +with an Oberlin College girl, his connection with a Rosebud beef issue +fraud, and the tragedy that resulted from the mixture thereof. + + +THE JILTING OF MR. DRISCOLL + +ACONITE'S SECOND TALE + +This here doctrine of Mr. Witherspoon's about lettin' cattle range wide, +has some arguments of a humane nature back of it. But his openin' of it +up in the instructions f'r runnin' the ten thousand dogies, was the same +kind of a miscue the Pawnees made when they laid fer an' roped the U.P. +flyer--which Mr. Elkins described as a misapplication of sound theory to +new an' unwonted conditions; as the rattler said when he swallered the +lawn hose. Principles has their local habitats the same as live things; +an' nothin' is worse f'r 'em than to turn 'em loose where they don't +know the water-holes an' wind-breaks. Principles that'll lay on fat an' +top the market in Boston, 'll queer the hull game in a country where +playin' it is tangled up with Injuns, gold mines, 'r range-stuff. In the +short-grass country, dogy principles are sure a source of loss, until +they get hardened up so's to git out and rustle with the push. Now, this +Humane-Society-Injun-Relief-Corps form of doin' good--harmless, you'd +say, as we set here by the grub-wagon; but I swear to Godfrey's Gulch, +the worst throw-down I ever got in a social way growed out of a +combination of them two highly proper idees with a Oberlin College gal I +met up to Chamberlain. + +This was the way of it: The "O. M." Mr. Elkins, I mean, of the +J-Up-An'-Down Ranch, was called to Sioux Falls as a witness in a case of +selling conversation-water to the Injuns, an' casually landed a juicy +contract with Uncle Sam f'r supplyin' beef-issue cattle over on the +Rosebud. The Pierre firm of politicians he outbid, havin' things framed +up pretty good, as they thought, on the delivery, at once hops to him +with a proposition to pay him I d'know how much money an' take it off +his hands. Havin' a pongshong f'r doin' business on velvet, the O. M. +snaps 'em up instantaneous, an' comes home to Wolf Nose Crick smilin' +like he'd swallered the canary, an' sends me to Chamberlain to see that +the contract is carried out as fer as proper. + +"Go up, Aconite," he says, "an' remember that while the J-Up-An'-Down +outfit don't feel bound to demand any reforms, its interests must be +protected. Any sort of cattle the Pierre crowd can make look like prime +steers to the inspector, goes with us. But," he goes on, "our names and +not theirs are on the contract. These inspectors," says he, "bein' +picked out on their merits at Washington, to look after the interests of +the gover'ment an' the noble red, it would be unpatriotic if not _Lee's +Majesty_ to cavil at their judgment on steers, especially if it +coincides with that of Senator Whaley's men at Pierre. Therefore, far be +it from us to knock. But be leery that we don't get stuck for +non-performance: which we can't afford. See?" + +It was purty plain to a man who'd matrickelated as night-wrangler, an' +graduated as _it_ on the J-Up-An'-Down, an' I went heart-free an' +conscience clear, seein' my duty perfectly plain. + +Now at Chamberlain was this Oberlin College lady, who had some kind of +an inflamed conscience on the Injun question, an' was dead stuck on dumb +animals an' their rights. She was one of the kind you don't see out +here--blue eyes, you know, yellow hair, the kind of complexion that +don't outlive many hot winds; an' she had lots of pitchers around her, +of young folks in her classes, an' people with mortar-board hats an' +black nighties, 'r striped sweaters. She was irrupting into the Injun +question _via_ Chamberlain. Her thought was that the Injuns was really +livin' correct's fur as they had a chance, an' that we orto copy their +ways, instid of makin' them tag along after our'n. + +"Maybe that's so," says I, "but I've took the Keeley cure twice now, an' +please excuse me!" + +She looked kinder dazed f'r a minute, an' then laffed, an' said +somethin' about the sardonic humor of the frontier. + +I had been asked to give a exhibition of broncho bustin' at the ranch +where she was stayin' an' she was agitatin' herself about the bronks' +feelin's. I told her that it was just friendly rivalry between the +puncher an' the bronk, an' how, out on the ranch, the gentle critters 'd +come up an' hang around by the hour, a-nickerin' f'r some o' the gang to +go out an' bust 'em. + +"It reminds me," she says, "of my brother's pointers begging to go +hunting." + +"Same principle," says I. + +It seemed to ease her mind, an' feelin' as I did toward her, I wouldn't +have her worry f'r anything. Then she found out that I was a graduate of +the high school of Higgsville, Kansas, an' used to know what quadratics +was, an' that my way of emitting the English language was just an +acquired mannerism, like the hock-action of a string-halted hoss, an' +she warmed up to me right smart, both then an' after, never askin' to +see my diploma, an' begun interrogatin' me about the beef-issue, an' +discussin' the Injun question like a lifelong friend. Whereat, I jumped +the game. + +But, for all that, about this time I become subject to attacts of blue +eyes an' yellow hair, accompanied by vertigo, blind-staggers, bots, +ringin' in the ears--like low, confabulatin' talk, kinder interspersed +with little bubbles of lafture--an' a sense o' guilt whenever I done +anything under the canopy of heaven that I was used to doin'. Can yeh +explain that, now? Why this Oberlin proposition should make me feel like +a criminal jest because the pony grunted at the cinchin' o' the saddle, +'r because I lammed him f'r bitin' a piece out o' my thigh at the same +time, goes too deep into mind science f'r Aconite Driscoll. O' course, a +man under them succumstances is supposed to let up on cussin' an' not to +listen to all kinds o' stories; but you understand, here I was, +conscience-struck in a general an' hazy sort of way, mournin' over a +dark an' bloody past, an' thinkin' joyfully of death. It was the +condemnedest case I ever contracted, an' nothin' saved me to be a +comfort to my friends but the distraction of the queer actions of that +inspector. + +I never had given him a thought. Senator Whaley an' his grafters was +supposed to arrange matters with him--an' I'm no corruptionist, anyway. +Of course, the cattle wasn't quite up to export shippin' quality. The +senator's gang had got together a collection of skips an' culls an' +canners that was sure a fraud on the Injuns, who mostly uses the cattle +issued to 'em the way some high-up civilized folks does hand-raised +foxes--as a means of revortin' to predatory savagery, as Miss Ainsley +says. Ainsley was her name--Gladys Ainsley--an' she lived som'eres +around Toledo. The p'int is, that they chase 'em, with wild whoops an' +yips over the undulatin' reservation until they can shoot 'em, an' I +s'pose, sort of imagine, if Injuns have imaginations, that time has +turned back'ard in her flight, an' the buffalo season is on ag'in. +Whereas, these scandalous runts of steers an' old cow stuff was mostly +too weak or too old to put up any sort of a bluff at speed. + +But, under my instructions, if they looked good to the inspector, they +looked good to me; an' bein' sort of absent-minded with gal-stroke, I +rested easy, as the feller said when the cyclone left him on top o' the +church tower. + +The inspector was a new man, an' his queer actions consisted mostly of +his showin' up ten days too soon, an' then drivin' 'r ridin' around the +country lookin' at the stock before delivery. This looked suspicious; +fer we s'posed it was all off but runnin' 'em through the gap once, +twice 'r three times to be counted. Whaley's man comes to me one day, +an' ast me what I thought of it. + +"I'm paid a princely salary," says I, "fer keepin' my thoughts to +myself. This here's no case," I continued, "callin' f'r cerebration on +my part. If thinkin's the game, it's your move. What's Senator Whaley in +politics fer," says I, "if a obscure forty-a-month-an'-found puncher is +to be called on to think on the doin's of a U.S. inspector? What's he in +this fer at all, if we've got to think at this end of the lariat?" + +"He was talkin' about cavvs," said the feller, whose name was Reddy--a +most ungrammatical cuss. "He was a-pokin' round with the contrack, +a-speakin' about cavvs. Wun't you go an' talk to him?" + +"Not me!" says I, f'r the hull business disgusted me, an' my guilt come +back over me shameful, with the eyes an' hair an' things plenteous. +Whaley's man rode off, shakin' his head. + +Next day the inspector hunted me up. + +"Mr. Driscoll?" says he, f'r I'd been keepin' out of his way. + +"Correct," says I. + +"You represent the Elkins' interests in the matter of supplying for the +issue, do you not?" says he. + +"In a kind of a sort of a way," says I, f'r I didn't care to admit too +much till I see what he was up to. "In a kind of a sort of a way, mebbe +I do. Why?" + +"Did you have anything to do," says he, unfoldin' a stiff piece of +paper, "with procuring the cattle now in readiness for delivery?" + +"Hell, no!" I yells, an' then seein' my mistake, I jumped an' added: +"You see, the top stuff f'r the Injun market is perduced up around +Pierre. So we sub-contracted with this Pierre outfit to supply it. It's +their funeral, not ours. It's good stock, ain't it?" + +"I am assured by Senator Whaley's private secretary," says he, "who is a +classmate of mine, that there would be great dissatisfaction among the +Indians, owing to certain tribal traditions and racial peculiarities--" + +"You bet!" says I, f'r he seemed to be gettin' wound up an' cast in it, +"that's the exact situation!" + +"Would be dissatisfaction," he went on, "if cattle of the type which in +the great markets is considered best, were furnished here. And I have +great confidence in his judgment." + +"So've I," I says. "He's one of the judgmentiousest fellers you ever +see." + +"So let that phase of the question pass," says he, "for the present. But +there's a clause in this contract--" + +"Don't let that worry you," says I. "There's claws in all of 'em if you +look close." + +He never cracked a smile, but unfolded it, and went on. + +"Here's a clause," says he, "calling for a hundred and fifty cows with +calves at foot, for the dairy herd, I presume." + +"Cavvs at what?" says I. + +"At foot," says he, p'intin' at a spot along toward the bottom. "Right +there!" + +"It's impossible!" says I. "They don't wear 'em that way." + +He studied over it quite a while, at that, an' I begun to think I'd won +out, but at last he says: "That's the way it reads, an' while I shall +not insist upon any particular relation of juxtaposition in offspring +and dam-" + +"Whope!" says I, "back up an' come ag'in pardner." + +"It seems to be my duty to insist upon the one hundred and fifty cows +and calves. Now the point is, I don't find any such description of +creatures among the--the bunches in seeming readiness for delivery." + +"O!" says I, "that's what's eating yeh, is it? W'l don't worry any more. +The cow kindergarten's furder up the river. We didn't want to put the +tender little devils where they'd be tramped on by them monstrous big +oxen you noticed around the corrals. This caff business is all right, +trust us!" + +Whaley's man was waitin' fer me down at the saloon, an' when I told him +about the cavvs, he shrunk into himself like a collapsed foot-ball, an' +wilted. + +"Hain't yeh got 'em?" says I. + +"Huh!" says he, comin' out of it. "Don't be a dum fool, Aconite. This is +the first I understood of it, an' whoever heared of an inspector readin' +a contrack? And there ain't them many cavvs to be got by that time in +all Dakoty. Le's hit the wires f'r instructions!" + +The telegrams runs something like this: + + To Senator Patrick Whaley, Washington, D. C.: + + Contract calls for a hundred and fifty cows with calves at foot. + What shall I do? + + REDDY. + + * * * * * + + To Reddy Withers, Chamberlain, S. D.: + + Wire received. Calves at what? Explain, collect. + + WHALEY. + + * * * * * + + Hundred and fifty cows and calves. What do you advise? + + REDDY. + + * * * * * + + See inspector. + + WHALEY. + + * * * * * + + Won't do. Inspector wrong. + + REDDY. + + * * * * * + + Fix inspector or get calves. + + WHALEY. + +I'd got about the same kind of a telegram to Mr. Elkins, addin' that the +Whaley crowd was up in the air. I sent it by Western Union to Sturgis, +and then up Wolf Nose Crick by the Belle Fourche and Elsewhere Telephone +Line. The O. M., as usual, cuts the melon with a word. His wire was as +follows. + + Take first train Chicago. Call for letter Smith & Jones Commission + merchants Union Stock Yards. + + ELKINS. + +This was sure an affliction on me, f'r I had fixed up a deal to go with +Miss Ainsley an' her friends on a campin' trip, lastin' up to the day of +the issue. She'd been readin' one of Hamlin Garland's books about a +puncher who'd scooted through the British aristocracy, hittin' only the +high places in a social way, on the strength of a gold prospect an' the +diamond hitch to a mule-pack. She wanted to see the diamond hitch of all +things. There orto be a law ag'inst novel-writin'. I got Reddy to learn +me the diamond hitch so I could make good with Gladys, an' here was this +mysterious caff expedition to the last place in the world, Chicago, +a-yankin' me off by the night train. + +I went over to tell her about it. First, I thought I'd put on the clo'es +I expected to wear to Chicago, a dandy fifteen dollar suit I got in +town. An' then I saw how foolish this would be, an' brushed up my range +clo'es, tied a new silk scarf in my soft roll collar, an' went. Here's +my diagram of the hook-up: Any o' them mortar-board-hat, black-nightie +fellers she had pitchers of, could probably afford fifteen dollar +clay-worsteds; but it was a good gamblin' proposition that none of 'em +could come in at the gate like a personally-conducted cyclone, bring up +a-stannin' from a dead run to a dead stop's if they'd struck a stone +wall, go clear from the bronk as he fetched up an' light like a centaur +before her, with their sombrero in their hand. Don't light, you say? +Wal, I mean as a centaur would light if he took a notion. You'd better +take a hike down to see how the steed's gettin' along, Bill, 'r else +subside about this Greek myth biz. It helps on with this story--not! + +The p'int is, that gals and fellers both like variety. To me, the "y" in +her name, the floss in her hair, the kind of quivery lowness in her +voice, the rustle of her dresses as she walked, the way she looked like +the pitchers in the magazines an' talked like the stories in 'em, all +corroborated to throw the hooks into me. An' I s'pose the +nater's-nobleman gag went likewise with her. Subsekent happenin's--but I +must hold that back. + +We sot in the hammock that night--the only time Aconite Driscoll ever +was right up against the real thing in ladies' goods--an' she read me a +piece about a Count Gibson a-shooting his lady-love's slanderers so full +o' holes at a turnament that they wouldn't hold hazel-brush. They was +one verse she hesitated over, an' skipped. + +I ast her if she thought she--as a supposed case--could live out in this +dried-up-an'-blowed-away country; an' she said the matter had really +never been placed before her in any such a way as to call for a decision +on her part. Purty smooth, that! Then she read another piece that wound +up with "Love is best!" from the same book, an' forgot to take her hand +away when I sneaked up on it, an'--Gosh! talk about happiness: we never +git anything o' quite that kind out here! I never knowed how I got to +the train, 'r anything else ontil we was a-crossin' the Mississippi at +North McGregor. Here the caff question ag'in unveiled its heejus front, +to be mulled over till I reached the cowman's harbor in Chicago, the +Exchange Building at the Yards, an' found Jim Elkins' instructions +awaitin' me. They read: + + "DEAR ACONITE: + + "The Chicago stockyards are the nation's doorstep for bovine + foundlings. New-born calves are a drug on the market there, owing + to abuses in the shipping business which we won't just now take + time to discuss, to say nothing about curing 'em. What is done with + 'em is a mystery which may be solved some day; but that they perish + in some miserable way is certain. Two carloads of them must perish + on the Rosebud instead of in Packingtown--in the Sioux soup + kettles, instead of the rendering tanks, if you can keep them alive + to reach Chamberlain--and I have great confidence in your ability + to perform this task imposed upon you by the carelessness of + Senator Whaley's men either at Washington or at the range. I have + heard that one or two raw eggs per day per calf will preserve them, + and it looks reasonable. Smith and Jones will have them ready + loaded for you for the next fast freight west. I hope you'll enjoy + your trip!" + +Well, you may have listened to the plaintive beller of a single caff at +weanin' time, 'r perhaps to the symferny that emanates from the pen of +three 'r four. Furder'n this the experience of most don't go. Hence, I +don't hope to give yeh any idee of the sound that eckered over northern +Illinois from them two cars o' motherless waifs. The cry of the orphan +smote the air in a kind of endless chain o' noise that at two blocks off +sounded like a chorus of steam calliopes practicin' holts at about +middle C. Nothin' like it had ever been heared of or done in Chicago, +an' stockmen, an' reporters, an' sight-seers swarmed around wantin' to +know what I was a-goin' to do with the foundlin's--an' I wa'nt in any +position to be interviewed, with the Chicago papers due in Chamberlain +before I was. I'd 'ave had a dozen scraps if it hadn't been f'r the +fear of bein' arrested. But with the beef issue comin' on a-pacin', I +had to pass up luxuries involvin' delay. I sot in the caboose, an object +of the prurient curiosity of the train-crew ontil we got to Elgin 'r +som'eres out there, where I contracted eight cases of eggs an' one of +nervous prostration. + +Here it was I begun ministering to the wants of my travelin' orphan +asylum. They was from four hours to as many days old when the accident +of birth put 'em under my fosterin' care. I knowed that it was all +poppy-cock givin' dairy 'r breedin' herds to them Injuns, an' that these +would do as well f'r their uses, 'sif they had real mothers instid o' +one as false as I felt. But to look upon 'em as they appeared in the +cars, would 'ave give that consciencious but onsophisticated inspector +the jimjams. Part of 'em was layin' down, an' the rest trampin' over +'em, an' every one swellin' the chorus o' blats that told o' hunger an' +unhappiness. I took a basket of eggs an' went in among 'em, feelin' like +a animal trainer in a circus parade as the Reubens gethered around the +train, an' business houses closed f'r the show. I waited till the train +pulled out, an' begun my career as nurse-maid-in-gineral. + +"How cruel!" said the Bride. + +"Thanks," said Aconite. "It shore was!" + +Ever try to feed a young caff? Ever notice how they faint with hunger +before you begin, an' all at once develop the strength of a hoss when +you stand over 'em an' try to hold their fool noses in the pail? Ever +see a caff that couldn't stand alone, run gaily off with a +two-hundred-an'-fifty-pound farmer, poisin' a drippin' pail on his nose, +an' his countenance a geyser of milk? Well, then you can form some faint +idee of the practical difficulty of inducin' a caff, all innercent o' +the world an' its way o' takin' sustenance, to suck a raw egg. But +nothin' but actual experience can impart any remote approach to a notion +o' what it means to incorporate the fruit o' the nest with the bossy +while bumpin' over the track of a northern Iowa railroad in a freight +car, movin' at twenty-five miles an hour. I used up two cases of eggs +before I was sure of havin' alleviated one pang of hunger, such was the +scorn my kindly offers was rejected with. The result was astoundin'. +Them cars swept through the country, their decks slippery with yaller +gore, an' their lee scuppers runnin' bank-full, as the sailors say, with +Tom-an'-Jerry an' egg shampoo. An' all the time went on that symferny +of blats, risin' an' fallin' on the prairie breeze as we rolled from +town to town, a thing to be gazed at an' listened to an' never forgot; +to be side-tracked outside city limits f'r fear of the Board of Health +and the S. P. C. A., an' me ostrichized by the very brakey in the +caboose as bein' unfit f'r publication, an' forced to buy a mackintosh +to wrap myself in before they'd let me lay down on their old seats to +sleep. An' when my visions revorted back to the Oberlin people, I +couldn't dream o' that yaller hair even, without its seemin' to float +out, an' out, an' out into a sea of soft-boiled, in which her an' me was +strugglin', to the howlin' of a tearin' tempest of blats. + +"And next when Aconite he rides," remarked the Poet, "may I be there to +see!" + + * * * * * + +At last we arrived at Chamberlain. An' here's where the head-end +collision of principles comes in, that I mentioned a while ago. Here's +where Aconite Driscoll, who for days had been givin' a mother's care to +two hundred cavvs, was condemned f'r cruelty; an' when he'd been +strainin' every nerve an' disturbin' the egg market to keep from bustin' +a set of concealed claws in a gover'ment contract, he was banished as +an eggcessory to the crime of bilkin' poor Lo. This tradegy happens out +west o' the river at the Issue House. + +Reddy had a string of wagons with hog-racks onto 'em waitin' in the +switch-yards when we whistled in, an' the way we yanked them infants off +the cars and trundled 'em over the pontoon bridge, an' hit the trail f'r +the Issue House, was a high-class piece o' teamin'. We powdered across +the country like the first batch of sooners at a reservation openin'. +Out on the prairie was Reddy an' his punchers, slowly dribblin' the last +of his steers into the delivery, too anxious f'r me an' the cavvs to be +ashamed of their emaciation. Out behind a butte, he had concealed a +bunch of cow-stuff he'd deppytized as mothers _pro tem_ to my waifs. The +right way t've done, o' course, would've been to incorporated the two +bunches in a unassumin' way at a remoter place, an' drove 'em gently in +as much like cattle o' the same family circles as yeh could make 'em +look. But they wan't time. The end-gates was jerked out, an' the wagons +ongently emptied like upsettin' a sleigh comin' home from spellin' +school. Most all the orphans could an' did walk, an' I was so tickled at +this testimonial to the egg-cure f'r youthful weakness, that we had 'em +half way to the place where the knives o' their owners-elect was a +waitin' 'em when I looked around an' seen Miss Ainsley, an' the +Chamberlain lady she was a-stayin' with, standin' where they must 'a' +seen the way we mussed the cavvs hair up in gettin' of 'em on the +ground. + +Gladys' eyes was a-blazin', an' they was a red spot in each cheek. She +seemed sort o' pressin' forwards, like she wanted to mix it up, an' her +lady friend was tryin' to head her off. I saw she didn't recognize me, +an' I didn't thirst f'r recognition. I knew that love ain't so blind as +she's been advertised, an' that I wouldn't never, no, never, be a +nater's nobleman no more if she ever tumbled to the fact that the human +omelette runnin' this caff business was A. Driscoll. It was only a case +of sweet-gal-graduate palpitation o' the heart anyhow, an' needed the +bronzed cheek, the droopin' mustache, the range clo'es, the deadly gun, +the diamond hitch, and the centaur biz to keep it up to its wonted palp. + +An' what was it that was offered to the gaze o' this romantic piece o' +calicker? Try to rearlize the truth in all its heejusness. Here was the +aforementioned Driscoll arrayed in what was once an A1 fifteen-dollar +suit of clay-worsteds, a good biled shirt, an' a new celluloid collar. +But how changed from what had been but three short days ago the +cinnersure of the eye of every sure-thing or conman on South Halsted +Street? Seventy-five per cent. of eight cases of eggs had went billerin' +over him. The shells of the same clung like barnacles to his apparel. +His curlin' locks was matted an' mucilaged like he'd made a premature +getaway from some liberal-minded shampooer; an' from under his beetlin' +brows that looked like birds' nests from which broods had just hatched, +glared eyes with vi'lence an' crime in every glance. Verily, Aconite was +a beaut! An' here, a-comin' down upon him like the angel o' the Lord on +the Assyrian host, come a starchy, lacey, filmy, ribbiny gal, that had +onst let him hold her hand, by gum! her eyes burnin' with vengeance, an' +that kinder corn-shucky rustlin' that emanated mysterious from her dress +as she walked, a drawin' nearder an' nearder every breath. + +"Gladys! Gladys!" says her lady friend. An' as Gladys slowed up, she +says, lower: "I wouldn't interfere in this if I were you, dear!" + +"I must!" says Gladys. "It's my duty! I can't permit dumb animals to be +treated so without a protest. It is civic cowardice not to do +disagreeable things for principle. I wish to speak to the man in +charge, please!" + +I kep' minglin' with the herd, not carin' to have disagreeable things +done to me for principle, but she cuts me out, an' says, says she, "Do +you know that there's a law against cruelty to dumb animals?" + +"They ain't dumb," says I, trying to change my voice, an' officin' up to +Reddy to shove 'em along to their fate while I held the foe in play. +"When you've associated with these cute little cusses as long an' +intermately as I have, ma'am, you'll know that they have a language an' +an ellerquence all their own, that takes 'em out of the pervisions o' +that law you speak of, an'--" + +Here's where I overplays my hand, an' lets her get onto the genuyne +tones of my voice. I ortn't to done this, f'r she'd heared it at close +range. An' to make a dead cinch out of a good gamblin' proposition, I +looked her in the eyes. It was all off in a breath. She give a sort of +gasp as if somethin' cold had hit her, an' went petrified, sort o' slow +like. + +"Oh!" says she, turnin' her head to her friend. "I understand now what +it was your husband was laughing about, and his odious jokes about +fooling the inspector; and the bearing of the article he showed us in +the Chicago paper! O, Mr. Driscoll, you to be so cruel; and to impose +these poor motherless creatures upon those ignorant Indians, who are +depending upon their living and becoming the nucleus of their pastoral +industry; and the first step to a higher civilization! I don't wonder +that you look guilty, or try--" + +"I don't!" says I, f'r I didn't, as fer as the stock was concerned. +"It's these here eight cases of eggs that make me look so. It's a matter +o' clo's. An' the reds'll never raise cattle," says I, "or anything but +trouble, in God's world. An' if these cavvs had as many mothers as a +Mormon kid," I went on, "they'd be no better f'r stew!" + +"Mr. Driscoll," says she, "don't ever speak to me again. I shall expose +this matter to the inspector!" + +I tried to lift my hat, but it was stuck to my hair; an' the sight of me +pullin' desperately at my own head had some effect on her, f'r she flees +to her friend, actin' queer, but whuther laffin' 'r cryin' I couldn't +say, an' I don't s'pose she could. It's immaterial anyway, the main +p'int bein' that her friend's husband, a friend of the senator's, +persuaded her from havin' us all pinched, when she found that Reddy'd +beat her to it with the cavvs, the last one of which was expirin' under +the squaws' hatchets as she hove in sight of the issue, an' the +soup-kittles was all a-steamin. It reely was too late to do anything, I +guess. + +That night I slep' in Oacoma jail. You naturally gravitate that way when +fate has ground you about so fine, an' you begin to drift with the +blizzard. I could 'a' stood the throw-down, but to be throwed down in a +heap with eggs an' dirty clo'es, was too much. I took that suit an' made +a bundle of it, an' out on the pontoon bridge I poked it into the +Missouri with a pole. They're usin' the water to settle coffee with, I'm +told, as fur down as Saint Joe, to this day--'s good as the whites of +eggs, the cooks say. Then, havin' wired my resignation to Elkins, +feelin' that the world held no vocation f'r me but the whoop-er-up +business, I returned to the west side of the river as the only place +suited to my talons, an' went forth to expel the eggs an' tender +memories from my system with wetness. I broke jail in the mornin' but in +a week I come to myself ag'in on the same ol' cot in the same +prehistoric calaboose, an' Mr. Elkins was keepin' the flies off me with +one o' them brushes made of a fringed newspaper tacked to a stick. + +"I've come," says he, "to take you home, Aconite." + +"All right," says I, "but can you fix it up with the authorities?" + +"I'm just going over to get your discharge," replies he. "They seem +quite willing to part with you, now that they discover that none of your +victims have anything deeper than flesh wounds. I've give bonds not to +let you have your guns this side of the Stanley County line. I'll be +back in half-an-hour with the horses." + +An' here's where I had a narrow escape. I wouldn't have faced her, the +girl, you know, f'r no money; but as Jim went away, right at the door I +seen through a little winder a shimmerin' of white and blue. It was her, +herself! She must have met Jim before, f'r I heared her speak his name +an' mine. He seemed to be perlitely arguin' with her; an' then she went +away with him. I breathed easier to see her go; an' then set down an' +cried like a baby. A feller'll do that easy, when he's been on a tear, +you know. + +Jim an' I rode all that day sayin' never a word. But when we'd turned +in that night I mentioned the matter. + +"Mr. Elkins," says I, "she sure has got it in f'r me pretty strong, to +foller me to jail to jump on me!" + +"Aconite," says he, "I'll not deceive you. She has. Forget it!" + + * * * * * + +"Good night, Aconite," said the Bride. "I forgive you--and I think I +know just how that girl felt toward you!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +The Bride's luggage came down from Gardiner, that she might be arrayed +in her purple and fine linen--and silks, satins, ribbons, laces and +fallals--for the dinner. And then her heart failed her; and she took +counsel of the Groom. + +"Wear 'em!" said he. And she did. She floated into their banquet room in +a costume that would have been the envy of every woman in the room if +the function had been at one of the mansions along the Sheridan Road or +the Lake Shore Drive, instead of at the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel. +Aconite gasped, wrenched for a moment at his new silk neckerchief of the +sort whose local color had won for him the Bride and Groom as fares, and +bowed as he backed into a corner, where the Hired Man joined him. But +after the Groom, the Artist and the Poet had made their appearance in +their outing suits, and the Colonel in nothing more formal than a black +frock, they gradually recovered, and were soon in the group which hung +about the Bride paying homage to those twin gods of all our adoration, +Beauty and Millinery. From soup to nuts they discussed their adventures, +and re-trod their marvelous road. As the Bride rose to withdraw when the +coffee and cigars were served, there was a loud adverse vivâ voce vote. +The Bride must stay; she had stayed at the camp-fire, and she should not +leave them in the banquet hall. So it was an unbroken circle that +listened to the last of the Yellowstone Nights' tales, as it fell from +the Poet's lips. The story was suggested, as most of its predecessors +had been, by the events of the day. They had seen antelope and elk and +deer as they drove in from Yancey's, and had talked of hunting +adventures and accidents. The Poet began by speaking of the way in which +men are sometimes the hunters, sometimes the hunted--quoting the lines +from Hiawatha, + + "The fiery eyes of Pauguk, + Glare upon him in the darkness." + +"Pauguk," said he, "is Death. And I will tell you the true story of how +a man stalked Pauguk through the Minnesota woods." + + +THE STALKING OF PAUGUK + +THE POET'S SECOND STORY + + +This story has been told elsewhere, and has been blamed for its lack of +a moral. People seem to expect one so to put to the rack the facts in +the case that they will shriek out some well-tried message. Some have +behaved as if they thought the moral here, but faulty. Colonel Loree of +the Solar Selling Company, however, thinks the affair rich in the +_hic-fabula-docet_ element. So does Williamson, soliciting-agent for the +Mid-Continent Life; and so--emphatically so--does the Mid-Continent +itself. Trudeau, the "breed" guide, has had so few years in which to +turn it over in his slow-moving mind as he has lain rolled in his +blankets while the snow sifted through the moaning pines, that he has +not made up his mind. As for Foster Van Dorn and Gwendolyn, their +opinions--but the story itself is not long. + +Williamson says that when he left Van Dorn's office with the +application, he was as near walking on air as insurance men ever are. +People had been so slow in writing their autographs on the dotted +line--and here was a six-figure application, with a check. These, +accompanied by the wide-eyed Williamson, exploded into the mid-December +calm of the agency headquarters like the news of a Tonopah strike in the +poker-playing ennui of a Poverty Flat. + +"What's that, Williamson?" ejaculated the cashier. "Five hundred--you +don't mean _thousand_?" + +"Why, confound you," sneered Williamson, "look at that application!" + +"Let me see it!" panted the manager, bursting in. "'Foster G. Van Dorn;' +half a million! Holy cat, Williamson; but this will put you and the +agency in the lead, for--Is he good for it, Williamson?" + +"Why don't you see that _check_?" inquired the lofty solicitor. "I tell +you, fellows, there's always a way to land any man. Why, for a year, +I've--by George! I'm forgetting to send Doctor Watson over to make the +examination. Van Dorn's going on a hunting trip, and we've got to +hustle, and get him nailed before he goes!" + +The manager stood by Williamson during the telephoning. "Who is Mr. Van +Dorn?" he asked, as the agent hung up the receiver. + +"President of the Kosmos Chemical Company," replied Williamson. +"Son-in-law and enemy of Colonel Loree of the Solar Selling Company, you +know," said the cashier. + +"Oh-h-h-h!" replied the manager, as if recalling something. "I remember +the 'romance' in the newspapers; but I thought the young fellow was +poor. Fixed it up with the colonel, I suppose--the usual thing." + +"Not on your life!" replied Williamson. "Loree would kill him if he +dared--old aristocrat, you know; but Van Dorn's too smart for him. You +remember he was an engineer for Loree's company, and met the daughter on +some inspection trip. Love at first sight--moonlight on the +mountains--runaway and wedding on the sly--father's curse--turned out to +starve, and all that." + +"I remember that," answered the manager; "but it doesn't seem to lead +logically up to this application." + +"Well," went on Williamson, "Van Dorn turns up with a company formed to +work a deposit of the sal-ammoniac, or asphaltum, or whatever the stuff +the Solar Company had cornered may be, and began trust-busting. The +colonel swore the new deposit really belonged to his company because Van +Dorn found it while in his employ, and called him all sorts of a +scoundrel. But the young man's gone on, all the same, floating his +company, and flying high." + +"I heard that Loree was sure to ruin him," interposed the cashier. + +"Ruin nothing!" said Williamson. "It was a case of the whale and the +swordfish. Van Dorn's got him licked--why, don't you see that check!" + +"That does look like success," replied the manager. "I hope his +strenuous life hasn't hurt his health--Watson is fussy about hearts and +lungs." + +"That's the least of my troubles," replied Williamson. "Van Dorn's an +athlete, and a first-class risk. There's nothing the matter with Van +Dorn!" + + * * * * * + +And yet, Trudeau the guide, far up in the Minnesota woods, looked at the +young man and wondered if there wasn't something the matter with Van +Dorn. They had come by the old "tote-road" to the deserted lumber-camp +armed and equipped to hunt deer. Most young men in Van Dorn's situation +were keen-eyed, eager for the trail and the chase--at least until tamed +by weariness. But Van Dorn was like a somnambulist. Once Trudeau had +left him behind on the road, and on retracing his steps to find him, had +discovered him standing by the path, gazing at nothing, his lips slowly +moving as if repeating something under his breath--and he had started as +if in fright at Trudeau's hail. He had been careful to give Trudeau his +card, and admonished him to keep it; but he seemed careless of all +opportunities of following up the acquaintance. Most of these city +hunters were anxious to talk; but what troubled Trudeau, was the manner +in which Van Dorn sat by the fire, wrote in a book from time to time, +and gazed into the flames. Now that they had reached the old camp, +Trudeau hoped that actual hunting would bring to his man's eyes the fire +of interest in the thing he had come so far to enjoy. + +"I'll fix up camp," said he. "If you like, you hunt. Big par_tie_ +Chicageau men ove' by lake--keep othe' way." + +"How far to their camp?" asked the fire-gazer. + +"'Bout two mile," answered Trudeau. + +"Chicago men?" queried Van Dorn. "How many?" + +"Mebbe ten," answered Trudeau; "mebbe six. She have car on track down at +depot. Big man--come ev'ry wintaire. Jacques Lacroix guide heem, Colonel +Lorie--big man!" + +"Colonel Loree! From Chicago?" cried Van Dorn. + +"_Oui_, yes!" replied Trudeau. "You know heem?" + +"No," said Van Dorn. + +The man who did not know Loree went to his knapsack and took out a +jacket made of deerskin tanned with the hair on. It was lined with red +flannel. He held it up and looked at it fixedly. Trudeau started as it +met his gaze, and he came up to Van Dorn and pointed to the garment. + +"You wear zat?" asked he. + +"Yes," said the other. "It is a good warm jacket." + +"A man w'at wear deerskin zhaquette," said Trudeau, "in zese wood', in +shoo_ting_ sea_sone_, sartaine go home in wooden ove'coat--sure's hell!" + +"Oh, I guess there's no danger!" said Van Dorn, his lips parting with a +mirthless smile. + +"_Non?_" queried Trudeau. "You ben in zese wood' before?" + +"Oh, yes!" replied Van Dorn. "Lots of times!" + +"Zen you know!" asserted Trudeau. "Zen you are zho_king_ wiz me. Zese +huntaire sink brown cloth coat, gray coat, black coat, anysing zat +move--she sink zem every time a deer. Las' wintaire lots men killed for +deer. Pete St. Cyr's boy kill deer, hang heem in tree, and nex' morning +take heem on back an' tote. A city huntaire see deer-hide wiz hair on +mov_ing_, an him! sof'-nose bullet go thoo deer, thoo Pete St. Cyr's +boy's head! Zat zhaquette damn-fool thing!" + +"It goes either side out," said the hunter. "I can turn it, you know." + +"_I_ turn heem! _I_ turn heem!" said Trudeau, suiting the action to the +word. "Red is bettaire, by gosh--in zese wood'." + +Trudeau watched his companion as he made his laborious way through the +cut-over chaos until he disappeared; but he did not see him pause when +out of sight of camp, and turn toward the lake. + +"I would rather it were any one else," said Van Dorn, as if to something +that walked by his side; "but what difference does it make? Why not let +him finish his work?" + +The sheer difficulty of the country brought back to Van Dorn something +like the forester's alertness. The lust for lumber had ravaged the spiry +forest, and left, inextricably tangled, the wrecks of the noble +trees--forest maidens whose beauty had been their destruction; only +the crooked and ugly having escaped. So deep and complex was the +wreckage that it seemed like the spilikins of a giants' game of +jack-straws--gnarled logs, limbs like _chevaux-de-frise_, saplings and +underbrush growing up through chaos. And spread over and sifted through +all was the snow, as light as down. + +Van Dorn must have told the truth as to his former visits; for he went +on like one used to this terrible maze. Nowhere could he take three +steps straight forward: it was always climbing up, or leaping down, or +going around, or crawling under. Here thick leaves upheld the snow, and +in the dry pine straw on the ground he could hear the forest mice rustle +and scurry. There a field was smoothed over by the snow, as a trap is +hidden by sand, covering débris just high enough to imperil the limbs of +the pedestrian. Yonder was a tamarack swamp too thick to be pierced: and +everywhere it was over and under and up and down, and desperately hard, +for miles and miles, with no place for repose. + +He gazed away over the strange abomination of desolation, blindly +reflecting upon man's way of coming, doing his worst, and passing on +with sated appetite, leaving ruin--as he had done here. He wondered why +that tall tract of virgin pine over at the right had been allowed to +escape, standing against the sky like a black wall, spiked with tall +rampikes. He stared fixedly at the snow, the blue shadows, the black +pines, somnambulistic again. + +To the something that seemed to walk by his side, he spoke of these +things, as if it had been visible. Strange actions, strange thoughts for +the president of the Kosmos Chemical Company, the great antagonist of +Loree of the Solar Selling Company, the David to Loree's Goliath, the +swordfish to the colonel's whale! Think, however, of David, with all the +stones spent against the giant's buckler, and cowering within the lethal +reach of that spear like a weaver's beam; or of the swordfish, with +broken weapon, hunted to the uttermost black depths by the oncoming +silent yawning destruction. And in Van Dorn's case, the enemy was an +avenger as well as a natural foe. + +Poor little Kosmos Chemical Company with its big name, its great +deposits of "a prime commercial necessity"--see prospectus--its +dependence on railways with which Loree was on terms of which Van Dorn +never dreamed, its old and wily foe, skilled to snatch victory from the +jaws of defeat, raging for the loss of his ewe lamb, whom, +notwithstanding his giantship, he had loved for twenty years to Van +Dorn's two, and had dreamed dreams and committed crimes for! Not very +strange after all, perhaps, that the man went on muttering +somnambulistically. They say that one gripped in the lion's mouth is +numb and filled with delusions. + +Suddenly, putting life into the dead scene, a bounding form came into +view past a thicket--a noble buck with many-pointed antlers, moving with +great deliberate leaps among the giants' spilikins. The delicate, glassy +hoofs, the slender, brittle limbs and horns, fragile as china, seemed +courting destruction in those terrific entanglements. Yet the beautiful +animal, as if by some magic levitation, rose lightly from a perilous +crevice between two logs, turned smoothly in mid-leap, struck the four +pipe-stem limbs into the only safe landing-place, shot thence with +arrowy spring between two bayonet-like branches to another foothold, and +so on and on, every rod of progress a miracle. + +He stopped, snuffing the air. Instinctively the hunter leveled his +rifle; and then came into view the buck's retinue, two does, one large +and matronly, the other a last summer's fawn. The sleep-walker's eyes +softened, the rifle swung downward from the point-blank aim, snapping a +twig in its descent, and with swift, mighty bounds, the deer vanished, +putting a clump of bushes between themselves and the foe with unerring +strategy. + +"Toward the lake," said the hunter. "I'll follow!" + +There came the report of a distant rifle from the direction of the +deer's flight, then another and another. Some one was working a repeater +rapidly. The hunter stopped, took off his deerskin jacket, turned it +hair side out, and like a soldier making for the firing-line, pressed +forward after the deer. + +Trudeau saw his man halt on the edge of the firelight that evening, turn +his jacket, and come weariedly into camp. Trudeau sat and thought that +night, while the other slept heavily. Next morning there was a raging +storm, and the guide was puzzled that the hunter refused to brave its +dangers. It was not sure then that monsieur desired the wooden overcoat? +He told Van Dorn many stories of death in these storms, and watched for +the effect. + +"W'en man is lost in bliz_zaird_," said Trudeau, "ze vidow mus' wait an' +wait, an' mebbe nevaire know if he is vidow or not." + +"It would be better," said the other reflectively, "to have the proof +ample--ample!" + +Trudeau, pondering over this, watched his charge putting names in a book +opposite amounts in figures; but he did not know that here was the lost +fortune of an old aunt, there the savings of a college chum. Van Dorn +looked them over calmly as if it had been a bills-payable sheet to be +paid in the morning. Then the strange pleasure-hunter began writing a +letter to a sweetheart to whom he seemed to be able to say only that he +loved her better than life, that she must try to love his memory, and to +train up the baby to respect his name, that the right thing is not +always easy to discern, that sometimes one has only a choice of evils, +that when a man has made a mess of it which he can straighten out by +stepping off the stage, he might as well do it--and that he had had his +share of happiness since she had been with him anyhow, and was far ahead +of the game! Trudeau could not know what a foolish, silly, tragic letter +it was, this product of insane commercialism. He thought life and the +woods enough, and wondered at the shaking of the man's shoulders, and +was amazed to see the tears dropping through his fingers as he bowed his +head upon his hands--a man with a fifty-dollar sleeping-bag! + +Over at the Loree headquarters there were roaring fires, fresh venison, +a skilful chef, jolly companions, and the perfection of camp-life. The +storm cleared. That strong old hunter, Loree, declaring that his +business was to stalk deer, marched off in the solitary quest which is +the only thing that brings the haunch to the spit in the Minnesota +cut-over forest. He was bristly bearded, keen of eye and vigorous, +handled his gun cannily, and craftily negotiated the fallen and tangled +timbers, his glance sweeping every open vista for game. There was no +time to think of anything but the making of his way, and of the chase. +Troubles and triumphs retired to the outer verge of consciousness. +Primeval problems claimed his thoughts, and the primeval man rose to +meet them. It was in this ancient and effective wise that he had +sharpened his weapons, set his snares, and hunted down Foster Van +Dorn--and left him in the money-jungle, apparently unhurt, but really +smitten to the heart and staggering to his fall. It was the Loree way. +As an old hunter, he knew just where his shaft had struck, and how long +the quarry could endure the hemorrhage. Had he not said that the fellow +should be made to rue the Loree displeasure? + +Like a flash these half-thoughts became no thoughts, as a dark blotch +caught his eye, far off on the snow, beyond a little thicket. + +"What is that?" he said to himself. It is a little hard to say, but the +matter is worth looking into. Just the color of a deer! Just where a +deer would rest! We must work up the wind a little closer, for some men +are so foolish as to wear those duns and browns; but that!--that is a +deer's coat. It won't do to jump him and trust a shot as he goes--those +firs will hide him at the first leap. A long shot at a standing +target--there! He moved! There's not a second to lose! + +A long shot, truly; but that graceful rifle thinks nothing of half a +mile. There are many intervening bushes and saplings; but the +steel-jacketed bullet would kill on the farther side of the thickest +pine, and even a soft-nosed one will cut cleanly to this mark. The +colonel's practised left hand immovably supported the barrel; the +colonel's keen eye through the carefully adjusted sights saw plainly the +blotch of deerskin down the little glade; and the colonel's steady +forefinger confidently pressed the lightly-set trigger. Spat! The +colonel felt the rifleman's delicious certitude that his bullet had +found its mark, threw in another shell, and stood tensely ready to try +the bisecting of the smitten deer's first agonized bound--but the blur +of fur just stirred a little, and slipped down out of sight. + +Panting in the killer's frenzy, Loree struggled over the débris to +reach his game. How oddly the deer had fallen! Heart, or brain, likely; +as it went down like a log. Here was the thicket, and on the other +side--yes, a patch of reddened snow, and the body of--no, not a deer, +but a man, dead, it seemed, clad in a deerskin jacket, a rifle by his +side and in his hand a note-book full of figures, its pages all stained +and crumpled! + +There was a shout in the far distance, but Loree heard it not. He knew +his solitude, and never looked for aid. The white strangeness of the +face of the man he had shot overcame the sense of something familiar in +it; and the colonel, after a moment's scrutiny of it, addressed himself +frantically to the stanching of the blood. A deep groan seemed to +warrant hope; and stooping beneath the body Loree took it up and began +bearing it toward the camp. He had an overwhelming consciousness of the +terrible task before him; but the realization of the human life dashed +out, some home blasted, some infinity of woe, and the bare chance of +rescue rolled sickeningly over him, and he set his teeth and attacked +the task like an incarnate will. + +Logs and boughs and dead-wood held him back; countless obstacles +exhausted him. He felt like crying out in agony as he realized that his +age was telling against him. He felt strangely tender at this meeting +with death in its simple and more merciful form. He clenched his teeth +hard, felt his heart swell as if to burst, his lungs labor in agonized +heavings--and when Trudeau the guide overtook him, he found him a +frenzied man, covered with dark streaks and splashes of blood, +unconquerably hurling upon his impossible task his last reserves of +strength, with all that iron resolution with which he had beaten down +resistance in his long battle with a relentless world. + +"For God's sake," he panted hoarsely, "help me get him to camp! We've +got a doctor there!" + + * * * * * + +"How's the colonel?" said the doctor, when he had done all he could for +the colonel's victim. + +"Knocked all to pieces," answered a young man. "Wants to know if we've +found out who the man is." + +Colonel Loree was interrogating Trudeau; surprised that he did not know +the name of the wounded man. + +"_Non_," answered Trudeau, "she tell me his name, and give me _carte_, +but I lose heem an' forget firs' day. Remember wood', remember trail, +remember face ver' well--but name; she I forget. She write lettaire an' +cry, an' all time put fig' in book. Zis is heem; mebbe _she_ tell name!" + +The smutched names were strange to the colonel; but on another page +there were some inexplicable references to Kosmos Chemical affairs; and +on the cover were dim initials that looked like "F. V. D." + +"I know something is wrong," went on Trudeau; "for I tell her it ben +_très dangéreuse_ to wear deerskin zhaquette in zese wood' in shoo_ting_ +sea_sone_. I turn zhaquette red out. She go toward your camp. I watch. I +see her turn heem hair out. I tell you, messieurs, zat man want to go +home in wooden ove'coat. She have hungaire to die." + +"Here's a letter we found in his pocket," said the young man. "Look at +it, Colonel." + +The colonel looked, saw his daughter's name, remembered the familiar +look in the white, agonized, pitiful face; and saw the whole situation +as by some baleful flash-light. + +"Good God! Good God!" he cried. "It's Van Dorn! Get things ready to +carry him in his bed to the car--quick, Johnson! And get to the wire as +soon as you can. Have Tibbals bring Gwennie--Mrs. Van Dorn--to Duluth. +Wire the hospital there! You know what's needed--look after things +right, Johnson, for I think--I think--I'm going mad, old man!" + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Van Dorn ran into her father's arms in the hospital anteroom. +Through mazes of frenzied anxiety she felt an epoch open in her life +with that embrace from the father who had put her out of his life for +ever, as they thought. + +"Dear, dear papa!" she whispered, "let me go to Foster, quick!" + +"Not just now, Gwennie, little girl," said he, patting her shoulder. +"He's asleep. Did you bring the--the baby?" + +"No, no! I thought--but Foster?" cried Gwendolyn. "Will he--will he--" + +"He'll live, by Heaven!" cried the colonel. "I fired one fool for +hinting that he wouldn't; and now they're all sure he'll pull through. +Why, he's got to live, Gwennie!" + +The colonel reached for his handkerchief, much hampered by Gwendolyn's +arms. + +"And when he's well," said he, "I want your help--in a business way. I'm +too old to fight a man like Foster. He's got me down, Gwennie--beaten me +to earth. If he won't come in with me, it's all up with the Solar. He's +a fine fellow, Gwen--I--like him, you know--but he don't know how hard +he hits. You'll help your old dad, won't you, Gwennie?" + +To this point had the appeal of concrete, piteous need brought Colonel +Loree, the ferocious, whose heart had never once softened while he did +so much more cruel things than the mere shooting of Van Dorn. It broke +Gwendolyn's heart afresh. + +"Oh, don't papa!" she cried. "I can't sta-stand it! He sha'n't use his +strength against you! I'll be on your side. He's generous, papa--he +wanted to name baby Loree--and, oh, I must go to him, papa! I can't +wait!" + + * * * * * + +The cigars had burned out, and the coffee cups and their saucers were +messy with ashes. The Hired Man nodded in his chair. Aconite was slowly +formulating some comment on the Poet's story--when the Bride rose. + +"You've all been awfully nice to me," said she, "and I feel almost weepy +when I think of never seeing you again. So I am not going to think of +it. I shall hope to meet you," said she to Aconite, "in the stories +which my friends bring back from the Park--for I'm going to tell them +all to come, and to ride with you, and learn about Old Jim Bridger. And +you, Mr. Bill, I shall see when I pass through the corn country +sometime--I feel sure of it. You will be plowing corn, and I shall wave +my hand from the car window as you look up at the speeding train. I +shall always see a friend in every plowman now. And you, sir, I shall +watch for in the Poet's Corner of the Hall of Fame; and you in the +Artist's alcove. And, Colonel, I know I shall see you sometime, for +every one passes through Omaha sooner or later. Good-by, and God bless +you, every one! We have made a continued story of our trip--for that, +thanks to all, and now let us close the book, after writing + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Yellowstone Nights, by Herbert Quick + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40587 *** |