Nels Jensen reached his home late in the afternoon, his face grave and his tongue more than usually tight. His wife, Karen, looked at him for some time before she spoke.
"Find anything, up in?"
He nodded quietly.
"Doctor get to that sick man?"
"He wasn't sick," rejoined Nels. "Tree fell on him."
"What you do with him?"
"Died before we come out. Whole woods was afire up in there."
"I see the smoke a while back," said she unemotionally, nodding and gazing out of the window toward the distant landscape. "Died, did he? Did you bring him down?"
"The wind has changed," said Nels sententiously. "Before night, won't be nothing to bring down. We left him in his tent."
"Who set that fire, Nels?" she demanded of her husband after a time.
"The same people that burned out Sim Gage and Wid Gardner. All of 'em had cleared out but that one."
"How about that woman, Nels?"
"We brung her down with us. She'd spent the night in the woods alone. Doctor's got her in bed over at Sim's place now." He turned his heavy face upon her frowningly, apparently passing upon some question they earlier had discussed. "I say it's all right, Karen, about her."
"Well, are they going to be married?" she demanded of him. "That's the question. Because if they ain't——"
"If they are or they ain't," said Nels Jensen, "she's not no common folks like us."
"A lady—huh!"
"Yes, if I can tell one. Such being so, best thing you can do, Karen, is to get some eggs together, and like enough a loaf of bread, and go over there right soon."
"If they wasn'tgoingto be married," began Karen, "people in here wouldn't let that run along."
"Karen," said her husband succinctly, "sometimes you women folks make me tired. Go on and get the eggs."
"Oh, all right," said his wife; and already she was reaching for her sunbonnet. When she and her sturdy spouse had made their way by a short cut across the fields to Sim Gage's house, Karen Jensen had melted, and was no longer righteous judge, but simply neighbor.
"Where is she?" she demanded imperiously of Wid Gardner, whom she found standing outside the door.
Wid nodded toward the interior of the half-ruined cabin. As she passed in she saw Doctor Barnes, sitting on a box, quietly watching the pale face of a woman, young, dark-haired, flushed, her eyes heavy, her hands spread out piteously upon the blanket covering of the rude bunk bed. Karen's first quick glance assured her that this young woman was all that Nels Jensen had called her—a lady. She looked so helpless now that the big ranchwoman's heart went out to her in spite of all.
"You'd better get right out, Doctor," said she; and that gentleman followed her orders, exceeding glad to welcome a woman in this womanless wreck of a home.
Doctor Barnes stood outside, hands in pocket, for a time looking across the meadows lined with their banks of willows, silvering as usual in the evening breeze. "Come here," said he at length to the three men. They all followed him to one side.
"Now, Gage," said he, "I want you to tell me the truth about how this woman came out here."
Wid Gardner, taking pity on his friend, told him instead, going into all the details of the conspiracy that had now proved so disastrous. Doctor Barnes frowned in resentment when he heard.
"She's got to go back East," said he, "as soon as she's able to travel."
"That's what I think," said Sim Gage slowly. "It's what I told her. But she always said she didn't have no place to go back to. She could stay here as long as she liked, but now I ain't got much."
"But it can't run on this way, Gage," said Doctor Barnes. "That girl's clean as wheat. Something's got to be done about this."
"Well, good God A'mighty!" said Sim Gage, "ain't that what I know? If only you'll tell me what's right to do, I sure will do it. In one way it ain't just only my fault she come out here, nor it ain't my fault if she don't go back."
Doctor Barnes engaged for some time in breaking up bits of bark and casting them from his thumb nail. "Have you ever had any talk with her about this?" said he.
"Some," said Sim honestly; "yes, some."
"What was it?"
"She told me, when she answered that ad, she was getting plumb desperate, account of her eyes. She was out of work, and she was broke, and she didn't have no folks on earth, and she'd lost all her money—her folks used to be rich, I reckon, like enough. That's the only reason she answered that fool ad about me being in the market, so to speak, fer a wife. That's how she come out. She must of been locoed. You cain't blameher. She was all alone in the whole world, but just one girl that knowed her. We got a letter from that girl—I got it here in my pocket. We opened it and read it, Wid and me did, yesterday. Her name's Annie Squires. But she's broke too, I reckon. Now what are we a-goin' to do?"
"Have you ever talked the whole business over—you two—since she came out?"
"Doc," said Sim Gage, "I told you, I tried my damnedest, and I just couldn't. I says to myself, lady like she was, it wouldn't be right fer a man like me to marry her noways on earth."
"And what did she say?"
Sim Gage began to stammer painfully. "I don't know what she would say," said he. "I ain't never asked her none yet."
"Well, I reckon you'll have to," said Doctor Barnes slowly, after a long time in thought; "if she lives."
"Lives? Doc, you don't mean to tell me she's that sick?"
"She isn't trying to fight very hard. When your patient would rather die than live, you've got hard lines, as a doctor. It's hard lines here more ways than one."
"Die—her!—What wouldIdo then, Doc?" asked Sim Gage, so simply that Doctor Barnes looked at him keenly, gravely.
"It's not a question about you, you damn sagebrusher," said he at last, gently. "Question is, what's best for her. If I didn't feel such a woman was too good to be wasted I'd say, let her go; ethics be damned out here. If she gets well she'll have to decide some time what's to do about this whole business. That brings you into the question again. It was a bad bet, but deceived as she was, she's put herself under your protection. And mine!"
"You see," he added, "that's something that really doesn't come under my profession, but it's something that's up to every decent man."
Mrs. Jensen came to the door, broom in hand. "You, Sim," said she, "come in here!" She accosted him in hoarse whispers when he had obeyed.
"Look-a-here at this place!" said she. "Is this where a hog or a human has been living? I've got things straightened around now, and don't you dare muss 'em up. When that pore girl is able to get around again I'm a-going to take her and show her where everything is—she'll keep this house better blind than you did with your both eyes open. I've got a aunt been blind twenty year, and she cooks and sweeps and sews and knits as good as anybody. She'll do the same way. She's a good knitter, I know. The pore child."
Sim reached out a hand gently to the work which he found lying, needles still in place, on the table where Mary Warren had left it the day before.
"She'll learn soon," said Karen Jensen. "Ain't she pretty enough to make you cry, laying there the way she is." The keen gray eyes of Karen Jensen softened. "She's asleep," she whispered. "Doctor doped her."
"If only now," said Sim Gage, frowning as usual in thought, "if only I could get some sort of woman to come here and stay a while, until she gets well. It ain't right she should be in a place like this all alone."
"You pore fool," said Karen Jensen, "did you think for a minute I'd go away and leave that girl alone with you? Go out and get some wood! I'm a-going to get supper here. Tell Nels he can go back home after supper, and him and Minna and Theodore 'll have to keep house until I get back. The pore thing—you said she was right blind?" she concluded.
"Plumb blind," said Sim Gage. "What's more, she can't see none a-tall. It ain't no wonder she's scared sick."
"I'm mighty glad you're a-goin' to get supper here to-night," he continued. "I'm that rattled, like, I couldn't make bread worth a damn."
He edged out of the cabin and communicated his news. "Mrs. Jensen says she'll take care of her till she gets better," he said.
"That's the best thing I've heard," commented Doctor Barnes. "That'll help. I'll stay here to-night myself. Gardner, can you run my car down to the dam?"
"I might," said Wid. "I never did drive a car much, but I think I could. Mormons does; and I've had a lot to do with mowing machines, like them."
"Well, get down to the dam and tell the people I can't be back until to-morrow afternoon. Here's where I belong just now. Where do I sleep, Gage?"
"Out here in the tent, I reckon," replied Sim, "though most all my blankets is in there on the bed. Maybe I kin find a slicker somewheres. Wid, he ain't got nothing left over to his place, neither."
"Don't bother about things," said Nels Jensen. "I'll go over and bring some blankets from my place. The woman'll take care of that girl until she gets in better shape."
Doctor Barnes looked at them all for a time, frowning in his own way. "You damn worthless people," said he with sudden sheer affection. "God has been good to you, hasn't he?"
"Now, ain't that the truth?" said Sim Gage, perhaps not quite fully understanding.
At ten of the following morning Mrs. Jensen had finished "redding up," as she called it, and had gone out into the yard. Doctor Barnes, alone at the bedside of his patient, was not professionally surprised when she opened her eyes.
"Well, how's everything this morning?" he said quietly. "Better, eh?"
She did not speak for some time, but turned toward him. "Who are you?" she asked presently.
"Nobody in particular," he answered. "Only the doctor person. I was up in the mountains with you yesterday."
"Was it yesterday?" said she. "Yes, I remember!"
"What became of him?" she asked after a time. "That awful man—I had it in my heart to kill him!"
Doctor Barnes made no comment, and after a while she went on, speaking slowly.
"He said so many things. Why, those men would do anything?"
"He'll not do any more treason," said Doctor Barnes.
"What do you mean?"
"A tree fell on him. I got there too late to be of any use."
"He's dead?"
"Yes. Don't let's talk of that."
"I've got to live?"
"Yes."
"Who are you?" she inquired after a time. "You're a doctor?"
"I'm your sort, yes, Miss Warren," said he.
"A gentleman."
"Relative term!"
"You've been very good. Where do you live?"
"Down at the Government dam, below here. I'm the Company doctor."
"Well, why don't you go? Am I going to live, or can I die?"
"What brought you out here, Miss Warren," said he at last. "You don't belong in a place like this."
"Where then do I belong?" she asked. "Food and a bed—that's more than I can earn."
"Maybe we can fix up a way for you to be useful, if you don't go away." He spoke so gently, she began to trust him.
"But I'm not going away. I have no place to go to." She smiled bitterly. "I haven't money enough to buy my ticket back home if I had a home to go to. That's the truth. Why didn't you let me die?"
"You ought to want to live," said Doctor Barnes. "The lane turns, sometimes."
"Not for me. Worse and worse, that's all.… I'll have to tell you— I don't like to tell strangers, about myself. But, you see, my brother was killed in the war. We had some money once, my brother and I. Our banker lost it for us. I had to work, and then, after he went away, I began to—to lose my eyes."
"How long was that coming on?"
"Two years—about. The last part came all at once, on the cars, when I was coming out. I've never seen—him—Mr. Gage, you know. I don't know what he looks like."
"They call him Sim Gage."
She remained silent, and he thought best to add a word or so, but could not, though he tried. Mary Warren's face had colored painfully.
"I suppose they've told you—I suppose everybody knows all about that—that insane thing I did, coming out here. Well, I was desperate, that's all. Yet it seems there are good people left in the world. You are all good people. If only I could see; so I could tell what to do. Then maybe I could earn my living, someway—if I have to live.
"Good-hearted, isn't he—Mr. Gage?" She nodded with a woman's confident intuition as she went on. "He didn't cast me out. What can I do to repay him?"
He could make no answer.
"Little to give him, Doctor—but of course, if he could—in any sort of justice—accept—accept——"
Doctor Barnes suddenly reached out a hand and pushed her hair back from her forehead. "I wouldn't," said he. "Please don't. Take things easy for a little while."
She turned her dark and sightless eyes upon him. "No!" said she. "That isn't the way we do in my family. We don't take things easy."
"Has he said anything to you?" asked Doctor Barnes after a long time. "I have very much reluctance to ask."
"He's too much of a man," she said. "No, not yet. It was a sort of bargain, even if we didn't say so outright. 'Object, matrimony!' I came out here with my eyes open. But now God has closed them.… Will you tell me the truth?"
"Yes."
"Does he—do you think he——"
"Cares for you?"
"Yes!"
Doctor Barnes replied with extreme difficulty. "We'll say he does care—that he cares immensely."
She nodded. "I wanted to be fair," said she. "I'm glad I can talk to some one I can trust."
"What makes you think you can trust me?" blustered Doctor Barnes. "And you're so Puritan foolish, you're going to marry this man? You think that is right?"
"He took me in, when I deceived him. I owe my life to him. He's never once hinted or laughed since I came here. Why, he's a gentleman."
She turned her head away. "Perhaps he would never know," she added.
"Something to take on," commented Doctor Barnes grimly.
"I'd try very hard," she went on. "I'd try to do my best. Mrs. Jensen says I could learn a great many things. She has an aunt that's—that has lost her eyesight. It may be my place in the world—here. I want to carry my own weight in the world—or else I want to die."
"He seems hard to understand—Mr. Gage," she went on slowly, the damp of sheer anguish on her forehead now at speaking as she never could wish to speak, thus to a stranger, and of the most intimate things of a gentlewoman's life. "As though I didn't know he couldn't ever really love a woman like me! Of course it isn't right either way. It's awful.… But I'd do my best. Life is more of a compromise than I used to think it was. But someway, out here—I'd be shut in forever here in this Valley. No one would ever know. It—it wouldn't seem so wicked, some way? It's the end of the world, isn't it, to-day? Well, then——"
"I'm trying my best," said Doctor Barnes after a time, "to get at the inside of your mind."
She lay for a time picking at the nap of the rough blanket—there were no pillow slips and no pillows. At length she turned to him, her eyes wet.
"It's rather hard for a man to understand things like these—hard for a woman to explain them to a stranger she's never seen," said she. "But there wasn't ever any other man. I'm not here on any rebound. It's reason—it's duty. That's all. They keep telling us women we must reason. My brother was all I had left. You see, he didn't have a good foot—he was lame. That was why we lived together so long, and—and there was no one else. And then—you know about my eyes? Of course I didn't know I was going to be quite blind when I started out here. If I had, I should have ended it all."
"You're a good man, Doctor," said she presently, since he made no answer. "You didn't tell me your name?"
"My name is Allen Barnes. I've been down at the dam for quite a while. I'm only around thirty yet myself. I don't know a lot."
"Tell me about the country—it's very beautiful, isn't it?"
"Yes, very beautiful."
"And the people?"
"If you don't marry Sim Gage they'll tar and feather you. If you do, they'll back-bite and hate you. If you get in trouble they'll work their fingers to the bone to take care of you."
"There was another thing," she resumed irrelevantly, "I thought it was asacrifice, my coming out here to work. I thought I ought to make it. You see, I'm the only one left of all my family. I couldn't count much anyway."
"Donna Quixote!" broke out Allen Barnes.
"Oh, I suppose," said she, smiling bitterly. "I suppose that, of course."
"This is a terrible thing! I don't believe I can make you change."
"No, I suppose not," said she. "My brother went to France, crippled as he was. Do you suppose my duty's going to frighten me? You were in the army?"
"Yes," said he. "Mustered out a major. Medical Corps. In over a year—I saw the last days—before Metz and the armistice. I'm a doctor, but they crowd me into the service again now, because they think I'll be safe and useful here. But from what you know about things going on in this country, you know there's danger for any big public work like that plant. Our country's not mopped up, yet—though it's going to be! There must be some reason for suspicion at Headquarters—I think we all might guess why from the doings of the last day or so in here.
"I'm glad," said she. "That makes me feel much better. I shall be sorry to have you go away. But you'll not be so far. And you were in the war?"
"A little." He laughed, and Mary Warren tried to laugh. Then, hands in pockets, and frowning, he left her, and walked apart in the yard for a time.
Sim Gage, his face puckered up, was wandering aimlessly, shovel in hand, in the vicinity of the burned barn, engaged in burying his dead cattle. He had relapsed as to his clothing, and was clad once more in his ancient nether garments. His arms were bare, his brick-red shoulders showed above a collarless and ragged flannel shirt. His face, unreaped, was not lovable to look on. When Doctor Allen Barnes saw him, he walked away, his head forward and shaking from side to side. He did not want to talk with Sim Gage or any one else.
Wid Gardner, by some miracle of self-confidence, did prove able to drive a car in some fashion, for he made the round trip to the dam in good enough time. But he had had his trip for nothing; for Doctor Barnes now made sudden and unexplained resolution not to remain longer at Sim Gage's ranch. After his departure in his own car, Wid Gardner approached Sim as he stood, hands in pockets, in his door yard.
"Well," said he. And Sim, in the succinct fashion of the land, replied likewise, "Well"; which left honors even conversationally.
"How's things down below?" asked Sim presently.
"Sort of uneasylike," replied Wid. "News had got down there that something's wrong. Company of soldiers is expected any day from Kansas. This here Doc Barnes is the main guy down there, a Major or something. They're watching the head engineer for the Company, I believe. No one knows who's who. A heap of things has happened that oughtn't to happen, but looks like Washington was getting on the game.
"Well, I got to go over home and look around," he concluded. "We've got to do some building before long—you got to get up another house and barn, and so have I."
"I don't see why," said Sim Gage bitterly. "I ain't got nothing to put into a barn, ner I ain't got no cows to feed no hay to neither. I could of sold the Government plenty hay this fall if I'd had any, but now how could I, without no horses and no money to get none? I'm run down mighty low, Wid, and that's the truth. Mrs. Jensen can't stay along here always, though Lord knows what we would a-done if she hadn't come now. One thing's sure—Sheain't a-goin' to stay here lessen things straightens out. You know who I mean."
Wid nodded, his face grave under its grizzled stubble. "Yes," said he.
"Say," he added, suddenly. "You know that letter we got fer her? Now, if that girl that wrote it, that Annie Squires, could come out here and get into this here game, why, how would that be? You reckon she would?"
"Naw, she wouldn't come," said Sim Gage. "But, say, that reminds me—I never did tellherabout that letter."
"Better take it in to her," said Wid, turning away.
He walked towards the gate. After Sim had seen him safely in the distance he went with laggard step toward the door of his own home.
Mary Warren was not asleep. It was her voice, not loud, which greeted his timid tapping at the half-burned door frame.
"Come in. Who is it?"
"It's me, ma'am," said he; and entered a little at a time.
He might have seen the faint color rise to her cheek as she drew herself up in bed, to talk with him. Her face, turned full toward him, was a thing upon which he could not gaze direct. It terrified him with its high born beauty, even as he now resolved to "look right into her eyes."
"You've not been in to see me, Mr. Gage," said she at length, bravely. "Why didn't you come? I get awfully lonesome."
"Is that so?" said he. "That's just the way I do."
"It's too bad, all this awful trouble," said she. "I've been what they call a Jonah, don't you think, Mr. Gage?"
"Oh, no, ma'am!"
"It was very noble of you—up there," she began, on another tack. "You saved my life. Not worth much."
She was smiling cheerily as she could. Sim Gage looked carefully at her face to see how much she knew.
"Doctor Barnes told me that that man, the one that took me away, was hurt by a tree; that you got there too late to save him. But to think, I'd have shot that man. Ididtry to shoot him, Mr. Gage!"
"Why,didyou, ma'am?" said Sim Gage. "But then, it would of been a miracle if you had a-hit him, your eyes being poor, like. I reckon it's just as well you didn't."
"Won't you sit down?" She motioned her hand vaguely. "There's a box right there."
"How do you know, ma'am?"
"Oh, I know where everything is now. I'm going to learn all about this place. I can do all sorts of things after a while—cook and sweep and wash dishes and feed the chickens, and—oh, a lot of things." It was well enough that he did not see her face as she turned it away, anxious to be brave, not succeeding.
"That there looks, now, like you'd moved in," said Sim Gage. "Looks like you'd come to stay, as the feller says." He tried to laugh, but did not make much of it; nor did she.
"Oh, I forgot," he resumed suddenly, bethinking himself of the errand which had brought him hither. "I got a letter fer you, ma'am."
"A letter? Why, that's strange—I didn't know of any one——"
"Sure, it's fer you, ma'am. It's from Annie Squires."
"Annie! Oh! what does she say? Tell me!"
Sim had the letter opened now, his face puckered.
"Why, nothing very much, ma'am," said he. "I can't exactly see what it says—light's rather poor in here just now. But Wid, he read it. And she said it was all right with her, and that she was back in her little room again. I reckon it's the room where you both used to live?"
"She isn't married! What did she say?"
"No'm, not married. That's all off. Her feller throwed her down. But she says she wants you to write to her right away and tell her—now—tell her about things—you know——"
"What does she say?—Tell meexactlywhat she said."
"One thing-"—he plunged desperately—"she said she was sure you was happily married. And she wanted you to tell her all about your husband. But then, good God A'mighty! she didn't know!"
"Well," said Mary Warren, her blood high in her face, "I'll have to tell her all about that, won't I? I'll write to her at once."
"You'll write to her? What?"
—"And tell her how happy I am, how fortunate I've been. I'll tell her how you took me in even though I was blind; how you saved my life; how kind and gentle you've been all along, where you might have been so different! I'll tell her how fine and splendid it's been of you to take care of a sick, blind, helpless girl like me; and to—to—give her a man's protection."
He was speechless. She struggled on, red to the hair.
"You don't know women, how much they want a strong man to depend on, Mr. Gage; a man like you. Chivalrous? Why, yes, you've been all of that and more. I'll write to Annie and tell her that I'm very happy, and that I've got the very best—the very best—husband—in all the world. I'll tell her that? I'll say that—that myhusband——"
He heard her sobbing. He could endure no more. Suddenly he reached out a hand and touched hers very gently.
"Don't, ma'am," said he. "Fer God's sake don't cry."
It was some time after that—neither could have told how long—that he managed to go on, his voice trembling. "Do youmeanthat, ma'am? Do you mean that, real and for sure? You wouldn't joke with a feller like over a thing like that?"
"I'm not joking," said she. "My God! Yes, I mean it."
His hand, broad, coarse, thick-fingered, patted hers a hundred times as it lay upon the blankets, until she got nervous over his nervousness.
"It's too bad I ain't got no linen sheets," said he suddenly. "But them blankets is eleven-pound four-points, at that. Of course, you know, ma'am," said he, turning towards her, his voice broken, his own vague eyes wet all at once, "youdoknow I only want to do whatever is the best fer you, now don't you?"
"Of course. I do believe that."
"And itcouldn'trun on this way very long. Even Mrs. Jensen wouldn't stay very long. Nobody would come. They'd like enough tar and feather you and me, people in this Valley, if wewasn'tmarried. And yet you say you've got no place to go back to. You talk like you was going to tell her, Annie Squires, that you was married. She supposes itnow, like enough. If there was any way, shape or manner you could get out of marrying me, why of course I wouldn't let you. But what else is there we can do?"
"Some time it would come to that," said Mary Warren, trying to dry her eyes. "It's the only way fair to us both."
"Putting it that way, now!" said Sim Gage, wisely, "putting itthatway, I'm here to say I ain't a-scared to donothingthat's best fer you. And I want to say right now and here, I didn't mean no harm to you. I swear, neither Wid nor me ever did dream that a woman like you'd come out here—I never knew such a woman as you was in the wholeworld. I just didn'tknow—that was all. You won't blame me too much fer gettin' you here into this awful place, will you?"
"No, I understand," said she gently. "I think I know more about you now than I did at first."
"I ain't much to know, ma'am. But you—why, if I studied all my life, I wouldn't begin to know you hardly none at all." She could not doubt the reverence of his tone, could not miss the sweetness of it. No; nor the sureness of the anchorage that it offered.
"If this is the way you want it," he went on, "I'll promise you never to bother you, no way in the world. I'll be on the square with you, so help me God! I'll take care of you the best way I can, so help me God! I'll work, I'll do the best I can fer you; so help me God!"
"And I promise to be faithful to you, Sim Gage," said she, using his common name unconsciously now. "I swear to be true to you, and to help you all I can, every way I can. I'll do my duty—myduty. Do you understand?"
She was pale again by now, and trembling all through her body. Her hands trembled on the blankets. It was a woman's pledge she was giving. And no man's hands or lips touched hers. It was terrible. It was terrible, but had it not been thus she could not have endured it. She must wait.
"I understand a heap of things I can't say nothing about, ma'am," said Sim Gage. "I'm that sort of man, that can't talk very much. But I understand a heap more'n I'm going to try to say. Sometimes it's that way."
"Sometimes it's that way," said Mary Warren, "yes. Then that's our promise!"
"Yes, it's a promise, so fer as I'm concerned," said Sim Gage.
"Then there isn't much left," said she after a time, her throat fluttering. She patted his great hand bravely as it lay upon the blankets, afraid to touch her own. "The rest will be—I think the rest will be easier than this."
"A heap easier," said he. "I dreaded this more'n I would to be shot. I wanted to do the right thing, but I didn't know whatwasright. Won't yousayyou knowed I wanted to do right all the time, and that I just didn'tknow? Can't you see that I'm sorry I made you marry me, because it wasn't no way right? Can't you see it's only just to get you some sort of a home?"
"I saidyes, Sim Gage," said Mary Warren.
"Yes?" A certain exultation was in his voice. "Tome? All my life everything's beennoto me!"
She laid her hand on his, pity rising in her own heart. "I'll take care of you," said she.
"I was scared from the first of any woman coming out here," said Sim Gage truthfully. "But whatever you say goes. But our gettin' married! When?"
"The sooner the better."
They both nodded assent to this, neither seeing the other, for he dared not look her way now.
"I'll go down to the Company dam right soon," said he. "Ministers comes in down there sometimes. Up here we ain't got no church. I ain't been to church—well, scarcely in my whole life, but sure not fer ten years. You want to have it over with, don't you, ma'am?"
"Yes."
"That's just the way I feel! It may take a week or so before I can get any minister up here. But I hope you ain't a-goin' to change?"
"I don't change," said Mary Warren. "If I promise, I promise. I have said—yes."
"How is your bad knee?" she asked after a time, with an attempt to be of service to him. "You've never told me."
"Swoll up twict as big as it ought to be, ma'am. But how come you to think of that?Youmustn't mind about me. You mustn't never think of me a-tall."
"Now," he continued a little later, the place seeming insufferably small to him all at once, "I think I've got to get out in the air." He pushed over his box seat with much clatter as he rose, agony in every fiber of his soul.
"I suppose you could kiss me," said Mary Warren, hesitatingly. "It's—usual." She tried to smile as she turned her face toward him. It was a piteous thing, a terrible thing.
"No, ma'am, thank you. I don't think I will, now, but I thank you just the same. You see, this ain't a usual case."
"Good-by!" said Mary Warren to him with a sudden wondering joy. "Go out and look at the mountains for me. Look out over the valley. I wish I could see them. And you'll come in and see me when you can, won't you?"
She was talking to the empty room, weeping to an empty world.
Sim Gage's reflections kept him wandering about for the space of an hour or two in the open air.
"I'll tell you," said he, after a time to Mrs. Jensen, who once more had cared for their household needs, "I reckon I'll go on down to the dam, on the mail coach this evening. You go in and tell her, won't you? Say I can't noways get back before to-morrow. I got to see about one thing and another. She'll understand."
Therefore, when the mail wagon came down the valley an hour later, Sim Gage was waiting for it at the end of his own lane. He had meantime arrayed himself cap-a-pie in all the new apparel he recently had purchased, so that he stood now reeking of discomfort, in his new hat, his new shoes, his tight collar. Evidently something of formal character was in his plans.
It was well toward midnight when the leisurely mail wagon arrived at the end of its semi-weekly round and put up at the Company works. At that hour the company doctor was not visible, so Sim found quarters elsewhere. It was a due time after breakfast on the following morning before he ventured to the doctor's office.
Doctor Barnes himself was engaged in bringing up his correspondence. He was his own typist, and at the time was engaged in picking out letter after letter upon a small typewriter with which he had not yet acquired familiarity. He was occupied with two letters of importance. One was going to a certain medical authority of the University from which he himself had received his degree. It contained a certain hypothetical question regarding diseases of the eye, upon which he himself at the time did not feel competent to pass.
The second letter was one to his new Chief, an officer of the reclamation engineers, at Washington. He wore again to-day the uniform of a Major of the Army. The wheels of officialdom were revolving. The public quality of this enterprise was well understood. That lawless elements were afoot in that region was a fact also well recognized. To have this dam go out now would be an injury to the peace measures of the country. Soldiers were coming to protect it, and the soldiers must have a commander. In the hurried times of war, when there was not opportunity always for exactness, majors were made overnight when needful out of such material as the Government found at hand. It might have used worse than that of Allen Barnes to-day and here.
"Oh, thereyouare," said he at length, turning around and finding Sim Gage standing in the door. "What brought you down here? Anything gone wrong?"
"Well, I ain't sure, Doc," said Sim Gage, "but like enough. One thing, my knee hurts me considerable." In reality he was sparring for time. "But you're dressed up for a soldier?"
"Yes. Sit down there on the operating chair," said Doctor Barnes, tersely. "We'll look it over. Anything happen to it?"
"Why, nothing much," said Sim. "I hurt it a little when I was getting in the mail wagon yesterday evening—busted her open. So last night, when I was going to bed, I took a needle and thread and sewed her up again."
"What's that? Sewed it up?"
"Yes, I got a needle and some black patent thread. Do you reckon she'll hold all right now, Doctor?"
Doctor Barnes was standing, scissors in hand, about to rip open the trouser leg.
"No, you don't!" said Sim. "Them's my best pants. You just go easy now, and don't you cut them none a-tall. Wait till I take 'em off."
The doctor bent over the wounded member. "You put in a regular button-hole stitch," said he, grinning, "didn't you? About three stitches would have been plenty. You put in about two dozen—and with black thread! Like enough poisoned again."
"Well," said Sim, "I didn't want to take no chances of her breaking open again."
The doctor was busy, removing the stitches, and with no gentle hand this time made the proper surgical suture. "Leave it alone this way," said he, "and mind what I tell you. Seems like you can't kill a man out in this country. You can do things in surgery out here that you wouldn't dare tackle back in France, or in the States. I suppose, maybe, I could cut your head off, for instance."
"I wish't you would," said Sim Gage. "She bothers me sometimes."
After a pause he continued, "I been thinking over a heap of things. You see, I'm busted about flat. If I could go on and put up some hay, way prices is, I could make some money this fall, but them damn robbers has cleaned me, and I can't start with nothing. And I ain't got nothing. So there I am."
He vouchsafed nothing more, but had already said so much that Doctor Barnes sat regarding him quietly.
"Gage," said he after a time, "things might be better in this valley. I know that you'll stick with the Government. Now, listen. I'm going to have practical command here from this time on. This is under Army control. I'm going to run a telephone wire up the valley as far as your settlement. I'll appoint you a government special scout, to watch that road. If these ruffians are in this valley again we want to catch them."
"You think I could be any use that way, Doc?" said Sim.
"Yes, I've got to have some of the settlers with me that I can depend on, besides the regular detail ordered in here."
"Would I be some sort of soldier, too, like?" demanded Sim Gage. "I tried to get in. They wouldn't take me. I'm—I'm past forty-five."
"You'd be under orders just like a soldier."
"Would I have any sort of uniform, like, now?"
Doctor Barnes sat thinking for some time. "No," said he. "You have to pass an examination before you really get into the Army; and you're over age, you and Wid, both of you. But I'll tell you—I'll give you a hat—you shall have a hat with a cord on it, so you'll be like a soldier. We'll have a green service cord on it,—say green with a little white in it, Sim Gage? Don't that make you feel as if you were in a uniform?"
"Now that'd sure be fine, Doc, a hat like that," said Sim. "I sure would like that. And I certainly would try to do what was right."
Doctor Barnes, still sitting before the little white operating table where his surgical instruments lay, was looking thoughtful. "In all likelihood I shall have to put a corporal and four men up at your place. That means they'll have to have a house. I can commandeer some of the teams down here, and some men, and they'll all throw in together and help you build an extra cabin. You and they can live in that, I suppose?"
"I reckon we could," said Sim Gage. "That'd be fine, wouldn't it?"
"And as those men would need horses for their own transport, they'd need hay. We'd pay you for hay. I don't see why we couldn't leave one wagon and a team at least up there, to get in supplies. That would help you in getting things started around on your place again, wouldn't it?"
"Would it, Doc?" said Sim Gage, brightening immensely. "It would raise aloadoffen me, that's what it would! Right now, especial." He cleared his throat.
"That there brings me right around to what I come down here to talk about," said he with sudden resolution. "For instance, there was a letter come to her up there—from back where she lived—from Annie Squires. So her and me got to talking over that letter, you see."
"What did Annie Squires say, if it's any of my business?" said the Doctor, looking at him steadily.
"Well, I was just talking things over, that way, and we allowed that maybe Annie Squires could come out here—after—well, after thewedding, you see."
It was out! Sim Gage wiped off his brow.
"The wedding?"
"Why, one thing and other, her and me got to talking things over. Things couldn't run on; so we—we fixed it up."
"Gage," said Doctor Barnes suddenly, "I've got to talk to you."
"Well, all right, all right, Doc. That'll be all right. I wish't you would."
"See here, man. Don't you realize what that woman is? She's too good for men like you and me."
"Yes, Doc. But I wouldn't never raise hand nor voice to her, the least way in the world. I allowed she could live along as my housekeeper, but seems not. You can shoot me, Doc, if you don't think I'm a-doing the right thing by her in every way, shape and manner."
"She's toogood—it's an impossible thing."
Sim Gage's face was lifted, seriously. "Doc, you know mighty well that's true, and so do I—she's plumb too good for me. But it ain't me done all the thinking."
"Didn't you ask her about it?"
"It kind of come around."
Doctor Barnes rose and paced rapidly up and down within the narrow confines of his office. "Youdolove her, don't you?"
Sim Gage for the first time in his life felt the secret quick of his simple, sensitive soul cut open and exposed to gaze. Not even the medical man before him could fail of sudden pity at witnessing what was written on his face—-all the dignity, the simplicity, the reticence, all the bashfulness of a man brought up helplessly against the knife. He could not—or perhaps would not—answer such a question even from the man before him, whom he suddenly had come to trust and respect as a being superior to himself.
But Allen Barnes was the pitiless surgeon now. "I don't care a damn about you, of course, Gage. You're not fit for her to wipe her shoes on, and you know it. Butshecan't see it and doesn't know it. If she could see you—what do you suppose she'd think? Gage—she mustn't ever know!"
Sim Gage looked at him quietly. "Every one of them words you said to me, Doc, is plumb true, and it ain't enough. I told her my own self, that first day, and since then, it was a blessing she was blind. But look-a-here, I reckon you don't understand how things is. You say you're going to build a house up there, and help me get a start. That's fine. Because hers is the other one, my old house. I wish't I could get some sheets and pillow cases down here while I'm right here now—I'd like to fix her up in there better'n what she is. I'd even like to have a tablecloth, like. But you understand, that's forher, not me. That'sherhouse, and not mine. She can't see. It's a God's blessing she can't. And what you said is so—she mustn'teverknow, not now ner no time, what—Sim Gage really is."
Doctor Barnes' voice was out of control. He turned once more to this newly revealed Sim Gage, a man whom he had not hitherto understood.
"Marriage means all sorts of things. It covers up things, begins things, ends things. That's true."
"It ends things for her, Doc—it don't begin nothing fer me, you understand. It is, but it isn't. I'd never step a foot across that door sill, night or day—you understand that, don't you? You didn't thinkthatfor one minute, did you? You didn't think I was so low-down I couldn't understand a thing likethat, did you? It's because she's blind and don't know the truth; and because she's plumb up against it. That's why."
"Oh, damn you!" said Doctor Barnes savagely. "You understand me better than I did you. Yes—it's the only way."
"It sure is funny how funny things get mixed up sometimes, ain't it, Doc?" remarked Sim Gage. "But now, part of my coming down here was about a minister."
"Well," said Doctor Barnes, desperately, feeling that he was party to a crime, "it's priest day next Sunday. We have five or six different sorts of priests and ministers that come in here once a month, and they all come the same Sunday, so they can watch each other—every fellow is afraid the other fellow will get some souls saved the wrong way if he isn't there on the job too. Listen, Gage—I'll bring one of these chaps—Church of England man, I reckon, for he hasn't got much to do down here—up to your ranch next Sunday morning. We've got to get this over with, or we'll all be crazy—I will, anyhow. When I show up, you two be ready to be married.
"Does that go, Sim Gage?" he concluded, looking into the haggard and stubbly face of the squalid-figured man before him.
"It goes," said Sim Gage.