The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains

by Owen Wister

  XXXV. WITH MALICE AFORETHOUGHT

  Town lay twelve straight miles before the lover and his sweetheart, whenthey came to the brow of the last long hill. All beneath them was likea map: neither man nor beast distinguishable, but the veined and tintedimage of a country, knobs and flats set out in order clearly, shiningextensive and motionless in the sun. It opened on the sight of thelovers as they reached the sudden edge of the tableland, where sincemorning they had ridden with the head of neither horse ever in advanceof the other.

  At the view of their journey's end, the Virginian looked down at hisgirl beside him, his eyes filled with a bridegroom's light, and, hangingsafe upon his breast, he could feel the gold ring that he would slowlypress upon her finger to-morrow. He drew off the glove from her lefthand, and stooping, kissed the jewel in that other ring which he hadgiven her. The crimson fire in the opal seemed to mingle with that inhis heart, and his arm lifted her during a moment from the saddle as heheld her to him. But in her heart the love of him was troubled by thatcold pang of loneliness which had crept upon her like a tide as the daydrew near. None of her own people were waiting in that distant town tosee her become his bride. Friendly faces she might pass on the way; butall of them new friends, made in this wild country: not a face of herchildhood would smile upon her; and deep within her, a voice cried forthe mother who was far away in Vermont. That she would see Mrs. Taylor'skind face at her wedding was no comfort now.

  There lay the town in the splendor of Wyoming space. Around it spreadthe watered fields, westward for a little way, eastward to a greatdistance, making squares of green and yellow crops; and the town was buta poor rag in the midst of this quilted harvest. After the fields to theeast, the tawny plain began; and with one faint furrow of river liningits undulations, it stretched beyond sight. But west of the town rosethe Bow Leg Mountains, cool with their still unmelted snows and theirdull blue gulfs of pine. From three canyons flowed three clear forkswhich began the river. Their confluence was above the town a good twomiles; it looked but a few paces from up here, while each side the riverstraggled the margin cottonwoods, like thin borders along a garden walk.Over all this map hung silence like a harmony, tremendous yet serene.

  "How beautiful! how I love it!" whispered the girl. "But, oh, how big itis!" And she leaned against her lover for an instant. It was her spiritseeking shelter. To-day, this vast beauty, this primal calm, had in itfor her something almost of dread. The small, comfortable, green hillsof home rose before her. She closed her eyes and saw Vermont: a villagestreet, and the post-office, and ivy covering an old front door, and hermother picking some yellow roses from a bush.

  At a sound, her eyes quickly opened; and here was her lover turned inhis saddle, watching another horseman approach. She saw the Virginian'shand in a certain position, and knew that his pistol was ready. But theother merely overtook and passed them, as they stood at the brow of thehill.

  The man had given one nod to the Virginian, and the Virginian one tohim; and now he was already below them on the descending road. To MollyWood he was a stranger; but she had seen his eyes when he nodded to herlover, and she knew, even without the pistol, that this was not enmityat first sight. It was not indeed. Five years of gathered hate hadlooked out of the man's eyes. And she asked her lover who this was.

  "Oh," said he, easily, "just a man I see now and then."

  "Is his name Trampas?" said Molly Wood.

  The Virginian looked at her in surprise. "Why, where have you seen him?"he asked.

  "Never till now. But I knew."

  "My gracious! Yu' never told me yu' had mind-reading powers." And hesmiled serenely at her.

  "I knew it was Trampas as soon as I saw his eyes."

  "My gracious!" her lover repeated with indulgent irony. "I must bemighty careful of my eyes when you're lookin' at 'em."

  "I believe he did that murder," said the girl.

  "Whose mind are yu' readin' now?" he drawled affectionately.

  But he could not joke her off the subject. She took his strong hand inhers, tremulously, so much of it as her little hand could hold. "I knowsomething about that--that--last autumn," she said, shrinking from wordsmore definite. "And I know that you only did--"

  "What I had to," he finished, very sadly, but sternly, too.

  "Yes," she asserted, keeping hold of his hand. "I supposethat--lynching--" (she almost whispered the word) "is the only way. Butwhen they had to die just for stealing horses, it seems so wicked thatthis murderer--"

  "Who can prove it?" asked the Virginian.

  "But don't you know it?"

  "I know a heap o' things inside my heart. But that's not proving. Therewas only the body, and the hoofprints--and what folks guessed."

  "He was never even arrested!" the girl said.

  "No. He helped elect the sheriff in that county."

  Then Molly ventured a step inside the border of her lover's reticence."I saw--" she hesitated, "just now, I saw what you did."

  He returned to his caressing irony. "You'll have me plumb scared if youkeep on seein' things."

  "You had your pistol ready for him."

  "Why, I believe I did. It was mighty unnecessary." And the Virginiantook out the pistol again, and shook his head over it, like one who hasbeen caught in a blunder.

  She looked at him, and knew that she must step outside his reticenceagain. By love and her surrender to him their positions had beenexchanged.

  He was not now, as through his long courting he had been, herhalf-obeying, half-refractory worshipper. She was no longer hishalf-indulgent, half-scornful superior. Her better birth and schoolingthat had once been weapons to keep him at his distance, or bring her offvictorious in their encounters, had given way before the onset ofthe natural man himself. She knew her cow-boy lover, with all that helacked, to be more than ever she could be, with all that she had. He washer worshipper still, but her master, too. Therefore now, against thebaffling smile he gave her, she felt powerless. And once again a pang ofyearning for her mother to be near her to-day shot through the girl. Shelooked from her untamed man to the untamed desert of Wyoming, and thetown where she was to take him as her wedded husband. But for his sakeshe would not let him guess her loneliness.

  He sat on his horse Monte, considering the pistol. Then he showed her arattlesnake coiled by the roots of some sage-brush. "Can I hit it?" heinquired.

  "You don't often miss them," said she, striving to be cheerful.

  "Well, I'm told getting married unstrings some men." He aimed, and thesnake was shattered. "Maybe it's too early yet for the unstringing tobegin!" And with some deliberation he sent three more bullets into thesnake. "I reckon that's enough," said he.

  "Was not the first one?"

  "Oh, yes, for the snake." And then, with one leg crooked cow-boy fashionacross in front of his saddle-horn, he cleaned his pistol, and replacedthe empty cartridges.

  Once more she ventured near the line of his reticence. "Has--has Trampasseen you much lately?"

  "Why, no; not for a right smart while. But I reckon he has not missedme."

  The Virginian spoke this in his gentlest voice. But his rebuffedsweetheart turned her face away, and from her eyes she brushed a tear.

  He reined his horse Monte beside her, and upon her cheek she felt hiskiss. "You are not the only mind-reader," said he, very tenderly. Andat this she clung to him, and laid her head upon his breast. "I had beenthinking," he went on, "that the way our marriage is to be was the mostbeautiful way."

  "It is the most beautiful," she murmured.

  He slowly spoke out his thought, as if she had not said this. "No folksto stare, no fuss, no jokes and ribbons and best bonnets, no publiceye nor talkin' of tongues when most yu' want to hear nothing and saynothing."

  She answered by holding him closer.

  "Just the bishop of Wyoming to join us, and not even him after we'reonce joined. I did think that would be ahead of all ways to get marriedI have seen."

  He paused again, and she made no rejoinder.<
br />
  "But we have left out your mother."

  She looked in his face with quick astonishment. It was as if his spirithad heard the cry of her spirit.

  "That is nowhere near right," he said. "That is wrong."

  "She could never have come here," said the girl.

  "We should have gone there. I don't know how I can ask her to forgiveme."

  "But it was not you!" cried Molly.

  "Yes. Because I did not object. I did not tell you we must go to her.I missed the point, thinking so much about my own feelings. For yousee--and I've never said this to you until now--your mother did hurt me.When you said you would have me after my years of waiting, and I wroteher that letter telling her all about myself, and how my family was notlike yours, and--and--all the rest I told her, why you see it hurt menever to get a word back from her except just messages through you. ForI had talked to her about my hopes and my failings. I had said morethan ever I've said to you, because she was your mother. I wanted her toforgive me, if she could, and feel that maybe I could take good care ofyou after all. For it was bad enough to have her daughter quit her hometo teach school out hyeh on Bear Creek. Bad enough without havin' me tocome along and make it worse. I have missed the point in thinking of myown feelings."

  "But it's not your doing!" repeated Molly.

  With his deep delicacy he had put the whole matter as a hardship to hermother alone. He had saved her any pain of confession or denial. "Yes,it is my doing," he now said. "Shall we give it up?"

  "Give what--?" She did not understand.

  "Why, the order we've got it fixed in. Plans are--well, they're nomore than plans. I hate the notion of changing, but I hate hurting yourmother more. Or, anyway, I OUGHT to hate it more. So we can shift, ifyu' say so. It's not too late."

  "Shift?" she faltered.

  "I mean, we can go to your home now. We can start by the stage to-night.Your mother can see us married. We can come back and finish in themountains instead of beginning in them. It'll be just merely shifting,yu' see."

  He could scarcely bring himself to say this at all; yet he said italmost as if he were urging it. It implied a renunciation that he couldhardly bear to think of. To put off his wedding day, the bliss uponwhose threshold he stood after his three years of faithful battlefor it, and that wedding journey he had arranged: for there were themountains in sight, the woods and canyons where he had planned to gowith her after the bishop had joined them; the solitudes where only thewild animals would be, besides themselves. His horses, his tent, hisrifle, his rod, all were waiting ready in the town for their startto-morrow. He had provided many dainty things to make her comfortable.Well, he could wait a little more, having waited three years. It wouldnot be what his heart most desired: there would be the "public eye andthe talking of tongues"--but he could wait. The hour would come when hecould be alone with his bride at last. And so he spoke as if he urgedit.

  "Never!" she cried. "Never, never!"

  She pushed it from her. She would not brook such sacrifice on his part.Were they not going to her mother in four weeks? If her family hadwarmly accepted him--but they had not; and in any case, it had gone toofar, it was too late. She told her lover that she would not hear him,that if he said any more she would gallop into town separately from him.And for his sake she would hide deep from him this loneliness of hers,and the hurt that he had given her in refusing to share with her histrouble with Trampas, when others must know of it.

  Accordingly, they descended the hill slowly together, lingering to spinout these last miles long. Many rides had taught their horses to goside by side, and so they went now: the girl sweet and thoughtful in hersedate gray habit; and the man in his leathern chaps and cartridge beltand flannel shirt, looking gravely into the distance with the level gazeof the frontier.

  Having read his sweetheart's mind very plainly, the lover now broke hisdearest custom. It was his code never to speak ill of any man to anywoman. Men's quarrels were not for women's ears. In his scheme, goodwomen were to know only a fragment of men's lives. He had lived manyoutlaw years, and his wide knowledge of evil made innocence doublyprecious to him. But to-day he must depart from his code, having readher mind well. He would speak evil of one man to one woman, because hisreticence had hurt her--and was she not far from her mother, and verylonely, do what he could? She should know the story of his quarrel inlanguage as light and casual as he could veil it with.

  He made an oblique start. He did not say to her: "I'll tell you aboutthis. You saw me get ready for Trampas because I have been ready for himany time these five years." He began far off from the point with thatrooted caution of his--that caution which is shared by the primal savageand the perfected diplomat.

  "There's cert'nly a right smart o' difference between men and women," heobserved.

  "You're quite sure?" she retorted.

  "Ain't it fortunate?--that there's both, I mean."

  "I don't know about fortunate. Machinery could probably do all the heavywork for us without your help."

  "And who'd invent the machinery?"

  She laughed. "We shouldn't need the huge, noisy things you do. Our worldwould be a gentle one."

  "Oh, my gracious!"

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "Oh, my gracious! Get along, Monte! A gentle world all full of ladies!"

  "Do you call men gentle?" inquired Molly.

  "Now it's a funny thing about that. Have yu' ever noticed a joke aboutfathers-in-law? There's just as many fathers--as mothers-in-law; butwhich side are your jokes?"

  Molly was not vanquished. "That's because the men write the comicpapers," said she.

  "Hear that, Monte? The men write 'em. Well, if the ladies wrote a comicpaper, I expect that might be gentle."

  She gave up this battle in mirth; and he resumed:-- "But don't youreally reckon it's uncommon to meet a father-in-law flouncin' aroundthe house? As for gentle--Once I had to sleep in a room next a ladies'temperance meetin'. Oh, heavens! Well, I couldn't change my room, andthe hotel man, he apologized to me next mawnin'. Said it didn't surprisehim the husbands drank some."

  Here the Virginian broke down over his own fantastic inventions, andgave a joyous chuckle in company with his sweetheart. "Yes, there'sa big heap o' difference between men and women," he said. "Take thatfello' and myself, now."

  "Trampas?" said Molly, quickly serious. She looked along the road ahead,and discerned the figure of Trampas still visible on its way to town.

  The Virginian did not wish her to be serious--more than could be helped."Why, yes," he replied, with a waving gesture at Trampas. "Take him andme. He don't think much o' me! How could he? And I expect he'll never.But yu' saw just now how it was between us. We were not a bit like atemperance meetin'."

  She could not help laughing at the twist he gave to his voice. And shefelt happiness warming her; for in the Virginian's tone about Trampaswas something now that no longer excluded her. Thus he began his gradualrecital, in a cadence always easy, and more and more musical with thenative accent of the South. With the light turn he gave it, its pureugliness melted into charm.

  "No, he don't think anything of me. Once a man in the John Day Valleydidn't think much, and by Canada de Oro I met another. It will always beso here and there, but Trampas beats 'em all. For the others have alwaysexpressed themselves--got shut of their poor opinion in the open air."

  "Yu' see, I had to explain myself to Trampas a right smart while ago,long before ever I laid my eyes on yu'. It was just nothing at all. Alittle matter of cyards in the days when I was apt to spend my money andmy holidays pretty headlong. My gracious, what nonsensical times I havehad! But I was apt to win at cyards, 'specially poker. And Trampas, hemet me one night, and I expect he must have thought I looked kind o'young. So he hated losin' his money to such a young-lookin' man, and hetook his way of sayin' as much. I had to explain myself to him plainly,so that he learned right away my age had got its growth.

  "Well, I expect he hated that worse, having to receive my explana
tionwith folks lookin' on at us publicly that-a-way, and him without furtherideas occurrin' to him at the moment. That's what started his pooropinion of me, not havin' ideas at the moment. And so the boys resumedtheir cyards.

  "I'd most forgot about it. But Trampas's mem'ry is one of his strongpoints. Next thing--oh, it's a good while later--he gets to losin' fleshbecause Judge Henry gave me charge of him and some other punchers takingcattle--"

  "That's not next," interrupted the girl.

  "Not? Why--"

  "Don't you remember?" she said, timid, yet eager. "Don't you?"

  "Blamed if I do!"

  "The first time we met?"

  "Yes; my mem'ry keeps that--like I keep this." And he brought from hispocket her own handkerchief, the token he had picked up at a river'sbrink when he had carried her from an overturned stage.

  "We did not exactly meet, then," she said. "It was at that dance. Ihadn't seen you yet; but Trampas was saying something horrid about me,and you said--you said, 'Rise on your legs, you pole cat, and tell themyou're a liar.' When I heard that, I think--I think it finished me." Andcrimson suffused Molly's countenance.

  "I'd forgot," the Virginian murmured. Then sharply, "How did you hearit?"

  "Mrs. Taylor--"

  "Oh! Well, a man would never have told a woman that."

  Molly laughed triumphantly. "Then who told Mrs. Taylor?"

  Being caught, he grinned at her. "I reckon husbands are a special kindof man," was all that he found to say. "Well, since you do know aboutthat, it was the next move in the game. Trampas thought I had no callto stop him sayin' what he pleased about a woman who was nothin' tome--then. But all women ought to be somethin' to a man. So I had to giveTrampas another explanation in the presence of folks lookin' on, and itwas just like the cyards. No ideas occurred to him again. And down goeshis opinion of me some more!

  "Well, I have not been able to raise it. There has been this and thatand the other,--yu' know most of the later doings yourself,--and to-dayis the first time I've happened to see the man since the doings lastautumn. Yu' seem to know about them, too. He knows I can't prove hewas with that gang of horse thieves. And I can't prove he killed poorShorty. But he knows I missed him awful close, and spoiled his thievingfor a while. So d' yu' wonder he don't think much of me? But if I hadlived to be twenty-nine years old like I am, and with all my chancesmade no enemy, I'd feel myself a failure."

  His story was finished. He had made her his confidant in matters he hadnever spoken of before, and she was happy to be thus much nearer to him.It diminished a certain fear that was mingled with her love of him.

  During the next several miles he was silent, and his silence was enoughfor her. Vermont sank away from her thoughts, and Wyoming held less ofloneliness. They descended altogether into the map which had stretchedbelow them, so that it was a map no longer, but earth with growingthings, and prairie-dogs sitting upon it, and now and then a bird flyingover it. And after a while she said to him, "What are you thinkingabout?"

  "I have been doing sums. Figured in hours it sounds right short. Figuredin minutes it boils up into quite a mess. Twenty by sixty is twelvehundred. Put that into seconds, and yu' get seventy-two thousandseconds. Seventy-two thousand. Seventy-two thousand seconds yet beforewe get married."

  "Seconds! To think of its having come to seconds!"

  "I am thinkin' about it. I'm choppin' sixty of 'em off every minute."

  With such chopping time wears away. More miles of the road lay behindthem, and in the virgin wilderness the scars of new-scraped waterditches began to appear, and the first wire fences. Next, they werepassing cabins and occasional fields, the outposts of habitation. Thefree road became wholly imprisoned, running between unbroken stretchesof barbed wire. Far off to the eastward a flowing column of dust markedthe approaching stage, bringing the bishop, probably, for whose visithere they had timed their wedding. The day still brimmed with heat andsunshine; but the great daily shadow was beginning to move from the feetof the Bow Leg Mountains outward toward the town. Presently they beganto meet citizens. Some of these knew them and nodded, while some didnot, and stared. Turning a corner into the town's chief street, wherestood the hotel, the bank, the drug store, the general store, andthe seven saloons, they were hailed heartily. Here were threefriends,--Honey Wiggin, Scipio Le Moyne, and Lin McLean,--all desirousof drinking the Virginian's health, if his lady--would she mind? Thethree stood grinning, with their hats off; but behind their gayety theVirginian read some other purpose.

  "We'll all be very good," said Honey Wiggin.

  "Pretty good," said Lin.

  "Good," said Scipio.

  "Which is the honest man?" inquired Molly, glad to see them.

  "Not one!" said the Virginian. "My old friends scare me when I think oftheir ways."

  "It's bein' engaged scares yu'," retorted Mr. McLean. "Marriage restoresyour courage, I find."

  "Well, I'll trust all of you," said Molly. "He's going to take me to thehotel, and then you can drink his health as much as you please."

  With a smile to them she turned to proceed, and he let his horse movewith hers; but he looked at his friends. Then Scipio's bleached blueeyes narrowed to a slit, and he said what they had all come out on thestreet to say:-- "Don't change your clothes."

  "Oh!" protested Molly, "isn't he rather dusty and countrified?"

  But the Virginian had taken Scipio's meaning. "DON'T CHANGE YOURCLOTHES." Innocent Molly appreciated these words no more than theaverage reader who reads a masterpiece, complacently unaware thatits style differs from that of the morning paper. Such was Scipio'sintention, wishing to spare her from alarm.

  So at the hotel she let her lover go with a kiss, and without a thoughtof Trampas. She in her room unlocked the possessions which were therewaiting for her, and changed her dress.

  Wedding garments, and other civilized apparel proper for a genuinefrontiersman when he comes to town, were also in the hotel, ready forthe Virginian to wear. It is only the somewhat green and unseasonedcow-puncher who struts before the public in spurs and deadly weapons.For many a year the Virginian had put away these childish things. Hemade a sober toilet for the streets. Nothing but his face and bearingremained out of the common when he was in a town. But Scipio had toldhim not to change his clothes; therefore he went out with his pistol athis hip. Soon he had joined his three friends.

  "I'm obliged to yu'," he said. "He passed me this mawnin'."

  "We don't know his intentions," said Wiggin.

  "Except that he's hangin' around," said McLean.

  "And fillin' up," said Scipio, "which reminds me--"

  They strolled into the saloon of a friend, where, unfortunately, satsome foolish people. But one cannot always tell how much of a fool a manis, at sight.

  It was a temperate health-drinking that they made. "Here's how," theymuttered softly to the Virginian; and "How," he returned softly, lookingaway from them. But they had a brief meeting of eyes, standing andlounging near each other, shyly; and Scipio shook hands with thebridegroom. "Some day," he stated, tapping himself; for in his vagrantheart he began to envy the man who could bring himself to marry. And henodded again, repeating, "Here's how."

  They stood at the bar, full of sentiment, empty of words, memoryand affection busy in their hearts. All of them had seen rough daystogether, and they felt guilty with emotion.

  "It's hot weather," said Wiggin.

  "Hotter on Box Elder," said McLean. "My kid has started teething."

  Words ran dry again. They shifted their positions, looked in theirglasses, read the labels on the bottles. They dropped a word now andthen to the proprietor about his trade, and his ornaments.

  "Good head," commented McLean.

  "Big old ram," assented the proprietor. "Shot him myself on Gray Bulllast fall."

  "Sheep was thick in the Tetons last fall," said the Virginian.

  On the bar stood a machine into which the idle customer might drop hisnickel. The coin then bounced among an arrangement of pegs,
descendingat length into one or another of various holes. You might win as much asten times your stake, but this was not the most usual result; and withnickels the three friends and the bridegroom now mildly sported for awhile, buying them with silver when their store ran out.

  "Was it sheep you went after in the Tetons?" inquired the proprietor,knowing it was horse thieves.

  "Yes," said the Virginian. "I'll have ten more nickels."

  "Did you get all the sheep you wanted?" the proprietor continued.

  "Poor luck," said the Virginian.

  "Think there's a friend of yours in town this afternoon," said theproprietor.

  "Did he mention he was my friend?"

  The proprietor laughed. The Virginian watched another nickel click downamong the pegs.

  Honey Wiggin now made the bridegroom a straight offer. "We'll take thisthing off your hands," said he.

  "Any or all of us," said Lin.

  But Scipio held his peace. His loyalty went every inch as far as theirs,but his understanding of his friend went deeper. "Don't change yourclothes," was the first and the last help he would be likely to give inthis matter. The rest must be as such matters must always be, betweenman and man. To the other two friends, however, this seemed a veryspecial case, falling outside established precedent. Therefore theyventured offers of interference.

  "A man don't get married every day," apologized McLean. "We'll just runhim out of town for yu'."

  "Save yu' the trouble," urged Wiggin. "Say the word."

  The proprietor now added his voice. "It'll sober him up to spend hisnight out in the brush. He'll quit his talk then."

  But the Virginian did not say the word, or any word. He stood playingwith the nickels.

  "Think of her," muttered McLean.

  "Who else would I be thinking of?" returned the Southerner. His face hadbecome very sombre. "She has been raised so different!" he murmured. Hepondered a little, while the others waited, solicitous.

  A new idea came to the proprietor. "I am acting mayor of this town,"said he. "I'll put him in the calaboose and keep him till you getmarried and away."

  "Say the word," repeated Honey Wiggin.

  Scipio's eye met the proprietor's, and he shook his head about a quarterof an inch. The proprietor shook his to the same amount. They understoodeach other. It had come to that point where there was no way out, saveonly the ancient, eternal way between man and man. It is only the greatmediocrity that goes to law in these personal matters.

  "So he has talked about me some?" said the Virginian.

  "It's the whiskey," Scipio explained.

  "I expect," said McLean, "he'd run a mile if he was in a state toappreciate his insinuations."

  "Which we are careful not to mention to yu'," said Wiggin, "unless yu'inquire for 'em."

  Some of the fools present had drawn closer to hear this interestingconversation. In gatherings of more than six there will generally be atleast one fool; and this company must have numbered twenty men.

  "This country knows well enough," said one fool, who hungered to beimportant, "that you don't brand no calves that ain't your own."

  The saturnine Virginian looked at him. "Thank yu'," said he, gravely,"for your indorsement of my character." The fool felt flattered. TheVirginian turned to his friends. His hand slowly pushed his hat back,and he rubbed his black head in thought.

  "Glad to see yu've got your gun with you," continued the happy fool."You know what Trampas claims about that affair of yours in the Tetons?He claims that if everything was known about the killing of Shorty--"

  "Take one on the house," suggested the proprietor to him, amiably. "Yournews will be fresher." And he pushed him the bottle. The fool felt lessimportant.

  "This talk had went the rounds before it got to us," said Scipio, "orwe'd have headed it off. He has got friends in town."

  Perplexity knotted the Virginian's brows. This community knew that a manhad implied he was a thief and a murderer; it also knew that he knewit. But the case was one of peculiar circumstances, assuredly. Could heavoid meeting the man? Soon the stage would be starting south for therailroad. He had already to-day proposed to his sweetheart that theyshould take it. Could he for her sake leave unanswered a talking enemyupon the field? His own ears had not heard the enemy.

  Into these reflections the fool stepped once more. "Of course thiscountry don't believe Trampas," said he. "This country--"

  But he contributed no further thoughts. From somewhere in the rear ofthe building, where it opened upon the tin cans and the hinder purlieusof the town, came a movement, and Trampas was among them, courageouswith whiskey.

  All the fools now made themselves conspicuous. One lay on the floor,knocked there by the Virginian, whose arm he had attempted to hold.Others struggled with Trampas, and his bullet smashed the ceilingbefore they could drag the pistol from him. "There now! there now!" theyinterposed; "you don't want to talk like that," for he was pouring out atide of hate and vilification. Yet the Virginian stood quiet by the bar,and many an eye of astonishment was turned upon him. "I'd not stand halfthat language," some muttered to each other. Still the Virginian waitedquietly, while the fools reasoned with Trampas. But no earthly foot canstep between a man and his destiny. Trampas broke suddenly free.

  "Your friends have saved your life," he rang out, with obscene epithets."I'll give you till sundown to leave town."

  There was total silence instantly.

  "Trampas," spoke the Virginian, "I don't want trouble with you."

  "He never has wanted it," Trampas sneered to the bystanders. "He hasbeen dodging it five years. But I've got him coralled."

  Some of the Trampas faction smiled.

  "Trampas," said the Virginian again, "are yu' sure yu' really meanthat?"

  The whiskey bottle flew through the air, hurled by Trampas, and crashedthrough the saloon window behind the Virginian.

  "That was surplusage, Trampas," said he, "if yu' mean the other."

  "Get out by sundown, that's all," said Trampas. And wheeling, he wentout of the saloon by the rear, as he had entered.

  "Gentlemen," said the Virginian, "I know you will all oblige me."

  "Sure!" exclaimed the proprietor, heartily, "We'll see that everybodylets this thing alone."

  The Virginian gave a general nod to the company, and walked out into thestreet.

  "It's a turruble shame," sighed Scipio, "that he couldn't have postponedit."

  The Virginian walked in the open air with thoughts disturbed. "I am oftwo minds about one thing," he said to himself uneasily.

  Gossip ran in advance of him; but as he came by, the talk fell awayuntil he had passed. Then they looked after him, and their words againrose audibly. Thus everywhere a little eddy of silence accompanied hissteps.

  "It don't trouble him much," one said, having read nothing in theVirginian's face.

  "It may trouble his girl some," said another.

  "She'll not know," said a third, "until it's over."

  "He'll not tell her?"

  "I wouldn't. It's no woman's business."

  "Maybe that's so. Well, it would have suited me to have Trampas diesooner."

  "How would it suit you to have him live longer?" inquired a member ofthe opposite faction, suspected of being himself a cattle thief.

  "I could answer your question, if I had other folks' calves I wanted tobrand." This raised both a laugh and a silence.

  Thus the town talked, filling in the time before sunset.

  The Virginian, still walking aloof in the open air, paused at the edgeof the town. "I'd sooner have a sickness than be undecided this way,"he said, and he looked up and down. Then a grim smile came at his ownexpense. "I reckon it would make me sick--but there's not time."

  Over there in the hotel sat his sweetheart alone, away from her mother,her friends, her home, waiting his return, knowing nothing. He lookedinto the west. Between the sun and the bright ridges of the mountainswas still a space of sky; but the shadow from the mountains' feet haddra
wn halfway toward the town. "About forty minutes more," he saidaloud. "She has been raised so different." And he sighed as heturned back. As he went slowly, he did not know how great was his ownunhappiness. "She has been raised so different," he said again.

  Opposite the post-office the bishop of Wyoming met him and greeted him.His lonely heart throbbed at the warm, firm grasp of this friend's hand.The bishop saw his eyes glow suddenly, as if tears were close. But nonecame, and no word more open than, "I'm glad to see you."

  But gossip had reached the bishop, and he was sorely troubled also."What is all this?" said he, coming straight to it.

  The Virginian looked at the clergyman frankly. "Yu' know just as muchabout it as I do," he said. "And I'll tell yu' anything yu' ask."

  "Have you told Miss Wood?" inquired the bishop.

  The eyes of the bridegroom fell, and the bishop's face grew at once morekeen and more troubled. Then the bridegroom raised his eyes again, andthe bishop almost loved him. He touched his arm, like a brother. "Thisis hard luck," he said.

  The bridegroom could scarce keep his voice steady. "I want to do rightto-day more than any day I have ever lived," said he.

  "Then go and tell her at once."

  "It will just do nothing but scare her."

  "Go and tell her at once."

  "I expected you was going to tell me to run away from Trampas. I can'tdo that, yu' know."

  The bishop did know. Never before in all his wilderness work had hefaced such a thing. He knew that Trampas was an evil in the country,and that the Virginian was a good. He knew that the cattle thieves--therustlers--were gaining, in numbers and audacity; that they led manyweak young fellows to ruin; that they elected their men to office, andcontrolled juries; that they were a staring menace to Wyoming. His heartwas with the Virginian. But there was his Gospel, that he preached, andbelieved, and tried to live. He stood looking at the ground and drawinga finger along his eyebrow. He wished that he might have heard nothingabout all this. But he was not one to blink his responsibility as aChristian server of the church militant.

  "Am I right," he now slowly asked, "in believing that you think I am asincere man?"

  "I don't believe anything about it. I know it."

  "I should run away from Trampas," said the bishop.

  "That ain't quite fair, seh. We all understand you have got to do thethings you tell other folks to do. And you do them, seh. You never talklike anything but a man, and you never set yourself above others. Youcan saddle your own horses. And I saw yu' walk unarmed into thatWhite River excitement when those two other parsons was a-foggin' anda-fannin' for their own safety. Damn scoundrels!"

  The bishop instantly rebuked such language about brothers of his cloth,even though he disapproved both of them and their doctrines. "Every onemay be an instrument of Providence," he concluded.

  "Well," said the Virginian, "if that is so, then Providence makes use ofinstruments I'd not touch with a ten-foot pole. Now if you was me, seh,and not a bishop, would you run away from Trampas?"

  "That's not quite fair, either!" exclaimed the bishop, with a smile."Because you are asking me to take another man's convictions, and yetremain myself."

  "Yes, seh. I am. That's so. That don't get at it. I reckon you and Ican't get at it."

  "If the Bible," said the bishop, "which I believe to be God's word, wasanything to you--"

  "It is something to me, seh. I have found fine truths in it."

  "'Thou shalt not kill,'" quoted the bishop. "That is plain."

  The Virginian took his turn at smiling. "Mighty plain to me, seh. Makeit plain to Trampas, and there'll be no killin'. We can't get at it thatway."

  Once more the bishop quoted earnestly. "'Vengeance is mine, I willrepay, saith the Lord.'"

  "How about instruments of Providence, seh? Why, we can't get at it thatway. If you start usin' the Bible that way, it will mix you up mightyquick, seh."

  "My friend," the bishop urged, and all his good, warm heart was in it,"my dear fellow--go away for the one night. He'll change his mind."

  The Virginian shook his head. "He cannot change his word, seh. Or atleast I must stay around till he does. Why, I have given him the say-so.He's got the choice. Most men would not have took what I took from himin the saloon. Why don't you ask him to leave town?"

  The good bishop was at a standstill. Of all kicking against the pricksnone is so hard as this kick of a professing Christian against the wholeinstinct of human man.

  "But you have helped me some," said the Virginian. "I will go and tellher. At least, if I think it will be good for her, I will tell her."

  The bishop thought that he saw one last chance to move him.

  "You're twenty-nine," he began.

  "And a little over," said the Virginian.

  "And you were fourteen when you ran away from your family."

  "Well, I was weary, yu' know, of havin' elder brothers lay down my lawnight and mawnin'."

  "Yes, I know. So that your life has been your own for fifteen years. Butit is not your own now. You have given it to a woman."

  "Yes; I have given it to her. But my life's not the whole of me. I'dgive her twice my life--fifty--a thousand of 'em. But I can't giveher--her nor anybody in heaven or earth--I can't give my--my--we'llnever get at it, seh! There's no good in words. Good-by." The Virginianwrung the bishop's hand and left him.

  "God bless him!" said the bishop. "God bless him!"

  The Virginian unlocked the room in the hotel where he kept stored histent, his blankets, his pack-saddles, and his many accoutrements for thebridal journey in the mountains. Out of the window he saw the mountainsblue in shadow, but some cottonwoods distant in the flat between werestill bright green in the sun. From among his possessions he tookquickly a pistol, wiping and loading it. Then from its holster heremoved the pistol which he had tried and made sure of in the morning.This, according to his wont when going into a risk, he shoved betweenhis trousers and his shirt in front. The untried weapon he placed inthe holster, letting it hang visibly at his hip. He glanced out ofthe window again, and saw the mountains of the same deep blue. But thecottonwoods were no longer in the sunlight. The shadow had come pastthem, nearer the town; for fifteen of the forty minutes were gone. "Thebishop is wrong," he said. "There is no sense in telling her." And heturned to the door, just as she came to it herself.

  "Oh!" she cried out at once, and rushed to him.

  He swore as he held her close. "The fools!" he said. "The fools!"

  "It has been so frightful waiting for you," said she, leaning her headagainst him.

  "Who had to tell you this?" he demanded.

  "I don't know. Somebody just came and said it."

  "This is mean luck," he murmured, patting her. "This is mean luck."

  She went on: "I wanted to run out and find you; but I didn't! I didn't!I stayed quiet in my room till they said you had come back."

  "It is mean luck. Mighty mean," he repeated.

  "How could you be so long?" she asked. "Never mind, I've got you now. Itis over."

  Anger and sorrow filled him. "I might have known some fool would tellyou," he said.

  "It's all over. Never mind." Her arms tightened their hold of him. Thenshe let him go. "What shall we do?" she said. "What now?"

  "Now?" he answered. "Nothing now."

  She looked at him without understanding.

  "I know it is a heap worse for you," he pursued, speaking slowly. "Iknew it would be."

  "But it is over!" she exclaimed again.

  He did not understand her now. He kissed her. "Did you think it wasover?" he said simply. "There is some waiting still before us. I wishyou did not have to wait alone. But it will not be long." He was lookingdown, and did not see the happiness grow chilled upon her face, and thenfade into bewildered fear. "I did my best," he went on. "I think I did.I know I tried. I let him say to me before them all what no man hasever said, or ever will again. I kept thinking hard of you--with allmy might, or I reckon I'd have killed him right
there. And I gave him ashow to change his mind. I gave it to him twice. I spoke as quiet asI am speaking to you now. But he stood to it. And I expect he knows hewent too far in the hearing of others to go back on his threat. He willhave to go on to the finish now."

  "The finish?" she echoed, almost voiceless.

  "Yes," he answered very gently.

  Her dilated eyes were fixed upon him. "But--" she could scarce formutterance, "but you?"

  "I have got myself ready," he said. "Did you think--why, what did youthink?"

  She recoiled a step. "What are you going--" She put her two hands to herhead. "Oh, God!" she almost shrieked, "you are going--" He made a step,and would have put his arm round her, but she backed against the wall,staring speechless at him.

  "I am not going to let him shoot me," he said quietly.

  "You mean--you mean--but you can come away!" she cried. "It's not toolate yet. You can take yourself out of his reach. Everybody knows thatyou are brave. What is he to you? You can leave him in this place. I'llgo with you anywhere. To any house, to the mountains, to anywhere away.We'll leave this horrible place together and--and--oh, won't you listento me?" She stretched her hands to him. "Won't you listen?"

  He took her hands. "I must stay here."

  Her hands clung to his. "No, no, no. There's something else. There'ssomething better than shedding blood in cold blood. Only think what itmeans! Only think of having to remember such a thing! Why, it's whatthey hang people for! It's murder!"

  He dropped her hands. "Don't call it that name," he said sternly.

  "When there was the choice!" she exclaimed, half to herself, like aperson stunned and speaking to the air. "To get ready for it when youhave the choice!"

  "He did the choosing," answered the Virginian. "Listen to me. Are youlistening?" he asked, for her gaze was dull.

  She nodded.

  "I work hyeh. I belong hyeh. It's my life. If folks came to think I wasa coward--"

  "Who would think you were a coward?"

  "Everybody. My friends would be sorry and ashamed, and my enemies wouldwalk around saying they had always said so. I could not hold up my headagain among enemies or friends."

  "When it was explained--"

  "There'd be nothing to explain. There'd just be the fact." He was nearlyangry.

  "There is a higher courage than fear of outside opinion," said the NewEngland girl.

  Her Southern lover looked at her. "Cert'nly there is. That's what I'mshowing in going against yours."

  "But if you know that you are brave, and if I know that you are brave,oh, my dear, my dear! what difference does the world make? How muchhigher courage to go your own course--"

  "I am goin' my own course," he broke in. "Can't yu' see how it must beabout a man? It's not for their benefit, friends or enemies, that I havegot this thing to do. If any man happened to say I was a thief and Iheard about it, would I let him go on spreadin' such a thing of me?Don't I owe my own honesty something better than that? Would I sit downin a corner rubbin' my honesty and whisperin' to it, 'There! there! Iknow you ain't a thief?' No, seh; not a little bit! What men say aboutmy nature is not just merely an outside thing. For the fact that Ilet 'em keep on sayin' it is a proof I don't value my nature enough toshield it from their slander and give them their punishment. And that'sbeing a poor sort of a jay."

  She had grown very white.

  "Can't yu' see how it must be about a man?" he repeated.

  "I cannot," she answered, in a voice that scarcely seemed her own. "If Iought to, I cannot. To shed blood in cold blood. When I heard about thatlast fall,--about the killing of those cattle thieves,--I kept saying tomyself: 'He had to do it. It was a public duty.' And lying sleepless Igot used to Wyoming being different from Vermont. But this--" she gavea shudder--"when I think of to-morrow, of you and me, and of-- If you dothis, there can be no to-morrow for you and me."

  At these words he also turned white.

  "Do you mean--" he asked, and could go no farther.

  Nor could she answer him, but turned her head away.

  "This would be the end?" he asked.

  Her head faintly moved to signify yes.

  He stood still, his hand shaking a little. "Will you look at me andsay that?" he murmured at length. She did not move. "Can you do it?" hesaid.

  His sweetness made her turn, but could not pierce her frozen resolve.She gazed at him across the great distance of her despair.

  "Then it is really so?" he said.

  Her lips tried to form words, but failed.

  He looked out of the window, and saw nothing but shadow. The blue of themountains was now become a deep purple. Suddenly his hand closed hard.

  "Good-by, then," he said.

  At that word she was at his feet, clutching him. "For my sake," shebegged him. "For my sake."

  A tremble passed through his frame. She felt his legs shake as she heldthem, and, looking up, she saw that his eyes were closed with misery.Then he opened them, and in their steady look she read her answer. Heunclasped her hands from holding him, and raised her to her feet.

  "I have no right to kiss you any more," he said. And then, before hisdesire could break him down from this, he was gone, and she was alone.

  She did not fall, or totter, but stood motionless. And next--it seemeda moment and it seemed eternity--she heard in the distance a shot, andthen two shots. Out of the window she saw people beginning to run. Atthat she turned and fled to her room, and flung herself face downwardupon the floor.

  Trampas had departed into solitude from the saloon, leaving behind himhis ULTIMATUM. His loud and public threat was town knowledge already,would very likely be county knowledge to-night. Riders would take itwith them to entertain distant cabins up the river and down the river;and by dark the stage would go south with the news of it--and the newsof its outcome. For everything would be over by dark. After five years,here was the end coming--coming before dark. Trampas had got up thismorning with no such thought. It seemed very strange to look back uponthe morning; it lay so distant, so irrevocable. And he thought of how hehad eaten his breakfast. How would he eat his supper? For supper wouldcome afterward. Some people were eating theirs now, with nothing likethis before them. His heart ached and grew cold to think of them, easyand comfortable with plates and cups of coffee.

  He looked at the mountains, and saw the sun above their ridges, andthe shadow coming from their feet. And there close behind him was themorning he could never go back to. He could see it clearly; his thoughtsreached out like arms to touch it once more, and be in it again. Thenight that was coming he could not see, and his eyes and his thoughtsshrank from it. He had given his enemy until sundown. He could nottrace the path which had led him to this. He remembered their firstmeeting--five years back, in Medicine Bow, and the words which at oncebegan his hate. No, it was before any words; it was the encounter oftheir eyes. For out of the eyes of every stranger looks either a friendor an enemy, waiting to be known. But how had five years of hate come toplay him such a trick, suddenly, to-day? Since last autumn he had meantsometime to get even with this man who seemed to stand at every turnof his crookedness, and rob him of his spoils. But how had he come tochoose such a way of getting even as this, face to face? He knew manybetter ways; and now his own rash proclamation had trapped him. Hiswords were like doors shutting him in to perform his threat to theletter, with witnesses at hand to see that he did so.

  Trampas looked at the sun and the shadow again. He had till sundown. Theheart inside him was turning it round in this opposite way: it was toHIMSELF that in his rage he had given this lessening margin of grace.But he dared not leave town in all the world's sight after all the worldhad heard him. Even his friends would fall from him after such an act.Could he--the thought actually came to him--could he strike before thetime set? But the thought was useless. Even if his friends could harborhim after such a deed, his enemies would find him, and his life would beforfeit to a certainty. His own trap was closing upon him.

  He came up
on the main street, and saw some distance off the Virginianstanding in talk with the bishop. He slunk between two houses, andcursed both of them. The sight had been good for him, bringing somewarmth of rage back to his desperate heart. And he went into a place anddrank some whiskey.

  "In your shoes," said the barkeeper, "I'd be afraid to take so much."

  But the nerves of Trampas were almost beyond the reach of intoxication,and he swallowed some more, and went out again. Presently he fell inwith some of his brothers in cattle stealing, and walked along with themfor a little.

  "Well, it will not be long now," they said to him. And he had neverheard words so desolate.

  "No," he made out to say; "soon now." Their cheerfulness seemedunearthly to him, and his heart almost broke beneath it.

  "We'll have one to your success," they suggested.

  So with them he repaired to another place; and the sight of a manleaning against the bar made him start so that they noticed him. Then hesaw that the man was a stranger whom he had never laid eyes on till now.

  "It looked like Shorty," he said, and could have bitten his tongue off.

  "Shorty is quiet up in the Tetons," said a friend. "You don't want to bethinking about him. Here's how!"

  Then they clapped him on the back and he left them. He thought of hisenemy and his hate, beating his rage like a failing horse, and treadingthe courage of his drink. Across a space he saw Wiggin, walking withMcLean and Scipio. They were watching the town to see that his friendsmade no foul play.

  "We're giving you a clear field," said Wiggin.

  "This race will not be pulled," said McLean.

  "Be with you at the finish," said Scipio.

  And they passed on. They did not seem like real people to him.

  Trampas looked at the walls and windows of the houses. Were they real?Was he here, walking in this street? Something had changed. He lookedeverywhere, and feeling it everywhere, wondered what this could be. Thenhe knew: it was the sun that had gone entirely behind the mountains, andhe drew out his pistol.

  The Virginian, for precaution, did not walk out of the front door of thehotel. He went through back ways, and paused once. Against his breasthe felt the wedding ring where he had it suspended by a chain from hisneck. His hand went up to it, and he drew it out and looked at it. Hetook it off the chain, and his arm went back to hurl it from him as faras he could. But he stopped and kissed it with one sob, and thrust it inhis pocket. Then he walked out into the open, watching. He saw men hereand there, and they let him pass as before, without speaking. He sawhis three friends, and they said no word to him. But they turned andfollowed in his rear at a little distance, because it was known thatShorty had been found shot from behind. The Virginian gained a positionsoon where no one could come at him except from in front; and the sightof the mountains was almost more than he could endure, because it wasthere that he had been going to-morrow.

  "It is quite a while after sunset," he heard himself say.

  A wind seemed to blow his sleeve off his arm, and he replied to it, andsaw Trampas pitch forward. He saw Trampas raise his arm from the groundand fall again, and lie there this time, still. A little smoke wasrising from the pistol on the ground, and he looked at his own, and sawthe smoke flowing upward out of it.

  "I expect that's all," he said aloud.

  But as he came nearer Trampas, he covered him with his weapon. Hestopped a moment, seeing the hand on the ground move. Two fingerstwitched, and then ceased; for it was all. The Virginian stood lookingdown at Trampas.

  "Both of mine hit," he said, once more aloud. "His must have gone mightyclose to my arm. I told her it would not be me."

  He had scarcely noticed that he was being surrounded and congratulated.His hand was being shaken, and he saw it was Scipio in tears. Scipio'sjoy made his heart like lead within him. He was near telling his friendeverything, but he did not.

  "If anybody wants me about this," he said, "I will be at the hotel."

  "Who'll want you?" said Scipio. "Three of us saw his gun out." And hevented his admiration. "You were that cool! That quick!"

  "I'll see you boys again," said the Virginian, heavily; and he walkedaway.

  Scipio looked after him, astonished. "Yu' might suppose he was in poorluck," he said to McLean.

  The Virginian walked to the hotel, and stood on the threshold of hissweetheart's room. She had heard his step, and was upon her feet. Herlips were parted, and her eyes fixed on him, nor did she move, or speak.

  "Yu' have to know it," said he. "I have killed Trampas."

  "Oh, thank God!" she said; and he found her in his arms. Long theyembraced without speaking, and what they whispered then with theirkisses, matters not.

  Thus did her New England conscience battle to the end, and, in the end,capitulate to love. And the next day, with the bishop's blessing, andMrs. Taylor's broadest smile, and the ring on her finger, the Virginiandeparted with his bride into the mountains.

  XXXVI. AT DUNBARTON

  For their first bridal camp he chose an island. Long weeks beforehand hehad thought of this place, and set his heart upon it. Once establishedin his mind, the thought became a picture that he saw waking andsleeping. He had stopped at the island many times alone, and in allseasons; but at this special moment of the year he liked it best. Oftenhe had added several needless miles to his journey that he might finishthe day at this point, might catch the trout for his supper beside acertain rock upon its edge, and fall asleep hearing the stream on eitherside of him.

  Always for him the first signs that he had gained the true world of themountains began at the island. The first pine trees stood upon it; thefirst white columbine grew in their shade; and it seemed to him that healways met here the first of the true mountain air--the coolness and thenew fragrance. Below, there were only the cottonwoods, and the knollsand steep foot-hills with their sage-brush, and the great warm air ofthe plains; here at this altitude came the definite change. Out of thelower country and its air he would urge his horse upward, talking to himaloud, and promising fine pasture in a little while.

  Then, when at length he had ridden abreast of the island pines, he wouldford to the sheltered circle of his camp-ground, throw off the saddleand blanket from the horse's hot, wet back, throw his own clothes off,and, shouting, spring upon the horse bare, and with a rope for bridle,cross with him to the promised pasture. Here there was a pause in themountain steepness, a level space of open, green with thick grass.Riding his horse to this, he would leap off him, and with the flat ofhis hand give him a blow that cracked sharp in the stillness and sentthe horse galloping and gambolling to his night's freedom. And whilethe animal rolled in the grass, often his master would roll also, andstretch, and take the grass in his two hands, and so draw his bodyalong, limbering his muscles after a long ride. Then he would slideinto the stream below his fishing place, where it was deep enough forswimming, and cross back to his island, and dressing again, fit his rodtogether and begin his casting. After the darkness had set in, therewould follow the lying drowsily with his head upon his saddle, thecamp-fire sinking as he watched it, and sleep approaching to the murmurof the water on either side of him.

  So many visits to this island had he made, and counted so many hours ofrevery spent in its haunting sweetness, that the spot had come to seemhis own. It belonged to no man, for it was deep in the unsurveyed andvirgin wilderness; neither had he ever made his camp here with anyman, nor shared with any the intimate delight which the place gave him.Therefore for many weeks he had planned to bring her here after theirwedding, upon the day itself, and show her and share with her his pinesand his fishing rock. He would bid her smell the first true breath ofthe mountains, would watch with her the sinking camp-fire, and with herlisten to the water as it flowed round the island.

  Until this wedding plan, it had by no means come home to him how deep ahold upon him the island had taken. He knew that he liked to go there,and go alone; but so little was it his way to scan himself, his mind, orhis feelings (unless some
action called for it), that he first learnedhis love of the place through his love of her. But he told her nothingof it. After the thought of taking her there came to him, he kept hisisland as something to let break upon her own eyes, lest by lookingforward she should look for more than the reality.

  Hence, as they rode along, when the houses of the town were shrunk todots behind them, and they were nearing the gates of the foot-hills, sheasked him questions. She hoped they would find a camp a long way fromthe town. She could ride as many miles as necessary. She was not tired.Should they not go on until they found a good place far enough withinthe solitude? Had he fixed upon any? And at the nod and the silencethat he gave her for reply, she knew that he had thoughts and intentionswhich she must wait to learn.

  They passed through the gates of the foot-hills, following the stream upamong them. The outstretching fences and the widely trodden dust wereno more. Now and then they rose again into view of the fields and housesdown in the plain below. But as the sum of the miles and hours grew,they were glad to see the road less worn with travel, and the traces ofmen passing from sight. The ploughed and planted country, that quilt ofmany-colored harvests which they had watched yesterday, lay in anotherworld from this where they rode now. No hand but nature's had sown thesecrops of yellow flowers, these willow thickets and tall cottonwoods.Somewhere in a passage of red rocks the last sign of wagon wheels waslost, and after this the trail became a wild mountain trail. But it wasstill the warm air of the plains, bearing the sage-brush odor and notthe pine, that they breathed; nor did any forest yet cloak the shapesof the tawny hills among which they were ascending. Twice the steepnessloosened the pack ropes, and he jumped down to tighten them, lest thehorses should get sore backs. And twice the stream that they followedwent into deep canyons, so that for a while they parted from it. Whenthey came back to its margin for the second time, he bade her notice howits water had become at last wholly clear. To her it had seemed clearenough all along, even in the plain above the town. But now she saw thatit flowed lustrously with flashes; and she knew the soil had changed tomountain soil. Lower down, the water had carried the slightest cloudof alkali, and this had dulled the keen edge of its transparence. Fullsolitude was around them now, so that their words grew scarce, and whenthey spoke it was with low voices. They began to pass nooks and pointsfavorable for camping, with wood and water at hand, and pasture for thehorses. More than once as they reached such places, she thought he mustsurely stop; but still he rode on in advance of her (for the trailwas narrow) until, when she was not thinking of it, he drew rein andpointed.

  "What?" she asked timidly.

  "The pines," he answered.

  She looked, and saw the island, and the water folding it with ripplesand with smooth spaces. The sun was throwing upon the pine boughs a lightof deepening red gold, and the shadow of the fishing rock lay over alittle bay of quiet water and sandy shore. In this forerunning glow ofthe sunset, the pasture spread like emerald; for the dry touch of summerhad not yet come near it. He pointed upward to the high mountains whichthey had approached, and showed her where the stream led into theirfirst unfoldings.

  "To-morrow we shall be among them," said he.

  "Then," she murmured to him, "to-night is here?"

  He nodded for answer, and she gazed at the island and understood why hehad not stopped before; nothing they had passed had been so lovely asthis place.

  There was room in the trail for them to go side by side; and side byside they rode to the ford and crossed, driving the packhorses in frontof them, until they came to the sheltered circle, and he helped her downwhere the soft pine needles lay. They felt each other tremble, and for amoment she stood hiding her head upon his breast. Then she looked roundat the trees, and the shores, and the flowing stream, and he heard herwhispering how beautiful it was.

  "I am glad," he said, still holding her. "This is how I have dreamed itwould happen. Only it is better than my dreams." And when she pressedhim in silence, he finished, "I have meant we should see our firstsundown here, and our first sunrise."

  She wished to help him take the packs from their horses, to make thecamp together with him, to have for her share the building of the fire,and the cooking. She bade him remember his promise to her that he wouldteach her how to loop and draw the pack-ropes, and the swing-ropeson the pack-saddles, and how to pitch a tent. Why might not the firstlesson be now? But he told her that this should be fulfilled later. Thisnight he was to do all himself. And he sent her away until he shouldhave camp ready for them. He bade her explore the island, or take herhorse and ride over to the pasture, where she could see the surroundinghills and the circle of seclusion that they made.

  "The whole world is far from here," he said. And so she obeyed him, andwent away to wander about in their hiding-place; nor was she to return,he told her, until he called her.

  Then at once, as soon as she was gone, he fell to. The packs and saddlescame off the horses, which he turned loose upon the pasture on the mainland. The tent was unfolded first. He had long seen in his mind where itshould go, and how its white shape would look beneath the green ofthe encircling pines. The ground was level in the spot he had chosen,without stones or roots, and matted with the fallen needles of thepines. If there should come any wind, or storm of rain, the brancheswere thick overhead, and around them on three sides tall rocks andundergrowth made a barrier. He cut the pegs for the tent, and the frontpole, stretching and tightening the rope, one end of it pegged down andone round a pine tree. When the tightening rope had lifted the canvas tothe proper height from the ground, he spread and pegged down the sidesand back, leaving the opening so that they could look out upon the fireand a piece of the stream beyond. He cut tufts of young pine and strewedthem thickly for a soft floor in the tent, and over them spread thebuffalo hide and the blankets. At the head he placed the neat sack ofher belongings. For his own he made a shelter with crossed poles anda sheet of canvas beyond the first pines. He built the fire where itssmoke would float outward from the trees and the tent, and near it hestood the cooking things and his provisions, and made this first supperready in the twilight. He had brought much with him; but for ten minuteshe fished, catching trout enough. When at length she came riding overthe stream at his call, there was nothing for her to do but sit and eatat the table he had laid. They sat together, watching the last of thetwilight and the gentle oncoming of the dusk. The final after-glow ofday left the sky, and through the purple which followed it came slowlythe first stars, bright and wide apart. They watched the spaces betweenthem fill with more stars, while near them the flames and embers oftheir fire grew brighter. Then he sent her to the tent while he cleanedthe dishes and visited the horses to see that they did not stray fromthe pasture. Some while after the darkness was fully come, he rejoinedher. All had been as he had seen it in his thoughts beforehand: thepines with the setting sun upon them, the sinking camp-fire, and now thesound of the water as it flowed murmuring by the shores of the island.

  The tent opened to the east, and from it they watched together theirfirst sunrise. In his thoughts he had seen this morning beforehand also:the waking, the gentle sound of the water murmuring ceaselessly, thegrowing day, the vision of the stream, the sense that the world was shutaway far from them. So did it all happen, except that he whispered toher again:-- "Better than my dreams."

  They saw the sunlight begin upon a hilltop; and presently came the sunitself, and lakes of warmth flowed into the air, slowly filling thegreen solitude. Along the island shores the ripples caught flashes fromthe sun.

  "I am going into the stream," he said to her; and rising, he left her inthe tent. This was his side of the island, he had told her last night;the other was hers, where he had made a place for her to bathe. Whenhe was gone, she found it, walking through the trees and rocks to thewater's edge. And so, with the island between them, the two bathed inthe cold stream. When he came back, he found her already busy at theircamp. The blue smoke of the fire was floating out from the trees,loitering undispersed in
the quiet air, and she was getting theirbreakfast. She had been able to forestall him because he had delayedlong at his dressing, not willing to return to her unshaven. She lookedat his eyes that were clear as the water he had leaped into, and at hissoft silk neckerchief, knotted with care.

  "Do not let us ever go away from here!" she cried, and ran to him as hecame. They sat long together at breakfast, breathing the morning breathof the earth that was fragrant with woodland moisture and with thepines. After the meal he could not prevent her helping him makeeverything clean. Then, by all customs of mountain journeys, it was timethey should break camp and be moving before the heat of the day. Butfirst, they delayed for no reason, save that in these hours they soloved to do nothing. And next, when with some energy he got upon hisfeet and declared he must go and drive the horses in, she asked, Why?Would it not be well for him to fish here, that they might be sure oftrout at their nooning? And though he knew that where they should stopfor noon, trout would be as sure as here, he took this chance for moredelay.

  She went with him to his fishing rock, and sat watching him. The rockwas tall, higher than his head when he stood. It jutted out halfwayacross the stream, and the water flowed round it in quick foam, and fellinto a pool. He caught several fish; but the sun was getting high, andafter a time it was plain the fish had ceased to rise.

  Yet still he stood casting in silence, while she sat by and watched him.Across the stream, the horses wandered or lay down in their pasture. Atlength he said with half a sigh that perhaps they ought to go.

  "Ought?" she repeated softly.

  "If we are to get anywhere to-day," he answered.

  "Need we get anywhere?" she asked.

  Her question sent delight through him like a flood. "Then you do notwant to move camp to-day?" said he.

  She shook her head.

  At this he laid down his rod and came and sat by her. "I am very glad weshall not go till to-morrow," he murmured.

  "Not to-morrow," she said. "Nor next day. Nor any day until we must."And she stretched her hands out to the island and the stream exclaiming,"Nothing can surpass this!"

  He took her in his arms. "You feel about it the way I do," he almostwhispered. "I could not have hoped there'd be two of us to care somuch."

  Presently, while they remained without speaking by the pool, came alittle wild animal swimming round the rock from above. It had not seenthem, nor suspected their presence. They held themselves still, watchingits alert head cross through the waves quickly and come down throughthe pool, and so swim to the other side. There it came out on a smallstretch of sand, turned its gray head and its pointed black nose thisway and that, never seeing them, and then rolled upon its back in thewarm dry sand. After a minute of rolling, it got on its feet again,shook its fur, and trotted away.

  Then the bridegroom husband opened his shy heart deep down.

  "I am like that fellow," he said dreamily. "I have often done the same."And stretching slowly his arms and legs, he lay full length upon hisback, letting his head rest upon her. "If I could talk his animallanguage, I could talk to him," he pursued. "And he would say to me:'Come and roll on the sands. Where's the use of fretting? What's thegain in being a man? Come roll on the sands with me.' That's what hewould say." The Virginian paused. "But," he continued, "the trouble is,I am responsible. If that could only be forgot forever by you and me!"Again he paused and went on, always dreamily. "Often when I have campedhere, it has made me want to become the ground, become the water, becomethe trees, mix with the whole thing. Not know myself from it. Neverunmix again. Why is that?" he demanded, looking at her. "What is it? Youdon't know, nor I don't. I wonder would everybody feel that way here?"

  "I think not everybody," she answered.

  "No; none except the ones who understand things they can't put words to.But you did!" He put up a hand and touched her softly. "You understoodabout this place. And that's what makes it--makes you and me as we arenow--better than my dreams. And my dreams were pretty good."

  He sighed with supreme quiet and happiness, and seemed to stretch hislength closer to the earth. And so he lay, and talked to her as he hadnever talked to any one, not even to himself. Thus she learned secretsof his heart new to her: his visits here, what they were to him, and whyhe had chosen it for their bridal camp. "What I did not know at all,"he said, "was the way a man can be pining for--for this--and never guesswhat is the matter with him."

  When he had finished talking, still he lay extended and serene; and shelooked down at him and the wonderful change that had come over him,like a sunrise. Was this dreamy boy the man of two days ago? It seemeda distance immeasurable; yet it was two days only since that weddingeve when she had shrunk from him as he stood fierce and implacable. Shecould look back at that dark hour now, although she could not speak ofit. She had seen destruction like sharp steel glittering in his eyes.Were these the same eyes? Was this youth with his black head of hair inher lap the creature with whom men did not trifle, whose hand knew howto deal death? Where had the man melted away to in this boy? For as shelooked at him, he might have been no older than nineteen to-day. Noteven at their first meeting--that night when his freakish spirit wasuppermost--had he looked so young. This change their hours upon theisland had wrought, filling his face with innocence.

  By and by they made their nooning. In the afternoon she would haveexplored the nearer woods with him, or walked up the stream. But sincethis was to be their camp during several days, he made it more complete.He fashioned a rough bench and a table; around their tent he built atall wind-break for better shelter in case of storm; and for the fire hegathered and cut much wood, and piled it up. So they were provided for,and so for six days and nights they stayed, finding no day or night longenough.

  Once his hedge of boughs did them good service, for they had anafternoon of furious storm. The wind rocked the pines and ransacked theisland, the sun went out, the black clouds rattled, and white bolts oflightning fell close by. The shower broke through the pine branches andpoured upon the tent. But he had removed everything inside from where itcould touch the canvas and so lead the water through, and the rain ranoff into the ditch he had dug round the tent. While they sat within,looking out upon the bounding floods and the white lightning, she sawhim glance at her apprehensively, and at once she answered his glance.

  "I am not afraid," she said. "If a flame should consume us together now,what would it matter?"

  And so they sat watching the storm till it was over, he with his facechanged by her to a boy's, and she leavened with him.

  When at last they were compelled to leave the island, or see no more ofthe mountains, it was not a final parting. They would come back for thelast night before their journey ended. Furthermore, they promised eachother like two children to come here every year upon their wedding day,and like two children they believed that this would be possible. Butin after years they did come, more than once, to keep their wedding dayupon the island, and upon each new visit were able to say to each other,"Better than our dreams."

  For thirty days by the light of the sun and the camp-fire light theysaw no faces except their own; and when they were silent it was allstillness, unless the wind passed among the pines, or some flowing waterwas near them. Sometimes at evening they came upon elk, or black-taileddeer, feeding out in the high parks of the mountains; and once from theedge of some concealing timber he showed her a bear, sitting with anold log lifted in its paws. She forbade him to kill the bear, or anycreature that they did not require. He took her upward by trail andcanyon, through the unfooted woods and along dwindling streams to theirheadwaters, lakes lying near the summit of the range, full of trout,with meadows of long grass and a thousand flowers, and above these thepinnacles of rock and snow.

  They made their camps in many places, delaying several days here, andone night there, exploring the high solitudes together, and sinking deepin their romance. Sometimes when he was at work with their horses, orintent on casting his brown hackle for a fish, she would watch him witheye
s that were fuller of love than of understanding. Perhaps she nevercame wholly to understand him; but in her complete love for him shefound enough. He loved her with his whole man's power. She had listenedto him tell her in words of transport, "I could enjoy dying"; yet sheloved him more than that. He had come to her from a smoking pistol, ableto bid her farewell--and she could not let him go. At the last white-hotedge of ordeal, it was she who renounced, and he who had his way.Nevertheless she found much more than enough, in spite of the sigh thatnow and again breathed through her happiness when she would watch himwith eyes fuller of love than of understanding.

  They could not speak of that grim wedding eve for a long while after;but the mountains brought them together upon all else in the world andtheir own lives. At the end they loved each other doubly more than atthe beginning, because of these added confidences which they exchangedand shared. It was a new bliss to her to know a man's talk and thoughts,to be given so much of him; and to him it was a bliss still greater tomelt from that reserve his lonely life had bred in him. He never wouldhave guessed so much had been stored away in him, unexpressed till now.They did not want to go to Vermont and leave these mountains, but theday came when they had to turn their backs upon their dream. Sothey came out into the plains once more, well established in theirfamiliarity, with only the journey still lying between themselves andBennington.

  "If you could," she said, laughing. "If only you could ride home likethis."

  "With Monte and my six-shooter?" he asked. "To your mother?"

  "I don't think mother could resist the way you look on a horse."

  But he said, "It's this way she's fearing I will come."

  "I have made one discovery," she said. "You are fonder of good clothesthan I am."

  He grinned. "I cert'nly like 'em. But don't tell my friends. They wouldsay it was marriage. When you see what I have got for Bennington'sspecial benefit, you--why, you'll just trust your husband more thanever."

  She undoubtedly did. After he had put on one particular suit, she aroseand kissed him where he stood in it.

  "Bennington will be sorrowful," he said. "No wild-west show, after all.And no ready-made guy, either." And he looked at himself in the glasswith unbidden pleasure.

  "How did you choose that?" she asked. "How did you know that homespunwas exactly the thing for you?"

  "Why, I have been noticing. I used to despise an Eastern man because hisclothes were not Western. I was very young then, or maybe not so veryyoung, as very--as what you saw I was when you first came to Bear Creek.A Western man is a good thing. And he generally knows that. But he hasa heap to learn. And he generally don't know that. So I took to watchingthe Judge's Eastern visitors. There was that Mr. Ogden especially, fromNew Yawk--the gentleman that was there the time when I had to sit up allnight with the missionary, yu' know. His clothes pleased me best of all.Fit him so well, and nothing flash. I got my ideas, and when I knew Iwas going to marry you, I sent my measure East--and I and the tailor areold enemies now."

  Bennington probably was disappointed. To see get out of the train merelya tall man with a usual straw hat, and Scotch homespun suit of arather better cut than most in Bennington--this was dull. And hisconversation--when he indulged in any--seemed fit to come inside thehouse.

  Mrs. Flynt took her revenge by sowing broadcast her thankfulness thatpoor Sam Bannett had been Molly's rejected suitor. He had done so muchbetter for himself. Sam had married a rich Miss Van Scootzer, of thesecond families of Troy; and with their combined riches this happycouple still inhabit the most expensive residence in Hoosic Falls.

  But most of Bennington soon began to say that Molly's cow-boy could beinvited anywhere and hold his own. The time came when they ceased tospeak of him as a cow-boy, and declared that she had shown remarkablesense. But this was not quite yet.

  Did this bride and groom enjoy their visit to her family? Well--well,they did their best. Everybody did their best, even Sarah Bell. She saidthat she found nothing to object to in the Virginian; she told Molly so.Her husband Sam did better than that. He told Molly he considered thatshe was in luck. And poor Mrs. Wood, sitting on the sofa, conversedscrupulously and timidly with her novel son-in-law, and said to Mollythat she was astonished to find him so gentle. And he was undoubtedlyfine-looking; yes, very handsome. She believed that she would grow tolike the Southern accent. Oh, yes! Everybody did their best; and, dearreader, if ever it has been your earthly portion to live with a numberof people who were all doing their best, you do not need me to tell youwhat a heavenly atmosphere this creates.

  And then the bride and groom went to see the old great-aunt over atDunbarton.

  Their first arrival, the one at Bennington, had been thus: Sam Bellhad met them at the train, and Mrs. Wood, waiting in her parlor, hadembraced her daughter and received her son-in-law. Among them they hadmanaged to make the occasion as completely mournful as any family partycan be, with the window blinds up. "And with you present, my dear," saidSam Bell to Sarah, "the absence of a coffin was not felt."

  But at Dunbarton the affair went off differently. The heart of theancient lady had taught her better things. From Bennington to Dunbartonis the good part of a day's journey, and they drove up to the gate inthe afternoon. The great-aunt was in her garden, picking some Augustflowers, and she called as the carriage stopped, "Bring my nephew here,my dear, before you go into the house."

  At this, Molly, stepping out of the carriage, squeezed her husband'shand. "I knew that she would be lovely," she whispered to him. And thenshe ran to her aunt's arms, and let him follow. He came slowly, hat inhand.

  The old lady advanced to meet him, trembling a little, and holding outher hand to him. "Welcome, nephew," she said. "What a tall fellow youare, to be sure. Stand off, sir, and let me look at you."

  The Virginian obeyed, blushing from his black hair to his collar.

  Then his new relative turned to her niece, and gave her a flower. "Putthis in his coat, my dear," she said. "And I think I understand why youwanted to marry him."

  After this the maid came and showed them to their rooms. Left alone inher garden, the great-aunt sank on a bench and sat there for some time;for emotion had made her very weak.

  Upstairs, Molly, sitting on the Virginian's knee, put the flower in hiscoat, and then laid her head upon his shoulder.

  "I didn't know old ladies could be that way," he said. "D' yu' reckonthere are many?"

  "Oh, I don't know," said the girl. "I'm so happy!"

  Now at tea, and during the evening, the great-aunt carried out her plansstill further. At first she did the chief part of the talking herself.Nor did she ask questions about Wyoming too soon. She reached that inher own way, and found out the one thing that she desired to know. Itwas through General Stark that she led up to it.

  "There he is," she said, showing the family portrait. "And a rough timehe must have had of it now and then. New Hampshire was full of fineyoung men in those days. But nowadays most of them have gone away toseek their fortunes in the West. Do they find them, I wonder?"

  "Yes, ma'am. All the good ones do."

  "But you cannot all be--what is the name?--Cattle Kings."

  "That's having its day, ma'am, right now. And we are getting ready forthe change--some of us are."

  "And what may be the change, and when is it to come?"

  "When the natural pasture is eaten off," he explained. "I have seen thatcoming a long while. And if the thieves are going to make us driveour stock away, we'll drive it. If they don't, we'll have big pasturesfenced, and hay and shelter ready for winter. What we'll spend inimprovements, we'll more than save in wages. I am well fixed for thenew conditions. And then, when I took up my land, I chose a place wherethere is coal. It will not be long before the new railroad needs that."

  Thus the old lady learned more of her niece's husband in one eveningthan the Bennington family had ascertained during his whole sojourn withthem. For by touching upon Wyoming and its future, she roused him totalk. He found her mind alive to Western q
uestions: irrigation, theIndians, the forests; and so he expanded, revealing to her his wideobservation and his shrewd intelligence. He forgot entirely to be shy.She sent Molly to bed, and kept him talking for an hour. Then she showedhim old things that she was proud of, "because," she said, "we, too, hadsomething to do with making our country. And now go to Molly, or you'llboth think me a tiresome old lady."

  "I think--" he began, but was not quite equal to expressing what hethought, and suddenly his shyness flooded him again.

  "In that case, nephew," said she, "I'm afraid you'll have to kiss megood night."

  And so she dismissed him to his wife, and to happiness greater thaneither of them had known since they had left the mountains and come tothe East. "He'll do," she said to herself, nodding.

  Their visit to Dunbarton was all happiness and reparation for thedoleful days at Bennington. The old lady gave much comfort and adviceto her niece in private, and when they came to leave, she stood at thefront door holding both their hands a moment.

  "God bless you, my dears," she told them. "And when you come next time,I'll have the nursery ready."

  And so it happened that before she left this world, the great-aunt wasable to hold in her arms the first of their many children.

  Judge Henry at Sunk Creek had his wedding present ready. His growingaffairs in Wyoming needed his presence in many places distant from hisranch, and he made the Virginian his partner. When the thieves prevailedat length, as they did, forcing cattle owners to leave the country or beruined, the Virginian had forestalled this crash. The herds were drivenaway to Montana. Then, in 1889, came the cattle war, when, after puttingtheir men in office, and coming to own some of the newspapers, thethieves brought ruin on themselves as well. For in a broken countrythere is nothing left to steal.

  But the railroad came, and built a branch to that land of theVirginian's where the coal was. By that time he was an important man,with a strong grip on many various enterprises, and able to give hiswife all and more than she asked or desired.

  Sometimes she missed the Bear Creek days, when she and he had riddentogether, and sometimes she declared that his work would kill him.But it does not seem to have done so. Their eldest boy rides the horseMonte; and, strictly between ourselves, I think his father is going tolive a long while.