Judith of the Plains

  Judith Of The PlainsBy Marie Manning

  Harper & Brothers PublishersNew York And London

  Copyright, 1903. By Harper & Brothers

  Printed In The United States Of America

  [Image #1]

  Peter's Hand Sought Hers, And All Her Woman's Fear Of The Vague Terrors Of The Dreadful Night Spoke In Her Answering Pressure--See p. 154.

  CONTENTS

  "Town"The EncounterLeander And His LadyJudith, The PostmistressThe Trail Of SentimentA Daughter Of The DesertChugg Takes The RibbonsThe Rodneys At HomeMrs. Yellett And Her "Gov'ment"On Horse-thief TrailThe Cabin In The ValleyThe Round-upMary's First Day In CampJudith Adjusts The SituationThe Wolf-huntIn The Land Of The Red SilenceMrs. Yellett Contends With A CloudburstForeshadowed"Rocked By A Hempen String"The Ball

  JUDITH OF THE PLAINS

  I

  "Town"

  It was June, and a little past sunrise, but there was no hint of earlysummer freshness in the noxious air of the sleeping-car as it toiled likea snail over the infinity of prairie. From behind the green-stripedcurtains of the berths, now the sound of restless turning and now along-drawn sigh signified the uneasy slumber due to stifling air anddiscomfort.

  The only passenger stirring was a girl whose youth drooped under theunfavorable influences of foul air, fatigue, and a strained anxiety tocome to the end of this fateful journey. She had been up while it was yetdark, and her hand--luggage, locked, strapped, and as pitifully new at theart of travelling as the girl herself, clustered about the hem of her blueserge skirt like chicks about a hen. The engine shrieked, but its voicesounded weak and far off in that still ocean of space; the girl tightenedher grasp on the largest of the satchels and looked at the approachingporter tentatively.

  "We're late twenty-fi'e minutes," he reassured her, with the hopelesspatience of one who has lost heart in curbing travellers' enthusiasms.

  She turned towards the window a pair of shoulders plainly significant ofthe burdensome last straw.

  "Four days and nights in this train"--they were slower in those days--"andnow this extra twenty-five minutes!"

  Miss Carmichael's famous dimple hid itself in disgust. The demure lines ofmouth and chin, that could always be relied upon for special pleading whensentence was about to be passed on the dimple by those who disapproved ofdimples, drooped with disappointment. But the light-brown hair continuedto curl facetiously--it was the sort of hair whose spontaneous ripplingconveys to the seeing eye a sense of humor.

  The train plodded across the spacious vacancy that unrolled itself fartherand farther in quest of the fugitive horizon. The scrap of view that camewithin a closer range of vision spun past the car windows like a bit ofstage mechanism, a gigantic panorama rotating to simulate a race atbreakneck speed. But Miss Carmichael looked with unseeing eyes; thewhirling prairie with its golden flecks of cactus bloom was but part ofthe universal strangeness, and the dull ache of homesickness was in itall.

  "My dear! my dear!"--a head in crimpers was thrust from between thecurtains of the section opposite--"I've been awake half the night. I was soafraid I wouldn't see you before you got off."

  The head was followed, almost instinctively, by a hand travellingfurtively to the crimpers that gripped the lady's brow like barnaclesclinging to a keel.

  Mary expressed a grieved appreciation at the loss of rest in behalf of herearly departure, and conspicuously forbore to glance in the direction ofthe barnacles, that being a first principle as between woman and woman.

  "And, oh, my dear, it gets worse and worse. I've looked at it thismorning, and it's worse in Wyoming than it was in Colorado. What it 'll bebefore I reach California, I shudder to think."

  "It's bound to improve," suggested Mary, with the easy optimism of one whowas leaving it. "It couldn't be any worse than this, could it?"

  The neuter pronoun, it might be well to state, signified the prairie; itsmelancholy personality having penetrated the very marrow of their trainexistence, they had come to refer to it by the monosyllable, as in certainnether circles the head of the house receives his superlative distinctionin "He."

  Again the locomotive shrieked, again the girl mechanically clutched thesuit-case, as presenting the most difficult item in the problem oftransportation, and this time the shriek was not an idle formality. Thetrain slowed down; the uneasy sleepers behind the green-striped curtainsstirred restlessly with the lessening motion of their uncouth cradle. Theporter came to help her, with the chastened mien of one whose hopes oflargess are small, the lady with the barnacles called after her redundantfarewells, and a moment later Miss Carmichael was standing on the stationplatform looking helplessly after the train that toiled and puffed, yetseemed, in that crystalline atmosphere, still within arm's-reach. Shewatched it till its floating pennant of smoke was nothing but a grayfeather blowing farther and farther out of sight on the flat prairie.

  The town--it would be unkind to mention its name--had made merry the nightbefore at the comprehensive invitation of a sheepman who had just disposedof his wool-clip, and who said, by way of general summons, "What's the useof temptin' the bank?" "Town," therefore, when Mary Carmichael first madeits acquaintance, was still sleeping the sleep of the unjust. Those amonglast night's roisterers who had had to make an early start for their campswere well into the foot-hills by this time, and would remember withexhilaration the cracked tinkle of the dance-hall piano as inspiring musicwhen the lonesomeness of the desert menaced and the young blood againclamored for its own.

  "Town"--it contained in all some two dozen buildings--was very unlovely inslumber. It sprawled in the lap of the prairies, a grimy-faced urchin,with the lines of dismal sophistication writ deep. Yet where in all the"health resorts" of the East did air sweep from the clean hill-countrywith such revivifying power? It seemed a glad world of abiding youth.Surely "Town" was but a dreary illusion, a mirage that hung in theunmapped spaces of this new world that God had made and called good; anomen of the abominations that men would make when they grew blind to thebeauty of God's world.

  Mary Carmichael, with much the feelings of a cat in a strange garret,wandered about the sluggard town; and presently the blue-and-white sign ofa telegraph office, with the mythological figure of a hastening messenger,suggested to her that a reassuring telegram was only Aunt Adelaide's due.Whereupon she began to rap on the door of the office, a scared pianissimowhich naturally had little effect on the operator, who was at home andasleep some three blocks distant. But the West is the place for woman ifshe would be waited upon. No seven-to-one ratio of the sexes has temperedthe chivalry of her sons of the saddle. A loitering something in asombrero saw rather than heard the rapping, and, at the sight, went inquest of the dreaming operator without so much as embarrassing MissCarmichael with an offer of his services. And presently the operator,whose official day did not begin for some two hours yet, appeared, muchdishevelled from running and the cursory nature of his toilet, prepared toreceive a message of life and death.

  The wire to Aunt Adelaide ran:

  "Practically at end of journey. Take stage to Lost Trail this morning. Am well. Don't worry about me.

  "MARY."

  And the telegraph operator, dimly remembering that he had heard Lost Trailwas a "pizen mean country," and that it was tucked some two hundred milesback in the foot-hills, did not find it very hard to forgive the girl, whowas "practically at end of journey," particularly as the dimple had comeout of hiding, and he had never been called upon to telegraph the word"practically" before. He was a progressive man and liked to extend hisexperiences.

  After sending the telegram, Miss Carmichael, quite herself by r
eason ofthe hill air, felt that she was getting along famously as a traveller, butthat it was an expensive business, and she was glad to be "practically" atthe end of her journey. And, drawing from her pocket a square envelope ofheavy Irish linen, a little worn from much reading, but primarily anenvelope that bespoke elegance of taste on the part of her correspondent,she read:

  "LOST TRAIL, WYOMING.

  "My Dear Miss Carmichael,--Pray let me assure you of my gratification that the preliminaries have been so satisfactorily arranged, and that we are to have you with us by the end of June. The children are profiting from the very anticipation of it, and it will be most refreshing to all us isolated ones to be able to welcome an Eastern girl as a member of our family.

  "Although the long journey across the continent is trying, particularly to one who has not made it before, I hope you may not find it utterly fatiguing. Please remember that after leaving the train, it will be necessary to take a stage to Lost Trail. If it is possible, I shall meet you with the buckboard at one of the stage stations; otherwise, keep to the stage route, being careful to change at Dax's Ranch.

  "Unfortunately, the children vary so in their accomplishments that I fear I can make no suggestions as to what you may need to bring with you in the way of text-books. But I think you will find them fairly well grounded.

  "I had a charming letter from Mrs. Kirkland, who said the pleasantest things possible of you. I am glad the wife of our Senator was able conscientiously to commend us.

  "With our most cordial good wishes for a safe journey, believe me, dear Miss Carmichael,

  "Sincerely yours,

  "SARAH YELLETT."

  In the mean time, "Town" came yawning to breakfast. It was not so prankishas it had been the night before, when it accepted the sheepman'sbroad-gauge hospitality and made merry till the sun winked from behind themountains. It made its way to the low, shedlike eating-house with apre-breakfast solemnity bordering on sulkiness. Not a petticoat was insight to offset the spurs and sombreros that filed into breakfast fromevery point in the compass, prepared to eat primitively, joke broadly, andquarrel speedily if that sensitive and often inconsistent something theycalled honor should be brushed however lightly.

  But the eternal feminine was within, and, discovering it, the temper of"Town" was changed; it ate self-consciously, made jokes meet for the earsof ladies, and was more interested in the girl in the sailor-hat than itwas in remembering old feuds or laying the foundations of new.

  In its interior aspect, the eating-house conveyed no subtle invitation toeat, drink, and be merry. On the contrary, its mission seemed to be thatof confounding appetite at every turn. A long, shedlike room it was, withwalls of unpainted pine, still sweating from the axe. Festoons ofscalloped paper, in conflicting shades, hung from the ceiling, a menace tothe taller of the guests. On the rough walls some one, either prompted bya latent spirit of aestheticism or with an idea of abetting the towntowards merrymaking--an encouragement it hardly required--had tacked postersof shows, mainly representing the tank-and-sawmill school of drama.

  Miss Carmichael sat at the extreme end of the long, oilcloth-coveredtable, on which a straggling army of salt and pepper shakers, catsupbottles, and divers commercial condiments seemed to pause in a discouragedmarch. A plague of flies was on everything, and the food was a threat tothe hardiest appetite. One man summed up the steak with, "You got to workyour jaw so hard to eat it that it ain't fair to the next meal."

  His neighbor heaved a sigh. "This here formation, whatever it be"--and heturned the meat over for better inspection--"do shore remind me of anindestructible doll that an old maid aunt of mine giv' my sister when wewas kids. That doll sort of challenged me, settin' round oncapable o'bein' destroyed, and one day I ups an' has a chaw at her. She warondestructible, all right; 'fore that I concluded my speriments I had lefta couple o' teeth in her."

  "Well, I discyards the steak and draw to a pair of aces," and the firstman helped himself to a couple of biscuits.

  Miss Carmichael knew, by the continual scraping of chairs across thegritty floor, that the places at the table must be nearly all taken; andwhile she anticipated, with an utterly unreasonable terror, any furtherinvasion of her seclusion at the end of the table, still she could notpersuade herself to raise her eyes to detect the progress of the enemy,even in the interest of the diary she had kept so conscientiously for thepast three days; which was something of a loss to the diary, as thoseuntamed, manly faces were well worth looking at. Reckless they were inmany instances, and sometimes the lines of hardship were cruelly writacross young faces that had not yet lost the down of adolescence, butthere were humor and endurance and the courage that knows how to make acrony of death and get right good sport from the comradeship. Their faultswere the faults of lusty, red-blooded youth, and their virtues theopen-handed generosity, the ready sympathy of those uncertain tilters atlife who ride or fall in the tourney of a new country.

  At present, "the yearling," drinking her execrable coffee in an agony ofembarrassment, weighed heavily on their minds. They would have liked torise as a man and ask if there was anything they could do for her. But asa glance towards the end of the table seemed to increase her discomfituretenfold, they did the kindest and for them the most difficult thing andlooked in every direction but Miss Carmichael's. With a delicacy ofperception that the casual observer might not have given them credit for,they had refrained from taking seats directly opposite her, or thoseimmediately on her right, which, as she occupied the last seat at thetable, gave her at least a small degree of seclusion.

  As one after another of them came filing in, bronzed, rugged, radiating abeauty of youth and health that no sketchy exigence of apparel couldobscure, some one already seated at the table would put a foot on a chairopposite him and send it spinning out into the middle of the floor as ahint to the new-comer that that was his reserved seat. And thecow-puncher, sheep-herder, prospector, or man about "Town," as the casemight be, would take the hint and the chair, leaving the petticoatseparated from the sombreros by a table-land of oilcloth and a range offour chairs.

  But now entered a man who failed to take the hint of the spinning chair.In fact, he entered the eating-house with the air of one who has droppedin casually to look for a friend and, incidentally, to eat his breakfast.He stopped in the doorway, scanned the table with deliberation, andstarted to make his way towards Mary Carmichael with something of aswagger. Some one kicked a chair towards him at the head of the table.Some one else nearly upset him with one before he reached the middle, andthe Texan remarked, quite audibly, as he passed:

  "The damned razor-back!"

  But the man made his way to the end of the table and drew out the chairopposite Miss Carmichael with a degree of assurance that precipitated therest of the table into a pretty pother.

  Suppose she should countenance his audacity? The fair have been known tosuccumb to the headlong force of a charge, when the persistence of a longsiege has failed signally. What figures they would cut if she did!--andSimpson, of all men! A growing tension had crept into the atmosphere ofthe eating-house; knives and forks played but intermittently, and Mary,sitting at the end of the oilcloth-covered table, felt intuitively thatshe was the centre of the brewing storm. Oh, why hadn't she been contentedto stay at home and make over her clothes and share the dwindling fortunesof her aunts, instead of coming to this savage place?

  "From the look of the yearling's chin, I think he'll get all that's comingto him," whispered the man who had nearly upset him with the second chair.

  "You're right, pard. If I'm any good at reading brands, she is asself-protective as the McKinley bill."

  The man Simpson was not a pleasant vis-a-vis. He wore the same picturesqueruffianliness of apparel as his fellows, but the resemblance stoppedthere. He lacked their dusk
y bloom, their clearness of eye, the supplenessand easy flow of muscle that is the hall-mark of these frontiersmen. Hewas fat and squat and had not the rich bronzing of wind, sun, and rain.His small, black eyes twinkled from his puffy, white face, like raisins ina dough-pudding.

  He was ogling Mary amiably when the woman who kept the eating-housebrought him his breakfast. Mrs. Clark was a potent antidote for theprevailing spirit of romance, even in this woman-forsaken country. A goodcreature, all limp calico, Roman nose, and sharp elbows, she brought himhis breakfast with an ill grace that she had not shown to the others. Themen about the table gave him scant greeting, but the absence of enthusiasmdidn't embarrass Simpson.

  He lounged expansively on the table, regarding Miss Carmichael attentivelymeanwhile; then favored her with the result of his observations, "From theEast, I take it." And the dumpling face screwed into a smile whose missionwas pacific.

  Every knife and fork in the room suspended action in anxiety to know howthe "yearling" would take it. Would their chivalry, which strained at agnat, be compelled to swallow such a conspicuous camel as the success ofSimpson? With the attitude he had taken towards the girl, there had creptinto the company an imperceptible change; deep-buried impulses sprang tothe surface. If a scoundrel like Simpson was going to try his luck, whyshouldn't they? They didn't see a pretty girl once in a blue moon. Withthe advent of the green-eyed monster at the board, each man unconsciouslybecame the rival of his neighbor.

  But Miss Carmichael merely continued her breakfast, and if she heard theamiable deductions of Simpson regarding her, she gave no sign. But arebuff to him was in the nature of an appetizer, a fillip to press theacquaintance. He encroached a bit farther on the narrow limits of thetable and continued, "Nice weather we're having."

  Miss Carmichael gave her undivided attention to her coffee. The spurs andsombreros, that had not relaxed a muscle in their strained observation ofthe little drama, breathed reflectively. Perhaps it was just as well thatthey had not emulated Simpson in his brazen charge; the "yearling" was notto be surprised into talking, that was certain.

  "He shore is showing hisself to be a friendly native," commented the manwho had sacrificed milk-teeth investigating the indestructible doll.

  "Seems to me that the system he's playing lacks a heap of science. Mymoney's on the yearling." And the man who had "discarded the steak anddrawn to the biscuits" leaned a little forward that he might better watchdevelopments.

  Simpson by this time fully realized his error, but failure before allthese bantering youngsters was a contingency not to be accepted lightly.As he phrased it to himself, it was worth "another throw." "Seems kind o'lonesome not having any one to talk to while you're eatin', don't it?"

  Miss Carmichael's air of perfect composure seemed a trifle out of tunewith her surroundings; the nice elevation of eyebrow, the slightlyquestioning curl of the lip as she, for the first time apparently, becameaware of the man opposite, seemed to demand a prim drawing-room ratherthan the atmosphere of the slouching eating-house.

  "Well, really, I've hardly had a chance of finding out." And her eyes wereagain on her coffee-cup. And there was joy among the men at table thatthey had not rushed in after the manner of those who have a greatercourage than the angels.

  "No offence meant," deprecated Simpson, with an uneasy glance towards theother end of the table, where the men sat with necks craned forward in anattitude uncomfortably suggestive of hounds straining at the leash.Simpson felt rather than saw that something was afoot among the sombreros.There was a crowding together in whispered colloquy, and in a flash somehalf-dozen of them were on their feet as a man. Descending upon Simpson,they lifted him, chair and all, to the other end of the table, as farremoved as possible from Miss Carmichael.

  The man who thought Simpson's system lacked science rubbed his hands indelight. "She took the trick all right; swept his hand clean off theboard!"