“Thinkin’ about marryin’?” he asked.
The frankness of the question relieved her of embarrassment. She smiled.
“I suppose every woman thinks of that, more or less,” she admitted.
Smith nodded, and slowly lowered his foot, looking up at her with sly confidence, as if discovering to her a mighty secret which he had just become convinced she was worthy to share.
“Well, so am I,” said he.
It began to look like dangerous ground, but she didn’t know how to turn him. Thinking to try a show of abstract interest, she told him she was glad to hear it.
“There’s money to be made in this country,” he continued, warming up to his argument, “and I know how to make it. Inside of five years I’ll be able to put up a house with a cupola on it, and a picket fence in front, and grass in the yard, for the woman that marries me.”
“I believe you will,” she agreed. “What kind of a noise does a bear make?”
“Dang bears!” said Smith, disconcerted by having his plans thrown out of joint in such an abrupt way.
“I thought I heard one the night before last,” she went on. “I was afraid.”
“No need to be,” he assured her. “Bears don’t come down here any more. What could a bear live on down here, I’d like to know? Snakes? Well, bears don’t eat snakes.”
“Oh!” said she, enlightened.
“There’s not a bear in a hundred miles of here,” he told her.
“That’s comforting knowledge,” she said. “You’ve never told me about the big grizzly that you killed. Was it long ago?”
“Not so very long,” Smith replied, sighing as he saw himself led so far away from the subject nearest his heart, and despairing of working his courage up to it again that day.
“It was a big one, wasn’t it?”
“Well, I got fifty dollars off of a feller for the hide.”
“Tell me about it,” she requested.
Inwardly she wished that Smith would go, so she might take a sleep, but she feared lest he might get back to the subject of houses and wives if she allowed him to depart from bears, and the historic grizzly in particular.
“Well, I’ll tell you. I didn’t kill that bear on purpose,” he began. “I didn’t go out huntin’ him, and I didn’t run after him. If he’d minded his own business like I minded mine, he’d be alive today for all I’m concerned.”
“Oh, it was an accident?” she asked.
“Part accident,” Smith replied. “I was a deputy game-warden in them days, and a cowboy on the side, up in the Big Horn Valley. A gang of fellers in knee-pants and yeller leggings come into that country, shootin’ everything that hopped up. Millionaires, I reckon they must ’a’ been, countin’ their guns and the way they left game to rot on the ground. They killed just to kill, and I tracked ’em by the smell of the carcasses behind ’em They made a sneak and got into Yellowstone Park, and there’s where I collared ’em They was all settin’ around a fire one night when I come up to ’em their guns standin’ around. I throwed down on ’em and one fool feller he made a grab for a gun. I always was sorry for that man.”
“What did you do to him?” she asked.
“Busted a diamond he had in a ring,” said Smith. “Well, they got fines, them fellers did, when I marched ’em out of there, I’m here to tell you! If it’d been me that was judge I’d ’a’ sent ’em all to jail for life.
“When I was comin’ back to the ranch from that trip I met that bear you’ve heard so much talk and mostly lies, about. That bear he’s the most slandered bear that ever lived.”
“Slandered?”
“That’s it. He wasn’t wallered to death, choked to death, pounded to death, nor run down. He was just plain shot in the top of the head.”
“What a queer place to shoot a bear! How did you manage it?”
“He managed it. He come under the tree where I was at.”
“Oh, I see.”
“And that’s all there is to that yarn, ma’am. I got a man today that I can put on that work of levelin’ off for you in the morning, if you want me to.”
“I think we’ll let it stand a day or two,” she told him. “I’ll let you know when to take it up again. I’ve got so much to think about right now that I just stand turning round and round.”
“Yes, you do feel that way in a new place, sometimes,” Smith allowed. “Well, I guess I’ll have to be goin’ on down to the store. Business is pickin’ up so fast I’ll have to keep open all the time, not only evenin’s like I have been doin’.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” said she.
“Yes; I’ll have to hire a clerk, because I’ve got to ’tend to my outside work. I’ve been paintin’ a sign to go over the front, and I tell you that name don’t look so bad when it’s in print, neither.”
“It isn’t a name to be ashamed of, I’m sure,” she cheered. “It’s just as good as any other name, as far as I can see.”
“Phogenphole has got a good many shanks to it when you come to write it, though,” reflected Smith. “It looks a lot better printed out. I think I’ll git me one of these here typewritin’-machines. But say! Stop in and take a look at that sign the first time you’re passin’; will you?”
Agnes assured him that she would. Smith upended his board as if to go.
“That feller, Boyle, he’s gone,” said he, nodding as if to confirm his own statement. “I saw him ride off up the river an hour or so ago.”
“Yes; I believe he went to Meander also.”
“He’s a bad egg,” Smith continued, “and he comes out of a basket of bad eggs. His old man, he’s doin’ more to keep this state down than anything you can name. He’s got millions–and when I say millions, ma’am, I mean millions–of acres of government land fenced and set off to his own use, and school lands, and other lands belongin’ to you and me and the high-minded citizens of this country, and he don’t pay a cent for the use of ’em, neither. Taxes? That man don’t know what taxes is.”
“Why do the people permit him to do it?”
“People! Huh! He’s got rings in their noses, that’s why. What he don’t own he’s got cowed. I tell you, I know of a town with three or four thousand people in it, and a schoolhouse as big as one of them old-country castles up on a hill, that ranchers has to go forty miles around to git to. Can’t put a road through Boyle’s land–government land, every inch of it. What do you think of that?”
“I think a stop ought to be put to it, somehow.”
“Sure it had! All of it’s subject to homestead entry, but it’s got a five-wire fence around it, and thousands of sheep and cattle that the people of this country feed and bring up and fatten for nothing, for the Hon. Mr. Boyle. More than one man’s been shot by Boyle’s fence-riders for tryin’ to homestead a piece of land he claims he’s got a lease on. He ain’t got no lease, but that don’t matter.
“There’s men settled here in this reservation that’s run up and down this state till they turned gray tryin’ to locate on a piece of land. They’ve been hustled and humped along till they’ve lost heart, most of ’em, and I reckon they doubt now whether they’re goin’ to be let stay here from one day to another.
“Cattlemen’s kicked ’em out of one place, sheepmen out of another, till this state ain’t got no farms–the only thing that it needs. Yes, I tell you, when a man sets up ag’in’ a Boyle or any of that crowd in this state, he’s due to lose. Well, say, don’t forgit to stop in and see that sign; will you?”
Agnes promised again to do so, and Smith departed, the sheep-herder’s cooling-board under his arm.
With Smith’s going, the temperature of her spirits, which had risen a little to help her through with him, suffered a recession. She looked about with the thought of finding another location for her camp, feeling that the disturbing associations of the previous night never would allow her to spend a comfortable hour there again.
Her homestead did not offer another spot with the advantages which she
enjoyed right where she was. There the river-bank was low, coming down as the stream did to a gravelly, fordable place, and there the trees offered shelter against the summer sun, the thick-matted willows a break for the winter winds. There was a home look about it, too, such as nature sometimes contrives in uninhabited places, upon which the traveler lights with satisfaction and restful delight.
She spent the remainder of the afternoon up and down her half-mile of river-bank, trying to choose between the next likeliest spots, but she hadn’t much heart in the hunt. Perhaps it would be unwise to allow any affection to grow for the place, one location or another, or for any hope to take deeper root than the sickly sprigs which she had planted at the beginning.
Drooping and weary, she returned to her tent when the sun was low, for the thought of sleep had left her with Smith’s discussion of the blight of the Boyles upon that land. There appeared little use in trying to stand out against the son of this great obstructionist who, with a few friends and servitors, had kept the state for years as another man might keep his field. Others might look into the enclosure and see the opportunities which were being wasted, but none might touch.
If the gang were deprived of their chief weapon of menace, namely, the hold which the Federal laws had upon her, Dr. Slavens might be able to withstand their covetous attempt to dispossess him of his valuable holdings. She knew that Slavens would not stand by and see her indicted by the creatures of the Boyles, nor any more nearly threatened with the disgrace of prison than she was at that hour. He would put down everything to save her, even now when the fruition of his hard-lived years was at hand.
She sat in the failing sun, scooping a little furrow with the heel of her boot as she reflected. She still wore the divided riding-skirt which she had worn the day before on her excursion into the hills, and with her leather-weighted hat she looked quite like any other long-striding lady of the sagebrush. Sun and wind, and more than a week of bareheaded disregard of complexion had put a tinge of brown on her neck and face, not much to her advantage, although she was well enough with it.
How was it, she wrangled in her mind, that the lines of their lives had crossed in that place, this physician’s and hers? Perhaps it was only the trick of chance, or perhaps it was the fulfilment of the plan drawn for them to live by from the first. But it seemed unfair to Dr. Slavens, who had made a discouraging beginning, that he must be called upon to surrender the means of realizing on his ambition when he held them in his hand, and for no other purpose than to save her, a stranger.
It was unfair of fate to lay their lines so, and it would be doubly ignoble and selfish of her to permit him to make the sacrifice. Dr. Slavens cared enough for her to ask her to marry him, and to expect her to marry him, although she had given him no word to confirm such expectation. He had taken hold of that matter to shape it for himself, and he intended to marry her, that was plain.
Her heart had jumped and turned warm with a softness toward him when he spoke of “this family” so naturally and frankly to Jerry Boyle. It seemed to her that those words gave her a dignity and a standing before the world which all the shadows of her troubled life could not dim.
But there were the shadows, there were the ghosts. She felt that it would be exceedingly burdensome to him to assume the future of two aged people, besides that of her own. Marrying her would be marrying a family, indeed, for she had wasted on that desert hope much of the small bit of money which the scraping and cleaning of their once great properties had yielded. And there lay the scheme prostrate, winded, a poor runner in a rugged race.
Of course, she might come clear of the tangle by permitting Dr. Slavens to surrender his homestead to Boyle; she might do that, and impoverish him, and accept that sacrifice as the price of herself. For after the doctor had given up his claim she could marry him and ride off complacently by his side, as heartless and soulless as anything which is bought and sold.
That’s all it would amount to–a downright sale, even though she did not marry the doctor. She would be accepting immunity at the shameful price of a man’s biggest chance in all his days. It was too much. She couldn’t do it; she never intended to do it; she couldn’t bring it around so that it would present an honorable aspect from any angle.
Evening came over the hills with a chill, which it gave to the cottonwoods as it passed them on the river-bank. Their leaves trembled and sighed, and some were so frightened by the foreboding of winter in that touch that they lost their hold upon the boughs and came circling down. In the tall grass which thrived rankly in that sub-irrigated spot the insects of summer were out of voice. The choristers of the brushwood seemed to be in difficulties over the beginning, also. They set out in shivering starts, and left off with jerky suddenness, as if they had no heart for singing against this unmistakable warning that their summer concert season had come to its end.
Agnes fired up her stove and sat by it, watching the eager sparks make their brave plunge into the vast night which so soon extinguished them, as the world engulfs and silences streams and clouds of little men who rush into it with a roar. So many of them there are who go forth so day by day, who avail, with all their fuss and noise, no more against it than the breath of an infant against a stone.
Sitting there with the night drawing in around her, she felt the cold truth in her heart about that place, and the acknowledgment of it, which she had kept away from her up to that hour. It wasn’t worth while; she did not care for it. Then and there she was ready to give it up and leave it to whoever might come after her and shape its roughness into a home.
There was a heaviness upon her, and a weight of sadness such as comes out of the silent places of the night. It was such a wide and empty land for a young heart, and its prospect was such a waste of years! The thought of refuge and peace was sweet, but there is refuge to be found and peace to be won among men and the works of men; among books, and the softer ways of life.
At that hour she was ready to give it up, mount her horse, and ride away. If giving it up would save Dr. Slavens his hard-won claim, she would not hesitate, she told herself, to ride to Comanche that night and take the first train for the East. But flight would not put her out of the reach of the Federal officials, and if she should fly, that would only bring the spite of Boyle down upon her more swiftly and sharply than remaining there, facing him, and defying him to do his worst.
No; flight would be useless, because Jerry Boyle knew exactly where she would go. There was but one place; they would follow her to it and find her, and that would be carrying trouble to a home that had enough of it as it stood. There must be some other way. Was there no bond of tenderness in that dark man’s life which she could touch? no soft influence which she might bring to bear upon him and cause him to release his rapacious hold?
None. So far as she could fit the pieces of the past together she could fashion no design which offered relief.
Agnes brought up her horse and gave it a measure of oats near the tent for the sake of the companionship of its noise, and large presence in the lantern light. She thought that even after she had gone to sleep there would be comfort in the sense of the animal’s nearness.
And so, beside her stove, the lonely night around her, the dread ache of “the lonesomeness” in her heart, she sat watching the sparks run out of the stovepipe like grains of sand running in a glass. Distance and hope alike have their enchantments, she owned, which all the powers of reason cannot dispel. Hand to hand this land was not for her. It was empty of all that she yearned for; it was as crude as the beginning.
And out of the turmoil of this thought and heartache there came tears which welled copiously and without a sob, as one weeps for things which have not been and cannot be; as one weeps for hopelessness. And the whisperings of memory stirred in her heart, and the soft light of recollection kindled like a flame. Out of the past there rose a face–and flash!
A plan!
There was something to be done now; there was hot blood in the heart again. In one mo
ment the way had straightened before her, and resolution had taken firm captaincy. With a pang of hunger she remembered that for a day she had subsisted principally on coffee.
After a hasty supper, sleep was necessary, and rest. The horse had finished its oats, and was now watching her sudden activity with forward-thrown ears, its bright eyes catching the lantern-gleam as it turned its head. Satisfied, apparently, that the bustle included no immediate plans for itself, the animal lounged easily on three legs and went to sleep.
Agnes stopped to give it a caressing pat as she went in. Sleep was the important thing now, for her plan called for endurance and toil. But there was one little thing to be done tonight for which the early light of morning, in which she must be stirring, might not suffice–just a little writing. It was quickly done, her suitcase held across her knees serving for a desk.
* * *
CHAPTER XVIII
THE STRANGE TENT
“Do nothing until I return,” ran her letter, which Dr. Slavens read by the last muddy light of day. “I will hold you to a strict account of your promise to me that you would not act in this matter without first returning here.”
There was no word of where she had gone, no time fixed for her to return. He had found the envelope pinned to the tent-cloth when he rode up, weary and grim, from his journey to Meander.
Inside the tent all was in order. There stood her boxes of canned goods and groceries against the wall. There was her cot, its blanket folded over the pillow and tucked in neatly to keep out the dust. She had not left hastily, it appeared, although the nervous brevity of her note seemed to indicate the contrary. She had contrived herself a broom of greasewood branches, with which she swept the space between stove and tent, keeping it clean down to hard earth. It stood there as she had left it, handle down, as carefully placed as if it were a most expensive and important utensil.
Claim Number One Page 21
