The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains

  X. WHERE FANCY WAS BRED

  Two camps in the open, and the Virginian's Monte horse, untired, broughthim to the Swintons' in good time for the barbecue. The horse receivedgood food at length, while his rider was welcomed with good whiskey.GOOD whiskey--for had not steers jumped to seventy-five?

  Inside the Goose Egg kitchen many small delicacies were preparing, anda steer was roasting whole outside. The bed of flame under it showedsteadily brighter against the dusk that was beginning to veil thelowlands. The busy hosts went and came, while men stood and men lay nearthe fire-glow. Chalkeye was there, and Nebrasky, and Trampas, andHoney Wiggin, with others, enjoying the occasion; but Honey Wiggin wasenjoying himself: he had an audience; he was sitting up discoursing toit.

  "Hello!" he said, perceiving the Virginian. "So you've dropped in foryour turn! Number--six, ain't he, boys?"

  "Depends who's a-runnin' the countin'," said the Virginian, andstretched himself down among the audience.

  "I've saw him number one when nobody else was around," said Trampas.

  "How far away was you standin' when you beheld that?" inquired thelounging Southerner.

  "Well, boys," said Wiggin, "I expect it will be Miss Schoolmarm sayswho's number one to-night."

  "So she's arrived in this hyeh country?" observed the Virginian, verycasually.

  "Arrived!" said Trampas again. "Where have you been grazing lately?"

  "A right smart way from the mules."

  "Nebrasky and the boys was tellin' me they'd missed yu' off the range,"again interposed Wiggin. "Say, Nebrasky, who have yu' offered yourcanary to the schoolmarm said you mustn't give her?"

  Nebrasky grinned wretchedly.

  "Well, she's a lady, and she's square, not takin' a man's gift when shedon't take the man. But you'd ought to get back all them letters yu'wrote her. Yu' sure ought to ask her for them tell-tales."

  "Ah, pshaw, Honey!" protested the youth. It was well known that he couldnot write his name.

  "Why, if here ain't Bokay Baldy!" cried the agile Wiggin, stooping tofresh prey. "Found them slippers yet, Baldy? Tell yu' boys, that wasturruble sad luck Baldy had. Did yu' hear about that? Baldy, yu' know,he can stay on a tame horse most as well as the schoolmarm. But just yougive him a pair of young knittin'-needles and see him make 'em sweat!He worked an elegant pair of slippers with pink cabbages on 'em for MissWood."

  "I bought 'em at Medicine Bow," blundered Baldy.

  "So yu' did!" assented the skilful comedian. "Baldy he bought 'em. Andon the road to her cabin there at the Taylors' he got thinkin' theymight be too big, and he got studyin' what to do. And he fixed up totell her about his not bein' sure of the size, and how she was to lethim know if they dropped off her, and he'd exchange 'em, and when hegot right near her door, why, he couldn't find his courage. And so heslips the parcel under the fence and starts serenadin' her. But sheain't inside her cabin at all. She's at supper next door with theTaylors, and Baldy singin' 'Love has conqwered pride and angwer' to alone house. Lin McLean was comin' up by Taylor's corral, where Taylor'sTexas bull was. Well, it was turruble sad. Baldy's pants got tore, buthe fell inside the fence, and Lin druv the bull back and somebody stolethem Medicine Bow galoshes. Are you goin' to knit her some more, Bokay?"

  "About half that ain't straight," Baldy commented, with mildness.

  "The half that was tore off yer pants? Well, never mind, Baldy; Lin willget left too, same as all of yu'."

  "Is there many?" inquired the Virginian. He was still stretched on hisback, looking up at the sky.

  "I don't know how many she's been used to where she was raised," Wigginanswered. "A kid stage-driver come from Point of Rocks one day and wentback the next. Then the foreman of the 76 outfit, and the horse-wranglerfrom the Bar-Circle-L, and two deputy marshals, with punchers, stringin'right along,--all got their tumble. Old Judge Burrage from Cheyenne comeup in August for a hunt and stayed round here and never hunted at all.There was that horse thief--awful good-lookin'. Taylor wanted to warnher about him, but Mrs. Taylor said she'd look after her if it wasneeded. Mr. Horse-thief gave it up quicker than most; but the schoolmarmcouldn't have knowed he had a Mrs. Horse-thief camped on Poison Spidertill afterwards. She wouldn't go ridin' with him. She'll go with some,takin' a kid along."

  "Bah!" said Trampas.

  The Virginian stopped looking at the sky, and watched Trampas from wherehe lay.

  "I think she encourages a man some," said poor Nebrasky.

  "Encourages? Because she lets yu' teach her how to shoot," said Wiggin."Well--I don't guess I'm a judge. I've always kind o' kep' away fromthem good women. Don't seem to think of anything to chat about to 'em.The only folks I'd say she encourages is the school kids. She kissesthem."

  "Riding and shooting and kissing the kids," sneered Trampas. "That's aheap too pussy-kitten for me."

  They laughed. The sage-brush audience is readily cynical.

  "Look for the man, I say," Trampas pursued. "And ain't he there? Sheleaves Baldy sit on the fence while she and Lin McLean--"

  They laughed loudly at the blackguard picture which he drew; and thelaugh stopped short, for the Virginian stood over Trampas.

  "You can rise up now, and tell them you lie," he said.

  The man was still for a moment in the dead silence. "I thought youclaimed you and her wasn't acquainted," said he then.

  "Stand on your laigs, you polecat, and say you're a liar!"

  Trampas's hand moved behind him.

  "Quit that," said the Southerner, "or I'll break your neck!"

  The eye of a man is the prince of deadly weapons. Trampas looked in theVirginian's, and slowly rose. "I didn't mean--" he began, and paused,his face poisonously bloated.

  "Well, I'll call that sufficient. Keep a-standin' still. I ain' goingto trouble yu' long. In admittin' yourself to be a liar you have spokeGod's truth for onced. Honey Wiggin, you and me and the boys have hittown too frequent for any of us to play Sunday on the balance ofthe gang." He stopped and surveyed Public Opinion, seated around incarefully inexpressive attention. "We ain't a Christian outfit a littlebit, and maybe we have most forgotten what decency feels like. But Ireckon we haven't forgot what it means. You can sit down now, if youwant."

  The liar stood and sneered experimentally, looking at Public Opinion.But this changeful deity was no longer with him, and he heard itvariously assenting, "That's so," and "She's a lady," and otherwiseexcellently moralizing. So he held his peace. When, however, theVirginian had departed to the roasting steer, and Public Opinion relaxedinto that comfort which we all experience when the sermon ends, Trampassat down amid the reviving cheerfulness, and ventured again to befacetious.

  "Shut your rank mouth," said Wiggin to him, amiably. "I don't carewhether he knows her or if he done it on principle. I'll accept theroundin' up he gave us--and say! You'll swallo' your dose, too! Usboys'll stand in with him in this."

  So Trampas swallowed. And what of the Virginian?

  He had championed the feeble, and spoken honorably in meeting, andaccording to all the constitutions and by-laws of morality, he shouldhave been walking in virtue's especial calm. But there it was! he hadspoken; he had given them a peep through the key-hole at his innerman; and as he prowled away from the assemblage before whom he stoodconvicted of decency, it was vicious rather than virtuous that he felt.Other matters also disquieted him--so Lin McLean was hanging round thatschoolmarm! Yet he joined Ben Swinton in a seemingly Christian spirit.He took some whiskey and praised the size of the barrel, speaking withhis host like this: "There cert'nly ain' goin' to be trouble about asecond helpin'."

  "Hope not. We'd ought to have more trimmings, though. We're shy onducks."

  "Yu' have the barrel. Has Lin McLean seen that?"

  "No. We tried for ducks away down as far as the Laparel outfit. A realbarbecue--"

  "There's large thirsts on Bear Creek. Lin McLean will pass on ducks."

  "Lin's not thirsty this month."

  "Signed for one month, has he?"

&
nbsp; "Signed! He's spooning our schoolmarm!"

  "They claim she's a right sweet-faced girl."

  "Yes; yes; awful agreeable. And next thing you're fooled clean through."

  "Yu' don't say!"

  "She keeps a-teaching the darned kids, and it seems like a goodgrowed-up man can't interest her."

  "YU' DON'T SAY!"

  "There used to be all the ducks you wanted at the Laparel, but theirfool cook's dead stuck on raising turkeys this year."

  "That must have been mighty close to a drowndin' the schoolmarm got atSouth Fork."

  "Why, I guess not. When? She's never spoken of any such thing--that I'veheard."

  "Mos' likely the stage-driver got it wrong, then."

  "Yes. Must have drownded somebody else. Here they come! That's herridin' the horse. There's the Westfalls. Where are you running to?"

  "To fix up. Got any soap around hyeh?"

  "Yes," shouted Swinton, for the Virginian was now some distance away;"towels and everything in the dugout." And he went to welcome his firstformal guests.

  The Virginian reached his saddle under a shed. "So she's never mentionedit," said he, untying his slicker for the trousers and scarf. "Ididn't notice Lin anywheres around her." He was over in the dugout now,whipping off his overalls; and soon he was excellently clean and ready,except for the tie in his scarf and the part in his hair. "I'd haveknowed her in Greenland," he remarked. He held the candle up and down atthe looking-glass, and the looking-glass up and down at his head. "It'smighty strange why she ain't mentioned that." He worried the scarf afold or two further, and at length, a trifle more than satisfied withhis appearance, he proceeded most serenely toward the sound of thetuning fiddles. He passed through the store-room behind the kitchen,stepping lightly lest he should rouse the ten or twelve babies that layon the table or beneath it. On Bear Creek babies and children alwayswent with their parents to a dance, because nurses were unknown. Solittle Alfred and Christopher lay there among the wraps, parallel andcrosswise with little Taylors, and little Carmodys, and Lees, and allthe Bear Creek offspring that was not yet able to skip at large andhamper its indulgent elders in the ball-room.

  "Why, Lin ain't hyeh yet!" said the Virginian, looking in upon thepeople. There was Miss Wood, standing up for the quadrille. "I didn'tremember her hair was that pretty," said he. "But ain't she a little,little girl!"

  Now she was in truth five feet three; but then he could look away downon the top of her head.

  "Salute your honey!" called the first fiddler. All partners bowed toeach other, and as she turned, Miss Wood saw the man in the doorway.Again, as it had been at South Fork that day, his eyes dropped fromhers, and she divining instantly why he had come after half a year,thought of the handkerchief and of that scream of hers in the river, andbecame filled with tyranny and anticipation; for indeed he was fine tolook upon. So she danced away, carefully unaware of his existence.

  "First lady, centre!" said her partner, reminding her of her turn. "Haveyou forgotten how it goes since last time?"

  Molly Wood did not forget again, but quadrilled with the most sprightlydevotion.

  "I see some new faces to-night," said she, presently.

  "Yu' always do forget our poor faces," said her partner.

  "Oh, no! There's a stranger now. Who is that black man?"

  "Well--he's from Virginia, and he ain't allowin' he's black."

  "He's a tenderfoot, I suppose?"

  "Ha, ha, ha! That's rich, too!" and so the simple partner explained agreat deal about the Virginian to Molly Wood. At the end of the set shesaw the man by the door take a step in her direction.

  "Oh," said she, quickly, to the partner, "how warm it is! I must seehow those babies are doing." And she passed the Virginian in a breeze ofunconcern.

  His eyes gravely lingered where she had gone. "She knowed me rightaway," said he. He looked for a moment, then leaned against the door."'How warm it is!' said she. Well, it ain't so screechin' hot hyeh; andas for rushin' after Alfred and Christopher, when their natural mothehis bumpin' around handy--she cert'nly can't be offended?" he brokeoff, and looked again where she had gone. And then Miss Wood passed himbrightly again, and was dancing the schottische almost immediately."Oh, yes, she knows me," the swarthy cow-puncher mused. "She has totake trouble not to see me. And what she's a-fussin' at is mightyinterestin'. Hello!"

  "Hello!" returned Lin McLean, sourly. He had just looked into thekitchen.

  "Not dancin'?" the Southerner inquired.

  "Don't know how."

  "Had scyarlet fever and forgot your past life?"

  Lin grinned.

  "Better persuade the schoolmarm to learn it. She's goin' to give meinstruction."

  "Huh!" went Mr. McLean, and skulked out to the barrel.

  "Why, they claimed you weren't drinkin' this month!" said his friend,following.

  "Well, I am. Here's luck!" The two pledged in tin cups. "But I'm notwaltzin' with her," blurted Mr. McLean grievously. "She called me anexception."

  "Waltzin'," repeated the Virginian quickly, and hearing the fiddles hehastened away.

  Few in the Bear Creek Country could waltz, and with these few itwas mostly an unsteered and ponderous exhibition; therefore was theSoutherner bent upon profiting by his skill. He entered the room,and his lady saw him come where she sat alone for the moment, and herthoughts grew a little hurried.

  "Will you try a turn, ma'am?"

  "I beg your pardon?" It was a remote, well-schooled eye that she liftednow upon him.

  "If you like a waltz, ma'am, will you waltz with me?"

  "You're from Virginia, I understand?" said Molly Wood, regarding himpolitely, but not rising. One gains authority immensely by keeping one'sseat. All good teachers know this.

  "Yes, ma'am, from Virginia."

  "I've heard that Southerners have such good manners."

  "That's correct." The cow-puncher flushed, but he spoke in hisunvaryingly gentle voice.

  "For in New England, you know," pursued Miss Molly, noting his scarf andclean-shaven chin, and then again steadily meeting his eye, "gentlemenask to be presented to ladies before they ask them to waltz."

  He stood a moment before her, deeper and deeper scarlet; and the moreshe saw his handsome face, the keener rose her excitement. She waitedfor him to speak of the river; for then she was going to be surprised,and gradually to remember, and finally to be very nice to him. But hedid not wait. "I ask your pardon, lady," said he, and bowing, walkedoff, leaving her at once afraid that he might not come back. But she hadaltogether mistaken her man. Back he came serenely with Mr. Taylor, andwas duly presented to her. Thus were the conventions vindicated.

  It can never be known what the cow-puncher was going to say next; forUncle Hughey stepped up with a glass of water which he had left Wood tobring, and asking for a turn, most graciously received it. She dancedaway from a situation where she began to feel herself getting theworst of it. One moment the Virginian stared at his lady as she lightlycirculated, and then he went out to the barrel.

  Leave him for Uncle Hershey! Jealousy is a deep and delicate thing, andworks its spite in many ways. The Virginian had been ready to look atLin McLean with a hostile eye; but finding him now beside the barrel, hefelt a brotherhood between himself and Lin, and his hostility had takena new and whimsical direction.

  "Here's how!" said he to McLean. And they pledged each other in the tincups.

  "Been gettin' them instructions?" said Mr. McLean, grinning. "I thoughtI saw yu' learning your steps through the window."

  "Here's your good health," said the Southerner. Once more they pledgedeach other handsomely.

  "Did she call you an exception, or anything?" said Lin.

  "Well, it would cipher out right close in that neighborhood."

  "Here's how, then!" cried the delighted Lin, over his cup.

  "Jest because yu' happen to come from Vermont," continued Mr. McLean,"is no cause for extra pride. Shoo! I was raised in Massachusettsmyself, and big men have been
raised there, too,--Daniel Webster andIsrael Putnam: and a lot of them politicians."

  "Virginia is a good little old state," observed the Southerner.

  "Both of 'em's a sight ahead of Vermont. She told me I was the firstexception she'd struck."

  "What rule were you provin' at the time, Lin?"

  "Well yu' see, I started to kiss her."

  "Yu' didn't!"

  "Shucks! I didn't mean nothin'."

  "I reckon yu' stopped mighty sudden?"

  "Why, I'd been ridin' out with her--ridin' to school, ridin' fromschool, and a-comin' and a-goin', and she chattin' cheerful and askin'me a heap o' questions all about myself every day, and I not lyin' muchneither. And so I figured she wouldn't mind. Lots of 'em like it. Butshe didn't, you bet!"

  "No," said the Virginian, deeply proud of his lady who had slighted him.He had pulled her out of the water once, and he had been her unrewardedknight even to-day, and he felt his grievance; but he spoke not of itto Lin; for he felt also, in memory, her arms clinging round him as hecarried her ashore upon his horse. But he muttered, "Plumb ridiculous!"as her injustice struck him afresh, while the outraged McLean told histale.

  "Trample is what she has done on me to-night, and without notice. We wasstartin' to come here; Taylor and Mrs. were ahead in the buggy, and Iwas holdin' her horse, and helpin' her up in the saddle, like I done fordays and days. Who was there to see us? And I figured she'd not mind,and she calls me an exception! Yu'd ought to've just heard her aboutWestern men respectin' women. So that's the last word we've spoke.We come twenty-five miles then, she scootin' in front, and her horsekickin' the sand in my face. Mrs. Taylor, she guessed something was up,but she didn't tell."

  "Miss Wood did not tell?"

  "Not she! She'll never open her head. She can take care of herself, youbet!" The fiddles sounded hilariously in the house, and the feet also.They had warmed up altogether, and their dancing figures crossed thewindows back and forth. The two cow-punchers drew near to a window andlooked in gloomily.

  "There she goes," said Lin.

  "With Uncle Hughey again," said the Virginian, sourly. "Yu' mightsuppose he didn't have a wife and twins, to see the way he goesgambollin' around."

  "Westfall is takin' a turn with her now," said McLean.

  "James!" exclaimed the Virginian. "He's another with a wife and fam'ly,and he gets the dancin', too."

  "There she goes with Taylor," said Lin, presently.

  "Another married man!" the Southerner commented. They prowled round tothe store-room, and passed through the kitchen to where the dancers wererobustly tramping. Miss Wood was still the partner of Mr. Taylor. "Let'shave some whiskey," said the Virginian. They had it, and returned, andthe Virginian's disgust and sense of injury grew deeper. "Old Carmodyhas got her now," he drawled. "He polkas like a landslide. She learnshis monkey-faced kid to spell dog and cow all the mawnin'. He'd ought tobe tucked up cosey in his bed right now, old Carmody ought."

  They were standing in that place set apart for the sleeping children;and just at this moment one of two babies that were stowed beneatha chair uttered a drowsy note. A much louder cry, indeed a chorus oflament, would have been needed to reach the ears of the parents in theroom beyond, such was the noisy volume of the dance. But in this quietplace the light sound caught Mr. McLean's attention, and he turned tosee if anything were wrong. But both babies were sleeping peacefully.

  "Them's Uncle Hughey's twins," he said.

  "How do you happen to know that?" inquired the Virginian, suddenlyinterested.

  "Saw his wife put 'em under the chair so she could find 'em right offwhen she come to go home."

  "Oh," said the Virginian, thoughtfully. "Oh, find 'em right off. Yes.Uncle Hughey's twins." He walked to a spot from which he could view thedance. "Well," he continued, returning, "the schoolmarm must have takenquite a notion to Uncle Hughey. He has got her for this quadrille." TheVirginian was now speaking without rancor; but his words came with aslightly augmented drawl, and this with him was often a bad omen. Henow turned his eyes upon the collected babies wrapped in variouscolored shawls and knitted work. "Nine, ten, eleven, beautiful sleepin'strangers," he counted, in a sweet voice. "Any of 'em your'n, Lin?"

  "Not that I know of," grinned Mr. McLean.

  "Eleven, twelve. This hyeh is little Christopher in the blue-stripequilt--or maybe that other yello'-head is him. The angels have commencedto drop in on us right smart along Bear Creek, Lin."

  "What trash are yu' talkin' anyway?"

  "If they look so awful alike in the heavenly gyarden," the gentleSoutherner continued, "I'd just hate to be the folks that has thecuttin' of 'em out o' the general herd. And that's a right quaint notiontoo," he added softly. "Them under the chair are Uncle Hughey's, didn'tyou tell me?" And stooping, he lifted the torpid babies and placed thembeneath a table. "No, that ain't thorough," he murmured. With wonderfuldexterity and solicitude for their wellfare, he removed the loose wrapwhich was around them, and this soon led to an intricate process ofexchange. For a moment Mr. McLean had been staring at the Virginian,puzzled. Then, with a joyful yelp of enlightenment, he sprang to abethim.

  And while both busied themselves with the shawls and quilts, theunconscious parents went dancing vigorously on, and the small,occasional cries of their progeny did not reach them.