IN OKLAHOMA
AN IDYL OF THE PRAIRIE IN THREE FLIGHTS
"The sun lay dying in the west,The fresh breeze fanned my brow,I rode the steed I loved the best—Would I were riding now."
"The sun lay dying in the west,The fresh breeze fanned my brow,I rode the steed I loved the best—Would I were riding now."
"The sun lay dying in the west,
The fresh breeze fanned my brow,
I rode the steed I loved the best—
Would I were riding now."
I.—THE FIRST FLIGHT
Most written stories end with a wedding, actual or prospective; but this story, like most stories in real life, begins with one. The little old stone church in Manhattan, Kansas, was crowded to the doors one June afternoon. The gray-haired President, the younger men and women of the faculty, and a small sprinkling of the towns-people were there; but the great mass of the congregation was made up of the students of the State Agricultural College, which was situated on a gentle hill just outside the town. It was Graduation Day, and the day on which Sue Belle Seville and Samuel Maxwell had elected to get married.
Samuel was a Kansas boy, Sue Belle a Kentucky girl. They were both orphans and both graduates from the college that day in the same class: Samuel from the agricultural and mechanical department, Sue Belle from the housekeeping, culinary, domestic sciences, and other of the many departments feminine. Maxwell was a manly, energetic, capable fellow, a good student, and a young man who, given an equal chance, should make a fine farmer. On that day he was the envy of all the young men of marriageable age in the college.
His bride to be, while she seemed made for better things than the ineffably monotonous drudgery of an ordinary farmer's wife, was nevertheless skilled enough, capable enough, resolute enough, to master her lot and be happy in it whatever it might be. She was a handsome girl, tall, straight, strong, black-haired, blue-eyed, with the healthiest whiteness in her face that one could imagine.
The brief wedding ceremony was soon over. Old Dr. Fairman, the President, gave the bride away in his usual courtly and distinguished manner, and as the village organist played the wedding-march on the sweet-toned old organ, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Maxwell passed out of the church, followed by all of the congregation. At the end of the long cinder foot-path extending from the church-door under the double row of trees to the street stood a brand-new Studebaker wagon filled with household goods. Two stout, well-conditioned horses were harnessed to it, while two others, a good mare and a handsome young horse, a three-year-old colt, were fastened to the tail-board by long hitching-straps. The wagon had been transformed by a canvas canopy over the bed into what was popularly known as a "prairie schooner." The new canvas was white as snow in the sunlight.
Maxwell handed his wife to the seat on the front, pitched quarters to the negro boys who had been holding the horses' heads, gathered up the reins, and, amid a storm of cheers and a shower of rice—especially appropriate to an agricultural college, by the way—and other manifestations of joy and delight, drove away on the wedding journey. The watchers followed with their eyes the wagon lumbering slowly down the main street until it crossed the bridge over the Kansas River and disappeared among the hills to the southward.
After settling the expenses of their college course and paying for their outfit, the two young people found themselves in possession of some two thousand dollars between them; more than enough, they fancied, backed as it was—or should I say led?—by two stout hearts and by four strong young arms, to wrest a livelihood—nay, a fortune, perhaps—from the prairies of the West.
An old, old story, this. A pair of home-builders going out into a new land to conquer or die; to establish another outpost of civilization on the distant frontier, or to fail. A man and a woman who had taken their all in their hands to consecrate it by their toil to the service of humanity, and to stake their happiness on the success of their endeavor. True builders of the nation, they! Pickets they were, going ahead of the advance guard of the army of civilization's marchers, which, untold ages ago, started in some secluded nook in the far Orient, and, impelled by an irresistible desire for conquest, in successive waves of emigration, has at last compassed the globe, rolled around the world. Leaders, these two, of that mighty deluge of men and women for whom the sun of hope is ever rising,—but rising in the West.
Never was such a wedding journey. It was springtime in the most bountiful and fertile year that had come to the great State for a generation. The way of the lovers, as they plodded ever southward and westward, led them now past vast fields of yellowing wheat already beginning to ripen for the thresher. Sometimes they drove for miles through towering walls of broad-bladed, cool, green corn; sometimes the trail led them over the untilled, treeless prairies covered with tall, nodding sunflowers in all their gorgeous golden bloom,—blossoms which gave the State a name; and not infrequently their way would take them alongside a limpid river, in that happy season bank full from the frequent rains, where the winding road would be overhung by great trees.
They stopped at night at the different little towns through which their way passed, and once in a while they enjoyed the hearty welcome of a lone farm-house. Sometimes they hired a negro boy to drive the wagon from one stopping-place to another, while they mounted the two led horses and galloped over the prairie. Samuel rode well, but to see Sue Belle on that spirited young steed of hers was to see the perfection of dashing horsemanship. An instinctive judge of horse-flesh, she had bought that three-year-old herself. He was a chestnut sorrel with a white blaze on his face, and white forefeet, as handsome and spirited as his mistress. In honor of her native State, she called him Kentucky.
As they progressed farther and farther southwestward the land became more open, the farm-houses were greater distances apart, cultivated fields less frequent, the towns were fewer in number and diminishing in size, the rivers grew smaller and smaller, and trees almost vanished from the landscape. Finally, away out in Cimarron County, where the railroad stopped and civilization ended, they reached their journey's end. Such a wedding-trip they had enjoyed, such a honeymoon they had spent!
They bought a bit of flower-decked prairie, a quarter section crossed in one corner by a little creek flowing southward until it joined a larger steam flowing into the Arkansas River. The chosen land mostly lay on the south side of a slight elevation from which they could survey the grass-mantled plains melting into the unbroken horizon miles and miles away. The country about was entirely uncultivated and had been mainly given over to cattle-raising; it was a dozen miles to the nearest house and fifteen to the town of Apache, the county-seat.
How still was that vast expanse of gently undulating land of which they were the centre! An ocean caught in a quiet moment, and every smoothly rolling wave petrified, motionless. How vast was the firmament above them! To lie in the grass at night and stare up into its blue unclouded distance filled with stars—shone they ever so gloriously anywhere else on the globe?—was to reduce one's self to a vanishing point in the infinite universe of God. Lonely? Yes, to ordinary people, perhaps, but not to these two home-builders. They were young, they were together, they were lovers, and they had to do prosaic, God-given labor.
So they pitched their stakes upon the verdant hill, and, toiling early and late, built there for themselves and those to come a home. With iron share they tore the virgin sod; with generous hands they sowed the seed; with all the hope of youth and love bourgeoning and blossoming in their breasts, they began the earth-old process of wresting a living from the tillage of the soil. "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." So ran the primal truth. Ah, yes, but this time counted not a curse but a privilege, and enjoyed not without but within an Eden.
II.—THE SECOND FLIGHT
Spring-time again upon the farm, and they were bidding it good-by. Five years have dragged away, years filled with little but misfortune—years of freezing winters, burning summers, drought, or storm. Five lean years of failure, unprecedented but true. A long, deadly, paralyzing struggle with that terrible minatory face of nature which, thank God! is usually turned away from humanity, else we could not bear the sight. The sun had beaten upon the farm and burnt it up, the parasites had swarmed over the field and eaten it down, the winter cold had frozen the life out of it, the fierce storms had swept over it and torn it away,—winter and summer had been alike against them.
Last fall the deadly mortgage had grown from the little hand-breadth cloud until it had covered the land, blanketed it, blighted it, filled earth and sky to them. It was over. They had toiled for naught, and no profit had they taken of all their labor under the sun. They were beaten at last.
Once more the old Studebaker wagon. Within it a haggard, dogged, disappointed man,—yet indomitable; a woman still young, robbed forever of the brightness of youth, yet striving to nourish a spark of the old hope,—a mother, too. Two little children clung to her, healthy, lusty, strong, happy; they had neither known nor suffered. There was the same old team between the "tugs," sobered, quieted, saddened like their master, perhaps, and Kentucky. Kentucky was leaner than he should be, not so well nourished as they would like to have him, but his spirit was unabated. He, at least, had not been beaten down.
So they set forth again. "Once more into the breach," brave pair. Life insistently craves bread. Men must work; ay, and women too, though they may weep as well. There were the little children, oh, father and mother! treasure of health and teaching must be laid up for them. The old cause must be tried out yet again. Farewell to defeat, farewell to failure, farewell to the old. Let us stir up hope again, look forward into the future, deserve a triumph. All had been lost but love; that had not failed, and while God is it cannot. It is a mighty talisman with which to attempt the morrow. So armed, they started out again.
With one hundred dollars in his pocket, a small lot of household necessaries, a stove, some blankets, etc., and Kentucky, Samuel Maxwell and Sue Belle and the two children started out in the wagon again to have another wrestle with fortune. They determined to go to the Kansas-Indian Territory border and try to secure free land in Oklahoma Territory, which was to be opened for settlement that summer.
They hated the prairie where they had lived now. It was associated with their ruin, eloquent of their future. That season bade fair to be as bountiful a time as had been the year of their arrival, but they could not stay. They had pulled up the stakes, and nothing was left for them but to go on. Indeed, they were wishful to do so, and had they known that, as it happened, the five years of starvation, drought, and failure were to be succeeded by twice as many years of abounding plenty, they would not have stayed. They loathed the spot. They could not have remained anyway. Another man held the farm and succeeded where they had failed, reaping where they had sown.
It was late summer when they reached Solomon City, from which they had elected to make the run into the hitherto forbidden land. The place was filled with all sorts and conditions of men and women attracted by the possibility of getting a quarter section or a town lot practically free in the Cherokee strip; there were half a million of them on the border-line! And there, too, were congregated the human vultures that live to prey upon the crowd.
The distribution of the lots and sections was to be made on the principle of first come first served. All seekers for locations were to line up on the edge of the strip on a given date at a certain hour, and when a signal was given they were to rush into the Nation, drive a stake in a quarter section, or in a town lot at the places where the towns had previously been surveyed and lots plotted and staked out by the government, throughout the vast body of land in the Indian Territory thrown open for settlement. Then they were to hold their places, living in tents and shanties, until they could erect houses and prove their claims.
Samuel intended to ride Kentucky into the strip and take his chance at a town lot. He had had enough of farms. Not many miles below Solomon City, on the railroad running through the "strip,"—as the land was called,—the future town of Newlands had been laid out by the surveyors. It was a paper town as yet, but the day after the run would see it suddenly become a city, and good lots would probably be of value. If he could get a good one it might be worth several thousand dollars, and he could start again. It was a desperate chance, but he had to take it; there was nothing else.
Ill fortune was not yet done with them, however, for in scrambling down the bank of the river to get water for his team, the unfortunate man fell and broke his arm. He climbed up to the wagon, sank down on the dry grass beside it, and gave way. Sue Belle stood by with white face as the local doctor bound up his arm, but she did not cry. She felt that she had other things to do, that she must play the man, and that she could not indulge in the womanly luxury of weeping.
"I'm not crying, doctor, because it hurts," said Samuel, brushing away his tears with his uninjured arm; "but because this seems to be just the last straw in our bad luck. We were married five years ago, and we bought a farm in Cimarron. I'm a good farmer, I was born on a farm and raised on it, and I was trained in the Agricultural College in Kansas. I know the thing theoretically and practically, too, but everything failed us. We've lost everything, and we came here in the hope of getting something out of the strip. God's forgot us, I guess."
The doctor had seen many cases like that in the Southwest, and, though his heart was profoundly touched, he could do nothing.
That night Samuel lay awake in the wagon almost forgetting the pain in his arm wondering what would become of them. He had lugged out his old leather purse and counted the money that was left,—ten dollars! That was all that stood between them and starvation! The strip was to be opened to-morrow, the run would take place then. What, in God's name, could he do?
"Sam," said Sue Belle, lying awake by his side, "don't give way so!"
"Give way, dear!" he groaned. "How can I help it? Ten dollars between you and the children and starvation! This town here can't help any one. These people around us can't Look at them! They're as poor as we are. Five years of crop failure has hit them as hard as it has hit us. The run takes place to-morrow, and I can't ride. I did hope that I could get a town lot in Newlands. I don't believe that anything here can outrun Kentucky; but now—oh, my God! my God!"
"Sam dear, I'll ride Kentucky."
She spoke resolutely, having thought quickly, and her mind was made up.
"We've got no side-saddle," answered the man; "you know we sold it."
"I can ride astride," said the woman, having covered this point also in her mind. "I used to ride that way when I was a girl. I've done it hundreds of times, and I can make better time that way now."
"But, dear, you're a woman, and——"
"I can wear your clothes, dear. I'm almost as tall as you are. They'll be rather large, but——"
"Oh, Sue Belle, I can't allow you to go in there alone, in all that crowd, with——"
"I've got to do it, Sam! It's our last chance. It's for the children, not ourselves. We could die. We've done our best. But think of them!"
She rose from her bed and crept over to the back of the wagon where the little boy and girl lay sprawling side by side in the dreamless sleep of childhood. She pushed from the baby brows the curly hair matted with perspiration, and stooped and kissed them. She felt so strong, so brave, so resolute, as if the burden which she had hitherto shared with Samuel, or from which he had tried to spare her, had suddenly fallen upon her own shoulders, and in some strange way that she had been given strength to bear it.
Long time that night husband and wife talked over the situation. In the face of her determination the man could not do otherwise than give consent. In the morning, making him as comfortable as she could, she plodded up through the dust to the city and bought from the wondering shopkeeper a pair of high boots that fitted her, since it would be impossible for her to use her husband's huge ones. At Sam's insistent demand, she also hired for five dollars a poor stranded negro, who looked honest and faithful, to drive the wagon after her into the strip. That exhausted their ready money.
It was half after eleven o'clock when she returned to the wagon. The doctor had been there, and had done what he could for her fevered husband, but his arm still pained fearfully. He was up, however,—he had to be,—and seated on the dusty grass in the shadow of the canvas top. The children were playing about him. Bidding the negro boy hitch up the team, Sue Belle slipped under the wagon-cover and dropped the curtain. When she came out her tall form was encased in her husband's only remaining suit of clothes. She wore a soft felt hat with her hair tightly twisted under it. A loose shirt, trousers, and the new boots completed her costume. Womanlike, she had tied a blue silk handkerchief—last treasure-trove from her trousseau—around her neck. There was a painful flush upon her thin face and her eyes were filled with tears.
Samuel groaned and shook his head, the negro boy gazed with mouth wide open, his eyes rolling, and little Sue Belle shrank away from her mother garbed in this strange manner. Kentucky, who had been given the last measure of oats they possessed, did not recognize her until she spoke, and then he stared at her in a wondering way as she saddled and bridled him. A hatchet and a tent-peg tied securely to the saddle completed her preparations. By her husband's insistence she strapped a spur on her boot, although, as she said, she had never put a spur to Kentucky in her life.
"You may have to do it now, dear," said Maxwell, and to please him she complied.
Nobody paid any attention whatever to her, although the boundary was lined, as far as eye could see and for miles beyond, with crowds of people intending to make the run. On the very edge of the strip the runners had assembled on horseback or muleback, on bicycles, in buggies, sulkies, or in road wagons, and there were many dressed in jerseys and running shoes who intended to make the run on foot. Back of them in long lines were grouped wagons of all descriptions, mostly filled with women and children. All sorts and conditions of men were represented in the huge and motley throng.
It was a blazing hot day. The shifting horde raised clouds of dust above the line, from which the bare, treeless prairie stretched away southward for miles. There was not a soul on it except United States cavalrymen, who were spread out in a long line, each man being placed at a regular interval from his neighbor. To the front of the troopers, the captain in command sat his horse, holding his watch in his left hand to determine the correct time, while in his right he carried a cocked revolver.
Twelve o'clock was the appointed hour. The soldiers on either side held their loaded carbines poised carefully and looked toward the captain, or, if too far away to see him, toward the next in line who could. The signal for the start was to be given simultaneously over the whole extended strip, stretching for many miles along the Kansas border, by means of these troopers. No one was to move until the signal was given. The soldiers had scoured the country for days to evict the "sooners,"—those who had gone in before the appointed time and attempted to conceal themselves that they might secure the best lots.
Sue Belle turned and kissed the babies. Then she bent toward Samuel, but he rose painfully to his feet and stood flushed and feverish while he pressed her to his side with his sound arm.
"May God protect you, dear," he said, trembling with pain and agitation.
"He will! He will!" exclaimed the woman, fervently, strong in her endeavor. "Now be sure and have the wagon follow right after me. And you know the doctor said he'd get you taken in some place in town as soon as the run began; there'll be lots of room there then. I'm going to ride straight down to Newlands and try for a town lot. They'll find me there. They ought to be there by evening, and I'll manage somehow till then."
"But how'll you live till I get there?"
"I can cook or wash for hire; there'll be lots to do there, and I'll write to you at once. Don't worry about me, dear. I'm half crazy to think of leaving you ill and alone——"
"I wish you had a revolver, Sue Belle," groaned Samuel.
"I wish I had, too," answered the woman; "but never mind, we are in God's hands."
"Oh, Sue Belle, I can't let you go!"
"You must! I must go now! See! They're getting ready!"
She tore herself away from him and spoke to the colored boy.
"Joe," she said, "for God's sake, don't fail us! I leave you my two little children; if you guard them safely and bring them to me faithfully, whatever good fortune comes to us you shall share."
"'Deed I will, suh, ma'am, miss,—yes, suh," stammered the colored boy. "I'll tek good caah on 'em, mista—lady," he added, in his confusion.
III.—THE THIRD FLIGHT
Without another word the woman sprang on the horse and forced herself as near the line as she could. She had lost an opportunity of getting in the very front rank, but she knew her horse and did not care for that. It wanted perhaps a minute to twelve o'clock, and a silence settled down over the rude assemblage, although the excitement was at fever heat. Pushing and jostling would gain no advantage now. The gray old captain of cavalry sat his horse, intently gazing at his watch. The seconds dragged and the multitude waited breathlessly. Suddenly he closed it with a snap, lifted his pistol in the air, and before the smoke of the discharge blew away a quick volley rang along the line.
With a sort of a roar that echoed up into the heavens for miles the runners sprang forward. There was one mighty simultaneous surge of men and animals, and then the line began to break. In the cloud of dust that arose instantly, Maxwell, forgetful of his broken arm, strove vainly to follow with his gaze Sue Belle's flying figure. The next moment he noticed that the ground directly in front of him was deserted. An idea flashed into his mind. Regardless of his pain, he sprang to his feet, with his uninjured arm tore a loose bed-slat from the wagon, and, stepping across the line, thrust it into the finest quarter section of the strip. Nobody had thought of doing this. The land adjoined the town of Solomon City, and could probably be sold without delay for a good sum of money. It was his. They were saved!
Oh, why hadn't he thought of it before and prevented his wife from making the run? But it was too late; she was gone. Calling the negro, he had him take from the wagon a few of the boards which had been brought along for the purpose, and nail them together in a tent shape to make him a shelter. Laying a blanket and a quilt on the ground, and setting a bucket of water therein, he crawled under it, knowing that some one sent by the doctor would certainly come to him during the day, and determined to hold his claim if he died for it. Then he bade Joe load the children in the wagon, take them into the strip, tell his wife of his good fortune, and bid her come back to him, if she could.
What of the woman riding on with a broken heart, yet with a grim determination somehow to achieve fortune for her sick husband and her children? She kept Kentucky well in hand, and yet easily passed buggies, sulkies, runners, men on bicycles, and began to overtake the horsemen galloping southward over the prairie. At first the dust almost choked her. The man's saddle annoyed her, too; but as she got into clear air, and began to get accustomed to the strangeness of her position, she regained her self-control. She shook the reins lightly over the horse, and he lengthened his stride and quickened his speed, making swift progress for a long time.
Finally there was no one in front of her. To the right and left, as far as she could see, horsemen were galloping on; back of her they trailed in an ever-thinning mass. Most of them she was leaving rapidly. Kentucky was of racing stock. He was three-quarter-bred and game to the core. The sight of the other horses running by his side inspired him. He had been ridden in a wild dash across the prairie many a time, but never before in competition with other horses. He took to the race instinctively, and galloped on as if he had been trained to it from the beginning.
She had hard work to hold him, yet she knew she had a long ride before her, and if she did not keep him well in hand he would be blown before he went half the distance; so she held him down to it, riding warily, watching carefully for prairie-dog holes, for if the horse should thrust his leg into one he would break it, and that would be the end of him and her ride as well.
So she galloped on and on, still in the front line, and with every surging leap leaving some beaten runner behind. Now she drew ahead, now she led the whole vast throng, and now the horse was out of hand. He was running magnificently, but he had gotten away from her, not viciously, but in pure joy at being free in this mad race over the prairie. Presently she looked back. The nearest rider seemed to be half a mile behind her. It was not necessary for her to get so far ahead, and she tried again and again to check the horse, but without success.
Kentucky was running his own race now. How he swept through the air! It was magnificent! The exhilaration of the motion got into her blood. It was long since she had had such a ride. She, too, came of racing stock, and the habit of her sires reasserted itself in her being. For a moment she forgot Samuel, forgot the children. She forgot everything but that wide open prairie, the wind blowing across her face, the rapid rise and fall of the horse as he raced madly on. Youth came back to her and the joy of life; failure lay behind, success before. Her heart beat faster in her breast. Kentucky gallantly carried her forward. How long had she been riding? She could not tell. They were not at Newlands yet, she was certain, so she raced away. After a long time she looked back and was astonished to see two riders nearer to her than any had been when she had looked before; all the rest were miles behind.
The men were mounted on broncos,—the horsepar excellenceof the West,—wild, vagrant descendants of old Spanish breeds; animals without blood, without birth, without beauty, without style, without training, mean and vicious in disposition; utterly useless for a short dash, and in an ordinary race unable to approach a thoroughbred; but with a brutal, indomitable spirit, a capacity for unlimited endurance and tireless ability to run long distances and live on nothing, and do it day after day, which made them formidable and dangerous competitors for all other horses of whatsoever quality. They were loping along after her with an ugly yet very rapid gait, which they could keep up all day if necessary.
Sue Belle thought Kentucky's stride was not quite so sweeping as it had been; he seemed to be a little tired; still, he was doing his best manfully. Although he yet held the lead, he was not built for this kind of a run. She realized it, but there was nothing she could do to husband his strength, nothing left her but to gallop on. And yet there was lots of go in him yet. He was by no means done.
The prairie rolled away back of them as it was compassed by the flying feet, and still the mighty ride went on. The first bronco was nearer now. He was not quite a mile away, but the second was a longer distance behind the first and falling back. The rest were nowhere. Of all the throng only these three were in sight. Kentucky was very tired. Surely they must be near Newlands now! The other horse was coming up fast. She shook out the reins and called to her own. The pursuer was nearer! He was so near that at last Kentucky realized that he was being pursued. They were almost there! In front of them on the horizon she saw the land-office, the station, and the hundreds of white stakes marking the lots of the town.
The other horse was almost beside her now. Well, suppose he did win the race? There were hundreds of lots there, and the second choice would probably be as good as the first. Should she let him pass? No! That was not the Kentucky way. Should the horse do it? No, again. She leaned forward over the saddle and spoke to him; she drove the spur into him at last. The surprised horse bounded into the air with a sudden access of vigor, and he fairly leaped away from the bronco. It was his final effort; when this spurt was ended he would be done for. Would it be enough?
The surprised horse bounded into the air with a sudden access of vigor
The surprised horse bounded into the air with a sudden access of vigor
In her excitement she turned and shouted back to the man, she knew not what, waving her hat in disdain. Presently she turned into what appeared to be the main street. Instinctively as they ran along she chose what seemed to be the best lot in the prospective city, and then reined in her panting, exhausted horse; she sprang to the ground, tore the peg and hatchet from the saddle-bow, and drove the stake in the lot. Not a moment too soon, with not a second to spare, she had won the race! The wild bronco came thundering upon her heels. The man jerked his horse to his haunches by the side of the triumphant thoroughbred, dropped a rein to the ground to keep him, sprang from the saddle, and stepped toward her.
"I want that there lot!" he said, roughly. "It's the best lot in the place. You kin take somethin' else."
Sue Belle rose to her feet. Her hat had fallen off in the wild ride and her black hair floated over her shoulders. Excitement had put a light in her eyes, color in her cheeks. She looked handsome, almost young again,—altogether beautiful. The man was right. She could see that she had succeeded in getting the best lot in the city. As she stood up the man stared at her wonderingly. He was a cowboy,—fringed trousers, bearskin chaparejos, loose shirt, broad hat, Mexican spurs, and all.
"Good God!" he shouted. "It's a woman!"
"Yes, I am a woman," answered Sue Belle, desperately.
"Well, I'm d——d!" he burst out.
"You've ordered me away from the lot, but——" she went on, heedless of his interruption.
"Well, gimme a kiss, sis, an' you kin stay on it," said the man, with a hideous leer.
Sue Belle looked around desperately. She was practically alone on the prairie save for this man and the other one, now about a mile distant. The station and land-office were too far away for her to summon assistance from them. She was absolutely helpless, entirely in this man's power.
"Will you let me alone if I do?" she asked, at last.
"Oh, come, now, you're too pretty to be left alone, my dear," said the man, coming closer.
Resisting the impulse to shriek, she faced him hatchet in hand. With swift feminine instinct she comprehended him in a glance. He was just an ordinary kind of a cowboy, bad when his bad side was uppermost, but capable of all sorts of nobility and self-sacrifice if his good side could be reached. She thought swiftly then,—she had to. She made up her mind to appeal to him.
"Wait," she said; "don't come nearer until I speak to you. You're right, I am a woman. I have a husband and two children. We had a little fortune which we put into a farm in Cimarron County five years ago. Through a succession of misfortunes we've lost every dollar. We have nothing except a team and this horse. We came down here to try to get something for our children. Yesterday my husband fell and broke his arm. He was going to ride in here. He could not do it. I had to make the run in place of him. I left him alone, back there on the edge of the strip, with his broken arm. With the last ten dollars we had on earth I bought these boots and employed a negro boy whom I never saw before to bring my little children after me. I want this lot. I won it fairly. It's the best lot in the town. But you are a man; you are stronger than I. You may—" she flushed painfully, "kiss me if you must,—if you will give me your word of honor that after that you will leave me this lot. You understand that I—I—only submit to it—for the sake of the children and for my poor husband."
Her eyes were full of tears now, as she clasped her hands, looked at him appealingly, and waited with burning face, trembling lips, and heaving bosom.
"Ma'am," said the cowboy, his face also flushing under his tan, as he took off his sombrero, "I don't want no kiss. Leastways, I don't take no kiss under these circumstances. You kin have that there lot. I jist rode in yere fer the fun of the thing. I don't want no lot nohow. What'd I do with it? Sell it fer booze. You beat me on the square, though if it had been five miles farther I'd a beat you. Them Kentucky hosses—I 'low he's a Kentucky hoss?—ain't no good fer long-distance runnin' side this flea-bitten bronc. I don't want no lot noways. You stay right here on that there lot, an' fer fear less'n somebody might come along an' try to make you give it up, I'll stay with you with my gun handy."
"Thank you and God bless you," said Sue Belle, gratefully, looking at him with swimming eyes.
Then she put her head down on Kentucky's saddle, where the horse stood cropping the short grass, threw her arm around his neck, and sobbed as if her heart would break. The cowboy surveyed her in astonishment and terror; but, before he could say anything, the second man came racing up.
"Well, you two young fellows have the best lots in the place, I suppose. I'll have to take what's left," said the newcomer, cheerfully. "Great Jupiter! what's that fellow crying about?"
"'Taint a feller," said the cowboy, "it's a female, a woman."
"A woman!" exclaimed the other. "Say, you cowboy," with an ugly look on his face, "have you been making a woman cry?"
"Say, you cowboy, have you been making a woman cry?"
"Say, you cowboy, have you been making a woman cry?"
"I reckon I hev," answered the cowboy, nonchalantly.
"You infernal——" exclaimed the man, stepping toward him.
"Oh!" cried Sue Belle, raising her head, "he didn't. I'm crying for joy!"
As he caught sight of her the man bowed instantly toward her with the grace of a gentleman who recognized under any accident of clothes a lady.
"My husband is ill," said Sue Belle, swiftly divining another friend, one of another class, too; "he broke his arm yesterday, and I had to take our horse and ride here for him and the two little children, and this gentleman——"
"Lord!" said the cowboy, "I ain't no gent. I'm a cow-puncher."
"This gentleman came after me and promised to protect me from everybody. And that is why I cried."
"Sir," said the second man, extending his hand, "I beg your pardon for my suspicions. You are a gentleman."
"Nobody never called me one before," growled the cowboy, much embarrassed, shaking the proffered hand awkwardly but heartily. "I don't care fer no lot myself an' I'm goin' to hold this lot next to hern fer the little kids."
"Well, that's just about what I came for, too. I'm a student, a senior at Columbia College, New York, madam," he said, turning to Sue Belle, "out here for the summer to look after some of my father's Kansas property. I thought I'd run down here just for the fun of it. You said you had two children, did you not?"
"Yes, sir."
"Allow me. I will hold the lot on the other side of you for the other one. So you see, with this gentleman and myself, you will be surrounded and protected by the east and the west."
Before the afternoon was half gone all the lots in Newlands had been appropriated, lumber had been brought in, portable houses and tents erected, saloons opened, a daily paper started, and the young Bishop of Oklahoma was on the ground organizing a church; the place was actually assuming the appearance of a city even in so short a time. The story of Sue Belle's ride had been told everywhere by her gallant flankers, and by common consent the focus of activity for the city of Newlands was centred about those three lots. The happy, grateful woman could have sold them a hundred times at an increasing price had she chosen to do so.
Late in the afternoon Joe came up with the wagon and the children. He had been faithful to his trust. Sue Belle was very much frightened when she learned that her husband had secured a claim. She knew he would endeavor to hold it, and she feared extremely for him lying ill and alone on the prairie. Leaving the children in the care of some of the women who had followed their husbands on the trail, with the promise of the whole town that her three lots would be held inviolate for her, accompanied by her two faithful, self-constituted guardians, she mounted the refreshed Kentucky again and rode back to her husband, lying alone, half delirious, in his shed on the prairie, clinging desperately to his quarter section.
Thus the tide changed at last and now came flooding in with fortune.
PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMAN
THE END OF A FRONTIER TELL
"I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women."The Bible
"I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women."
The Bible
There were but two women in the camp, Martie was one of them, and Martie was the cause of it. The statement that it was on account of her they quarrelled, and it was through the quarrel the terrible state of affairs was brought about, cannot be denied.
Martie and her mother—her mother was the other woman in the camp, and, except that she had been responsible for Martie years before, she didn't particularly count—had come to the rough little mining settlement with Martie's father, a mining engineer, who represented certain speculative holdings in the East which needed personal attention.
Before they arrived the camp had been a fairly peaceable one: the boys got drunk just about so often, once in a while there was a shooting affair, but Medicine Dog was as orderly a camp as might have been found in Colorado, until Martie came. It was a serpent, I believe, that introduced the trouble in the Garden of Eden. I wonder what the wild beasts thought of the advent of Eve. At any rate, Martie first reformed and then disorganized Medicine Dog.
Following her arrival there was an ebullition of "boiled shirts,"—come by express in response to telegraphic communications with Denver, the first evidence of the reform. This was followed by the influx of a lone Chinaman, imported for the reboiling of the said shirts, his life, liberty, and the peaceful pursuit of his vocation over the tubs being guaranteed him by the camp, the second evidence of the reform. There was a consequent amelioration of manners, proportioned to the prevalence of shirt bosom, too. "Boiled shirts"—I use the language of the camp—are the beginning of that civilization of which "plug hats" are the end. Medicine Dog never got that far, except in its dreams; even Martie was not quite equal to promoting the "plug hat."
The saloon, too, felt the good—or evil, according to the point of view—effect of Martie's presence, and the wonderful part of it was that Big Sam, who dispensed liquor, profanity, and on occasions, if necessary, bullets from his "Colt's 45," from behind the bar, bore the situation philosophically. He was as much under Martie's sway as anybody else. That was the last evidence of the reform. And when a preacher—a wandering missionary—came along, Big Sam cheerfully, if temporarily, suspended business one Sunday morning and they had services in the saloon, the preacher on the counter to conduct them, and Martie on a table where they could all see her, with a portable organ to lead the singing.
That was the only time Martie's presence graced the saloon. The effect of her presence there was lasting. The boys could hardly swallow their whiskey during that or the next day.
"It tastes as if it had sugar in it," said Dan Casey, mournfully, subtly referring to the sweetening effect of Martie's visit. When it came to choosing between Martie and whiskey, the difficulties of the situation were enough to appall the stoutest heart in Medicine Dog.
Casey signified his change of heart in the matter of clothing by trimming his beard—there was no barber in the camp yet—and by adding a green tie to his shirt, and when MacBurns appeared with a yellow silk streamer across his bestarched bosom, Casey took it as a direct reflection upon his religious and political views, and for a time Medicine Dog threatened to resume its pristine liveliness.
The quarrel was compromised by Martie; for when she artfully caused the news to be circulated that she doted on red or blue ties and could not abide green or yellow ones, Casey and MacBurns discarded the colors of their choice and settled the affair by wearing Martie's.
Martie wore those colors herself. She was the reddest-cheeked, bluest-eyed, and bonniest girl that had ever come across the mountains, so Medicine Dog swore unanimously, at any rate. As occasion served, the various members of the camp maintained Martie's cause with strenuous and generally fatal effect to various gentlemen from other camps who were rashly inclined to question the assertion. Martie would have shone anywhere in the open air, and in womanless Medicine Dog she was a heroine, a queen. That was the beginning of disorganization, too.
The two men hardest hit were Jack Elliott and Dick Sanderson. Elliott was a jolly, happy-go-lucky fellow born in the East, Sanderson a quieter man from the middle West, who complemented his companion admirably. They worked a rich claim together on the mountain side with good results. They were steady-going fellows and both were dead shots with the rifle. They were great-hearted young men, who loved each other with an affection that some men develop under certain circumstances for one another until a woman intervenes. Martie intervened. Both men fell in love with her, and as they were men of education,—being fellow-graduates of the old University of Pennsylvania,—they were not content with the mere blind adoration which the rest of Medicine Dog exhibited. They wanted Martie, and as the days grew longer and they knew her better, they wanted her more and more.
Each man dreamed dreams of a house on the mountain side overlooking the camp with Martie as its mistress and with himself as titular, if not actual, master. There had never been a wedding celebrated in the valley, and they were both united upon the desirability of having one. Each one, however, wanted to be the bridegroom!
Martie recognized the difference between these two men and the rest of the camp, although in no way did they hold themselves aloof from the general society of Medicine Dog—that would not have been tolerated by the rest of the boys. She realized that either of them might legitimately aspire to her hand, for they were in an entirely different category from the rude, humble, faithful adorers like Big Sam and Casey and the boys, and Martie loved one of them.
But Martie was a coquette. It wasn't in a girl of Martie's temperament to be otherwise in a camp with a hundred men in love with her, the only other woman being Martie's mother, and she didn't count when Martie was around. And by degrees that which neither of the men wished, which both of them would fain have avoided, was brought about. There was a dissolution of partnership, a rupture of old associations, a shattering of ancient friendship. As is always the case, where both had loved, they now hated.
I said that they were both good shots with the rifle. That hardly describes their capacities. If the mine had failed, they could have earned a fortune on any vaudeville stage. One of their "stunts"—as the boys called it—was really remarkable. Such was their confidence in each other that when one balanced a little can of whiskey on his head and the other bored a hole through it neatly with his rifle at a distance of sixty yards and upward the spectators hardly knew whether to admire the nerve of the can-holder or that of the marksman the more; although Casey deprecated the performance on account of the liability of the whiskey to go to waste! They shot equally well, and sometimes the one and sometimes the other held the target. It had grown an old story to Medicine Dog, but strangers always wanted to see the feat performed. After the rupture between them they did it no more, of course.
It was Martie who had separated them and it was Martie who brought them together again. Both men paid assiduous court to her, and she positively refused under any circumstances to give either a final answer until they became friends once more and swore to accept her decision without prejudice to that friendship. Martie was a power, and she had her way.
A reconciliation was effected, and the two men went back to work on their joint claim.
Still, Martie hesitated over that decision. Some intuition told her that no promise would avail against the satisfaction on the one hand and the disappointment on the other when she made a choice; but make it she must, and finally, after much hesitation, she announced that she chose Sanderson. His joy could not quite obliterate in her mind the impression caused by Elliott's grief. Elliott was too much of a man, however, to make any open outcry. He believed that if Sanderson had been out of the way he would have been successful, and his belief was probably correct; but the matter had been decided, and he swallowed his disappointment as best he might and bore Sanderson's triumph in silence.
A sporty stranger came to Medicine Dog one day shortly after the engagement was announced, and the conversation in the saloon turned upon the marksmanship of the camp. Medicine Dog prided itself on the ability of Elliott and Sanderson. The stranger was incredulous, and wagers were made and the boys repaired in a body to the Elliott-Sanderson claim and told of the bets. Neither man was anxious for the test, but for the honor of the camp, and because of the disappointment of the boys themselves, they felt that they could not refuse. Each volunteered to hold the can and each urged the other to shoot. Finally they agreed to decide the matter by tossing a coin,—the usual method of settling mooted points.
Fate appointed Elliott to use the rifle. He seized the weapon and started up the trail to get his distance. In that same moment a grim and ghastly temptation, proportioned in its appeal to the strength of his passion, entered his soul. If he killed Sanderson the field would be free. Martie's affections were not so deeply engaged but that she might be won. The idea whitened his lips and blanched his face and shook his hand, and it occurred at the same moment to Sanderson. He realized, as he walked across the clearing and backed up against a tree, the possibilities of the situation, and his own dark face went as white as that of his companion. But he was game. His emotion was not fear,—at least not fear for himself,—or if it were fear, it was for Elliott. As he prepared to receive the shot he prayed—and he was not a praying man; nobody much at Medicine Dog was in the habit of praying then—that Elliott might be equal to resisting the terrible demand.
As for Elliott, his soul was torn in a perfect tempest. He could see nothing but the fact that there before him was the man who had won the object for which he would have given his soul, that the man was unarmed, that if he shot him no power on earth could ever connect him with the crime of murder, for he could swear that it was an accident. The best of marksmen sometimes make blunders; all do not shoot with the continued accuracy of a William Tell. Satan possessed the man's soul for the moment. Ay, it was the woman who had tempted the man,—so it was in the Garden of Eden,—but this time a woman innocent and unwitting. Poor little Martie! She could not help it, after all.
These thoughts crowded the minds of the two men as they took their stations. Elliott faced Sanderson and slowly raised his rifle. By a violent effort he mastered his trembling as he glanced along the polished barrel and drew the exquisite bead upon the little black spot on the can where he was to send the bullet.
There was something in the air, in the attitude of the two men, in the situation, which suddenly broke upon the consciousness of the onlookers. They shifted uneasily. Finally Big Sam burst out, amid a chorus of approval:
"For God's sake, Elliott, don't shoot! You're not in the mood to-day, old man. We'll willin'ly lose the bet. Give the stranger his money, boys."
It was Sanderson who broke the silence.
"What are you afraid of, Sam?" he cried, taking the can in his hands. "By Heaven, the man doesn't live," he shouted, translating everybody's thought in his impetuosity, "that dare charge my partner with foul play!"
"No, no, of course not," came in expostulation from the crowd of spectators.
"That's right, then," said Sanderson, calmly. "Go ahead, Jack. I'll trust you."
He lifted the can again to his head, folded his arms, and faced his friend, a little smile on his lips.
Once more Elliott lifted his gun, which he had dropped during the conversation. This time his nerves were quite steady. He glanced along the barrel again. Should he send a shot into that smiling face?—his friend's face? A moment would determine. He aimed long and carefully at the target he had selected.
The smile would have died away from Sanderson's face had he not fixed it there with a horrible effort. Elliott again so lingered over his aim that the men once more started to interfere. The tense situation was more than they could bear. What was the matter?
Suddenly the devil that had possessed him released the miner. Elliott's love for man passed his love for woman. He forgot Martie as he faced Sanderson. His courage came back to him and his clearness of vision.
He dropped his rifle, and before any one could stop him, although Sanderson screamed, "For God's sake, Jack, don't do it!" and the men surged toward him, he whipped out his pistol, pointed it at his own breast, pulled the trigger, and fell bleeding from a mortal wound through the right lung.
"Men," he gasped out brokenly, "you're right—I was going to kill—him—on account of—Martie, you know, but—but he trusted me and—I could—not. Yet I'm a murderer—in the—sight of God—and my punishment—is—this. Dick—don't tell Martie."
There was a look of peace on his face as they gathered around him. They drew back a little as Dick Sanderson knelt down and took him in his arms.
"Jack, Jack!" he sobbed, "I knew your temptation, but I knew you wouldn't shoot me, old man. You were braver than I. I don't know what would have happened if the coin had flipped my way. Oh, Jack, I wish to God you had killed me!"
"Now—I'm—forgiven," whispered Elliott, feebly, lifting his hand toward the other, and then he smiled, and then it was all over.
"Gentlemen," said Sanderson, crying like a baby, as he rose to his feet, "he died for me."
"And for Martie," added Casey.
"Yes, and for Martie."
"Stranger," said Big Sam, turning to the man who had made the wager, "the money is yourn. I wish to God we'd never bet!"
"Gentlemen," said the stranger, "I don't take no money from no gents w'ich is won under them circumstances, but if you gents'll come down to the saloon and likker with me——"
"That's handsome of you, stranger, but we don't none of us git no likker in this camp to-day. That there saloon closes in Medicine Dog until arter the funeral of the finest and whitest-hearted gentleman and the best shot that ever lived in this camp," said Big Sam, turning mournfully away.