Judith of the Plains Part 2

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

"Yu ought er said 'Good-evenin'' to the lady, Mistu Simpson; hit make a diffunce," 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' a matther av t'ree thousand dollars to pay for his pa.s.sin' civilitee, learned thot silince was goolden."

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

The man in the doorway was tall and lean, and the prison blench upon his face was in unpleasant contrast to the ruddy tan of the faces about the table. His sombrero was tipped back and the hair hung dank about the pale, sweating forehead, suggestive of sickness. But weak health did not imply weak 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 grew imperceptibly and imperceptibly communicated itself to the men at table.

He gloated over the eating fat man as if he had dwelt much in imagination on the sight and was in no hurry to curtail his joy at the reality. The men began to get restless, shuffle their feet, moisten their lips; only the college boy spoke, and then from a wealth of ignorance, knowing nothing of the rugged, give-and-take justice of the plains-an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and the law and the courts go hang while a man's got a right arm to pull a trigger. Not one in all that company, even the cattle-men whose interests were opposed to Rodney's, but felt the justice of 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 a thing or two."

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

Simpson dropped the knife from his shaking hand and started up with a cry that died away in a gurgle, an inhuman, nightmare croak. He looked about wildly, like a rat in a trap, then backed towards the wall. The men about the table got up, then cleared away in a circle, leaving the fat man. It was all like a dream to the college boy, who had never seen a thing of the kind before and could not realize now that it was happening. Rodney advanced, never once relaxing the look in which he seemed to hold his enemy as in a vise. Simpson was like a man bewitched. Once, twice, he made a grab for his revolver, but his right hand seemed to have lost power to heed the bidding of his will. Rodney, now well towards the centre of the room, waited, with a suggestion of ceremony, for Simpson to get his six-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 sudden silence, looked in from the kitchen. Simpson, his eyes wandering like a trapped rat, saw, and called, through teeth that chattered in an ague of fear, "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 gave Simpson a look in which there was only contempt. "You've hid behind the law once, and this time it's petticoats. The open don't seem to have no charm for you. But-" He didn't finish, there was no need to. Every one knew and understood. He put up his revolver and walked into the street.

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

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

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

He slunk away from them to a corner of the eating-house, feeling the stigma of their contempt, yet afraid to go out into the street where his enemy might be waiting for him. Much of death and blood and recklessness "Town" had seen and condoned, but cowardice was the unforgivable sin. It balked the rude justice of these frontiersmen and tampered with their code, 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 of amusing 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 was paid by a cattle outfit-now, mind, I ain't sayin' which-to get Jim Rodney's sheep off the range. They had threatened him and cut the throats of 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 they up and makes Simpson an offer to get rid of the sheep. Jim has over five thousand, an' it's just before lambing, and them pore ewes, all heavy, is being druv' down to Watson's shearing-pens, that Jim always shears at. Jim an' two herders and a couple of dawgs-least, this is the way I heard it-is drivin' 'em easy, 'cause, as I said before, it's just before lambing. It does now seem awful cruel to me to shear just before lambing, but that's their 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 a canon, and there some one springs out of a clump of willows an' dashes into 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 cliff like the pore fools they are. The herder fired and tried to drive 'em back, they tell me, an' he an' the dawg were shot at from the clump of willows by some one else who was there. Three hundred sheep had gone over the cliff before Jim knew what was happening. He rode like mad right through the herd to try and head 'em off; but you know what sheep is like-they're like lost souls headin' for d.a.m.nation. Nothing can stop 'em when they're once started. And Jim lost every head-started for the shearing-pens a rich man-rich for Jim-an' seen everything he had swept away before his eyes, his wife an' children made paupers. My son he come by and found him. He said that Jim was sittin' huddled up in a heap, his knees drawed up under his chin, starin' straight up into the noonday sky, same as if he was askin' G.o.d how He could be so cruel. His dead dawg, that they had shot, was by the side of him. The herder that was with Jim had taken the one that was shot into Watson's, so when my son found Jim he was alone, sittin' on the edge of the cliff with his dead dawg, an' the sky about 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, the buzzards, 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 right along; but Lord, who can blame him? He got into some trouble down to Rawlins-shot a man he thought was with Simpson, but who wasn't-and he's been in jail ever since. Course now that he's out Simpson's bound to get peppered. Glad it didn't happen here, though. 'Twould be a kind of unpleasant thing to have connected with a eating-house, don't you think so?" she inquired, with the grim philosophy of the country.

The eating-house patrons had gone their several ways, and the quiet of the dining-room was oppressive by contrast with its late boisterousness. Mrs.

Clark, her hands imprisoned in bread-dough, begged Mary to look over the screen door and see if anything was happening. "I'm always suspicious when it's quiet. I know they're in deviltry of some sort."

Mary tiptoed to the door and peeped over, but the room was deserted, save for Simpson, huddled in a corner, biting his finger-nails. "The nasty thing!" exploded Mrs. Clark, when she had received the bulletin. "I'd turn him 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 the station platform." Mary wondered what her prim aunts would think of her for sitting in Mrs. Clark's kitchen, but it had seemed so much more of a refuge than the sordid streets of the hideous little town, with its droves of men and never a glimpse of a woman that she had been only too glad to avail herself of the invitation of the proprietress to "make herself at home till the stage left."

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

At the station, where Mary shortly presented herself, in the interest of that old man of the sea of all travellers, luggage, she learned that the stage did not leave town for some three-quarters of an hour yet. A young man, manipulating many sheets of flimsy, yellow paper covered with large, flourishing handwriting, looked up in answer to her inquiries about Lost Trail. This young man, whose accent, clothes, and manner proclaimed him "from the East," whither, in all probability, he would shortly return if he did not mend his ways, disclaimed all knowledge of the place as if it were an undesirable acquaintance. But before he could deny it thrice, a man 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 be a Kentucky colonel, and perhaps may have achieved his destiny before coming 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 name of "Lone Tooth Hank," and he wore what had been, in the days of his colonelcy-or its equivalent-a frock-coat, restrained by the lower b.u.t.ton, and thus establishing a waist-line long after nature had had the last word to say on the subject. With this he wore the sombrero of the country, and the combination carried a rakish effect that was positively sinister.

The scornful clerk introduced Mary as a young lady inquiring about some place in the bad-lands. Off came the sombrero with a sweep, and Lone Tooth smiled in a way that accented the dental solitaire to which he owed his name. 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 a semicircular sweep and arrived in the neighborhood of Mr. Hank's heart in significance of his va.s.salage to the fair s.e.x. He proceeded:

"Lost Trail sutney is right lonesome. A friend of mine gets a little too playful fo' the evah-increasin' meetropolitan spirit of this yere camp, and tries a little tahget practice on the main bullyvard, an' finds the atmospheah onhealthful in consequence. Hearin' that the quiet solitude of Lost Trail is what he needs, he lit out with the following circ.u.mstance thereof happenin'. One day something in his harness giv' way-and he recollects seein' a boot sunnin' itself back in the road 'bout a quartah of a mile. An' he figgahs he'll borry a strip of leather off the boot to mend 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 leg inside of it."

Miss Carmichael had always exercised a super-feminine self-restraint in the 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 information makes Lost Trail even more interesting than I had expected."

Besides, Miss Carmichael had a faint suspicion that this might be a preconcerted plan to terrify the "lady tenderfoot," and she prided herself on being equal to the situation. The time at her disposal before the stage would embark on that unknown sea of prairies she spent in the delectable pastime of shopping. The financial and social interests of the town seemed to converge in Hugous & Co.'s "trading store," where Miss Carmichael invested in an extra package of needles for the mere excitement of being one of the shoppers, though her aunt Adelaide had stocked the little plaid-silk work-bag to repletion with every variety of needle known to woman. She p.r.i.c.ked up her ears, meanwhile, at some of the purchases made by the cow-boys for their camp-larders-devilled ham, sardines, canned tomatoes heading the list as prime favorites. Did these strapping border lads live by the fruit of the tin alone? Apparently yes, with the sophisticated accompaniment of soda biscuit, to judge by the quant.i.ty of baking-powder they invested in-literally pounds of it. Men in any other condition of life would have died of slow poisoning as the result of it.

There were other customers at Hugous' that morning besides the spurred and booted cow-puncher and his despised compeer, the sheep-herder. That restless emigrant cla.s.s, whose origin, as a cla.s.s, lay in the community of its own uncertain schemes of fortune; the West, with her splendid, lavish promises, called them from their thriftless farms in the South and their gray cabins in New England. They began their journeying towards the land of promise long before the Indians had ever seen the shrieking "fire-wagon." All day they would toil over the infinitude of prairie, the sun that hid nightly behind that maddeningly elusive vanishing-point, the horizon, their only guide. But the makeshifts of the wagon life were not without charm. They began to wander in quest of they knew not precisely what, and from these vague beginnings there had sprung into existence that nomadic population that was once such a feature of the far West, but is now going the way of the Indians and the cow-boys.

This breathing-s.p.a.ce in the long journey had for them the stimulus of a holiday-making. They bought their sides of bacon and their pounds of coffee as merrily as if they were playing a game of forfeits, the women fingering the calico they did not want for the joy of pricing and making shoppers' talk.

The scene had a scriptural flavor that not even the blue overalls of the men nor the calico gowns of the women could altogether eliminate. Their wagons, bulging with household goods and trailing with kitchen utensils secured by bits of rope, were drawn up in front of the trading-store. From a pump, at some little distance, the pilgrims filled their stone water-bottles, for the wise traveller does not trust to the chance springs of the desert. Baskets of chickens were strapped to many of the wagons, but whether the unhappy fowls were designed to supply fresh eggs and an occasional frica.s.see, 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, and an edifying _esprit de corps_ seemed to dwell among them all.

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

"Do I obsehve yu regyarding oweh 'settleahs,' called settleahs 'cause they nevah settle?" Hank laughed gently, as one who has made a joke meet for ladies. "I've known whole famblies to bohn an' raise right in one of them wagons; and tuhn out a mighty fine, endurin' lot, too, this hyeh prospectin' 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 as humans, not if yu filled their gyarden with nuggets an' their well with apple-jack."

Miss Carmichael looked attentive but said nothing. In truth, she was more afraid of Hank, his obvious gallantry, and his grewsome tales of boots with 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 a circus wagon halted at some little distance from the trading-store. And as she spoke she saw four of her companions of the breakfast-table heading towards the stage, each with a piece of her precious luggage. Mary Carmichael was precipitated in a sudden panic; she had heard tales of the pranks of these playful Western squires-a little gun-play to induce the terrified 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 the little plaid sewing-bag that Aunt Adelaide had made for her-surrept.i.tiously drying her tears in the mean time-when she remembered that bag and the possibility of its being submitted to ignominy, she could have 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?"