CHAPTER XLIII.
_The Gentile Carries off his Spoil_
Half an hour later they heard the sound of voices and wheels. Follettlooked up and saw a light wagon with four men in it driving into theMeadows from the south. The driver was Seth Wright; the man beside himhe knew to be Bishop Snow, the one they called the Entablature of Truth.The two others he had seen in Amalon, but he did not know their names.
He got up and went forward when the wagon stopped, leaning casually onthe wheel.
"He's already dead, but you can help me bury him as soon as I get mywife out of the way around that oak-brush--I see you've brought along aspade."
The men in the wagon looked at each other, and then climbed slowly out.
"Now who could 'a' left that there spade in the wagon?" began the WildRam of the Mountains, a look of perplexity clouding his ingenuous face.
The Entablature of Truth was less disposed for idle talk.
"Who did you say you'd get out of the way, young man?"
"My wife, Mrs. Ruel Follett."
"Meaning Prudence Rae?"
"Meaning her that was Prudence Rae."
"Oh!"
The ruddy-faced Bishop scanned the horizon with a dreamy, speculativeeye, turning at length to his companions.
"We better get to this burying," he said.
"Wait a minute," said Follett.
They saw him go to Prudence, raise her from the ground, put asaddle-blanket over his arm, and lead her slowly up the road around aturn that took them beyond a clump of the oak-brush.
"It won't do!" said Wright, with a meaning glance at the Entablature ofTruth, quite as if he had divined his thought.
"I'd like to know why not?" retorted this good man, aggressively.
"Because times has changed; this ain't '57."
"It'll almost do itself," insisted Snow. "What say, Glines?" and heturned to one of the others.
"Looks all right," answered the man addressed. "By heck! but that's apurty saddle he carries!"
"What say, Taggart?"
"For God's sake, no, Bishop! No--I got enough dead faces looking at menow from this place. I'm ha'nted into hell a'ready, like he said he wasyisterday. By God! I sometimes a'most think I'll have my ears bustedand my eyes put out to git away from the bloody things!"
"Ho! Scared, are you? Well, I'll do it myself. _You_ don't need tohelp."
"Better let well enough alone, Brother Warren!" interposed Wright.
"But it _ain't_ well enough! Think of that girl going to a low cuss of aGentile when Brigham wants her. Why, think of letting such a critter getaway, even if Brigham didn't want her!"
"You know they got Brother Brigham under indictment for murder now,account of that Aiken party."
"What of it? He'll get off."
"That he will, but it's because he's Brigham. _You_ ain't. You're just asouth country Bishop. Don't you know he'd throw you to the Gentilecourts as a sop quicker'n a wink if he got a chance,--just like he'll dowith old John D. Lee the minute George A. peters out so the chain willbe broke between Lee and Brigham?"
"And maybe this cuss has got friends," suggested Glines.
"Who'd know but the girl?" Snow insisted. "And Brother Brigham would fix_her_ all right. Is the household of faith to be spoiled?"
"Well, they got a railroad running through it now," said Wright, "and atelegraph, and a lot of soldiers. So don't you count on _me_, BrotherSnow, at any stage of it now or afterwards. I got a pretty sizablefamily that would hate to lose me. Look out! Here he comes."
Follett now came up, speaking in a cheerful manner that neverthelesschilled even the enthusiasm of the good Bishop Snow.
"Now, gentlemen, just by way of friendly advice to you,--like as notI'll be stepping in front of some of you in the next hour. But it isn'tgoing to worry me any, and I'll tell you why. I'd feel awful sad for youall if anything was to happen to me,--if the Injuns got me, or I wastook bad with a chill, or a jack-rabbit crept up and bit me to death, oranything. You see, there's a train of twenty-five big J. Murphy wagonswill be along here over the San Bernardino trail. They are coming out oftheir way, almost any time now, on purpose to pick me up. Fact is, myears have been pricking up all morning to hear the old bull-whips crack.There were thirty-one men in the train when they went down, and theremay be more coming back. It's a train of Ezra Calkins, my adoptedfather. You see, they know I've been here on special business, and Isent word the other day I was about due to finish it, and they wasn't togo through coming back without me. Well, that bull outfit will stop forme--and they'll _get_ me or get pay for me. That's their orders. And itisn't a train of women and babies, either. They're such an outrageousrough lot, quick-tempered and all like that, that they wouldn't believethe truth that I had an accident--not if you swore it on a stack ofMormon Bibles topped off by the life of Joe Smith. They'd go right outand make Amalon look like a whole cavayard of razor-hoofed buffaloes hadraced back and forth over it. And the rest of the two thousand men onEzra Calkins's pay-roll would come hanging around pestering you all withWinchesters. They'd make you scratch gravel, sure!
"Now let's get to work. I see you'll be awful careful and tender withme. I'll bet I don't get even a sprained ankle. You folks get him, andI'll show you where he said the place was."
Two hours later Follett came running back to where Prudence lay on thesaddle-blanket in the warm morning sun.
"The wagon-train is coming--hear the whips? Now, look here, why don't wego right on with it, in one of the big wagons? They're coming backlight, and we can have a J. Murphy that is bigger than a whole lot ofhouses in this country. You don't want to go back there, do you?"
She shook her head.
"No, it would hurt me to see it now. I should be expecting to see him atevery turn. Oh, I couldn't stand that--poor sorry little father!"
"Well, then, leave it all; leave the place to the women, and goodriddance, and come off with me. I'll send one of the boys back with apack-mule for any plunder you want to bring away, and you needn't eversee the place again."
She nestled in his arms, feeling in her grief the comfort of histenderness.
"Yes, take me away now."
The big whips could be heard plainly, cracking like rifle-shots, andshortly came the creaking and hollow rumbling of the wagons and thecries of the teamsters to their six-mule teams. There were shouts andcalls, snatches of song from along the line, then the rattling ofharness, and in a cloud of dust the train was beside them, the teamsterssitting with rounded shoulders up under the bowed covers of the bigwagons.
A hail came from the rear of the train, and a bronzed and bearded man ina leather jacket cantered up on a small pony.
"Hello there, Rool! I'm whoopin' glad to see you!"
He turned to the driver of the foremost wagon.
"All right, boys! We'll make a layby for noon."
Follett shook hands with him heartily, and turned to Prudence.
"This is my wife, Lew. Prudence, this is Lew Steffins, ourwagon-master."
"Shoo, now!--you young cub--married? Well, I'm right glad to see Mrs.Rool Follett--and bless your heart, little girl!"
"Did you stop back there at the settlement?"
"Yes; and they said you'd hit the pike about dark last night, to chase acrazy man. I told them I'd be back with the whackers if I didn't findyou. I was afraid some trouble was on, and here you're only married tothe sweetest thing that ever--why, she's been crying! Anything wrong?"
"No; never mind now, anyway. We're going on with you, Lew."
"Bully proud to have you. There's that third wagon--"
"Could I ride in that?" asked the girl, looking at the big lumberingconveyance doubtfully.
"It carried six thousands pounds of freight to Los Angeles, littlewoman," answered Steffins, promptly, "and I wouldn't guess you to heftover one twenty-eight or thirty at the outside. I'll have the box filledin with spruce boughs and a lot of nice bunch-grass, and put somecomforts over that, and you'll be all snug and tidy. You won't sta
rve,either, not while there's meat running."
"And say, Lew, she's got some stuff back at that place. Let the extrahand ride back with a packjack and bring it on. She'll tell him what toget."
"Sure! Tom Callahan can go."
"And give us some grub, Lew. I've hardly had a bite since yesterdaymorning."
An hour later, when the train was nearly ready to start, Follett tookhis wife to the top of the ridge and showed her, a little way belowthem, the cedar at the foot of the sandstone ledge. He stayed back,thinking she would wish to be there alone. But when she stood by the newgrave she looked up and beckoned to him.
"I wanted you by me," she said, as he reached her side. "I never knewhow much he was to me. He wasn't big and strong like other men, but nowI see that he was very dear and more than I suspected. He was so quietand always so kind--I don't remember that he was ever stern with meonce. And though he suffered from some great sorrow and from sickness,he never complained. He wouldn't even admit he was sick, and he alwaystried to smile in that little way he had, so gentle. Poor sorry littlefather!--and yesterday not one of them would be his friend. It broke myheart to see him there so wistful when they turned their backs on him.Poor little man! And see, here's another grave all grown around withsage and the stones worn smooth; but there's the cross he spoke of. Itmust be some one that he wanted to lie beside. Poor little sorry father!Oh, you will have to be so much to me!"
The train was under way again. In the box of the big wagon, on a springycouch of spruce boughs and long bunch-grass, Prudence lay at rest, hurtby her grief, yet soothed by her love, her thoughts in a whirl abouther.
Follett, mounted on Dandy, rode beside her wagon.
"Better get some sleep yourself, Rool," urged Steffins.
"Can't, Lew. I ain't sleepy. I'm too busy thinking about things, and Ihave to watch out for my little girl there. You can't tell what thesecusses might do."
"There's thirty of us watching out for her now, young fellow."
"There'll be thirty-one till we get out of this neighbourhood, Lew."
He lifted up the wagon-cover softly a little later; and found that sheslept. As they rode on, Steffins questioned him.
"Did you make that surround you was going to make, Rool?"
"No, Lew, I couldn't. Two of them was already under, and, honest, Icouldn't have got the other one any more than you could have shot yourkid that day he up-ended the gravy-dish in your lap."
"Hell!"
"That's right! I hope I never have to kill any one, Lew, no matter _how_much I got a right to. I reckon it always leaves uneasy feelings in aman's mind."
* * * * *
Eight days later a tall, bronzed young man with yellow hair and quickblue eyes, in what an observant British tourist noted in his journal as"the not unpicturesque garb of a border-ruffian," helped a dazed butvery pretty young woman on to the rear platform of the Pullman carattached to the east-bound overland express at Ogden.
As they lingered on the platform before the train started they werehailed and loudly cheered, averred the journal of this same Briton, "bya crowd of the outlaw's companions, at least a score and a half of mostdisreputable-looking wretches, unshaven, roughly dressed, heavilybooted, slouch-hatted (they swung their hats in a drunken frenzy), andto this rough ovation the girl, though seemingly a person of somedecency, waved her handkerchief and smiled repeatedly, though her facehad seemed to be sad and there were tears in her eyes at that verymoment."
At this response from the girl, the journal went on to say, the ruffianshad redoubled their drunken pandemonium. And as the train pulled away,to the observant tourist's marked relief, the young outlaw on theplatform had waved his own hat and shouted as a last message to one"Lew," that he "must not let Dandy get gandered up," nor forget "to tiehim to grass."
Later, as the train shrieked its way through Echo Canon, the observanttourist, with his double-visored plaid cap well over his face,pretending to sleep, overheard the same person across the aisle say tothe girl:--
"Now we're on our own property at last. For the next sixty hours we'llbe riding across our own front yard--and there aren't any keys andpasswords and grips here, either--just a plain Almighty God with nononsense about Him."
Whereupon had been later added to the journal a note to the effect thatAmericans are not only quite as prone to vaunt and brag and tell bigstories as other explorers had asserted, but that in the West they wereready blasphemers.
Yet the couple minded not the observant tourist, and continued toenlarge and complicate his views of American life to the very bank ofthe Missouri. Unwittingly, however, for they knew him not nor saw himnor heard him, being occupied with the matter of themselves.
"You'll have to back me up when we get to Springfield," he said to herone late afternoon, when they neared the end of their exciting journey."I've heard that old Grandpa Corson is mighty peppery. He might take youaway from me."
Her eyes came in from the brown rolling of the plain outside to lighthim with their love; and then, the lamps having not yet been lighted,the head of grace nestled suddenly on its pillow of brawn with only alittle tremulous sigh of security for answer.
This brought his arm quickly about her in a protecting clasp, plainly inthe sidelong gaze of the now scandalised but not less observant tourist.
THE END.
The Lions of the Lord: A Tale of the Old West Page 45