The Westerners

by Stewart Edward White

  XX

  THE EATING OF THE APPLE

  One morning Molly found herself awakened very early by the sound ofwhistling just outside. She opened her eyes to discover Peter, who hadoccupied one end of the wagon, sitting, head and ears up, listening tothe same sound. The whistling was young, tuneless. Finally she peeredthrough the crack in the canvas.

  Outside, on the wagon tongue, sat the Kid patiently waiting, his littlerifle across his knees, one bare foot digging away at the dust, hislips puckered to cheerful sibilance, his wide gray eyes turning everyonce in awhile to the canvas cover of the schooner. He discoveredMolly looking out. The whistle abruptly stopped.

  "Come on out, Molly," said he. "I ben waiting for you a long time."

  "My! it's so awful early!" yawned Molly. "What do you want to do?"

  "I'm going to take you hunting," confided the Kid. "We perhaps can geta squirrel down the gulch, or perhaps a cotton-tail. Come on, hurryup!"

  "Why, I ain't dressed yet," objected Molly.

  "Well, dress!" said the Kid impatiently.

  By this time she was well awake, and the glorious morning was gettinginto her lungs. Her eye disappeared, and in a few minutes she emergedfully clothed. The Kid looked her over.

  "Y' ain't going that way?" he asked incredulously.

  "Course not. You wait till I come back."

  She stepped down on the whiffletree, her heavy waving hair falling inmasses of curls and crinkles over her shoulders.

  "Oh, Lord!" cried the Kid pathetically. In the entrance stood Peter,his head on one side. Molly laughed.

  "I thought I'd got rid of _him_," complained the Kid, "and here he is!"

  "Never mind," said Molly soothingly, "I can make him stand round. Comehere, Peter!"

  At the pool of the lower creek Molly knelt, turning back the sleevesfrom her white arms, loosening the dress from about her round youngthroat. After a little she leaned back against the mosses and piledthe strands of her hair, watching the interested Kid with shining eyes.

  "My, but you're purty!" he cried. She nodded to him, laughing.

  They took their way down the gulch, walking soberly in the road, whilePeter skirmished unrestrained among the possibilities of the thicketsat either hand. In the judgment of the Kid, this was too near town forthe best hunting. The Kid talked.

  "You never been down here, have you?"

  "No," replied Molly, "I've always been up in the hills, you know; it'smore fun, I think. Do you think we'll find anything down here near theroad?"

  "Not just yet; but after we get by Bugchaser's--Say, you've never seenBugchaser, then, have you?"

  "No," laughed the girl, "I should think not. What in the world isBugchaser?"

  "It isn't a 'what'; it's a 'him.' He's crazy. He has a 'coon, and abear, and a bobcat. I'd like to go up an' see 'em, but I'm scairt ofhim."

  "Is he dangerous?" asked Molly.

  "Pop says he eats little boys. Hoh! that ain't so, of course. Buthe's crazy, you know."

  "What makes you think so?"

  "He chases bugs with a fishnet."

  "Oh!" cried Molly comprehendingly, and began to laugh.

  The Kid looked at her with offended reproach.

  "Well," he remarked finally, "you can do what you want; but you betcherlife I'm keepin' away from him!"

  His eyes were wide with childish wonder, strangely incongruous in thissolemn, lonely little creature with his ways of early maturity and hisridiculous cut-down clothes.

  "There, there," laughed Molly soothingly. "I wonder what's up withPeter!"

  Peter was barking like a bunch of fire crackers.

  "Sounds exciting!" said she. "Maybe it's a squirrel up a tree. Let'ssee!"

  The Kid threw his rifle into the position of a most portentous ready,and the two entered the bushes. Peter was discovered, his hairbristling between his shoulders, jumping eagerly around some objectwhich lay, invisible, on the ground. He snapped with excitement. TheKid ran forward with a shout. Molly picked her skirts up and followedwith equal rapidity and considerably more grace. They nearly ran overa large coiled rattlesnake.

  The Kid yelled and leaped to one side. Molly stopped stock-still anduttered a piercing scream, after which she climbed rapidly to the topof a near-by bowlder, where she perched, her skirts daintily raised,her eyes bright with excitement. Peter leaped madly about. The Kiddischarged rapid but ineffectual pea bullets at the reptile.

  "I imagine you need a little help," said a voice so unexpected thatMolly nearly fell from the rock. The Kid gave one look at the newcomerand fled with a howl of terror. "A most peculiar youth," observedDurand reflectively as he advanced. "Most peculiar--seemingly obsessedof an unwarranted terror for my person. Strange! I have never actedin any way brusquely toward him." He picked up a stick, and, advancingwithout the slightest hesitation, killed the whirring snake with asingle blow. "You may now descend," he assured her, turning withexquisite grace to offer his hand.

  He led the way out to the road. Peter followed until within sight ofthe animals chained to the posts, and then he quietly disappeared insearch of the Kid. This was not cowardice on Peter's part, but he hadlong since tested by experiment the futility of challenging barks.

  Molly had recognized the newcomer from the Kid's description; and herfirst glance assured her that her surmise as to his calling had beentrue. She had been reading the _Life of Wilson_, the naturalist,recently; and so knew of the existence of such men. To her they seemedrather romantic.

  "Oh!" cried she on catching sight of the chained animals. "Are theytame? Are they tame enough to pet?"

  The old man smiled a little at her enthusiasm. He had been looking herover with pleasure, but without surprise. Michail Lafond, his newfriend, had mentioned his "daughter"; but never, Durand now thought, infitting terms. This girl was really beautiful. The little interviewbecame an audience to which Durand brought his exquisite court manners.

  "Jacques, the little raccoon, certainly is," he replied to Molly'squestion, "but the others--I do not know--they are tame enough forme--but a stranger----. We can try, cautiously."

  Molly had run forward and fallen on her knees before the 'coon. Shewas delighted with his grizzled, round body, with his bright eyes, hissharp little nose, the stripes across his back, his bare, black hands,almost human, and above all with the clean, fresh woods-smell that ischaracteristic of such an animal when not too closely confined.Finding him quite gentle, she took him in her arms. Jacques proceededat once to investigate busily the recesses and folds of her dress.

  "He seeks for sweetmeats," explained the old man, who was looking on.

  From Jacques they proceeded to Isabeau, the lynx. Isabeau spat alittle and looked askance, but under reproof permitted a dainty pat onthe tips of his tasselled ears. Patalon, the great clown bear, wasgood-natured, but rough. He desired to be rubbed here and there, hewished affectionately to return this young lady's attentions with amighty hug. He smelt rank of the wild beast. Molly returned soon tolittle Jacques.

  "How did you get them?" she asked, tapping the end of Jacques' nose tosee him wrinkle his face.

  "It is not difficult. One captures them young, when they are merecubs; and so, although they never will lose their wild instincts, theybecome as you see them."

  "But the mothers----?"

  "Ah, that is the pity," replied the old man simply. "Sometimes itbecomes necessary that they die."

  Molly looked on him with new wonder, this slayer of bears and wildcats, who nevertheless appeared so gentle, whose eye was so mild. Itwas indeed a marvellous world. She forgot the Kid and the huntingparty, and gave herself up to the pleasure of the moment.

  From the pets they wandered to the flowers. These interested Mollyexceedingly, for she herself was struggling with the boxes ofgeraniums. It was fully half an hour later when Molly finally saidfarewell to her host and continued on down the gulch in the directiontaken by her little companion.

  The Kid
was waiting with all the heart-rending impatience of youth.The precious time before breakfast was slipping away in futility. Hehad made a sacrifice in taking this girl. Never would he do it again!never! never! And then he saw her coming, and forgot everything excepthis relief.

  "Took you long enough to break away," was his only complaint as he roseto conduct the party.

  "Have we got time to hunt now? Ain't it 'most breakfast-time?"inquired Molly dubiously. "Don't you think we'd better let it go forthis morning?"

  "Lord, no! Come on! For heaven's sake don't let's waste any moretime!" cried the Kid with a gusty impatience that surprised hiscompanion. She did not realize the humiliated disappointment that hadthis last hour seethed in the little breast. "I s'pose we might 'swell get up on the ridge," suggested the Kid, still grumbling.

  They turned sharp to the left, through the thicket, where the birdswere already hushing their songs, and the early dew was quite driedaway. The Kid pushed ahead with almost feverish rapidity. Here andthere in the brush Peter scurried, head down, hind legs well drawntogether beneath his flanks. He snuffled eagerly into the holes andforms, doing his dramatic best to create some game, if necessary.Every once in awhile his bristly head, all alert, peered, cock-eared,over a bush, searching the hunter's face for directions, and thenplunging away suddenly as his own judgment advised. It was mostscienceless and unsportsman-like. The Kid peered eagerly to right andleft, holding the muzzle of the little rifle conscientiously at anangle of forty-five degrees, as he had been taught, and vainly strivingto avoid dry twigs, although Peter was making enough noise for a circusparade. The girl followed a step or so in the rear. It wasbreath-taking, this excitement. Every stir of the bushes neededexamination, every flutter of wings was a possibility, every plunge ofPeter might send a covey whirring into the pine tops, or rouse asquirrel to angry expostulation. As they went on up the side hills,still without result, but therefore with expectation the moresharpened, and as Molly's cheeks became redder and redder under herbrown skin and her eyes brighter and brighter, and as she bit her underlip more and more, and as the straight level line of her brows grewstraighter and straighter with the concentration of her thoughts, it isto be doubted if the most enthusiastic lover of scenery could have tornhis eyes from the pretty picture even for the sake of the magnificentsweep of country below. So at least thought Cheyenne Harry, on his wayacross the ridge to his claim.

  He surveyed the eager three with some slight amusement.

  "Hullo!" he called suddenly.

  The boy and girl started.

  "Hullo!" answered Molly after a moment, when her intent huntingexpression had quite fled before her cheerful look of recognition."That you?"

  The Kid too paused, but evidently under protest, and with the idea ofmoving on again at the earliest polite moment.

  "How's hunting?" inquired Harry facetiously. "Killed all the game downbelow there?"

  "All we've seen," replied Molly promptly; "and the hunting's verygood." She put ever so slight a stress on the word "hunting." "We'regoing over the ridge now. Want to come along and help carry the game?"

  Harry looked speculatively at the Kid, who was standing first on onebare foot, then on the other. "Naw, guess not," he replied. The Kidbrightened at once. "I'm going over to the Gold King for a while.You'd better come along with me."

  "Haven't had any breakfast," objected Molly.

  "Oh, that's nothing. Neither have I. I'm just out to look around.Come ahead."

  Molly did not care a snap of her fingers about the Gold King claim,except that it belonged to Cheyenne Harry; and, owing to the rarity ofthat individual's visits to his property, she had never seen it.Besides this, she had been a good deal the last few days with Graham.That young man had been interesting her greatly with a most condensedand popularized account of the nebular theory, which seemed to Mollyvery picturesque and intellectual. She was much taken with the idea ofthus improving herself and she gave herself great credit for theeffort, but it was so far above the usual plane of her intellectualworkings that she had to stand on tiptoe to reach it. The eveningbefore, she had gone to bed keyed up to wonderful resolves. To-day thependulum had begun ever so slowly to swing back. All the influences ofout-door life had drawn her to the earth; the clear freshness of theearly morning, the rank smell of the wild beast, the incipienthero-worship in her admiration of the old man's supposed prowess as aslayer of bears, the actual physical contact with the slapping clingingbrush through which she had passed. She breathed deep of the crispair. She broadened her chest, and stretched her muscles, and drank thesoft caressing sun warmth. She felt she would like to get down nearthe grass, to breathe its earthly smell, to kiss it. It was thegladness of just living.

  And to her in a subtle manner Cheyenne Harry symbolized these things,just as Graham symbolized that elusive intangible humiliating power ofthe intellect. He was strong and bold and breezy of manner, andelemental of thought, and primitive in his passions and the manner oftheir expression. He appealed to that spirit in her which craved thebrusque conqueror.

  So for the moment the idea of a scramble with him over these roughdike-strewn ridges seemed to her the one idea in perfect tune with thewild Western quality of the newborn day. And therefore, to theconsternation of the waiting Kid, she replied--

  "Why, yes. I think it would be good fun, though I don't believe there_is_ any Gold King claim. I believe it's just an excuse for yourloafing around, for you certainly never spent much time on it."

  "It's the finest thing ever," Harry assured her with a laugh. "I'llshow you."

  The Kid stood stock-still in consternation.

  "Oh!" cried he, when he could get his voice, "and how about our hunt?"

  "You come along with us," invited Cheyenne Harry good-naturedly. "It'sgood hunting all the way."

  But the Kid knew better. This heedless climbing and loud talking wouldbe quite different from the careful attention necessary for thedestruction of the wily "chicken" or experienced squirrel. He lookedvery sad.

  "Yes, come on," urged Molly; "we'll get something over in 'Teepee.'"

  The Kid shook his head, unable to trust himself to speak. CheyenneHarry turned away a little impatiently.

  "I'm sorry," continued Molly with hesitation. "I think you'd like it.But we've had quite a hunt already, haven't we? And we can go anothertime."

  She joined Cheyenne Harry. Peter stood looking first at the Kid, thenat the two retreating forms. He was plainly undecided. Molly'sgingham dress fluttered for the last time before she turned the cornerof a bowlder. Peter suddenly made up his worried mind. The Kid wasleft alone.

  He sat down on a rock, and rested his chin in his hands, and lookedaway across the valley to the peak of Tom Custer. A tiny white cloudwas sailing down the wind. He watched it until, swirling, it dissolvedinto the currents of air. Far back in the forest of pines a littlebreeze rustled, faint as a whisper: then it crept nearer, ever waxingin strength, until, with a murmur as of a throng of people, it passedoverhead, and vanished with a last sigh in the distance. The Kidlistened attentively to the birth and death of the voice. A squirreldirectly above him broke into a rattling torrent of chattering rage.The Kid sat, his chin in his hands, looking out over the valley withunseeing eyes, his little rifle resting idly against his knee. Themoments passed by, one after the other, distinct, like the ticks of agreat clock.

  A soft muzzle nosed its way gently between his wrists. He looked down.Peter's homely, gray-whiskered face with the pathetic eyes looked upinto his own. The Kid flung both arms about the dog's coarse-furredneck, and burst into a passion of tears.

  From the top of the ridge, where she had paused a moment to takebreath, Molly saw the whole of this little scene. She suddenly feltvery irritated.

  That Kid was certainly the most unreasonable of children! Why, shespent three-quarters of her time doing nothing but amuse him. She hadgot up cheerfully at an unearthly hour, walked several miles withoutbreakfast, followed him
uncomplaining through a lot of damp grass andunderbrush, and now, because she wouldn't spend the rest of the daywith him, he sulked. Forsooth, was she to give up all her friends, heramusements, for the sake of that boy? Molly was most impatient--withthe Kid--and she became so preoccupied in pitying herself that shehardly answered Cheyenne Harry's remarks, and was a very poorcompanion. She deceived herself perfectly; yet in the background ofher consciousness was something she did not recognize--somethinguncomfortable. It was an uneasiness, a heaviness, a slight feeling ofguilt for something which she could not specify, quite indefinable, andtherefore the more annoying. It made her feel like shaking hershoulders. There seemed no valid reason why she should not be aslight-hearted as she had been a few minutes ago, for her reason sawnothing in her conduct to regret. And yet she was uneasy, as thoughshe had done something wrong and was on the point of being found out.She could not understand it, but it was very real, and, because shecould see no reason for it, it made her angry, with a sense ofinjustice.

  It was the first manifestation of another phase of heredity--the NewEngland conscience.