"Pardner, I sure am glad to see you—put 'er there again! How are you feeling, anyhow? Look mighty tough and wiry, I do say; Here, Bill!" Willock raised his voice to a powerful shout, "Bill! come and see what's blowed in with the tumbleweed and tickle-grass. A sure-enough man, that's what I call him, and me to fight if any dispute's made to the title, according."
The tall bronzed man who was leading his horse along the road entering the mountain horseshoe, smiled with a touch of gravity in the light of his gray eyes. Willock found his chin more resolute, his glance more assured and penetrating, while his step, firm and alert, told of dauntless purpose. He was no longer the wandering cowboy content with a bed on the ground wherever chance might find him at night, but a mature man who had taken root in the soil of his own acres. Only twenty-five or six, his features were still touched with the last lingering mobility of youth; but the set of his mouth and the gleam of his eyes hinted at years of battle against storms, droughts and loneliness. He was already a veteran of the prairie, despite his youth.
"Everything looks very natural!" murmured Wilfred Compton, gazing about on the seamed walls of granite in whose crevices the bright cedars mocked at winter's threatening hand.
"Yes, mountains is lots more natural than humans. They just sets there serene and indifferent not caring whether you likes their looks or not, and they let 'er blow and let 'er snow, it's all one to them. I reckon when we've been dead so long that nobody could raise a dispute as to whether we'd ever lived or not, that there same boulder what they calls Rocking Stone will still be a-making up its mind whether to roll down into the valley or stay where it was born. Wilfred, if you knowed how glad I am to see you again, you'd be sort of scared, I reckon, thinking you'd fell amongst cannibals. Wonder where that aged trapper is?" He shouted more lustily, and a bristling white head suddenly appeared on the summit of Turtle Hill.
"Great Scott!" yelled Bill Atkins, glaring down upon the approaching figure, "if it ain't Wilfred Compton again! Come on, come on, I was never as glad to see anybody in all my life!"
The young man looked at Willock somewhat dubiously. "He's very much altered, then, since I met him last. I'm afraid he has a gun hidden up there among the rocks."
"Oh, nux, nux," retorted Willock. "He's a-speaking fair. Come along!"
As they ascended the winding road, Wilfred vividly recalled the day when, from the same elevation, he had watched Lahoma buried in her day-dreams. A sudden turn brought the cove into view. Lahoma was not to be seen, but there was the cabin, the dugout and the three cedar trees in whose shade he had made the discovery that he could not regard Lahoma as a little girl. It seemed that the cabin door trembled—was Lahoma's hand upon the latch? And when she opened the door, what expression would flash upon that face he remembered so well? Would she be as glad as Willock and Bill Atkins, when she recognized him? Even one half as glad?
He sighed deeply—it was not to be expected. She had known him only an hour; since then, many settlers had invaded the country about the Granite Mountains, a city had sprung up, not far away—other towns were peeping through the sand, and blooming from canvas to wood and brick. The air tingled with the electric currents of new life and intense competition.
"Did Lahoma marry?" he asked abruptly as all three descended to the lower level of the cove.
"She never did, yet," replied Bill dryly. "Young man, I'm powerful glad to see you. It's rather chilly out here. I'll take your horse and we'll gather in the dugout and talk over what's happened since we last met. Brick, don't you begin on anything interesting till I come."
"You give me that horse," retorted Brick. "You're too aged a man to be messing with horses. You'll get a fall one of these days that'll lay you flat. You'll never knit them bones together, if you do; you ain't vital enough."
Bill clung grimly to the bridle, muttering something that showed no lack of vitality in his vocabulary.
"He won't let me take no care of him," complained Brick, as he conducted Wilfred to the dugout.
Wilfred cast a longing glance toward the cabin, and again he thought Lahoma's parlor door quivered. He even stopped in the path; but Willock went on, unconscious, and he was obliged to follow.
"It's a strange thing," remarked Brick, as he descended the hard dirt steps, "how Lahoma has acted on me. I mean, living with her these past twelve years, and all the rest of the world shut out, except Bill. Could I of been told before I saved little Lahoma from the highwaymen that I'd ever worry over an old coon like Bill Atkins, as to whether he broke his neck or not, I'd 'a' laughed, for I'd 'a' had to. But it sure does gall me to have him exposing himself as he does. I never wanted Bill to come here, but he just come, like a stray cat. First thing I knowed, he was a-purring at the fireside—well, not exactly a-purring, nuther, but sort of mewing, and looking ready to scratch. He just took up with us and now it's like always being scared to close a door for fear of catching his tail in the jamb—I'm talking in a figger. Come in, pard—this used to be Lahoma's boudoir before we built that cabin for her. See the carpet? Don't tell ME you're a-walking on it, and not noticing! See that little stove? I brung it clear across the mountains from a deserted wagon, when I was young. Two legs is gone and it's squat-bellied, and smokes if the wind gives it a chance; but I wouldn't trade it for a new one. Set on this bench. I recollect as well as if it 'us yesterday, Lahoma a-setting there with her legs untouching of the floor, learning 'A' and 'B' and asking thousands of questions and getting herself civilized. I couldn't do a finished job, but Bill took her by the hand later, then a Mrs. Featherby, what moved over in the west mountain, added stores from New England and travels in Europe. When the settlers come, she gleaned all they knowed, always a-rising and a-looking out for new country. That's a wonderful girl!" he added with conviction.
When Bill came, they sat about the stove, the light from the famous window bringing out with clear distinctness Brick's huge form and bristling beard, Bill's thin figure surmounted by its shock of white hair, and Wilfred's handsome grave face and splendidly developed physique. It was so warm below the ground that the fire in the stove was maintained at the lowest state possible; but when the western light quickly vanished from the window, the glowing coals gave homely cheer to the crude room.
In answer to their questioner, Wilfred told of his experiences on his quarter-section: how he had broken the prairie land, put in his crops, watched them wither away in the terrible dry months, roughed it through the winters, tried again, fought through another drought, staked all on the next spring's planting, raised a half-crop, paid off his chattel mortgage, tried again,—succeeded.
"I've stayed right with it," he said gravely, looking from one to the other as they smoked in silence, their eyes on his animated face. "Of course, they required me to stay on the land only during certain months, every year. But I stayed with it all the time; and I studied it; and when I failed, as I did year after year, I failed each time in a different way, because I learned my lesson. And when I'd walled off the cause of each failure, one by one, seemed like there opened before me a broad clear way that led right into the goal I'd been seeking from the first day. Then I closed out all my deals, and looked and saw that everything was trim and ready for winter—and got my horse and started for Greer County."
"And glad we are!" cried Bill Atkins. "I hope you can stay a long time."
"That depends ... Lahoma is well, I suppose?"
"The picture of health—when she left," Brick declared admiringly, "and the prettiest little gal this side of the angels. When the early sunlight peeps over the mountain and laughs at the cove that's sulking from thinking it's about to be left out in the day's doings—that's like Lahoma's smile. And when you get down sick as I done once from causes incidental to being made of flesh and blood, and she come and laid her hand on my burning forehead, her touch always made me think of an angel's wing, somehow, although I ain't never set up to be religious, and I think of such things as little as may be—except when Bill draws me to the subject from seeing him so puny, at times."
"Lahoma's not here?" Wilfred asked anxiously.
"Not now, nor for some time," answered Brick.
"I wish," interposed Bill glumly, "that when you're going to talk about me, Brick, you'd begin with Bill and not be dragging me in at the tail-end of what concerns other people. I reckon, Wilfred, you just traveled here to take a look at the country where you used to herd cattle?"
"That wasn't my reason. Principally, I wanted to see Lahoma; and incidentally, my brother."
"Your brother? HE ain't in these parts, is he?"
"No," ruefully, "but I expected him to be. When I left home to turn cow-puncher, I didn't tell anybody where I'd gone; but just before I left for Oklahoma to turn farmer, I wrote to my brother. And about a month ago, seeing things clearing up before me, I asked him to meet me here at Tent City—he's interested in new towns; he's employed by a rich man to plant hardware-stores, and I thought he might find an opening here. He came on, and was here several weeks with a party of sightseers from Chicago; but he left with them about a week ago."
Willock sat suddenly erect. "Couldn't have been that Sellimer crowd, I reckon, from Chicago?"
"Yes—Mrs. Sellimer and her daughter, and some of their friends."
Willock whistled loudly. "And that up-and-down looking chap in the gold nose-glasses was your brother?"
"Never thought of that," Bill exclaimed, "although he had your name—he looked so different! But now that you've laid aside your cowboy rigging, I guess you could sit in his class, down at the bottom of it."
Willock was uneasy. "I was told," he observed, "and I took the trouble to get datty on the subject, that them Sellimers—the mother and daughter, and the herd they drift with—is of the highest pedigree Chicago can produce. It sort of jolts me to find out that anybody we know is kin to the bunch!"
Wilfred laughed without bitterness. "Don't let my kinship to brother Edgerton disturb your ideal. We're so different that we parted without saying good-by, and although I had the weakness to imagine we might patch up old differences if we could meet here in the desert, I suppose we'd have fallen out in a day or two—we're so unlike. And as to Miss Sellimer—Annabel Sellimer—she is the girl whose letters I was carrying about with me when I first saw you. She refused me because I was as poor as herself; so you see, the whole bunch is out of my class."
"That's good," Willock's face cleared up. "Mind you, I ain't saying that as for me and Bill, we'd wouldn't rather sit with you in a dugout than with them in a palace on Lake Michigan. But it's all a matter of getting Lahoma out into the big world, and you gave me a terrible jolt, scaring me that after all we'd made a mistake, and they was just of your plain every-day cloth."
Wilfred moved uneasily. "Has Lahoma made their acquaintance, then?"
"It looks like it, don't it?"
"What looks like it?" Wilfred asked with sudden sharpness.
"Why, her going off, with 'em to spend the winter in high life."
"That's why I was so glad to see you," Bill explained, "her being gone, and us so lonesome. That's why I'd like to have you stay with us a long time—until she comes back, if it suits you."
"But I thought.... But I came here to see Lahoma," cried Wilfred, unable to conceal his disappointment. "I thought as I came up the road that I saw her half-opening the cabin-door."
"That was Red Feather taking a peep at you. He's the Indian that brought Lahoma to Willock, as a child. He comes, about once a year, to see us, but this time he was a little too late for Lahoma. Yes, she's gone East—they're all putting up in Kansas City just now; on their way to Chicago."
"Son," said Willock, puffing steadily at his pipe, "why did you want to see Lahoma?"
"Well—you know she was just a child when I was here before, but she's hovered before my mind a good deal—I've been too busy to seek the acquaintance of strangers—just want to keep the few I know." He blew a rueful breath. "You can't think how all my air-castles have fallen about my ears! I wanted to see Lahoma! Yes, I wanted to see how she'd turned out. I have a good farm, now, not very far from Oklahoma City and— Well, being alone there, year after year, a fellow gets to imagining a great many things—" He stopped abruptly.
"That's so," Willock agreed sympathetically. "I ain't a-saying that if Lahoma'd been like me and Bill, she mightn't of liked farming with you first-class. But she was born as an associate of high men and women, not cows and chickens. It's the big world for her, and that's where she's gone. She's with real folks. Be Mr. Edgerton Compton your brother, or be he not, you can't imagine him setting down with us sociable in this dugout. You're right about his being different. And the fact that Miss Sellimer turned you down is encouraging, too. It shows you couldn't run in her course; you didn't have the speed. I guess we ain't made no mistake after ail."
There was silence, broken presently, by Bill—"I'm glad you've come, sure!"
Presently the door opened, and the Indian chief glided into the apartment with a grunt of salutation. He spread his blanket in a corner, and sat down, turning a stolid face to the fire.
"Don't pay no attention to him," remarked Willock, as if speaking of some wild animal. "He comes and goes, and isn't troublesome if you feeds and sleeps him, and don't try to lay your hand on him."
Bill Atkins rose. "ButIalways light up when he comes," he remarked, reaching stiffly for a lantern which in due time glimmered from the partition wall. "Are you hungry, Wilfred? We never feed till late; it gives us something to sleep on. I lie awake pretty constantly all night, anyhow, and when I eat late, my stomach sorter keeps me company."
Wilfred declared that he was not in the least hungry.
"I'm afraid you're disappointed, son," observed Willock, filling his pipe anew.
Wilfred turned to him with a frank smile. "Brick—it's just awful! It's what comes from depending on something you've no right to consider a sure thing. I never thought of this cove without Lahoma in it; didn't seem like it could be so empty.... How did she get acquainted with Annabel?—and with my brother?"
"It come about, son. I see at once that the bunch of 'em was from the big world. I come home and told Bill, 'Them's the people to tow Lahoma out into life,' says I. So they invited her to spend the winter with them, the Sellimers did, and show her city doings."
"Yes—but how did it come about?"
"Nothing more natural. I goes over to their tent and I tells them of the curiosities and good points of these mountains, and gets 'em to come on a sort of picnic to explore. So here they comes, and they gets scattered, what with Bill and Lahoma and me taking different ways—they liked Lahoma first time they see her, as a matter of course. And so, that Miss Sellimer, she gets separated from all the rest, and I shows her a dandy hiding-place where nobody couldn't find her, and I shows her what a good joke it would be to pretend to be lost. So I leaves her there to go to tell her crowd she dares 'em to find her. Are you listening?"
"Of course."
"Well, while she was setting there waiting to be searched for, of a sudden a great big Injun in a blanket and feathers and red paint jumps down beside her and grabs her and picks her up, and about as quick as she knew anything, she was gagged and bound and being bore along through the air. I reckon it was a terrible moment for her. Now there is a crevice in the top of the mountain that nobody don't never explore, because it's just a crack in the rock that ain't to be climbed out of without a ladder. So the Injun carries her there, and lets her down with a rope that it seems he must of had handy somewheres, and he puts out; and there she is, in a holler in the mountain, not able to move or cry out no more than if she'd been captured by a regular highwayman."
Wilfred stared at Willock in complete bewilderment. Willock chuckled.
"There was a terrible time!" remarked Bill.
"Dark was a-coming on before the party got plumb scared," Willock continued, "but they brushed and combed that mountain looking for the poor lost lady, and as I tells 'em she's a-hiding a-purpose, they think it a pore sort of joke till midnight catches 'em mighty serious. Torches is carried here and there and everywhere, but no use. You would think that the next day the crowd would naturally look down in that crevice, but that's because I've posted you up on where she is. There's lots of other crevices, and no reason as they can see why Miss Sellimer should take the trouble to worm herself down into any of 'em—and as nobody saw that Injun, how could they suspicion foul play? It must of been AWFUL for pore Miss Sellimer, all bound and gagged in that horrible way, but it takes heroic treatment to get some cures—and so Lahoma went with 'em to spend the winter."
"But the Indian—?"
"Needn't think about HIM no more, son, we got no more use for THAT Injun. Well, on the next day, Lahoma is looking everywhere, being urged on by me, and lo, and behold! when she comes to that crevice—looked like she couldn't be induced to go there of her own will, but it was brung about finally—what does she see but a tomahawk lying right at the edge what must have been dropped there recent, or the crowd would have saw it the day before. It come to her that Miss Sellimer is a prisoner down below. She looks, but it's too dark to see nothing. Not telling nobody for fear of starting up false hopes, she gets a light and lowers it—and there is that miserable young woman, bound and gagged and her pretty dress all tore. Lahoma jumps to her feet to raise the cry, when she discovers a ladder under a boulder which the Injun must have put there meaning to descend to his victim when the coast was clear. Down she skins, and frees Miss Sellimer, who's half dead, poor young lady! Lahoma comes up the ladder and meets me and I carries her out just like a feather—Well, can't you imagine the rest? I reckon if Miss Sellimer lives a thousand years she'll never forget the awfulness of that big Injun and the angel sweetness of the little gal that saved her. Why, if Lahoma had asked for the rings off her fingers, she could have had 'em, diamonds and all."
Wilfred rose and went to stare at the darkness from the small square window. Not a word was spoken for some time. At last the silence was broken by the Indian— "UGH!" grunted Red Feather.
"Just so!" remarked Wilfred, with exceeding dryness.
"What are you thinking, Wilfred?" demanded Brick Willock.
"I'd have thought Lahoma would recognize the ladder."
"So she done; but couldn't the Injun have stole my ladder and carried it to that boulder? Just as soon as Miss Sellimer was well enough to travel, NOTHING couldn't hold her in these parts, and that's why your brother had to leave before seeing you—he's setting to Miss Sellimer, and if Lahoma don't git him away from her, I reckon he's a goner!"
Bill Atkins spoke vaguely. "It wasn't none of my doings."
Wilfred looked steadily at Willock. "What about your whiskers?"
"Oh, as to them, it was like old times; you takes a cloth and cuts it out—painted red—Psha! What are we talking of? Bill, let's show him her letter—what do you say?"
"I reckon it wouldn't hurt," Bill conceded.
"How'd you like it, Wilfred? We can't produce our little gal to keep you company, but her letter would sort of be like hearing her talk, wouldn't it? And if you stay with us a spell, we'll let you read 'em as they come."
Wilfred perceived that Willock was anxious to get his mind off the harrowing adventure of the crevice, and as he was eager to hear the letter, and as Brick and Bill were anxious to hear it again, nothing more was said about the "big Injun."
"Who'll read it?" asked Bill, as he drew the precious letter from the strong box behind the stove.
"Let Wilfred do the deed," Willock suggested. "It travels slow in my company, and though Bill reads 'er correct, he does considerable droning. I expect if Wilfred reads it with unction, it'll sound like a new document."
Wilfred drew the only stool in the room up beside the lantern, and Bill and Brick disposed themselves on the bench, each holding his pipe on his knee as if fearful of losing a word. Red Feather, his beady eyes fastened on the young man's face, sat gracefully erect, apparently alert to all that was going on. The lantern reddened the strong clean-cut face of the young man, and touched the upturned pages to the whiteness of snow. A sudden wind had sprung up, and the flaring blaze from the open stove-door touched to vivid distinctness the giant, the old man and the Indian. Brick closed the stove-door, and the sudden gloom brought out in mellow effect Wilfred's animated face, the dull yellow wall against which his sturdy shoulder rested, and the letter in his hand.
"Dear Brick and Bill:
"I don't know what to tell first. It's all so strange and grand—the people are just people, but the things are wonderful. The people want it to be so; they act, and think according to the things around them. They pride themselves on these things and on being amongst them, and I am trying to learn to do that, too. When I lived in the cove—it seems a long, long time ago—my thoughts were always away from dirt-floors and cook-stoves and cedar logs and wash-pans. But the people in the big world keep their minds tied right up to such things—only the things are finer—they are marble floors and magnificent restaurants and houses on what they call the 'best streets.' At meals, there are all kinds of little spoons and forks, and they think to use a wrong one is something dreadful; that is why I say the forks and spoons seem more important than THEY are, but they want it to be so.
"They have certain ways of doing everything, and just certain times for doing them, and if you do a wrong thing at a right time, or a right thing at a wrong time, it shows you are from the West. At first, I couldn't say a word, or turn around, without showing that I was from the West. But although I've been from home only a few days, I'm getting so that nobody can tell that I'm more important than the furniture around me. I'm trying to be just like the one I'm with, and I don't believe an outsider can tell that I have any more sense than the rest of them.
"Miss Sellimer is so nice to me. I told her right at the start that I didn't know anything about the big world, and she teaches me everything. I'd be more comfortable if she could forget about my saving her life, but she never can, and is so grateful it makes me feel that I'm enjoying all this on false pretenses for you know my finding her was only an accident. Her mother is very pleasant to me—much more so than to her. Bill, you know how you speak to your horse, sometimes, when it acts contrary? That's the way Miss Sellimer speaks to her mother, at times. However, they don't seem very well acquainted with each other. Of course if they'd lived together in a cove for years, they'd have learned to tell each other their thoughts and plans, but out in the big world there isn't time for anything except to dress and go.
"I'm learning to dress. I used to think a girl could do that to please herself, but no, the dresses are a thousand times more important than the people inside them. It wouldn't matter how wise you are if your dress is wrong, nor would it matter how foolish, if your dress is like everybody else's. A person could be independent and do as she pleased, but she wouldn't be in society. And nobody would believe she was independent, they would just think she didn't know any better, or was poor. Because, they don't know anything about being independent; they want to be governed by their things. A poor person isn't cut off from society because he hasn't money, but because he doesn't know how to deal with high things, not having practised amongst them. It isn't because society people have lots of money that they stick together, but because all of them know what to do with the little forks and spoons.
"It is like the dearest, jolliest kind of game to me, to be with these people, and say just what they say, and like what they like, and act as they act—and that's the difference between me and them; it's not a game to them, it's deadly earnest. They think they're LIVING!
"Do you think I could play at this so long that one day I'd imagine I was doing what God had expected of me when he sent me to you, Brick? Could I stay out in the big world until I'd think of the cove as a cramped little pocket in the wilderness with two pennies jingling at the bottom of it named Brick and Bill? If I thought there was any danger of that, I'd start home in the morning!
"We are in a Kansas City hotel where all the feathers are in ladies' hats and bonnets instead of in the gentlemen's hair. To get to our rooms you go to a dark little door and push something that makes a bell ring, and then you step into a dugout on pulleys, that shoots up in the air so quick it makes you feel a part of you has fallen out and got lost. The dugout doesn't slow up for the third story, it just stops THAT QUICK—they call it an 'elevator' and it certainly does elevate! You step out in a dim trail where there are dusky kinds of lights, although it may be the middle of the day, and you follow the trail over a narrow yellow desert, turn to your right and keep going till you reach a door with your number on it. When you are in your room, you see the things that are considered more important than the people.
"There's an entire room set apart for the sole purpose of bathing!—and the room with the bed in it is separate from the sitting-room. You can go in one and stay a while, and go in another and stay a while, and then go in the third—and you have a different feeling for each room that you're in. I'd rather see everything at once, as I can in my cabin. And that bed! If my little bed at home could be brought here and set up beside this hotel wonder, the very walls would cry out.... I wish I could sleep in my little bed tonight, and hear the wind howling over the mountain.
"The dining-room is the finest thing I ever saw; I doubt if the kings and queens of old times ever ate in richer surroundings. There are rows of immense mirrors along the wall and gold borders—and then the tables! I wonder what would happen if anybody should spread newspapers on one of these wonderful tables and use them for a tablecloth? At home, we can just reach out and take what we want off the stove, and help our plates without rising. It's so different here! After you've worried over crooked lists of things to eat that you've never heard of, and have hurried to select so the waiter won't have to lose any time, the waiter goes away. And when he puts something before you, you don't know what to call it, because it's been so long, you've forgotten its name on that awful pasteboard. But there's something pleasant when you've finished, in just getting up and walking away, not caring who cleans up the dishes!
"I've been to the opera-house, but it wasn't an opera, it was a play. That house—I wish you could see it!—the inside, I mean, for outside it looks like it needs washing. The chairs—well, if you sent that stool of ours to a university you couldn't train it up to look anything like those opera-chairs. And the dresses—the diamonds.... Everything was perfectly lovely except what we had come to see, and my party thought it was too funny for anything; but it wasn't funny to me. The story they acted was all about a young couple fooling their parents and getting married without father and mother knowing, and a baby brought in at the last that nobody would claim though it was said to be somebody's that shouldn't have had one—the audience just screamed with laughter over that; I thought they never would quiet down. Out in The big world, babies and old fathers and mothers seem to be jokes. The star of the evening was a married actress with 'Miss' before her name. You could hear every word she spoke, but the others didn't seem to try to make themselves plain—I guess that's why they aren't stars, too.
"I've lived more during the last week than I had the previous fifty-one. We must have been to everything there is, except a church. Yesterday was Sunday, and I asked Mrs. Sellimer about it, but she said people didn't go to church any more.
"Maybe you wonder why I don't tell you about our crowd, but I guess it's because I feel as if they didn't matter. I wouldn't say that to anybody in the world but to you, Brick and Bill, and if I hadn't promised to write you every single thing, I wouldn't even tell you, because they are so good to me. It sounds untrue to them, doesn't it? But you won't tell anybody, because you've nobody to tell! And besides, they could be different in a minute if they wanted to be; it isn't as if they were helpless.
"Miss Sellimer is witty and talented, and from the way she treats me, I know she has a tender heart. And her mother is a perfect wonder of a manager, and never makes mistakes except such as happen to be the fad of the hour. And Mr. Edgerton Compton could be splendid, for he seems to know everything, and when we travel with him, or go to the parks and all that, people do just as he says, as if he were a prince; he has a magnificent way of showering money on porters and waiters and cabmen that is dazzling; and he holds himself perfectly WITHOUT TRYING, and dresses so that you are glad you're with him in a crowd; he knows what to do ALL the time about EVERYTHING. But there he stops. I mean, he isn't trying to do anything that matters. Neither are any of the rest.
"What they are working at now, is all they expect to work at as long as they live—and it takes awfully hard work to keep up with their set. They call it 'keeping in the swim,' and let me tell you what it reminds me of—a strong young steer out in a 'tank,' using all the strength he has just to keep on top of the water, instead of swimming to shore and going somewhere. Society people don't go anywhere; they use all their energy staying right where they are; and if one of them loses grip and goes under—GOODNESS!
"I know what Mrs. Sellimer has set her heart on, because she has already begun instructing me in her ideals. She wants her daughter to marry a rich man, and Mr. Edgerton Compton isn't rich, he only looks like he is. Mrs. Sellimer feels that she's terribly poor, herself; it's the kind of poverty that has all it wants to eat and wear, but hasn't as many horses and servants as it wants. It's just as hard on her as it would be on you if the bacon gave out and you couldn't go for more. Annabel—that's Miss Sellimer—likes Mr. Compton very, very much, but she feels like her mother about marrying a rich man, and I don't think he has much chance. One trouble is that he thinks he must marry a rich girl, so they just go on, loving each other, and looking about for 'chances.'
"I feel like I oughtn't to be wasting my time telling about my friends when there are all these wonderful lights and carpets and decorations and conveniences, so much more interesting. Whenever you want hot water, instead of bringing a bucketful from the spring and building a fire and sitting down to watch it simmer, you just turn a handle and out it comes, smoking; and whenever you want ice-water, you touch a button and give a boy ten cents.
"The funny thing to me is that Annabel and Mr. Compton both think they HAVE to marry somebody rich, or not marry at all. They really don't know they COULD marry each other, because imagining they would be unable to keep the wolf from the door. That's because they can't imagine themselves living behind anything but a door on one of the 'best streets.' We know, don't we, Brick and Bill, that it takes mighty little to keep the coyote from the dugout! And there's something else we know that these people haven't dreampt of—that there's happiness and love in many and many a dugout. I don't know what's behind the doors on the 'best streets.'
"We are not going straight on to Chicago. A gentleman has invited the Sellimers, which of course includes me, to a house-party in the country not far from Kansas City. He is a very rich man of middle age, so they tell me, a widower, who is interested in our sex and particularly in Annabel Sellimer. Mr. Edgerton Compton isn't invited. You see, he's a sort of rival—a poor rival. This middle-aged man has known the Sellimers a long time, and he has been trying to win Annabel for a year or two. If it hadn't been for Mr. Compton she'd have married HIS HOUSE before now, I gather. The house is said to be immense, in a splendid estate near the river. I am all excitement when I think of going there for ten days. There are to be fifty guests and the other forty-nine are invited as a means of getting Annabel under his roof. Won't I feel like a little girl in an old English novel! The best of it is that nobody will bother ME—I'm too poor to be looked at a second time, I mean, what THEY call poor. Sometimes I laugh when I'm alone, for I feel like I'm a gold mine filled with rich ore that nobody has discovered. Remember the 'fool's gold' we used to see among the granite mountains? I think the gold that lies on the surface must always be fool's gold. The name of the country-house we are to visit is the same as that of the man who owns it—"
Wilfred Compton held the letter closer to the light.
Brick Willock spoke impatiently: "No use to stare at that there word—we couldn't make it out. I guess she got it wrong, first, then wrote it over. Just go ahead."
Bill suggested, "I think the first letter is an 'S.'"
Wilfred scrutinized the name closely.
"Besides," said Willock, "we knows none of them high people, the name wouldn't be nothing to us—and her next letter will likely have it more'n once."
Wilfred resumed the letter: "I must tell you good-by, now, for Annabel's maid has come to help me dress for dinner, and it takes longer than it did to do up the washing, at the cove; and is more tiresome. But I like it. I like these fine, soft, beautiful things. I like the big world, and I would like to live in it forever and ever, if you could bring the dugout and be near enough for me to run in, any time of the day. I wish I could run in this minute and tell you the thousands and thousands of things I'll never have time to write.
"Your loving, adoring, half-homesick, half-bewildered, somewhat dizzy little girl,"Lahoma.
"P. S. Nobody has been able to tell from word or look of mine that I have ever been surprised at a single thing I have heard or seen. You may be quite sure of that."
"I bet you!" cried Willock admiringly. "NOW, what do you think of it?"
"She won't be there long," remarked Bill, waving his arm, "till she finds out what I learned long ago—that there's nothing to it. If you want to cultivate a liking for a dugout, just live a while in the open."
"I don't know as to that," Willock said. "I sorter doubts if Lahoma will ever care for dugouts again, except as she stays on the outside of 'em, and gets to romancing. A mouthful of real ice-cream spoils your taste everlasting for frozen starch and raw eggs."
"Lahoma is a real person," declared Bill, "and a dugout is grounded and bedded in a real thing—this very solid and very real old earth, if you ask to know what I mean."
"Lord,Iknows what you mean," retorted Willock. "You've lived in a hole in the ground most of your life, and are pretty near ripe to be laid away in another one, smaller I grant you, but dark and deep, according. We'll never get Lahoma back the same as when we let her flutter forth hunting a green twig over the face of the waters. She may bring back the first few leaves she finds, but a time's going to come...." He broke off abruptly, his eyes wide and troubled, as if already viewing the dismal prospect.
"Maybe I AM old," Bill grudgingly conceded, "but I don't set up to be no Noah's ark."
"Oh," cried Willock, his sudden sense of future loss causing him to speak with unwonted irony, "maybe you're just a Shem, or Ham or that other kind of Fat— What's the matter, Wilfred? Can't you let go of that letter?"
"I've made out the name of that widower who's paying court to my old sweetheart," he said, "but it's one I never heard of before; that's why it looked so strange—it's Gledware."
Willock uttered a sharp exclamation. "Let me see it." He started up abruptly, and bent over the page.
"What of it?" asked Bill in surprise. Willock had uttered words to which the dugout was unaccustomed.
"That's what it is," Willock growled; "it's Gledware!" His face had grown strangely dark and forbidding, and Wilfred, who had never imagined it could be altered by such an expression, handed him the letter with a sense of uneasiness.
"What of it?" reiterated Bill. "Suppose it IS Gledware; who is HE?"
"Do you know such a man?" Wilfred demanded.
"Out with it!" cried Bill, growing wrathful as the other glowered at the fire. "What's come over you? Look here, Brick Willock, Lahoma is your cousin, but I claim my share in that little girl and I ask you sharp and flat—"
"Oh you go to—!" cried Willock fiercely. "All of you."
Wilfred said lightly, "Red Feather has already gone there, perhaps."
"Eh?" Willock wheeled about as if roused to fresh uneasiness. The Indian chief had glided from the room, as silent and as unobtrusive as a shadow.
Willock sank on the bench beside Bill Atkins and said harshly, "Where's my pipe?"
"Don't you ask ME where your pipe is," snapped Bill. "Yonder it is in the comer where you dropped it."
Willock picked it up, and slowly recovered himself. "You see," he observed apologetically, "I need Lahoma about, to keep me tame. I was wondering the other day if I could swear if I wanted to. I guess I could. And if put to it, I guess I could take up my old life and not be very awkward about it, either—I used to be a tax-collector, and of course got rubbed up against many people that didn't want to pay. That there Gledware—well! maybe it isn't this one Lahoma writes about, but the one I knew is just about middle age, and he's a widower, all right, or the next thing to it—I didn't like Gledware. That was all. I hate for Lahoma to be throwed with anybody of the name—but I guess it's all right. Lahoma ain't going to let nobody get on her off-side, when the wind's blowing."
Bill inquired anxiously, "Did that Gledware you knew, live near Kansas City?"
"He lived over in Indian Territory, last time I heard of him. But he was a roving devil—he might be anywhere. Only—he wasn't rich; why, he didn't have nothing on earth except a little—yes, except a little."
"Then he can't be the owner of a big estate," remarked Wilfred, with relief.
"I don't know that. Folks goes into the Territory, and somehow they contrives to come out loaded down. But I hope to the Almighty it's a different Gledware!"
"Lahoma can hold her own," Bill remarked confidently. "You just wait till her next letter comes, and see if she ain't flying her colors as gallant as when she sailed out of the cove."
Wilfred reflected that his invitation to remain had been sincere; there was nothing to hurry him back to the Oklahoma country—he would, at least, stay until the next letter came. His interest in Lahoma was of course vague and dreamy, founded rather on the fancies of a thousand-and-one-nights than upon the actual interview of a brief hour. But the remarkable change that had taken possession of Willock at the mention of Gledware's name, had impressed the young man profoundly. In that moment, all the geniality and kindliness of the huge fellow had vanished, and the great whiskered face had looked so wild and dangerous, the giant fists had doubled so threateningly, that long after the brow smoothed and the muscles relaxed, it was impossible to forget the ferocious picture.
"That's what I'll do," Wilfred declared, settling back in his seat, "I'll wait until that next letter comes."
While waiting for Lahoma's letter, Wilfred Compton spent his days in ceaseless activity, his evenings in dreamy musings. Over on the North Fork of Red River—which was still regarded as Red River proper, and therefore the dividing line between Texas and Indian Territory—he renewed his acquaintance with the boys of Old Man Walker's ranch. Henry Woodson, the cow-puncher, still known as Mizzoo was one of the old gang who greeted Wilfred with extravagant joy which shaded away to easy and picturesque melancholy in lamenting the passing of the good old days.
"These is the days of fences," complained Mizzoo, as Wilfred, in answer to his invitation, rode forth with him to view the changes. "Time was, our cattle was bounded on the south by nothing but the south wind, and on the north by nothing but the north wind; but these unmitigated settlers has spiled the cattle business. I'm looking for the old man to sell out and quit. Why, look at all the little towns that has sprung up so confusing and handy that you don't know which to choose to liquor up. They comes like a thief in the night, and in the morning they're equipped to rob you. I can't keep no change by me—I've asked the old man to hold back my wages till the end of the year. But I'm calculating to make something out of these very misfortunes. You know I always was sort of thrifty—yes, as they GOT to be a settled county round us, it'll needs call for a sheriff, and if all signs don't fail, I'll get the job this week. Then there'll be no more riding of the line for old Mizzoo."
Wilfred rode with him to Mangum, and other villages, with names and without, and he tingled to the spirit of the bounding West. There might be only a few dugouts, some dingy tents and a building or so of undressed pine, but each hamlet felt in itself the possibilities of a city, and had its spaces in the glaring sands or the dead sagebrush which it called "the Square" and "Main Street" and possibly "the park." The air quivered with expectations of a railroad, maybe two or three, and each cluster of hovels expected to find itself in a short time constituted the county-seat, with a gleaming steel road at its back door.
This spirit of optimism was but a reflection of the miraculous growth of the new country of which Greer County, though owned by Texas, felt itself, in a sense, an integral part. Eight years before, Indian Territory was the hunting-ground of the Indian, and whosoever attempted to settle within its limits was driven forth by the soldiers. It was then a land of dim twilight, full of mystery and wildness, with vast stretches of thirsty plains and bleak mountains around which the storms, unbroken by forests, shrieked in the "straight winds" of many days, or whined the threat of the deadly tornado. And suddenly it became a land of high noon, garish and crude, but wide-awake and striving with all the tireless energy of young blood.
Scarcely had the Oklahoma country been taken possession of before the settlers began agitating the question of an organized territory, and too impatient to wait for Congress to act, held their own convention at Guthrie and divided the land into counties. Congress made them wait five months—an age in the new country—before approving the Organic Act. The district, which a short time before had been the Unassigned Lands, became the counties of Logan, Oklahoma, Cleveland, Canadian, Kingfisher and Payne. To these was added Beaver County which in Brick Willock's day had been called "No-Man's Land," and which the law-abiding citizens, uniting against bandits and highwaymen, had sought to organize as Cimmaron Territory.
Then came the rivalry between Guthrie and Oklahoma City for the capital, adding picturesqueness to territorial history, and offering incitement to many a small village to make itself the county-seat of its county. The growth of the new country advanced by leaps and bounds. In 1891, the 868,414 acres of the surplus lands of the Iowa, Sac, Fox and the Pottawatomie-Shawnee reservations formed the new counties of Lincoln and Pottawatomie and increased the extent of some of the old ones. The next year, 3,500,562 acres belonging to the Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians were taken to increase several of the older counties, and to from the new ones of honest old American names—Blame, Custer, Washita, Dewey, Roger Mills, Beckham and Ellis. In the year following, the Cherokee strip was opened for a settlement together with the surplus lands of the Pawnee and Tonhawa—5,698,140 acres; besides increasing other counties, this land furnished forth the new counties of Alfalfa, Garfield, Grant, Harper, Major, Woods, Woodward, Pawnee, Kay and Noble. At the time of Wilfred's visit to Brick Willock, the winter of 1894-5, the opening of the Kickapoo reservation was already a near certainty; while the vast extent of Greer County itself, so long in dispute between Texas and the United States, would in all likelihood be added to the swelling territory of Oklahoma.
The territory, so young but so dauntless, was already agitating the question of statehood—not only so, but of single statehood, meaning thereby the prospective engulfment and assimilation of Indian Territory, that all the land from Texas to Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas might be called by the one name—Oklahoma; a name to stand forever as a symbol of the marvelously swift and permanent growth of a white people, in spite of its Choctaw significance—"Red People."
Although Wilfred had stayed close to his farm, near Oklahoma City, he had kept alive to the rush and swing of the western life; and now that he had leisure to ride with Mizzoo among the bustling camps, and view the giant strides made from day to day by the smallest towns, he was more than ever filled with the exultation of one who takes part in world-movements. He began to view the hurrying crowds that overran the sidewalks, with a sense of close kinship—these people came from all points of the Union, but they were his people. A year ago, six months ago, they might have been New Yorkers, Californians, Oregonians, but now all were westerners like himself, and though they believed themselves Texans the name made as little difference as that between "Red River" and "Prairie Dog Fork"—in spirit, they were Oklahomans.
If Wilfred had not been a simple visitor, he would have had no time for thought; but now he could look on the life of which he had for a few years been a part, and study it as related to the future. It was as if his boyhood and youth had not been passed in Chicago—the West had blotted out the past as it ever does with relentless hand,—and every thought-channel led toward the light of the future. Lahoma's letter had revived the picture of other days, of another existence, without rousing one wish to return.
The only desire it had stirred in his breast was that of seeing Lahoma again, of taking her by the hand to lead her, not back to the old civilization, but to the new. As he lay awake at night in the log cabin that had been Lahoma's, his brain for a long time every night was busy with thoughts of that new civilization, and he was stirred with ambition to take part, so that when single statehood or double statehood was achieved, he would be a recognized factor in its transformation from a loosely-bound territory.
He began to think, too, of moving his residence to Oklahoma City, where he would be closer to men of affairs—great men of great enterprises. His farm, of course, would be managed under his superintendence—unless Oklahoma City should be generous enough to spread out and surround it, and lap it up, town-lot after town-lot, till not a red clod was left.... And if a girl like Lahoma—for surely she had not changed!—if she, little Lahoma.... And the longing grew on him to see Annabel Sellimer and Lahoma together, that he might study the girl he had once loved with the girl he might love tomorrow. He almost made up his mind to take a brief trip to Chicago, on quitting the cove; perhaps there would be something in Lahoma's next letter to force a decision.
Two weeks passed, but Wilfred did not consider the time lost; there were letters almost daily, by coach, from Lahoma, telling of her adventures in the great world—the house-party had been delayed on account of Mrs. Sellimer's illness, but was to take place immediately—so said the last letter before the arrival of the news that changed the course of events at the cove. As yet, Lahoma had not met Mr. Gledware, but the fame of his riches and his luxurious home had both increased her curiosity to see him, and her conviction that Mr. Edgerton Compton stood no chance with Annabel. She had discovered, too, that Edgerton Compton was a brother of the Wilfred Compton who had visited them one day in the cove—Wilfred read the letter with great attention, but there was no further reference to himself.
Brick Willock rode over to Mangum nearly every afternoon to hear from Lahoma, but it happened that on the day of the great news, neither he nor Bill had returned from a certain hunting expedition in time for the stage, so Wilfred went for the mail. There was only one letter, addressed to "Mr. B. Willock," and it seemed strangely thin. The young man wondered during all his ten-mile return-trip if Lahoma had fallen ill; and after reaching the log cabin, he kept looking at the slim missive, and turning it over, with vague uneasiness.
Brick and Bill had ridden far, and it was dusk before they reached home with a deer slung over one of the horses.
"They're getting scarcer every year," complained Bill, as he climbed stiffly to the ground; "I guess they'll finally go the way of the buffalo."
"Get a letter?" asked Brick, hurrying forward. "Huh! THAT it? She is sure getting fashionable! I reckon when she's plumb civilized, she won't write nothing!"
He took the long white envelope and squinted at it inquisitively.
"Well, why don't you open 'er?" snapped Bill. "Afraid you'll spring a trap and get caught?"
"Ain't much here," replied Brick slowly, "and I'm making it last."
"Huh! Nothing is a-lasting when it hasn't been begun," retorted Bill crossly. "See what the little girl says."
"I'm afraid she's sick," observed Wilfred, eying the envelope with something like Bill's irritable impatience.
Brick tore it open, and found within another envelope, the inner one of yellow. "It's a telegraph," he said uneasily. "Lahoma had telegraphed to the end of the wire, and at Chickasha they puts it in the white wrapper and sends it on. Do you see?"
"I don't see anything yet," snapped Bill. "Rip 'er open!"
Brick looked at Bill Atkins. "Better set down, Bill," he remarked. "If they's any kind of shock in this, YOU ain't got no nerve to stand it." He broke open the yellow envelope and stared at the message. As he did so, the hand clutching the telegram hardened to a giant fist, while his brow wrinkled, and his eyes grew dark and menacing. Wilfred was reminded of the sinister expression displayed at the first mention by Lahoma of Gledware's name, and he experienced once more that surprised feeling of not being nearly so well acquainted with him as he had supposed.
After a dead silence, Willock handed the telegram to Bill, who wrinkled his brow over it a minute or two before handing it to Wilfred. The young man read it hastily, then turned to Bill. His face wore a decidedly puzzled look.
"I don't understand," he said.
"Neither do I," returned Bill rather blankly. "I guess if there is to be any setting down, it's Brick that needs a chair."
The telegram was as follows: