It was Calamity, who had carried the trouble-making coat across from the Mission Library to the MacDonald Ranch House. Eleanor had found it in the big living room that day after she had read the note saying he was setting out "on the Long Trail, the trail this Nation will have to follow before Democracy arrives; the trail of the Man behind the Thing." Somehow, she lost interest in her reading and her driving, and spent the most of that first week after the funeral in the steamer chair on the Ranch House piazza. Were the topaz gates of the sunset still ajar to a new infinite life; or did satyr faces haunt the shadows of the trail, satyr faces of the Greed that had plotted the bloody villainy of the Rim Rocks? She had thought she knew joy before, joy that rapt her from life in a race reverie. Now, she knew joy, tense as pain; and the consciousness never left her. It was there; beside, inside, above, all round, an enveloping atmosphere to everything she thought and said and did. She could not read; for while her eyes passedoverthe lines, that consciousness danced in flamesbetweenthe lines. She tried to forget herself in her work—in the sorting of the littered shelves, in the mending for the ranch hands absent with her father in the Upper Pass; but It was there just the same, at her elbow; in behind the commonplace weaving rainbow mists, a shadowy deity of thought all pervasive as ether. Before, she had been as one standing in front of the up-lifted veil. Now, she knew she had passed in behind the veil, and could not if she would come out to the former place. Life symbols empty of meaning before, suddenly became allegorical of eternity—the bridal veil, the orange wreaths, the ring typical of the infinite, the vows of service, the angel of the drawn sword on the back trail. Yet she knew she had promised to keep him resolute, standing strong to his work, unflinching because of her.
It was, perhaps, typical of those ancestral traits that fear for him never once entered her thoughts. His work was on the firing line; and had she notoncesaid that a life more or less did not matter? That was before his life had become her life. That is, fear for him did not enter her waking thoughts. It was different when she slept. Then the uncurbed thoughts hovered like the face in the picture of "the Sleeping Warrior." One night as she sat in the steamer chair, a cold wind came down from the Pass. The cook explained it was because of the snow slide that had filled up the canyon.
"Calamity," she called, "bring me out something to put round my shoulders; don't bring a shawl: I hate shawls!"
And Calamity, perfectly naturally, brought out Wayland's coat. Eleanor did not laugh; for she knew it was only since Calamity had stopped roving the Black Hills that she had exchanged male attire for the Indian woman's insignia of good conduct, a shawl. She waited till Calamity had pattered down to the basement. Then, she slipped into the coat with a queer little laugh that would have played havoc with Wayland's resolutions, and running her hands up the long dangling sleeve ends, lay back to a reverie that could hardly be called thought. It was consciousness, delirious foolish consciousness, possible only to youth; and the consciousness slipped into a drowse between sleeping and waking. It was—where was it? In the shadow realms of wonderful dream consciousness, his face, the face in "the Happy Warrior"; but not her face: instead was the evil fellow seen that night in the storm on the Rim Rocks clubbing his gun at Fordie's pinto pony through the mists; only he wasn't clubbing it at Fordie; he was aiming at Wayland; and there was the white horse. She wakened herself with her cry. That happened to be the night Wayland had camped in the Desert arroyos.
One afternoon, Sheriff Flood had called to know if her father had come back and what "he intended to do about it." Incidentally, he mentioned that the Forest Ranger had gone through the Pass that led to the Desert: there had been a snow slide; but he "guessed" the Ranger was "too cute a mountain man to be caught." That night, she shivered as she sat in the steamer chair; and she drew Wayland's coat around her; but it was not to delirious thoughts. When she fell asleep, she saw him lying on his face in the Desert; and she called him, and called him, and never could reach him, and awakened herself with her own calling. Wayland's professional friend, who was a psychologist, explained both incidents as auto suggestion from the coat awakened by the uneasiness of the unconscious fears; an explanation that explains by saying x is y.
At all events, she never again used the coat; and having nothing to conceal, didn't conceal it, which is the most damning evidence you can offer to a tortuous mind. She hung the coat in the apartment off the big living room. Then, the despatch came out about the two bodies found in the Desert. The same mail brought a letter from her father asking her to meet him at Smelter City; and there at the Ranch House gate stood Mr. Bat Brydges, handy man of the Valley, quizzing the ranch hands, quizzing the German cook, quizzing Calamity at the very foot of rustic slab steps that ran up from the basement.
"What is he after, Calamity?"
The half breed woman had dashed up the back stairs to Eleanor's room.
"He want t' know if Waylan—Ranga fellah—has ever stay here, dis house—he ever go back Cabin House—tepee on hill—night dey keel leetle boy?"
Even then, Eleanor did not realize the drift of the handy man's activities. She thought perhaps, he, too, might be anxious about Wayland.
"What did you tell him, Calamity?"
"I tell heem," Calamity dropped her soft patois to a guttural, "I tell heem, y' go Hell!"
"Ca-lam-ity?" rebuked Eleanor.
But what was it in the gentleman's jaunty air, in the smile of the sleepy tortoise-shell eyes, in the play of a self-conscious dimple round the fat double chin? Eleanor had not passed from her own apartment to the big living room before a repulsion that she could not define swept over her in a physical shudder; and Mr. Bat Brydges' report to the Senator of that interview had been fairly accurate. She did not know that she had not greeted him with the common courtesy due a caller, that she had stood looking past him to the open door, that she had left him standing first on one leg then on the other till Bat had been forced to terminate the interview; and she had not the faintest conception of what her own feeling of repulsion meant. He had scarcely gone before she wished she had asked him about those two bodies found in the Desert. As a matter of fact, she called up the "Smelter City Independent." The editor could give her no details. He asked her very particularly who was inquiring; and having nothing to conceal, she did not conceal it. He allayed her fears in almost the words that the Senator had used to lay Bat's suspicions, if the bodies had been those of Government men, the Ranger's Badge would have been found and the news flashed all over America.
"Oh, thank you, so much! You know the sheep lost on the Rim Rocks belonged to our ranch; and I wouldn't like to think that he had lost his life defending our interests."
Then something odd occurred with the telephone. She distinctly heard the voice at the other end telling somebody that, "Brydges was up there now." Then, the voice was assuring her, "They would let her know if they heard anything more."
Eleanor rang off with a sense of relief; and yet with a sickening feeling, of what? It was the same feeling she had had when Brydges came in with his jaunty air.
She was standing at the Ranch House gate waiting for the stage to Smelter City. Calamity had carried down the yellow suit case. The words came from Eleanor's lips before she thought; or she could never have asked the question:
"Calamity, who was it took your little baby away?"
The suit case fell from the Indian woman's hand.
"D' pries'," she said, "Father Moran."
Eleanor thought a moment, racking her memory in vain for that name in her convent life of Quebec. She was digging her toe in the dust of the road.
"Was that before or after you went to the Black Hills, Calamity?"
But Calamity had gone without a word; and the stage came whipping across the bridge from the Moyese Ranch; a double-tandem stage driven by a bronzed fellow with one arm, whose management of the reins absorbed Eleanor so that she forgot to notice the fat form hoisting her suit case to the roof. Then, she was inside; and the door had swung shut; and the fat form squeezed in next to the door; and she was lost in her own thoughts oblivious of her close packed neighbors till the stage stopped again with a jerk, and the sharp edge of a black cart-wheel-hat decorated with plumes enough for an undertaker's wagon cut a swath that threatened to slice off one of Eleanor's ears.
"I beg your pardon," said Eleanor.
"Oh, I guess tha' wuz my fault," and a mouthful of gold teeth above an ash colored V of neck and below the most wonderful straw stack of wheat colored hair simpered up at Eleanor from beneath the black cart-wheel-hat; simpered and ended up in a funny little tittering laugh. Eleanor took a quick glance at her neighbors, all men but the cart-wheel-hat to one side and a little young-old lady opposite with a hectic flush, and very protuberant hard mouth and beady little brown eyes. Eleanor noticed the brown eyes were accompanied by red hair, and she recognized the presiding genius of the English Colony.
"A beautiful morning for a ride down the Valley," remarked Eleanor absently.
"What? I beg your pardon? Did you speak to me?"
It wasn't the words. It was the hard tone of surprise.
"We're in luck to have such a morning to ride down," amplified Eleanor.
"Yes," said the lady with the hectic flush; and Eleanor felt the gold teeth simpering beneath the undertaker's plumes.
What was it? Eleanor took a second look at the two women, and recognized both, the Sheriff's wife and the English lady. They were arrayed gorgeously, her neighbor across in lavender silk, her elbow traveller in black with a profusion of cheap lace round the ash colored V of exposed skin: Eleanor wished the woman had powdered all the way down. She, herself, had come garbed for the dust of stage travel, a broad brimmed English sailor and a kakhi duster motoring coat. Was it because she was not garbed as the others that they rebuffed her friendly overtures, she wondered. At the next stop, she passed out to go up and ride on the driver's seat, manifestly an impossible feat for ladies in lavender and undertaker's plumes. A fat hand reached forward to shove the door open. It was Bat Brydges'. She nodded her thanks, and the handy man bowed with a sweep of his hat naming her aloud for the whole stage to hear. If a look could have blasted Mr. Bat Brydges, he would have been dissolved in gaseous matter from the expression that passed over the face under the sailor hat. She heard the hilarity break bounds inside as she mounted the driver's seat; and felt very much as you have felt when you have come out of the clatter of the orchestra pit where you have chanced to sit next to a musk-scented neighbor.
But she forgot the lavender grandee and the gold teeth and the undertaker's plumes, as she sat on the upper seat with the one-armed driver behind the double tandem grays. The sun was coming up over the Rim Rocks in a half fan of fire; and the light was on the Ridge; and all the silver cataracts tossing down the sheer wall shone wind-blown spray against the evergreens. The Valley widened as it dropped to the leap and fume and swirl of the foaming river; and the double tandem grays kept step with a proud chacking up of heads and bristling of arched necks and movement of thigh and shoulder muscles under satin skin like shuttles.
"You must be very proud of your beautiful horses," she said to the driver.
The driver 'lowed he was: that 'un dappled on the rump there, that 'un was foaled, let me see? year o' the rush to the Black Hills, with a squirt of chewing tobacco over the front wheel and a damn't, and another squirt and more damn't's; and before Eleanor realized the one-armed driver had asked her if she wouldn't like to learn to drive double tandems; and she had the reins in her hands; and the double tandem grays took the bit in their teeth to show what double tandem grays and ample oats could do.
"How-do," called the driver with a squirt of tobacco over the front wheel at a rancher loping across the trail. "How-do; y' are up early, y' son of a gun! What d' y' know?"
"Senator's goin' t' stand again this fall," called the man.
The driver emitted another damn't in true Western style just as innocently as an Easterner says "Oh, yes, indeed," or an Englishman says "My word." In fact Eleanor lost count of the damn't's.
"How ever do you manage it?" she asked shifting the reins.
"With my one arm, y' mean?" The stage driver laughed and aimed more chewing tobacco at that innocent front wheel; and the question drew out such a story of heroism in spite of the damn't's and the tobacco squids as made her proud of human clay, just as she had been ashamed of human something or other inside the stage with the lavender silk and the gold teeth and Bat's frozen tallow smile.
"Why, it was the year o' the Kootenay rush, ye mind? No, ye don't mind, ye weren't born then, were y'? Damn't," and a punctuation in tobacco. "Wall, 'twas in the early days 'fore we had steam hoists an' things." (Another punctuation mark—a good big one.) "We was usin' an old hand hoist. Guess the shaft was about hundred feet down—straight down, an' we was gettin' in the pay streak, bringin' up barrels o' rock showin' more color every load. Wall, them loads was hauled up to the dumps by a hand hoist y' onderstand, kind of winch, like y' turn a handle in old fashioned down East wells. Wall—" (Another punctuation mark and another dip for ink, so to speak, from the plug in the hand of the one-armed driver.) "boys were all down under. Say—'twas in the days when ol' Calamity was runnin' the hills. Know Calamity? She was a wild 'un inherday; an' they say MacDonald, the rich sheep man, has kind o' sorter given her a home these late years. Wall—I ain't the one t' say he shouldn't. Her morals weren't much better in them days than the crazy patch quilts ladies used to make down East when I was a boy; but she's settled down I hear; an' I ain't the one to say MacDonald don't deserve credit for what he's done. She saved many a poor miner's life from the Indians in them ol' days, saved 'em by a shave, carried 'em in on her shoulder to the Deadwood Hospital, or nussed 'em well on the spot, an' all the while, she wazn't no better than she ought t' be; wazn't there a woman in Scripture like that? Kind o' seems to me the church folks forgets that Rahub gurl! Wall—'twas about those days." (More showers of damn't's and tobacco on that front wheel.) "Boys was all under. Big load of rock was comin' up. I waz man at the hoist, man on the easy job that day. Wall—wad y' believe it, the damn thing bruk—bruk plum whoop an' started spinnin' round back side first with the load o' rock an' the boys under comin' up the ladder. I yelled for a kid we had workin' round to get me a jack wrench, a hand spike, Hell, any ol' thing to stop her kitin' that load o' rock down on the boys! Kid stood gopin' there an' sayin' 'What d'y' say?' Say,—damn't—an' that load o' rock goin' plumb down on the boys, heavy enough to smash 'em to pulp. There weren't nothin' handy near 'cept me, so I jumped this here arm that you find missin' right into the wheel! It stopped her all right, the load didn't fall on the boys; and they got up all right by the ladder; but—say, mebbe the cogs o' that damn wheel didn't do a thing to my arm. Say—the doctor didn't need to amputate it. That winch did him out o' his job."
"You mean," said Eleanor, slowing the grays to a reluctant walk down grade, while the driver clamped the front wheel brake with his foot, "you mean because there was no crowbar, or anything to stop the hoist flying backwards and killing the men under the load of rock, you mean because there was no crowbar, you jumped into the wheel, yourself?"
"Sure," said the man astonished at her question; and because Eleanor was a true Westerner and didn't mind the tobacco squids and the damn't's in the least (where they belonged) she gave that one-armed driver a look that would have made any man proud: only the one-armed driver didn't see it.
"They took up a purse an' wanted to give me a perscription—damn't, but I told 'em t' turn it in t' the Horspital. Any man w'd a' done same for a yellow dog. What d'y' want t' give a fellow a medal for not bein' stinkin' coward?"
Eleanor laughed. It was a happy silver laugh like the light on the Ridge cataracts. Somehow, the one-armed stage driver with his unconscious heroism and equally unconscious profanity gave her a sense of the big wholesome unconscious outdoor world, just as the lavender silks and undertaker's plumes and tallow smile inside smothered her with a drugged sense of heavy unwholesome musk. The one-time miner did not know it; but what Eleanor was saying to herself was—"So much bad in the best of us and so much good in the worst of us." Then she thought of the Senator and his genial smile and his voice soft as a woman's, and his love of flowers. He, too, must have his vein of heroism, if one could only find it. She thought and thought as the tandem grays arched their necks at the sound of the tramway bells in the nearing city; thought and thought, vague wordless thoughts full of hope; vague womanish thoughts that women have thought since time began of finding that magic vein of heroism in the Man that is to transmute slag into gold, hog into human, and greed into generosity, and lust into love; thought and thought the gentle womanish hoping-against-hope thoughts that women have worn out their lives thinking and enslaved their bodies and pawned their souls. If only one could findthatvein in the Senator, the battle would be won without the letting of blood and smashing of reputations; as if peace without victory were ever worth while since time began.
Then, the stage was rattling over the pressed brick pavement of Smelter City; and the tandem grays were pretending to shy at the electric cars; and the one-armed driver came near expectorating his entire internal anatomy out of sheer joy and pride in the arched necks and the frail driver with the black curls under the broad brimmed English sailor hat handling the reins. She had pulled off her heavy buckskin gloves; and she never knew how absurdly like matches her fingers looked to the big one-time miner beside her; nor how the exhilaration brought the tints of the painters' flower to her cheeks and the light of the Alpine pools to her eyes. Every man on the street turned and looked back, while the gold teeth inside blinked with self conscious certainty thattheydid it; and the lavender silks wore a peculiarly cynical smile. Loafers sat up and followed the stage with eager eyes far as they could see it and said, "By Gawd—whose gurl is that?" Oh, Mr. Bat Brydges intended every bar room buffer and loafer in the State should know, 'whose girl' that was before night. Everything was fair in love and war; and Bat considered he had run down a case of both. According to his lights, he had; but his lights were smutty and in need of trimming.
The stage dropped the gold teeth at a dentist's office, and the lavender silks at a manicure's 'studio,' I believe she called it; and Bat swung off while the coach was still moving; and Eleanor reluctantly gave up the reins at the transcontinental station.
"Thank you so much. I don't know when I have had as good a time," she said, giving the stage driver the sensation of a king in disguise.
And, of course, the transcontinental was late. When was it not late, when you were in a hurry?
"How late?"
"Four hours, last report," the operator answered.
She sent her suit case across to the hotel, and shopped, and loitered up and down the platform. It was not until afterwards she remembered one of the loafer brigade dangling legs from the station platform looking over his shoulder with an evil smile.
"Say—d' y' see the evening paper?" he had asked. "That's her;" and there was a laugh that somehow sent her back inside the station feeling vaguely uneasy.
"I think I'll telephone them up at the Ranch not to keep dinner waiting," she said to the operator.
He was reading the paper. He looked at her a moment before answering. If a human face could have been expressed in a punctuation mark, that agent's face should have been drawn in a big question mark, with the eyes put somewhere in the hook, and the neck growing longer and longer as he looked.
"Public telephone right across the road," he said.
In avoidance of the loafers' looks, she had walked unheeding straight into the Senator's office. Her first instinct was to withdraw. Then, she saw Brydges; and that curious sensation of repulsion obsessed her. She literally shot the handy man in full retreat with one glance. Then, the joy of the ride down, the heroism of the driver, came back. Perhaps it was the jar of roses, but the thought came what ifshecould find that vein of heroism in the Senator. When women risk their souls on that "if" and the souls of friends and children; is it vanity, I wonder, or is it the will o' the wisp light that lights erring feet to darkness?
She thought more highly of the Senator that he did not offer to shake hands, just as most of us would think more highly of Judas Iscariot if he had not kissed Christ. Being a Westerner, she had the Westerner's horror of a maverick sporting the brand of a thoroughbred. The Senator took off his glasses and sat tapping them above the U. S. Geological Survey map.
"I trust," he began, "that my man expressed to you my deep regret—my deep distress over—"
"Don't . . . please, don't," interrupted Eleanor, with a passionate break in her voice. "I know you are honest, Senator Moyese, honest to what you believe is right; and I don't want you to feel that you have to lie because I am a woman."
The Senator opened his mouth, took a breath, and shut it again.
She understood him well enough to know that if he had to toy with his glasses for a twelve month, he would wait for her to play down first. Yet she recognized the instinct of his manhood to rescue the confusion of her embarrassment when he put forward his hand casually and said—"See my roses, Miss Eleanor? They are a new variety of American Beauties. See, each petal has a white veining? Know how those roses are produced? Ages and ages of poor trash worthless common roses have been sacrificed to produce this perfect type."
"That's your theory of life, isn't it?" she asked, vaguely conscious that the dragon was disarming her anger.
"Isn't it nature's?" asked Moyese gently. "The fit survive because they are fit; the exceptional; the few; while the worthless go to waste?"
Before Eleanor realized, she had lost all consciousness of self and was pleading passionately leaning forward across the desk.
"Isn't Christ's theory better, Senator, to make all the unfit into fit? Isn't Christ's theory the theory of science? Science aims to make a whole field of perfect corn; not just one perfect cob. I know that; for I read it in your speech at the opening of the Agricultural College. If we keep on sacrificing the interests of the many to the interests of the few, aren't we working back to savagery, Senator?"
The Senator drew the finest of the roses from the jar. "It's a matter of taste, perhaps, Miss Eleanor; but I prefer this to a whole jarful of scrubs."
"Then you are not working for democracy. It's just as Mrs. Williams says, all you foreign multimillionaires are subverting our Nation by working for old fashioned despotism in disguise; sacrificing the many to the few."
"Oh, does Mrs. Williams say that?" asked Moyese reflectively, pushing back from the desk and clasping his hands round one knee. "That may be; republicanism doesn't necessarily mean letting the blockheads rule! It may mean giving equal opportunity for the fit men to come to the top and rule. Did you come in to talk over these things with me, Miss Eleanor? I must make a convert of you; it would win over Wayland and Williams and your father."
"No, I didn't. I came in here by mistake. The operator told me I'd find a public telephone across the road; and I wasn't noticing where I was going, and I came in here; but all the way down, I had been thinking of you, Senator Moyese. I kept thinking if you could only be made to see the New Day that is dawning, perhaps you would meet it half way. I rode in the driver's seat coming down; and he told me how he lost his arm; Senator, think of the hero in him?"
"And you thought there might be some of the hero in me, too?" Moyese laughed, the noiseless genial laugh creasing his chin and his white vest.
"While you laugh, you are letting your rose wither."
He handed the rose to her. "Yes, I know that fellow. I was in the Kootenay when he lost his arm, torn out all bloody right from the shoulder socket; had to pry the cogs up to get him out. They collected a purse of a thousand for him; but he wouldn't take a cent: handed it over to the hospital. Something in that fellow bigger than self kind of popped out and surprised himself."
She noticed him looking at the wall clock as he talked, but not being a business woman did not know what that meant.
"There's something bigger than self with us all, Senator; and we have to work for it."
"My dear child, do you think you need to tell an old stager that?" He was kicking the creases out of his trousers. This time, she could not mistake the signal, and felt her womanish idealism of mining for the hidden vein of heroism both childish and cheapening. She rose and placed the flower back on the desk.
"There's something bigger than you or me, my dear," he went on, "something for which every man worth his salt must work and fight, and which a woman does not understand."
"And that is?"
"His party," said Moyese.
"But Senator, there is something bigger than party, and if a man works against That, he'll injure his party."
"And that is?"
"His Nation," said the girl.
Moyese gave her a quick sharp look that was not unkindly. In fact,Eleanor could read that it was lonely, irritated, isolated.
"My dear," he said, coming round where she stood, "we differ on fundamentals. The whole nation to-day is divided on fundamentals. I'm no mealy mouth to curse plutocracy in order to please the mob. Plutocracy fills the workman's dinner pail and keeps the mills going and opens the mines and builds the railroads. Mobocracy, your grubby corn cob and trashy roses, that, what does it do? Mouthe and mouthe and try to pull down what is above it! It will have to be fought out! No? It will not be another French Revolution!Our bullets are ballots, nowadays; and the American people get exactly the form of Government which they want. If they want another form, it remains with them to fight for it. The umpire of all is fact—Miss Eleanor; and the facts of each side will have to be fought out; the better man will win; be sure of that!The facts that are facts not fictions will win, with ballots for bullets. For my part, I'll not dodge the issue; and I hope you'll not think me any the less of the hero for that?"
He had extended his hand as he talked, and to her surprise, she found herself taking it when with a wave of revulsion, the memory of the Ridge and the Rim Rocks came back.
"And government is a mere game of politics?" she said. "And politics resolves itself into brute force; and a murder more or less doesn't matter? Fordie, I suppose, would be classed as one of the scrubs sacrificed for this perfection of party?"
His hand dropped hers as if she had struck him.
"You did not know that you were overheard? 'See that no harm comes to the boy.' You did not mean Fordie to be murdered; but they were to crowd the sheep over 'to beat Hell,' 'the sheep were to go it blind'—my father's and Mr. Williams' property was to be sacrificed to build up the fortune of the cattle barons: they too, I suppose, are scrubs sacrificed among the many for the wealth of the one, who happens to be yourself. You broke the law; but because you did not order Fordie's murder, you think the blood guiltiness from that broken law does not rest upon you. You say it must all be fought out. You force the fight—"
He raised his hand to stop her. She remembered afterwards how ashy white and aged his face became. He walked to the door and opened it. She passed out. So that was to what her womanish mining for the vein of the ideal heroism had led. She had been politely shown out. It was as Wayland had said: there was no middle course; and it was also as the Senator had said, it must be fought out, and the bullets were to be ballots.
The Senator slammed his door shut and snapped the yale lock. Then he noticed the rose she had left, and tossed it in the spittoon.
"Thank God," he ejaculated fervently as he sank back in the swing chair, "Thank God women are not in politics. There is always something to be thankful for."
Then, an idea seemed to strike him. He rang the telephone with fury, and it didn't improve his temper to hear the saucy little central informing her elbow mate that "that ol' fellah wuz burnin' the wire up alive."
"Is that 'The Herald'? Brydges there? That you, Brydges? Listen, the night you were up on the Ridge, have you any perfect proof that Wayland didn't go down when you were asleep? Eh? You turned in at ten; and you found him still stamping about at twelve? Is that it? What? No? Don't be a damphool,cut that out. Of course, he didn't go down to the Ranch House. Cut that whole scandal thing out. There's nothing in it; but I think we can locate our missing knight errant. Understand? He's got to be smashed? What?You had printed the scandal story before you ever came in to me at all? Dictated it right in to the typo machines? In the 'Independent'? Oh, well, I'm glad it didn't go in the 'City Herald'? But it did go in; one evening paper?" Then the wrath of the strong man broke bounds. If he had been a stage villain the curtain drop would have fallen on a red faced gentleman pounding the desk, tearing at the telephone, hurling his chair about the office and generally, as the saucy little central remarked, "eating the wire up alive."
When Brydges' chief indulged in explosives that necessitated the repair of furniture the next day, the handy man always stood strictly and silently at attention. He knew the meaning of the stage thunder: it was the trick of the Indian medicine man, who fires guns to bring down rain. Bat knew that the fulminations were of a piece with all the other orders to do and not to do, an effort to get results while diverting the thunderbolt from the rain maker's head; for by one of those strange contingencies that Shakespeare defines as an opportunity of evil, when the handy man had gone to the 'Herald,' the news editor chanced to be out. Bat crossed to the 'Independent's' office. It lacked but half an hour of the time to lock up the press, and on condition that the story should be "a scoop," Bat was sent out to the composing room to dictate straight to the printer, standing over the linotype machine.
What was "the story" that he dictated? If you know where to look, you can see its prototype seven times a week. It was written jocularly; oh, it was exceedingly funny with all sorts of veiled references to naughtiness that couldn't be printed, pretty naughtiness, you understand, the kind you wink at, as was to be expected from a little beauty, a brunette, chic, etc. (I forget how many French words Bat tucked in: he had to look 'em up in the French-English appendix to Webster's Dictionary as the proof came off the galley), the well known daughter of the richest sheep rancher in the Valley. "The story" was headed: "Pretty Scandal in Peaceful Valley." Bat played "the human interest" feature for all it was worth; also the trick of suspended interest. It began by informing the public that a pretty scandal was disturbing a certain Valley not a hundred miles from the Rim Rocks, the essential details of which could not be given, would probablyneverbe printed, for obvious reasons. Then followed a solid paragraph of nonsense verse inserted as prose; about a Ranger-man, Ranger-man, running away, 'Cause pa-pah, dear pa-pah comes home for to-day; But his Lincoln green coatie the Ranger forgot; And pa-pah, dear pa-pah came home raging hot; The Ranger-man, Ranger-man was still on the run, For pa-pah, dear pa-pah was out with a gun, He'd heaved up his war club and jangled his spear, And swore by my halidom what doth that coat here, etc., etc. Any school boy could have trolled off yards of the same drivelling cleverness; and Eleanor's innocent telephone call was, of course, lugged in.
There followed a garbled account of poor Calamity's errant days among the miners of the Black Hills. The account had no reference to her heroism in the early mining days, when she roved in man's attire over the hills to rescue wounded miners from the Sioux. It set forth only her blazoning sins; evidently on the assumption that carrion is preferable to meat. And then tucked ingeniously into this account was veiled mention of a rich sheepman, too well known to need naming, who was evidently making reparation for the errors of his youth by according to the mother as good treatment as the daughter under the same roof. Not a name was mentioned except Calamity's. I trust it is obvious to you that it was not libelous, because it was without malice. In fact, if you want to know the ear marks of a handy man's "story," look out for the smart gentlemen in veiled references without any facts which can be transfixed by either a pin or a handspike. When you find the innuendo without the handhold of fact, lick your lips if you are keen on carrion; for I promise that you have come on a morsel.
Bat did even better than the clever story dictated straight to the typo in the composing room. Always in the West, there flit in and out what we Westerners used to call "floaters," gentlemen (and ladies) who come in on a pullman car and go out on a pullman car and sometimes venture as far away from safety as a hotel rotunda, then syndicate their impressions of the West, in the East, and gravely correct twenty year Westerners with twenty minute impressions. I don't believe on the whole, as Westerners, we like them very much; but obviously, one doesn't kill a mosquito with a hammer.
Bat caught such a floater on the delayed transcontinental express. He was seeing the West through a car window. The East will not see the jocularity of that fact. The West will, though it may smile with a twist. Bat's floater was working for a Chicago boomster, who had issued a magazine to boom Western real estate, suburban lots seven miles from a flat car, which was all there was of the city. For exactly fifteen dollars (when the floater's impressions came out, I made exact inquiries as to what Bat had paid him; and it seemed to me that floater sold himself very cheap) the travelling impressionist took over Bat's story of "the Pretty Scandal in Peaceful Valley" and rehashed it with the name MacDonald given as Macdonel, and syndicated the scandal against the Forest Service throughout the East.
The transcontinental express had made up lost time and came roaring in just as the stage rattled up to the platform. MacDonald and Williams stepped off the observation car. Eleanor shook hands.
"You know about the sheep?" she asked.
"Yes, we have your letter," answered MacDonald. "That's why we stayed so long buying grazing ground in the Upper Pass."
"Here, boy." He bought an evening paper; and helped Eleanor inside the stage. Then he mounted to the top with Williams. There were only three other occupants in the stage, the lady of the lavender silks, the gold teeth, and a workman, sodden drunk and drowsy, in the upper corner. The lady of the lavender silks had a complexion that looked as if it had been dipped in a fountain of perennial youth. She was leaning over the evening paper which the undertaker plumes had evidently shown her. The heat had not improved Eleanor's stiff linen collar and the dust had certainly not added to the style of her kakhi motor coat. It was not until afterwards she remembered how both the heads flew apart from the evening paper the moment she entered the stage.
"Have you had a pleasant day shopping, my dear?" It was the lavender silk with the hard mouth actually breaking in a smile. It was the "my dear" that struck Eleanor's ear as odd. The manner said plainly as words could say "You weren't before; but youarenow."
"Oh, it was rather hot," answered Eleanor quietly.
"Y're on the wrong soide. Y're in the sun. If y'll sit over b'side off me, my dear gurl—"
Eleanor nearly exploded. 'Girl' was the limit: 'lady' would have been worse; 'woman' was good enough for her; but, 'gurl.' It was the manner, the proprietary manner, you are one of usnow: what had happened? She did not answer. She raised her eye lashes and looked the speaker over from the undertaker's plumes and the gold teeth and the ash colored V of skin to the clock-work stockings and high heeled slippers. Then, the stage was stopping violently and her father appeared on the rear steps at the door. She had never seen him look so. His eyes were blazing. It was not until afterwards she remembered how the lavender silks had crushed the evening paper all up and sat upon it.
"There is a little girl up on the seat with the driver. You'll find it pleasanter there going up the Valley."
She remembered afterwards, while her father gave her a hand up the front wheel, a voice inside the stage exclaimed: "Say, thought they wuz goin' to be fireworks. If Dan'd read that in th' paper 'bout me, he'd a gone on awful."
"Oh, no, he's a thoroughbred all right, if it is part Indian."
Then her father and Williams had gone down inside the stage; and she was left with the driver and a diminutive little bit of humanity, that looked as if it had escaped from one of the rag shops of Shanty Town. She wore a tawdry thing on her head with bright carmine ostrich plumes that had lost their curl in the rain. A red plush cape was round her shoulders; and Eleanor could hardly believe her eyes—she had not seen them since she went through the East End of London—they were copper toed boots.
"M' name is Meestress Leezie O'Finnigan. What's y'rs?" demanded the little old face.
Eleanor didn't answer. She was trying to think what had changed the driver's friendly manner. He had neither greeted her nor proffered the reins. And now, oh, philosopher of the human heart, for each of us is a philosopher inside, answer me: why did the driver, who was a bit of a hero, and the lavender silk, who was an adventuress, and the gold teeth, who was a slattern, neither pure nor simple, why did each and all eagerly believe the evil, so vague it had not been stated, written by an unknown blackmailer, in the face of the reputation of purity sitting beside them?
"M' father uz down inside," continued the child. "He's sleep. We're goin' t' live on th' Ridge. D' y' know what a Ridge iz? We're goin' t' be waal-thy—m' father says so. He says we won't have a thing t' do but sit toight an' whuttle un' sput, un' whuttle un' sput fur three years, then the com'ny wull huv t' pay us what he asks. He says they think they'll pay him off fur three hun'red; but he says heknows, he does; un' he's goin' t' hold 'em up fur half. Unless they give him half he'll tell—"
"What?" asked Eleanor, suddenly wakening up to the meaning of the chatter. "What is your father?"
"He's trunk jes' now," said the child. Then she reached her face up to Eleanor's confidentially. The little teeth were very unclean and the breath was very garlicky, indeed. "He's goin' t' be a dummy," she whispered with a gurgle of childish glee, "un' he says he'll easily hold 'em up for twenty thousand without doin' a thing fur five years but whuttle un' sput."
"A dummy? Oh," said Eleanor.
Even the driver relaxed enough to flick the tandem grays with his whip and permit a twisted smile to play round the tobacco wad in his cheek.
They ate their late supper in the Ranch House by lamp light, her father scarcely uttering a word, the evening paper still sticking out of his coat pocket.
"I know this sheep affair has been a horrible, hideous loss," she said."Is that what's worrying you, father?"
MacDonald shoved back from the table.
"Pah, that's nothing," he said.
He stood waiting till the German cook had removed the dishes. Then he drew the paper from his pocket.
"There's something here I'm sorry you'll have to know," he said. "You won't understand how low the meaning of most of it is; but I'm sorry they hit you to try and hurt me."
He threw himself down in a big leather chair. She took the paper mechanically and sat on the arm of the chair to read. She read slowly and deliberately to the end. Then she re-read both columns; and the paper fell from her hands. She did not know it, but the same suppressed fury was blazing in her face as she had seen on his at the stage door.
"So that is what was doing when I went to the Senator's office this afternoon to plead with him that things could not go on in the old plundering way. That is what his man's visit meant here the other day to express sympathy with you for the loss of the sheep? Now I understand what the loafers at the station meant, and the driver's unfriendliness, and those unclean women; and to think they framed it all out of that innocent coat. You know, father, Mr. Wayland had carried Fordie down from the Rim Rocks. We carried the body in together."
"Where is Wayland?" asked MacDonald; and she poured out the full story of all that had happened. I hope, gentle reader, you will please to observe that if the father had viewed the facts of that recital through the same tainted mind as Mr. Bat Brydges, a breach would have occurred that neither time nor regret could have bridged. I confess when I see breaches occur that wrench lives and break hearts through love harboring suspicion, I don't think the love is very much worth the name. You can't both have your plant grow, and keep tearing up the roots to see if they are growing. You can't both throw mud in a spring and drink out of a well of love undefiled. If love grows by what it feeds on, so does suspicion. He did not once look up questioningly to her eyes. Instead, he reached up and took hold of her hand. For the first time in their lives, father and daughter came together.
"But there is one thing you are mistaken about, father. They did not hit me, to hurt you. They hit me, to stop Dick Wayland."
"Why, what difference can you make to Wayland?"
She hid her face on his shoulder.
"I love him," she said.
When the German cook came in with the washed dishes, father and daughter still sat in the big arm chair; and you may depend on it, that flunky carried out to the ranch hands, guzzling over the evening paper in the bunk house, a proper report of a heart broken father and a repentant daughter; for when we look out on the world, do we see the world at all; or do we see the shadows of our own inner souls cast out on the passing things of life?
"The point is," said Wayland, "though, we have driven out this nest of beauties, we have no guarantee another nest won't take their place; and so we're not much farther ahead than before, with the chances I'll be called down for exceeding my duties."
"And y'll keep on bein' where y' were before till y' get the Man HigherUp," interrupted Matthews.
They had camped among the red firs where the Desert crossed the State Line and merged from cut rocks to broken timber. It was seven weeks since they had set out from the Upper Mesas of the Rim Rocks, four weeks since they had left the saline pool. Man and beast, fagged to the point of utter exhaustion, retraced steps slower than fresh hunters on an untried trail. Also, going down, they had followed hard wherever fugitives led. Coming back, they struck across to the Western Desert road, and travelled from belt to belt of the irrigation farms, with their orange-green cottonwood groves and bluish-green alfalfa fields and little match box houses stuck out of sight among peach orchards. The parched-earth, burnt-oil smell gave place to the minty odor of hay in wind rows, with the cool water tang of the big irrigation ditch flowing liquid gold in the yellow August light. One evening, Matthews looked back to the looming heat waving and writhing above the orange sands beneath a sky of lilac and topaz round a sunset flowing from a dull red ball of fire. Far ahead, the edges of forested mountain cut the heat haze with opal winged light above what might have been peaks or clouds.
"'Tis beautiful, Wayland, y'r lone Desert world; but man alive, it's sad! Y' call some the Painted Desert, don't ye? 'Tis like a painted woman, Wayland, vera beautiful, vera fair to look on an' allurin', but a' out o' perspective; an' Wayland, the painted woman is always a bit lonely in the bottom o' her soul spite o' harsh laugh. So is the Desert wi' its harsh silence. Those as like to be shrivelled up wi' thirst, may have it! A'm a plain man!"
Then one morning, the opal swimming above the smoke haze of the North shone,—was it the shape of a cross?
"Wayland, man, look!"
The old frontiersman had taken off his hat.
"Man alive, open y'r throat an' let out a yell."
"I'm too busy drinking in the air," answered Wayland.
And they both laughed. The mule and the broncho stood pointing their ears forward. Wayland's mare, which he had bought at one of the irrigation farms, lifted up her neck and whinnied. It was at that irrigation farm operated by a retired newspaper man from Chicago—they had got a reading of the first newspaper seen since leaving the Valley and learned that the bodies of the two remaining fugitive outlaws had been found by the railway navvies. Wayland thoughtfully removed his Forest Service medallion. Men do not question each other over much in the West. They had passed on unquestioning and unquestioned, Wayland a disguised figure in his new ready-to-wear kakhi, not a sign of the Forest Service about them, but the green felt hat still worn by the old preacher, and the hatchets fastened to the saddles.
"How many Holy Cross Mountains have y' in the West, Wayland?"
"Three that I know of."
"That's ours, isn't it?"
"Yes, it's ours: the old priests and explorers scattered the name round pretty thick in the old days."
"How far do you make it?"
"About a hundred miles, perhaps more!"
"Been a pilot to the priests and explorers for centuries?"
"I guess so, sir."
"Wayland, may it be so t' th' Nation, now! Y've got a wilderness an' a Red Sea an' a Dead Sea an' a devilish dirty lot o' travellin' to do on th' way t' y'r promised land; an' A'm thinkin', man, y've wasted a lot o' time on the trail worshippin' th' calf; an' God knows who is y'r Moses."
They camped that night among the evergreens with red fir branches for beds, the first beds they had known for seven weeks, with the needled end pointing in and the branch end out, "unless y' want t' sleep on stumps," the old preacher had admonished the bed maker. And during the night, the wind sprang up shaking all the pixie tambourines in the pines and the hemlocks, and setting the poplars and cottonwoods clapping their hands. A spurt of moisture hit the old man's face.
"Man alive, but is that rain?" he asked. Wayland laughed. "Only a drop from a broken pine needle; but rain would taste good, wouldn't it?"
"D' y' smell it? Smell hard! It's like cloves."
Wayland laughed. He had had all these sensations of coming back fromSouth to North before.
The next night, they camped beside a chorus of waterfalls, joyous, gurgling, laughing silver water, not the sullen silent blood red streams of the Desert that flow without a sound but the plunk of the soft bank corroding and falling in. They could not talk. They lay in quiet, listening to the tinkle and trill and treble of the silver flow over the stones; to the little waves lipping and lisping and lapping through the grasses; and when the moon came up, every rill showed a silver light. Wayland was thinking,—need I tell what he was thinking? Was he thinking at all; or was he drinking, drinking, drinking life from a fountain of memory immanent as present consciousness? He tossed restlessly. He sat up with his face in his hands. When he turned, the old man had risen and was stripping.
"A'm goin' t' find a pool an' go in, Wayland. Dry farmin' may be good for crops; but this dry bath business o' y'r Desert,—'tis not for a North man. Better come along! If A can find it to my neck, y'll need a cant hook to get me out 'fore daylight!"
They had come back from their plunge and were spreading the slickers above the fir branches for bed, when Matthews began to talk in a low dreamy voice, more as a man thinking out loud than one uttering a confessional. It was the first word of religion the Ranger had heard him utter. Wayland had really come to wonder when the old preacher prayed. When he came to know him better, he realized that a good man may pray standing on his feet, or striding to duty, readily as on prone knees.
"'Tis like the water o' life, Wayland! Men laugh at that phrase to-day! Oh, A know vera well, we've no time for an old or a new dispensation nowdays. We're too busy wi' the golden calf, an' the painted woman, an' th' market place, an' th' den o' thieves; an' when th' vision faileth, the people perish! 'Ye shall have a just balance an' a just ephah'; 'an' take away y'r offerings an' y'r burnt offerings an y'r gifts, saith the Lord of Hosts.' Ramthatdown the throat of y'r church-buildin' thieves, an' y'r bribe-givin' pirates, who steal a billion out o' th' Nation's pocket, then take out an insurance policy against a Hell, they're no so sure doesn't exist, by givin' back a million t' th' people they've plundered! Tell me y'r old dispensation's past? A could preach a sermon from th' oldest book in the Bible w'ud burn up Fifth Avenue an' have y'r churches sendin' in a call for the p'lice t' cart me away t' a lunatic asylum! Ah, yes, A know they'll tell y' A'm not learned an' don't know Hebrew! No; but A know th' language o' th' man on the street; an A know life; an' A know God; an' A know how to putt righteousness in the end o' my doubled fist; which is what th' world is wantin'. Y'r learned men, what are they do in' for th' man on the street? 'Darkening counsel without knowledge,' while the people go gropin' in the dark for light.
"Y' wonder how a man, who was a whiskey smuggler an' a gambler an' a contractor, who could skin the Devil, comes to be a preacher, Wayland; a missionary t' th' Cree?"
"Yes, I have wondered, sometimes," confessed Wayland. "I could not just reconcile you with the poverty-stricken, down-in-the-mouth—"
"Don't say 'poverty-stricken', Wayland! A'm . . . rich. A'veneverknown want! God has taken care of me since A put it squarely up to Him! A've my wife! A've my children! A've my ranch; an' my ranch pays for the school! A've never known want! Why, man, thirty dollars a year is more than A need for m' clothes! A'm rich! What wud A be doin' goin' among a lot o' kiddie boys t' study Hebrew when A know the language o' the man on the street; an' A know God? 'Twas the bishop's idea t' have me come t' College at forty years o' age an' potter t' A-B-C an' white collar an' clerics buttoned up the back an' a' the rest." The old frontiersman laughed. "Poh! What for wud A waste m' years doin' that? A'd wasted forty servin' the Devil. A'd no more years t' waste. A must be up, up, up an' doin', Wayland, the way y'r up an' doin', for the Nation. A'd earned m' livin' when A served th' Devil! A would earn m' livin' when A served God; an' as A spoke th' Cree, A tackled them first; an' now we're buildin' our hospital.
"How did it happen, y' ask?" The old frontiersman sat down on a log. "God knows! A don't! A can no more tell y', Wayland, what happened t' me, than y' cud tell a man what comin' off th' Desert an' bathin' in a cool mountain stream was like; no more than y' cud tell what happened t' y', when y' first looked in her eyes an' read, love! God, man, itwaslove! That's what happened t' me! A all of a sudden got t' see what life meant when ye bathed in love. God looked into m' eyes, Wayland, that was it! An' all th' dirt o' me shrivelled up an' th' mud in m' manhood, way yours did when y' looked in her eyes! A needed washin', Wayland, that was it, an' then A saw Him on the Cross as y' seethat—yon Cross there in the sky. 'Sense o' sin!' Man alive, A'd never heard them words till that night."
"What night?" asked Wayland, quietly.
"Oh, 'twas a hot night, Wayland, my boy; an' hot for more reasons than one. Th' tin horns an' the plugs an' the toots had come up t' our construction camp, an' of a Monday mornin' after Sunday's spree, y' cud count fifty dead navvies, Chinks an' Japs an' dagoes, washed down th' river after gamblers' fights an' chucked up in the sands o' Kickin' Horse! Well, a lot o' big fellows o' th' railway company had come thro' that day on the first train. There was Strathcona, who was plain Donald Smith in them days, an' Van Horn, who was manager, an' Ross, who was contractor! A'd been workin' m' crews on the high span bridge, there,—y' don't know,—well no matter, 'tis the highest in the Rockies an' dangerous from a curve! A didn't want that train load o' directors to risk crossin': wasn't safe! M' crew hadn't one main girder placed; but Ross was a headstrong dour man; an' Smith—Smith wud a' sent a train thro' Hell in them days to prove that railway could be built. Full lickety smash their train came onto that bridge o' mine off the sharp curve: the dagoes went yellow as cheese wi' fear, th' Chinks chattered in their jaws, an' the Japs: well the Japs hung on to the girder an' the cranes. A saw th' bridge heave an' swerve, an' th' girder went smashin' to th' bottom o' yon creek bed so far below y' could scarcely see the water; Ross was ridin' wi' th' engineer. Ross kept his head, ordered them to throw throttle open. All that saved that train load o' directors was th' train got across before th' weight smashed thro'; way a quick skater can cross thin ice. Man alive, but A was mad, riskin' m' crew o' two hundred workmen for a train load o' rash directors! Th' train stopped! A dashed up! Ross opened out, his throttle was full open: so was mine; an' th' steam an' smoke escapin' from yon big mogul,—well, Wayland, them was my unregenerate days! A may as well confess, Wayland, A gave him back all he'd given with sulphur thrown in extra; till Donald Smith poked his head out o' th' private car callin', 'Go on, Ross! Go on, what are you delayin' for?' Well, then, three of us contractors and th' company doctor was summoned to th' coast next week. We were all so mad at the fool rashness, we had our resignations in our pockets. They had our pay checks ready; but when they saw all four of us had our resignations written, well, everybody took a cool breath; an' A think mebbee th' wise little man o' that private car sent across something to help us wash away bitter memories! Anyway, 'twas a hot night, Wayland! Y' couldn't drink one of the four under th' table; an' we had cashed our checks at the pay car! A was playin' wi' th' doctor for partner! Mebbee, it was that little night cap from the private car, mebbee, well, in an hour or two, three month's wages for four men was in the middle o' that table; an' mebbee th' loafers in that saloon didn't sit up! Mebbee, somebody from that private car didn't saunter in t' look us four fools over! Wayland man, we won it all, th' doctor an' me! Th' other two wanted to play on their watches, they wud a' pawned th' clothes off their backs; but we wouldn't let them! We gave 'em back enough to grub stake 'em back to their job! Then some one says, th' vera words: A can hear them yet, 'Let's go across an' hear those damned evangelists: there's a white faced whiskers, an' a little clean shaved jumpin' jack skippin' all over the backs o' the church seats pretendin' he's Henry Ward Beecher an' sayin' in a fog horn voice, 'I like that.' Let's go an' raise Hell.
"Wayland, man, we went across! 'Twas all true, there was the white faced fat man; an' there was the little clean chopped chap jumpin' all over the backs o' th' seats; an' there was a lot o' snivellin' Saints in Israel, women that cry an' sissie men that get converted an' converted at every meetin'! Man, Wayland, A'd like to dump th' job lot o' such folks out in a cesspool! They do religion more harm than the Devil! They're about as like what fightin' Christians ought to be as a spit wad's like a bullet! Well, we went in with a whoop; but God wasn't out for the sissies that night, Wayland: he was out with a gun for red blood men! He got us, Wayland! That's all! 'Twasn't the poor puny preachers, perhaps 'twas th' music: th' fat one cud sing, but when we came out the doctor was cryin'; poor fellow he killed himself in D. T.'s later; an' A was all plugged up wi' cold in m' head blowin' m' nose! 'Boys,' says I, 'here's where I get off. Here's y'r money back. A've put up a pretty good fight for the Devil so far an' A've earned m' way! Now, A'm goin' t' fight for God an' earn m' way!' They didn't want to take the money back. They didn't believe it. A finished my job on the railroad, then A slummed it in th' cities, this was when the bishop tried to turn me school boy at forty, an' to dig in y'r graveyard o' theology; that was before m' brother was bishop and why, A hiked for Indians, Wayland! A know the Cree tongue, an' A know the need o' decency in th' tepees, an' A know the trick o' puttin' Christianity into th' end o' m' fist on white blackguards! An' that's all."
"Is that all?" repeated Wayland; and he gave the old frontiersman the same kind of a look, Matthews had given him that day going up the face of the Pass precipice.
"Yes, that's all there was to it; an' A could no more tell y' what happened, Wayland, than y' could tell a man what happened when y' jumped in that pool an' got washed clean! Better try it, Wayland!"
They sat late listening to the gurgle and trill and tinkle of the water slipping over the stones. Neither man said anything more, nor mouthed, nor kneeled, nor amened, nor did save as men among men do and say: but somehow Wayland had never felt so sure of the God, who was Love and whose Love washed men clean, being, as he told himself, 'on the job.' It may not have been religion; and it may not have been theology; but I think it was the workable conviction that many a fighting man incorporates into his life. Perhaps, it was what Christians call Belief, only we have so slimed that good word over with hypocrisy that it's hard for fighting working men among men, women among women, people on the job, to mine down to the exact business sense of those old religious terms. 'Slimed with hypocrisy?' Yes, good friends, 'slimed with hypocrisy.' Have you not known men and women, legions of them, who shouted their fire-proof Belief, Belief, Belief, their fire-insurance Belief that was to roof them from rain of fire and act as an umbrella against the results of their own misdeeds; who underscored their Bibles, and prayed long and loud, and proclaimed themselves right, when every day, every act of every day, every leastermost act of very hour, shouted blasphemous denial of what so ever is lovely and pure and unselfish and Christlike; whose influence damned and injured and blighted every life it touched? You must not blame business men and women for wanting a workable faith, a faith that will deliver the goods on the job.
They were up before sunrise following along a rock trail against the face of a mountain through the morning mists, when they turned a sharp crag and came suddenly on one of those flower slopes bevelled out of the forests by snow or ice. The slant sunlight met their faces, and the mists were lifting in a curtain, with a riffle of wind that ran through the grasses like the ripple of waves to the touch of unseen feet. The slope lay literally a field of gold, spikes and umbels of gold—the gold of yellow midsummer light dyed in the asters and sunflowers and great flowered gaillardias and golden rod, with an odor of dried grasses or mint or cloves.
"By George," cried Wayland, "you'd not believe it! Only seven weeks; look!"
Matthews looked but apparently did not see.
"Don't you see? It's the place where the snow slide slumped down!"
"But where in the name o' conscience is all yon snow; and where's th' bodies, Wayland?"
"Washed down to the bottom of the Lake Behind the Peak by this time; or you may find a great rock pile at the foot of the slope."
"A'm thinkin' they'll lie quiet till the crack o' doom, Wayland; but, but do y' no' see a tent back in yon larches across th' slide, man, where the thing knocked us both sprawlin'?"
"By George, yes, I do! Wonder if they're homesteading this next? It's off the N. F."
They put their ponies to an easy lope across the slope and came on a tepee tent with the flap laced tight and no sign of life, but a horse lazily floundering up beside a large fallen log, an empty whiskey bottle on the log, and a man's boot leg protruding from beneath the tent skirt.
"A'm wonderin' if there's a leg in that boot, Wayland."
"It's the sheriff's horse," said Wayland.
"It is, is it? And this is off y'r Forest Range; an' y'r not responsible for what A may be tempted to do?"
The old frontiersman literally avalanched off his broncho and made a dash at the tent flap, frapping it loudly with the flat of his hand.
"Here you—anybody inside?"
No response came from the owner of the leg.
"Here you, waken up." Matthews caught hold of the leg and pulled and pulled. There was a splutter of snorts, and, 'what in Hell's,' and the fat girth of an apple-shaped body ripped the tent pegging free and came out under the tepee skirt followed by another leg, and two oozy hands flabbily clawing at the grass roots to stop the unusual exit. One hand held a flat flask and the air became flavored with the second-hand fumes of a whiskey cask. The sheriff rolled over after the manner of apple-shaped bodies and sat up on the end of his spine rubbing his eyes. Then, he recollected the dignity of his office and got groggily to his feet, steadying himself by clutches at the tent flap. Then, he emitted a hiccough. "'Scuse m'," he said thickly. "I'm not well, thas ish not really well! Will one of y' pleash gimme a drink o' water? I been chasin' those damn-cow-boy-outlawsh seven weeks sclean 'cross Shate Sline, I'm dead beat out. Thas you, ain't it Wayland? Kindsh o' you both come after me! Saw y' pash tha' day y' called t' door! Wife tol' me to hide—not risk m' life, women 're all thas way; skeary; skeary. Well, I bin out ever shince y' pashed! I nearly got 'em, too! I caught 'em right in here day after shnow slide had 'em cornered! Gosh, bullets was pretty thick fur about half-an-hour; bu' I cud'nt chross Shtate Line." Something in the old frontiersman's widening eyes and glowering brows stopped the flow of valor; and Sheriff Flood dragged his exhausted virtue across to the log with some difficulty as to knees and elbows, got himself turned round and seated.
"Y' been out huntin' them seven weeks?"
"Yes, seven weeks!" His articulation had cleared a little. "Please gimme m' gun, Wayland!"
"Y' saw them? Y're sure y' saw them?"
"Saw them?" Sheriff Flood laughed in a thin little squeaking laugh. "Gosh A'mighty, I—I fought—them single handed for a whole half day; I think I got one! Least ways, there's a powerful smell som'pin dead comin' up below the Pass Trail. It's too steep to go down to see. I wish I knew."
"Ye wish ye knew? Ye do—do you? 'Tis a wish bone instead of a back bone the likes of you have; and it was too steep to see?" Matthews megaphoned a laugh that echoed loud and long and scornful from the rocks. "I saw a man who was no sheriff climb both up an' down that place too steep for the likes o' you to see; and he climbed to do more than see! 'Twas half an hour y' fought them th' first version? Now 'tis raised to half a day. A'm thinkin' y' be applyin' to th' pension bureau for a hero's triflin' remembrance! Hoh! An' y' saw us pass did y'? An' y'r frowsy dyed-haired slattern wife told us y' were away? An' 't will be a week y' fought 'em when y' tell it again; an' y' been huntin' them seven weeks lyin' sodden drunk in y'r tent wi' a whiskey keg from th' cellar o' y'r white-vested friend? Hoh?"
He caught the flabby body by the collar, spinning the dignity of the law round face down prone upon the log. "A'll not take my fist t' y' as A wud t' a Man! Ye dastard, drunken, poltroon, coward, whiskey sodden lout an' scum o' filth, an'," each word was emphasized by the thud of the empty whiskey bottle wielded as a flail.
"Look out, sir," warned Wayland, rolling from his horse in laughter, "you'll hurt something, with that bottle."
"Hurt something? N' danger on this wad of fat an' laziness an' lies." (Thud . . . thump . . . and a double tattoo.) He threw the instrument of castigation aside and spinning the hulk of flesh and sprawling legs erect, began applying the sole of his boot. "A'll no take m' fist t' y' as A wud t' a Man! A'll treat y' as A wud a dirty broth of a brat of a boy with the flat o' my hand an' sole leather; y' scum, y' runt, y' hoggish swinish whiskey soak o' bacon an' fat! 'Tis th' likes o' you are the curse o' this country, y' horse-thief sheriff, y' bribe-takin' blackguard guardian o' justice an' right! y' coward not doin' th' crime y' self, but shieldin' them that do."
The sheriff had uttered a splutter of filthy expletives at the first blow, then a yell; now he was bellowing aloud, chattering with terror, screaming to be, "let go, let go! I never done you no harm. I'll have y'r life for this."
"Y' will, will y'? Did y' ask for a drink? Wayland, wait for m' here!"
The Ranger saw the white-haired frontiersman seize one sprawling leg and the shirt front of the struggling limp thing in his hands. He heard him plunging down through the tangle of windfall and brush. There was a bellowing howl and a splash; and Wayland being altogether human flesh and blood doubled up on the ground with laughter.
"That'll cool him," remarked Matthews coming back very red of face and sober, "an' it's not deep enough to drown."
He tore open the tent flap and rolled out a small keg. There was a sound of dregs still rinsing round inside. They could hear the bellows from the brook. The majesty of the law had evidently crawled out on the far side.
"He's the kind o' brave man will slap children, an' call a boy a calf, an' bully timid women, an' knock down little Chinks and dagoes! Oh, A know his kind o' thunder-barrel bravery, that makes the more noise the emptier and bigger it is—they're thick as louse ticks under the slimy side of a dirty board in this world, Wayland; an' they're thick in the girth an' thicker in the skull." Matthews had taken one of the Forest axes from the saddle. He left the whiskey keg in kindling wood.
"He's camped dead beat on the State line, all right, Wayland," said the irate old frontiersman as they mounted their ponies. "He'll have at least some scars to prove his story, but A'm no thinkin' he'll boast round showin' them marks o' glory! 'Tis some satisfaction for my thirst back in the Desert."
"I thought it was about here, on our way out, that a law-loving Briton, I know, gave me a sermon about exceeding law, taking the law in our own hands?"
"Hoh!" said the old man.
And the Sheriff's tent was not the only one seen on the way back to the Ridge. Where the Pass widened to the Valley above the Sheriff's homestead, they came on a huge miner's tent boarded half way up as for winter residence, with eight tow-headed half-clad urchins thumb in mouth staring out from the open mosquito wire door. There was a smell of onions and frying pork.
"What! a homestead, here, Wayland? D' y'r homesteaders farm on th' perpendicular, or the level; an' what will they grow on these rocks?"
The Ranger had reined in his pony and was running his glance up the precipice face for the posts marking the bounds.
"What do they grow? Water-power, I guess! I'm looking for the lines. The fellow has his posts in for a wire fence; he couldn't get a hundred and sixty acres on the level; and the posts run up the face, by George he's blanketed a cool square mile, mostly on the up and down."