CHAPTER XXIII
PHILOSOPHY AT HEART'S DESIRE
_Showing further the Uncertainty of Human Events, and the ExceedingResourcefulness of Mr. Thomas Osby_
Tom Osby's freight wagon made not so bad a conveyance after all. Thefirst fifty miles of the journey were passed in comparative silence,Constance and her father for the most part keeping to the shelter ofthe wagon tilt. Tom Osby grew restless under solitude ere long, andmade friendly advances.
"You come up here and set by me on the seat," said he to Constance,"and let the sun shine on you. The old man can stay back there on theblankets with my kerosene can of whiskey if he still thinks his healthain't good. Like enough he'll learn to get the potato off'n the snootof the can before long.
"You see," he went on, "I don't make no extry charge for whiskey orconversation to my patients. Far's I know, I'm the only railroad thatdon't. I got a box of aigs back there in the wagon, too. Ever see aryrailroad back in the States that throwed in ham and aigs? I reckonnot."
"Twenty dollars extra!" remarked Ellsworth, "You've made the girllaugh."
"Man, hush!" said Tom Osby. "Go on to sleep, and don't offer me money,or I'll make you get out and walk." This with a twinkle which robbedhis threat of terror, though Ellsworth took the advice presently andlay down under the wagon cover.
"Don't mind him, Miss Constance," apologized Tom Osby. "He's only yourfather, anyhow, if it comes to the worst. But now tell me, what ails_you_? Say, now, you ain't sick, are you?" He caught the plaintivedroop of the girl's mouth; but, receiving no answer, he himself evadedthe question, and began to point out antelope and wolves, difficult forthe uneducated eye to distinguish upon the gray plains that now sweptabout them. It was an hour before he returned to the subject reallyupon his mind.
"I was hearin' a little about Ben Stillson, the sherf, goin' out with afeller or so of ours after a boy that's broke jail down below," hebegan tentatively. "You folks hustled me out of town so soon, I didn'thave more'n half time enough to git the news." From the corner of hiseye he watched the face of his passenger.
"A great way to do, wasn't it!" exclaimed Constance, in suddenindignation. "I asked them why they didn't hire men to do such work."
"Ma'am," said Tom Osby; "I used to think you had some sense. Youain't."
"Why?"
"You can't think of no way but States ways, can you? I s'pose youthink the _po_lice ought to catch a bad man, don't you?"
"Well, it's officer's work, going after a dangerous man. Wasn't thisman dangerous?"
He noted her eagerness, and hastened to qualify. "Him? The Kid? No,I don't mean him. _He's_ plumb gentle. I mean a _real_ bad man--ifthere was any out here, you know. Now, not havin' any _po_lice, outhere, the fellers that believes in law and order, why, onct in a while,they kind of help go after the fellers that don't. It works out allright. Now I don't seem to just remember which ones it was of ourfellers that Stillson took with him the other day, along of yourhurrying me out of town so soon after I got in."
"It was Mr. Tomlinson, and Mr. McKinney from the ranch, you know; andCurly wanted to go, but they wouldn't let him."
"Why wouldn't they?"
"Because he was a married man, they said. And yet you say thiscriminal is not dangerous?"
"He'd ought to been glad to go, him a married man. I've been married agood deal myself. But was them two the only ones that went?"
"They two--and Mr. Anderson."
Tom smoked on quietly. "Well, I don't see why they'd take a tenderfootlike him," he remarked at length, "while there was men like Curlystandin' around."
"I thought you were his friend!" blazed the girl, her cheeks reddening.
Tom Osby grinned at the success of his subterfuge.
"If he wasn't a good man, Ben Stillson wouldn't 'a' took him along,"admitted he.
"Then it _is_ dangerous?"
"Ma'am," said Tom Osby, tapping his pipe against the side of the wagonseat, "they're about even, a half dozen good ones against about thatmany bad ones. They're game on both sides, and got to be. And we allknow well enough that Dan Anderson's game as the next one. The boysfigured that out the other night. Why, he'll come back all right in afew days; don't worry none about _that_." He looked straight ahead ofhim, pretending not to notice the little gloved hand that stole towardhis sleeve. In her own way, Constance had discovered that she mightdepend upon this rough man of the plains.
"Ma'am," he went on after a while, "not apropy of nothing, as they sayin the novels, I wish you and your dad would hurry and get your oldrailroad through here. Us folks may some of us want to go back to theStates sometime, and it's a long way to ride from Heart's Desire to anyrailroad the way it is, unless you've got mighty good company, like Ihave, this trip. I get awful lonesome sometimes, drivin' between hereand Vegas. I had a parrot onct, and a phonygraph, as you may remember,but the fellers took 'em both away from me, you know. I'm thinkin' ofmakin' up to that oldest girl from Kansas and settlin' down. She makesfine pies. I've knew one of her pies to last two hundred miles--allthe way up to Vegas--they're that permernent. She reminds me a heap ofmy third wife. Now, allowin' I did take one more chanct, and make upto that oldest girl, we'd look fine, wouldn't we, takin' a weddin' tripin this here wagon, and not on no railroad!"
Constance was smiling now. "I've got her gentled and comin' alongright easy now," thought Tom Osby to himself.
"I knowed a feller up in Vegas onct," he went on, "got married and wentplumb to New York, towering around. He got lost on a ferry-boat downthere somewhere, and rode back and forrard all day; and says he to me,'Blamed if every man in that town didn't get his boots blacked everyday.' That's foolish."
The girl laughed outright, rolling the veil back from her face now, andtaking a full look up at the sky, with more enjoyment in life than shehad felt for days. Further conversation, however, was interrupted by adeep snore from the rear of the wagon.
"That," said Tom Osby, "sounds like the old man had got the potatoloose."
"I'm ashamed of him," declared Constance.
"Natural," said Tom; "but why special?"
"He oughtn't to touch that whiskey. I hate it."
"So do I, when it ain't good. That in the can is good. It's only fairyour dad should break even for some of the whiskey he give the LoneStar. They didn't have a drop when I got in. Now, that's anotherreason why we ought to have a railroad at Heart's Desire. It mightprevent a awful stringency, sometime. There's Dick McGinnis, why, henearly--"
"But it's not coming. It will not be built. They wouldn't let us in.We couldn't get the right of way."
"Now listen at you! You mean your daddy couldn't, nor his lawyercouldn't. Of course not. But you haven't tried it your own self yet."
"How could I?"
"Well, you'd a heap more sense than to size up things the way your padid. The boys told me all about what happened. A man out here don'tholler if you beat him fair, but if you stack the cards on him, that'sdifferent. Dan Anderson done just right."
"He broke up all our plans," Constance retorted hotly; and at onceflushed at her own speech.
"What was he to do? Sell out? Turn the whole town over to you folks?Soon as he knows what's up, he throws back the money and tells the roadto go to hell. He kept his promise to me, and to all the other fellersthat had spoke to him about lookin' after their places. He done right."
Constance looked for a moment at the far shimmering horizon. At lengthshe faced about and bravely met Tom Osby's eyes. "Yes, he was right,"she said. "He did what was right." But she drew a long breath as shespoke.
"Ma'am," said Tom Osby, regarding her keenly, "not referrin' to thefact that you're squarer than your men folks, I want to say that,speakin' of game folks, you're just as game as any man I ever saw.Lots of women is. Seems like they have to be game by just not lettin'on, sometimes."
She felt his eyes upon her, and this time turned away her own. For atime they were silent, as the well-wor
n wagon rolled along behind thelong-stepping grays; but Tom Osby was patient.
"A while ago," he resumed after a time, "you said 'we,' and 'ourrailroad.' That's mighty near right. You two folks right here in thiswagon, yourself particular, can save that there railroad, and saveHeart's Desire, both at the same time. And that's something, even ifthem was all that was saved."
"I don't quite see what you mean," answered Constance.
"Oh, now, look here," said Tom, filling another pipe, "I ain't sofoolish. I ain't goin' to say that the old days'll last forever. Weall know better'n that when it comes right down to straight reasonin'.A country'll sleep about so long, same as a man; and then it'll wakeup. I've seen the States come West for forty years. They're comin'swifter'n ever now."
"When we first came here," said Constance, "I thought this was the veryend of all the world."
"It has been. And the finest place in all the world, ma'am, is rightat the end of the world. That's where a man can feel rightindependent. A woman can't understand that, no way on earth. A man'sa right funny thing, ma'am. He's all the time hankerin' to git intosome country out at the end of the world, where there ain't a womanwithin a thousand miles; and then as quick as he gets there, he beginsto holler for some woman to come out and save his life!"
She turned upon him again, smiling in spite of herself.
"The boys have been mighty slow to let go of the old days," he went on."In some ways there won't never be no better days. We never had athief in our valley, until your pa come in here last summer. Thereain't been a lock on a door in four hundred miles of this country inthe last twenty years. When the railroad comes the first thing it'llbring will be locks and bolts. At the same time, it's got to come--Iknow that. We've about had our sleep and our dream out, ma'am."
"It was beautiful," Constance murmured vaguely; and he caught hermeaning.
"Yes, plumb beautiful. Folks that hasn't tried it don't know. A manthat's lived the old life here, with a real gun on him as regular aspants, why, in about three years he gets what we call galvanized.He'll never be the same after that. He'll never go back to the Statesno more. That's hard for you to understand, ain't it? And yet thatsort of feelin' catches almost any man out here, sooner or later, ifhe's any good. It's the country, ma'am."
A strange spell seemed now to fall upon Constance herself, as she satgazing out in the sunlight. She felt the fatalism, the unconcern of achild, of a young creature. She understood perfectly all that she hadheard, and was ready to listen further.
"Of course," continued Tom, "this, bein' South, and bein' West, itain't really a part of the United States; so I can't save the wholecountry. But, such as this part of the country is, I reckon I'll haveto save it. You'll see my name wrote on tablets in marble halls someday; because I've got a hard job. I've got to reconcile these folks toyour dad! And yet I'm going to make 'em say, 'Now is the winter of ourdiscontent made glorious summer by this son-of-a-gun from New York.'You didn't know I read Shakespeare? Why, I read him constant, even ifI do have to wear specs now for fine print."
Constance, in spite of herself, laughed outright with so merry a pealthat she wakened her father from his slumber. "What's that? What'sthat?" broke in Mr. Ellsworth, suddenly sitting up on his blankets.
"Never mind, friend," said Tom Osby, "you go back to sleep again; meand Miss Constance is savin' things. I was just talkin' to her abouther railroad."
Ellsworth rubbed his eyes. "By Jove!" he exclaimed suddenly, "that's agood idea. It shall be hers if she says so. I'll give her every shareI own if that road ever runs into the valley."
"Now you are beginnin' to _talk_," said Tom Osby, calmly. "Not thatyou'd be givin' her much; for you and your lawyer wouldn't be able toget the railroad in there in a thousand years. The girl can play aheap stronger game than both of you."
"Well, if she can," responded Ellsworth, "she's going to have a goodchance to do it. We're going to build the railroad on north, and wedon't feel like hauling coal down that canon by wagon."
Tom Osby seemed to have pursued his game as far as he cared to do atthis time. "S'pose we stop along somewhere in here," he suggested,"and eat a little lunch? My horses gets hungry, and thirsty, the sameas you, Mr. Ellsworth. Whoa, boys!"
Descending from his high seat, he now unhitched his team and strappedon their heads the nose-bags with the precious oats, after a pail ofnot less precious water from the cask at the wagon's side.Methodically he kicked together a little pile of greasewood roots.
"We're to have some tea, you know," he remarked. "I don't chargenothin' extry for tea, whiskey, or advice on this railroad of mine.Get down now, ma'am," he added, reaching up his arms to assistConstance from her place. "Come along, set right down here on theground in the sun. It's good for you. Ain't it nice?
"There's the back of old Carrizy just beginnin' to show," he explained;"and there's the Bonitos comin' up below. That's Blanco Peak beyond,the tallest in the Territory; and them mountings close in is theNogales. There ain't a soul within many and many a mile of here. Andnow, with them old mountings a-lookin' down at us on the strict_cuidado_, not botherin' us if we don't bother them, why, ain't itcomfortable? This country'll take hold of you after a while, ma'am.It's the oldest in the world; but somehow it seems to me onct in awhile as if it was about the youngest, too."
Constance took the counsel offered her, and seated herself in fullglare of the Southwestern sun. She looked about her and felt anunwonted sense of peace, as though she were rocked in some great cradleand under some watchful eye. "Dad," said she, quietly, "I'm not goinghome. I'm going to spend a month at Sky Top."
"Has it caught _you_, ma'am?" asked Tom Osby, simply.
"She talks as though there were no business interests anywhere to betaken care of," grumbled her father.
"Oh, now, interests ain't exclusive for the States," said Tom Osby."You come all the way out here to steal a town, and you couldn't do it.Give the girl a month, an' she'll just about have the town--or her andme together will. You settin' there talkin' about goin' home! Go onhome if you feel like it. Me and Miss Constance will stay out here,and take care of the business interests ourselves."
"We're personally conducted, dad," laughed Constance.
"Listen," said their personal conductor, balancing a cup of tea uponhis knee. "Now, you folks has got money behind you that's painful.You don't _have_ to steal, Mr. Ellsworth. It's only a _habit_ withyou. Now s'pose Miss Constance comes along, allowin' that God can plata town as well as a surveyor, and allowin' that the first fellers thatfinds it has as good a right to it as the last ones--which she _does_allow, and _know_. Now, here's what she says. Says she, 'We'll go inwith this outfit, and we won't try to steal the landscape. We'll payfor every foot of ground that's claimed by anybody that seen it first.We won't try to move no ancient landmarks, like log houses that datesback to Jack Wilson. We'll put in the yard at the lower end of thetown, provided that Mr. Thomas Osby, Esquire, gives hispermission--always admittin' there may be just as good places for Mr.Thomas Osby, Esquire, a little farther back in the foot-hills, if hefeels like goin' there. Now I reckon Miss Constance makes Mr. ThomasOsby, Esquire, yardmaster at the new deepot."
"Of course," assented Constance; and her father nodded.
"That'd be fair, and it'd be easy," went on Tom. "We'll fix it upthat-a-way, me and Miss Constance--not you. And as soon as we get to atelegraft office, we fire the general counsel, Mr. Barkley; don't we,Miss Constance?" The girl nodded grimly.
"He's fired," said Tom. "You can take care of that the first thing youdo, Mr. Ellsworth. Then you can make out my papers as yardmaster andgeneral boss of the deepot. You can be clerk.
"Now here we go, the railroad cars a choo-chooin' up our canon, same asdown here at Sky Top. In the front car is the president, which is MissConstance, with me clost along, the new yardmaster. Your pa issomewhere back on the train, Miss Constance, with the money to pay offthe hands. He's useful, but not inderspen
sible."
"Go on!" applauded Constance. "Who besides us and poor old dad?"
Tom Osby turned and looked at her gravely.
"And there comes down to meet us at the station," he concluded, "theonly man we needed to help us put this thing through." Tom Osbyfinished his tea in silence. Constance herself made no comment. Hergaze was on the far-off mountains.
"That there man," he resumed, shaking out the grounds from his tea-cup,"is the new division counsel for the road, the first mayor of Heart'sDesire,--after Miss Constance,--and mighty likely the nextCongressional delergate from this Territory. Now can you both guesswho that man is?"
"I'll admit he's a bigger man than Barkley," said Ellsworth, slowly."That boy would make a grand trial lawyer. They couldn't beat him."
"No," said Tom Osby, "they'd think he was square, and that means a lot.They _do_ think he's square; and the boys are goin' to do somethingfor him if they can. Now if he gets back--"
Constance turned upon him with a glance of swift appeal.
"As I was sayin', _when_ he gets back," resumed Tom, "some of usfellers may perhaps take it up with him, and tell him what MissConstance wants to have done."
This was too much. The girl sprang to her feet. "You'll tell himnothing!" she cried.
Ellsworth turned to Tom Osby with a sober face. "Young Anderson rodeaway from us the other morning," said he, "and he hardly troubledhimself to say good-by. We used to know him back East; and he needn'thave taken that affair of the railroad meeting so much to heart."
"Come!" called Constance, "get ready and let's be going. I'm sick ofthis country!" She walked rapidly away from the others.
"A woman can change some sudden, can't she, Mr. Ellsworth?" remarkedTom Osby, slowly.
"Look here, Miss Constance," said he, presently, when he came nearer toher, standing apart from the wagon, "there's been mistakes and bustedplans enough in here already. Now don't get on no high horse and breakup my scheme."
"Don't talk to me!" She stamped her foot.
"Ma'am! ain't you ashamed to say them words?" She did not answer, andTom Osby took the step for which he had been preparing throughout theentire morning.
"Ma'am," said he, "one word from you would bring that feller to you onthe keen lope. He'd fix the railroad all right mighty soon. Thenbesides--"
She turned away. "The question of the railroad is a business one, andnothing else; talk to my father about it."
Tom went silently about his preparations for resuming the journey.When he came to put the horses to the wagon tongue, he found Constancesitting there, staring with misty eyes at the distant hills beyondwhich lay Heart's Desire. Tom Osby paused at the shelter of the wagoncover and backed away.
"Something has got to be did," he muttered to himself, "and did mightyblame quick. If we don't get some kind of hobbles on that girl,_she's_ goin' to jump the fence and go back home."
"'Something has got to be did, and did mighty blamequick.'"]
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