The Sagebrusher: A Story of the West

by Emerson Hough

  CHAPTER XXII

  MRS. GAGE

  Ten days after the wedding at Sim Gage's ranch, the mistress of thatestablishment, sitting alone, heard the excited barking of the littledog in the yard, and the sound of a motor passing through the gate.Instinctively she turned toward the window, as the car stopped. Sheheard a voice certainly familiar and welcome as well.

  "Well, how do you do this morning? And how is everything?" It wasDoctor Barnes saluting her. He came up to the unscreened window whereshe stood, and stood there for a time with one or other like remark,before he passed around the house and came in at the door.

  "You're alone?" said he.

  "Why, yes, Mr. Gage has gone over to Mr. Gardner's. They're gettingout some building material."

  "Mrs. Jensen gone home too?"

  "Oh, yes. I'm mistress of the house. I wonder how it looks?"

  "You'd be surprised!" said Doctor Barnes, cryptically.

  He sat down, hat on knee, silent for a time, musing, looking at thepathetically beautiful face of the woman before him.

  "You'd never get any of your own philosophy second hand," said he atlength.

  She smiled faintly. "No, I'm not given to hysteria, if that's what youwant to say."

  "Women do strange things. But not your sort--no."

  "You don't call this strange--what I've done?"

  "No, it was inevitable--for you."

  She seated herself on the bed, hands in lap. How fine it was to hear avoice like his, to meet a brain like his, keen, broad, educated, herein this place!

  "No, you've not read books to get your own philosophy of life. So youcan reason about things."

  "I don't think you're very merciful to me," said Mary Gage.

  "Why, yes. God has shut your eyes to our new and distracted world.This new world?--you ought to be thankful that you cannot see it. Iwish I did not have to see it. But you don't want to hear me talk?You don't want philosophizing? I'm afraid I'm not very happy in myphilosophy after all."

  He rose, hands in pockets, and tried to pace up and down the narrowlittle room.

  "Don't move the chairs, please," said she. "I know where they all arenow."

  He laughed, and again seated himself.

  "You know why I've come up? I suppose Sim has told you that we'regoing to have a soldier post here in your yard?"

  "Yes, I was glad of that--it seemed like company."

  "It will make you feel a great deal safer. And did your husband tellyou that I'm going to be a person of consequence now? I'm a Majoragain, not just plain doctor."

  "There must have been reason. The Government is alarmed?"

  "Yes. Our chief engineer Waldhorn--well, he's still a German-American,to put it mildly. Told me three times he had bought fifteen thousanddollars' worth of Liberty Bonds. I fear German-Americans buying bonds!And I know Waldhorn's a red Socialist--Bolshevik--if they make them."

  "If they doubt him, why don't they remove him?"

  "If he knew he was suspected--bang! up might go the dam. I hardly needsay that you're to keep absolutely quiet about all this. I tell youbecause I can trust you. As for me, I'm a pretty busy little doctorright now--cook and the captain bold, and the mate of the Nancy brig.Within a week we'll have a telephone line strung up here. My men willbe here to-morrow morning to begin work with the building. Suppose Ihad a chance to get you a woman companion out here. Would you be glad?"

  "Please don't jest."

  "Well, I've sent for your old friend, Annie Squires!" said she.

  "Annie! Why--no! She wrote to me----"

  "Yes, I know. And I wired her. She's coming on out. She has leftCleveland to-day. I'm going to meet her myself at the station, andbring her out. If she can cook she can get on the pay roll. Odd, howyou two came to meet----"

  --"Why, cook?--work?--of course Annie could! Of course--she'd behappy. She's alone, like myself--but not married."

  "And she'll find you happily married, as she said in the letter. Youare happily married? I beg your pardon, but he's--he's beenconsiderate?"

  "More. Chivalrous. He wrote me at first that I might expect to find a'chivalrous ranchman, of ample means.' That's true, isn't it?"

  For a long time he sat silent. "Yes," said he, "I believe I'll saythat's true!

  "You think this Annie person can cook?" he added.

  "Of course! Oh, do you suppose she _really_ is coming?"

  "If I'm going to be a Major again I'm going to have plenary powers!"

  "Well, Major," she smiled slowly at last, "you seem to have a way ofordering things! Tell me about yourself. I mean about you, yourself,personally. I've no way of getting the commonest notion of people anymore. It's very, very hard."

  He went on quickly, warned by the quiver of her lips. "All right,"said he. "I'll fill out my questionnaire. This registrant is Barnes,Major Allen, age thirty-one, Medical Corps, assigned to special serviceEngineers' detail, power dam of the Transcontinental Light and PowerCompany; graduate of Johns Hopkins; height eleven feet five inches--yousee, I've felt all of that tall ever since I got to be a Major. Eyes,gray; hair, sandy. Mobility of chest, four and a half inches.Features, clean-cut and classical. Good muscular development.Stature, erect and robust. Blood pressure, 128. Pulse, full andregular. Habits, very bad. Three freckles on left hand."

  "Dear me!" she said, smiling in spite of all, and thus evincingdefinitely a certain dimple in her left cheek which now he noticed inconfirmation of his earlier suspicion. "Bad habits?"

  "Well, I smoke, and everything, you know. Majors have to be regularfellows."

  "You're rather pleasant to talk to!"

  "Very!"

  "You know, you seem rather a manny sort of man to me--do you know whatI mean?"

  "I'm glad you think so."

  "And I owe you a great deal, Major--or--Doctor."

  "Please don't make yourself a continuous trial balance all the time.Don't be thinking of sacrifices and duties--isn't there some way we canplan just to get some plain joy out of life as we go along? I believethat's my religion, if I've got any."

  "I often wish I could see the mountains," said she, vaguely.

  He rose suddenly. "Come with me, then! I'll take you out into thesunlight. I'll tell you all about the mountains. I'll show yousomething of the world. I couldn't live out here if it wasn't for thesheer beauty of this country. It's wonderful--it's so beautiful."

  "What was it you put down by the door as you came in?" she asked of himcuriously.

  He turned to her with like curiosity. "How do you know?" said he."Are you shamming? That was my fishing rod and my fish basket I putdown there; but I didn't think you'd know anything about it."

  "I'm beginning to have abnormally acute senses, I suppose. That'snecessity."

  "Nature is a very wonderful old girl," said Doctor Barnes. "But comenow, I'm going to ask you to go down to the stream with me and have atry about those grayling. I told Sim Gage I was going to some time,and this will be about my last chance. If we have any luck I'll showyou there's something in this country beside bacon and beans."

  "I'd love to," said Mary, eagerly. "Why, that'll be fine!"

  She rose and went directly to her sunbonnet, which hung upon a nail inthe wall--the sunbonnet which Mrs. Jensen had fashioned for her andpromised her to be of much utility. But she stumbled as she turned.

  "I can tell where the window is, and the door," said she, breathlessly."I miss the reading most of all--and friends. I can't see my friends."

  "Well, your friends can see you, and that's much of a consolation,"said Major Allen Barnes. "I stare shamelessly, and you never know.Come along now, and we'll go fishing and have a bully time."

  He took her arm and led her out into the brilliant sunlight, across theyard, across the little rivulet which made down from the spring throughthe thin fringe of willows, out across the edge of the hay lands to thehigh, unbroken ridges covered with stubby sage brush which lay beyondbetween the m
eadows and the river. The little Airedale, Tim, went withthem, bounding and barking, running in a hundred circles, finding ascore of things of which he tried to tell them.

  It was no long walk, no more than a half mile in all, but he stoppedfrequently to tell her about the country, to explain how blue the skywas with its small white clouds, how inviting the long line of themountains across the valley, how sweet the green of the meadows and theblue-gray of the sage. She was eager as a child.

  "The river is that way," said she after a while.

  "How do you know?"

  "I can feel it--I can feel the water. It's cooler along the stream, Isuppose."

  "Well, you've guessed it right," said he. "There's going to be quite aworld for you, so don't be discouraged. Yes, that's the river justahead of us--my word! it's the prettiest river that ever lay out ofdoors in all the world."

  "I can hear it," said she, pausing and listening.

  "Yes--that's where it breaks over a little gravel bed up yonder, fiftyyards from us. And here, right in front of us, we are at the corner ofthe bend, and it's deep--twelve feet deep at least. And then it bendsoff to the left again, with willows on this side and grassy banks onthe other side. And the water is as clear as the air itself. You cansee straight down into it.

  "And look--look!" he said, as he stood with her, catching her by thewrist at the brink. "Down in this hole, right before us, there's morethan a million grayling--there's four hundred billion of them rightdown in there, and every one of them is eight feet long! Sim Gage wasright--I'll bet some of them do weigh three pounds. It must be rightin the height of the summer run. What a wonderful country!"

  "Here, now," he went on, "sit right here on the grass on my coat. Liedown, you Tim! That's right, boy--I can't stand this any longer--I'vegot to get busy."

  Hurriedly he went about jointing his rod, putting on the reel,threading the line through the guides, while she sat, her hand on thedog's shaggy head.

  She felt something placed in her lap. "That's my fly hook," said he."I'm asking you to look at it. Hundreds of them, and no two alike, andall the nineteen colors of the rainbow. I'm going to put on thisone--see--it's dressed long and light, to look like a grasshopper.Queen of the Waters, they call it."

  "Listen!" said she suddenly, raising a finger. "What was that?"

  "What was it? Nothing in the world except the biggest grayling I eversaw! He broke up there just at the head of the pool where the waterruns deep under the willows, just off the bar. If I can get this flyjust above him--wait now--sit perfectly still where you are."

  He passed up the stream a few paces and began to cast, measuring thedistance with the fly still in the air. She could hear the faintwhistle of the line, and some idea of what he was doing came to her.And then she heard an exclamation, synchronous with a splash in thepool.

  "Got him!" said he. "And he's one sockdollager, believe me! We've gothold of old Grandpa Grayling now--and if things just hold----"

  "Here," said he after a while. She felt the rod placed in her hand,felt a strenuous tugging and pulling that almost wrenched it away.

  "Hold tight!" said he. "Take the line in your left hand, this way.Now, if he pulls hard, ease off. Pull in when you can--not toohard--he's got a tender mouth. Let him run! I want you to see whatfun it is. Can't you see him out there now, jumping?"

  Tim, eager for any sport, sprang up and began to bark excitedly. Herlips parted, her eyes shining, sightless as they were, Mary facedtoward the splashing which she heard. She spoke low, in a whisper, asthough afraid of alarming the fish. "Where is he?" she said. "Wheredid he go?"

  "He's out there," responded her companion, chuckling. "He's gettingrattled now. Don't hold him too tight--that's the idea--work him alongeasy now. Now shorten up your line a little bit, and sit right whereyou are. I'm going to net him. Lift the tip of the rod a little,please, and bring him in toward you."

  She obeyed as best she could. Suddenly she heard a splash, and felt aflopping object placed, net and all, directly in her lap. Witheagerness she caught it in her hands, meeting Tim's towsley head,engaged in the same errand, and much disposed to claim the fish as allhis own.

  "There's Grandpa!" said Doctor Barnes. "I've lost my bet to SimGage--that fellow will go over three pounds. I didn't know there wassuch a grayling in the world."

  "And now tell me," said he, as she felt him lift the fish from her lap,and with woman's instinct brushed away the drops of water from herfrock, "isn't life worth living after all, when you have a day likethis, and a sky such as we have, and sport like this?"

  He looked at her face. There was less droop to the corners of hermouth than he ever had seen. There was a certain light that came toher features which he had not yet recognized. She drew a long breathand sighed as she dropped her hands into her lap. "Do you suppose wecould get another one?" said she.

  He laughed exultantly. "I should say we could! Just sit still whereyou are, and we'll load up again."

  As a matter of fact the grayling were rising freely, and in a moment orso he had fastened another which he added to the one in the basket.This one she insisted that he land alone, so that he might have all thesport. And thus, he generously sharing with her, they placed six ofthe splendid fish in the basket, and he declared they had enough forthe time.

  "Come," said he, "we'll go back now."

  She reached out a hand. "I want to carry the fish," said she. "Letme, please. I want to do something."

  He passed the basket strap over her shoulder for her, Tim following onbehind, panting, as guardian of the spoils. "You're a good sport,"said Major Barnes. "One of the best I ever saw, and I saw a lot ofthem over there."

  She was stumbling forward through the sage as best she might, trippinghere and there, sweeping her skirts now and again from the raggedbranches which caught against them. He took her hand in his to leadher. It lay light and warm in his own--astonishingly light and warm,as suddenly he realized. She had pushed the sunbonnet back from herforehead as she would have done had she been desirous of seeing better.He noted the color of her cheeks, the regularity of her features, theevenness of her dark brows, the wholly pleasing contour of her figure,as she stumbled bravely along at his side.

  "You're fine!" he repeated, suddenly. "You're fine! I expect to seeyou live to bless the day you came here. I expect to hear you say yetthat you're _glad_ you're alive--not alive just because it was yourduty to live. Don't talk to me any more about duty."

  He was striding along excitedly. "Not too fast!" she panted, holdingfast to his hand.

  And so they came presently to the cabin door again, and saw Sim Gageperched high on a load of logs, coming down the lane.

  "I'm going to put the new cabin for the men right over there," saidDoctor Barnes. "And when Annie Squires comes--why, we're going to havethe grandest little ranch here you ever saw. And, of course, I cantelephone up every once in a while."

  "Telephone?" said she vaguely. "Then you won't be coming up yourself?"