The Project Gutenberg eBook ofDesert DustThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Desert DustAuthor: Edwin L. SabinIllustrator: J. Clinton ShepherdRelease date: December 7, 2008 [eBook #27437]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Roger Frank and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DESERT DUST ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Desert DustAuthor: Edwin L. SabinIllustrator: J. Clinton ShepherdRelease date: December 7, 2008 [eBook #27437]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Roger Frank and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Title: Desert Dust
Author: Edwin L. SabinIllustrator: J. Clinton Shepherd
Author: Edwin L. Sabin
Illustrator: J. Clinton Shepherd
Release date: December 7, 2008 [eBook #27437]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Roger Frank and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DESERT DUST ***
Like some land of Heart’s Desire (see page22).
Like some land of Heart’s Desire (see page22).
DESERT DUSTByEDWIN L. SABINAuthor of “How Are You Feeling Now?” etc.ILLUSTRATED BYJ. CLINTON SHEPHERD
DESERT DUST
By
EDWIN L. SABIN
Author of “How Are You Feeling Now?” etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY
J. CLINTON SHEPHERD
PHILADELPHIAGEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANYPUBLISHERS
PHILADELPHIA
GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1921, byFrank A. Munsey CompanyCopyright, 1922, byGeorge W. Jacobs & CompanyAll rights reservedPrinted in U. S. A.
Copyright, 1921, by
Frank A. Munsey Company
Copyright, 1922, by
George W. Jacobs & Company
All rights reserved
Printed in U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CONTENTS
ILLUSTRATIONS
ILLUSTRATIONS
9
Desert Dust
Desert Dust
CHAPTER IA PAIR OF BLUE EYES
In the estimate of the affable brakeman (a gentleman wearing sky-blue army pantaloons tucked into cowhide boots, half-buttoned vest, flannel shirt open at the throat, and upon his red hair a flaring-brimmed black slouch hat) we were making a fair average of twenty miles an hour across the greatest country on earth. It was a flat country of far horizons, and for vast stretches peopled mainly, as one might judge from the car windows, by antelope and the equally curious rodents styled prairie dogs.
Yet despite the novelty of such a ride into that unknown new West now being spanned at giant’s strides by the miraculous Pacific Railway, behold me, surfeited with already five days’ steady travel, engrossed chiefly in observing a clear, dainty profile and waiting for the glimpses, time to time, of a pair of exquisite blue eyes.
Merely to indulge myself in feminine beauty, however, I need not have undertaken the expense and fatigue of journeying from Albany on the Hudson10out to Omaha on the plains side of the Missouri River; thence by the Union Pacific Railroad of the new transcontinental line into the Indian country. There were handsome women a-plenty in the East; and of access, also, to a youth of family and parts. I had pictures of the same in my social register. A man does not attain to twenty-five years without having accomplished a few pages of the heart book. Nevertheless all such pages were—or had seemed to be—wholly retrospective now, for here I was, advised by the physicians to “go West,” meaning by this not simply the one-time West of Ohio, or Illinois, or even Iowa, but the remote and genuine West lying beyond the Missouri.
Whereupon, out of desperation that flung the gauntlet down to hope I had taken the bull by the horns in earnest. West should be full dose, at the utmost procurable by modern conveyance.
The Union Pacific announcements acclaimed that this summer of 1868 the rails should cross the Black Hills Mountains of Wyoming to another range of the Rocky Mountains, in Utah; and that by the end of the year one might ride comfortably clear to Salt Lake City. Certainly this was “going West” with a vengeance; but as appeared to me—and to my father and mother and the physicians—somewhere in the expanse of brand new Western country, the plains and mountains, I would find at least the breath of life.11
When I arrived in Omaha the ticket agent was enabled to sell me transportation away to the town of Benton, Wyoming Territory itself, six hundred and ninety miles (he said) west of the Missouri.
Of Benton I had never heard. It was upon no public maps, as yet. But in round figures, seven hundred miles! Practically the distance from Albany to Cincinnati, and itself distant from Albany over two thousand miles! All by rail.
Benton was, he explained, the present end of passenger service, this August. In another month—and he laughed.
“Fact is, while you’re standing here,” he alleged, “I may get orders any moment to sell a longer ticket. The Casements are laying two to three miles of track a day, seven days in the week, and stepping right on the heels of the graders. Last April we were selling only to Cheyenne, rising of five hundred miles. Then in May we began to sell to Laramie, five hundred and seventy-six miles. Last of July we began selling to Benton, a hundred and twenty miles farther. Track’s now probably fifty or more miles west of Benton and there’s liable to be another passenger terminus to-morrow. So it might pay you to wait.”
“No,” I said. “Thank you, but I’ll try Benton. I can go on from there as I think best. Could you recommend local accommodations?”
He stared, through the bars of the little window behind which lay a six-chambered revolver.12
“Could I do what, sir?”
“Recommend a hotel, at Benton where I’m going. There is a hotel, I suppose?”
“Good Lord!” he exclaimed testily. “In a city of three thousand people? A hotel? A dozen of ’em, but I don’t know their names. What do you expect to find in Benton? You’re from the East, I take it. Going out on spec’, or pleasure, or health?”
“I have been advised to try Western air for a change,” I answered. “I am looking for some place that is high, and dry.”
“Consumption, eh?” he shrewdly remarked. “High and dry; that’s it. Oh, yes; you’ll find Benton high enough, and toler’bly dry. You bet! And nobody dies natural, at Benton, they say. Here’s your ticket. Thank you. And the change. Next, please.”
It did not take me long to gather the change remaining from seventy dollars greenbacks swapped for six hundred and ninety miles of travel at ten cents a mile. I hastily stepped aside. A subtle fragrance and a rustle warned me that I was obstructing a representative of the fair sex. So did the smirk and smile of the ticket agent.
“Your pardon, madam,” I proffered, lifting my hat—agreeably dazzled while thus performing.
She acknowledged the tribute with a faint blush. While pocketing my change and stowing away my ticket I had opportunity to survey her further.13
“Benton,” she said briefly, to the agent.
We were bound for the same point, then. Ye gods, but she was a little beauty: a perfect blonde, of the petite and fully formed type, with regular features inclined to the clean-cut Grecian, a piquant mouth deliciously bowed, two eyes of the deepest blue veiled by long lashes, and a mass of glinting golden hair upon which perched a ravishing little bonnet. The natural ensemble was enhanced by her costume, all of black, from the closely fitting bodice to the rustling crinoline beneath which there peeped out tiny shoes. I had opportunity also to note the jet pendant in the shelly ear toward me, and the flashing rings upon the fingers of her hands, ungloved in order to sort out the money from her reticule.
Sooth to say, I might not stand there gawking. Once, by a demure sideways glance, she betrayed knowledge of my presence. Her own transaction was all matter-of-fact, as if engaging passage to Benton of Wyoming Territory contained no novelty for her. Could she by any chance live there—a woman dressed like she was, as much à la mode as if she walked Broadway in New York? Omaha itself had astonished me with the display upon its streets; and now if Benton, far out in the wilderness, should prove another surprise——! Indeed, the Western world was not so raw, after all. Strange to say, as soon as one crossed the Missouri River one began to sense romance, and to discover it.14
As seemed to me, the ticket agent would have detained her, in defiance of the waiting line; but she finished her business shortly, with shorter replies to his idle remarks; and I turned away under pretense of examining some placards upon the wall advertising “Platte Valley lands” for sale. I had curiosity to see which way she wended. Then as she tripped for the door, casting eyes never right nor left, and still fumbling at her reticule, a coin slipped from her fingers and rolled, by good fortune, across the floor.
I was after it instantly; caught it, and with best bow presented it.
“Permit me, madam.”
She took it.
“Thank you, sir.”
For a moment she paused to restore it to its company; and I grasped the occasion.
“I beg your pardon. You are going to Benton, of Wyoming Territory?”
Her eyes met mine so completely as well-nigh to daze me with their glory. There was a quizzical uplift in her frank, arch smile.
“I am, sir. To Benton City, of Wyoming Territory.”
“You are acquainted there?” I ventured.
“Yes, sir. I am acquainted there. And you are from Benton?”
“Oh, no,” I assured. “I am from New York State.” As if anybody might not have known.15“But I have just purchased my ticket to Benton, and——” I stammered, “I have made bold to wonder if you would not have the goodness to tell me something of the place—as to accommodations, and all that. You don’t by any chance happen to live there, do you?”
“And why not, sir, may I ask?” she challenged.
I floundered before her query direct, and her bewildering eyes and lips—all tantalizing.
“I didn’t know—I had no idea—Wyoming Territory has been mentioned in the newspapers as largely Indian country——”
“At Benton we are only six days behind New York fashions,” she smiled. “You have not been out over the railroad, then, I suspect. Not to North Platte? Nor to Cheyenne?”
“I have never been west of Cincinnati before.”
“You have surely been reading of the railroad? The Pacific Railway between the East and California?”
“Yes, indeed. In fact, a friend of mine, named Stephen Clark, nephew of the Honorable Thurlow Weed formerly of Albany, was killed a year ago by your Indians while surveying west of the Black Hills. And of course there have been accounts in the New York papers.”
“You are not on survey service? Or possibly, yes?”
“No, madam.”16
“A pleasure trip to end of track?”
She evidently was curious, but I was getting accustomed to questions into private matters. That was the universal license, out here.
“The pleasure of finding health,” I laughed. “I have been advised to seek a location high and dry.”
“Oh!” She dimpled adorably. “I congratulate you on your choice. You will make no mistake, then, in trying Benton. I can promise you that it is high and reasonably dry. And as for accommodations—so far as I have ever heard anybody is accommodated there with whatever he may wish.” She darted a glance at me; stepped aside as if to leave.
“I am to understand that it is a city?” I pleaded.
“Benton? Why, certainly. All the world is flowing to Benton. We gained three thousand people in two weeks—much to the sorrow of poor old Cheyenne and Laramie. No doubt there are five thousand people there now, and all busy. Yes, a young man will find his opportunities in Benton. I think your choice will please you. Money is plentiful, and so are the chances to spend it.” She bestowed upon me another sparkling glance. “And since we are both going to Benton I will say ’Au revoir,’ sir.” She left me quivering.
“You do live there?” I besought, after; and received a nod of the golden head as she entered the sacred Ladies’ Waiting Room.
Until the train should be made up I might only17stroll, restless and strangely buoyed, with that vision of an entrancing fellow traveler filling my eyes. Summoned in due time by the clamor “Passengers for the Pacific Railway! All aboard, going west on the Union Pacific!” here amidst the platform hurly-burly of men, women, children and bundles I had the satisfaction to sight the black-clad figure of My Lady of the Blue Eyes; hastening, like the rest, but not unattended—for a brakeman bore her valise and the conductor her parasol. The scurrying crowd gallantly parted before her. It as promptly closed upon her wake; try as I might I was utterly unable to keep in her course.
Obviously, the train was to be well occupied. Carried on willy-nilly I mounted the first steps at hand; elbowed on down the aisle until I managed to squirm aside into a vacant seat. The remaining half was at once effectually filled by a large, stout, red-faced woman who formed the base of a pyramid of boxes and parcels.
My neighbor, who blocked all egress, was going to North Platte, three hundred miles westward, I speedily found out. And she almost as speedily learned that I was going to Benton.
She stared, round-eyed.
“I reckon you’re a gambler, young man,” she accused.
“No, madam. Do I look like a gambler?”
“You can’t tell by looks, young man,” she asserted,18still suspicious, “Maybe you’re on spec’, then, in some other way.”
“I am seeking health in the West, is all, where the climate is high and dry.”
“My Gawd!” she blurted. “High and dry! You’re goin’ to the right place. For all I hear tell, Benton is high enough and dry enough. Are your eye-teeth peeled, young man?”
“My eye-teeth?” I repeated. “I hope so, madam. Are eye-teeth necessary in Benton?”
“Peeled, and with hair on ’em, young man,” she assured. “I guess you’re a pilgrim, ain’t you? I see a leetle green in your eye. No, you ain’t a tin-horn. You’re some mother’s boy, jest gettin’ away from the trough. My sakes! Sick, too, eh? Weak lungs, ain’t it? Now you tell me: Why you goin’ to Benton?”
There was an inviting kindness in her query. Plainly she had a good heart, large in proportion with her other bulk.
“It’s the farthest point west that I can reach by railroad, and everybody I have talked with has recommended it as high and dry.”
“So it is,” she nodded; and chuckled fatly. “But laws sakes, you don’t need to go that fur. You can as well stop off at North Platte, or Sidney or Cheyenne. They’ll sculp you sure at Benton, unless you watch out mighty sharp.”
“How so, may I ask?”19
“You’re certainly green,” she apprised. “Benton’s roarin’—and I know what that means. Didn’t North Platte roar? I seen it at its beginnin’s. My old man and me, we were there from the fust, when it started in as the railroad terminal. My sakes, but them were times! What with the gamblin’ and the shootin’ and the drinkin’ and the high-cockalorums night and day, ’twasn’t no place for innocence. Easy come, easy go, that was the word. I don’t say but what times were good, though. My old man contracted government freight, and I run an eatin’ house for the railroaders, so we made money. Then when the railroad moved terminus, the wust of the crowd moved, too, and us others who stayed turned North Platte into a strictly moral town. But land sakes! North Platte in its roarin’ days wasn’t no place for a young man like you. Neither was Julesburg, or Sidney, or Cheyenne, when they was terminuses. And I hear tell Benton is wuss’n all rolled into one. Young man, now listen: You stop off at North Platte, Nebrasky. It’s healthy and it’s moral, and it’s goin’ to make Omyha look like a shinplaster. I’ll watch after you. Maybe I can get you a job in my man’s store. You’ve j’ined some church, I reckon? Now if you’re a Baptist——?”
But since I had crossed the Missouri something had entered into my blood which rendered me obstinate against such allurements. For her North Platte, “strictly moral,” and the guardianship of her broad20motherly wing I had no ardent feeling. I was set upon Benton; foolishly, fatuously set. And in after days—soon to arrive—I bitterly regretted that I had not yielded to her wholesome, honest counsel.
Nevertheless this was true, at present:
“But I have already purchased my ticket to Benton,” I objected. “I understand that I shall find the proper climate there, and suitable accommodations. And if I don’t like it I can move elsewhere. Possibly to Salt Lake City, or Denver.”
She snorted.
“In among them Mormons? My Gawd, young man! Where they live in conkibinage—several women to one man, like a buffler herd or other beasts of the field? I guess your mother never heard you talk like that. Denver—well, Denver mightn’t be bad, though I do hear tell that folks nigh starve to death there, what with the Injuns and the snow. Denver ain’t on no railroad, either. If you want health, and to grow up with a strictly moral community, you throw in with North Platte of Nebrasky, the great and growin’ city of the Plains. I reckon you’ve heard of North Platte, even where you come from. You take my word for it, and exchange your ticket.”
It struck me here that the good woman might not be unbiased in her fondness for North Platte. To extol the present and future of these Western towns seemed a fixed habit. During my brief stay in Omaha—yes, on the way across Illinois and Iowa21from Chicago, I had encountered this peculiar trait. Iowa was rife with aspiring if embryonic metropolises. Now in Nebraska, Columbus was destined to be the new national capital and the center of population for the United States; Fremont was lauded as one of the great railroad junctions of the world; and North Platte, three hundred miles out into the plains, was proclaimed as the rival of Omaha, and “strictly moral.”
“I thank you,” I replied. “But since I’ve started for Benton I think I’ll go on. And if I don’t like it or it doesn’t agree with me you may see me in North Platte after all.”
She grunted.
“You can find me at the Bon Ton restaurant. If you get in broke, I’ll take care of you.”
With that she settled herself comfortably. In remarkably short order she was asleep and snoring.
22CHAPTER IITO BETTER ACQUAINTANCE
The train had started amidst clangor of bell and the shouts of good-bye and good-luck from the crowd upon the station platform. We had rolled out through train yards occupied to the fullest by car shops, round house, piled-up freight depot, stacks of ties and iron, and tracks covered with freight cars loaded high to rails, ties, baled hay, all manner and means of supplies designed, I imagined, for the building operations far in the West.
Soon we had left this busy Train Town behind, and were entering the open country. The landscape was pleasing, but the real sights probably lay ahead; so I turned from my window to examine my traveling quarters.
The coach—a new one, built in the company’s shops and decidedly upon a par with the very best coaches of the Eastern roads—was jammed; every seat taken. I did not see My Lady of the Blue Eyes, nor her equal, but almost the whole gamut of society was represented: Farmers, merchants, a few soldiers, plainsmen in boots and flannel shirt-sleeves and long hair and large hats, with revolvers hanging from the23racks above them or from the seat ends; one or two white-faced gentry in broadcloth and patent-leather shoes—who I fancied might be gamblers such as now and then plied their trade upon the Hudson River boats; two Indians in blankets; Eastern tourists, akin to myself; women and children of country type; and so forth. What chiefly caught my eye were the carbines racked against the ends of the coach, for protection in case of Indians or highwaymen, no doubt. I observed bottles being passed from hand to hand, and tilted en route. The amount and frequency of the whiskey for consumption in this country were astonishing.
My friend snored peacefully. Near noon we halted for dinner at the town of Fremont, some fifty miles out. She awakened at the general stir, and when I squeezed by her she immediately fished for a packet of lunch. We had thirty minutes at Fremont—ample time in which to discuss a very excellent meal of antelope steaks, prairie fowl, fried potatoes and hot biscuits. There was promise of buffalo meat farther on, possibly at the next meal station, Grand Island.
The time was sufficient, also, to give me another glimpse of My Lady of the Blue Eyes, who appeared to have been awarded the place of honor between the conductor and the brakeman, at table. She bestowed upon me a subtle glance of recognition—with a smile and a slight bow in one; but I failed to find her upon the station platform after the meal. That I should24obtain other opportunities I did not doubt. Benton was yet thirty hours’ travel.
All that afternoon we rocked along up the Platte Valley, with the Platte River—a broad but shallow stream—constantly upon our left. My seat companion evidently had exhausted her repertoire, for she slumbered at ease, gradually sinking into a shapeless mass, her flowered bonnet askew. Several other passengers also were sleeping; due, in part, to the whiskey bottles. The car was thinning out, I noted, and I might bid in advance for the chance of obtaining a new location in a certain car ahead.
The scenery through the car window had merged into a monotony accentuated by great spaces. As far as Fremont the country along the railroad had been well settled with farms and unfenced cultivated fields. Now we had issued into the untrammeled prairies, here and there humanized by an isolated shack or a lonely traveler by horse or wagon, but in the main a vast sun-baked dead sea of gentle, silent undulations extending, brownish, clear to the horizons. The only refreshing sights were the Platte River, flowing blue and yellow among sand-bars and islands, and the side streams that we passed. Close at hand the principal tokens of life were the little flag stations, and the tremendous freight trains side-tracked to give us the right of way. The widely separated hamlets where we impatiently stopped were the oases in the desert.
In the sunset we halted at the supper station, named25Grand Island. My seat neighbor finished her lunch box, and I returned well fortified by another excellent meal at the not exorbitant price, one dollar and a quarter. There had been buffalo meat—a poor apology, to my notion, for good beef. Antelope steak, on the contrary, was of far finer flavor than the best mutton.
At Grand Island a number of wretched native Indians drew my attention, for the time being, from quest of My Lady of the Blue Eyes. However, she was still escorted by the conductor, who in his brass buttons and officious air began to irritate me. Such a persistent squire of dames rather overstepped the duties of his position. Confound the fellow! He surely would come to the end of his run and his rope before we went much farther.
“Now, young man, if you get shet of your foolishness and decide to try North Platte instead of some fly-by-night town on west,” my seat companion addressed, “you jest follow me when I leave. We get to North Platte after plumb dark, and you hang onto my skirts right up town, till I land you in a good place. For if you don’t, you’re liable to be skinned alive.”
“If I decide upon North Platte I certainly will take advantage of your kindness,” I evaded. Forsooth, she had a mind to kidnap me!
“Now you’re talkin’ sensible,” she approved. “My sakes alive! Benton!” And she sniffed.26“Why, in Benton they’ll snatch you bald-headed ’fore you’ve been there an hour.”
She composed herself for another nap.
“If that pesky brakeman don’t remember to wake me, you give me a poke with your elbow. I wouldn’t be carried beyond North Platte for love or money.”
She gurgled, she snored. The sunset was fading from pink to gold—a gold like somebody’s hair; and from gold to lemon which tinted all the prairie and made it beautiful. Pursuing the sunset we steadily rumbled westward through the immensity of unbroken space.
The brakeman came in, lighting the coal-oil lamps. Outside, the twilight had deepened into dusk. Numerous passengers were making ready for bed: the men by removing their boots and shoes and coats and galluses and stretching out; the women by loosening their stays, with significant clicks and sighs, and laying their heads upon adjacent shoulders or drooping against seat ends. Babies cried, and were hushed. Final night-caps were taken, from the prevalent bottles.
The brakeman, returning, paused and inquired right and left on his way through. He leaned to me.
“You for North Platte?”
“No, sir. Benton, Wyoming Territory.”
“Then you’d better move up to the car ahead. This car stops at North Platte.”
“What time do we reach North Platte?”27
“Two-thirty in the morning. If you don’t want to be waked up, you’d better change now. You’ll find a seat.”
At that I gladly followed him out. He indicated a half-empty seat.
“This gentleman gets off a bit farther on; then you’ll have the seat to yourself.”
The arrangement was satisfactory, albeit the “gentleman” with whom I shared appeared, to nose and eyes, rather well soused, as they say; but fortune had favored me—across the aisle, only a couple of seats beyond, I glimpsed the top of a golden head, securely low and barricaded in by luggage.
Without regrets I abandoned my former seat-mate to her disappointment when she waked at North Platte. This car was the place for me, set apart by the salient presence of one person among all the others. That, however, is apt to differentiate city from city, and even land from land.
Eventually I, also, slept—at first by fits and starts concomitant with railway travel by night, then more soundly when the “gentleman,” my comrade in adventure, had been hauled out and deposited elsewhere. I fully awakened only at daylight.
The train was rumbling as before. The lamps had been extinguished—the coach atmosphere was heavy with oil smell and the exhalations of human beings in all stages of deshabille. But the golden head was there, about as when last sighted.28
Now it stirred, and erected a little. I felt the unseemliness of sitting and waiting for her to make her toilet, so I hastily staggered to achieve my own by aid of the water tank, tin basin, roller towel and small looking-glass at the rear—substituting my personal comb and brush for the pair hanging there by cords.
The coach was the last in the train. I stepped out upon the platform, for fresh air.
We were traversing the real plains of the Great American Desert, I judged. The prairie grasses had shortened to brown stubble interspersed with bare sandy soil rising here and there into low hills. It was a country without north, south, east, west, save as denoted by the sun, broadly launching his first beams of the day. Behind us the single track of double rails stretched straight away as if clear to the Missouri. The dull blare of the car wheels was the only token of life, excepting the long-eared rabbits scampering with erratic high jumps, and the prairie dogs sitting bolt upright in the sunshine among their hillocked burrows. Of any town there was no sign. We had cut loose from company.
Then we thundered by a freight train, loaded with still more ties and iron, standing upon a siding guarded by the idling trainmen and by an operator’s shack. Smoke was welling from the chimney of the shack—and that domestic touch gave me a sense of homesickness. Yet I would not have been home, even29for breakfast. This wide realm of nowhere fascinated with the unknown.
The train and shack flattened into the landscape. A bevy of antelope flashed white tails at us as they scudded away. Two motionless figures, horseback, whom I took to be wild Indians, surveyed us from a distant sand-hill. Across the river there appeared a fungus of low buildings, almost indistinguishable, with a glimmer of canvas-topped wagons fringing it. That was the old emigrant road.
While I was thus orienting myself in lonesome but not entirely hopeless fashion the car door opened and closed. I turned my head. The Lady of the Blue Eyes had joined me. As fresh as the morning she was.
“Oh! You? I beg your pardon, sir.” She apologized, but I felt that the diffidence was more politic than sincere.
“You are heartily welcome, madam,” I assured. “There is air enough for us both.”
“The car is suffocating,” she said. “However, the worst is over. We shall not have to spend another such a night. You are still for Benton?”
“By all means.” And I bowed to her. “We are fellow-travelers to the end, I believe.”
“Yes?” She scanned me. “But I do not like that word: the end. It is not a popular word, in the West. Certainly not at Benton. For instance——”
We tore by another freight waiting upon a siding30located amidst a wide débris of tin cans, scattered sheet-iron, stark mud-and-stone chimneys, and barren spots, resembling the ruins from fire and quake.
“There is Julesburg.”
“A town?” I gasped.
“The end.” She smiled. “The only inhabitants now are in the station-house and the graveyard.”
“And the others? Where are they?”
“Farther west. Many of them in Benton.”
“Indeed? Or in North Platte!” I bantered.
“North Platte!” She laughed merrily. “Dear me, don’t mention North Platte—not in the same breath with Benton, or even Cheyenne. A town of hayseeds and dollar-a-day clerks whose height of sport is to go fishing in the Platte! A young man like you would die of ennui in North Platte. Julesburg was a good town while it lasted. Peoplelived, there; and moved on because they wished to keep alive. What is life, anyway, but a constant shuffle of the cards? Oh, I should have laughed to see you in North Platte.” And laugh she did. “You might as well be dead underground as buried in one of those smug seven-Sabbaths-a-week places.”
Her free speech accorded ill with what I had been accustomed to in womankind; and yet became her sparkling eyes and general dash.
“To be dead is past the joking, madam,” I reminded.
“Certainly. To be dead is the end. In Benton we31live while we live, and don’t mention the end. So I took exception to your gallantry.” She glanced behind her, through the door window into the car. “Will you,” she asked hastily, “join me in a little appetizer, as they say? You will find it a superior cognac—and we breakfast shortly, at Sidney.”
From a pocket of her skirt she had extracted a small silver flask, stoppered with a tiny screw cup. Her face swam before me, in my astonishment.
“I rarely drink liquor, madam,” I stammered.
“Nor I. But when traveling—you know. And in high and—dry Benton liquor is quite a necessity. You will discover that, I am sure. You will not decline to taste with a lady? Let us drink to better acquaintance, in Benton.”
“With all my heart, madam,” I blurted.
She poured, while swaying to the motion of the train; passed the cup to me with a brightly challenging smile.
“Ladies first. That is the custom, is it not?” I queried.
“But I am hostess, sir. I do the honors. Pray do you your duty.”
“To our better acquaintance, then, madam,” I accepted. “In Benton.”
The cognac swept down my throat like a stab of hot oil. She poured for herself.
“A vôtre santé, monsieur—and continued beginnings, no ends.” She daintily tossed it off.32
We had consummated our pledges just in time. The brakeman issued, stumping noisily and bringing discord into my heaven of blue and gold and comfortable warmth.
“Howdy, lady and gent? Breakfast in twenty minutes.” He grinned affably at her; yes, with a trace of familiarity. “Sleep well, madam?”
“Passably, thank you.” Her voice held a certain element of calm interrogation as if to ask how far he intended to push acquaintance. “We’re nearing Sidney, you say? Then I bid you gentlemen good-morning.”
With a darting glance at him and a parting smile for me she passed inside. The brakeman leaned for an instant’s look ahead, up the track, and lingered.
“Friend of yours, is she?”
“I met her at Omaha, is all,” I stiffly informed.
“Considerable of a dame, eh?” He eyed me. “You’re booked for Benton, too?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Never been there, myself. She’s another hell-roarer, they say.”
“Sir!” I remonstrated.
“Oh, the town, the town,” he enlightened. “I’m saying nothing against it, for that matter—nor against her, either. They’re both O. K.”
“You are acquainted with the lady, yourself?”
“Her? Sure. I know about everybody along the33line between Platte and Cheyenne. Been running on this division ever since it opened.”
“She lives in Benton, though, I understand,” I proffered.
“Why, yes; sure she does. Moved there from Cheyenne.” He looked at me queerly. “Naturally. Ain’t that so?”
“Probably it is,” I admitted. “I see no reason to doubt your word.”
“Yep. Followed her man. A heap of people moved from Cheyenne to Benton, by way of Laramie.”
“She is married, then?”
“Far as I know. Anyway, she’s not single, by a long shot.” And he laughed. “But, Lord, that cuts no great figger. People here don’t stand on ceremony in those matters. Everything’s aboveboard. Hands on the table until time to draw—then draw quick.”
His language was a little too bluff for me.
“Her husband is in business, no doubt?”
“Business?” He stared unblinking. “I see.” He laid a finger alongside his nose, and winked wisely. “You bet yuh! And good business. Yes, siree. Are you on?”
“Am I on?” I repeated. “On what? The train?”
“Oh, on your way.”
“To Benton; certainly.”34
“Do you see any green in my eye, friend?” he demanded.
“I do not.”
“Or in the moon, maybe?”
“No, nor in the moon,” I retorted. “But what is all this about?”
“I’ll be damned!” he roundly vouchsafed. And—“You’ve been having a quiet little smile with her, eh?” He sniffed suspiciously. “A few swigs of that’ll make a pioneer of you quicker’n alkali. She’s favoring you—eh? Now if she tells you of a system, take my advice and quit while your hair’s long.”
“My hair is my own fashion, sir,” I rebuked. “And the lady is not for discussion between gentlemen, particularly as my acquaintance with her is only casual. I don’t understand your remarks, but if they are insinuations I shall have to ask you to drop the subject.”
“Tut, tut!” he grinned. “No offense intended, Mister Pilgrim. Well, you’re all right. We can’t be young more than once, and if the lady takes you in tow in Benton you’ll have the world by the tail as long as it holds. She moves with the top-notchers; she’s a knowing little piece—no offense. Her and me are good enough friends. There’s no brace game in that deal. I only aim to give you a steer. Savvy?” And he winked. “You’re out to see the elephant, yourself.”
“I am seeking health, is all,” I explained. “My35physician had advised a place in the Far West, high and dry; and Benton is recommended.”
His response was identical with others preceding.
“High and dry? By golly, then Benton’s the ticket. It’s sure high, and sure dry. You bet yuh! High and dry and roaring.”
“Why ’roaring’?” I demanded at last. The word had been puzzling me.
“Up and coming. Pop goes the weasel, at Benton. Benton? Lord love you! They say it’s got Cheyenne and Laramie backed up a tree, the best days they ever seen. When you step off at Benton step lively and keep an eye in the back of your head. There’s money to be made at Benton, by the wise ones. Watch out for ropers and if you get onto a system, play it. There ain’t any limit to money or suckers.”
“I may not qualify as to money,” I informed. “But I trust that I am no sucker.”
“No green in the eye, eh?” he approved. “Anyhow, you have a good lead if your friend in black cottons to you.” Again he winked. “You’re not a bad-looking young feller.” He leaned over the side steps, and gazed ahead. “Sidney in sight. Be there directly. We’re hitting twenty miles and better through the greatest country on earth. The engineer smells breakfast.”