Lin McLean Part 5

The next morning he watched Lin riding slowly out of the post towards Wind River, leading a single pack-horse. By-and-by the little moving dot went over the ridge. And as the bishop walked back into the parade-ground, thinking over the possibilities in that untrained manly soul, he shook his head sorrowfully.

THE WINNING OF THE BISCUIT-SHOOTER

It was quite clear to me that Mr. McLean could not know the news.

Meeting him to-day had been unforeseen--unforeseen and so pleasant that the thing had never come into my head until just now, after both of us had talked and dined our fill, and were torpid with satisfaction.

I had found Lin here at Riverside in the morning. At my horse's approach to the cabin, it was he and not the postmaster who had come precipitately out of the door.

"I'm turruble pleased to see yu'," he had said, immediately.

"What's happened?" said I, in some concern at his appearance.

And he piteously explained: "Why, I've been here all alone since yesterday!"

This was indeed all; and my hasty impressions of shooting and a corpse gave way to mirth over the child and his innocent grievance that he had blurted out before I could get off my horse.

Since when, I inquired of him, had his own company become such a shock to him?

"As to that," replied Mr. McLean, a thought ruffled, "when a man expects lonesomeness he stands it like he stands anything else, of course.

But when he has figured on finding company--say--" he broke off (and vindictiveness sparkled in his eye)--"when you're lucky enough to catch yourself alone, why, I suppose yu' just take a chair and chat to yourself for hours.--You've not seen anything of Tommy?" he pursued with interest.

I had not; and forthwith Lin poured out to me the pent-up complaints and sociability with which he was bursting. The foreman had sent him over here with a sackful of letters for the post, and to bring back the week's mail for the ranch. A day was gone now, and nothing for a man to do but sit and sit. Tommy was overdue fifteen hours. Well, you could have endured that, but the neighbors had all locked their cabins and gone to Buffalo. It was circus week in Buffalo. Had I ever considered the money there must be in the circus business? Tommy had taken the outgoing letters early yesterday. n.o.body had kept him waiting. By all rules he should have been back again last night. Maybe the stage was late reaching Powder River, and Tommy had had to lay over for it.

Well, that would justify him. Far more likely he had gone to the circus himself and taken the mail with him. Tommy was no type of man for postmaster. Except drawing the allowance his mother in the East gave him first of every month, he had never shown punctuality that Lin could remember. Never had any second thoughts, and awful few first ones. Told bigger lies than a small man ought, also.

"Has successes, though," said I, wickedly.

"Huh!" went on Mr. McLean. "Successes! One ice-cream-soda success. And she"--Lin's still wounded male pride made him plaintive--"why, even that girl quit him, once she got the chance to appreciate how insignificant he was as compared with the size of his words. No, sir. Not one of 'em retains interest in Tommy."

Lin was unsaddling and looking after my horse, just because he was glad to see me. Since our first acquaintance, that memorable summer of Pitchstone Canyon when he had taken such good care of me and such bad care of himself, I had learned pretty well about horses and camp craft in general. He was an entire boy then. But he had been East since, East by a route of his own discovering--and from his account of that journey it had proved, I think, a sort of spiritual experience. And then the years of our friendship were beginning to roll up. Manhood of the body he had always richly possessed; and now, whenever we met after a season's absence and spoke those invariable words which all old friends upon this earth use to each other at meeting--"You haven't changed, you haven't changed at all!"--I would wonder if manhood had arrived in Lin's boy soul. And so to-day, while he attended to my horse and explained the nature of Tommy (a subject he dearly loved just now), I looked at him and took an intimate, superior pride in feeling how much more mature I was than he, after all.

There's nothing like a sense of merit for making one feel aggrieved, and on our return to the cabin Mr. McLean pointed with disgust to some firewood.

"Look at those sorrowful toothpicks," said he: "Tommy's work."

So Lin, the excellent hearted, had angrily busied himself, and chopped a pile of real logs that would last a week. He had also cleaned the stove, and nailed up the bed, the pillow-end of which was on the floor. It appeared the master of the house had been sleeping in it the reverse way on account of the slant. Thus had Lin cooked and dined alone, supped alone, and sat over some old newspapers until bed-time alone with his sense of virtue. And now here it was long after breakfast, and no Tommy yet.

"It's good yu' come this forenoon," Lin said to me. "I'd not have had the heart to get up another dinner just for myself. Let's eat rich!"

Accordingly, we had richly eaten, Lin and I. He had gone out among the sheds and caught some eggs (that is how he spoke of it), we had opened a number of things in cans, and I had made my famous dish of evaporated apricots, in which I managed to fling a suspicion of caramel throughout the stew.

"Tommy'll be hot about these," said Lin, joyfully, as we ate the eggs.

"He don't mind what yu' use of his canned goods--pickled salmon and truck. He is hospitable all right enough till it comes to an egg. Then he'll tell any lie. But shucks! Yu' can read Tommy right through his clothing. 'Make yourself at home, Lin,' says he, yesterday. And he showed me his fresh milk and his stuff. 'Here's a new ham,' says he; 'too bad my d.a.m.ned hens ain't been layin'. The sons-o'guns have quit on me ever since Christmas.' And away he goes to Powder River for the mail.

'You swore too heavy about them hens,' thinks I. Well, I expect he may have travelled half a mile by the time I'd found four nests."

I am fond of eggs, and eat them constantly--and in Wyoming they were always a luxury. But I never forget those that day, and how Lin and I enjoyed them thinking of Tommy. Perhaps manhood was not quite established in my own soul at that time--and perhaps that is the reason why it is the only time I have ever known which I would live over again, those years when people said, "You are old enough to know better"--and one didn't care!

Salmon, apricots, eggs, we dealt with them all properly, and I had some cigars. It was now that the news came back into my head.

"What do you think of--" I began, and stopped.

I spoke out of a long silence, the slack, luxurious silence of digestion. I got no answer, naturally, from the torpid Lin, and then it occurred to me that he would have asked me what I thought, long before this, had he known. So, observing how comfortable he was, I began differently.

"What is the most important event that can happen in this country?" said I.

Mr. McLean heard me where he lay along the floor of the cabin on his back, dozing by the fire; but his eyes remained closed. He waggled one limp, open hand slightly at me, and torpor resumed her dominion over him.

"I want to know what you consider the most important event that can happen in this country," said I, again, enunciating each word with slow clearness.

The throat and lips of Mr. McLean moved, and a sulky sound came forth that I recognized to be meant for the word "War." Then he rolled over so that his face was away from me, and put an arm over his eyes.

"I don't mean country in the sense of United States," said I. "I mean this country here, and Bear Creek, and--well, the ranches southward for fifty miles, say. Important to this section."

"Mosquitoes'll be due in about three weeks," said Lin. "Yu' might leave a man rest till then."

"I want your opinion," said I.

"Oh, misery! Well, a raise in the price of steers."

"No."

"Yu' said yu' wanted my opinion," said Lin. "Seems like yu' merely figure on givin' me yours."

"Very well," said I. "Very well, then."

I took up a copy of the Cheyenne Sun. It was five weeks old, and I soon perceived that I had read it three weeks ago; but I read it again for some minutes now.

"I expect a railroad would be more important," said Mr. McLean, persuasively, from the floor.

"Than a rise in steers?" said I, occupied with the Cheyenne Sun. "Oh yes. Yes, a railroad certainly would."

"It's got to be money, anyhow," stated Lin, thoroughly wakened. "Money in some shape."

"How little you understand the real wants of the country!" said I, coming to the point. "It's a girl."

Mr. McLean lay quite still on the floor.

"A girl," I repeated. "A new girl coming to this starved country."

The cow-puncher took a long, gradual stretch and began to smile. "Well,"

said he, "yu' caught me--if that's much to do when a man is half-witted with dinner and sleep." He closed his eyes again and lay with a specious expression of indifference. But that sort of thing is a solitary entertainment, and palls. "Starved," he presently muttered. "We are kind o' starved that way I'll admit. More dollars than girls to the square mile. And to think of all of us nice, healthy, young--bet yu' I know who she is!" he triumphantly cried. He had sat up and levelled a finger at me with the throw-down jerk of a marksman. "Sidney, Nebraska."

I nodded. This was not the lady's name--he could not recall her name--but his geography of her was accurate.

One day in February my friend, Mrs. Taylor over on Bear Creek, had received a letter--no common event for her. Therefore, during several days she had all callers read it just as naturally as she had them all see the new baby, and baby and letter had both been brought out for me.

The letter was signed,