CHAPTER XIITHE YOUNG EAGLE FLUTTERS THE DOVE-COTE
The little town of Marmion was built on the high, grassy, parklike bank of the Cedar River; at least, the main part of the residences and stores stood on the upper level, while below, beside the roaring water, only a couple of mills and some miserable shacks straggled along a road which ran close to the sheer walls of water-worn limestone.
The town was considered "picturesque" by citizens of the smaller farm villages standing bleakly where the prairie lanes intersected. To be able to live in Marmion was held to be eminent good fortune by the people roundabout, and the notion was worth working for. "If things turn out well we will buy a lot in Marmion and build a house there," husbands occasionally said to their wives and daughters, to console them for themud, or dirt, or heat, or cold of the farm life. One by one some of those who had come into the country early, and whose land had grown steadily in value as population increased, were able to rent their farms to advantage and "move into town." Thus the streets gradually lengthened out into the lanes, and brick blocks slowly replaced the battlemented wooden stores of earlier frontier construction.
To Harold Excell, fresh from the wide spaces of the plains, the town appeared smothered in leaves, and the air was oppressively stagnant. He came into the railway station early one July morning, tired and dusty, with a ride of two days and a night in an ordinary coach. As he walked slowly up the street toward the center of the sleeping village, the odor of ripe grain and the familiar smell of poplar and maple trees went to his heart. His blood leaped with remembered joys. Under such trees, in the midst of such fragrance, he had once walked with his sister and with Jack. His heart swelled with the thought of the Burns' farm, and the hearty greeting they would give him could he but ride up to the door.
And Mary! How would she seem to him now? Four years was a long time at that period of a girl's life, but he was certain he would recognize her. He had not written to her of his coming, for he wished to announce himself. There were elements of adventure and surprise in the plan which pleased him. He had not heard from her for nearly a year, and that troubled him a little; perhaps she had moved away or was married. The thought of losing her made him shiver with sudden doubt of the good sense of his action. Anyhow, he would soon know.
The clerk of the principal hotel was sleeping on a cot behind the counter, and Mose considerately decided not to wake him. Taking a seat by the window, he resumed his thinking, while the morning light infiltrated the sky. He was only twenty-two years of age, but in his own thought he had left boyhood far behind. As a matter of fact he looked to be five years older than he was. His face was set in lines indicating resolution and daring, his drooping mustache hid the boyish curves of his lips, and he carried himself with a singular grace, self-confident, decisive, but not assertive. The swing of his shoulders had charm, and he walked well. The cowboy's painful hobble had not yet been fastened upon him.
Sitting there waiting the dawn, his face became tired, somber, almost haggard, with self-accusing thought. He was not yet a cattle king, he was, in fact, still a cowboy. The time had gone by when a hired hand could easily acquire a bunch of cattle and start in for himself—and yet, though he had little beyond his saddle and a couple of horses, he was in Marmion to look upon the face of the girl who had helped him to keep "square" and clean in a land where dishonesty and vice were common as sage brush. He had sworn never to set foot in Rock River again, and no one but Jack knew of his visit to Marmion.
Now that he was actually in the town where Mary lived he was puzzled to know how to proceed. He had wit enough to know that in Marmion a girl could not receive visits from a strange young man and escape the fire of infuriate gossip. He feared to expose her to such comment, and yet, having traveled six hundred miles to see her, he was not to be deterred by any other considerations, especially by any affecting himself.
He knew something, but not all, of the evil fame his name conveyed to the citizens in his native state. As "Harry Excell,aliasBlack Mose," he had figured in the great newspapers of Chicago, and Denver, and Omaha. Imaginative and secretly admiring young reporters had heaped alliterative words together to characterize his daring, his skill as a marksman and horseman, and had also darkly hinted of his part in desperate stage and railway robbery in the Farther West. To all this—up to the time of his return—Harold had replied, "These chaps must earn a living some way, I reckon." He was said to have shot down six men in his first "scrimmage." "No one presumes to any impertinent inquiries when 'Black Mose' rides into town."
Another enterprising newspaper youth had worked out the secret history of "Black Mose": "He began his career of crime early; at sixteen years of age he served in State's prison for knifing a rival back in the States." This report enabled the Rock River Call to identify Harold Excell with "Black Mose," to the pain and humiliation of Pastor Excell.
Harold paid very little heed to all this till his longing to see Mary grew intolerable—even now, waiting for the Sabbath day to dawn, he did not fully realize the black shadow which streamed from his name and his supposititious violences. He divined enough of it to know that he must remain unknown to others, and he registered as "M. Harding, Omaha."
He was somewhat startled to find himself without appetite, and pushing away his tough steak and fried potatoes, he arose and returned to the street. The problem before him required delicacy of handling, and he was not one to assume a tactful manner. The closer he came to the meeting the more difficult it became. He must see her without causing comment, and without Jack's aid he saw no way of doing it. He had written to Jack, asking him to meet him, and so he waited.
He was a perilously notable figure in spite of his neat black suit and quiet ways. His wide hat sat upon his head with a negligence which stopped short of swagger, and his coat revealed the splendid lines of his muscular shoulders. He had grown to a physical manhood which had the leopard's lithe grace and the lion's gravity. His dimpled and clean-shaven chin was strong, and the line of his lips firm. His eyes were steady and penetrating, giving an impression of reticence. His hands were slender and brown, and soft in the palms as those of a girl. The citizens marveled over him as he moved slowly through the streets, thinking himself quite indistinguishable among the other young men in dark suits and linen collars.
Waiting was most difficult, and to remain indoors was impossible, so he walked steadily about the town. As he returned from the river road for the fifth time, the bells began to ring for church, filling him with other memories of his youth, of his father and his pulpit, and brought to his mind also the sudden recollection of one of Jack's letters, wherein he mentioned Mary's singing in the choir. If she were at home she would be singing yet, he argued, and set forth definitely to find her.
To inquire was out of the question—so he started in at the largest church with intent to make the rounds. After waiting till the choir was about to begin the first hymn, he slipped in and took a seat near the door, his heart beating loudly and his breath much quickened.
The interior was so familiar, it seemed for the moment to be his father's church in Rock River. The odors, sounds, movements were quite the same. The same deaf old men, led by determined, sturdy old women, were going up the aisle to the front pews. The pretty girls, taking their seats in the middle pews (where their new hats could be enjoyed by the young men at the rear) became Dot, and Alice, and Nettie—and for the moment the cowboy was very boyish and tender. The choir assembling above the pulpit made him shiver with emotion. "Perhaps one of them will be Mary and I won't know her," he said to himself. "I will know her voice," he added.
But, as the soprano took her place, his heart ceased to pound—she was small, and dark, and thin. He arose and slipped out to continue his search.
They were singing as he entered the next chapel, and it required but a moment's listening to convince himself that Mary was not there. The third church was a small stone building of odd structure, and while he hesitated before its door, a woman's voice took up a solo strain, powerful, exultant, and so piercingly sweet that the plainsman shivered as if with sudden cold. Around him the softly moving maples threw dappling shadows on the walk. The birds in the orchards, the insects in the grass, the clouds overhead seemed somehow involved in the poetry and joy of that song. The wild heart of the young trailer became like that of a child, made sweet and tender by the sovereign power of a voice.
He did not move till the clear melody sank into the harmony of the organ, then, with bent head and limbs unwontedly infirm, he entered the lovely little audience room. He stumbled into the first seat in the corner, his eyes piercing the colored dusk which lay between him and the singer. It was Mary, and it seemed to him that she had become a princess, sitting upon a throne. Accustomed to see only the slatternly women of the cow towns, or the thin, hard-worked, and poorly-dressed wives and daughters of the ranchers, he humbled himself before the beauty and dignity and refinement of this young singer.
She was a mature woman, full-bosomed, grave of feature, introspective of glance. Her graceful hat, her daintily gloved hands, her tasteful dress, impressed the cowboy with a feeling that all art and poetry and refinement were represented by her. For the moment his own serenity and self-command were shaken. He cowered in his seat like a dust-covered plowman in a parlor, and when Mary looked in his direction his breath quickened and he shrank. He was not yet ready to have her recognize him.
The preacher, a handsome and scholarly young fellow, arose to speak, and Harold was interested in him at once. The service had nothing of the old-time chant or drawl or drone. In calm, unhesitating speech the young man proceeded, from a text of Hebrew scripture, to argue points of right and wrong among men, and to urge upon his congregation right thinking and right action. He used a great many of the technical phrases of carpenters and stonemasons and sailors. He showed familiarity also with the phrases of the cattle country. Several times a low laugh rippled over his congregation as he uttered some peculiarly apt phrase or made use of some witty illustration. To the cowboy this sort of preaching came with surprise. He thought: "The boys would kieto to this chap all right." He was not eager to have them listen to Mary singing.
Sitting there amid the little audience of thoughtful people, his brain filled with new conceptions of the world and of human life. Nothing was clearly defined in the tumult of opposing pictures. At one moment he thought of his sister and his family, but before he could imagine her home or decide on how to see her, a picture of his father, or Jack, or the peaceful Burns' farm came whirling like another cloud before his brain, and all the time his eyes searched Mary's calm and beautiful face. He saw her smile, too, when the preacher made a telling application of a story. How would she receive him after so many years? She had not answered his last letter; perhaps she was married. Again the chilly wind from the cañon of doubt blew upon him. If she was, why that ended it. He would go back to the mountains and never return.
The minister finished at last and Mary arose again to sing. She was taller, Harold perceived, and more matronly in all ways. As she sang, the lonely soul of the plainsman was moved to an ecstasy which filled his throat and made his eyes misty with tears. He thought of his days in the gray prison, and of this girlish voice singing like an angel to comfort him. She did not seem to be singing to him now. She sang as a bird sings out of abounding healthand happiness, and as she sang, the mountains retreated into vast distances. The rush of the cattle on the drive was fainter than the sigh of the wind, and the fluting of the Ute lover was of another world. For the moment he felt the majesty and the irrevocableness of human life.
He stood in a shadowed corner at the close of the service and watched her come down the aisle. As she drew near his breath left him, and the desire to lay his hand on her arm became so intense that his fingers locked upon the back of his pew—but he let her pass. She glanced at him casually, then turned to smile at some word of the preacher walking just behind her. Her passing was like music, and the fragrance of her garments was sweeter than any mountain flower. The grace of her walk, the exquisite fairness of her skin subdued him, who acknowledged no master and no mistress. She walked on out into the Sabbath sunshine and he followed, only to see her turn up the sidewalk close to the shoulder of the handsome young minister.
The lonely youth walked back to his hotel with manner so changed his mountain companions would have marveled at it. A visit which had seemed so simple on the Arickaree became each moment more complicated incivilization. The refined young minister with the brown pointed beard, so kindly and thoughtful and wholesome of manner, was a new sort of man to such as Harold Excell. He feared no rivalry among the youth of the village, but this scholar——
Jack met him at the hotel—faithful old Jack, whose freckled face beamed, and whose spectacled eyes were dim with gladness. They shook hands again and again, crying out confused phrases. "Old man, how are you?" "I'm all right, how are you?" "You look it." "Where'd you find the red whiskers?" "They came in a box." "Your mustache is a wonder."
Ultimately they took seats and looked at each other narrowly and quietly. Then Harold said, "I'm Mr. Harding here."
Jack replied: "I understand. Your father knows, too. He wants to come up and see you. I said I'd wire, shall I?"
"Of course—if he wants to see me—but I want to talk to you first. I've seen Mary!"
"Have you? How did you manage?"
"I trailed her. Went to all the churches in town. She sings in a little stone church over here."
"I know. I've been up here to see her once or twice myself."
Harold seized him by the arm. "See here, Jack—I must talk with her. How can I manage it without doing her harm?"
"That's the question. If these people should connect you with 'Black Mose' they'd form a procession behind you. Harry, you don't know, you can't imagine the stories they've got up about you. They've made you into a regular Oklahoma Billy the Kid and train robber. The first great spread was that fight you had at Running Bear, that got into the Omaha papers in three solid columns about six months after it happened. Of course I knew all about it from your letters—no one had laid it to you then, but now everybody knows you are 'Black Mose,' and if you should be recognized you couldn't see Mary without doing her an awful lot of harm. You must be careful."
"I know all that," replied Harold gloomily. "But you must arrange for me to see her right away, this afternoon or to-night."
"I'll manage it. They know me here and I can call on her and take a friend, an old classmate, you see, without attracting much attention—but it isn't safe for you to stay here long, somebody is dead-sure to identify you. They've had two or three pictures of you going around that really looked like you, and then your father coming up may let the secret out. We must be careful. I'll call on Mary immediately after dinner and tell her you are here."
"Is she married? Some way she seemed like a married woman."
"No, she's not married, but the young preacher you heard this morning is after her, they say, and he's a mighty nice chap."
There was no more laughter on the gentle, red-bearded face of young Burns. Had Harold glanced at him sharply at that moment, he would have seen a tremor in Jack's lips and a singular shadow in his eyes. His voice indeed did affect Harold, though he took it to be sympathetic sadness only.
Jack brightened up suddenly. "I can't really believe it is you, Harry. You've grown so big and burly, and you look so old." He smiled. "I wish I could see some of that shooting they all tell about, but thatwouldlet the cat out."
Harold could not be drawn off to discuss such matters.
"Come out to the ranch and I'll show you. But how are we to meet father? If he is seen talking with me it may start people off——"
"I'll tell you. We'll have him come up and join you on the train and go down to Rock River together. I don't mean for you to get off, you can keep right on. Now, you mustn't wear that broad hat; you wear a grape-box straw hat while you're here. Take mine and I'll wear a cap."
He took charge of Harold's affairs with ready and tactful hand. He was eager to hear his story, but Harold refused to talk on any other subject than Mary. At dinner he sat in gloomy silence, disregarding his friend's pleasant, low-voiced gossip concerning old friends in Rock River.
After Jack left the hotel Harold went to his room and took a look at himself in the glass. He was concerned to see of what manner of man he really was. He was not well-satisfied with himself; his face and hands were too brown and leathery, and when he thought of his failure as a rancher his brow darkened. He was as far from being a cattle king as when he wrote that boyish letter four years before, and he had sense enough to know that a girl of Mary's grace and charm does not lack for suitors. "Probably she is engaged or married," he thought. Life seemed a confusion and weariness at the moment.
As soon as he heard Jack on the stairs he hurried to meet him.
"What luck? Have you seen her?"
Jack closed the door before replying, "Yes."
"What did she say?"
"She turned a little paler and just sat still for a minute or two. You know she isn't much of a talker. Then she said, 'Was he at church to-day?' I said 'Yes'; then she said, 'I think I saw him. I saw a stranger and was attracted by his face, but of course I never thought it could be Harold.' She was completely helpless for a while, but as I talked she began to see her way. She finally said, 'He has come a long way and I must see him. Imusttalk with him, but people must not know who he is.' I told her we were going to be very careful for her sake."
"That's right, we must," Harold interrupted.
"She didn't seem scared about herself. 'It won't harm me,' she said, 'but father is hard to manage when anything displeases him. We must be careful on Harold's account.'"
Harold's throat again contracted with emotion. "She never thinks of herself; that's her way."
"Now we've just got to walk boldly up the walk, the two of us together, and call on her. I'll introduce you to her father or she will; he knows me. We will talk about our school days while the old gentleman is around. He will drift away after a time, naturally. If he doesn't I'll take him out for a walk."
This they did. Made less of a cowboy by Jack's straw hat, Harold went forth on a trail whose course was not well-defined in his mind, though now that Jack had arranged details so deftly that Mary was not in danger of being put to shame, his native courage and resolution came back to him. In the full springtide of his powerful manhood Mary's name and face had come at last to stand for everything worth having in the world, and like a bold gambler he was staking all he had on a single whirl of the wheel.
Their meeting was so self-contained that only a close observer could have detected the tension. Mary was no more given to externalizing her emotions than he. She met him with a pale, sweet, dignified mask of face. She put out her hand, and said, "I am glad to see you, Mr. Harding," but his eyes burned down into hers with such intensity that she turned to escape his glance. "Father, you know Mr. Burns, and this is his friend, Mr. Harding, whom I used to know."
Jack came gallantly to therescue. He talked crops, politics, weather, church affairs, and mining. He chattered and laughed in a way which would have amazed Harold had he not been much preoccupied. He was unprepared for the change in Mary. He had carried her in his mind all these years as a little slip of a maiden, wrapt in expression, somber of mood, something half angel and half child, and always she walked in a gray half light, never in the sun. Now here she faced him, a dignified woman, with deep, serene eyes, and he could not comprehend how the pale girl had become the magnetic, self-contained woman. He was thrown into doubt and confusion, but so far from showing this he sat in absolute silence, gazing at her with eyes which made her shiver with emotion.
Talk was purposeless and commonplace at first, a painful waiting. Suddenly they missed Jack and the father. They were alone and free to speak their most important words. Harold seized upon the opportunity with most disconcerting directness.
"I've come for you, Mary," he said, as if he had not hitherto uttered a word, and his voice aroused some mysterious vibration within her bosom. "I'm not a cattle king; I have nothing but two horses, a couple of guns, and a saddle—but all the same, here I am. I got lonesome for you, and at last I took the back trail to find out whether you had forgot me or not."
His pause seemed to require an answer and her lips were dry as she said in a low voice, "No, I did not forget, but I thought you had forgottenme."
"A man don't forget such a girl as you are, Mary. You were in my mind all the time. Your singing did more for me than anything else. I've tried to keep out of trouble for your sake. I haven't succeeded very well as you know—but most of the stories about me are lies. I've only had two fights and they were both in self-defense and I don't think I killed anybody. I never know exactly what I'm doing when I get into a scrap. But I've kept out of the way of it on your account. I never go after a man. It's pretty hard not to shoot out there where men go on the rampage so often. It's easier, now than it used to be, for they are afraid of me."
He seemed to come to a halt in that direction, and after a moment's pause took a new start. "I saw you at church to-day, and I saw you walk off with the minister, and that gave me a sudden jolt. It seemed to me you—liked him mighty well——"
She was sitting in silence and apparent calmness, but she flushed and her lips set close together. It was evident that no half-explanations would suffice this soul of the mountain land.
He arose finally and stood for an instant looking at her with piercing intentness. His deep excitement had forced him to physical action.
"I could see he was the man for you, not me. Right there I felt like quitting. I went back to my hotel doing more thinking to the square minute than ever before in my life, I reckon. I ought to have pulled out for the mountains right then, but you see, I had caught a glimpse of you again, and I couldn't. The smell of your dress——" he paused a moment. "You are the finest girl God ever made and I just couldn't go without seeing you, at least once more."
He was tense, almost rigid with the stress of his sudden passion. She remained silent with eyes fixed upon him, musing and somber. She was slower to utter emotion than he, and could not speak even when he had finished.
He began to walk up and down just before her, his brows moodily knitted. "I'm not fit to ask a girl like you to marry me, I know that. I've served time in jail, and I'm under indictment by the courts this very minute in two States. I'm no good on earth but to rope cattle. I can't bring myself to farm or sell goods back here, and if I could you oughtn't to have anything to do with me—but all the same you're worth more to me than anything else. I don't suppose there has been an hour of my life since I met you first that I haven't thought of you. I dreamed of you—when I'm riding at night—I try to think——"
He stopped abruptly and caught up her left hand. "You've got a ring on your finger—is that from the minister?"
Her eyes fled from his and she said, "Yes."
He dropped her hand. "I don't blame you any. I've made a failure of it." His tone was that of a bankrupt at fifty. "I don't know enough to write a letter—I'm only a rough, tough fool. I thought you'd be thinking of me just the way I was thinking of you, and there was nothing to write about because I wasn't getting ahead as I expected. So I kept waiting till something turned up to encourage me. Nothing did, and now I'm paid for it."
His voice had a quality which made her weep. She tried to think of some words of comfort but could not. She was indeed too deeply concerned with her own contending emotions. There was marvelous appeal in this powerful, bronzed, undisciplined youth. His lack of tact and gallantry, his disconcerting directness of look and speech shook her, troubled her, and rendered her weak. She was but a year younger than he, and her life had been almost as simple exteriorly, but at center she was of far finer development. She had always been introspective, and she had grown self-analytic. She knew that the touch of this young desperado's hand had changed her relation toward the world. As he talked she listened without formulating a reply.
When at last she began to speak she hesitated and her sentences were broken. "I am very sorry—but you see I had not heard from you for a long time—it would be impossible—for me to live on the plains so far away—even if—even if I had not promised Mr. King——"
"Well, that ends it," he said harshly, and his voice brought tears again. "I go back to my cow punching, the only business I know. As you say, the cow country is no place for a girl like you. It's a mighty hard place for women of any kind, and you ... Besides, you're a singer, you can't afford to go with me. It's all a part of my luck. Things have gone against me from the start."
He paused to get a secure hold on his voice. "Well, now, I'm going, but I don't want you to forget me; don't pray for me, justsingfor me. I'll hear you, and it'll help keep me out of mischief. Will you do that?"
"Yes—if you—if it will help——"
Jack's voice, unusually loud, interrupted her, and when the father entered, there was little outward sign of the passionate drama just enacted.
"Won't you sing for us, Mary?" asked Jack a few minutes later.
Mary looked at Harold significantly and arose to comply. Harold sat with head propped on his palm and eyes fixed immovably upon her face while she sang, If I Were a Voice. The voice was stronger, sweeter, and the phrasing was more mature, but it was after all the same soul singing through the prison gloom, straight to his heart. She charged the words with a special, intimate, tender meaning. She conveyed to him the message she dared not speak, "Be true in spite of all. My heart is sore for you, let me comfort you."
He, on his part, realized that one who could sing like that had a wider mission in the world than to accompany a cowboy to the bleak plains of the West. To comfort him was a small part of her work in the world. It was her mission to go on singing solace and pleasure to thousands all over the nation.
When she had finished he arose and offered his hand with a singular calmness which moved the girl more deeply than any word he had said. "When you sing that song, think of me, sometimes, will you?"
"Yes—always," she replied.
"Good-by," he said abruptly. Dropping her-hand, he went out without speaking another word.
Jack, taking her hand in parting, found it cold and nerveless.
"May I see you again before we go?" he asked.
Her eyes lighted a little and her hand tightened in his. "Yes—I want to speak with you," she said, and ended in a whisper, "about him."
Jack overtook Harold but remained silent. When they reached their room, Harold dropped into a chair like one exhausted by a fierce race.
"This ends it, Jack, I'll never set foot in the States again; from this time on I keep to the mountains."
CHAPTER XIIITHE YOUNG EAGLE DREAMS OF A MATE
As the young men sat at supper that night a note was handed to Jack by the clerk. Upon opening it he found a smaller envelope addressed to "Mr. Harding." Harold took it, but did not open it, though it promised well, being quite thick with leaves. Jack read his note at a glance and passed it across the table. It was simple:
"DEAR MR. BURNS: Won't you please see that the inclosed note reaches Harold. I wish you could persuade him to come and see me once more before he goes. I shall expect to seeyouanyhow. Father does not suspect anything out of the ordinary as yet, and it will be quite safe."Your friend,"MARY YARDWELL.
"DEAR MR. BURNS: Won't you please see that the inclosed note reaches Harold. I wish you could persuade him to come and see me once more before he goes. I shall expect to seeyouanyhow. Father does not suspect anything out of the ordinary as yet, and it will be quite safe.
"Your friend,
"MARY YARDWELL.
As soon as he decently could Harold went to his room and opened the important letter. In it the reticent-girl had uttered herself with unusual freedom. It was a long letter, and its writer must have gone to its composition at once after the door had closed upon her visitors. It began abruptly, too:
"DEAR FRIEND: My heart aches for you. From the time I first saw you in the jail I have carried your face in my mind. I can't quite analyze my feeling for you now. You are so different from the boy I knew. I think I am a little afraid of you, you scare me a little. You are of another world, a strange world of which I would like to hear. I have a woman's curiosity, I can't let you go away until you tell me all yourstory. I would like to say something on my own side also. Can't you come and see me once more? My father is going to be away at his farm all day to-morrow, can't you come with Mr. Burns and take dinner with me and tell me all about yourself—your life is so strange."There will be no one there (I mean at dinner) but Mr. Burns and you, and we can talk freely. Does being 'under indictment' mean that you are in danger of arrest? I want to understand all about that. You can't know how strange and exciting all these things are to me. My life is so humdrum here. You come into it like a great mountain wind. You take my words away as well as my breath. I am not like most women, words are not easy to me even when I write, though I write better than I talk—I think."Mr. King asked me to be his wife some months ago, and I promised to do so, but that is no reason why we should not be good friends. You have been too much in my life to go out of it altogether, though I had given up seeing you again, and then we always think of our friends as we last saw them, we can't imagine their development. Don't you find this so? You said you found me changed."I have little to tell you about myself. I graduated and then I spent one winter in Chicago to continue my music studies. I am teaching here summers to get pin money. It is so quiet here one grows to think all the world very far away, and the wild things among which you have lived and worked are almost unimaginable even when the newspapers describe them with the greatest minuteness."This letter is very rambling, I know, but I am writing as rapidly as I can, for I want to send it to you before you take the train. Please come to see me to-morrow. To-night I sing in the song service at the church. I hope you will be there. The more I think about your story the more eager to listen I become. There must be some basis of stirring deeds for all the tales they tell of you. My friends say I have a touch of the literary poison in my veins; anyhow I like a story above all things, and to hear the hero tell his own adventures will be the keenest delight."I am sorry I could not do more to make things easier for you to-day, but I come of men and women who are silent when they mean most. I am never facile of speech and to-day I was dumb. Perhaps if we meet on a clear understanding we will get along better. Come, anyhow, and let me know you as you are. Perhaps I have never really known you, perhaps I only imagined you."Your friend,"MARY YARDWELL."P.S. The reason for the postscript is that I have re-read the foregoing letter and find it unsatisfactory in everything except the expression of my wish to see you. I had meant to say so much and I have said so little. I am afraid now that I shall not see you at all, so I add my promise. I shall always remember you and Iwillthink of you when I sing, and I will sing If I Were a Voice every Sunday for you, especially when I am all alone, and I'll send it out to you by thought waves. You shall never fail of the best wishes of"MARY YARDWELL.
"DEAR FRIEND: My heart aches for you. From the time I first saw you in the jail I have carried your face in my mind. I can't quite analyze my feeling for you now. You are so different from the boy I knew. I think I am a little afraid of you, you scare me a little. You are of another world, a strange world of which I would like to hear. I have a woman's curiosity, I can't let you go away until you tell me all yourstory. I would like to say something on my own side also. Can't you come and see me once more? My father is going to be away at his farm all day to-morrow, can't you come with Mr. Burns and take dinner with me and tell me all about yourself—your life is so strange.
"There will be no one there (I mean at dinner) but Mr. Burns and you, and we can talk freely. Does being 'under indictment' mean that you are in danger of arrest? I want to understand all about that. You can't know how strange and exciting all these things are to me. My life is so humdrum here. You come into it like a great mountain wind. You take my words away as well as my breath. I am not like most women, words are not easy to me even when I write, though I write better than I talk—I think.
"Mr. King asked me to be his wife some months ago, and I promised to do so, but that is no reason why we should not be good friends. You have been too much in my life to go out of it altogether, though I had given up seeing you again, and then we always think of our friends as we last saw them, we can't imagine their development. Don't you find this so? You said you found me changed.
"I have little to tell you about myself. I graduated and then I spent one winter in Chicago to continue my music studies. I am teaching here summers to get pin money. It is so quiet here one grows to think all the world very far away, and the wild things among which you have lived and worked are almost unimaginable even when the newspapers describe them with the greatest minuteness.
"This letter is very rambling, I know, but I am writing as rapidly as I can, for I want to send it to you before you take the train. Please come to see me to-morrow. To-night I sing in the song service at the church. I hope you will be there. The more I think about your story the more eager to listen I become. There must be some basis of stirring deeds for all the tales they tell of you. My friends say I have a touch of the literary poison in my veins; anyhow I like a story above all things, and to hear the hero tell his own adventures will be the keenest delight.
"I am sorry I could not do more to make things easier for you to-day, but I come of men and women who are silent when they mean most. I am never facile of speech and to-day I was dumb. Perhaps if we meet on a clear understanding we will get along better. Come, anyhow, and let me know you as you are. Perhaps I have never really known you, perhaps I only imagined you.
"Your friend,
"MARY YARDWELL.
"P.S. The reason for the postscript is that I have re-read the foregoing letter and find it unsatisfactory in everything except the expression of my wish to see you. I had meant to say so much and I have said so little. I am afraid now that I shall not see you at all, so I add my promise. I shall always remember you and Iwillthink of you when I sing, and I will sing If I Were a Voice every Sunday for you, especially when I am all alone, and I'll send it out to you by thought waves. You shall never fail of the best wishes of
"MARY YARDWELL.
Not being trained in psychologic subtleties, Harold took this letter to mean only what it said. He was not as profoundly moved by it as he would have been could he have read beneath the lines the tumult he had produced in the tranquil life of its writer. One skilled in perception of a woman's moods could have detected a sense of weakness, or irresolution, or longing in a girl whose nature had not yet been tried by conflicting emotions.
Jack perceived something of this when Harold gave him the letter to read. His admiration of Harold's grace and power, his love for every gesture and every lineament of his boyish hero, made it possible for him to understand how deeply Mary had been moved when brought face to face with a handsome and powerful man who loved as lions love. He handed the letter back with a smile: "I think you'd better stay over and see her."
"I intend to," replied Harold; "wire father to come up."
"Let's go walk. We may happen by the church where she sings," suggested Jack.
It was a very beautiful hour of the day. The west was filled with cool, purple-gray clouds, and a fresh wind had swept away all memory of the heat of the day. Insects filled the air with quavering song. Children were romping on the lawns. Lovers sauntered by in pairs or swung under the trees in hammocks. Old people sat reading or listlessly talking beside their cottage doors. A few carriages were astir. It was a day of rest and peace and love-making to this busy little community. The mills were still and even the water seemed to run less swiftly, only the fishes below the dam had cause to regret the day's release from toil, for on every rock a fisherman was poised.
The tension being a little relieved, Harold was able to listen to Jack's news of Rock River. His father was still preaching in the First Church, but several influential men had split off and were actively antagonizing the majority of the congregation. The fight was at its bitterest. Maud had now three children, and her husband was doing well in hardware. This old schoolmate was married, that one was dead, many had moved West. Bradley Talcott was running for State Legislator. Radbourn was in Washington.
Talking on quietly the two young men walked out of the village into a lane bordered with Lombardy poplars. Harold threw himself down on the grass beneath them and said:
"Now I can imagine I am back on the old farm. Tell me all about your folks."
"Oh, they're just the same. They don't change much. Father scraped some money together and built a new bedroom on the west side. Mother calls it 'the boys' room.' By 'boys' they mean you and me. They expect us to sleep there when you come back on a visit. They'll be terribly disappointed at not seeing you. Mother seems to think as much of you as she does of me."
There was charm in the thought of the Burns' farm and Mrs. Burns coming and going about the big kitchen stove, the smell of wholesome cooking about her clothing, and for the moment the desperado's brain became as a child's. There was sadness in the thought that he never again could see his loyal friends or the old walks and lanes.
Jack aroused him and they walked briskly back toward the little church which they found already quite filled with young people. The choir, including Mary, smiled at the audience and at each other, for the spirit of the little church was humanly cheerful.
The strangers found seats in a corner pew together with a pale young man and a very pretty little girl. Jack was not imaginative, but he could not help thinking of the commotion which would follow if those around him should learn that "Black Mose" was at that moment seated among them. Mary, seeing the dark, stern face of the plainsman, had some such thought also. There was something gloriously unfettered, compelling, and powerful in his presence. He made the other young men appear commonplace and feeble in her eyes, and threw the minister into pale relief, emphasizing his serenity, his scholarship, and his security of position.
Harold gave close attention to the young minister, who, as Mary's lover, became important. As a man of action he put a low valuation on a mere scholar, but King was by no means contemptible physically. Jack also perceived the charm of such a man to Mary, and acknowledged the good sense of her choice. King could give her a pleasant home among people she liked, while Harold could only ask her to go to the wild country, to a log ranch in a cottonwood gulch, there to live month after month without seeing a woman or a child.
A bitter and desperate melancholy fell upon the plainsman. What was the use? Such a woman was not for him. He had only the pleasure of the wild country. He would go back to his horses, his guns, and the hills, and never again come under the disturbing influence of this beautiful singer. She was not of his world; her smiles were not for him. When the others arose in song he remained seated, his sullen face set toward the floor, denying himself the pleasure of even seeing Mary's face as she sang.
Her voice arose above the chorus, guiding, directing, uplifting the less confident ones. When she sang she was certain of herself, powerful, self-contained. That night she sang with such power and sweetness that the minister turned and smiled upon her at the end. He spoke over the low railing which separated them: "You surpass yourself to-night."
Looking across the heads of the audience as they began to take seats Harold saw this smile and action, and his face darkened again.
For her solo Mary selected one which expressed in simple words the capabilities each humble soul had for doing good. If one could not storm the stars in song one could bathe a weary brow. If one could not write a mighty poem one could speak a word of cheer to the toiler by the way.
It was all poor stuff enough, but the singer filled it with significance and appeal. At the moment it seemed as if such things were really worth doing. Each word came from her lips as though it had never been uttered by human lips before, so simple, so musical, so finely enunciated, so well valued was it. To Harold, so long separated from any approach to womanly art, it appealed with enormous power. He was not only sensitive, he was just come to the passion and impressionability of full-blooded young manhood. Powers converged upon him, and simple and direct as he was, the effects were confusion and deepest dejection. He heard nothing but Mary's voice, saw nothing but her radiant beauty. To him she was more wonderful than any words could express.
At the end of the singing he refused to wait till she came down the aisle, but hurried out into the open air away from the crowd. As Jack caught up with him he said: "You go to bed; I've got to take a run out into the country or I can't sleep at all. Father will be up in the morning, I suppose. I'll get off in the six o'clock train to-morrow night."
Jack said nothing, not even in assent, and Mose set off up the lane with more of mental torment than had ever been his experience before. Hitherto all had been simple. He loved horses, the wildthings, the trail, the mountains, the ranch duties, and the perfect freedom of a man of action. Since the door of his prison opened to allow him to escape into the West he had encountered no doubts, had endured no remorse, and had felt but little fear. All that he did was forthright, manly, single-purposed, and unhesitating.
Now all seemed changed. His horses, his guns, the joys of free spaces, were met by a counter allurement which was the voice of a woman. Strong as he was, stern as he looked, he was still a boy in certain ways, and this mental tumult, so new and strange to him, wearied him almost to tears. It was a fatigue, an ache which he could not shake off, and when he returned to the hotel he had settled nothing and was ready to flee from it all without one backward look. However, he slept soundlier than he thought himself capable of doing.
He was awakened early by Jack: "Harry, your father is here, and very anxious to see you."
Mose arose slowly and reluctantly. He had nothing to say to his father, and dreaded the interview, which he feared would be unpleasantly emotional. The father met him with face pale and hands trembling with emotion. "My son, my son!" he whispered. Mose stood silently wondering why his father should make so much fuss over him.
Mr. Excell soon recovered his self-command, and his voice cleared. "I had almost given up seeing you, Harold. I recognize you with difficulty—you have changed much. You seem well and strong—almost as tall as I was at your age."
"I hold my own," said Harold, and they all sat down more at ease. "I got into rough gangs out there, but I reckon they got as good as they sent."
"I suppose the newspapers have greatly exaggerated about your conflicts?"
Harold was a little disposed to shock his father. "Oh, yes, I don't think I really killed as many men as they tell about; I don't know that I killed any."
"I hope you did not lightly resort to the use of deadly weapons," said Mr. Excell sadly.
"It was kill or be killed," said Harold grimly. "It was like shooting a pack of howling wolves. I made up my mind to be just one shot ahead of anybody. There are certain counties outthere where the name 'Black Mose' means something."
"I'm sorry for that, my son. I hope you don't drink?"
"Don't you worry about that. I can't afford to drink, and if I could I wouldn't. Oh, I take a glass of beer with the boys once in a while on a hot day, but it's my lay to keep sober. A drunken man is a soft mark." He changed the subject: "Seems to me you're a good deal grayer."
Mr. Excell ran his fingers through the tumbled heap of his grizzled hair. "Yes; things are troubling me a little. The McPhails are fighting me in the church, and intend to throw me out and ruin me if they can, but I shall fight them till the bitter end. I am not to be whipped out like a dog."
"That's the talk! Don't let 'em run you out. I got run out of Cheyenne, but I'll never run again. I was only a kid then. After you throw 'em down, come out West and round up the cowboys. They won't play any underhanded games on you, and mebbe you can do them some good—especially on gambling. They are sure enough idiots about cards."
They went down to breakfast together, but did not sit together.
Jack and Harold talked in low voices about Mr. Excell.
"The old man looks pretty well run down, don't he?" said Harold.
"He worries a whole lot about you."
"He needn't to. When does he go back?"
"He wants to stay all day—just as long as he can."
"He'd better pull right out on that ten o'clock train. His being here is sure to give me away sooner or later."
It was hard for the father to say good-by. He had a feeling that it was the last time he should ever see him, and his face was gray with suffering as he faced his son for the last time. Harold became not merely unresponsive, he grew harsher of voice each moment. His father's tremulous and repeated words seemed to him foolish and absurd—and also inconsiderate. After he was gone he burst out in wrath.
"Why can't he act like a man? I don't want anybody to snivel over me. Suppose Iamto be shot this fall, what of it?"
This disgust and bitterness prepared him, strange to say, for his call upon Mary. He entered the house, master of himself and the situation. His nerves were like steel, and his stern face did not quiver in its minutest muscle, though she met him in most gracious mood, dressed as for conquest and very beautiful.
"I'm so glad you stayed over," she said. "I have been so eager to hear all about your life out there." She led the way to the little parlor once more and drew a chair near him.
"Well," he began, "it isn't exactly the kind of life your Mr. King leads."
There was a vengeful sneer in his voice which Mary felt as if he had struck her, but she said gently:
"I suppose our life does seem very tame to you now."
"It's sure death. I couldn't stand it for a year; I'd rot."
Mary was aware that some sinister change had come over him, and she paused to study him keenly. The tremulous quality of his voice and action had passed away. He was hard, stern, self-contained, and she (without being a coquette) determined that his mood should give way to hers. He set himself hard against the charm of her lovely presence and the dainty room. Mary ceased to smile, but her brows remained level.
"You men seem to think that all women are fond only of the quiet things, but it isn't true. We like the big deeds in the open air, too. I'd like to see a cattle ranch and take a look at a 'round-up,' though I don't know exactly what that means."
"Well, we're not on theround-up all the time," he said, relaxing a little. "It's pretty quiet part of the time; that is, quiet for our country. But then, you're always on a horse and you're out in the air on the plains with the mountains in sight. There's a lot of hard work about it, too, and it's lonesome sometimes when your're ridin' the lines, but I like it. When it gets a little too tame for me I hit the trail for the mountains with an Indian. The Ogallalahs are my friends, and I'm going to spend the winter with them and then go into the West Elk country. I'm due to kill a grizzly this year and some mountain sheep." He was started now, and Mary had only to listen. "Before I stop, I'm going to know all there is to know of the Rocky Mountains. With ol' Kintuck and my Winchester I'm goin' to hit the sunset trail and hit it hard. There's nothing to keep me now," he said with a sudden glance at her. "It don't matter where I turn up or pitch camp. I reckon I'd better not try to be a cattle king." He smiled bitterly and pitilessly at the poor figure he cut. "I reckon I'm a kind of a mounted hobo from this on."
"But your father and sister——"
"Oh, she isn't worryin' any about me; I haven't had a letter from her for two years. All I've got now is Jack, and he'd be no earthly good on the trail. He'd sure lose his glasses in a fight, and then he couldn't tell a grizzly from a two-year-old cow. So you see, there's nothing to hinder me from going anywhere. I'm footloose. I want to spend one summer in the Flat Top country. Ute Jim tells me it's fine. Then I want to go into the Wind River Mountains for elk. Old Talfeather, chief of the Ogallalahs, has promised to take me into the Big Horn Range. After that I'm going down into the southwest, down through the Uncompagre country. Reynolds says they're the biggest yet, and I'm going to keep right down into the Navajo reservation. I've got a bid from old Silver Arrow, and then I'm going to Walpi and see the Mokis dance. They say they carry live rattlesnakes in their mouths. I don't believe it: I'm going to see. Then I swing 'round to the Grand Cañon of the Colorado. They say that's the sorriest gash in the ground that ever happened. Reynolds gave me a letter to old Hance; he's the man that watches to see that no one carries the hole away. Then I'm going to take a turn over the Mohave desert into Southern California. I'm due at the Yosemite Valley about a year from next fall. I'll come back over the divide by way of Salt Lake."
He was on his feet, and his eyes were glowing. He seemed to have forgotten all women in the sweep of his imaginative journey.
"Oh, that will be grand! How will you do it?"
"On old Kintuck, if his legs don't wear off."
"How will you live?"
"Forage where I can. Turn to and help on a 'round-up,' or 'drive' where I can—shoot and fish—oh, I'll make it if it takes ten years."
"Then what?" Mary asked, with a curious intonation.
"Then I'll start for the Northwest," he replied after a little hesitation—"if I live. Of course the chances are I'll turn up my toes somewhere on the trail. A man is liable to make a miss-lick somewhere, but that's all in the game. A man had better die on the trail than in a dead furrow."
Mary looked at him with dreaming eyes. His strange moods filled her with new and powerful emotions. The charm of the wild life he depicted appealed to her as well as to him. It was all a fearsome venture, but after all it was glorious. The placid round of her own life seemed for the moment intolerably commonplace. There was epic largeness in the circuit of the plainsman's daring plans. The wonders of Nature which he catalogued loomed large in the misty knowledge she held of the West. She cried out:
"Oh, I wish I could see those wonderful scenes!"
He turned swiftly: "You can; I'll take you."
She shrank back. "Oh, no! I didn't mean that—I meant—some time——"
His face darkened. "In a sleeping car, I reckon. That time'll never come."
Then a silence fell on them. Harold knew that his plans could not be carried out with a woman for companion—and he had sense enough to know that Mary's words were born of a momentary enthusiasm. When he spoke it was with characteristic blunt honesty.
"No; right here our trails fork, Mary. Ever since I saw you in the jail the first time, you've been worth more to me than anything else in the world, but I can see now that things never can go right with you and me. I couldn't live back here, and you couldn't live with me out there. I'm a kind of an outlaw, anyway. I made up my mind last night that I'd hit the trail alone. I won't even ask Jack to go with me. There's something in me here"—he laid his hand on his breast—"that kind o' chimes in with the wind in the piñons and the yap of the ky-ote. The rooster and the church bells are too tame for me. That's all there is about it. Maybe when I get old and feeble in the knees I'll feel like pitchin' a permanent camp, but just now I don't; I want to be on the move. If I had a nice ranch, and you, I might settle down now, but then you couldn't stand even a ranch with nearest neighbors ten miles away." He turned to take his hat. "I wanted to see you—I didn't plan for anything else—I've seen you and so——"
"Oh, you're not going now!" she cried. "You haven't told me your story."
"Oh, yes, I have; all that you'd care to hear. It don't amount to much, except the murder charges, and they are wrong. It wasn't my fault. They crowded me too hard, and I had to defend myself. What is a man to do when it's kill or be killed? That's all over and past, anyway. From this time on I camp high. The roosters and church bells are getting too thick on the Arickaree."
He crushed his hat in his hand as he turned to her, and tears were in her eyes as she said:
"Please don't go; I expected you to stay to dinner with me."
"The quicker I get out o' here the better," he replied hoarsely, and she saw that he was trembling. "What's the good of it? I'm out of it."
She looked up at him in silence, her mind filled with the confused struggle between her passion and her reason. He allured her, this grave and stern outlaw, appealing to some primitive longing within her.
"I hate to see you go," she said slowly."But—I—suppose it is best. I don't like to have you forget me—I shall not forget you, and I will sing for you every Sunday afternoon, and no matter where you are, in a deep cañon, or anywhere, or among the Indians, you just stop and listen and think of me, and maybe you'll hear my voice."
Tears were in her eyes as she spoke, and he took a man's advantage of her emotion.
"Perhaps if I come back—if I make a strike somewhere—if you'd say so——"
She shook her head sadly but conclusively. "No, no, I can't promise anything."
"All right—that settles it. Good-by."
And she had nothing better to say than just "Good-by, good-by."