Judith of the Plains, Page 2

  II

  The Encounter

  Simpson, from the seat to which he had been so rapidly transplanted,looked about him with blinking anxiety. It was more than probable that theboys intended "to have fun with him," though his talking, or rather tryingto talk, to a girl that sat opposite him at an eating-house table was,according to his ethics, plainly none of their business. He knew he wasn'tpopular since he had done for Jim Rodney's sheep, though the crime hadnever been laid at his door, officially. He had his way to make, the sameas the next one; and, all said and done, the cattle-men were glad to getJim Rodney's sheep off the range, even if they treated him as a felon forthe part he had played in their extermination.

  Thus reasoned Simpson, while he marked with an uneasy eye that the temperof the company had grown decidedly prankish with the exit of the girl,who, after having caused all the trouble, had, with an irritating qualitypeculiar to her sex, vanished through the kitchen door.

  Some three or four of the boys now ran to Simpson's former seat at thetable and rushed towards him with his half-eaten breakfast, as if theerrand had been one of life and death. They showered him with mockattentions, waiting on him with an exaggerated deference, and the pale,fat man, remembering the hideousness of some of their manifestations of asense of humor, breathed hard and felt a falling-off of appetite.

  Costigan, the cattle-man, a strapping Irish giant, was clearing his throatwith ominous sounds that suggested the tuning-up of a bass fiddle.

  "Sure, Simpson, me lad, if ye happen to have a matther av fifty dollars,'tis mesilf that can tell ye av an illegint invistmint."

  Simpson looked up warily, but Costigan's broad countenance did not harborthe wraith of a smile. "What kin I git for fifty chips? 'Tain't much,"mused the pariah, with the prompt inclination to spend that stamps thecomparative stranger to ready money.

  "Ye can git a parrut, man--a grane parrut--to kape ye coompany while ye'reaiting--"

  Simpson interrupted with an oath.

  "Don't be hard on old Simmy; remember he's studied for the ministry! Howdid I savey that Simpson aimed to be a sharp on doctrine?" A cow-puncherwith a squint addressed the table in general. "I scents the aroma of dogmaabout Simpson in the way he throwed his conversational lariat at theyearling. He urbanes at her, and then comes his 'firstly,' it being aspeculation as to her late grazing-ground, which he concludes to be theEast. His 'secondly' ain't nothing startling, words familiar to us allfrom our mother's knee--'nice weather'--the congregation ain't visiblymoved. His 'thirdly' is insinuating. In it he hints that it ain't good forman to be alone at meals--"

  "'Twas the congregation that added the 'foinelly,' though, before hastilyleaving be the back door!" and Costigan slapped his thigh.

  "The gentleman in question don't seem to be makin' much use of his presentconversational opportunities. I'm feelin' kinder turned down myself"; andthe Texan began to look over his six-shooter.

  The man with the squint looked up and down the board.

  "Gentlemen, I believe the foregoing expresses the sentiment of thiscompany, which, while it incloodes many foreign and frequent-warringelements, is at present held together by the natchral tie of eating."

  Thumping with knife and fork handles, stamping of feet, cries of "Hear!hear!" with at least three cow-boy yells, argued well for a resumption oflast night's festivities. Simpson glowered, but said nothing.

  "Seems to me you-all goin' the wrong way 'bout drawin' Mistu' Simpson out.He is shy an' has to be played fo' like a trout, an' heah you-all come athim like a cattle stampede." The big Texan leaned towards Simpson. "Nowyou-all watch my methods. Mistu' Simpson, seh, what du think of theprospects of rain?"

  There was a general recommendation from Simpson that the entire company goto a locality below the rain-belt.

  A boy, plainly "from the East," and looking as if the ink on hisgraduating thesis had scarce had time to dry, was on his feet, swaggering;he would not have swapped his newly acquired _camaraderie_ with thesebronzed Westerners for the Presidency.

  "Gentlemen, you have all heard Simpson say it is lonesome having no one totalk to during meals. We sympathized with him and offered him a choice ofsubjects. He greets our remarks by a conspicuous silence, varied byprofanity. This, gentlemen, reflects on us, and is a matter demandingpublic satisfaction. All who feel that their powers as conversationalistshave been impugned by the silence of Simpson, please say 'Ay.'"

  "Ay" was howled, sung, and roared in every note of the gamut.

  "If me yoong frind here an me roight"--and Costigan jerked a shouldertowards the boy--"will be afther closin' that silf-feeding automaticdictionary av his for a moment, I shud be glad to call the attintion avthe coomp'ny to somethin' in the nature av an ixtinuatin' circoomsthancein the case av Simpson."

  "Hear! hear!" they shouted. The broad countenance of Costigan beamed withjoy at what he was about to say. "Gintlemin, the silence av Mr. Simpson isjew in all probabilitee to a certain ivint recalled by many here prisint,an' more that's absent, an' amicablee settled out av coort--"

  Up to this time the unhappy Simpson had shown an almost superhumanendurance. Now he bristled--and after looking up and down the board for asympathetic face, and not finding one, he declared, loudly and generally,"'Tain't so!"

  "Ye may have noticed that frind Simpson do be t'reatened wid lockjaw inthe societee av min, but in the prisince av a female ye can't count onhim. Now, talk wid a female is an agreeable, if not a profitable, way avpassin' the toime, but sure ye niver know where it will ind--as witnessSimpson. This lady I'm recallin'--'tis a matther av two years ago--followedthe ancient and honorable profission av biscuit shootin' not far fromCaspar. Siz Simpson to the lady some such passin' civilitee as,'Good-marnin'; plisent weather we're havin'.' Whereupon the lady filt adamage to her affictions an' sued him for breach av promise."

  "'Twan't that way, at all!" screamed Simpson. "'Sall a lie!"

  "Yu ought er said 'Good-evenin'' to the lady, Mistu Simpson; hit make adiffunce," drawled the man from Texas, pleasantly.

  "But 'twas 'Good-marnin'' Simpson made chyce av," resumed Costigan. "An'the lady replied, 'You've broke my heart.' Whereupon Simpson, havin' amatther av t'ree thousand dollars to pay for his passin' civilitee,learned thot silince was goolden."

  They all remembered the incident in question, and thundered applause atthe reappearance of an old favorite. Without warning, a shadow fell acrossthe sunlight-flooded room, and, as one after another of the men glanced upfrom the table, they saw standing in the doorway a man of such malignantaspect that his look fell across the company like a menace. The swing oftheir banter slowed suddenly; it was as if the cold of a new-turned gravehad struck across the June sunshine checking their roughshod fun. None ofthem had the hardihood to joke with a man that stood in the shadow ofdeath; and hate and murder looked from the eyes of the man in the doorwayand looked towards Simpson. One by one they perceived the man of theshadow, all but Simpson, eating steak drowned in Worcestershire.

  The man in the doorway was tall and lean, and the prison blench upon hisface was in unpleasant contrast to the ruddy tan of the faces about thetable. His sombrero was tipped back and the hair hung dank about the pale,sweating forehead, suggestive of sickness. But weak health did not implyweak purpose; every feature in that hawk-like face was sharp with hatred,and in the narrowing eye was vengeance that is sweet.

  He stood still; there was in his hatred a something hypnotic that grewimperceptibly and imperceptibly communicated itself to the men at table.He gloated over the eating fat man as if he had dwelt much in imaginationon the sight and was in no hurry to curtail his joy at the reality. Themen began to get restless, shuffle their feet, moisten their lips; onlythe college boy spoke, and then from a wealth of ignorance, knowingnothing of the rugged, give-and-take justice of the plains--an eye for aneye, a tooth for a tooth, and the law and the courts go hang while a man'sgot a right arm to pull a trigger. Not one in all that company, even thecattle-men whose interests were oppo
sed to Rodney's, but felt the justiceof his errand.

  "When did they let him out?" whispered the college boy; and then,"Oughtn't we to do something?"

  "Yis, me son," whispered Costigan. "We ought to sit still and learn athing or two."

  The fat man cleaned his plate with a crust of bread stuck on the point ofa knife. There was nothing more to eat in the way of substantials, and hedebated pouring a little more of the sauce on his plate and mopping itwith a bit of bread still uneaten. Considering the pro and con of thisextra tid-bit, he glanced up and saw the gaunt man standing in thedoorway.

  Simpson dropped the knife from his shaking hand and started up with a crythat died away in a gurgle, an inhuman, nightmare croak. He looked aboutwildly, like a rat in a trap, then backed towards the wall. The men aboutthe table got up, then cleared away in a circle, leaving the fat man. Itwas all like a dream to the college boy, who had never seen a thing of thekind before and could not realize now that it was happening. Rodneyadvanced, never once relaxing the look in which he seemed to hold hisenemy as in a vise. Simpson was like a man bewitched. Once, twice, he madea grab for his revolver, but his right hand seemed to have lost power toheed the bidding of his will. Rodney, now well towards the centre of theroom, waited, with a suggestion of ceremony, for Simpson to get hissix-shooter.

  It was one of those moments in which time seems to have become petrified.The limp-clad proprietress of the eating-house, made curious by the suddensilence, looked in from the kitchen. Simpson, his eyes wandering like atrapped rat, saw, and called, through teeth that chattered in an ague offear, "Ree--memm--her thth--there's la--dies p--present! For Gawd's sake,remember t--there's ladies p--present!"

  The pale man looked towards the kitchen, and, seeing the woman, he gaveSimpson a look in which there was only contempt. "You've hid behind thelaw once, and this time it's petticoats. The open don't seem to have nocharm for you. But--" He didn't finish, there was no need to. Every oneknew and understood. He put up his revolver and walked into the street.

  The men broke into shouts of laughter, loud and ringing, then doubled upand had it out all over again. And their noisy merriment was as clear anindication of the suddenly lifted strain, at the averted shooting, as itwas of their enjoyment of the farce. Simpson, relieved of the fear ofsudden death, now sought to put a better face on his cowardice. Now thathis enemy was well out of sight, Simpson handled his revolver with easyassurance.

  "Put ut up," shouted Costigan, above the general uproar. "'Tis toime tofear a revolver in the hands av Simpson whin he's no intinsions avshootin'."

  Simpson still attempted to harangue the crowd, but his voice was lost inthe general thigh-slapping and the shouts and roars that showed no signsof abating. But when he caught a man by the coat lapel in his efforts tosecure a hearing, that was another matter, and the man shook him off as ifhis touch were contagion. Simpson, craving mercy on account of petticoats,evading a meeting that was "up to him," they were willing to stand as alaughing-stock, but Simpson as an equal, grasping the lapels of theircoats, they would have none of.

  He slunk away from them to a corner of the eating-house, feeling thestigma of their contempt, yet afraid to go out into the street where hisenemy might be waiting for him. Much of death and blood and recklessness"Town" had seen and condoned, but cowardice was the unforgivable sin. Itbalked the rude justice of these frontiersmen and tampered with theircode, and Simpson knew that the game had gone against him.

  "What was it all about? Were they in earnest, or was it only their way ofamusing themselves?" inquired Mary Carmichael, who had slipped into Mrs.Clark's kitchen after the men at the table had taken things in hand.

  "Jim Rodney was in earnest, an' he had reason to be. That man Simpson waspaid by a cattle outfit--now, mind, I ain't sayin' which--to get JimRodney's sheep off the range. They had threatened him and cut the throatsof two hundred of his herd as a warning, but Jim went right on grazin''em, same as he had always been in the habit of doing. Well, I'm told theyup and makes Simpson an offer to get rid of the sheep. Jim has over fivethousand, an' it's just before lambing, and them pore ewes, all heavy, isbeing druv' down to Watson's shearing-pens, that Jim always shears at. Jiman' two herders and a couple of dawgs--least, this is the way I heard it--isdrivin' 'em easy, 'cause, as I said before, it's just before lambing. Itdoes now seem awful cruel to me to shear just before lambing, but that'stheir way out here.

  "Well, nothing happens, and Jim ain't more'n two hours from the pens an'he comes to that place on the road that branches out over the top of acanon, and there some one springs out of a clump of willows an' dashesinto the herd and drives the wether that's leading right over the cliff.The leaders begin to follow that wether, and they go right over the clifflike the pore fools they are. The herder fired and tried to drive 'emback, they tell me, an' he an' the dawg were shot at from the clump ofwillows by some one else who was there. Three hundred sheep had gone overthe cliff before Jim knew what was happening. He rode like mad rightthrough the herd to try and head 'em off; but you know what sheep islike--they're like lost souls headin' for damnation. Nothing can stop 'emwhen they're once started. And Jim lost every head--started for theshearing-pens a rich man--rich for Jim--an' seen everything he had sweptaway before his eyes, his wife an' children made paupers. My son he comeby and found him. He said that Jim was sittin' huddled up in a heap, hisknees drawed up under his chin, starin' straight up into the noonday sky,same as if he was askin' God how He could be so cruel. His dead dawg, thatthey had shot, was by the side of him. The herder that was with Jim hadtaken the one that was shot into Watson's, so when my son found Jim he wasalone, sittin' on the edge of the cliff with his dead dawg, an' the skyabout was black with buzzards; an' Jim he just sat an' stared up at 'em,and when my son spoke to him he never answered any more than a dead man.He shuck him by the arm, but Jim just sat there, watchin' the sun, thebuzzards, and the dead sheep."

  "Was nothing done to this man Simpson?"

  "The cattle outfit that he done the dirty work for swore an alibi for him.Jim has been in hard luck ever since. He's been rustlin' cattle rightalong; but Lord, who can blame him? He got into some trouble down toRawlins--shot a man he thought was with Simpson, but who wasn't--and he'sbeen in jail ever since. Course now that he's out Simpson's bound to getpeppered. Glad it didn't happen here, though. 'Twould be a kind ofunpleasant thing to have connected with a eating-house, don't you thinkso?" she inquired, with the grim philosophy of the country.

  The eating-house patrons had gone their several ways, and the quiet of thedining-room was oppressive by contrast with its late boisterousness. Mrs.Clark, her hands imprisoned in bread-dough, begged Mary to look over thescreen door and see if anything was happening. "I'm always suspicious whenit's quiet. I know they're in deviltry of some sort."

  Mary tiptoed to the door and peeped over, but the room was deserted, savefor Simpson, huddled in a corner, biting his finger-nails. "The nastything!" exploded Mrs. Clark, when she had received the bulletin. "I'd turnhim out if it wasn't for the notoriety he might bring my place in gettin'killed in front of it."

  "I dare say I'd better go and see after my trunk; it's still on thestation platform." Mary wondered what her prim aunts would think of herfor sitting in Mrs. Clark's kitchen, but it had seemed so much more of arefuge than the sordid streets of the hideous little town, with its drovesof men and never a glimpse of a woman that she had been only too glad toavail herself of the invitation of the proprietress to "make herself athome till the stage left."

  "Well, good luck to you," said Mrs. Clark, wiping her hand only partiallyfree from dough and presenting it to Miss Carmichael. She had not inquiredwhere the girl was going, nor even hinted to discover where she came from,but she gave her the godspeed that the West knows how to give, and thegirl felt better for it.

  At the station, where Mary shortly presented herself, in the interest ofthat old man of the sea of all travellers, luggage, she learned that thestage did not leave town for some three-quarters of an hour yet. A y
oungman, manipulating many sheets of flimsy, yellow paper covered with large,flourishing handwriting, looked up in answer to her inquiries about LostTrail. This young man, whose accent, clothes, and manner proclaimed him"from the East," whither, in all probability, he would shortly return ifhe did not mend his ways, disclaimed all knowledge of the place as if itwere an undesirable acquaintance. But before he could deny it thrice, aman who had heard the cabalistic name was making his way towards the desk,the pride of the traveller radiating from every feature.

  The cosmopolite who knew Lost Trail was the type of man who is born to bea Kentucky colonel, and perhaps may have achieved his destiny beforecoming to this "No Man's Land," for reasons into which no one inquired,and which were obviously no one's business. They knew him here by the nameof "Lone Tooth Hank," and he wore what had been, in the days of hiscolonelcy--or its equivalent--a frock-coat, restrained by the lower button,and thus establishing a waist-line long after nature had had the last wordto say on the subject. With this he wore the sombrero of the country, andthe combination carried a rakish effect that was positively sinister.

  The scornful clerk introduced Mary as a young lady inquiring about someplace in the bad-lands. Off came the sombrero with a sweep, and Lone Toothsmiled in a way that accented the dental solitaire to which he owed hisname. Miss Carmichael, concealing her terror of this casual cavalier,inquired if he could tell her the distance to Lost Trail.

  "I sho'ly can, and with, consid'able pleasure." The sombrero completed asemicircular sweep and arrived in the neighborhood of Mr. Hank's heart insignificance of his vassalage to the fair sex. He proceeded:

  "Lost Trail sutney is right lonesome. A friend of mine gets a little tooplayful fo' the evah-increasin' meetropolitan spirit of this yere camp,and tries a little tahget practice on the main bullyvard, an' finds theatmospheah onhealthful in consequence. Hearin' that the quiet solitude ofLost Trail is what he needs, he lit out with the following circumstancethereof happenin'. One day something in his harness giv' way--and herecollects seein' a boot sunnin' itself back in the road 'bout a quartahof a mile. An' he figgahs he'll borry a strip of leather off the boot tomend his harness. Back he goes and finds it has a kind of loaded feelin'.So my friend investigates--and I be blanked if there wasn't a foot and leginside of it."

  Miss Carmichael had always exercised a super-feminine self-restraint inthe case of casual mice, and it served her in the present instance.Instead of screaming, she said, after the suppression of a gasp or two:

  "Thank you so much, but I won't detain you any longer. Your informationmakes Lost Trail even more interesting than I had expected."

  Besides, Miss Carmichael had a faint suspicion that this might be apreconcerted plan to terrify the "lady tenderfoot," and she prided herselfon being equal to the situation. The time at her disposal before the stagewould embark on that unknown sea of prairies she spent in the delectablepastime of shopping. The financial and social interests of the town seemedto converge in Hugous & Co.'s "trading store," where Miss Carmichaelinvested in an extra package of needles for the mere excitement of beingone of the shoppers, though her aunt Adelaide had stocked the littleplaid-silk work-bag to repletion with every variety of needle known towoman. She pricked up her ears, meanwhile, at some of the purchases madeby the cow-boys for their camp-larders--devilled ham, sardines, cannedtomatoes heading the list as prime favorites. Did these strapping borderlads live by the fruit of the tin alone? Apparently yes, with thesophisticated accompaniment of soda biscuit, to judge by the quantity ofbaking-powder they invested in--literally pounds of it. Men in any othercondition of life would have died of slow poisoning as the result of it.

  There were other customers at Hugous' that morning besides the spurred andbooted cow-puncher and his despised compeer, the sheep-herder. Thatrestless emigrant class, whose origin, as a class, lay in the community ofits own uncertain schemes of fortune; the West, with her splendid, lavishpromises, called them from their thriftless farms in the South and theirgray cabins in New England. They began their journeying towards the landof promise long before the Indians had ever seen the shrieking"fire-wagon." All day they would toil over the infinitude of prairie, thesun that hid nightly behind that maddeningly elusive vanishing-point, thehorizon, their only guide. But the makeshifts of the wagon life were notwithout charm. They began to wander in quest of they knew not preciselywhat, and from these vague beginnings there had sprung into existence thatnomadic population that was once such a feature of the far West, but isnow going the way of the Indians and the cow-boys.

  This breathing-space in the long journey had for them the stimulus of aholiday-making. They bought their sides of bacon and their pounds ofcoffee as merrily as if they were playing a game of forfeits, the womenfingering the calico they did not want for the joy of pricing and makingshoppers' talk.

  The scene had a scriptural flavor that not even the blue overalls of themen nor the calico gowns of the women could altogether eliminate. Theirwagons, bulging with household goods and trailing with kitchen utensilssecured by bits of rope, were drawn up in front of the trading-store. Froma pump, at some little distance, the pilgrims filled their stonewater-bottles, for the wise traveller does not trust to the chance springsof the desert. Baskets of chickens were strapped to many of the wagons,but whether the unhappy fowls were designed to supply fresh eggs and anoccasional fricassee, or were taken for the pleasure of their company,there was no means of determining short of impertinent cross-questioning.Sometimes a cow, and invariably a dog, formed one of the family party, andan edifying _esprit de corps_ seemed to dwell among them all.

  Lone Tooth Hank, in his capacity of man about town, stood on the steps ofHugous' watching the preparations; and, seeing Miss Carmichael, approachedwith the air of an old and tried family friend.

  "Do I obsehve yu regyarding oweh 'settleahs,' called settleahs 'cause theynevah settle?" Hank laughed gently, as one who has made a joke meet forladies. "I've known whole famblies to bohn an' raise right in one of themwagons; and tuhn out a mighty fine, endurin' lot, too, this hyehprospectin' round afteh somethin' they wouldn't reco'nize if they met.Gits to be a habit same as drink. They couldn't live in a house same ashumans, not if yu filled their gyarden with nuggets an' their well withapple-jack."

  Miss Carmichael looked attentive but said nothing. In truth, she was moreafraid of Hank, his obvious gallantry, and his grewsome tales of bootswith legs in them than she was of the unknown terrors of Lost Trail.

  "I believe that is my stage," she said, as a red conveyance not unlike acircus wagon halted at some little distance from the trading-store. And asshe spoke she saw four of her companions of the breakfast-table headingtowards the stage, each with a piece of her precious luggage. MaryCarmichael was precipitated in a sudden panic; she had heard tales of thepranks of these playful Western squires--a little gun-play to induce theterrified tenderfoot to put a little more spirit into his Highland fling,"by request." She remembered their merrymaking with Simpson at breakfast.What did they intend to do with her belongings? And as she remembered thelittle plaid sewing-bag that Aunt Adelaide had made forher--surreptitiously drying her tears in the mean time--when she rememberedthat bag and the possibility of its being submitted to ignominy, she couldhave cried or done murder, she wasn't sure which.

  "Well, 'pon my wohd, heah ah the boys with yo' baggage. How time du fly!"

  "Oh!" she gasped, "what are they going to do with it?"

  "Place it on the stage, awaitin' yo' ohdahs." And to her expression ofinfinite relief--"Yo' didn't think any disrepec' would be shown the baggageof a lady honorin' this hyeh metropolis with her presence?"

  She thanked the knights of the lariat the more warmly for her unjustsuspicions. They stowed away the luggage with the deft capacity of men whohave returned to the primitive art of using their hands. She climbedbeside the driver on the box of the stage. Lone Tooth Hank and thecow-punchers chivalrously raised their sombreros with a simultaneousspontaneity that suggested a flight of rockets. The driver cracked hiswh
ip and turned the horses' heads towards the billowing sea of foot-hills,and the last cable that bound Mary Carmichael to civilization was cut.