HE DREW UP BESIDE THE ROADWAYHE DREW UP BESIDE THE ROADWAY(Page166)
“Also, pilferings,” I returned, triumphantly. After all, I should not be compelled either to urge a sale or to offer a bribe.
“Call it pilfering if you have the face to, but in return for this bit of refreshment I am going to give you some advice.”
“Well?”
“The next time that you take your colored attaché’s place as teamster, make sure that he has greased your wagon wheels. You may not have observed it, but their protests against moving are simply diabolical.”
“Oh, is that what causes that noise?” I asked, leaning down from the seat the better to peer at the wheels in question.
“Certainly; Joe should not have allowed you to go out with them in such shape.”
The laughter had died out of my heart and my voice, but a stubborn, foolish pride held my tongue. I could not tell the mining superintendent, who would have been one of the best of customers, that the melons were for sale, or that Joe had left us. “If I tell him that Joe is gone,”ran my foolish thought, “he will understand that I am peddling melons.” Gathering up the lines, I started the horses quickly, lest he should ask where I got my load. Mr. Rutledge drew his horse aside, waiting for me to pass.
“Be sure to tell Joe about the wheels, when you see him!” he called after me, as the complaining shriek again rent the air.
“Yes,” I returned, “I will;” and added to myself: “When I see him.”
In my anxiety to escape questioning I had forgotten that a person who is riding in a wagon whose wheels need oiling cannot shake off a well-mounted horseman so easily. Underneath the weird outcry of the wheels the steady pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat of the black horse’s hoofs came to my ears, and I glanced back to see Mr. Rutledge close to the hind wheel. Unless he stopped entirely he must of necessity be close at hand. The road that Mr. Rutledge must take in order to reach the mining camp branched off from the one that we were following, at a little distance, and I understoodvery well that, considering the distance, he did not think it civil to gallop on ahead of me. But suppose he should yet ask me where the melons came from—just suppose it. Should I tell a lie, or should I tell him that I was not even acting as teamster to oblige another? I took up the whip—then I dropped it back into its socket. I had always known myself for, in my quiet way, rather a proud girl, but—it—but—it was not this kind of pride, and I had never before felt myself a coward. Because Mr. Rutledge was a gentleman, was it any worse that he should know—
I drew in the reins sharply, and the team came to a standstill. The sudden cessation of that fearful noise called to mind a line or two that Jessie is fond of quoting: “And silence like a poultice comes, to heal the blows of sound.”
Mr. Rutledge again halted his horse, and turned on me an inquiring look. My throat was dry and husky, and my voice sounded strange in my own ears as I said, in answer to the look:
“I wanted to tell you, Mr. Rutledge, that we raised these melons ourselves, and we are trying to sell them.”
“Are you?”
His tone was very gentle. He regarded me and my dusty, wayworn outfit silently for a space, then he said, this time with no laughter in his voice:
“I take off my hat to you, Miss Leslie”—he suited the action to the word—“and I thank you for teaching me anew the truth of the old saying: ‘True hearts are more than coronets, and simple worth than Norman blood.’”
He replaced his hat with a sweeping bow, touched the black horse lightly with a spurred heel, and was gone. The tears were in my eyes as I watched the little swirl of dust raised by his horse’s hoofs settle back to place. I had not deserved praise, but it was something to feel that others understood how hard and distasteful was this bitter task, and I was glad to remember that he had not added to my humiliation by offering to buy my melons. I meant to sell them allbefore returning home now, and I did, but it was a long day’s work, and when I reached home I had only five dollars to show for it. “He” had been chiefly absent from home, and I had booked many promises.
Jessie and Ralph met me at the gate as I drove up. Jessie was interested and anxious.
“Why, you have sold all the melons!” Jessie exclaimed, glancing into the wagon-box, and narrowly escaping being knocked over by Guard, as he sprang down from the seat. “You have had good luck, Leslie.”
“Good luck doesn’t mean ready money in this case, Jessie, and that is what we need. There’s just about one more load of melons, and to-morrow we’ll take them out to the storage camp.”
“That may be a good plan,” Jessie admitted reflectively, “but it’s a long drive.”
“Yes, we must get an early start, and we must not forget to oil the wagon wheels,” I said, but I did not mention my meeting with Mr. Rutledge.
By nine o’clock the next morning we were on our way to the water-storage camp, twenty miles away across the plains.
The wagon-box was piled high with the last of our cantaloupe crop. Jessie and I had risen at daylight to pull them. We had been careful to leave a vacant space in the front of the wagon, and this, fitted up with his favorite little chair and plenty of blankets, made a snug harbor for Ralph. The little fellow was wild with excitement and pleasure at the prospect before him. There was room, besides, in the harbor for a well-filled lunch basket, a jug of water, and, if he became tired of walking, for Guard. The dog trotted on beside the wagon, alert and vigilant, until we were well outside of the valley, when, intoxicated, perhaps, by the sight of such boundless miles over which tochase them, he gave himself up to the pursuit of prairie dogs. An entirely futile pursuit in all cases, but Guard seemed unable to understand the hopelessness of it until some miles had been covered and he was panting with fatigue. The wary little creatures always kept within easy reach of their burrows, a fact which Guard did not comprehend until he had scurried wildly through a half-dozen prairie dog towns in succession. But when the conviction did force itself upon him their most insistent and insolent barking was powerless to arrest his further attention. He had learned his lesson.
I had put the rifle and a well-filled cartridge-belt into the wagon thinking that I might get a shot at a jack-rabbit or cotton-tail, but Guard’s experience impressed me as likely to be mine also should I attempt to kill such small game with a rifle, and I left the gun untouched.
The plains were gray with dust and shimmering in the heat. Clouds of the pungent alkali dust were stirred up by the horses’ feet and by the wagon wheels—we had oiled the wheelsafter an extravagant fashion, I’m afraid, for I do not remember that Joe ever used up an entire jar of lard, as we did, for that purpose—and our throats were parched, our faces blistered, and our eyes smarting before half the distance to the camp was passed over. The wind, what little there was of it, seemed but to add waves of heat to the torturing waves of alkali dust. Ralph, after whimpering a little with the general discomfort, curled down in his nest and dropped off to sleep, but there was no such refuge for Jessie and me.
“It’s a dreadful thing to be poor!” Jessie exclaimed, at last. There was a desolate intonation in her voice, and my own spirits drooped. The horses dropped into a slow walk.
“We shall have one advantage over Mr. Wilson, whatever happens,” Jessie presently continued.
“How is that?” I inquired. It did not look, at the moment, as if we were ever destined to have the advantage of any one.
“We shall not find the men at dinner; theywill have had their dinners and gone to work again.”
“We may find them at supper,” I said, giving Frank an impatient slap with the lines. The blow was a light one, but it took him by surprise, and, as was his wont, he stopped and looked back inquiringly, seemingly anxious to know what was meant by such a proceeding. Jessie snatched up the whip, and I laughed as I invited Frank to go on. “Don’t strike him, please, Jessie! You don’t understand Frank, and he doesn’t understand the meaning of a blow; he thinks, when he is doing his work faithfully and gets struck, that it must have been an accident, and he stops to investigate.”
“Dear me! How much you know—or think you do—about horses,” Jessie returned wearily. “You’re worse than old Joe.” She dropped the whip back into its socket with a petulant gesture. “I’m sorry we started, Leslie. Here we’ve been on the road six or eight hours—”
“A little over three hours, Jessie.”
“Well, we’re not in sight of the promisedland yet, and I’m nearly roasted; I shall just melt if we keep on this way much longer.”
“Me is melted; me is all water!” cried Ralph, waking up suddenly, and immediately giving way to forlorn tears. The tears plowed tiny furrows through the dust that clung to his moist cheeks, and had settled in grayish circles underneath his eyes. Jessie looked down at the piteous little figure and her own ill-temper vanished.
“Come up here and look round, you poor hot little mite!” she exclaimed, extending one hand and a foot as a sort of impromptu step-ladder. Ralph clambered up with some difficulty and looked around as directed, but the prospect did not have an enlivening effect on him.
“Where is we?” he demanded, turning his large, dust-encircled eyes on each of us in turn.
“On the plains,” I responded briefly. I was driving; the load was heavy, and the horses, worn with fatigue and the heat, lagged more and more; therefore my anxiety grew, and I had no time to waste on trivialities.
“One need not ask why it never rains here, though,” I suddenly observed, “for behold! Jessie, there is the thing that makes rain unnecessary.”
A glimmer of white had been, for some minutes, slowly growing on the horizon. I had thought at first, that it must be a mirage, but it kept its place so steadily, without that swift, undulating, gliding motion that these familiar plains spectacles always present that I presently became convinced that the white glimmer was a lake, and so that we were within a few miles of our objective point.
“Sure enough, that’s the lake!” Jessie exclaimed, after a long look. “Well, that’s some comfort,” was her conclusion. Ralph stood up on the seat between us and looked, too:
“Me wants a dwink!” he cried, after making quite sure that the white shimmer in the distance was that of water.
Jessie slid off the seat and got hold of the water-jug and tin-cup, then she tried to fill the cup, but the result was disastrous.
“You’ll have to stop the horses, Leslie, I shall spill every drop of water at this rate.”
As the wagon came to a standstill, and while Ralph was drinking, Guard suddenly appeared from his place underneath the wagon—he had thus far declined all invitations to ride—and putting his fore feet on the front hub, looked up, whining beseechingly:
“Dard wants some water, too,” Ralph said.
“He’s got to have it, then,” I declared, and climbed quickly out of the wagon.
“I hope you don’t intend to let him drink out of the cup!” Jessie exclaimed.
“No; hand me the jug, and I’ll pour the water into his mouth.”
“Oh, he can’t drink in that way!”
“Just hand me the jug and see.” She complied, and Guard justified my faith in his intelligence by gulping down the water that I poured into his open mouth, very carefully, scarcely spilling a drop.
In the end we decided to get out and eat ourlunch in the shade of the wagon, especially as Ralph was plaintively declaring:
“Me so hundry!”
“We’ll give the horses a chance to eat while we’re selling the melons,” I remarked, as much for Frank’s benefit as anything else, for he had turned his head, and was watching us with reproachful interest, as we sat at our meal. He must have thought us very selfish.
Lunch over, we climbed back into the wagon again, after re-packing the basket. Guard also signified his willingness to ride, now, and we went on, much refreshed by the brief stop and the needed lunch which had hardly lost its consolatory effect when, between one and two o’clock, we drew up before the door of the cook’s tent, on the eastern bank of the great water-storage reservoir. The cook was busy, but signified, after a hasty inspection, that our load was all right.
“Better take it in,” he added, nodding toward one of the three men who were lounging about in the vicinity. I suppose that this friendlyyoung gentleman must have been the commissary clerk, or something of that sort. He called a man to take care of our horses, and chatted with us pleasantly, while another man unloaded the melons. He urged us to come into the dining-tent and let the cook “knock us up a dinner,” but this we declined on the plea that we had already dined, and were extremely anxious to take the homeward road as soon as possible.
“It’s so late, you see,” Jessie observed, consulting father’s big silver watch, which she carried.
“We have already been here some time; how late is it, Jessie?” I asked.
“Why, it’s nearly four!” Jessie made the statement in a tone of dismay, adding: “How late it will be before we get home!”
“I can drive home a great deal faster than we came,” I said.
“How far have you got to go?” inquired the clerk, who had told us that his name was Phillips.
“Twenty miles.”
“That’s a good bit; but it’s a moonlight night.”
“Dear me! We don’t care if it is,” Jessie returned, rather crossly; “we want to get home.”
“You’ll get home all right,” Mr. Phillips assured her, easily. “I’ll have Tom put your horses in at once and here’s the money for your load.” He counted out a fascinating little roll of bills, adding, as he tendered the amount to Jessie, who promptly pocketed it, “I hope you’ll excuse my saying that you appear to be a plucky pair of girls. If you’ve anything more to market—” Jessie shook her head:
“There was a reason; we were obliged to sell the melons,” she ended, lamely. The horses, fed, watered, and evidently greatly refreshed, were, by this time, on the wagon. Mr. Phillips helped us in, and, while doing so, his glance fell on the rifle lying under the seat. He took up the gun and ran his eye over it approvingly.
“Either of you shoot?” he inquired.
“My sister shoots pretty well,” Jessie toldhim, adding: “We really must be starting, and we are a thousand times obliged to you for your kindness.”
“And particularly for buying the melons,” I could not forbear saying.
Mr. Phillips laughed: “The boys will say that it was you who conferred the obligation, when it comes to sampling those melons,” he said. I had gathered up the lines when he added, suddenly: “Wait!” I waited, while he stepped back into the tent. He re-appeared directly, carrying a half dozen big mallards and a couple of jack-rabbits: “You’ll let me make you a present of these, won’t you?” he asked, smiling, persuasively, as he tossed them into the wagon-box. “I was out hunting this morning, and I had good luck, as I always do.” We thanked him heartily for his gift and drove off feeling not only a good deal richer, but much happier than when we had started out.
The horses trotted along briskly for a few miles, but they were tired from two days of hard work, and, in spite of their eagerness to reach home, their pace slackened. I did not urge them. It would be, as Mr. Phillips had said, a moonlight night; the rays of the rising moon were already silvering the deepening dusk. Ralph was again asleep in his snug harbor, with Guard lying quietly beside him.
“The cows will be waiting at the corral bars when we get home,” Jessie remarked once, “but it is going to be so light that we can do the chores nearly as well at midnight as we could at mid-day, so there is really no need of hurrying. We’ve had good luck to-day, haven’t we, Leslie?”
“Yes,” I answered, “we have,” but I spoke absently. I was listening to again catch asound that had just reached my ears; faint, far off, but welcome; it was one that we seldom heard in that mountain-guarded valley where our days were passed.
“Did you hear that, Jessie?”
“What?”
“The whistle of a locomotive engine; there it is again! How far off it seems!”
“Sound travels a long way over these plains; there’s nothing to intercept it—but I didn’t hear it.”
“Listen. It will sound again, perhaps, when the train reaches another crossing. It must be way down on the Huerfano. There, didn’t you hear that?”
“Yes; do keep still, Guard.”
Guard, aroused from his nap, was sitting up and looking around with an occasional low growl.
“Seems to me that they must have railway crossings pretty thick down on the Huerfano,” Jessie remarked, after a moment’s silence. “That makes three whistles—if they arewhistles—that we’ve heard within as many minutes.”
“That’s true, Jessie—I hadn’t thought of that. It may not be an engine. It sounds louder, instead of diminishing as it would if—keep still, Guard! What in the world is the matter with you!”
For answer, Guard, with every hair on his back erect and standing up like the quills of a porcupine, got up, and wriggled himself under the seat on which we were sitting, making his way to the end of the wagon-box, where he stood with legs braced to keep himself steady, his chin resting on the edge of the tailboard, and his eyes fixed on the darkening roadway over which we had just passed. Every now and then he gave a low, sullen growl, and, even from where we sat, and in the increasing gloom we could see that his white fangs were bared.
“How strangely Guard acts!” exclaimed Jessie, with a sudden catch in her voice, and a dawning fear of—she knew not what—in her eyes. At that instant the sound that I had taken for thefar-off, dying whistle of a locomotive, came again to my ears; nearer, more distinct, in increasing volume—a weird, melancholy call—a pursuing cry. The lines were in my hands, and at that instant the horses suddenly sprang forward, faster, faster, until their pace became a tearing run, and then some words of my own, spoken weeks before, flashed into my mind, bringing with them a mental illumination.
“There are wolves!” I had said. I was conscious of an effort to steady my voice, to keep it from shaking, as I thrust the lines into Jessie’s hands. “Try to keep the horses in the road, Jessie; do not check them. I am going back there by Guard.”
“What for?” Jessie’s tones were sharp with apprehension, and again, as if in explanation, came that pursuing chorus. I sprang over the back of the seat, and knelt in the bottom of the wagon-box, securing the rifle and cartridge-belt. Jessie, holding the lines firmly in either hand, shifted her position to look down on me. Her face gleamed white in the duskas she breathed, rather than spoke: “Wolves, Leslie?”
“Yes.” I had the gun now and staggered to my feet. “Watch the horses, Jessie.” Jessie nodded.
Ralph, roused by the rapid motion, had awakened. He struggled to a sitting posture. “What for is us doin’ so fas’?” he inquired, with interest.
Jessie made no reply, but she put one foot on his short skirt, holding him in place. Some intuition told him what was taking place, perhaps, what might take place. Clasping both chubby hands around Jessie’s foot to steady himself, he sat in silence, making no complaint. The brave spirit within his baby body had risen to meet the crisis as gallantly as could that of any Gordon over whose head a score of years had passed.
Reaching the end of the wagon, I crouched down beside Guard, with rifle poised and finger on the trigger, waiting for the pursuing outcry to resolve itself into tangible shape. I had notlong to wait. Dusky shadows came stealing out from either side of the roadway. Shadows that, as I strained my eyes upon them, seemed to grow and multiply, until, in less time than it takes to tell it, we were close beset by a pack of wolves in full cry. The terrified horses were bounding along and the wagon was bouncing after them, at a rate that threatened momentarily to either shatter the wagon or set the horses free from it, but Jessie still kept them in the road. A moment more and the wolves were upon us, and had ceased howling; their quarry was at hand. I could see their eyes flaming in the darkness, and with the rifle muzzle directed toward a couple of those flaming points, I fired. There was a terrific clamor again as the report of the gun died away, and a score or more of our pursuers halted, sniffing at a fallen comrade. But one gaunt long-limbed creature disdained to stop for such a matter. He kept after the wagon. Guard was young and, moreover, this was his first experience with wolves. He had stopped growling,but his eyes seemed to dart fire, and as the wolf that had outstripped its mates sprang up, with gnashing teeth, hurling himself at the tailboard in a determined effort to spring into the wagon, Guard attempted to spring out and grapple with him. I was leaning against the dog, ready to meet the wolf’s closer approach with a bullet, and, in consequence, I felt the impetus of his leap before he could accomplish it. The gun dropped from my hand with a crash as I threw both arms around Guard, intent on holding him in the wagon. I was so far successful that his leap was checked; he fell across the tailboard, his head and forelegs outside. My grip about his body tightened as I felt him slipping. I pulled back mightily, and had the satisfaction of tumbling backward with him into the wagon-box, but not before he had briefly sampled the wolf. The creature’s savage head and cruel eyes appeared above the tailboard, even as I dragged at Guard, who, not to be deterred by my interference, made a vicious lunge at the enemy, and fell back with me, his mouthand throat so full of wolf-hair and hide that he was nearly strangled. But that particular wolf had drawn off. I regained my feet and admonished Guard: “Stay there, sir! Stay right there!” I gasped, and again secured the gun. The wolves, on each side of us now, were running close to the front wheels and to the galloping horses, and one was again trying to leap into the box from the rear. The rifle spoke, and he fell motionless on the road, at the same instant I heard Ralph saying, imperatively: “Do away! Do away I tells ’oo!” I looked around. Ralph was on his knees—no one could have kept footing in that wagon-box just then—a pair of wolves were leaping up wildly beside the near wheel, making futile springs and snaps at him, and just then he lifted something, some dark object from the bottom of the wagon-box, and hurled it at them with all the power of his baby hands. Whatever the object was, its effect on the wolves was instantaneous. The pack had not stopped to look at the wolf brought down bymy second shot, but they all stopped, snarling and fighting over Ralph’s missile. A few took on after us, and then Ralph threw another; they stopped again at that, and then I saw that the child was throwing out the game that Phillips had given us. With another command to Guard to remain where he was, I crept back to the pile of game yet remaining, and tossed out what was left. Then I crept on to Jessie.
“Can you slow the horses down?” I shouted in her ear. “The wolves will not follow us again; they have got what they were after.”
The horses knew me, and by dint of much pulling and many soothing words I had them partially quieted, but it took so long to gain even that much control over them that the wolves were far out of sight and sound behind us when I at length ventured to look back. The horses were walking at last, but it was a walk so full of frightened starts and nervous glances that it threatened at any moment to break into a run. By the moonlight Jessie and I looked into each others’ white faces, and, with Ralph cuddledbetween us, clung together for a breathless instant of thanksgiving. Then—“’Ose dogs was hundry,” Ralph observed, philosophically, adding, as an afterthought: “Me hundry, too; is we mos’ ’ome, ’Essie?”
“We’ll be there soon,” I answered, tremulously. We saw or heard nothing more of the wolves, which were of that cowardly species—a compromise between the skulking coyote and the savage gray wolf, known as “Loafers.” A loafer very seldom attacks man, but he will, if numerous enough, run down and destroy cattle—sometimes horses. In this instance it was undoubtedly the scent of the game in the wagon that attracted them. Once attracted and bent on capture, they are as fiercely determined as their gray cousins, and but for the fortunate accident of Ralph’s using a duck for a projectile they would have kept up the chase until the horses were exhausted, and they were able to help themselves.
It was after nine when we reached home, and never had home seemed a dearer or safer place.The chores all done, Ralph asleep in his little crib, and Guard sleeping the sleep of the just on the kitchen doorstep, Jessie and I sat down by the table to eat a belated supper, and count our hard-won gains. The melon crop was all sold, and it had netted us forty dollars.
It was close upon the beginning of another day before Jessie and I got to bed, but, late as it was, I could not sleep.
Our pressing financial problem was so constantly in my thoughts that now, in my weariness, I found myself unable to dismiss it. We had collected some money, but not enough—not enough! I turned and tossed restlessly. Now that the time for proving up was so close at hand an increasing terror of failure grew upon me. It did not seem to me that I should be able to endure it if we were obliged to give up our home. Forty dollars! In the stillness of the night that sum, as I reflected upon it, dwindled into insignificance. I reviewed all of our monetary transactions that I could think of, and, adding up the sum total, half convinced myself that we must have made a mistake in the counting that evening.
“I’m quite sure that there’s more than forty dollars,” I told myself, turning over my hot pillow in search of a cooler side, and giving it a vigorous shake. “I’m quite sure! There’s the money for Mr. Horton’s mending, that was forty cents; and Miss Jones’s wrapper was two dollars; and that setting of eggs that I sold to Jennie Speers—I don’t remember whether they were two dollars or only fifty cents. Oh, dear! And there was Cleo’s calf; that was—I don’t remember how much it was!”
The longer I remembered and added up, and remembered and subtracted, the less I really knew. By the time that my fifth reckoning had reduced our hoard to twenty-seven dollars I would gladly have gotten up and counted the money again, but Jessie had it in charge and I did not know where she kept it. It was small consolation in the desperate state of uncertainty into which I had worked myself to reflect that I had only myself to blame for this. Being a somewhat imaginative young person, I had reasoned that if burglars were to break into thehouse and demand to know the whereabouts of our hidden wealth it might be possible for Jessie, who knew, to escape, taking her knowledge with her, while I, who did not know, might safely stand by that declaration. It was rather a far-fetched theory, but Jessie had willingly subscribed to it. If not actually apprehensive of robbery, she was, perhaps, more inclined to trust to her own quiet temper, in a case of emergency, than to my warmer one. At the same time she understood very well that I had an unusual talent for silence. It was this talent that induced me to stay my hand late that night just as I was on the point of rousing Jessie and asking her where she had put the money. She was sleeping soundly and she was very tired.
“I’ll count it all over the first thing in the morning,” I thought; and with the resolution, dropped off to sleep.
It was very late when I awoke. Ralph was still sleeping, but Jessie had risen, and was moving quietly about the house. Above the slight noise that she made I heard distinctly thepu-r—rr of falling water, and knew that it was raining heavily. With the knowledge, the recollection that Joe had gone came back to me with an unusual sense of aggravation. Joe had always done the milking, and it had not rained since he left. Dressing noiselessly, in order not to disturb Ralph, I went out into the kitchen. Jessie looked up as I entered. “I’ll help you milk this morning, Leslie,” she said. “It’s too bad for you to have to putter around in the rain while I’m dry in the house.”
“There’s no use in our both getting wet,” I returned, ungraciously. “You’d much better finish getting breakfast and keep watch of Ralph. If he were to waken and find us both gone he’d probably start out a relief expedition of one in any direction that took his fancy. He’d be glad of the chance to get out in the rain.”
“Who would have thought of its raining so soon when we came home last night. There wasn’t a cloud in sight.”
“There’s none in sight now; we’re inside ofone so thick that we can’t see out. I dare say we’ll encounter more than one rain-storm ‘while the days are going by’; but it would be handy if Joe were here this morning.”
“Yes, indeed! I only hope Joe’s conscience acquits him, wherever he is.”
“Oh, I am sure it does—if he has a conscience—for I suppose that’s what you would call his feeling obliged to worry about us,” I said, in quick defence of the absent friend whose actions I might secretly question, but of whom I could not bear that another should speak slightingly.
I put on my old felt hat and took up the milk-pail. Jessie was busy over something that she was cooking in a skillet on the stove, but she glanced up as I opened the door, and a dash of rain came swirling in.
“Why, Leslie Gordon! Are you going out in this storm dressed like that? Here, put on my mackintosh.”
I had forgotten all about wraps, but a shawl or cape would have been better than the longmackintosh that Jessie insisted upon buttoning me into. It was too long; the skirts nearly tripped me up as I started to run down the path to the corral, and when I held it up it was little protection.
The corral where the cows were usually penned over-night was behind the barn. As I came in sight of it a feeling of almost despair swept over me. The corral bars were down, and the cows were gone! I hung the milk-pail bottom-side up on one of the bar posts. The raindrops played a lively tattoo on its resounding sides, while I dropped the mackintosh skirt, regardless of its trailing length, and stood still, trying to recollect that I had put up the bars after we had finished milking on the previous evening. Search my memory as I might, however, I could not find that I had taken this simple but necessary precaution, and, if I had forgotten it, it was useless to suppose that Jessie had not.
“It’s just my negligence!” I remarked, scornfully, to my drenched surroundings; “just mynegligence, and now I shall have to hunt for those cows, and in this rain that shuts everything out it will be like looking for a needle in a haymow.”
I took down the pail, seeming to take down an entire chorus of singing water witches with it, and retraced my steps to the house. Even this simple act was performed with some difficulty, for again I stepped on the mackintosh and nearly fell.
“You’ve been very quick with the milking, and breakfast’s all ready,” Jessie remarked, cheerfully, as I entered, and then, catching sight of the empty pail, she exclaimed, “Why, what’s the matter?”
When I told her, she said, reproachfully, “Leslie, of course I supposed that you would put up the bars after we had finished milking last night!”
I am afraid that I was cross as well as tired: “Why, ‘of course,’ Jessie? Why is it, can you tell me, that there is always some one member of a family who is supposed, quite as a matterof course, to make good the short-comings and long-goings of all the others? To straighten out the domestic tangles, to remember, always remember, what the others forget; to be good-tempered when others are ill-tempered; to—”
Jessie laid a brown little hand on my shoulder, checking the torrent of my eloquence; she laid her cheek against my own for a passing instant.
“That’s all easily answered, Leslie dear. The some one that you describe is the soul of a house. When a house has the misfortune not to have such an one in it, it has no soul; the other members are merely forms, moving forms, with impulses.”
I knew that she meant to compliment me, but I would not appear to know it.
“I suppose, then,” I returned, with affected resentment, “that I am a form with impulses. One of the impulses just now is to eat breakfast.”
“Me hundry; me eat breakfuss, too,” proclaimed a shrill, familiar voice at my elbow. I had already taken my seat at the table.
“Eat your breakfast, Leslie,” said Jessie; “I’ll dress Ralph. After breakfast, perhaps, I had better go with you after the cows?” She spoke with some hesitation. As a matter of fact, she does not begin to know the cattle trails as I know them.
“No,” I said; “I’ll go alone, Jessie; I can find them much quicker than you could.”
“They may not have gone far.” Jessie advanced this proposition hopefully.
“Far enough, I’ll warrant. I believe there’s nothing that a cow likes so well as to chase around on a morning like this; especially if she thinks some one is hunting for her.”
“You can take one of the horses—” Jessie began, and, in the irritated state of my mind, it was some satisfaction to be able to promptly veto that proposition.
“Oh, no, indeed! I shall have to go on foot. It seems you turned them out to pasture last night. I think you must have forgotten how hard it is to catch either of the horses when they are both let out at once.”
My sister had the grace to blush slightly, which consoled me a good deal. I hoped that, either as a soul or a form with impulses, she remembered that father or Joe had never made a practice of letting both horses out at once. When one was in the barn, his mate in the pasture could be easily caught. Otherwise, the catching was a work of labor and of pain. Once, indeed, when both had been inadvertently turned out together, father had been obliged to hire a cowboy to come with his lariat and rope Jim, the principal offender. When Jim, with the compelling noose about his neck, had been led ignominiously back to the stable, father had told us never to let them out together again, a warning that Jessie evidently recalled now for the first time.
“Dear me, Leslie! I’m dreadfully sorry!” she exclaimed, lifting Ralph into his high chair; “I just meant to save a little work, and I guess I’ve brought on no end of it!”
“Perhaps not; we’ll leave the barn door open. It’s so cold that they may go in of their ownaccord after a while.” And that was what they did do, along in the afternoon, when it was quite too late for them to be of any service that day.
My hasty breakfast finished, I got up from the table. “I am going right away, Jessie; it will never do to let the cows lie out all day.”
“No,” Jessie assented. She was waiting on Ralph. I had thrown the mackintosh over a chair near the stove. I had had enough of that, but I must wear something. Picking up the big felt hat, I went into the next room and looked into a closet where a number of garments were hanging. Back in the corner, partially hidden under some other clothing, I caught a glimpse of a worn gray coat—the coat that father had loaned Joe on that fatal morning months ago. The rain dashed fiercely against the window panes as it had on that morning, too, and the sad, dull day seemed to grow sadder and grayer. With a sudden, homesick longing for father’s love and sympathy, I took down the coat. Tears sprang to my eyes at sight of thebig, aggressive patch on the left sleeve. Father had praised me for that bit of clumsy workmanship at which Jessie had laughed. I resolved to wear the coat. “I shall feel as if father were with me,” I thought, as I slipped it on. Going out at the front door I did not again encounter Jessie, but as I passed the kitchen windows I saw her glance up and look at me with a startled air.
It was still raining heavily and I started out on a fast walk. Crossing the foot-bridge below the house I ascended the hill on the other side. The cattle always crossed the river without the aid of the foot-bridge, however, and took this route to the upper range, where they were pretty sure to be now. I hoped that the pursuit would not lead me far among the hills. While thus in the open the situation was not unpleasant; I rather enjoyed the feeling of the rain drops in my face. Just as I gained the crest of the hill beyond the river I heard some one shouting, and, looking back, saw Jessie. She was out in the yard in the rain calling and waving the apron that she had snatched off for the purpose.With the noise of the rain and the rushing river it was impossible to make out what she was saying. I was sure, though, that she merely wished to remonstrate with me for not wearing the mackintosh. I waved my hand to let her know that I saw her, and then hurried on down the farther slope of the hill. I walked fast for a long distance without coming upon any trace of the cattle, and then I fell gradually into the slower pace that is meant for staying. As I did so my thoughts again reverted to the money-counting problem that had vexed me over night. In the re-assuring light of day it did not seem so entirely probable that Jessie had been so mistaken in her count, and it did not so much matter that I had forgotten after all to ask her where the money was kept.
In spite of obliterating rain, there were plenty of fresh cattle tracks along and by the side of the trail. It did not necessarily follow that any of the tracks were made by our cattle, still, they might have been, and with this slight encouragement, I hurried along, getting gradually higher, and deeper into the mountains. As I went I reflected bitterly on the perversity of cow nature. A nature that leads these gentle seeming creatures to endure hunger, thirst, and weariness, to push for miles into a trackless wilderness, if by so doing they can put their owners to trouble and expense. It was not often that our cattle ranged so far away from home, and it was with a little unconfessed feeling of dismay that, pausing to take stock of my surroundings, I suddenly discovered that I was close upon the Hermit’s cave, and no signs ofthe strays yet. At the same time I made another discovery as comforting as this was disquieting. Guard, whom I had forgotten to invite to accompany me, was skulking along in the underbrush beside the trail, uncertain whether to show himself or not. When I spoke to him he bounded to my side. “Guard,” I said, looking down at him thoughtfully, “it’s raining harder than ever, and the wind is blowing; now that you are with me, I think we will just stop in the cave until the storm abates a little.” Guard’s bushy tail was wet and heavy with rain, but he wagged it approvingly, and toward the cave we started. There was a green little valley over the ridge, and I resolved when the storm slackened, to climb up and have a look into it. If the cattle were not there I should be compelled to give over the hunt for that day.
A sudden lull in the storm was followed by a blacker sweep of clouds and a resounding peal of thunder, the prelude to a pitiless burst of hail-stones. Pelted by the stinging missiles, andgasping for breath as I struggled against the rising wind, I made for the cave with Guard close at my heels, and dashed into the gloomy cavern without a thought of anything but shelter.
The entrance to the cave was merely a large opening in a pile of rocks close beside the cattle trail, and the cave itself was famous throughout the valley solely because of its imagined history and its actual equipment. Because of its nearness to the trail there was little danger of its becoming a lair for wild beasts. People said that the spot had been the dwelling place of a man, educated and wealthy, who had chosen to live and die alone in the wilderness. How they came to know this was never quite clear, for the furnishing of the cave was there, offering its mute history to the first venturesome hunter who had penetrated these wilds years and years ago, just as it was offered to the curious to-day. The educational theory could probably be traced to the torn and yellowing fragments of a book that lay on the rude table opposite the cavernentrance. How many inquisitive fingers had turned its baffling pages, how many curious eyes had vainly scanned them in the course of the slow moving years in which the cavern held its secret? The book was written in a language quite unknown to us simple folk. For the theory of wealth the rusty, crumbling old flint-lock musket, leaning against the wall beside the table, was silver mounted and heavily chased. Beside the table was a rude bench made from a section of sawed pine. That was all, but impressive legends have been handed down, from one generation to another, on less foundation than the cave furnished to our valley romanticists. It was not even odd to us that no one in all these years had stolen or desecrated the pathetic mementos of a vanished life. People on the frontier have a great respect—a respect not necessarily enforced with lock and key—for the belongings of another. The mountings of the gun were of solid silver, but I doubt if even Mr. Horton could have justified himself to himself in taking it. I had been in the place once ortwice and had turned over the untelling leaves with reverent fingers, but I had never felt any inclination to linger within the gloomy walls; the sunlight on the cattle trail outside had greater allurements, but now, beaten by the hail, I rushed in headlong, and in doing so nearly fell over the body of a man lying outstretched on the stone floor, just within the entrance. The man was evidently sleeping, and very soundly, for my tumultuous rush roused him so little that he merely turned on one side, sighed, and again relapsed into deepest slumber. I stood in my tracks, trembling, undecided whether to dash out into the storm or run the risk of remaining in the cavern. The fierce rattle of the hail beating on the rocks outside decided me to do the latter. Noiselessly, step by step, I stole backward into the darkness of the cavern. My backward progress was checked at last by the corner of the table against which I brought up. I glanced down at it. It was laden with a regular cowboy equipment of spurs, quirt, revolver, cartridge-belt, and the too common accompanimentof a bottle of whiskey. If the sleeping man on the floor were called on to defend himself for any cause he need not suffer for want of ammunition. I had less fear of his awakening since seeing the half-emptied bottle, but far greater fear of what he might do when he did awake.
Surely, there never was a wiser dog than Guard! He had not made a sound since our entrance, although he had certainly cocked a disdainful eye at the recumbent figure on the floor as we passed it. Now, in obedience to the warning of my uplifted finger, he crept silently to my side. He watched my movements with an air of intelligent comprehension as I quietly took possession of the bottle, revolver, and cartridge-belt, and then followed me without a sound as I stole breathlessly into the deepest recess of the cavern. The rocky roof sloped down over this recess, until, at its farthest extremity, there was scarcely room for a person to crouch under it, close to the wall, and it was so dark that I could barely make out the form ofthe dog crouching beside me. Safe hidden in the darkness, I determined to rid the sleeping man of at least one of his enemies. Pulling the cork from the bottle, I poured its contents on the rocks, thereby, as I found, running imminent risk of a sneeze from Guard, who rolled his head from side to side in distress as the pungent liquor penetrated his nostrils. The danger passed, luckily, without noise. We crouched in perfect silence, waiting for the hail-storm to pass. It was too violent to be of long duration, yet I could not tell, after some minutes of anxious listening, when it ceased, for the hail was followed by a fresh deluge of rain. It was comfortable in the cavern—warm and dry. The man, as his regular breathing testified, slept soundly, and I thought, while I waited, that I, too, might as well make myself easy. Softly pulling off the wet coat, I turned the dryest side outward, and, rolling it into a compact bundle, placed it under my head for a pillow. With the sleeper’s armament between myself and the rock at my back, with Guardvigilantly alive to any motion of anything, inside the cavern or out, I felt entirely safe, and wearily closed my eyes. It was pleasant lying there so sheltered and guarded, to listen to the heavy rush of the rain—or was it hail?—or the far-heard cry of wolves, or the rushing swirl of the river. I had not slept well the night before, but I could not have been asleep many minutes when I was awakened by a low growl from Guard. Brief as my nap had been, it was, nevertheless, so sound that at first I was bewildered and unable to recall what had happened. I started up quickly, bumping my head against the rocky roof, and so effectually recalling my scattered senses and the necessity for caution.
The sleeping cowboy had also awakened and was wandering aimlessly about the cavern. He was muttering to himself, and his incoherent talk soon told me that he was in anxious quest of the bottle that I was at that moment sitting upon.
The sound of his own voice had, apparently, drowned that of Guard’s. Seeing this I putone hand on that attendant’s collar and shook the other threateningly in his face. He had been standing up, but sat down, with, I was sure from the very feel of his fur, a most discontented expression. In the silence the stranger’s plaint made itself distinctly audible:
“Leff’ ’em on a table; ’n’ whar is they at now? Reckon I must ’a’ been locoed, or, like ’nuff that ar ole hermutt’s done played a trick on me. S’h’d think he’d have more principle than t’ play a trick on a pore feller what’s jest stopped t’ rest in his hole for a few hours.”
He overturned the bench to peer inquiringly at the place where it had stood, then, straightening himself as well as he could—which was not very well—he looked slowly around the cavern. “It stan’s to reason,” he muttered thoughtfully, “that if airy one had come in whilst I was asleep I’d ’a’ woke up, so the hermutt must ’a’ done it. What a ghost kin want of a gun beats me, too! Why in thunderation didn’t he take his ole flint-lock, if he was wantin’ a gun so mighty bad, instead of sneakin’ backt’ rob a pore feller in his sleep! I wonder if the ole thing is loaded, anyway. There’s a pair of eyes shinin’ back yon in the corner; I ain’t afeared of ’em, but I wisht he’d ’a’ left my gun. Who’s agoin’ t’ draw a bead on a pair of eyes in the dark with a ole flint-lock that you have to build a bonfire around before the powder’ll take fire?”
Clearly, as his drunken muttering told, he had caught the gleam of Guard’s angry eyes, yet, it was evident, as he had said, that he was not at all afraid. Wild beast or tame, it was all one to him, that I well knew, for now that he was on his feet, and standing in the shaft of pale light streaming in at the cavern entrance, I recognized him as Big Jim.
Big Jim was a cowboy with a more than local fame for reckless daring, as well as for his unfortunate appetite for strong drink. I had seen him but once before, but I had been able on that occasion to render him a slight service. It did not seem to me, however, as I crouched trembling under the rock, watching his irresponsiblemovements, that the memory of that service would aid my cause with him just now, even if I were daring enough to recall it. People said that Big Jim never forgave any one who came between him and his whiskey bottle. Recalling this gossip, as the man staggered toward the corner where the rusty old musket stood, I decided that it was time to act. The flint-lock, even if loaded, would probably be as harmless in his incapable hands as any other iron rod, but under the circumstances it did not look particularly safe to linger.
As the man’s back was turned I sprang suddenly to my feet. “Seek him, Guard! Take him!” I cried, and Guard literally obeyed. Startled and sobered by the sound of a voice, Big Jim whirled around, facing the direction whence the voice came, to be met by the dog’s fierce charge. Guard’s leap was so impetuous that the man staggered under it, and, losing his balance, fell to the floor. Guard fastened his teeth in the skirt of his coat as he fell. There was a momentary struggle on the floor. Whileit was taking place I darted out of the cavern, revolver, cartridge-belt, and even the empty whiskey bottle in my hands. Safely outside, I halted, and with what little breath I had left whistled for Guard. A load was off my heart when the dog came bounding to my side, none the worse for his brief encounter with an unarmed cowboy.
I had hoped to get out of sight before Big Jim discovered me, but he came out of the cavern on Guard’s heels. Evidently quite sobered, he stopped when he saw me. He glanced at the armament in my hands, at the empty bottle, and, lifting his hat with its great flapping brim, scratched his head in perplexity. It was still raining, a fact which Big Jim seemed suddenly to discover.
“Wet, ain’t it?” he observed.
“Rain is usually wet,” I informed him, with unnecessary explicitness.
“Yes, I reckon ’tis. Say, that’s my bottle you’ve got in your hands.”
“So I supposed.”
“You’re welcome to the whiskey—I see it’s gone, and ’tis a good thing to take off a chill—when a body gets wet—but I’d like the bottle again.”
“I am going to put the bottle and the revolver and the belt in the hollow of the big pine near the lower crossing. You can get them there.”
“Oh, ain’t you goin’ t’ give ’em to me now?”
“No, I am not.”
“’Fraid of me, I reckon.”
“Yes, I am.”
“I won’t hurt you, Miss Leslie Gordon. I remember you first-rate. Got that little white handkercher that you done up my hand in the day I burned it so at the Alton camp yet.”
“You might not hurt me, but I think you would hurt my dog.”
“Yes, Miss Gordon, I’m ’bleeged t’ say that if I had a shootin’ iron in my hands jest now I’d be mighty glad t’ let daylight through that dog o’ yourn. He’s too fractious t’ live in the same country as a white man.”
I grasped the revolver tighter. “How came you in the cavern?”
“Well, if you want t’ know, I took a drop too much at the dance last night, an’ the ole man, he’d said if sech a thing as that ar’ took place again he’d feel obligated t’ give me the marble heart. Mighty cranky the ole man is. So I jest wended up here along, thinkin’ I’d bunk with the ole hermutt till I got a little nigher straight. It’s a thing that don’t often happen,” he added, in self-extenuation; “but the party, it done got away with me. Now you know all about it, an’ you’d better hand over them weapons.”