The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains

  XX. THE JUDGE IGNORES PARTICULARS

  "Do you often have these visitations?" Ogden inquired of Judge Henry.Our host was giving us whiskey in his office, and Dr. MacBride, whilewe smoked apart from the ladies, had repaired to his quarters in theforeman's house previous to the service which he was shortly to hold.

  The Judge laughed. "They come now and then through the year. I like thebishop to come. And the men always like it. But I fear our friend willscarcely please them so well."

  "You don't mean they'll--"

  "Oh, no. They'll keep quiet. The fact is, they have a good deal bettermanners than he has, if he only knew it. They'll be able to bear him.But as for any good he'll do--"

  "I doubt if he knows a word of science," said I, musing about theDoctor.

  "Science! He doesn't know what Christianity is yet. I've entertainedmany guests, but none--The whole secret," broke off Judge Henry, "liesin the way you treat people. As soon as you treat men as your brothers,they are ready to acknowledge you--if you deserve it--as their superior.That's the whole bottom of Christianity, and that's what our missionarywill never know."

  There was a somewhat heavy knock at the office door, and I think we allfeared it was Dr. MacBride. But when the Judge opened, the Virginian wasstanding there in the darkness.

  "So!" The Judge opened the door wide. He was very hearty to the man hehad trusted. "You're back at last."

  "I came to repawt."

  While they shook hands, Ogden nudged me. "That the fellow?" I nodded."Fellow who kicked the cook off the train?" I again nodded, and helooked at the Virginian, his eye and his stature.

  Judge Henry, properly democratic, now introduced him to Ogden.

  The New Yorker also meant to be properly democratic. "You're the manI've been hearing such a lot about."

  But familiarity is not equality. "Then I expect yu' have the advantageof me, seh," said the Virginian, very politely. "Shall I repawtto-morro'?" His grave eyes were on the Judge again. Of me he had takenno notice; he had come as an employee to see his employer.

  "Yes, yes; I'll want to hear about the cattle to-morrow. But step insidea moment now. There's a matter--" The Virginian stepped inside, and tookoff his hat. "Sit down. You had trouble--I've heard something about it,"the Judge went on.

  The Virginian sat down, grave and graceful. But he held the brim ofhis hat all the while. He looked at Ogden and me, and then back at hisemployer. There was reluctance in his eye. I wondered if his employercould be going to make him tell his own exploits in the presence ofus outsiders; and there came into my memory the Bengal tiger at atrained-animal show I had once seen.

  "You had some trouble," repeated the Judge.

  "Well, there was a time when they maybe wanted to have notions. They'regood boys." And he smiled a very little.

  Contentment increased in the Judge's face. "Trampas a good boy too?"

  But this time the Bengal tiger did not smile. He sat with his eyefastened on his employer.

  The Judge passed rather quickly on to his next point. "You've broughtthem all back, though, I understand, safe and sound, without a scratch?"

  The Virginian looked down at his hat, then up again at the Judge,mildly. "I had to part with my cook."

  There was no use; Ogden and myself exploded. Even upon the embarrassedVirginian a large grin slowly forced itself. "I guess yu' know aboutit," he murmured. And he looked at me with a sort of reproach. He knewit was I who had told tales out of school.

  "I only want to say," said Ogden, conciliatingly, "that I know Icouldn't have handled those men."

  The Virginian relented. "Yu' never tried, seh."

  The Judge had remained serious; but he showed himself plainly more andmore contented. "Quite right," he said. "You had to part with yourcook. When I put a man in charge, I put him in charge. I don't makeparticulars my business. They're to be always his. Do you understand?"

  "Thank yu'." The Virginian understood that his employer was praising hismanagement of the expedition. But I don't think he at all discerned--asI did presently--that his employer had just been putting him to afurther test, had laid before him the temptation of complaining of afellow-workman and blowing his own trumpet, and was delighted with hisreticence. He made a movement to rise.

  "I haven't finished," said the Judge. "I was coming to the matter.There's one particular--since I do happen to have been told. I fancyTrampas has learned something he didn't expect."

  This time the Virginian evidently did not understand, any more than Idid. One hand played with his hat, mechanically turning it round.

  The Judge explained. "I mean about Roberts."

  A pulse of triumph shot over the Southerner's face, turning it savagefor that fleeting instant. He understood now, and was unable to suppressthis much answer. But he was silent.

  "You see," the Judge explained to me, "I was obliged to let Roberts, myold foreman, go last week. His wife could not have stood another winterhere, and a good position was offered to him near Los Angeles."

  I did see. I saw a number of things. I saw why the foreman's house hadbeen empty to receive Dr. MacBride and me. And I saw that the Judgehad been very clever indeed. For I had abstained from telling any talesabout the present feeling between Trampas and the Virginian; but he haddivined it. Well enough for him to say that "particulars" were somethinghe let alone; he evidently kept a deep eye on the undercurrents at hisranch. He knew that in Roberts, Trampas had lost a powerful friend. Andthis was what I most saw, this final fact, that Trampas had no longerany intervening shield. He and the Virginian stood indeed man to man.

  "And so," the Judge continued speaking to me, "here I am at a veryinconvenient time without a foreman. Unless," I caught the twinkle inhis eyes before he turned to the Virginian, "unless you're willing totake the position yourself. Will you?"

  I saw the Southerner's hand grip his hat as he was turning it round. Heheld it still now, and his other hand found it and gradually crumpledthe soft crown in. It meant everything to him: recognition, higherstation, better fortune, a separate house of his own, and--perhaps--onestep nearer to the woman he wanted. I don't know what words he mighthave said to the Judge had they been alone, but the Judge had chosento do it in our presence, the whole thing from beginning to end. TheVirginian sat with the damp coming out on his forehead, and his eyesdropped from his employer's.

  "Thank yu'," was what he managed at last to say.

  "Well, now, I'm greatly relieved!" exclaimed the Judge, rising at once.He spoke with haste, and lightly. "That's excellent. I was in some thingof a hole," he said to Ogden and me; "and this gives me one thing lessto think of. Saves me a lot of particulars," he jocosely added to theVirginian, who was now also standing up. "Begin right off. Leave thebunk house. The gentlemen won't mind your sleeping in your own house."

  Thus he dismissed his new foreman gayly. But the new foreman, when hegot outside, turned back for one gruff word,--"I'll try to please yu'."That was all. He was gone in the darkness. But there was light enoughfor me, looking after him, to see him lay his hand on a shoulder-highgate and vault it as if he had been the wind. Sounds of cheering cameto us a few moments later from the bunk house. Evidently he had "begunright away," as the Judge had directed. He had told his fortune to hisbrother cow-punchers, and this was their answer.

  "I wonder if Trampas is shouting too?" inquired Ogden.

  "Hm!" said the Judge. "That is one of the particulars I wash my handsof."

  I knew that he entirely meant it. I knew, once his decision taken ofappointing the Virginian his lieutenant for good and all, that, like awise commander-in-chief, he would trust his lieutenant to take care ofhis own business.

  "Well," Ogden pursued with interest, "haven't you landed Trampas plumpat his mercy?"

  The phrase tickled the Judge. "That is where I've landed him!" hedeclared. "And here is Dr. MacBride."