I. ENTER THE MAN
Some notable sight was drawing the passengers, both men and women, tothe window; and therefore I rose and crossed the car to see what it was.I saw near the track an enclosure, and round it some laughing men, andinside it some whirling dust, and amid the dust some horses, plunging,huddling, and dodging. They were cow ponies in a corral, and one of themwould not be caught, no matter who threw the rope. We had plenty of timeto watch this sport, for our train had stopped that the engine mighttake water at the tank before it pulled us up beside the stationplatform of Medicine Bow. We were also six hours late, and starving forentertainment. The pony in the corral was wise, and rapid of limb. Haveyou seen a skilful boxer watch his antagonist with a quiet, incessanteye? Such an eye as this did the pony keep upon whatever man took therope. The man might pretend to look at the weather, which was fine; orhe might affect earnest conversation with a bystander: it was bootless.The pony saw through it. No feint hoodwinked him. This animal wasthoroughly a man of the world. His undistracted eye stayed fixed uponthe dissembling foe, and the gravity of his horse-expression made thematter one of high comedy. Then the rope would sail out at him, but hewas already elsewhere; and if horses laugh, gayety must have abounded inthat corral. Sometimes the pony took a turn alone; next he had slid in aflash among his brothers, and the whole of them like a school of playfulfish whipped round the corral, kicking up the fine dust, and (I take it)roaring with laughter. Through the window-glass of our Pullman the thudof their mischievous hoofs reached us, and the strong, humorous cursesof the cow-boys. Then for the first time I noticed a man who sat on thehigh gate of the corral, looking on. For he now climbed down withthe undulations of a tiger, smooth and easy, as if his muscles flowedbeneath his skin. The others had all visibly whirled the rope, some ofthem even shoulder high. I did not see his arm lift or move. He appearedto hold the rope down low, by his leg. But like a sudden snake I saw thenoose go out its length and fall true; and the thing was done. As thecaptured pony walked in with a sweet, church-door expression, our trainmoved slowly on to the station, and a passenger remarked, "That manknows his business."
But the passenger's dissertation upon roping I was obliged to lose, forMedicine Bow was my station. I bade my fellow-travellers good-by, anddescended, a stranger, into the great cattle land. And here in less thanten minutes I learned news which made me feel a stranger indeed.
My baggage was lost; it had not come on my train; it was adriftsomewhere back in the two thousand miles that lay behind me. And by wayof comfort, the baggage-man remarked that passengers often got astrayfrom their trunks, but the trunks mostly found them after a while.Having offered me this encouragement, he turned whistling to hisaffairs and left me planted in the baggage-room at Medicine Bow. I stooddeserted among crates and boxes, blankly holding my check, hungry andforlorn. I stared out through the door at the sky and the plains; butI did not see the antelope shining among the sage-brush, nor the greatsunset light of Wyoming. Annoyance blinded my eyes to all things savemy grievance: I saw only a lost trunk. And I was muttering half-aloud,"What a forsaken hole this is!" when suddenly from outside on theplatform came a slow voice: "Off to get married AGAIN? Oh, don't!"
The voice was Southern and gentle and drawling; and a second voice camein immediate answer, cracked and querulous. "It ain't again. Who saysit's again? Who told you, anyway?"
And the first voice responded caressingly: "Why, your Sunday clothestold me, Uncle Hughey. They are speakin' mighty loud o' nuptials."
"You don't worry me!" snapped Uncle Hughey, with shrill heat.
And the other gently continued, "Ain't them gloves the same yu' wore toyour last weddin'?"
"You don't worry me! You don't worry me!" now screamed Uncle Hughey.
Already I had forgotten my trunk; care had left me; I was aware of thesunset, and had no desire but for more of this conversation. For itresembled none that I had heard in my life so far. I stepped to the doorand looked out upon the station platform.
Lounging there at ease against the wall was a slim young giant,more beautiful than pictures. His broad, soft hat was pushed back; aloose-knotted, dull-scarlet handkerchief sagged from his throat; and onecasual thumb was hooked in the cartridge-belt that slanted across hiships. He had plainly come many miles from somewhere across the vasthorizon, as the dust upon him showed. His boots were white with it. Hisoveralls were gray with it. The weather-beaten bloom of his face shonethrough it duskily, as the ripe peaches look upon their trees in a dryseason. But no dinginess of travel or shabbiness of attire could tarnishthe splendor that radiated from his youth and strength. The old manupon whose temper his remarks were doing such deadly work was combed andcurried to a finish, a bridegroom swept and garnished; but alas for age!Had I been the bride, I should have taken the giant, dust and all. Hehad by no means done with the old man.
"Why, yu've hung weddin' gyarments on every limb!" he now drawled, withadmiration. "Who is the lucky lady this trip?"
The old man seemed to vibrate. "Tell you there ain't been no other! Callme a Mormon, would you?"
"Why, that--"
"Call me a Mormon? Then name some of my wives. Name two. Name one. Dareyou!"
"--that Laramie wido' promised you--'
"Shucks!"
"--only her doctor suddenly ordered Southern climate and--"
"Shucks! You're a false alarm."
"--so nothing but her lungs came between you. And next you'd most gotunited with Cattle Kate, only--"
"Tell you you're a false alarm!"
"--only she got hung."
"Where's the wives in all this? Show the wives! Come now!"
"That corn-fed biscuit-shooter at Rawlins yu' gave the canary--"
"Never married her. Never did marry--"
"But yu' come so near, uncle! She was the one left yu' that letterexplaining how she'd got married to a young cyard-player the very daybefore her ceremony with you was due, and--"
"Oh, you're nothing; you're a kid; you don't amount to--"
"--and how she'd never, never forgot to feed the canary."
"This country's getting full of kids," stated the old man, witheringly."It's doomed." This crushing assertion plainly satisfied him. And heblinked his eyes with renewed anticipation. His tall tormentor continuedwith a face of unchanging gravity, and a voice of gentle solicitude:"How is the health of that unfortunate--"
"That's right! Pour your insults! Pour 'em on a sick, afflicted woman!"The eyes blinked with combative relish.
"Insults? Oh, no, Uncle Hughey!"
"That's all right! Insults goes!"
"Why, I was mighty relieved when she began to recover her mem'ry. Las'time I heard, they told me she'd got it pretty near all back. Rememberedher father, and her mother, and her sisters and brothers, and herfriends, and her happy childhood, and all her doin's except only yourface. The boys was bettin' she'd get that far too, give her time. ButI reckon afteh such a turrable sickness as she had, that would beexpectin' most too much."
At this Uncle Hughey jerked out a small parcel. "Shows how much youknow!" he cackled. "There! See that! That's my ring she sent me back,being too unstrung for marriage. So she don't remember me, don't she?Ha-ha! Always said you were a false alarm."
The Southerner put more anxiety into his tone. "And so you're a-takin'the ring right on to the next one!" he exclaimed. "Oh, don't go to getmarried again, Uncle Hughey! What's the use o' being married?"
"What's the use?" echoed the bridegroom, with scorn. "Hm! When you growup you'll think different."
"Course I expect to think different when my age is different. I'm havin'the thoughts proper to twenty-four, and you're havin' the thoughtsproper to sixty."
"Fifty!" shrieked Uncle Hughey, jumping in the air.
The Southerner took a tone of self-reproach. "Now, how could I forgetyou was fifty," he murmured, "when you have been telling it to the boysso careful for the last ten years!"
Have you ever seen a cockatoo--the white kind with the top-knot--enragedby in
sult? The bird erects every available feather upon its person.So did Uncle Hughey seem to swell, clothes, mustache, and woolly whitebeard; and without further speech he took himself on board the Eastboundtrain, which now arrived from its siding in time to deliver him.
Yet this was not why he had not gone away before. At any time he couldhave escaped into the baggage-room or withdrawn to a dignified distanceuntil his train should come up. But the old man had evidently got a sortof joy from this teasing. He had reached that inevitable age when we aretickled to be linked with affairs of gallantry, no matter how.
With him now the Eastbound departed slowly into that distance whenceI had come. I stared after it as it went its way to the far shores ofcivilization. It grew small in the unending gulf of space, until allsign of its presence was gone save a faint skein of smoke against theevening sky. And now my lost trunk came back into my thoughts, andMedicine Bow seemed a lonely spot. A sort of ship had left me maroonedin a foreign ocean; the Pullman was comfortably steaming home to port,while I--how was I to find Judge Henry's ranch? Where in this unfeaturedwilderness was Sunk Creek? No creek or any water at all flowed here thatI could perceive. My host had written he should meet me at the stationand drive me to his ranch. This was all that I knew. He was not here.The baggage-man had not seen him lately. The ranch was almost certainto be too far to walk to, to-night. My trunk--I discovered myself stillstaring dolefully after the vanished East-bound; and at the same instantI became aware that the tall man was looking gravely at me,--asgravely as he had looked at Uncle Hughey throughout their remarkableconversation.
To see his eye thus fixing me and his thumb still hooked in hiscartridge-belt, certain tales of travellers from these parts forcedthemselves disquietingly into my recollection. Now that Uncle Hughey wasgone, was I to take his place and be, for instance, invited to dance onthe platform to the music of shots nicely aimed?
"I reckon I am looking for you, seh," the tall man now observed.