It was a crisis, and intuitively she recognized it—one of those emotional climaxes that sear and burn and leave their scars forever.
The powerful horse bounded up the steep grade without slackening, but at the top she checked it, and from the edge of the bench stood looking down upon the crude town sprawling on the flat beneath her. It represented one antagonistic personality to her, and as such she addressed it aloud, with deliberately chosen words, as one throwing down the gauntlet to an enemy.
“You’ve hurt me! You’ve never done anything else but hurt me, and I’ve forgiven and forgotten and tried to make myself believe you didn’t mean it. Now I know better.
“You still have it in your power to hurt me, to anger me, sometimes to defeat me. I am one and you are many, but you can’t crush me, you can’t break my heart or spirit; you can’t keep me down! I’ll succeed! I may be years in doing it, but I’ll win out over you. I’ll be remembered when you’re rotten in your graves, and if I can live long enough I’ll pay back every blow you’ve ever given me, one by one, and collectively—no matter what it costs me!”
CHAPTER XIVLIKE ANY OTHER HERDER
The northeast wind lifted Kate’s shabby riding skirt and flapped it against her horse’s flank as she sat in the saddle with field glasses to her eyes looking intently at a covered wagon that was crawling over the sagebrush hummocks, its top swaying at perilous angles. She shivered unconsciously as the loose ends of her silk neckerchief fluttered and snapped in front of her and the limp brim of her Stetson blew straight against the crown of it.
“There are certainly two of them,” she murmured, “and they must be lost or crazy to be wandering through the hills at this season. They had better get back to the road, if they don’t want to find themselves snowed up in a draw until summer.”
She replaced the glasses in the case that she wore slung by a strap over her shoulder, and looked behind her. They were undoubtedly snow clouds that the wind was driving before it from the distant mountains.
“Good thing I brought my sour-dough,” she muttered as she untied the sheepskin-lined canvas coat from the back of her saddle. “We’d better sift along, Cherokee, and turn the sheep back to the bed-ground.”
By the time the sheep had fed slowly back and settled themselves for the night on the gently sloping side of a draw above the sheep wagon there was just daylight enough left for her to feed and hobble the horse and cut wood without lighting a lantern. From half a muttonhanging outside at the back of the wagon she cut enough for her own supper, and fed the young collie she was training. Then, she dipped a bucket of water from the barrel, made a fire in the tiny camp stove and put on the tea kettle. She looked with distaste at a pile of soiled dishes that remained from Bowers’s breakfast, and at the unmade bunk with a grimy flour sack for a pillow case.
“Thank goodness, Bowers will be back to-morrow!”
She swept the untidy floor with a stump of a broom and replaced it in its leather straps outside the wagon. When the water was heated, she washed the dishes and scoured the greasy frying pan with a bit of sagebrush, for there was no makeshift of the west with which she was not familiar. Then she made biscuits, fried bacon and a potato, and boiled coffee, eating, when the meal was ready, with the gusto of hunger.
Her hair glistened with flakes as she withdrew her head after opening the upper half of the door to throw out the dish water later.
“It’s coming straight down as though it meant business,” she muttered. “I’m liable to have to break trail to get them out to feed to-morrow.” Then, with a look of anxiety as the thought came to her, “If they ever 'piled up' in a draw they’re so fat half of them would smother.”
While the fire went out she sat thinking what such a loss would mean to her—ruin, literally; and worse, for in addition she had an indebtedness to consider.
“It seems colder.” She shivered, and straightening the soiled soogans, she spread her canvas coat over the grimy pillow, pulled off her riding boots and lay down with her clothes on. Before she fell asleep Kate remembered the eccentric travelers, and again wondered what possible business could bring them, but mostly shewas thinking that she must not sleep soundly, although the collie was under the wagon to serve as ears for her.
While she slept, the moist featherlike flakes hardened to jagged crystals and rattled as they struck the canvas side of the wagon with a sound like gravel. The top swayed and loose belts rattled, but inside Kate lay motionless, breathing regularly in a profound and dreamless sleep. Underneath the wagon the dog rolled himself in a tighter ball and whimpered softly as the temperature lowered.
Exactly as though an unseen hand had shaken her violently, she sat bolt upright and listened. Instantly she was aware that the character of the storm had changed, but it was not that which had aroused her; it was the faint tinkle of bells which told her that the sheep were leaving the bed-ground. Her alert subconscious mind had conveyed the intelligence before even the dog heard and warned her. He now barked violently as she sprang out of bed and groped for the matches.
While she pulled on her boots, and a pair of Bowers’s arctics she had noticed when sweeping, and slipped on her coat and buttoned it, the tinkle grew louder and she knew that the sheep were passing the wagon. She flung on her hat, snatched up the lantern and opened the door. The lantern flickered and she gasped when she stepped out on the wagon tongue and a blast struck her.
“I’m in for it,” she said between her teeth as she ran in the direction of the bells, the dog leaping and barking vociferously beside her.
The wagon disappeared instantly, the blizzard swirled about her and the flickering lantern was only a tiny glowworm in the blackness which enveloped her. She tripped over buried sagebrush, falling frequently, picking herselfup to run on, calling, urging the dog to get ahead and turn the leaders.
“Way ’round ’em, Shep! Way ’round ’em, boy!” she pleaded. But the dog, half-trained and bewildered, ran only a little way, to return and fawn upon her as though apologetic for his uselessness.
There was no thought or fear for herself in her mind as she ran—she thought only of the sheep that were drifting rapidly before the storm, now they were well started, and she could tell by the rocks rolling from above her that they were making their way out of the gulch to the flat open country.
If only she could get ahead and turn them before they split up and scattered she could perhaps hold them until morning. Was it long until morning, she wondered? Breathless, exhausted from climbing and floundering and stumbling, the full fury of the blizzard struck her when she reached the top. The driving ice particles stung her skin and eyeballs when she turned to face it, the wind carried her soothing calls from her lips as she uttered them, her skirt whipped about her as though it would soon be in ribbons, and then with a leap and a flicker the flame went out in the smoke-blackened chimney, leaving her in darkness.
There was a panic-stricken second as she stood, a single human atom in the howling white death about her but it passed quickly. She dreaded the physical suffering which experience told her would come when her body cooled and the wind penetrated her garments, yet there was no feeling of self-pity. It was all a part of the business and would come to any herder. The sheep were the chief consideration, and she never doubted but that she could endure it somehow until daylight.
“I’ve got to keep moving or I’ll freeze solid,” she told herself practically, and added between her set teeth with a grim whimsicality:
“Be a man, Kate Prentice! It’s part of the price of success and you’ve got to pay it!”
Kate knew that hourly she was getting farther from the wagon as the sheep drifted and she followed. But daylight would bring surcease of suffering—she had only to endure and keep moving. So she stamped her feet and swung her arms, tied her handkerchief over her ears, rubbed her face with snow when absence of feeling told her it was freezing, and prayed for morning. Surely the storm was too severe to be a long one—it would slacken when daylight came, very likely, and then she could quickly get her bearings. She thought this over and over, and over and over again monotonously, while somehow the interminable hours of dumb misery passed.
Daylight! Daylight! And when the first leaden light came she was afraid to believe it. It was faint, just enough to show that somewhere the sun was shining, yet her chilled blood stirred hopefully. But there was no warmth in the dawn, the storm did not abate, and at an hour which she judged to be around nine o’clock she was able to make out only the sheep in her immediate vicinity, snow encrusted, huddled together with heads lowered, and drifting, always drifting. She had no notion where she was, and to leave the sheep was to lose them. No, she must have patience and patience and more patience. At noon it would lighten surely—it nearly always did—and she had only to hold out a little longer.
The top of the sagebrush made black dots on the white surface, and there were comparatively bare places where she dared sit down and rest a few moments, but mostly it was drifts now—drifts where she floundered and thesheep sunk down and stood stupidly until pushed forward by those behind them.
Twelve o’clock came and there was no change save that the drifts were higher and she could see a little farther into the white wilderness.
“What if—what if—” she gulped, for the thought brought a contraction of the throat muscles that made swallowing difficult. “What if there were twenty-four more of it!” Could she stand it? She was tired to exhaustion with walking, with the strain of resisting the cold, and the all-night vigil—weak, too, with hunger.
Was she to become another of those that the first chinook uncovered? One of the already large army that have paid with their lives in just such circumstances for their loyalty, or their bad judgment? After all she had gone through to reach the goal she had set for herself was she to go out like this—like a common herder who had no thought or ambition beyond the debauch when he drew his wages?
When the dimming light told her the afternoon was waning, and then indications of darkness and another night of torture, despair filled her. Numb, hungry, her vitality at low ebb, she doubted her ability to weather it. Was she being punished, she wondered, for protesting against the life the Fates appeared to have mapped out for her? Was this futile inane end coming to her because since that day when she had stood looking down upon Prouty and vowed to succeed she had fought and struggled and struck back, instead of meekly acknowledging herself crushed and beaten? Had she shaken her fist at the Almighty in so doing, when she should have bowed her head and folded her hands in resignation? She did not know; in her despair and bewilderment she lost all logic, all perspective; she knew only that in spite of the exhaustionof her body her spirit was still defiant and protesting.
She spread out her hands in supplication, raising her face to the pitiless sky while needlelike particles stung her eyeballs, and she cried despairingly:
“Oh, Uncle Joe, where are you? Is this the end of me—Katie Prentice? Is this all I was born for—just to live through heartaches and hardships, and then to drop down and die like an animal without knowing happiness or success or anything I’ve worked and longed and prayed for? Oh, Uncle Joe, where are you?”
The wail that the wind carried over the desert was plaintive, minor, like the cry that had reached him when she sought him in the darkness in that other crisis. She herself thought of it, but then he had responded promptly, and with the sound of his voice there had come a sense of safety and security.
She stood motionless thinking of it, the snow beating into her upturned face, the wind whipping her skirts about her. Then a feeling of exultation came to her—an exultation that was of the mind and spirit, so tangible that it sent over her a glow that was physical, creeping like a slow warm tide from her toes to the tips of her numb fingers. Even as she marveled it vanished—a curious trick of the imagination she regarded it—but it left her with a feeling of courage; inexplicably it had roused her will to a determination to fight for her life with the last ounce of her strength, and so long as there was a heart beat in her body.
The time came, however, when this moment of transport and resolution seemed so long ago that it was like some misty incident of her childhood. Her body, as when a jaded horse lashed to a gallop reaches a stage where it drops to a walk from which no amount of punishment can rouse it, was refusing to respond to the spur of herwill. It became an effort to walk, to swing her arms and stamp her feet, to make any brisk movement that kept the circulation going. She knew what it portended, yet was unable to make greater resistance against the lethargy of cold and exhaustion.
The dog was still with her, close at her heels, and she pulled off her gauntlets clumsily, the act requiring a tremendous effort of will, and tried to warm her fingers in the long hair of its body; but she felt no sensation of heat and she replaced the gloves with the same effort.
The second night was full upon her now—a night so black that she could feel the storm, but not see it. At intervals she experienced a sense of detachment—as if she were a disembodied spirit, lonely, buffeted in a white hell of torture.
Usually the faint tinkle of a sheep bell recalled her, but each time the sound had less meaning for her, and the sheep seemed less and less important. She was staggering, her knees had an absurd fashion of giving way beneath her, but she could not prevent them. She was approaching the end of her endurance; she could not resist much longer—this her dull rambling brain told her over and over. And that curious phenomenon—that feeling of confidence and exultation that she had had away back—when was it? Long ago, anyhow—that had meant nothing—nothing—meant nothing. The Supreme Intelligence who had made things didn’t know she existed, probably. Her coming was nothing; her going was nothing. And now she was stepping off of something—she was going down hill—down hill—the first gulch she had found in her wanderings. It was full of drifts, likely she’d stumble in one and lie there—it was tiresome to keep going, and it made no difference to anybody. Then she stumbled and fell to the bottom, prone,her arms outstretched, the briars of a wild-rose bush tearing her cheek as she lay face downward in the center of it. But she did not know it—she was comfortable, very comfortable, and she could as well lie there a little while—a little while—
Then somewhere a querulous voice was saying:
“I told you the picture would be overexposed when you were takin’ it. You’ll never listen to me.”
A deeper voice answered:
“The light was stronger than I thought; but, anyway, it’s a humdinger of a negative.” Then, sharply, “Sh-ss-sh! What was that, Honey?”
A silence fell instantly.
“Honey!” Kate had a notion that she smiled, though her white face did not alter its expression. Her tongue moved thickly, “I like that name, Hughie.”
Her collie whimpered and scratched again at the door of the wagon. The traveling photographer pushed it open and the animal sprang inside, leaping from one to the other in his gratitude.
“It’s a sheep dog!” the man cried in consternation. “There’s a herder lost somewhere.”
“Can we do anything—such a night?” the old woman asked doubtfully. “Can anyone be alive in it?”
“Light the lantern—quick! Maybe I can track the dog back before the snow fills them. He might be down within a stone’s throw of the wagon.” Snatching the lantern from her hand he admonished his wife as he stepped out into the wilderness:
“You-all keep hollerin’ so I can hear you. I kin git lost mighty easy.”
The light became a blur almost instantly, but he was not fifty feet from the wagon when he shouted:
“I got him!” Then—his voice shrilled in astonishment—“Sufferin’ Saints! It’s a woman!”
CHAPTER XVONE MORE WHIRL
Mr. Toomey folded his comfortable bathrobe over his new pajamas and tied the silken cord and tassel, remarking casually:
“I think we’ll have breakfast here this morning.”
The flowing sleeve of Mrs. Toomey’s pink silk negligee fell away from her bare arm as she stood arranging her hair before the wide-topped dresser of Circassian walnut that looked so well against a background of pale gray wall paper with a delicate pink border.
“They charge extra,” she reminded him.
Toomey was already at the telephone.
“Whole ones? Certainly—and Floridas—be particular. Eggs—soft to medium. Toast for two, without butter. And coffee? Of course, coffee. Send a paper with it, will you?”
As he hung up the receiver, “This is our last breakfast on earth, Old Dear—we’re going home to-morrow.”
Mr. Toomey repaired to the adjoining bathroom with its immaculate porcelain and tiling, where he inspected his chin critically in the shaving mirror and commented upon the rapid growth of his beard, which he declared became tropical in a temperate climate.
“Just to be warm and not have to carry ashes—it’s heavenly!” ecstatically sighed Mrs. Toomey.
“Forget it!” laconically. “What makes ’em so slowwith that order?” Mr. Toomey lighted a gold-tipped cigarette and paced the floor impatiently.
Mrs. Toomey could not entirely rid herself of the notion that she was dreaming. A lace petticoat hanging over the back of a chair and a brocaded pink corset over another contributed to the illusion. She could not yet believe they were hers, any more than was the twenty-dollar creation in the hat box on the shelf in the closet.
During their week’s stay in Chicago Mrs. Toomey had gone about mostly in a state which resembled the delightful languor of hasheesh, untroubled, irresponsible, save when something reminded her that after Chicago—the cataclysm. Yet she had not yielded easily to Toomey’s importunities. It had required all his powers of persuasion to overcome her scruples, her ingrained thrift and natural prudence.
“We need the change; we’ve lived too long in a high altitude, and we’re nervous wrecks, both of us,” he had argued. “We should get in touch with things and the right kind of people. A trip like this is an investment—that’s the way you want to look at it. If you want to win anything in this world you’ve got to take chances. It’s the plungers, not the plodders, who make big winnings. I gotta hunch that I’m going to get in touch with somebody that’ll take an interest in me.”
Left to herself, Mrs. Toomey would have paid something on their most urgent debts and bought prudently, but she told herself that Jap was as likely to be right as she was, and the argument that he might meet some one who would be of benefit to him was convincing; so finally she had consented. The sense of unreality and wonder which Mrs. Toomey experienced when she saw her trunk going was surpassed only by the astonishment of the neighbors, who all but broke the glass in theirvarious windows as they pressed against it to convince themselves that the sight was not an optical illusion.
The Toomeys had traveled in a stateroom, over Mrs. Toomey’s feeble protest, and the best room with bath in one of the best hotels in Chicago was not too good for Mr. Toomey. They had thought to stay three weeks, with reasonable economy, and return with a modest bank balance, but the familiar environment was too much for Toomey, who dropped back into his old way of living as though he never had been out of it, while the new clothes and the brightness of the atmosphere of prosperity after the years of anxiety and poverty drugged Mrs. Toomey’s conscience and caution into a profound slumber—the latter to be awakened only when, counting the banknotes in her husband’s wallet, she was startled to discover that they had little more than enough to pay their hotel bill and return to Prouty in comfort. If either of them remembered the source from which their present luxurious enjoyment came, neither mentioned it.
The breakfast and service this morning were perfect and Mrs. Toomey sighed contentedly as she crumpled her napkin and reached for the paper.
“There’s been a terrible blizzard west of the Mississippi,” she murmured from the depths of theJournal.
“I’m glad we’ve missed a little misery,” Toomey replied carelessly. “It’ll mean late trains and all the rest of it. We’d better stay over until they’re running again on schedule.”
Mrs. Toomey ignored, if she heard, the suggestion, and continued:
“It says that the stock, and the sheep in particular, have died like flies on the range, and scores of herders have been frozen.”
“There’s more herders where they came from.”Toomey brushed the ashes from his cigarette into the excavated grapefruit, and yawned and stretched like a cat on its cushion.
“Think of something pleasant—what are we going to do this evening?”
“We mustn’t do anything,” Mrs. Toomey protested quickly. “If we spend any more we will have to get a check cashed, and that might be awkward, since we know no one; besides, we can’t afford it. Let’s have a quiet evening.”
“A quiet evening!” Toomey snorted. “That’s my idea of hell. I’ll tell you about me, Old Dear—I’m going to have one more whirl if I have to walk back to Prouty, and you might as well go with me.”
Since he was determined, Mrs. Toomey arrived at the same conclusion also, for not only did she too shudder at the thought of a quiet evening, but her presence was more or less of a restraint upon his extravagant impulses. She endeavored to soothe her uneasiness by telling herself that they could make up for it by some economy in traveling. And just one more good play—what, after all, did it really matter?
The theater was only four blocks from the hotel, but, as a matter of course, Toomey called a taxicab. These modern conveniences were an innovation that had come during his absence from “civilization” and his delight in them was not unlike the ecstasy of a child riding the flying horses. It availed Mrs. Toomey nothing to declare that she preferred exercise and they arrived at the theater in a taxi. At sight of the box office Toomey forgot his promise to buy inexpensive seats, but asked for the best obtainable.
Carefree and debonair, between acts Mr. Toomey strolled in the lobby smoking and looking so very muchin his element that Mrs. Toomey temporarily forgot her disquietude in being proud of him. His dinner jacket was not the latest cut, but after giving it much consideration they had decided that it was not far enough off to be noticeable, and how very handsome and assured he looked as he sauntered with the confident air of a man who had only to entertain a whim to gratify it.
Such is the psychology of clothes and the effect of environment upon some temperaments that that was the way Mr. Toomey felt about it. Prouty and importunate creditors did not exist for him. This condition of mental intoxication continued when the play was over and, fearful, Mrs. Toomey spoke hastily of going home immediately.
“I’m hungry,” he asserted. “We’ll go somewhere first and eat something.”
“Let’s have sandwiches sent up to the room,” she pleaded.
“Why not a bow-wow from the night-lunch cart I noticed in the alley? I like the feeling of the mustard running between my fingers,” derisively.
“Oh, Jap, we oughtn’t to—we really ought not!”
But he might have been deaf, for all the attention he paid to her earnest protests as he turned into one of the brilliantly lighted restaurants which he had previously patronized and that he liked particularly. There was a glitter in his eyes which increased her uneasiness, and a recklessness in his manner that was not reassuring.
“I may go to my grave without ever seeing another lobster,” he said as he ordered shellfish. “What will you have to drink?” while the waiter hovered.
“Nothing to-night,” she replied, startled.
“Different here, Old Dear, I’m thirsty. The wine list, waiter.”
That was the beginning. From the time the champagne and oysters arrived until long past midnight Mrs. Toomey experienced all the sensations that come to the woman who must sit passive and watch her husband pass through the several stages of intoxication. And in addition, she had the knowledge that he could less afford the money he was spending than the waiter who served him.
In high spirits at first, with his natural drollness, stimulated to brilliancy, his sallies brought smiles from those at adjoining tables. Then he became in turn boastful, arrogant, argumentative, thick of speech, finally, and slow of comprehension, but obstinate always.
“Goin’ back jail 'morra, Ol' Dear—goin’ finish out my life sentence,” when she reminded him of the lateness of the hour and her weariness, and he resented her interference so fiercely when she countermanded an order that she dared not repeat it.
“You lis'en me, waiter, thish my party. Might think I was town drunkard—village sot way my wife tryin’ flag me.” Mrs. Toomey colored painfully at the attention he attracted.
He turned to a late comer who had seated himself at a small table across the narrow aisle from them. “My wife’s a great disappointment to me—no sport—never was, never will be. 'Morra,” addressing himself to the stranger exclusively, “goin’ back to hear the prairie dogs chatter—goin’ listen to the sagebrush tick—back one thousan’ miles from an oyster—”
“Jap!” Mrs. Toomey interrupted desperately, “we must be going. Everyone’s leaving.”
“We’ll be closing shortly,” the waiter hinted.
Toomey blinked at the check he placed before him.
“Can’t see whether tha’s twenty dollars, or two hundred dollars or two thousand dollars.”
The waiter murmured the amount, but not so softly but that Mrs. Toomey paled when she heard it. He had not enough to pay it, she was sure of it, for while he had brought from the room an amount that would have been ample for any ordinary theater supper, wine had not been in his calculations.
Mrs. Toomey looked on anxiously while he produced the contents of his pocket.
“Sorry, sir, but it isn’t enough,” said the waiter, after counting the notes he tossed upon the plate.
Toomey found the discovery amusing.
“You s'prise me,” he chuckled.
“Sorry, sir, but—” the waiter persisted.
With a swift transition of mood Toomey demanded haughtily:
“Gue'sh you don' know who I am?”
“No, sir.”
Toomey tapped the lapel of his jacket impressively with his forefinger.
“I’m Jasper Toomey of Prouty, Wyoming.”
The waiter received the information without flinching.
“Call up the Blackstone and they’ll tell you I’ll be in to-morra an’ shettle.” He wafted the waiter away grandly, that person shrugging a dubious shoulder as he vanished. “They’ll tell 'im the f'ancial standin’ of Jasper Toomey—shirtingly.”
The waiter returned almost immediately.
“The hotel knows you only as a guest, sir.”
“Thish is insult—d‘lib’rate insult.” Mr. Toomey rose to his feet and stood unsteadily. “Send manager to me immedially—immedially!”
“He’s busy, sir,” replied the waiter with a touch of impatience, “but he said you’d have to settle before leaving.”
Mrs. Toomey, crimson with mortification and panic-stricken as visions of a patrol wagon and station house rose before her, interrupted when Toomey would have continued to argue.
“Jap, stay here while I go to the hotel—I can take a taxi and be back in a few minutes.”
Toomey refused indignantly. He declared that not only would this be a reflection upon his honesty, but equivalent to pawning him.
“How’d I know,” he demanded shrewdly, “that you’d ever come back to redeem me?”
As Mrs. Toomey cast a look of despair about, her eyes met those of the man who was sitting alone at the table across the aisle. Even in her distress she had observed him when he had entered, for his height, breadth of shoulder, erectness of carriage—together with the tan and a certain unconventional freedom of movement which, to the initiated, proclaimed him an outdoor westerner, made him noticeable.
He was fifty—more, possibly—with hair well grayed and the face of a man to whom success had not come easily. Yet that he had succeeded was not to be doubted, for neither his face nor bearing were those of a man who could be, or had been, defeated. His appearance—substantial, unostentatious—inspired confidence in his integrity and confidence in his ability to cope with any emergency. The lines in his strong face suggested something more than the mere marks of obstacles conquered, of battles lost and won in the world of business—they came from a deeper source than surface struggles. His mouth, a trifle austere, had a droop of sadness, and in his calm gray eyes there was the look of understanding which comes not only from wide experience but from suffering.
Mrs. Toomey had the feeling that he comprehended perfectly every emotion she was experiencing—her fright, her mortification, her disgust at Jap’s maudlin speech and foolish appearance. But it was something more than these things which had caused her to look at him frequently. He reminded her of some one, yet she could not identify the resemblance. In their exchange of glances she now caught a sympathetic flash; then he rose immediately and came over.
“May I be of service, brother?” As he spoke he indicated the small button he wore which corresponded to another on Toomey’s waistcoat. With a slight inclination of the head towards Mrs. Toomey, “If you’ll allow me—”
The relieved waiter promptly fled with the note he laid on the plate.
“These situations are a little awkward for the moment,” he added, smiling slightly.
“Mighty nice of you, Old Top!” Toomey shook hands with him. “Lemme buy you somethin’. Wha’ll you have?”
The stranger declined and thanked him.
Mrs. Toomey expressed her gratitude incoherently.
“You must leave your name and address; we’ll mail you a check to-morrow.”
“I always stay at the Auditorium. Mail addressed to me there will be forwarded.” He laid his visiting card upon the table.
Toomey placed a detaining hand upon his arm as he turned from the table.
“Look here! Won’t let you go till you promise come make us a visit—stay month—stay year—stay rest o’ your life—la'sh string hanging' out for you. Pureair, Swizzerland of America, an’ greatest natural resources—”
The stranger detached himself gently.
“I appreciate your hospitality,” he replied courteously. “Who knows?” to Mrs. Toomey, “I might some day look in on you—I’ve never been out in that section of the country.”
With another bow he paid his own account and left the restaurant.
“Thoroughbred!” declared Toomey enthusiastically. “Old Dear, I made a hit with him.”
Mrs. Toomey was staring after the erect commanding figure.
She read again the name on the card she held in her fingers and murmured with an expression of speculative wonder:
“The spelling’s different but—Prentiss! and she looks enough like him to be his daughter.”
CHAPTER XVISTRAWS
It was spring. The sagebrush had turned from gray to green and the delicate pink of the rock roses showed here and there on the hillsides. The crisp rattle of cottonwood leaves was heard when the wind stirred through the gulches, and along the water course the drooping plumes of the willows were pale green and tender. It was the season of hope, of energy revived and new ambitions—the months of rejuvenation, when the blood runs faster and the heart beats higher.
But, alas, the joyful finger of spring touched the citizens of Prouty lightly. Worn out and jaded with the strain of a hard winter and waiting for something to happen, they did not feel their pulses greatly accelerated by mere sunshine. It took more than a rock rose and a pussy willow to color the world for them. June might as well be January, if one is financially embarrassed.
The suspicion was becoming a private conviction that when Prouty acquired anything beyond a blacksmith shop and a general merchandise store it got more than it needed. Conceived and born in windy optimism, it had no stamina. The least observant could see that, like a fiddler crab’s, the progress of the town was backward. But these truths were admitted only in moments of drunken candor or deepest depression, for to hint that Prouty had no future was as treasonable as criticising the government in a crisis. So the citizens went on boasting with doggedcheerfulness and tried to unload their holdings on any chance stranger.
A trickle of water came through the ditch that had been scratched in the earth from the mountains to some three miles beyond Prouty. Nearly every head-gate the length of it had been the scene of a bloody battle where the ranchers fought each other with irrigating shovels for their rights. And, after all, it was seldom worth the gore and effort, for the trickle generally stopped altogether in August when they needed it. If the flow did not stop at the intake it broke out somewhere below and flooded somebody. If the sides did not give way because of the moisture loosening the soil, the rats and prairie dogs conspired to ruin Prouty by tunneling into the banks. And if by a miracle “the bone and sinew” of the community raised one cutting of alfalfa, the proceeds went to the Security State Bank, or Abram Pantin, to keep up their 12 per cent. interest.
When the route to the Coast was shortened by one of the state’s railroads and Prouty found itself on the cutoff, it was delirious with joy, but it regained its balance when the fast trains not only did not stop, but seemed to speed up instead of slackening; while the local which brought any prospective investor deposited him in a frame of mind which was such that it was seldom possible to remove his prejudice against the country.
These were the conditions one spring day when the buds that had not already burst were bursting and Mr. Teeters dashed into Prouty. “Dashed” is not too strong a word to describe his arrival, for the leaders of his four-horse team were running away and the wheelers were, at least, not lagging. It was obvious to those familiar with Mr. Teeters’ habits that he was en route to the station to meet incoming passengers. This was proclaimedby his conveyance and regalia. He wore a well-filled cartridge belt and six-shooter, while a horse hair watch chain draped across a buckskin waistcoat, ornate with dyed porcupine quills, gave an additional Western flavor to his costume. His beaded gauntlets reached to his elbow, and upon occasions like the present he wore moccasins. There was a black silk handkerchief around the neck of his red flannel shirt, and if the rattlesnake skin that encircled his Stetson did not bring a scream from the lady dudes when they caught sight of it, Teeters would feel keenly disappointed.
“I can wrangle dudes to a fare-ye-well and do good at it,” Teeters had declared to the Major. And it was no idle boast, apparently, for Teeters stood alone, supreme and unchallenged, the champion dude-wrangler of the country.
“It’s a kind of talent—a gift, you might say—like breakin’ horses or tamin’ wild animals,” he was wont to reply modestly when questioned by those who followed his example and failed lamentably. “You got to be kind and gentle with dudes, yet firm with them. Onct they git the upper hand of you they’s no livin’ with ’em.”
Five years had brought their changes to Teeters as well as to Prouty.
He was still faithful to Miss Maggie Taylor, but a subtle difference had come into his attitude towards her mother. He was less ingratiating in his manner, less impressed by the importance of her father, the distinguished undertaker; less interested in her recitals of her musical triumphs when she had played the pipe organ in Philadelphia. Her habit of singing hymns and humming which had annoyed him even in the days when he was merely tolerated, actually angered him.
Now, as the four horses attached to the old-fashionedstagecoach which had been resurrected from a junk-heap behind a blacksmith shop, repaired and shipped to the Scissor Outfit as being the last word in the picturesque discomfort for which dudes hankered, the onlookers observed with keen interest as the Dude Wrangler tore past the Prouty House, “There must be a bunch of millionaires coming in on the local.”
The horses kept on past the station, but by throwing his weight on one rein Teeters ran them over the flat in a circle until they were winded. Then he brought them dripping and exhausted to the platform, where he said civilly to a bystander, indicating a convenient pickhandle:
“If you’ll jest knock the ‘off’ leader down if he bats an eyelash when the train pulls in, I’ll be much obliged to you.”
As is frequently the way with millionaires, few of those who emerged from the day coach sandwiched in between a coal and freight car, looked their millions. It was evident that they had reserved their better clothing for occasions other than traveling, since to the critical eyes of the spectators they looked as though they were dressed for one of the local functions known as a “Hard Times Party.”
The present party of millionaire folk seemed to be led by a bewhiskered gentleman in plaid knickerbockers and puttees, who had travelled all the way from Canton, Ohio, in hobnailed shoes in order instantly to be ready for mountain climbing.
To a man they trained their cameras upon Teeters, who scowled, displayed his teeth slightly, and looked ferocious and desperate enough to scare a baby.
Then his expression changed to astonishment as his eyes fell upon a passenger that was one of three who, slow in collecting their luggage, were just descending. Asecond look convinced him, and he not only let out a bloodcurdling yell of welcome, but inadvertently slackened the lines that had been taut as fiddle strings over the backs of the horses. The leaders jumped over “the Innocent Bystander” before he had time to use his pickhandle, reared and fell on their backs, where they lay kicking the harness to pieces.
“You miser'ble horse-stealin’, petty larceny, cache-robbin’—” just in time Teeters remembered that there were ladies present and curtailed his greeting to Hughie Disston. “Why didn’t you let me know you was comin’?” he ended.
“Wanted to surprise you, Teeters,” said Disston, dropping the bags he carried.
“Yo shore done it!” replied Teeters emphatically, casting an eye at the writhing mass of horses. “It’ll take me an hour or more to patch that harness!”
“In that event,” said the guest from Canton, Ohio, with a relief that was unmistakable, “it were better, perhaps, that we should go to the hotel and wait for you.”
“It were,” replied Teeters. “It’s that big yella building' with the red trimmin’s.” He pointed toward the town with his fringed and beaded gauntlet. “I’ll be along directly, and if I kin, I’ll stop and git you.”
“Isn’t he a character!” exclaimed a lady in an Alpine hat, delightedly.
Teeters wrapped the lines around the brake and descended leisurely.
“Set on their heads, Old Timers”—to the volunteers who were endeavoring to disentangle the struggling horses—and shook hands with Disston.
“This is Mrs. Rathburn and Miss Rathburn, Clarence—”
Mr. Teeters bowed profoundly, and as he removed his hat his bang fell in his eyes, so that he looked like a performing Shetland pony.
“Much obliged to meet you, ladies,” deferentially. Then to Disston, darkly:
“I’ll take that from you onct, or twict, maybe,—but if you call me Clarence three times I’ll cut your heart out.”
Disston grinned understandingly.
Toomey was among those who went to the Prouty House to look at the “bunch of millionaires” waiting on the veranda, and his surprise equalled Teeters’ at seeing Disston.
“Say, Hughie—I got a deal on that’s a pippin—a pippin. There isn’t a flaw in it!” said Toomey confidentially.
“Glad to hear it, Jap,” Disston replied cordially, and presented him to Mrs. Rathburn and her daughter.
The mother was a small woman of much distinction of appearance. A well-poised manner, together with snow-white hair worn in a smooth moderate roll away from her face, and very black eyes that had a rather hard brilliancy, made her a person to be noticed. Having engineered her own life successfully, her sole interest now lay in engineering that of her daughter.
The last place Mrs. Rathburn would have selected to spend a summer was an isolated ranch in the sagebrush, but propinquity, she knew, had done wonders in friendships that had seemed hopelessly platonic, so, when Hugh urged them to join him, and endeavored to impart some of his own enthusiasm for the country, she assented.
In another way the daughter was not less noticeable than the mother, though more typically southern, with her soft drawl and appealing manner. Her skin had been so carefully protected since infancy that it was of a dazzlingwhiteness that might never have known the sunshine. Her feet were conspicuously small, her hands white, perfectly kept and helpless. Nature had given her the bronze hair that dyers strive for, and her brown eyes corresponded. She was as unlike the other alert self-sufficient young persons of the “millionaire bunch”—who were either dressed for utilitarian purposes only, or in finery of a past mode as could well be imagined.
Miss Rathburn had managed to remain immaculate, while their faces were smudged and streaked with soot and car dust, their hats awry and hair dishevelled. Cool, serene, with a filmy veil thrown back from her hat brim, she rocked idly, utterly unconscious of the eyes of the populace.
“The scenery is grand—Wagnerian! Out here one forgets one’s ego, doesn’t one?” the lady in the Alpine hat was saying when, leading the party like a bewhiskered gander, the gentleman from Canton, Ohio, dashed to the end of the veranda with his camera ready for action.
“What a picturesque character!” she cried ecstatically, following. “And see how beau-tee-fully she manages those horses!”
The cameras clicked as a young woman sitting very erect on the high spring seat of a wagon and looking straight ahead of her came past the hotel at a brisk trot, holding the reins over four spirited horses.
Disston straightened and asked quickly:
“Who’s that, Jap? It looks like—”
“Mormon Joe’s Kate,” Toomey finished. His tone had a sneer in it. “You were very good friends when you left, I remember.”
The eyes of both Mrs. Rathburn and her daughter showed surprise when Disston colored.
“That we are not now is her fault entirely,” he answered. “How is she?”
Toomey shrugged a shoulder.
“If you mean physically—I should say her health was perfect. No one ever sees her. She lives out in the hills alone with her sheep and a couple of herders.”
“How very extraordinary!” Miss Rathburn observed languidly.
“Plucky, I call it,” Disston answered.
“They’ve named her the 'Sheep Queen of Bitter Crick.'” Toomey laughed disagreeably.
“It’s curious you’ve never mentioned her, Hughie, when you’ve told us about everyone else in the country.”
“I didn’t think you’d be interested, Beth,” he answered stiffly.
Toomey changed the subject and the incident seemed forgotten, but Mrs. Rathburn’s eyes rested upon Hugh frequently with a look that was inquiring and speculative.
Kate’s heart always hardened and her backbone stiffened involuntarily the moment she had her first glimpse of Prouty. Invariably it had this effect upon her and to-day was no different from any other. Her eyes narrowed and her nerves tightened as though to meet the attack of an advancing enemy when at the edge of the bench, before she set the brake for the steep descent, she looked upon the town below her.
While her own feeling never altered and her attitude remained as implacable as the day she had sworn vengeance upon it, the bearing of the town had changed considerably. With cold inscrutable eyes she had watched open hostility and active enmity become indifference. Engrossed in its own troubles, Prouty had forgotten her, save when one of her rare visits reminded it of her existence.The comments upon such occasions were mostly of a humorous nature, pertaining to the “Sheep Queen,” a title which had been bestowed upon her in derision.
They heard exaggerated accounts of her losses through storms and coyotes, knew that she acted as camptender and herder when necessary, continued to live in a sheep wagon, and they presumed that she was still deeply in debt to the mysterious person or persons from whom she had obtained money at the time the bank threatened foreclosure.
She was seldom mentioned except in connection with the murder of Mormon Joe, a story with which the inhabitants occasionally entertained strangers. In other words, she was of no consequence socially or financially.
Looking neither to the right nor to the left as she swung her leaders around the corner, yet no sign of the town’s retrogression since her last visit escaped her—any more than did the mean small-town smirk upon the faces of a group of doorway loafers, who commented humorously upon the “Sheep Queen’s” arrival.
Yet there were tiny straws which showed that the wind was quartering. A few persons inclined their heads slightly in greeting, while the deference due a customer who paid cash was creeping into the manner of Scales of the Emporium. And there were others.
These small things she noted with satisfaction. It was the kind of coin she demanded in payment for isolation and hardships. She did not want their friendship; she wanted merely their recognition. To force from those who had gone out of their way to insult and belittle her the tacit admission of her success was a portion of the task she had set herself. Her purpose, and the means of attaining it were as clear in her mind as a piece of war strategy.
Kate gauged her position with intuitive exactness, and could quite impersonally see herself as Prouty saw her. She had no hallucinations on that score and knew that she was a long way yet from the fulfillment of her ambition. When she had reached a point where to decry her success was to proclaim her disparager envious or absurd, she would be satisfied; until then, she considered herself no more successful than the failures about her who yet found room to laugh at her.
Kate now shrugged a shoulder imperceptibly as she noted that another store building was empty. So the tailor had flitted? She recalled the Western adage concerning towns with no Jews in them and smiled faintly. Two doors below, still another shop was vacant. “To Let” signs were not synonymous with prosperity. Hiram Butefish supported his back against the door jamb in an attitude which did not suggest any pressing business. Mrs. Sudds, who formerly had passed Kate with a face that was ostentatiously blank, now stared at her with a certain inquisitive amiability. Major Prouty sitting in front of the post office waved a hand at her that was comparatively friendly. Oh, yes—the wind was beginning to blow from a new direction, undoubtedly.
She stopped in front of the bank, where she kept an account only sufficiently large to pay her current expenses. She had set the brake and was wrapping the lines about them when a curious sound attracted her attention. Looking up she saw approaching the first automobile in Prouty, driven by Mrs. Abram Pantin. Beside her, elated and self-conscious, was Mrs. Jasper Toomey. Kate got down quickly to hold the heads of the leaders, who were snorting at the monster. The machine was of a type which gave the driver the appearance of takinga sitz bath in public. Mrs. Pantin when driving sat up so straight that she looked like a prairie dog. Mrs. Toomey unconsciously imitated her, so they looked like two prairie dogs out for an airing—a thought which occurred to Kate as she watched the approaching novelty.
The sheep woman had not met Mrs. Toomey since the day when the final blow had been given to her faith in human nature. Now while Kate’s face was masklike she felt a keen curiosity as to how Time was using the woman who had had so much to do with the molding of her character and future.
She saw Mrs. Toomey’s mental start when the latter recognized her, and the momentary hesitation before she drew back far enough not to be seen by Mrs. Pantin, and inclined her head slightly. It was the languid air of a great lady acknowledging the existence of the awed peasantry.
The incident filled Kate with a white fury that was like one of her old-time rages. Yet she was helpless to resent it. Her resentment would mean nothing to anybody, even if she had any way of showing it. It was quite useless at the moment for her to tell herself that Mrs. Toomey was only a pitiful inconsequential little coward, whose action was in keeping with her nature. She knew it to be true, yet she was stirred to her depths by the insult, and if anything more had been needed to keep her steadfast to her purpose, the incident would have accomplished it. Sensitive to the extent of morbidness—it was impossible for her to ignore the occurrence.
Kate’s hands were trembling with the violence of her emotions as she tied a slip noose in a leather strap and secured the horses to the railing. She made a pretence of examining the harness in order to regain sufficient self-possessionto transact her business in the bank with the impersonal coolness to which she had schooled herself when it was necessary to enter that institution.
Mr. Vernon Wentz at his near-mahogany desk was deep in thought when Kate passed him. He bowed absently and she responded in the same manner. It occurred to Mr. Wentz that a time when everyone else was either borrowing, or endeavoring to, she was one of the few customers whose balances appeared ample for their expenses.
The banker’s attitude since his interview with Kate and her subsequent astonishing and unexpected payment of the mortgage had been one of polite aloofness. That matter was still a mystery which he hoped to solve sometime. But long ago Mr. Wentz had learned that the life of a banker is not the free independent life of a laundryman, and that with a competitor like Abram Pantin forever harassing him by getting the cream of the loans, it was sometimes necessary to make concessions and conciliations.
As Kate was leaving, he arose and extended a hand over the railing.
“We don’t see you often, Miss Prentice.”
She showed no surprise at his action and extended her own hand without either alacrity or hesitancy as she replied briefly:
“I seldom come to Prouty.”
“I merely wished to say that if at any time we can accommodate you, do not hesitate to ask us.” Mr. Wentz realized that he was laying himself open to an embarrassing reminder, and expected it, but Kate did not betray by so much as the flicker of an eyelid that she remembered when she had pleaded, not for money, but only for time to save herself from ruin.
“You are very kind.” She bowed slightly.
“You are one of our most valued customers.” Her reserve piqued him; it was a kind of challenge to his gallantry. “I hope—I trust you will allow us to show our appreciation in some way—if only a small favor.”
“I don’t need it.”
“You are very fortunate to be in that position, the way times are at present. In that case,” he smiled with the assurance of a man who had had his conquests, “I’ll presume to ask one. We should be pleased—delighted to handle your entire account for you. You keep it—”
“In Omaha.”
“Why not in Prouty?” ingratiatingly.
Kate did not answer immediately, but while she returned the gaze of his melting brown eyes steadily she received a swift impression that for some reason deposits would be particularly welcome. There had been no eagerness or anxiety to suggest it, yet she had the notion strongly that the bank needed the money. Perhaps, she reasoned swiftly, the suspicion was born merely of her now habitual distrust of motives; nevertheless, it was there, to become a fixed opinion.
While she seemed to deliberate, Mr. Wentz’s thoughts were of a different nature. If she were not so tanned and wore the clothes of civilization—she had the features, and, by George! she had a figure! These interesting mental comments were interrupted by a sudden dilation of Kate’s pupils as though from some sudden mental excitement. The gray iris grew luminous, he noticed, while her face was flooded with color, as though she had been startled.
“I will consider it.”
The answer was noncommittal, but the graceful sweeping gesture with which he stroked his mustache as she departed was one of satisfaction. Mr. Wentz had a notionthat after looking at him for all these years the young woman had just really seen him.
The banker returned to his desk, opened a drawer and extracted a small mirror, in which he regarded himself surreptitiously. What was it about him—what one thing in particular, he wondered, that was so compelling that even a woman like this Kate Prentice must relent at his first sign of interest? Was it his appearance or his personality?
In the pleasing occupation of contemplating his own features and trying to answer these absorbing questions, Mr. Wentz forgot temporarily that Neifkins, in violation of the law governing such matters, was in debt to the bank beyond the amount of his holdings as director, and behind with his interest—a condition which had disturbed the president not a little because it was so fraught with unpleasant possibilities.