The Western Romance MEGAPACK ®: 20 Classic Tales

by Zane Grey

  I knew at once it was Johnny, and I saw “’Attie” blush. The very indifference with which she treated him argued well for his cause, but of course he didn’t know that. So when she passed by him and her skirt caught on his big spurs they both stooped at once to unfasten it; their heads hit together with such a bump that the ice was broken, although he seemed to think it was her skull. I am sure there ought to be a thaw after all his apologies. After breakfast Mrs. O’Shaughnessy went out to see her friend Cormac O’Toole. He was the only person in town we could hope to get a team from with which to continue our journey. This is a hard country on horses at best, and at this time of the year particularly so; few will let their teams go out at any price, but Mrs. O’Shaughnessy had hopes, and she is so persuasive that I felt no one could resist her. There was a drummer at breakfast who kept “cussing” the country. He had tried to get a conveyance and had failed; so the cold, the snow, the people, and everything else disgusted him.

  Soon Mrs. O’Shaughnessy returned, and as the drummer was trying to get out to E——, and that was our destination also, she made her way toward him, intending to invite him to ride with us. She wore over her best clothes an old coat that had once belonged to some one of her men friends. It had once been bearskin, but was now more bare skin, so her appearance was against her; she looked like something with the mange. So Mr. Drummer did not wait to hear what she was going to say but at once exclaimed, “No, madam, I cannot let you ride out with me. I can’t get a rig myself in this beastly place.” Then he turned to a man standing near and remarked, “These Western women are so bold they don’t hesitate to demand favors.”

  Mrs. O’Shaughnessy’s eyes fairly snapped, but she said nothing. I think she took a malicious delight in witnessing the drummer’s chagrin when a few moments later our comfortable sleigh and good strong team appeared.

  We were going to drive ourselves, but we had to drive to the depot for our suit-cases; but when we got there the ticket-office was not open, so the agent was probably having his beauty sleep. There was a fire in the big stove, and we joined the bunch of men in the depot. Among them we noticed a thin, consumptive-looking fellow, evidently a stranger.

  Very soon some men began talking of some transaction in which a Bishop B—— was concerned. It seemed they didn’t admire the Bishop very much; they kept talking of his peculiarities and transgressions, and mentioned his treatment of his wives. His “second,” they said, was blind because of cataracts, and, although abundantly able, he left her in darkness. She had never seen her two last children. Some one spoke up and said, “I thought polygamy was no longer practiced.” Then the man explained that they no longer contracted plural marriages, but that many kept all their wives and B—— still had both of his. He went on to say that although such practice is contrary to law, it was almost impossible to make a case against them, for the women would not swear against their husbands. B—— had been arrested once, but his second swore that she didn’t know who her children’s father was, and it cost the sheriff his office the next election.

  Mrs. O’Shaughnessy spoke to an acquaintance of hers and mentioned where we were going. In a short while we got our suit-cases and we were off, but as we drove past the freight depot, the stranger we had noticed came down the steps and asked us to let him ride out with us. I really felt afraid of him, but Mrs. O’Shaughnessy thinks herself a match for any mere man, so she drew up and the man climbed in. He took the lines and we snuggled down under the robes and listened to the runners, shrill screeching over the frozen surface.

  We had dinner with a new settler, and about two o’clock that afternoon we overtook a fellow who was plodding along the road. His name was B——, he said, and he pointed out to us his broad fields and herds. He had been overseeing some feeders he had, and his horse had escaped, so he was walking home, as it was only a couple of miles. He talked a great deal in that two-mile trip; too much for his own good, it developed.

  For the first time since B—— climbed into our sleigh, the stranger spoke. “Can you tell me where Mrs. Belle B—— lives?” he asked.

  “Why, yes,” our passenger replied. “She is a member of our little flock. She is slightly related to me, as you perhaps noticed the name, and I will show you to her house.”

  “Just how is she related to you?” the stranger asked.

  “That,” the man replied, “is a matter of protection. I have given her the protection of my name.”

  “Then she is your wife, is she not?” the stranger asked.

  “You must be a stranger in this country,” the man evaded. “What is your name?”

  But the stranger didn’t seem to hear, and just then we came opposite the residence of the Bishop, and the man we had picked up in the road said, “That is my home, won’t you get out and warm? My wife will be glad to get acquainted with you ladies.”

  We declined, as it was only a short distance to the house of the man Mrs. O’Shaughnessy had come to see, so he stayed in the sleigh to show the stranger to the house of Mrs. Belle B——. I can’t say much for it as a house, and I was glad I didn’t have to go in. The stranger and B—— got out and entered the house, and we drove away.

  Next morning, as we returned through the little village, it was all excitement. Bishop B—— had been shot the night before, just as he had left the house of Mrs. Belle B——, for what reason or by whom no one knew; and if the Bishop knew he had not told, for he either would not or could not talk.

  They were going to start with him that day to the hospital, but they had no hopes of his living.

  When we came to Mrs. Belle’s house, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy got out of the sleigh and went into the house. I could hear her soothing voice, and I was mighty glad the poor, forlorn woman had such a comforter.

  * * * *

  I was so very glad to get home. How good it all looked to me! “Poop o’ Roome” has a calf, and as we drove up to the corral Clyde was trying to get it into the stall with the rest. It is “Poop’s” first calf, and she is very proud of it, and objected to its being put away from her, so she bunted at Clyde, and as he dodged her, the calf ran between his feet and he sat down suddenly in the snow. I laughed at him, but I am powerfully glad he is no follower of old Joseph Smith.

  Mrs. Louderer was enjoying herself immensely, she loves children so much. She and Clyde hired the “Tackler”—so called because he will tackle any kind of a job, whether he knows anything about it or not—to paper the room. He thinks he is a great judge of the fitness of things and of beauty. The paper has a stripe of roses, so Tackler reversed every other strip so that some of my roses are standing on their heads. Roses don’t all grow one way, he claims, and so his method “makes ’em look more nachul like.”

  A little thing like wall-paper put on upside down don’t bother me; but what would I do if I were a “second”?

  Your loving friend,

  Elinore Rupert Stewart.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  SUCCESS

  November, 1913.

  Dear Mrs. Coney,—

  This is Sunday and I suppose I ought not to be writing, but I must write to you and I may not have another chance soon. Both your letters have reached me, and now that our questions are settled we can proceed to proceed.

  Now, this is the letter I have been wanting to write you for a long time, but could not because until now I had not actually proven all I wanted to prove. Perhaps it will not interest you, but if you see a woman who wants to homestead and is a little afraid she will starve, you can tell her what I am telling you.

  I never did like to theorize, and so this year I set out to prove that a woman could ranch if she wanted to. We like to grow potatoes on new ground, that is, newly cleared land on which no crop has been grown. Few weeds grow on new land, so it makes less work. So I selected my potato-patch, and the man ploughed it, although I could have done that if Cly
de would have let me. I cut the potatoes, Jerrine helped, and we dropped them in the rows. The man covered them, and that ends the man’s part. By that time the garden ground was ready, so I planted the garden. I had almost an acre in vegetables. I irrigated and I cultivated it myself.

  We had all the vegetables we could possibly use, and now Jerrine and I have put in our cellar full, and this is what we have: one large bin of potatoes (more than two tons), half a ton of carrots, a large bin of beets, one of turnips, one of onions, one of parsnips, and on the other side of the cellar we have more than one hundred heads of cabbage. I have experimented and found a kind of squash that can be raised here, and that the ripe ones keep well and make good pies; also that the young tender ones make splendid pickles, quite equal to cucumbers. I was glad to stumble on to that, because pickles are hard to manufacture when you have nothing to work with. Now I have plenty. They told me when I came that I could not even raise common beans, but I tried and succeeded. And also I raised lots of green tomatoes, and, as we like them preserved, I made them all up that way. Experimenting along another line, I found that I could make catchup, as delicious as that of tomatoes, of gooseberries. I made it exactly the same as I do the tomatoes and I am delighted. Gooseberries were very fine and very plentiful this year, so I put up a great many. I milked ten cows twice a day all summer; have sold enough butter to pay for a year’s supply of flour and gasoline. We use a gasoline lamp. I have raised enough chickens to completely renew my flock, and all we wanted to eat, and have some fryers to go into the winter with. I have enough turkeys for all of our birthdays and holidays.

  I raised a great many flowers and I worked several days in the field. In all I have told about I have had no help but Jerrine. Clyde’s mother spends each summer with us, and she helped me with the cooking and the babies. Many of my neighbors did better than I did, although I know many town people would doubt my doing so much, but I did it. I have tried every kind of work this ranch affords, and I can do any of it. Of course I am extra strong, but those who try know that strength and knowledge come with doing. I just love to experiment, to work, and to prove out things, so that ranch life and “roughing it” just suit me.

  THE DAUGHTER OF A MAGNATE, by Frank H. Spearman

  Originally published in 1903.

  DEDICATION

  To Wesley Hamilton Peck, M.D.

  CHAPTER I

  A JUNE WATER

  The train, a special, made up of a private car and a diner, was running on a slow order and crawled between the bluffs at a snail’s pace.

  Ahead, the sun was sinking into the foothills and wherever the eye could reach to the horizon barren wastes lay riotously green under the golden blaze. The river, swollen everywhere out of its banks, spread in a broad and placid flood of yellow over the bottoms, and a hundred shallow lakes studded with willowed islands marked its wandering course to the south and east. The clear, far air of the mountains, the glory of the gold on the June hills and the illimitable stretch of waters below, spellbound the group on the observation platform.

  “It’s a pity, too,” declared Conductor O’Brien, who was acting as mountain Baedeker, “that we’re held back this way when we’re covering the prettiest stretch on the road for running. It is right along here where you are riding that the speed records of the world have been made. Fourteen and six-tenths miles were done in nine and a half minutes just west of that curve about six months ago—of course it was down hill.”

  Several of the party were listening. “Do you use speed recorders out here?” asked Allen Harrison.

  “How’s that?”

  “Do you use speed recorders?”

  “Only on our slow trains,” replied O’Brien. “To put speed recorders on Paddy McGraw or Jimmie the Wind would be like timing a teal duck with an eight-day clock. Sir?” he asked, turning to another questioner while the laugh lingered on his side. “No; those are not really mountains at all. Those are the foothills of the Sleepy Cat range—west of the Spider Water. We get into that range about two hundred miles from here—well, I say they are west of the Spider, but for ten days it’s been hard to say exactly where the Spider is. The Spider is making us all the trouble with high water just now—and we’re coming out into the valley in about a minute,” he added as the car gave an embarrassing lurch. “The track is certainly soft, but if you’ll stay right where you are, on this side, ladies, you’ll get the view of your lives when we leave the bluffs. The valley is about nine miles broad and it’s pretty much all under water.”

  Beyond the curve they were taking lay a long tangent stretching like a steel wand across a sea of yellow, and as their engine felt its way very gingerly out upon it there rose from the slow-moving trucks of their car the softened resonance that tells of a sounding-board of waters.

  Soon they were drawn among wooded knolls between which hurried little rivers tossed out of the Spider flood into dry waterways and brawling with surprised stones and foaming noisily at stubborn root and impassive culvert. Through the trees the travellers caught passing glimpses of shaded eddies and a wilderness of placid pools. “And this,” murmured Gertrude Brock to her sister Marie, “this is the Spider!” O’Brien, talking to the men at her elbow, overheard. “Hardly, Miss Brock; not yet. You haven’t seen the river yet. This is only the backwater.”

  They were rising the grade to the bridge approach, and when they emerged a few moments later from the woods the conductor said, “There!”

  The panorama of the valley lay before them. High above their level and a mile away, the long thread-like spans of Hailey’s great bridge stretched from pier to pier. To the right of the higher ground a fan of sidetracks spread, with lines of flat cars and gondolas loaded with stone, brush, piling and timbers, and in the foreground two hulking pile-drivers, their leads, like rabbits’ ears laid sleekly back, squatted mysteriously. Switch engines puffed impatiently up and down the ladder track shifting stuff to the distant spurs. At the river front an army of men moved like loaded ants over the dikes. Beyond them the eye could mark the boiling yellow of the Spider, its winding channel marked through the waste of waters by whirling driftwood, bobbing wreckage and plunging trees—sweepings of a thousand angry miles. “There’s the Spider,” repeated the West End conductor, pointing, “out there in the middle where you see things moving right along. That’s the Spider, on a twenty-year rampage.” The train, moving slowly, stopped. “I guess we’ve got as close to it as we’re going to, for a while. I’ll take a look forward.”

  It was the time of the June water in the mountains. A year earlier the rise had taken the Peace River bridge and with the second heavy year of snow railroad men looked for new trouble. June is not a month for despair, because the mountain men have never yet scheduled despair as a West End liability. But it is a month that puts wrinkles in the right of way clear across the desert and sows gray hairs in the roadmasters’ records from McCloud to Bear Dance. That June the mountain streams roared, the foothills floated, the plains puffed into sponge, and in the thick of it all the Spider Water took a man-slaughtering streak and started over the Bad Lands across lots. The big river forced Bucks’ hand once more, and to protect the main line Glover, third of the mountain roadbuilders, was ordered off the high-line construction and back to the hills where Brodie and Hailey slept, to watch the Spider.

  The special halted on a tongue of high ground flanking the bridge and extending upstream to where the river was gnawing at the long dike that held it off the approach. The delay was tedious. Doctor Lanning and Allen Harrison went forward to smoke. Gertrude Brock took refuge in a book and Mrs. Whitney, her aunt, annoyed her with stories. Marie Brock and Louise Donner placed their chairs where they could watch the sorting and unloading of never-ending strings of flat cars, the spasmodic activity in the lines of laborers, the hurrying of the foremen and the movement of the rapidly shifting fringe of men on the danger line at the dike.

 
The clouds which had opened for the dying splendor of the day closed and a shower swept over the valley; the conductor came back in his raincoat—his party were at dinner. “Are we to be detained much longer?” asked Mrs. Whitney.

  “For a little while, I’m afraid,” replied the trainman diplomatically. “I’ve been away over there on the dike to see if I could get permission to cross, but I didn’t succeed.”

  “Oh, conductor!” remonstrated Louise Donner.

  “And we don’t get to Medicine Bend to-night,” said Doctor Lanning.

  “What we need is a man of influence,” suggested Harrison. “We ought never to have let your ‘pa’ go,” he added, turning to Gertrude Brock, beside whom he sat.

  “Can’t we really get ahead?” Gertrude lifted her brows reproachfully as she addressed the conductor. “It’s becoming very tiresome.”

  O’Brien shook his head.

  “Why not see someone in authority?” she persisted.

  “I have seen the man in authority, and nearly fell into the river doing it; then he turned me down.”

  “Did you tell him who we were?” demanded Mrs. Whitney.

  “I made all sorts of pleas.”

  “Does he know that Mr. Bucks promised we should be In Medicine Bend to-night?” asked pretty little Marie Brock.

  “He wouldn’t in the least mind that.”

  Mrs. Whitney bridled. “Pray who is he?”

  “The construction engineer of the mountain division is the man in charge of the bridge just at present.”

  “It would be a very simple matter to get orders over his head,” suggested Harrison.

  “Not very.”

  “Mr. Bucks?”

  “Hardly. No orders would take us over that bridge to-night without Glover’s permission.”