by Owen Wister
IX. THE SPINSTER MEETS THE UNKNOWN
On a Monday noon a small company of horsemen strung out along the trailfrom Sunk Creek to gather cattle over their allotted sweep of range.Spring was backward, and they, as they rode galloping and gatheringupon the cold week's work, cursed cheerily and occasionally sang. TheVirginian was grave in bearing and of infrequent speech; but he kepta song going--a matter of some seventy-nine verses. Seventy-eight werequite unprintable, and rejoiced his brother cow-punchers monstrously.They, knowing him to be a singular man, forebore ever to press him, andawaited his own humor, lest he should weary of the lyric; and when aftera day of silence apparently saturnine, he would lift his gentle voiceand begin:
"If you go to monkey with my Looloo girl, I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll cyarve your heart with my razor, AND I'll shoot you with my pistol, too--"
then they would stridently take up each last line, and keep it goingthree, four, ten times, and kick holes in the ground to the swing of it.
By the levels of Bear Creek that reach like inlets among thepromontories of the lonely hills, they came upon the schoolhouse, roofedand ready for the first native Wyoming crop. It symbolized the dawn of aneighborhood, and it brought a change into the wilderness air. The feelof it struck cold upon the free spirits of the cow-punchers, and theytold each other that, what with women and children and wire fences, thiscountry would not long be a country for men. They stopped for a meal atan old comrade's. They looked over his gate, and there he was patteringamong garden furrows.
"Pickin' nosegays?" inquired the Virginian and the old comrade askedif they could not recognize potatoes except in the dish. But he grinnedsheepishly at them, too, because they knew that he had not always livedin a garden. Then he took them into his house, where they saw an objectcrawling on the floor with a handful of sulphur matches. He began toremove the matches, but stopped in alarm at the vociferous result; andhis wife looked in from the kitchen to caution him about humoring littleChristopher.
When she beheld the matches she was aghast but when she saw her babygrow quiet in the arms of the Virginian, she smiled at that cow-puncherand returned to her kitchen.
Then the Virginian slowly spoke again: "How many little strangers haveyu' got, James?"
"Only two."
"My! Ain't it most three years since yu' maried? Yu' mustn't let timecreep ahaid o' yu', James."
The father once more grinned at his guests, who themselves turnedsheepish and polite; for Mrs. Westfall came in, brisk and hearty, andset the meat upon the table. After that, it was she who talked. Theguests ate scrupulously, muttering, "Yes, ma'am," and "No, ma'am," intheir plates, while their hostess told them of increasing families uponBear Creek, and the expected school-teacher, and little Alfred's earlyteething, and how it was time for all of them to become husbands likeJames. The bachelors of the saddle listened, always diffident,but eating heartily to the end; and soon after they rode away in athoughtful clump. The wives of Bear Creek were few as yet, and the homesscattered; the schoolhouse was only a sprig on the vast face of a worldof elk and bear and uncertain Indians; but that night, when the earthnear the fire was littered with the cow-punchers' beds, the Virginianwas heard drawling to himself: "Alfred and Christopher. Oh, sugar!"
They found pleasure in the delicately chosen shade of this oath. He alsorecited to them a new verse about how he took his Looloo girl to theschoolhouse for to learn her A B C; and as it was quite original andunprintable, the camp laughed and swore joyfully, and rolled in itsblankets to sleep under the stars.
Upon a Monday noon likewise (for things will happen so) some tearfulpeople in petticoats waved handkerchiefs at a train that was justleaving Bennington, Vermont. A girl's face smiled back at them once, andwithdrew quickly, for they must not see the smile die away.
She had with her a little money, a few clothes, and in her mind a rigiddetermination neither to be a burden to her mother nor to give in tothat mother's desires. Absence alone would enable her to carry outthis determination. Beyond these things, she possessed not much exceptspelling-books, a colonial miniature, and that craving for the unknownwhich has been mentioned. If the ancestors that we carry shut up insideus take turns in dictating to us our actions and our state of mind,undoubtedly Grandmother Stark was empress of Molly's spirit upon thisMonday.
At Hoosic Junction, which came soon, she passed the up-train bound backto her home, and seeing the engineer and the conductor,--faces that sheknew well,--her courage nearly failed her, and she shut her eyes againstthis glimpse of the familiar things that she was leaving. To keepherself steady she gripped tightly a little bunch of flowers in herhand.
But something caused her eyes to open; and there before her stood SamBannett, asking if he might accompany her so far as Rotterdam Junction.
"No!" she told him with a severity born from the struggle she was makingwith her grief. "Not a mile with me. Not to Eagle Bridge. Good-by."
And Sam--what did he do? He obeyed her, I should like to be sorry forhim. But obedience was not a lover's part here. He hesitated, the goldenmoment hung hovering, the conductor cried "All aboard!" the train went,and there on the platform stood obedient Sam, with his golden momentgone like a butterfly.
After Rotterdam Junction, which was some forty minutes farther, MollyWood sat bravely up in the through car, dwelling upon the unknown. Shethought that she had attained it in Ohio, on Tuesday morning, and wrotea letter about it to Bennington. On Wednesday afternoon she felt sure,and wrote a letter much more picturesque. But on the following day,after breakfast at North Platte, Nebraska, she wrote a very long letterindeed, and told them that she had seen a black pig on a white pile ofbuffalo bones, catching drops of water in the air as they fell from therailroad tank. She also wrote that trees were extraordinarily scarce.Each hour westward from the pig confirmed this opinion, and when sheleft the train at Rock Creek, late upon that fourth night,--in thosedays the trains were slower,--she knew that she had really attained theunknown, and sent an expensive telegram to say that she was quite well.
At six in the morning the stage drove away into the sage-brush, with heras its only passenger; and by sundown she had passed through some of theprimitive perils of the world. The second team, virgin to harness, anddispleased with this novelty, tried to take it off, and went down to thebottom of a gully on its eight hind legs, while Miss Wood sat mute andunflinching beside the driver. Therefore he, when it was over, and theyon the proper road again, invited her earnestly to be his wife duringmany of the next fifteen miles, and told her of his snug cabin and hishorses and his mine. Then she got down and rode inside, Independence andGrandmother Stark shining in her eye. At Point of Rocks, where they hadsupper and his drive ended, her face distracted his heart, and he toldher once more about his cabin, and lamentably hoped she would rememberhim. She answered sweetly that she would try, and gave him her hand.After all, he was a frank-looking boy, who had paid her the highestcompliment that a boy (or a man for that matter) knows; and it is saidthat Molly Stark, in her day, was not a New Woman.
The new driver banished the first one from the maiden's mind. He was nota frank-looking boy, and he had been taking whiskey. All night long hetook it, while his passenger, helpless and sleepless inside the lurchingstage, sat as upright as she possibly could; nor did the voices that sheheard at Drybone reassure her. Sunrise found the white stage lurchingeternally on across the alkali, with a driver and a bottle on thebox, and a pale girl staring out at the plain, and knotting in herhandkerchief some utterly dead flowers. They came to a river where theman bungled over the ford. Two wheels sank down over an edge, and thecanvas toppled like a descending kite. The ripple came sucking throughthe upper spokes, and as she felt the seat careen, she put out herhead and tremulously asked if anything was wrong. But the driver wasaddressing his team with much language, and also with the lash.
Then a tall rider appeared close against the buried axles, and took herout of the stage on his horse so suddenly that she screamed. She feltsplashes,
saw a swimming flood, and found herself lifted down upon theshore. The rider said something to her about cheering up, and its beingall right, but her wits were stock-still, so she did not speak and thankhim. After four days of train and thirty hours of stage, she was havinga little too much of the unknown at once. Then the tall man gentlywithdrew leaving her to become herself again. She limply regarded theriver pouring round the slanted stage, and a number of horsemen withropes, who righted the vehicle, and got it quickly to dry land, anddisappeared at once with a herd of cattle, uttering lusty yells.
She saw the tall one delaying beside the driver, and speaking. He spokeso quietly that not a word reached her, until of a sudden the driverprotested loudly. The man had thrown something, which turned out to bea bottle. This twisted loftily and dived into the stream. He saidsomething more to the driver, then put his hand on the saddle-horn,looked half-lingeringly at the passenger on the bank, dropped hisgrave eyes from hers, and swinging upon his horse, was gone just as thepassenger opened her mouth and with inefficient voice murmured, "Oh,thank you!" at his departing back.
The driver drove up now, a chastened creature. He helped Miss Wood in,and inquired after her welfare with a hanging head; then meek as his owndrenched horses, he climbed back to his reins, and nursed the stage ontoward the Bow Leg Mountains much as if it had been a perambulator.
As for Miss Wood, she sat recovering, and she wondered what the man onthe horse must think of her. She knew that she was not ungrateful, andthat if he had given her an opportunity she would have explained to him.If he supposed that she did not appreciate his act--Here into the midstof these meditations came an abrupt memory that she had screamed--shecould not be sure when. She rehearsed the adventure from the beginning,and found one or two further uncertainties--how it had all been whileshe was on the horse, for instance. It was confusing to determineprecisely what she had done with her arms. She knew where one of hisarms had been. And the handkerchief with the flowers was gone. She madea few rapid dives in search of it. Had she, or had she not, seen himputting something in his pocket? And why had she behaved so unlikeherself? In a few miles Miss Wood entertained sentiments of maidenlyresentment toward her rescuer, and of maidenly hope to see him again.
To that river crossing he came again, alone, when the days were growingshort. The ford was dry sand, and the stream a winding lane ofshingle. He found a pool,--pools always survive the year round in thisstream,--and having watered his pony, he lunched near the spot towhich he had borne the frightened passenger that day. Where the flowingcurrent had been he sat, regarding the now extremely safe channel.
"She cert'nly wouldn't need to grip me so close this mawnin'," he said,as he pondered over his meal. "I reckon it will mightily astonish herwhen I tell her how harmless the torrent is lookin'." He held out tohis pony a slice of bread matted with sardines, which the pony expertlyaccepted. "You're a plumb pie-biter you Monte," he continued. Monterubbed his nose on his master's shoulder. "I wouldn't trust you withberries and cream. No, seh; not though yu' did rescue a drownin' lady."
Presently he tightened the forward cinch, got in the saddle, and thepony fell into his wise mechanical jog; for he had come a long way, andwas going a long way, and he knew this as well as the man did.
To use the language of Cattle Land, steers had "jumped to seventy-five."This was a great and prosperous leap in their value. To have flourishedin that golden time you need not be dead now, nor even middle-aged; butit is Wyoming mythology already--quite as fabulous as the high-jumpingcow. Indeed, people gathered together and behaved themselves much inthe same pleasant and improbable way. Johnson County, and Natrona, andConverse, and others, to say nothing of the Cheyenne Club, had beenjumping over the moon for some weeks, all on account of steers; andon the strength of this vigorous price of seventy-five, the StantonBrothers were giving a barbecue at the Goose Egg outfit, their ranch onBear Creek. Of course the whole neighborhood was bidden, and would comeforty miles to a man; some would come further--the Virginian was cominga hundred and eighteen. It had struck him--rather suddenly, as shall bemade plain--that he should like to see how they were getting along upthere on Bear Creek. "They," was how he put it to his acquaintances. Hisacquaintances did not know that he had bought himself a pair of trousersand a scarf, unnecessarily excellent for such a general visit. Theydid not know that in the spring, two days after the adventure with thestage, he had learned accidentally who the lady in the stage was. Thishe had kept to himself; nor did the camp ever notice that he had ceasedto sing that eightieth stanza he had made about the A B C--the stanzawhich was not printable. He effaced it imperceptibly, giving the boysthe other seventy-nine at judicious intervals. They dreamed of no guile,but merely saw in him, whether frequenting camp or town, the same notover-angelic comrade whom they valued and could not wholly understand.
All spring he had ridden trail, worked at ditches during summer, andnow he had just finished with the beef round-up. Yesterday, while he wasspending a little comfortable money at the Drybone hog-ranch, a casualtraveller from the north gossiped of Bear Creek, and the fences upthere, and the farm crops, the Westfalls, and the young schoolmarm fromVermont, for whom the Taylors had built a cabin next door to theirs. Thetraveller had not seen her, but Mrs. Taylor and all the ladies thoughtthe world of her, and Lin McLean had told him she was "away up in G."She would have plenty of partners at this Swinton barbecue. Great boonfor the country, wasn't it, steers jumping that way?
The Virginian heard, asking no questions; and left town in an hour,with the scarf and trousers tied in his slicker behind his saddle. Afterlooking upon the ford again, even though it was dry and not at all thesame place, he journeyed in attentively. When you have been hard atwork for months with no time to think, of course you think a great dealduring your first empty days. "Step along, you Monte hawss!" he said,rousing after some while. He disciplined Monte, who flattened his earsaffectedly and snorted. "Why, you surely ain' thinkin' of you'-self asa hero? She wasn't really a-drowndin', you pie-biter." He rested hisserious glance upon the alkali. "She's not likely to have forgot thatmix-up, though. I guess I'll not remind her about grippin' me, and allthat. She wasn't the kind a man ought to josh about such things. She hada right clear eye." Thus, tall and loose in the saddle, did he jog alongthe sixty miles which still lay between him and the dance.