III.The Vibrations Spread

How little do I love this vale of tears,

How little do I love this vale of tears,

How little do I love this vale of tears,

through which the chorus crooned a murmuring accompaniment. West of San Antonio, theyplayed a game of riddles, and when Cousin Xerxes (who seemed the wit of the party) asked, “Why is Dass’s solo like Texas? Because it’s all in flats,” and the recruits were convulsed with merriment by this, Sergeant Jones, listening to them in his seat behind, muttered with compassion: “Their mothers could hear every word they say.” And friendliness was established between him and the recruits. They confided many things to him.

Yes; not a drop of vice’s poison flowed in them, but at El Paso, while they waited, Leonidas, on saying to Jones, “What an elegant speech the Secretary of War gave us!” was astonished to hear the sergeant burst into strong language.

“That hypercrite!” exclaimed Jones. And the shocked Leonidas answered him.

And now began to fall the first chill upon their friendliness. The recruits were clean from vice, but the Secretary’s poison was at work, the sugar of self-pity he had given them to swallow, the false sentiment over themselves, the sick notion they were objects of special sympathy, instead of stout young lads beginning life with about as many helps and hindrances as other stout young lads.

“Yes, he did say so!” declared Leonidas. “Yes, he did, sah. He said he’d take care we was treated like gentlemen. He said he was behind us. And I guess he’s the man to back up his word.”

“Well,” said Jones, making a final try, “I’ll tell y’u.” And he laid a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “A man enlists to be a soldier—nothin’ else. Not to be a gentleman, but just a soldier who obeys his orders—and nothin’ else. I obey the captain, and he obeys the colonel, and he obeys the commanding general of the department, and so it goes clean to the top, and we’re all soldiers obeyin’ the President of the United States, and if bein’ a gentleman consists in makin’ things as pleasant and easy for others as y’u can, why, the chap in the army who obeys best is the best gentleman. There’s remedies for injustice all right, but you keep thinkin’ about your duties and you’ll not need to think about your remedies. Understand?”

“Yes, sah,” said Leonidas, without the faintest sign of comprehension. “But the Secretary is at the top and it’s right in him to say the top should nevah forget to recognize the onaliable rights of the bottom. He said he was behind us.”

“Oh, go sit down and give us some of your upper register!” cried Jones.

Thus did friendliness give place to estrangement. The watermelons laid their heads together and assured Leonidas that he had acted in a proper and spirited manner. In Sergeant Jones they confided no longer, for which he was man enough to lay the blame where it belonged. He handsomely cursed the Secretary of War, but what good did that do?

Arrived at Fort Chiricahua, the recruits fell into safe hands, though not perhaps entirely wise ones. The post chaplain was an earnest preacher of the same denomination as the Rev. Tullius C. Smith, and delighted to surround Leonidas and his band with the same customs and influences which they had known at home. They were soon known throughout the post as “The Shouters.” This epithet came from their choir singing, which was no whit lessened by their new and not wholly religious environment. If Sergeant Jones or Captain Stone had looked for insubordination as a result of the Secretary’s speech, it was an agreeable disappointment. The recruits were punctual, they were clean, they were assiduous at drill, they showed intelligence, they were model,both as youths and soldiers, and nothing kept them from a more than common popularity in their various troops unless it was that they were a little too model for the taste of the average enlisted man. The parade-ground was constantly melodious with their week-day practising for Sabbath exercises. Sister Smith had sent them much music from home, and the post learned to admire “Moses in Egypt” as arranged by Sister Mingory and interpreted by the upper register of Leonidas.

One person there was whom the strains of psalmody, as they floated from the open windows of the school-room, did not wholly please. Captain Stone disapproved of his Gwendolen’s spending so much time alone with the melodeon and Leonidas. Almost as fittingly might a Senator’s wife sing duets with her coachman, and all the ladies of the Post knew this—excepting Gwendolen! But he could not forbid her, at least not yet. Was she not his bride of scarce three months? In this new army world, where he had brought her so far from everything that she had always known, how could he deprive her of one great resource, he who had cut her off from so many? Time would steadily teachher the conduct suitable for an officer’s wife, and then of her own accord she would put the proper distance between herself and the enlisted men.

“It is so unexpected, Joshua,” she said once, “such an unexpected joy to be able to keep a good influence around those poor boys.”

“What do you call them poor boys for?” inquired the captain.

“To come into so many temptations so far from home!” she exclaimed.

“They’re not going to have you and the chaplain and the organ all their lives, Gwendolen.”

“Now, Joshua, keep your mustache down! The Secretary of War—don’t swear so dreadfully, darling! Don’t!” And the bride stopped her lord’s lips with her hand. “I won’t mention him any more,” she promised. “I must run now, or I’ll be late for practising next Sunday’s anthem with Leonidas Bateau.”

Left on the porch of his quarters, the captain made the same remark about next Sunday’s anthem that he had made about the Secretary of War; but Gwendolen, having departed, did not hear him, and soon from the open windows of the school-house floated the chords of the melodeonwith a chorus led by Cousin Xerxes, and a solo on an upper register,

How little do I love this vale of teahs.

How little do I love this vale of teahs.

How little do I love this vale of teahs.

Would Gwendolen have been so eager to redeem some dried-up middle-aged sinner? I don’t know. At any rate, in her solicitude for the spotless Leonidas, she was abreast with the advanced Philanthropy which holds prevention better than cure. Of course, not even to the most evil-minded could scandal arise from any of this. But when you see a wife of nineteen playing the organ for a trooper of twenty-two, and a husband of forty-five constantly remarking that a man is always as young as he feels, why, then you are at no great distance from comedy, and the joke draws nearer when the wife is anxious that the trooper should not feel the want of his mother, and the trooper retains the limpid innocence of the watermelon. The ladies of the Post tried to be indignant that an officer’s wife should so much associate herself with enlisted men, but they could only laugh—and hush when the captain came by, and the men in barracks laughed—and hushed when the captain came by, and the poor captain knew it all. Meanwhile, the melodeon played on, the watermelons liftedtheir harmless hymns, and in the heart of Leonidas the Secretary’s speech dwelled like honey but like gall in the heart of the captain. Had Captain Stone dreamed what sweet familiarity the hymns were breeding, he—but he did not dream, hence was his awakening all the more pronounced.

The day it came had made an ill beginning with him. He had walked unexpectedly into the kitchen before breakfast, and found there his Chinaman putting a finishing crust on the breakfast rolls. He had never been aware of such a process. He had always particularly enjoyed the crust. The Chinaman had just reached the point where he withdrew the hot rolls from the oven and sprayed them suddenly with cold water from his mouth. There had ensued a dreadful time in the kitchen, and no rolls for breakfast and no Chinaman for dinner, and even as late as five o’clock the captain’s mustache had not completely flattened down. Leonidas should have observed this as he came up the captain’s steps with a message from the chaplain for the captain’s wife. They were waiting for her to come over and play the melodeon for Sunday’s anthem.

“Is Sistah Stone here?” Leonidas inquired.

“WHO?” said the captain, rising from his chair, which fell backward with the movement.

“Is Sistah Stone here?” repeated Leonidas, mildly. “The chaplain says—”

You will meet the most conflicting accounts of the spot where Leonidas first landed on firm ground after leaving the captain’s boot. The colonel’s orderly, who was standing in front of the colonel’s gate four houses farther up the line, deposed that he “thought he heard a something but didn’t see what made it.” Mrs. Phillips declared she was sitting on her porch two houses down the line, and “it looked just like diving from a spring-board.” These were the only two disinterested witnesses. The afflicted Leonidas claimed that he had gone from the porch clean over the front gate, and Captain Stone said that he didn’t know and didn’t care, but that if the gate story was true, then he had projected one hundred and sixty pounds forty measured feet and felt younger than ever.

The version which Jones gave has (to me) always seemed wholly satisfactory. “Don’t y’u go sittin’ up nights over it,” said Jones. “Nobody’ll never prove where he struck. But what

“Is Sistah Stone heah?” Leonidas inquired

“Is Sistah Stone heah?” Leonidas inquired

“Is Sistah Stone heah?” Leonidas inquired

I seen was the captain come ragin’ out of his gate. He went over to the officers’ club and I knowed it was particular, for y’u could have stood a vase of flowers on his muss-tash without spillin’ a drop. And next comes Leonidas a-flyin’ by me, a-screechin’, ‘The Secretary shall hear of this!’ And I seen the mark on his pants and he tells me. ‘Hard brushin’ will remove it,’ I says to him, and he says, ‘The Secretary shall hear of it!’ And I says, ‘Well, Leonidas, it sure ain’t your upper register that’s damaged.’ ‘The Secretary,’ says he, but I got tired. ‘If you was figuring to be the captain’s brother-in-law,’ I says, ‘you should have bruck it to him gently.’”

Andwhat did the afflicted Leonidas do now? Sunday’s anthem was dashed from his mind. They waited for him, but he never came back, nor was the melodeon again played by Sister Stone. Leonidas, without waiting to brush off anything, hastened to his own troop commander, told of the insult to American manhood and displayed the grievous traces upon his trousers. When his captain found that he was not demented, he meditated briefly and spoke.

“Bateau, this is unfortunate, but it seems to me out of military cognizance.”

Leonidas mentioned the Secretary of War for the third or fourth time, and asked permission to complain to the post commander.

“Think this over for a day,” said his troop commander, “and I’ll see Captain Stone.” On the next day he resumed, “Captain Stone confirms every statement that you make, except—er—the distance.”

“It was ovah the gate,” repeated Leonidas. “But I would feel just the same if it was not.”

The troop commander was wise. “Very well. You have my permission to make your complaint.”

Private Bateau stated his case in the Adjutant’s office at Fort Chiricahua. The post commander duly investigated the affair, and private Bateau was duly informed that his complaint was deemed out of military cognizance. Private Bateau, thoroughly booked on the machinery, now appealed to the Department Commander. He called in no clerk to draft his grievance for him; with Cousin Xerxes to help, he wrote:

“Fort Chiricahua, A. T., Nov. 30, 188-.“The Adjutant-General, Department of Arizona,Whipple Barracks, A. T. (Through MilitaryChannels.)“Sir.—For the information of the commanding general of the department, I wish to report Captain Joshua Stone of E Troop 4th Cavalry for using brutal conduct toward me at 5 p.m. 26th inst., at witch hour he insulted me with his foot behaiving like no officer and gentleman in a way I will not rite down. All I did was bring word our choir was waiting for Mrs. Stone to play like she always done on the melodeum for church practiss wensday afternoons and saturday nights.”“Very respectfully, your obedient servant,“Leonidas BateauPrivate, Troop I, 4th Cav’y.”

“Fort Chiricahua, A. T., Nov. 30, 188-.

“The Adjutant-General, Department of Arizona,Whipple Barracks, A. T. (Through MilitaryChannels.)

“Sir.—For the information of the commanding general of the department, I wish to report Captain Joshua Stone of E Troop 4th Cavalry for using brutal conduct toward me at 5 p.m. 26th inst., at witch hour he insulted me with his foot behaiving like no officer and gentleman in a way I will not rite down. All I did was bring word our choir was waiting for Mrs. Stone to play like she always done on the melodeum for church practiss wensday afternoons and saturday nights.”

“Very respectfully, your obedient servant,“Leonidas BateauPrivate, Troop I, 4th Cav’y.”

This document Leonidas handed to the first sergeant of his troop, who took it with the daily morning report to the captain, who indorsed it, “Respectfully forwarded to the Adjutant-General Department of Arizona (through Post Commander). The facts in this case are as follows,” etc., and duly signed the indorsement, and forwarded it the next day to the Post Commander, who indorsed it, “Respectfully forwarded to the Adjutant-General Department of Arizona, Whipple Barracks, A. T. I find upon investigation,” etc, “and I have cautioned Private Leonidas Bateau that he ought to be more guarded in his language when referring to an officer’s wife, and I recommend that no further action be taken in this case.”

Do you perceive the wheels beginning to go round? The letter of Leonidas, thus twice indorsed and signed by the captain of his troop and the colonel commanding Fort Chiricahua, now flew forth and upward, directing its course duly to the headquarters of the Department of Arizona, and even while it was upon its way, a new song was heard among the enlisted men on all sides at the post. It was fitted to the tune of “Stables,” its author was unknown, and it went something like this:

SAY, have you seen my sister?I GUESS that I must have missed her,I’ll SHOW you a handsome blister, etc.

SAY, have you seen my sister?I GUESS that I must have missed her,I’ll SHOW you a handsome blister, etc.

SAY, have you seen my sister?I GUESS that I must have missed her,I’ll SHOW you a handsome blister, etc.

It went something like that (sing it and you will see how glove-like it fits the tune), and it contributed nothing to the happiness of Leonidas; but it made him glad that nobody save Cousin Xerxes knew of the long, long letter which he had written to the Secretary of War and mailed outside the post.

And now the wheels began to turn at Whipple Barracks while Private Bateau was waiting for the Secretary of War to answer his private letter, and stand behind him. The Department Commander knew all about the Secretary of War; moreover, he was enlightened concerning this case by his favorite staff-officer, Lieutenant Jimmy St. Michael, of Kings Port, South Carolina. Jimmy received from a brother lieutenant at Fort Chiricahua an intimate and spirited account of the whole deplorable misadventure, describing Gwendolen at length, and Captain Stone at length, and the melodeon, and the choir practices, not omitting a sketch of Leonidas and Cousin Xerxes. This letter kept the young officers up until past midnight, for Jimmy gave them a choir practice upon his banjo, impersonating now Sistah Stone and now Leonidas. But, as I have said, the Commanding General of the Department knew the Secretary of War and therefore deemed a plentiful investigation into the affairs of Leonidas the wisest course. He would not accept the views of the post commander, as was his usual habit; there must be an inspector. Now his Inspector-General was off inspecting something at Fort Apache; and so, that time should not be lost, he summoned Jimmy St. Michael and directed him to proceed to Fort Chiricahua. Jimmy departed with a valise, a letter official to the colonel, a message unofficial to the same officer, and his banjo, which he rarely left behind him. With the solemnity proper to all inspectors, he arrived upon the scene of the tragedy, and not even the joy of the club could unbend him. He was implored to give at least “But he didn’t saw the wood,” that song which had left a trail of gayety from Klamath and Bidwell to Meade and San Carlos. Jimmy remained deaf to everything but duty. His slim figure became every inch an inspector, his neat hair was severe, his black eyes almost funereal. He made many inquiries, he investigated everybody, and he seldom uttered any longer comment than “H’m, h’m!” He knew how rare it is for an inspector to say more than this.

His old friends would have thought him engaged to be married or otherwise grievously changed for the worse, had he not, on the night his mission was ended, taken the cover off his banjo. He gave the second entirely original poem which the misfortunes of Leonidas had inspired. He sangit to a tune heard in a popular play, and here it is:

Of War I am the popular Secretaree—O.I am the popularest man in all the show.There were one or two or threeMore popular than meTill I received my portofolee—O.George Washington, they say, was popular long ago.His name to-day is sometimes mentioned still, I know.But where d’you think he’ll beIf he’s compared with me,When I resign my portofolee—O?The very day that I into the White House goMy friends shall see my gratitude is never slow;And chief of all their clanShall be the enlisted man,For he shall have my portofolee—O!

Of War I am the popular Secretaree—O.I am the popularest man in all the show.There were one or two or threeMore popular than meTill I received my portofolee—O.George Washington, they say, was popular long ago.His name to-day is sometimes mentioned still, I know.But where d’you think he’ll beIf he’s compared with me,When I resign my portofolee—O?The very day that I into the White House goMy friends shall see my gratitude is never slow;And chief of all their clanShall be the enlisted man,For he shall have my portofolee—O!

Of War I am the popular Secretaree—O.I am the popularest man in all the show.There were one or two or threeMore popular than meTill I received my portofolee—O.

George Washington, they say, was popular long ago.His name to-day is sometimes mentioned still, I know.But where d’you think he’ll beIf he’s compared with me,When I resign my portofolee—O?

The very day that I into the White House goMy friends shall see my gratitude is never slow;And chief of all their clanShall be the enlisted man,For he shall have my portofolee—O!

Even Joshua smiled, and Joshua was a solemn man, not to speak of his delicate position regarding Leonidas. He sat up late, drank to the health of Jimmy St. Michael, and remarked that he doubted if Jimmy felt any younger than he did.

But the hour for poor Leonidas to smile had not yet come. There was silence most unaccountable from the Secretary of War, and the encouragement given by having an inspector come several hundred miles received presently a rude shock.

Jimmy St. Michael returned to Whipple Barracks and made a carefully solemn report to the Commanding General; but at the end of it, seeing that the Commanding General’s solemnity was less careful, he ceased to be an inspector, and said with his engaging Kings Port accent:

“General, did you ever put sugar on a raw oyster and try to swallow it?”

“It can’t be done!” declared the General. “I’ve known that since I was at the Military Academy.”

“It can be done, sir, if you will pardon my contradicting you. I did it myself on a bet at the Military Academy.”

“Good Lord!” said the General. “What was it like?”

“I realized, sir, that the combination does not belong in Nature’s plan, any more than mixing politics with the United States Army.”

“Ha, ha!” went the General. “Ha, ha! Not in Nature’s plan!” And he proceeded to drop the necessary lemon-juice upon the Secretary’s luckless raw oyster.

To poor Leonidas’s original letter was now added a third duly dated indorsement: “Respectfully returned to the commanding officer, FortChiricahua, A. T. The Commanding General approves of your action in this case. The provoking speech of Priv’t Leonidas Bateau, Troop I, 4th Cav’y, on the occasion of his visiting the quarters of his troop commander being considered sufficient grounds for the harsh treatment administered.” This, with the signature of the Assistant Adjutant-General, arrived at Fort Chiricahua, and was followed by a fourth indorsement dated there and signed by the Post Adjutant: “Respectfully returned to the commanding officer, Troop I, 4th Cav’y, inviting attention to the 2d and 3d indorsements hereon, the contents of which will be communicated to Pvt. Leonidas Bateau, Troop I, 4th Cav. By order of,” etc.

The wheels of redress had turned, all the wheels, and ground out nothing. His troop commander sent for Leonidas and read him the indorsements. Leonidas, being instructed by a “guard-house lawyer,” demanded his papers, which were delivered to him, as was his right. These now went with his appeal to Washington. For Leonidas had written home to Sistah Smith, who had written to a Congressman, who had replied that he was ever for justice. Thus, with a long new letter from Leonidas to the Secretary of War (whosesilence still remained unaccountable), did official tidings of the outrage to American manhood at length, through the Adjutant General’s Department, come to the man of the “portofolee—O.”

Buttons were pressed and clerks despatched with messages; and there ensued a conference between the Congressman, the Adjutant-General, the Secretary of War, and the Lieutenant-General himself. The Congressman stated the case; the Secretary was quite uneasy, and talked a great deal, taking care not to express a single idea; but the Lieutenant-General was quite easy and talked only thus much:

“Called her his sister? Got kicked? I should think so!”

“General, this is good in you to help us,” said the Secretary, with symptoms of relief. “I did not wish to reach this conclusion without your corroboration.”

Thus ended the conference. The original letter of Leonidas with its four indorsements pasted on it, and making quite a budget, now started its return course bearing a fifth indorsement containing the Secretary of War’s opinion signed by one of the Assistant Adjutants-General. It travelled through the back channels that you know, passingWhipple Barracks and reaching the hungry, unsated Leonidas many weeks after all traces had vanished from his trousers. During these weeks his life had been made a sorry thing by that song about the blister. Not even the sympathy of Cousin Xerxes could sweeten his embittered days. They were wholesome for him, to be sure; they began to cure him of being a watermelon; they even gave him gradually a just estimate of the Secretary’s speech at McPherson, and he grew into a strapping young trooper with many of the trooper’s habits in moderation. The only profane language that he used was in connection with the Secretary of War, whose tricky official language in his indorsement had utterly dodged his promise to stand behind him. But Leonidas could not comfortably live in a place where everybody remembered how he had (as Jones put it) “run around showing his pants.” He took his discharge at the first opportunity, and became an eminent cow-boy in the neighborhood, with a man’s full strength in his sinews, and a man’s anger silent in his heart. The hour for him to smile had not yet come.

Youwill doubtless have perceived the flaw in the Secretary’s conduct before I can point it out to you. He should have written a letter to poor Leonidas with his own hand. It might not have been the easiest kind of letter for you or for me to compose; but for a statesman of the Secretary’s ripeness it ought to have been the affair of five minutes. A few words of deep sympathy, a few words of hot indignation, a few words of sincere regret that he had not yet had time to remove all the obstructions which a despotic tradition set between him and the enlisted man—and, best of all, a few words of promise to see Leonidas on his coming tour through the Southwest—such a letter as this would have made Leonidas proud and happy, and comforted forever the tingling sensations that pierced him whenever he thought of his final choir practice. But as Leonidas seemed no longer of any possible use to the Secretary, the Secretary forgot all about him!

It was not understood at the ranch where Leonidas was now employed, why he so eagerly followed the printed chronicle of the Secretary’s approach. Indeed, had you asked him to explain it himself, I doubt if he could have done so: the needle seeks the pole—but why? He would pore over the Tucson paper and learn how the Secretary had visited San Antonio and spoken to the soldiers there; how he had paused at El Paso, and spoken to the soldiers there; how he had visited Bayard, Bowie, and Grant, and spoken at all three; and how he was expected on the train from Benson on the very next day, and would get off at Chiricahua station and drive to the post; how he would return thence and proceed to Lowell Barracks on his way to Yuma and Los Angeles.

All this programme was of natural interest to the officers and men at Fort Chiricahua, but it seemed of unnatural interest to Leonidas. Concerning his absorption the other cow-boys passed comments among themselves, but made none to him, because he had altogether ceased to be a watermelon.

The smoke of a train in that country is to be sighted from a great distance and for some time before you can see the train, because the smoke is very black and the train goes very slowly. Also, the dust of a horseman or a vehicle canbe descried from afar. As the smoke of the Secretary’s train approached the Chiricahua station, the dust of a seemly military escort drew near from the direction of the post, and the dust of a galloping cow-boy came along the road from the ranch where Leonidas was employed. By the platform of the station was assembled a little group of citizens hoping for a speech; and by the time the train made its deliberate arrival complete, the escort was arrayed with due military precision, the ambulance was at hand near by, for the Secretary to step into when he should feel ready, and a captain with two lieutenants was preparing to salute the eminent statesman as he alighted from the car. He returned their greeting, and as he stepped forward to the end of the platform from which elevation he desired to say a few cordial and timely words to those waiting in the surrounding dust, the cow-boy entered the ticket office, but came out again on the platform, which was natural, since the ticket window was at the moment closed. The sight of the Secretary produced an immediate effect upon the appearance of the cow-boy. He seemed to grow larger.

“Friends and soldiers,” said the Secretary, “Iam always moved when I see an enlisted man—” and even with the words, he was moved conspicuously through the air and came down in the dust in a seated position. The leg of Leonidas had grown exceedingly muscular. Before anybody had regained his senses, the cow-boy was seen to dash away shouting on his horse across the railroad track, and pursuit did not overtake him. I am not sure if this was the fault of Captain Stone or Sergeant Jones, both of whom were in the chase.

It gravely damaged the Secretary’s visit for him, but rendered it for many others a memorable success, especially for Captain Stone and Sergeant Jones. And Jones made so bold as to remark to Stone: “I think, if the captain pleases, that the Secretary won’t never stand behind Leonidas like Leonidas has stood behind him.”

“It is a great thing for a man to feel young,” replied Captain Stone. His mustache was flat, smiling and serene.

Nobody knows whether or not the Secretary considered this mixing of politics and the army to be in Nature’s plan.

Itwas a yellow poster, still wet with the rain. Against the wet, dark boards of the shed on which it was pasted, its color glared like a patch of flame.

A monstrous thunderstorm had left all space dumb and bruised, as it were, with the heavy blows of its noise. Outside the station in the washed, fresh air I sat waiting, staring idly at the poster. The damp seemed to make the yellow paper yellower, the black letters blacker. A dollar-sign, figures and zeros, exclamation points, and the two blackest words of all,rewardandmurder, were what stood out of the yellow. Reward and Murder had been printed big and could be seen far. Two feet away, on the same shed, was another poster, white, concerning some stallion, his place of residence, and the fee for his service. This also I had read, with equal inattention and idleness, but my eyes had been drawn to the yellow spot and held by it.

Not by its news; the news was now old, sinceat every cabin and station dotted along our lonely road the same poster had appeared. They had discussed it, and whether he would be caught, and how much money he had got from his victim. At Lost Soldier they knew he had got ten thousand dollars, at Bull Spring they knew he had got twenty, at Crook’s Gap it was more like twenty-five, while at Sweetwater Bridge he had got nothing at all. What they did agree about was that he would not be caught. Too much start. Body hadn’t been found on Owl Creek for a good many weeks. Funny his friend hadn’t turned up. If they’d killed him, why wasn’t his body on Owl Creek, too? If he’d got away, why didn’t he turn up? Such comments, with many more, were they making at Lost Soldier, Bull Spring, Crook’s Gap, and Sweetwater Bridge, and it was not the news on the poster that drew my eye, but its mere yellow vibrations. These, in some way, caught my brain in a net and held it still, so that thinking stopped, and I was under a spell, torpid as any plant or sponge—passive, perhaps, is the truer word for my state.

When I was abruptly wakened from this open-eyed sleep, I knew that I had been hearing a song for some time:—

If that I was where I would be,Then should I be where I am not;Here am I where I must be,And where I would be I cannot.

If that I was where I would be,Then should I be where I am not;Here am I where I must be,And where I would be I cannot.

If that I was where I would be,Then should I be where I am not;Here am I where I must be,And where I would be I cannot.

It was the neigh of some horse in the stable, loud and sudden, that had burst the shell of my trance, causing thought to start to life again, as if with a leap; there I sat in the wagon, waiting for Scipio Le Moyne to come out of the house; there in my nostrils was the smell of the wet sage-brush and of the wet straw and manure, and there, against the gray sky, was an after-image of the yellow poster, square, huge, and blue. The smaller print was not reproduced, but Reward and Murder stood out clear, floating in the air. It moved with my eyes as I turned them to get rid of the annoying vision, and it at last slowly dissolved away over the head of the figure sitting on the corral with its back to me, the stock-tender of this stage station. It wore out as I listened to his song, and looked at him. He sang his song again, and I found that I now knew it by heart.

If that I was where I would be,Then should I be where I am not;Here am I where I must be,And where I would be I cannot.

If that I was where I would be,Then should I be where I am not;Here am I where I must be,And where I would be I cannot.

If that I was where I would be,Then should I be where I am not;Here am I where I must be,And where I would be I cannot.

“If that was where I would be, then should I be where I am not”

“If that was where I would be, then should I be where I am not”

“If that was where I would be, then should I be where I am not”

In the mountains, beyond the sage-brush, the thunderstorm was still splitting the dark cañons open with fierce strokes of light; the light seemed close, but it was a long time before its crashes and echoes came to us through the wet air. I could not see the figure’s face, or that he moved. One boot was twisted between the bars of the corral to hold him steady, its trodden heel was worn to a slant; from one seat-pocket a soiled rag protruded, and through a hole below this a piece of his red shirt or drawers stuck out. A coat much too large for him hung from his neck rather than from his shoulders, and the damp, limp hat that he wore, with its spotted, unraveled hatband, somehow completed the suggestion that he was not alive at all, but had been tied together and stuffed and set out in joke. Certainly there were no birds here, or crops to frighten birds from; empty bottles were the only thing that man had sown the desert with at Rongis.[2]These lay everywhere. As the figure sat and repeated its song beneath the still wrecked and stricken sky, its back and its hat and its voice gave an impression of loneliness, poignant and helpless. A windmill turned and turned and creaked near the corral, adding its note of forlornness to the song.

A man put his head out of the house. “Stop it,” he said, and shut the door again.

The figure obediently climbed down and went over to the windmill, took hold of the rope hanging from its rudder, and turned the contrivance slowly out of the wind, until the wheel ceased revolving. I saw then that he was a boy.

The man put his head out of the house, this second time speaking louder: “I didn’t say stopthat, I said stopit; stop your damned singing.” He withdrew his head immediately.

The boy—the mild, new yellow hair on his face was the unshaven growth of adolescence—stood a long while looking at the door in silence, with eyes and mouth expressing futile injury. Finally he thrust his hands into bunchy pockets, and said:—

“I ain’t no two-bit man.”

He watched the door, as if daring it to deny this; then, as nothing happened, he slowly drew his hands from the bunchy pockets, climbed the corral at the spot nearest him, twisted the bootbetween the bars, and sat as before, only without singing.

The cloud and the thunder were farther away, but around us still, from unseen places, roofs and corners, dropped the leavings of the downpour. We faced each other, saying nothing; we had nothing to say. In the East we would have talked, but here in the Rocky Mountains an admirable habit of silence was generally observed under such conditions.

Thus we sat waiting, I for Scipio to come out of the house with the information he had gone in for, while the boy waited for nothing.Waiting for nothingwas stamped plain upon him from head to foot, as it is stamped upon certain figures all the world over—figures seated in clubs, standing at corners, leaning against railroad stations and boxes of freight, staring out of windows. Those in the clubs die at last, and it is mentioned; the others of course die, too, only it is not mentioned. This boy’s eyebrows were insufficient, and his front was as ragged as his back.

Presently the same man put his head out of the door. “You after sheep?”

I nodded.

“I could a-showed you sheep. Rams. Horns as big as your thigh—bigger’nyourthigh. That was before tenderfeet came in and spoiled this country. Counted seven thousand on that there butte one morning before breakfast. Seven thousand and twenty-three, if you want exact figgers. Set on this porch and killed sheep whenever I wanted to. Some of ’em used to come on the roof. Counted eight rams on the roof one morning before breakfast. Quit your staring!” This was addressed to the boy on the corral. “Why, you’re not a-going without another?” This convivial question was to Scipio, who now came out of the house and across to me with news of failure.

“I could a-showed you sheep—” resumed the man, but I was attending to Scipio.

“He don’t know anything,” said Scipio, “nor any of ’em in there. But we haven’t got this country rounded up yet. He’s just come out of a week of snake fits, and, by the way it looks, he’ll enter on another about to-morrow morning. But whiskey can’t stophimlying.”

“Bad weather,” said the man, watching us make ready to continue our long drive. “Lots o’ lightning loose in the air right now. Kind o’ weather you’re liable to see fire on the horns of the stock some night.”

This sounded like such a promising invention that I encouraged him. “We have nothing like that in the East.”

“H’m. Guess you’ve not. Guess you never seen sixteen thousand steers with a light at the end of every horn in the herd.”

“Are they going to catch that man?” inquired Scipio, pointing to the yellow poster.

“Catch him? Them? No! But I could tell ’em where he’s went. He’s went to Idaho.”

“Thought the ’76 outfit had sold Auctioneer,” Scipio continued conversationally.

“That stallion? No! But I could tell ’em they’d ought to.” This was his good-by to us; he removed himself and his alcoholic omniscience into the house.

“Wait,” I said to Scipio, as he got in and took the reins from me. “I’m going to deal some magic to you. Look at that poster. No, not the stallion, the yellow one. Keep looking at it hard.” While he obeyed me I made solemn passes with my hands over his head. I kept it up, and the boy sat on the corral bars, watching stupidly. “Now look anywhere you please.”

Scipio looked across the corral at the gray sky. A slight stiffening of his figure ensued, and he knit his brows. Then he rubbed a hand over his eyes and looked again.

“You after sheep?” It was the boy sitting on the corral. We paid him no attention.

“It’s about gone,” said Scipio, rubbing his eyes again. “Did you do that to me? Of course y’u didn’t! What did?”

I adopted the manner of the professor who lectured on light to me when I was nineteen. “The eye being normal in structure and focus, the color of an after-image of the negative variety is complementary to that of the object causing it. If, for instance, a yellow disk (or lozenge in this case) be attentively observed, the yellow-perceiving elements of the retina become fatigued. Hence, when the mixed rays which constitute white light fall upon that portion of the retina which has thus been fatigued, the rays which produce the sensation of yellow will cause less effect than the other rays for which the eye has not been fatigued. Therefore, white light to an eye fatigued for yellow will appear blue—blue being yellow’s complementary color. Shall I go on?”

“Don’t y’u!” Scipio begged. “I’d sooner believe y’u done it to me.”

“I can show you sheep.” It was the boy again. We had not noticed him come from the corral to our wagon, by which he now stood. His eyes were now eagerly fixed upon me; as they looked into mine they seemed almost burning with some sort of appeal.

“Hello, Timberline!” said Scipio, not at all unkindly. “Still holding your job here? Well, you better stick to it. You’re inclined to drift some.”

He touched the horses, and we left the boy standing and looking after us, lonely and baffled. But when a joke was born in Scipio it must out:

“Say, Timberline,” he called back, “better insure your clothes. Y’u couldn’t replace ’em.”

“I’m no two-bit man,” retorted the boy with anger—that pitiful anger which feels a blow but cannot give one.

We drove away along the empty stage-road, with the mountains and the dying storm, in which a piece of setting sun would redly glow and vanish, making our leftward horizon, and to our right the great undulations of a world so large as to seem the universe itself. The air was wetstill, and full of the wet sage-brush smell, and the ground was wet, but it could not be so long in this sandy region. Three hours would see us to the next house, unless we camped short of this upon Broke Axle Creek.

“Why Timberline?” I asked after several miles.

“Well, he came into this country the long, lanky, innocent kid like you saw him, and he’d always get too tall in the legs for his latest pair of pants. They’d be half up to his knees. So we called him that. Guess he’s most forgot his real name.”

“What is his real name?”

“I’ve quite forgot.”

This much talk did for us for two or three miles more.

“Must it be yellow?” Scipio asked then.

“Red’ll do it, too,” I answered. “Only you see green then, I think. And there are others.”

“H’m,” observed Scipio. “Most as queer as chemistry. D’ y’u know chemistry?”

“Why, what do you know?”

“Just the embalmin’ side. Didn’t y’u know I assisted an undertaker wunst in Kansas City?”

“What’s that?” I interrupted sharply, for something out in the darkness had jumped.

“Does a stray steer scare you like that to-night? Now, that embalmin’ trick give me a notion I’ll work out some time. What do you miss worst in camp grub?”

“Eggs,” said I, immediately.

“That’s you. Well, I’m going to invent embalmed eggs—somehow.”

“Hope you do,” said I. “Do you believe I’m going to get sheep this time? It’s all I came for.”

“You’ll get sheep,” Scipio declared, “or I’ll lose my job at Sunk Creek ranch.” Judge Henry had lent him to me for my hunting trip. “Of course I’d notcall’em embalmed eggs,” he finished.

“Condensed,” I suggested. “Like the milk. Do you suppose the man really did go to Idaho?”

“They do go there—and they go everywheres else that’s convenient—Canada, San Francisco, some Indian reservation. He’ll never get found. I expect like as not he killed the confederate along with the victims—it’s claimed there was a cook along, too. He’s never showed up. It’s a bad proposition to get tangled up with a murderer.”

I sat thinking of this and that and the other.

“That was a superior lie about the lights on the steers’ horns,” I remarked next.

Scipio shoved one hand under his hat and scratched his head. “They say that’sso,” he said. “I’ve heard it. Never seen it. But—tell y’u—he ain’t got brains enough to invent a thing like that. And he’s too conceited to tell another man’s lie.”

“Well,” I pondered, “there’s Saint Elmo’s fire. That’s genuine.”

Scipio desired to know about this, and I told him of the lights that are seen at the ends of the yards and spars of ships at sea in atmospheric conditions of a certain kind. He let me also tell him of the old Breton sailor belief that these lights are the souls of dead sailor-men come back to pray for the living in peril; but he stopped me soon when I attempted to speak of charged thunder clouds, and the positive, and the negative, and conductors, and Leyden jars. “That’s a heap worse than the other stuff about yellow and blue,” he objected. “Here’s Broke Axle. D’ y’u say camp here, or make it in to the station?”

“Well, if that filthy woman still keeps the station—”

“She does. She’s a buck-skinned son-of-a-gun. We’ll camp here, Professor.”

Scipio had first called me by this name beforehe knew me, in Colonel Cyrus Jones’s Eating Palace in Omaha, intending no compliment by the term. Since that day many adventures and surprises shared together had changed it to a word of familiar regard; he used it sparingly, and as a rule only upon occasions of discomfort or mischance. “You’ll get sheep, Professor,” he now repeated in a voice of reassurance, and went his way to attend to the horses for the night.

The earth had dried, the plenteous stars were bright in the sky, we needed no tent over us, and merely spread my rubber blanket and the buffalo robes, and so beneath light covers waited for sleep to the gurgle, sluggish and musical, of Broke Axle. Scipio’s sleep was superior to mine, coming sooner and burying him deeper from the world of wakefulness. Thus he did not become aware of a figure sitting by our little fire of embers, whose presence penetrated my thinner sleep until my eyes opened and saw it. Such things give me a shock, which, I suppose, must be fear, but it is not at all fear of the mind. I lay still, drawing my gun stealthily into a good position and thinking what were best to do; but he must have heard me.

“Lemme me show you sheep.”

“What’s that?” It was Scipio starting to life and action.

“Don’t shoot Timberline,” I said. “He’s come to show us sheep.”

Scipio sat staring stupefied at the figure by the embers, and then he slowly turned his head round to me, and I thought he was going to pour out one of those long, corrosive streams of comment that usually burst from him when he was enough surprised. But he was too much surprised. “His name is Henry Hall,” he said to me very mildly. “I’ve just remembered it.”

The patient figure by the embers rose. “There’s sheep in the Washakie Needles. Lots and lots and lots. I seen ’em myself in the spring. I can take you right to ’em. Don’t make me go back and be stock-tender.” He recited all this in a sort of rising wail until the last sentence, in which the entreaty shook his voice.

“Washakie Needles is the nearest likely place,” muttered Scipio.

“If you don’t get any, you needn’t to pay me any,” urged the boy; and he stretched out an arm to mark his words and his prayer.

We sat in our beds and he stood waiting by the embers to hear his fate, while nothing made a sound but Broke Axle.

“Why not?” I said. “We were talking of a third man.”

“A man,” said Scipio. “Yes.”

“I can cook, I can pack, I can cook good bread, and I can show you sheep, and if I don’t you needn’t to pay me a cent,” entreated the boy.

“He sure means what he says,” Scipio commented. “It’s your trip.”

Thus it was I came to hire Timberline.

Dawn showed him in the same miserable rags he wore on my first sight of him at the corral, and these proved his sole visible property of any kind; he didn’t possess a change of anything, he hadn’t brought away from Rongis so much as a handkerchief tied up with things inside it; most wonderful of all, he owned not even a horse—and in that country in those days five dollars’ worth of horse was within the means of almost anybody.

But he was not unclean, as I had feared. He washed his one set of rags, and his skin-and-bones body, by the light of the first sunrise on Broke Axle, and this proved a not too rare habit with him, which made all the more strange his neglect to throw the rags away and wear the new clothes I bought and gave him as we passed through Lander.

“Timberline,” said Scipio the next day, “if Anthony Comstock came up in this country he’d jail you.”

“Who’s he?” screamed Timberline, sharply.

“He lives in Noo York, and he’s agin the nood. That costume of yours is getting close on to what they claim Venus and other immoral Greek statuary used to wear.”

After this Timberline put on the Lander clothes, but on one of his wash-days we discovered that he kept the rags next his skin! This clinging to such worthless things seemed probably the result of destitution, of having had nothing, day after day and month after month. His poor little pay at Rongis, which we gradually learned they had always got back from him by one trick or another, was less than half what I now gave him for his services, and I offered to advance him some of this at places where it could be spent; but he told me to keep it until he had earned the whole of it.

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