Over the Pass

by Frederick Palmer

  XVII

  THE DOGE SNAPS A RUBBER BAND

  Jasper Ewold was a disciple of an old-fashioned custom that has falleninto disuse since the multiplicity of typewriters made writing for one'sown pleasure too arduous; or, if you will have another reason, since ourexistence and feelings have become so complex that we can no longerexpress them with the simple directness of our ancestors. He kept adiary with what he called a perfect regularity of intermittency. A weekmight pass without his writing a single word, and again he might indulgefreely for a dozen nights running. He wrote as much or as little as hepleased. He wrote when he had something to tell and when he was in themood to tell it.

  "It is facing yourself in your own ink," he said. "It is confessing thatyou are an egoist and providing an antidote for your egoism. Firstly, youwill never be bored by your own past if you can appreciate your errorsand inconsistencies. Secondly, you will never be tempted to bore otherswith your past as long as you wish to pose as a wise man."

  He must have found, as you would find if you had left youth behind andcould see yourself in your own ink, that the first tracery of anycontrolling factor in your life was faint and inconsequential to you atthe time, without presage of its importance until you saw other lines,also faint and inconsequential in their beginnings, drawing in toward itto form a powerful current.

  On the evening that Jack took to the trail again, Jasper Ewold had anumber of thick notebooks out of the box in the library which he alwayskept locked, and placed them on the living-room table beside his easychair, in which he settled himself. Mary was sewing while he pored overhis life in review as written by his own hand. Her knowledge of thesecrets of that chronicle from wandering student days to desert exile waslimited to glimpses of the close lines of fine-written pages across thebreadth of the circle of the lamp's reflection. He surrounded his diarywith a line of mystery which she never attempted to cross. On occasionshe would read to her certain portions which struck his recollectionhappily; but these were invariably limited to his impressions of somecity or some work of art that he was seeing for the first time in thegeniality of the unadulterated joy of living in what she guessed was theperiod of youth before she was born; and never did they throw any lighton his story except that of his views as a traveller and a personality.But he did not break out into a single quotation to-night. It seemed asif he were following the thread of some reference from year to year; forhe ran his fingers through the leaves of certain parts hastily and becamestudiously intense at other parts as he gloomily pondered over them.

  Neither she nor her father had mentioned Jack since the scene by thehedge. This was entirely in keeping with custom. It seemed a matter ofinstinct with both that they never talked to each other of him. Yet shewas conscious that he had been in her father's mind all through theevening meal, and she was equally certain that her father realized thathe was in her mind.

  It was late when the Doge finished his reading, and he finished it withthe page of the last book, where the fine handwriting stopped at the edgeof the blank white space of the future. An old desire, ever strong withMary, which she had never quite had the temerity to express, had becomeimpelling under the influence of her father's unusually long and silentpreoccupation.

  "Am I never to have a glimpse of that treasure? Am I never, never to readyour diary?" she asked.

  The Doge drew his tufted eyebrows together in utter astonishment.

  "What! What, Mary! Why, Mary, I might preach a lesson on the folly offeminine curiosity. Do you think I would ask to see your diary?"

  "But I don't keep one."

  "Hoo-hoo-hoo!" The Doge was blowing out his lips in an ado of deprecatorynonsense. "Don't keep one? Have you lost your memory?"

  "I had it a minute ago--yes," after an instant's playful consideration,"I am sure that I have it now."

  "Then, everybody with a memory certainly keeps a diary. Would you wantme to read all the foolish things you had ever thought? Do you think Iwould want to?"

  "No," she answered.

  "There you are, then!" declared the Doge victoriously, as he rose,slipping a rubber band with a forbidding snap over the last book. "Andthis is all stupid personal stuff--but mine own!"

  There was an unconscious sigh of weariness as he took up the thumbedleather volumes. He was haggard. "Mine own" had given him no pleasurethat evening. All the years of his life seemed to rest heavily upon himfor a silent moment. Mary feared that she had hurt him by her request.

  "You have read so much you will scarcely do any writing to-night,"she ventured.

  "Yes, I will add a few more lines--the spirit is in me--a few more daysto the long record," he said, absently, then, after a pause, suddenly,with a kind of suppressed force vibrating in his voice: "Well, our SirChaps has gone."

  "As unceremoniously as he came," she answered.

  "It was terrible the way he broke Nogales's wrist!" remarked theDoge narrowly.

  "Terrible!" she assented as she folded her work, her head bent.

  "Gone, and doubtless for good!" he continued, still watching her sharply.

  "Very likely!" she answered carelessly without looking up. "His vagariousplaytime for this section is over."

  "Just it! Just it!" the Doge exclaimed happily.

  "And if Leddy overtakes him now, it's his own affair!"

  "Yes, yes! He and his Wrath of God and Jag Ear are away to other worlds!"

  "And other Leddys!"

  "No doubt! No doubt!" concluded the Doge, in high good humor, all thevexation of his diary seemingly forgotten as he left the room.

  But, as the Doge and Mary were to find, they were alone among LittleRiversites in thinking that the breaking of Pedro Nogales's wrist washorrible. Jim Galway, who had witnessed the affair, took a radicallycontrary view, which everyone else not of the Leddy partisanship readilyaccepted. Despite the frequency of Jack's visits to the Ewold garden andall the happy exchange of pleasantries with his hosts, the communitycould not escape the thought of a certain latent hostility toward Jack onthe part of the Doge, the more noticeable because it was so out ofkeeping with his nature.

  "Doge, sometimes I think you are almost prejudiced against Jack Wingfieldbecause he didn't let Leddy have his way," said Jim, with an outrightfrankness that was unprecedented in speaking to Jasper Ewold. "You'resuch a regular old Quaker!"

  "But that little Mexican panting in abject fear against the hedge!"persisted the Doge.

  "A nice, peaceful little Mexican with a knife, sneaking up to plant it inJack's neck!"

  "But Jack is so powerful! And his look! I was so near I could see it wellas he towered over Nogales!"

  "Yes, no mistaking the look. I saw it in the _arroyo_. It made me thinkof what the look of one of those old sea-fighters might have been likewhen they lashed alongside and boarded the enemy."

  "And the crack of the bone!" continued the Doge.

  "Would you have a man turn cherub when he has escaped having hisjugular slashed by a margin of two or three inches? Would you have himsay, 'Please, naughty boy, give me your knife? You mustn't play withsuch things!'"

  "No! That's hyperbole!" the Doge returned with a lame attempt at a laugh.

  "Mebbe it is, whatever hyperbole is," said Jim; "but if so, hyperbole isa darned poor means of self-defence. Yes, the trouble is you are againstJack Wingfield!"

  "Yes, I am!" said the Doge suddenly, as if inward anger had got thebetter of him.

  "And the rest of us are for him!" Jim declared sturdily.

  "Naturally! naturally!" said the Doge, passing his hand over his brow."Yes, youth and color and bravery!" He shook his head moodily, as ifJim's statement brought up some vital, unpleasant, but inevitable factto his mind.

  "It's beyond me how anybody can help liking him!" concluded Galwaystubbornly.

  "I like him--yes, I do like him! I cannot help it!" the Doge admittedrather grudgingly as he turned away.

  "So we weren't so far apart, after all!" Galway hastened to call afterthe Doge in apology for his testiness. "W
e like him for what he has beento us and will always be to us. That's the only criterion of character inLittle Rivers according to your own code, isn't it, Jasper Ewold?"

  "Exactly!" answered the Doge over his shoulder.

  The community entered into a committee of the whole on Jack Wingfield.With every citizen contributing a quota of personal experience, his storywas rehearsed from the day of his arrival to the day of his departure.Argument fluctuated on the question of whether or not he would everreturn, with now the noes and now the ayes having it. On this point Jimhad the only first-hand evidence.

  "He said to let things grow until he showed up or I heard fromhim," said Jim.

  "Not what I would call enlightening," said Bob Worther.

  "That was his way of expressing it; but to do him justice, he showed whata good rancher he was by his attention to the details that had to becared for," Jim added.

  "He's like the spirit of the winds, I guess," put in Mrs. Galway."Something comes a-calling him or a-driving him, I don't know which.Indeed, I'm not altogether certain that it isn't a case of Mary Ewoldthis time!"

  "Yes," agreed Jim. "The fighting look went out of his face when shespoke, and when he saw how horrified she was, why, I never saw such achange come over a man! It was just like a piece of steel wilting."

  However, the children, who had no part in the august discussions of thecommittee of the whole, were certain that their story-teller would comeback. Their ideas about Jack were based on a simple, self-convincingfaith of the same order as Firio's. Lonely as they were, they were hardlymore lonely than their elders, who were supposed to have the philosophyof adults.

  No Jack singing out "Hello!" on the main street! No Jack looking up fromwork to ask boyishly: "Am I learning? Oh, I'll be the boss rancher yet!"No Jack springing all sorts of conceits, not of broad humor, but the kindthat sort of set a "twinkling in your insides," as Bob Worther expressedit! No Jack inspiring a feeling deeper than twinkles on his sad days! Hehad been an improvement in town life that became indispensable once itwas absent. Little Rivers was fairly homesick for him.

  "How did we ever get along without him before he came, anyway?" BobWorther demanded.

  Then another new-comer, as distinctive from the average settler as Jackwas, diverted talk into another channel, without, however, reconcilingthe people to their loss.