The Westerners

by Stewart Edward White

  XXX

  ANCESTRAL VOICES

  Archibald Mudge, alias Frosty, dressed in a clean white apron, stoodbehind the bar and surveyed his handiwork with satisfaction. It hadgone well, and for this one day his master had been in an unwontedlygood humor.

  Directly opposite, a wide door opened into the new dance hall. Fromwhere Frosty stood one could see that it was a long low room,flag-draped, with few windows, and furnished only by an unbroken lineof benches against the wall. One standing in the doorway, however,could have perceived that at one end were placed for the musicians anumber of tall "look-out" stools--tall in order that the performersmight at once overlook the performance of the square-dance "figures,"and early prepare to avoid possible hostilities. A number of largelamps with reflectors illuminated the apartment with crossed shafts oflight.

  Frosty polished glasses in anticipation of the evening's business,which would be lively, glancing complacently from the fresh-scrubbedfloor to the lately renewed sheets, imitating plaster. As the outerdoor was now closed, he was relieved from the necessity of ejectingPeter. It did no good to tie Peter up: either the animal was ingeniousat escapes, or the men were mischievous in their desire to botherFrosty. This was one of Frosty's many troubles. He led a life of care.

  After a little, the door opened, and three men came in. They steeredto the bar at once, as a sort of familiar haven in strangesurroundings. From its anchorage they took their initial view of thehall. After subsequent arrivals had braced them to the point ofconfidence, they made a first awful tour of that apartment, but soonreturned to more familiar surroundings. The saloon filled with aheterogeneous gathering. All types were there in their best clothes,from the spotlessly immaculate faro dealer, dressed in a blackbroadcloth frock coat, to Dave Kelly, with his new red handkerchief andhis high-heeled boots. The main gathering remained crowded in thesaloon, whence small groups occasionally ventured into the hall, butonly for the purposes of temporary inspection. A hum of low-voicedtalk went up, which fell to expectant silence every time the door wasopened. The musicians from Spanish Gulch arrived and began to tune up.They were closely followed by the first woman, a red-cheeked awkwardcountry lass, who took her position on the bench near one corner andbegan at once to dispense smiles and loud small talk to the men whofollowed her there. The assistants' spirits rose. They had known thisgirl as Sal Jenks, of rather drab-colored disposition and appearance.To-night, in the glamour of a light-colored dress and the illuminationof a ball room, she had suddenly become transformed into somethingquite different and infinitely more attractive. The musicians played atune. The other women came in, gayly dressed and accompanied always bya red-faced swain. Black Mike took his stand at the side of Frosty,and began to assist that individual in dispensing drinks. Black Mike'sdemocracy was no small element of his popularity. At about half-pasteight those near the door saw him talking with Cheyenne Harry. A buzzswept over the room. Copper Creek had been waiting in suppressedexcitement to see whom Cheyenne Harry would accompany--Molly Lafond orthe newcomer--and lo! he had come alone.

  Then, before the astonishment had subsided, the outer door opened againand Molly entered, looking very pale and sweet and serious.

  She walked directly by the bar into the dance hall, where she seatedherself near the door and looked calmly about her. She was dressedentirely in white. Cheyenne Harry was leaning over the bar talkingattentively, so that he was perhaps the only person in the room who didnot see her come in. A dozen men at once surrounded her and began tochat. She answered them good-humoredly enough, but indifferently.

  The door once more flew open and Bismarck Anne, standing on the sill,cried out in her clear, high voice, "Well, boys!" She paused a moment.Cheyenne Harry, turning at the sound of her voice, remembered how,about a year ago, Molly Lafond had stood there in just that attitude.But he felt a great difference.

  Cheyenne Harry had for some time, as we have said, been growing alittle tired of his affair with Molly. The mental ingredients ofsatiety were all present, but he had as yet received no consciousnotice of their existence. He imagined himself as much fascinated asever. If something lately had seemed to lack, he had laid it tocircumstances and not at all to the state of his relations with thegirl. But for all that, the satiety had been real. He only needed tobe told of it to realize it himself very plainly. Bismarck Anne hadtold him.

  He saw now absolutely no attraction for himself in Molly Lafond, andthat without attempting to deny her intrinsic attraction for others.He simply did not care for her any more. It seemed perhaps like asudden revulsion, but it was not so really; it had been inevitable fromthe very first, and from the very first it had been slowly maturing.Not even the results were sudden: only Cheyenne Harry's knowledge ofthem.

  He had always felt his relations with Molly Lafond as more or lessrestrictive, because the good is always so. He had dimly caught thetruth that, without a deep moral incentive, restriction is alwaysirksome; that although pure love is the most ideal condition in theworld, its simulation is the most wearisome after the novelty has wornoff; and all the rest of the long psychological train of emotion andreasoning common to the trifler. But now for the first time he knewit. He knew it because, standing in the doorway, looking at him withbold black eyes, was the exact opposite of all this, and he recognizeda mighty relief.

  Bismarck Anne knew enough to dress all in black. She had the taste toappreciate the effect of one red flower in her hair as her onlyornament. She had the sense to wear her dress cut neither too lowabove nor too high below. And so she was exceedingly handsome as shestood there, the devil of excitement in her eyes.

  Cheyenne Harry abruptly ceased his conversation with Lafond to shakehands with her. They turned in company. Harry linked his arm throughhers, and they entered the dance hall close together, and took theirseats in a corner far removed from the musicians, where they continuedengaged in such earnest conversation that none of the men ventured toapproach them. After a time, when the music struck up for the firstdance, she seemed to be commanding something to which Cheyenne Harryseemed to be objecting. Then the latter arose slowly and asked MollyLafond to dance the first dance with him. She accepted with a sharppang at her heart. The newcomer had scored.

  Owing to the scarcity of the gentler sex, it had been decided that noone "set" was to be blessed with more than one girl. Thus they wouldgo around better. Molly, glancing across at her rival, saw that shewas surrounded by a laughing group of men. The woman was jokingbroadly at each, wriggling her white shoulders, darting side glances,half promising, half denying. In a moment the group broke, and themembers of it rushed in her own direction. They were alreadyquarrelling for places in her set. The matter was arranged somehowafter much wrangling. Then, too late, Molly saw that the other womanhad scored again. Bismarck Anne had not only selected her partner, butalso the other six members of the set. Thus she had made seven menhappy and none jealous.

  A Western dance is a sight worth seeing. The musicians call off thefigures. The head fiddler does it until his voice gives out. Then thesecond fiddler and the accordion take a try at it, after which furthercalling is unnecessary owing to the fact that most of the dancers arevery drunk. This comes to pass because, at the end of each dance, allare supposed to visit the bar. The most heinous crime, next to horsestealing or sluice robbing, is "shying drinks" at such times. As somemen can hold more than others this enforced equality of quantityconsumed brings about unexpected variation in the hilarity of theconsumers, all of which adds to the variety of the occasion.

  The interims between drinks are occupied by square dances. The men gothrough some set of monkey shines which they call figures, theprincipal object of which seems to be at once the tripping up of suchmale and the prolonged squeezing of such female dancers as they maycome into intimate personal relations with on their grand rounds, whichis conducive to hilarity of the loud-mouthed variety. The exerciseitself is rather violent, and as the room is low, lit by lamps, andcomparat
ively windowless, the air soon becomes heavy with the reek ofperspiration and the fumes of tobacco. The floor acquires a heavingmotion and the lights sway back and forth. The homeliest of thedance-hall girls somehow looks like a fairy through the haze--a ratherelusive fairy, with a rather heavy unfairylike gait. At this periodthere is usually a good deal of noise. Then all at once it is morning,and somehow the scene has changed to the ravine, and there is a tomatocan poking itself into the small of the back.

  Molly tripped gracefully and easily through the figures of the openingdance, seeming scarcely to touch the floor. Bismarck Anne leanedheavily on each man in the swing, and pressed her bosom against hisarm. Twice she half slipped and caught by the shoulder of her partnerof the moment, and her breath was hot against his throat. She said notone word the whole dance through.

  With the last quaver of the fiddle came the harsh command--

  "S'lute yore pardners! All promenade to th' bar!"

  They obeyed. The sets went in two by two, the men treating theirmasculine partners with humorous politeness in the matter of assistancein crossing the sill of the door. The non-dancers crowded after themin a confused mob.

  At the bar Frosty had the drinks all ready on the back shelf. BlackMike assisted him, and together the two, their sleeves rolled back andtheir faces glistening with the sweat of honest toil, passed overbrimming little glasses of "forty rod" and jingled two-bit pieces intothe drawer. Bismarck Anne drank with the best of them, leaningfamiliarly against the men nearest her, bandying jokes that were morethan doubtful. Molly sat on her corner of the bar but did not drink.

  At the beginning of the next dance the aspect of things was a triflechanged. A bigger crowd gathered about Bismarck Anne soliciting placesin her set, and it was more familiar. Some one snatched a kiss of her.She merely laughed and pushed him away. There seemed to have suddenlysprung up between them and her a _camaraderie_ in which Molly had nopart, as though they and the newcomer had some secret to keep tothemselves which thrust the younger girl without the circle.

  Cheyenne Harry did not come near her again. He seemed whollyfascinated by the stranger. The sight of his attentions to the otheraroused Molly. A bright red spot burned in either cheek. She was allanimation. Her laughter rang true, her eyes flashed with merriment.For every one she had a joke, a half-tender, half-sympathetic aside.She saw that as long as they were in her actual presence the men werewholly hers. And yet she felt too the subtle growth of this otherwoman's influence, and realized that eventually it would beat her down.In spite of her brave appearance her throat choked her. Only by agreat concentration of the will could she prevent herself from lapsinginto silence, and then into tears. As the strain began to tell on hernerves, the old feeling of unknowable guilt came to oppress her heart,and with it a growing longing to get away, to hide somewhere; to beginall over again humbly, below the lowest; to claim nothing, to attemptnothing, to do nothing in opposition to that accusing Thought whichseemed greater than herself. All at once she was tired of struggling.She was ready to give up this life, if only they would let her feellike something besides a breathless naughty child, fearfully expectingevery moment the grave reproving voice of the Master.

  She chided herself for this. It was not game. Pluck she admired aboveeverything; and yet here she was, ready to run away at the first tasteof defeat. She smiled ravishingly on Dave Kelly, until he began tospeculate on the possibility of repeating that delicious experiencewhich Peter had so inopportunely cut short.

  "ARE YOU STILL MAD?"]

  As the evening progressed, the "forty rod" began to show its effects.Williams had to have the full width of the floor whenever he tried towalk, and his enthusiastic imitations of an angry catamount were mostcreditable. Some one was always disgustedly repressing him. Severalothers were in like condition with different symptoms. The soberestmanifested increased vigor of limb and fertility of imagination. Ahappy combination of these two effects brought about the proposal of aturkey walk. A ring was formed on the instant.

  Into the ring two men, chosen _viva voce_, were pushed. They began atonce to strut back and forth like turkey cocks in the spring. Theyhollowed their backs in, stuck their chests and rumps out, slappedtheir thighs, toed in, puffed their cheeks, ducked their heads, utteredsundry gurgling whoops, and hopped about, first on one foot, then onthe other in a charmingly, impartial imitation of a Southern cake walkand a Sioux Indian war dance. These performances tickled the crowdimmensely. When it came to noisy vote on the relative merits of theperformers, it vociferously shouted unanimous approval of all.Therefore the contest was pronounced a tie. At this moment DaveWilliams staggered forward. His muddled brain had room for only themost evident facts. He saw the ring and his drunken shrewdness hadretained cognizance of the evening's rivalry. He mixed the two ideasup to effect a proposal.

  "Hyar," he shouted, "lesh do this ri'! I secon' Bismarck Anne!" Helet out a wild-cat yell--"Whe-ee!! Two t' one on Anne!"

  Some one hit him on the chest and sent him staggering backward. Hegyrated unevenly toward the corner, stumbled over his own feet, and satdown heavily on the floor, where after feeling vainly for his gun herelapsed into good humor. But his suggestion hit the popular fancy.

  The idea ran like fire. In a second the ring was formed again. Thosein front knelt; those behind looked over their shoulders. Even Frostyand Black Mike deserted the bar and stood leaning in the doorway. Thegirls were urged forward into the ring, which closed after them, andthe music was ordered to proceed.

  Bismarck Anne walked calmly into the circle and stood looking abouther. Molly had an instant of doubt. Then a revulsion against her easysurrender got her to her feet and into the ring. The gauntlet wasdown. She would accept the challenge. It was a duel.

  There was a moment's squabble between two self-appointed officials inregard to precedence. It was settled, and Molly was beckoned to begin.The fiddles started up a squeaky, lively air to which the men kept timewith hands and feet. The young girl, her cheeks burning, stepped intothe centre of the ring and struck the first graceful pose of the_cachucha_, learned years before at the Agency from a little Mexicanserving-maid. The men recognized it in a swift quickly silenced burst.The fiddles changed their measure to suit the dance.

  The _cachucha_ is a beautiful dance when rightly done. It is acombination of airy half-steps, sinuous body movements, and slowlanguorous and graceful weavings of the arms. It has in it all theenchantment of the lazy South. There is not an abrupt movement in it,but one pose melts into another as imperceptibly as night into day.Molly did it well. Her supple figure was suited to it, and the veryrefinement of her actions enhanced the charm of the dance. The menapplauded vehemently when she stopped. The other woman laughed aloudin scorn.

  With a final sweeping curtsy the dancer turned to go. The flush oftriumph and excitement burned on her cheeks and in her eyes. Findingthe ring solidly closed so that exit was impossible, she accepted aseat on the knee of one of those in the front rank. The man put hisarms around her and drew her close in a drunken embrace, which the girlonly half noticed.

  Bismarck Anne sprang to the centre of the ring at one bound, the sneerstill on her lips. She turned abruptly to the musicians.

  "Quit that damn stuff!" she snarled. "Play somethin'!"

  The musicians hurriedly swung into a lively air.

  Bismarck Anne's dance was not especially graceful. It consisted mainlyof high kicks and a certain athletic feat known as the split. But itwas magnificent in its abandon, and fierce in the crude animal energyof it. Besides its mere suggestiveness and appeal to the passions, ithad too a swing, a fire, a brute-like force which could not but hit tothe hearts of men at bottom strong, crude, and savage. They wentcrazy. They shouted encouraging things at her with open strainingthroats. They stamped and cheered until the lights wavered. Theyclapped each other delightedly on the back. And Bismarck Anne dancedever the more furiously. She kicked with enthusiasm, with abandon,holding her short
skirts still higher to gain the greater freedom. Thetiger-lily fell from her head and was snatched up almost before ittouched the floor. Her heavy black hair came down, and hung in strandsacross her face, and fell in vivid contrast upon her white shouldersand her heaving bosom. She shook it back with a savage movement.

  And she in the corner, who was nothing but a woman, with little of thesavage in her to appeal to savage men, and, for all her independence,little of this bold reckless spirit of the frontier in her to appeal topioneers, felt herself growing sick and faint as she saw these greaterforces slipping beyond her control roaringly, as would a mountaintorrent. Her rule was over, and this woman's had begun. The roomswayed before her eyes. Some one behind her handed a brimming glass ofwhisky over her shoulder, and she seized it eagerly and gulped it down.

  The unaccustomed stimulant cleared her vision. The room stood still,the different objects in it became distinct. She looked on thewhirling figure of the woman in the centre, the open-mouthturmoil-stirred crowd in the background, with dispassionate eyes. Shewas deadly cool. To her memory came Graham's words of that sameafternoon. "_Because you are too good for them!_" She remembered thevery emphasis of his tone. Well, he was right, and yet not right. Shehad been too good for them, but she world show them now! With thesudden flash of resolve, the first unnatural hardening effect of thewhisky passed, and in a whirl the exhilaration came. She laughed andresponded convulsively to the man's embrace.

  Bismarck Anne gave a final kick, and fell in some one's open arms. Themen, shouting frantically, began to stir preparatory to regaining theirfeet. Then they sank back again with a fresh cheer. Into the centreof the ring Molly tripped unsteadily, and stood for a moment lookingabout her with uncertain foolishly smiling eyes. Her cheeks were aglow of red. She glanced toward the musicians, and, with the tip ofher fingers, raised her dress to her knees, waiting for the music tobegin.

  The room was deadly still. She could see, looking at her excitedly,all the men she had met and come to know in the last year. She sawthem dimly, as through a haze. Would the music never begin? What werethey waiting for? A draught blew cold along the floor. She felt it onher legs. Why was it? Oh, yes, she was holding her skirts up todance, to show them that she was no better than this woman, BismarckAnne.

  And then the black cloud that had been gathering so long, the undefinedguilty feeling at nothing, broke over her. She wanted to go on--themusic had begun now--but she could not. Twice she tried. Somethingheld her, something real, something stronger than herself. She did notrecognize them, these ancestral voices, but they laid upon her theircommands. She dropped her skirts, and covered her eyes with her twohands, and burst through the ring of men, and ran out through the nightto her own cabin, where she threw herself on her bed weeping bitterly.She was ashamed.