“What did you do it for?”
She stood up. “What did I do it for?–what did I do _what_ for?”
But his eyes were searching her and she had to lower her own. Then she looked up again, and laughed nervously.
“I–I don’t know–I couldn’t help it.” Again she laughed. “And why did you run? How did you think of coming here?”
“I’ll tell you how, now I’ve caught you.” He started toward her, but she was quickly backing away into the opening of the little park, still laughing.
“Look out for that blow-down back of you!” he called. In the second that she halted to turn and discover his trick he had caught her by the arm.
“There–I caught you fair–_now_ what did you run for?”
“I couldn’t help it.” Her face was crimson. His own was pale under the tan. They could hear the beating of both their hearts. But with his capture made so boldly he was dumb, knowing not what to say.
The faintest pulling of the imprisoned arm aroused him.
“I’d ‘a’ followed you till Christmas come if you’d kept on. Clear over the divide and over the whole creation. I never _would_ have given you up. I’m never _going_ to.”
He caught her other wrist and sought to draw her to him.
With head down she came, slowly, yielding yet resisting, with little shudders of terror that was yet a strange delight, with eyes that dared give him but one quick little look, half pleading and half fear. But then after a few tense seconds her struggles were all housed far within his arms; there was no longer play for the faintest of them; and she was strained until she felt her heart rush out to him as she had once felt it go to her dream of a single love,–with the utter abandon of the falling water beside them.
On the opposite side of the park across the half-acre of waving bunch-grass, a many-pronged old buck in his thin red summer coat lay at the edge of the quaking aspens, sunning the velvet of his tender new horns to harden them against approaching combats. He had shrewdly noted that the first comer did not see him; but this second was a creature of action in whose presence it were ill-advised to linger. Noiselessly his hindquarters raised from the ground, and then with a snort of indignation and a mighty, crashing rush he was off through the trees and up the hill. Doubtless the beast cherished a delusion of clever escape from a dangerous foe; but neither of the pair standing so near saw or heard him or would have been conscious of him even had he led past them in wild flight the biggest herd it had ever been his lot to domineer. For these two were lost to all but the wonder of the moment, pushing fearfully on into the glory and sweetness of it.
His voice came to her in a dull murmur, and the sound of the running water came, again like the muffled tinkling of little silver bells in the distance. Both his arms were strong about her, and now her own hands rose in rebellion to meet where the kerchief was knotted at the back of his neck, quite as the hands of the other woman had rebelliously flung down the scarf from the balcony. Then the brim of his hat came down over her hair, and her lips felt his kiss.
They stood so a long time, it seemed to them, in the high grass, amid the white-barked quaking aspens, while a little wind from the dark pines at their side, lowered now to a yearning softness, played over them. They were aroused at last by a squirrel that ran half-way down the trunk of a near-by spruce to bark indignantly at them, believing they menaced his winter’s store of spruce cones piled at the foot of the tree. With rattle after rattle his alarm came, until he had the satisfaction of noting an effect.
The young man put the girl away from him to look upon her in the new light that enveloped them both, still holding her hands.
“There’s one good thing about your marriages,–they marry you for eternity, don’t they? That’s for ever–only it isn’t long enough, even so–not for me.”
“I thought you were never coming.”
“But you said”–he saw the futility of it, however, and kissed her instead.
“I was afraid of you all this summer,” he said.
“I was afraid of you, too.”
“You got over it yesterday all right.”
“How?”
“You kissed me.”
“Never–what an awful thing to say!”
“But you did–twice–don’t you remember?”
“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. If I did it wasn’t at all like–like–“
“Like that–“
“No–I didn’t think anything about it.”
“And now you’ll never leave me, and I’ll never leave you.”
They sat on the fallen tree.
“And to think of that old–“
“Oh, don’t talk of it. That’s why I ran off here–so I couldn’t hear anything about it until he went away.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
“I didn’t think you were so stupid.”
“How was I to know where you were coming?”
But now she was reminded of something.
“Tell me one thing–did you ever know a little short fat girl, a blonde that you liked very much?”
“Never!”
“Then what did you talk so much about her for yesterday if you didn’t? You’d speak of her every time.”
“I didn’t think you were so stupid.”
“Well, I can’t see–“
“You don’t need to–we’ll call it even.”
And so the talk went until the sun had fallen for an hour and they knew it was time to go below.
“We will go to the meeting together,” she said, “and then father shall tell Brigham,–tell him–“
“That you’re going to marry me. Why don’t you say it?”
“That I’m going to marry you, and be your only wife.” She nestled under his arm again.
“For time and eternity–that’s the way your Church puts it.”
Then, not knowing it, they took their last walk down the pine-hung glade. Many times he picked her lightly up to carry her over rough places and was loth to put her down,–having, in truth, to be bribed thereto.
At their usual resting-place she put on her hat with the cherry ribbons, and he, taking off his own, kissed her under it.
And then they were out on the highroad to Amalon, where all was a glaring dusty gray under the high sun, and the ragged rim of the western hills quivered and ran in the heat.
He thought on the way down of how the news would be taken by the little bent man with the fiery eyes. She was thinking how glad she was that young Ammaron Wright had not kissed her that time he tried to at the dance–since kisses were like _that_.
CHAPTER XLI.
_The Rise and Fall of a Bent Little Prophet_
Down in the village the various dinners of ceremony to the visiting officials were over. An hour had followed of decent rest and informal chat between the visitors and their hosts, touching impartially on matters of general interest; on irrigation, the gift of tongues, the season’s crop of peaches, the pouring out of the Spirit abroad, the best mixture of sheep-dip; on many matters not unpleasing to the practical-minded Deity reigning over them.
Then the entire populace of Amalon, in its Sunday best of “valley tan” or store-goods, flocked to the little square and sat expectantly on the benches under the green roof of the bowery, ready to absorb the droppings of the sanctuary.
In due time came Brigham, strolling between Elder Wardle and Bishop Wright, bland, affable, and benignant. On the platform about him sat his Counsellors, the more distinguished of his suite, and the local dignitaries of the Church.
Among these came the little bent man with an unwonted colour in his face, coming in absorbed in thought, shaking hands even with Brigham with something of abstraction in his manner. Prudence and Follett came late, finding seats at the back next to a generous row of the Mrs. Seth Wright.
The hymn to Joseph Smith was given out, and the congregation rose to sing:–
“Unchanged in death, with a Saviour’s love, He pleads their cause in the courts above.
“His home’s in the sky, he dwells with the gods, Far from the rage of furious mobs.
“He died, he died, for those he loved, He reigns, he reigns, in the realms above.
“Shout, shout, ye Saints! This boon is given,– We’ll meet our martyred seer in heaven.”
When they had settled into their seats, the Wild Ram of the Mountains arose and invoked a blessing on those present and upon those who had gone behind the veil; adding a petition that Brigham be increased in his basket and in his store, in wives, flocks, and herds, and in the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
They sang another hymn, and when that was done, the little bent man arose and came hesitatingly forward to the baize-covered table that served as a pulpit. As President of the Stake it was his office to welcome the visitors, and this he did.
There were whisperings in the audience when his appearance was noted. It was the first time he had been seen by many of them in weeks. They whispered that he was failing.
“He ought to be home this minute,” was the first Mrs. Wardle’s diagnosis to the fifth Mrs. Wardle, behind her hymn-book, “with his feet in a mustard bath and a dose of gamboge and a big brewing of catnip tea. I can tell a fever as far as I can see it.”
The words of official welcome spoken, he began his discourse; but in a timid, shuffling manner so unlike his old self that still others whispered of his evident illness. Inside he burned with his purpose, but, with all his resolves, the presence of Brigham left him unnerved. He began by referring to their many adversities since the day when they had first knelt to entreat the mercy of God upon the land. Then he spoke of revelations.
“You must all have had revelations, because they have come even to me. Perhaps you were deaf to the voice, as I have been. Perhaps you have trusted too readily in some revelation that came years ago, supposedly from God–in truth, from the Devil. Perhaps you have been deaf to later revelations meant to warn you of the other’s falseness.”
He was still uneasy, hesitating, fearful; but he saw interest here and there in the faces before him. Even Brigham, though unseen by the speaker, was looking mildly curious.
“You remember the revelation that came to Joseph in an early day when there was trouble in raising money to print the Book of Mormon,–‘Some revelations are from God, some from man, and some from the Devil.’ Recalling the many chastenings God has put upon us, may we not have failed to test all our other revelations by this one?”
Deep within he was angry at himself, for he was not speaking with words of fire as he had meant to; he was feeling a shameful cowardice in the presence of the Prophet. He had seen himself once more the Lute of the Holy Ghost, strong and moving; but now he was a poor, low-spoken, hesitating rambler. Nervously he went on, skirting about the edge of his truth as long as he dared, but feeling at last that he must plunge into its icy depths.
“In short, brethren, the Book of Mormon denounces and forbids our plural marriages.”
Even this astounding declaration he made without warmth, in tones so low that many did not hear him. Those on the platform heard, however, and now began to view his obvious physical weakness in a new light. Yet he continued, gaining a little in force.
“The declarations on the subject in the Book of Mormon are so worded that we cannot fail to read them as denouncing and forbidding the practise of the Old Testament patriarchs in this matter of the family life.”
In rapid succession he cited the passages to which he referred, those concerning David and Solomon and Noah and Ripkalish, who “did not do that which was right in the sight of the Lord, for he did have many wives.”
There were murmurings and rustlings among the people now, and on his right he heard Brigham stirring ominously in his chair; but he nerved himself to keep on his feet, feeling he had that to say which should make them hail him as a new prophet when they understood.
“But besides these warnings against the sin there are many early revelations to Joseph himself condemning it.”
He cited several of these, feeling the amazement and the alarm grow about him.
“And now against these plain words, given at many times in many places, written on the golden plates in letters that cannot lie, or brought to Joseph by the angel of the Lord, we have only the one revelation on celestial marriage. Read it now in the light of these other revelations and see if it does not too plainly convict itself of having been counterfeited to Joseph by an evil spirit. Such, brethren, has been the revelation that the Lord has given to me again and again until it burns within me, and I must cry it out to you. Try to receive it from me.”
There was commotion among the people in front, chairs were moved at his side, and a low voice called to him to sit down. He heard this voice through the ringing that had been in his ears for many days, like the beating of a sea against him, and he felt the strength go suddenly from his knees.
He stumbled weakly back to his chair and sank into it with head bowed, feeling, rather than seeing, the figure of Brigham rise from its seat and step forward with deliberate, unruffled majesty.
As the Prophet faced his people they became quite silent, so that the robins could be heard in the Pettigrew peach-trees across the street. He poured a glass of water from the pitcher on the table, and drank of it slowly. Then, leaning a little forward, resting both his big cushiony hands on the green of the table, the Lion of the Lord began to roar–very softly at first. Slowly the words came, in tones scarce audible, marked indeed almost by the hesitation of the first speaker. But then a difference showed; gradually the tone increased in volume, the words came faster, fluency succeeding hesitation, and now his voice was high and searching, while his easy, masterful gestures laid their old spell upon the people.
“It does not occupy my feelings to curse any individual,” he had begun, awkwardly; “in fact, I feel to render all thanks and praise for the discourse to which we have just listened, but I couldn’t help saying to myself, ‘Oh, dear, Granny! what a long tale our puss has got!'”
An uneasy titter came from the packed square of faces in front of him. He went on with rising power:
“But it is foretold in the Book of Mormon that the Lord will remove the bitter branches, and it’s a good thing to find out where the bitter branches are. We can remove them ourselves. We can’t expect the Lord to do _all_ our dirty work. Now hear it once more, you that need to hear it–and damn all such poor pussyism as sniffles and whines and rejects it! We don’t want that scrubby breed here!–Listen, I say. The celestial order of marriage is necessary for our exaltation to the fulness of the Lord’s glory in the world eternal. Where much is given much is required. Understand me,–those that reject polygamy will be damned. Hear it now once for all. I will give you to know that God, our Father, has many wives, and so has Jesus Christ, our Elder Brother. Our God and Father in heaven is _a being of tabernacle_, or, in other words, He has a body of parts the same as you and I have. And that God and Father of ours was Adam.”
Again there was a stirring below as if a wind swept the people, and the little man in his chair cowered for shame of himself. He had meant to do a great thing; he had thrilled so strongly with it; it had promised to master others as it had mastered him; and now he was shamed by the one true Lion of the Lord.
“Hear it now,” continued Brigham. “When God, our Father Adam, came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought one of his wives with him,–Eve. He made and organised this world. He is Michael, the Archangel, the Ancient of Days, _about whom holy men have written and spoken_. He is our Father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do. I could tell you much more about this; but were I to tell you the whole truth, blasphemy would be nothing to it, in the estimation of the superstitious and over-righteous of mankind. But I will tell you this, that Jesus, our Elder Brother, was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the garden of Eden, and who is our Father in Heaven.”
A chorus of Amens from the platform greeted this. It was led by the Wild Ram of the Mountains. In his chair the little bent man now cowered lower and lower, one moment praying for strength, the next for death; feeling the blood surge through him like storm waves that would beat him down. If only Heaven would send him one last moment of power to word this truth so that it might prevail. But Brigham was continuing.
“And what of this Elder Brother, Jesus? Did he reject the patriarchal order–like some poor pusillanimous cry-babies among us? No, I say! It will be borne in mind that once on a time there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and on a careful reading of that transaction it will be discovered that no less a person than Jesus Christ was married on that occasion. If he was never married his intimacy with Mary and Martha, and the other Mary also, whom Jesus loved, must have been highly unbecoming and improper, to say the best of it. I will venture to say that, if Jesus Christ was now to pass through the most pious countries in Christendom, with a train of women such as used to follow Him, fondling about Him, combing His hair, anointing Him with precious ointments, washing His feet with tears, and wiping them with the hair of their heads,–that, unmarried or even married, He would be mobbed, tarred and feathered, and ridden, not on an ass, but on a rail. Now did He multiply, and did He see His seed? Others may do as they like, but I will not charge our Saviour with neglect or transgression in this or any other duty.”
He turned and went to his seat with a last threatening gesture, amid many little sounds of people relaxing from strained positions.
But then, before another could arise, a wonder came upon them. The little man stood up and came quickly forward, a strange new life in his step, a new confidence in his bearing, a curious glow of new strength in his face. Even his stoop had straightened for the moment. For, as he had listened to Brigham’s last words, the picture of his vision in the desert had come back,–the cross in the sky, the crucified Saviour upon it, the head in death-agony fallen over upon the shoulder. And then before his eyes had come page after page of that New Testament with a wash of blood across two of them. He felt the new life he had prayed for pouring into his veins, and with it a fierce anger. The one on the cross who had been more than man, who had shirked no sacrifice and loved infinitely, was not thus to be assailed. A panorama of wrong–wrong thinking and wrong doing–extended before his clearing gaze. For once he seemed to see truth in a vision and to feel the power to utter it.
There was silence again as he stood in front of the little table, the faces before him frozen into wonder that he should have either the power or the temerity to answer Brigham. He spoke, and his voice was again rough with force, and high and fearless, a voice many of them recalled from the days when he had not been weak.
“Now I see what we have done. Listen, brethren, for God has not before so plainly said it to any man, and I know my time is short among you. We have gone back to the ages of Hebrew barbarism for our God–to the God of Battles worshipped by a heathen people–a God who loved the reek of blood and the smell of burning flesh. But you shall not–“
He turned squarely and fiercely to the face of Brigham.
“–you shall not confuse that bloody God of Battles with the true Christ, nor yet with the true God of Love that this Christ came to tell us of. Once I believed in Him. I was taught to by your priests. War seemed a righteous thing, for we had been grievously put upon, and I believed the God of Israel should avenge our wrongs as He had avenged those of His older Zion. And hear me now–so long as I believed this, I was no coward; while you, sir–“
A long forefinger was pointed straight at the amazed Brigham.
“–while you, sir, were a craven, contemptible in your cowardice. I would have fought in Echo Canon to the end, because I believed. But you did not believe, and so you were afraid to fight. And for your cowardice and your wretched lusts your name among all but your ignorant dupes shall become a hissing and a scorn. For mark it well, unless you forsake that heathen God of Battles and preach the divine Christ of the New Testament, you shall come to hold only the ignorant, and them only by keeping them ignorant.”
The commotion among the people in front was now all but a panic. On the platform the sires of Israel whispered one to another, while Brigham gazed as if fascinated, driven to admiration for the speaker’s power and audacity. For the feverish, fleeting moment, Joel Rae was that veritable Lion of the Lord he had prayed to be, putting upon the people his spell of the old days. Heads were again strained up and forward, and amazed horror was on most of the faces. Far back, Prudence trembled, feeling that she must be away at once, until she felt the firm grasp of Follett’s hand. The speaker went on, having turned again to the front.
“Instead of a church you shall become justly hated and despised as a people who foul their homes and dishonour beyond forgiveness the names of wife and mother. Then your punishment shall come upon you as it has already come for this and for other sins. Even now the Gentile is upon us; and mark this truth that God has but now given me to know: we have never been persecuted as a church,–but always as a political body hostile to the government of this nation. Even so, you had no faith. Believing as I believed, I would have fought that nation and died a thousand bloody deaths rather than submit. But you had no faith, and you were so low that you let yourselves be ruled by a coward–and I tell you God _hates_ a coward.”
Now the old pleading music came into his voice,–the music that had made him the Lute of the Holy Ghost in the Poet’s roster of titles.
“O brethren, let me beg you to be good–simply good. Nothing can prevail against you if you are. If you are not, nothing shall avail you,–the power of no priesthood, no signs, ordinances, or rituals. Believe me, I know. Not even the forgiveness of the Father. For I tell you there is a divinity within each of you that you may some day unwittingly affront; and then you shall lie always in hell, for if you cannot forgive yourself, the forgiveness of God will not free you even if it come seventy times seven. I _know_. For fifteen years I have lain in hell for the work this Church did at Mountain Meadows. A cross was put there to the memory of those we slew. Not a day has passed but that cross has been burned and cut into my living heart with a blade of white heat. Now I am going to hell; but I am tired and ready to go. Nor do I go as a coward, as _you_ will go–“
Again the long forefinger was flung out to point at Brigham.
“–but I shall go as a fighter to the end. I have not worshipped Mammon, and I have conquered my flesh–conquered it after it had once all but conquered me, so that I had to fight the harder–“
He stopped, waiting as if he were not done, but the spell was broken. The life, indeed, had in the later moments been slowly dying from his words; and, as they lost their fire, scattered voices of protest had been heard; then voices in warning from behind him, and the sound of two or three rising and pushing back their chairs.
Now that he no longer heard his own voice he stood quivering and panic-stricken, the fire out and the pained little smile coming to make his face gentle again. He turned weakly toward Brigham, but the Prophet had risen from his seat and his broad back was rounded toward the speaker. He appeared to be consulting a group of those who stood on the platform, and they who were not of this group had also turned away.
The little bent man tried again to smile, hoping for a friendly glance, perhaps a hand-clasp without words from some one of them. Seeing that he was shunned, he stepped down off the platform at the side, twisting his hat in his long, thin hands in embarrassment. A moment he stood so, turning to look back at the group of priests and Elders around the Prophet, seeking for any sign, even for a glance that should be not unkind. The little pained smile still lighted his face, but no friendly look came from the others. Seeing only the backs turned toward him, he at length straightened out his crumpled hat, still smiling, and slowly put it on his head; as he turned away he pulled the hat farther over his eyes, and then he was off along the dusty street, looking to neither side, still with the little smile that made his face gentle.
But when he had come to the end of the street and was on the road up the hill, the smile died. He seemed all at once to shrink and stoop and fade,–no longer a Lion of the Lord, but a poor, white-faced, horrified little man who had meant in his heart to give a great revelation, and who had succeeded only in uttering blasphemy to the very face of God’s prophet.
From below, the little groups of excited people along the street looked up and saw his thin, bent figure alone in the fading sunlight, toiling resolutely upward.
Other groups back in the square talked among themselves, not a few in whispers. A listener among them might have heard such expressions as, “He’ll be blood-atoned sure!”–“They’ll make a breach upon him!”–“They’ll accomplish his decease!”–“He’ll be sent over the rim of the basin right quick!” One indignant Saint, with a talent for euphemism, was heard to say, “Brigham will have his spirit disembodied!”
To the priests and Elders on the platform Elder Wardle was saying, “The trouble with him was he was crazy with fever. Why, I’ll bet my best set of harness his pulse ain’t less than a hundred and twenty this minute.”
The others looked at Brigham.
“He’s a crazy man, sure enough,” assented the Prophet, “but my opinion is he’ll stay crazy, and it wouldn’t be just the right thing by Israel to let him go on talking before strangers. You see, it _sounds_ so almighty sane!”
Back in the crowd Prudence and Follett had lingered a little at the latter’s suggestion, for he had caught the drift of the talk. When he had comprehended its meaning they set off up the hill, full of alarm.
At the door Christina met them. They saw she had been crying.
“Where is father, Christina?”
“Himself saddle his horse, and say, ‘I go to toe some of those marks.’ He say, ‘I see you plenty not no more, so good-bye!’ He kissed me,” she added.
“Which way did he go?”
“So!” She pointed toward the road that led out of the valley to the north.
“I’ll go after him,” said Follett.
“I’ll go with you. Saddle Dandy and Kit–and Christina will have something for you to eat; you’ve had nothing since morning.”
“I reckon I know where we’ll have to go,” said Follett, as he went for the saddles.
CHAPTER XLII.
_The Little Bent Man at the Foot of the Cross_
It was dusk when they rode down the hill together. They followed the canon road to its meeting with the main highway at the northern edge of Amalon. Where the roads joined they passed Bishop Wright, who, with his hat off, turned to stare at them, and to pull at his fringe of whisker in seeming perplexity.
“He must have been on his way to our house,” Prudence called.
“With that hair and whiskers,” answered Follett, with some irrelevance, “he looks like an old buffalo-bull just before shedding-time.”
They rode fast until the night fell, scanning the road ahead for a figure on horseback. When it was quite dark they halted.
“We might pass him,” suggested Follett. “He was fairly tuckered out, and he might fall off any minute.”
“Shall we go on slowly?” she asked.
“We might miss him in the dark. But the moon will be up in an hour, and then we can go at full speed. We better wait.”
“Poor little sorry father! I wish we had gone home sooner.”
“He certainly’s got more spunk in him than I gave him credit for! He had old Brigham and the rest of them plumb buffaloed for a minute. Oh, he did crack the old bull-whip over them good!”
“Poor little father! Where could he have gone at this hour?”
“I’ve got an idea he’s set out for that cross he’s talked so much about–that one up here in the Meadows.”
“I’ve seen it,–where the Indians killed those poor people years ago. But what did he mean by the crime of his Church there?”
“We’ll ask him when we find him. And I reckon we’ll find him right there if he holds out to ride that far.”
He tied her pony to an oak-bush a little off the road, threw Dandy’s bridle-rein to the ground to make him stand, and on a shelving rock near by he found her a seat.
“It won’t be long, and the horses need a chance to breathe. We’ve come along at a right smart clip, and Dandy’s been getting a regular grass-stomach on him back there.”
Side by side they sat, and in the dark and stillness their own great happiness came back to them.
“The first time I liked you very much,” she said, after he had kissed her, “was when I saw you were so kind to your horse.”
“That’s the only way to treat stock. I can gentle any horse I ever saw. Are you sure you care enough for me?”
“Oh, yes, yes, _yes_! It must be enough. It’s so much I’m frightened now.”
“Will you go away with me?”
“Yes, I want to go away with you.”
“Well, you just come out with me,–out of this hole. There’s a fine big country out there you don’t know anything about. Our home will reach from Corpus Christi to Deadwood, and from the Missouri clear over to Mister Pacific Ocean. We’ll have the prairies for our garden, and the high plains will be our front yard, with the buffalo-grass thicker than hair on a dog’s back. And, say, I don’t know about it, but I believe they have a bigger God out there than you’ve got in this Salt Lake Basin. Anyway, He acts more like you’d think God ought to act. He isn’t so particular about your knowing a lot of signs and grips and passwords and winks. Going to your heaven must be like going into one of those Free Mason lodges,–a little peek-hole in the door, and God shoving the cover back to see if you know the signs. I guess God isn’t so trifling as all that,–having, you know, a lot of signs and getting ducked under water three times and all that business. I don’t exactly know what His way is, but I’ll bet it isn’t any way that you’d have to laugh at if you saw it–like as if, now, you saw old man Wright and God making signs to each other through the door, and Wright saying:–
_’Eeny meeny miny mo!
Cracky feeny finy fo!’_
and God looking in a little book to see if he got all the words right.”
“Anyway, I’m glad you weren’t baptised, after what Father said to-day.”
“You’ll be gladder still when you get out there where they got a full-grown man’s God.”
They talked on of many things, chiefly of the wonder of their love–that each should actually be each and the two have come together–until a full yellow moon came up, seemingly from the farther side of the hill in front of them. When at last its light flooded the road so that it lay off to the north like a broad, gray ribbon flung over the black land, they set out again, galloping side by side mile after mile, scanning sharply the road ahead and its near sides.
Down out of Pine Valley they went, and over more miles of gray alkali desert toward a line of hills low and black in the north.
They came to these, followed the road out of the desert through a narrow gap, and passed into the Mountain Meadows, reining in their horses as they did so.
Before them the Meadows stretched between two ranges of low, rocky hills, narrow at first but widening gradually from the gap through which they had come. But the ground where the long, rich grass had once grown was now barren, gray and ugly in the moonlight, cut into deep gullies and naked of all but a scant growth of sage-brush which the moon was silvering, and a few clumps of shadowy scrub-oak along the base of the hills on either side.
Instinctively they stopped, speaking in low tones. And then there came to them out of the night’s silence a strange, weird beating; hollow, muffled, slow, and rhythmic, but penetrating and curiously exciting, like another pulse cunningly playing upon their own to make them beat more rapidly. The girl pulled her horse close in by his, but he reassured her.
“It’s Indians–they must be holding the funeral of some chief. But no matter–these Indians aren’t any more account than prairie-dogs.”
They rode on slowly, the funeral-drum sounding nearer as they went.
Then far up the meadow by the roadside they could see the hard, square lines of the cross in the moonlight. Slower still they went, while the drumbeats became louder, until they seemed to fall upon their own ear-drums.
“Could he have come to this dreadful place?” she asked, almost in a whisper.
“We haven’t passed him, that’s sure; and I’ve got a notion he did. I’ve heard him talk about this cross off and on–it’s been a good deal in his mind–and maybe he was a little out of his head. But we’ll soon see.”
They walked their horses up a little ascent, and the cross stood out more clearly against the sky. They approached it slowly, leaning forward to peer all about it; but the shadows lay heavy at its base, and from a little distance they could distinguish no outline.
But at last they were close by and could pierce the gloom, and there at the foot of the cross, beside the cairn of stones that helped to support it, was a little huddled bit of blackness. It moved as they looked, and they knew the voice that came from it.
“O God, I am tired and ready! Take me and burn me!”
She was off her horse and quickly at his side. Follett, to let them be alone, led the horses to the spring below. It was almost gone now, only the feeblest trickle of a rivulet remaining. The once green meadows had behaved, indeed, as if a curse were put upon them. Hardly had grass grown or water run through it since the day that Israel wrought there. When he had tied the horses he heard Prudence calling him.
“I’m afraid he’s delirous,” she said, when he reached her side. “He keeps hearing cries and shots, and sees a woman’s hair waving before him, and he’s afraid of something back of him. What can we do?”
At the foot of the cross the little man was again sounding his endless prayer.
“Bow me, bend me, break me, for I have been soul-proud. Burn me out–“
She knelt by his side, trying to soothe him.
“Father–it’s all right–it’s Prudence–“
But at her name he uttered a cry with such terror in it that she shuddered and was still. Then he began to mutter incoherently, and she heard her own name repeated many times.
“If that awful beating would only stop,” she said to Follett, who had now brought water in the curled brim of his hat. She tried to have the little man drink. He swallowed some of the water from the hat-brim, shivering as he did so.
“We ought to have a fire,” she said. Follett began to gather twigs and sage-brush, and presently had a blaze in front of them.
In the light of the fire the little man could see their faces, and he became suddenly coherent, smiling at them in the old way.
“Why have you come so far in the night?” he asked Prudence, taking one of her cool hands between his own that burned.
“But, you poor little father! Why have _you_ come, when you should be home in bed? You are burning with fever.”
“Yes, yes, dear, but it’s over now. This is the end. I came here–to be here–I came to say my last prayer in the body. And they will come to find me here. You must go before they come.”
“Who will find you?”
“They from the Church. I didn’t mean to do it, but when I was on my feet something forced it out of me. I knew what they would do, but I was ready to die, and I hoped I could awaken some of them.”
“But no one shall hurt you.”
“Don’t tempt me to stay any longer, dear, even if they would let me. Oh, you don’t know, you don’t know–and that Devil’s drumming over there to madden me as on that other night. But it’s just–my God, how just!”
“Come away, then. Ruel will find your horse, and we’ll ride home.”
“It’s too late–don’t ask me to leave my hell now. It would only follow me. It was this way that night–the night before–the beating got into my blood and hammered on my brain till I didn’t know. Prudence, I must tell you–everything–“
He glanced at Follett appealingly, as he had looked at the others when he left the platform that day, beseeching some expression of friendliness.
“Yes, I must tell you–everything.” But his face lighted as Follett interrupted him.
“You tell her,” said Follett, doggedly, “how you saved her that day and kept her like your own and brought her up to be a good woman–that’s what you tell her.” The gratitude in the little man’s eyes had grown with each word.
“Yes, yes, dear, I have loved you like my own little child, but your father and mother were killed here that day–and I found you and loved you–such a dear, forlorn little girl–will you hate me now?” he broke off anxiously. She had both his hands in her own.
“But why, how _could_ I hate you? You are my dear little sorry father–all I’ve known. I shall always love you.”
“That will be good to take with me,” he said, smiling again. “It’s all I’ve got to take–it’s all I’ve had since the day I found you. You are good,” he said, turning to Follett.
“Oh, shucks!” answered Follett.
A smile of rare contentment played over the little man’s face.
In the silence that followed, the funeral-drum came booming in upon them over the ridge, and once they saw an Indian from the encampment standing on top of the hill to look down at their fire. Then the little man spoke again.
“You will go with him,” he said to Prudence. “He will take you out of here and back to your mother’s people.”
“She’s going to marry me,” said Follett. The little man smiled at this.
“It is right–the Gentile has come to take you away. The Lord is cunning in His vengeance. I felt it must be so when I saw you together.”
After this he was so quiet for a time that they thought he was sleeping. But presently he grew restless again, and said to Follett:–
“I want you to have me buried here. Up there to the north, three hundred yards from here on the right, is a dwarf cedar standing alone. Straight over the ridge from that and half-way down the other side is another cedar growing at the foot of a ledge. Below that ledge is a grave. There are stones piled flat, and a cross cut in the one toward the cedar. Make a grave beside that one, and put me in it–just as I am. Remember that–_uncoffined_. It must be that way, remember. There’s a little book here in this pocket. Let it stay with me–but surely uncoffined, remember, as–as the rest of them were.”
“But, father, why talk so? You are going home with us.”
“There, dear, it’s all right, and you’ll feel kind about me always when you remember me?”
“Don’t,–don’t talk so.”
“If that beating would only stay out of my brain–the thing is crawling behind me again! Oh, no, not yet–not yet! Say this with me, dear:–
“_’The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.
“‘He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.’_”
She said the psalm with him, and he grew quiet again.
“You will go away with your husband, and go at once–” He sat up suddenly from where he had been lying, the light of a new design in his eyes.
“Come,–you will need protection now–I must marry you at once. Surely that will be an office acceptable in the sight of God. And you will remember me better for it–and kinder. Come, Prudence; come, Ruel!”
“But, father, you are sick, and so weak–let us wait.”
“It will give me such joy to do it–and this is the last.”
She looked at Follett questioningly, but gave him her hand silently when he arose from the ground where he had been sitting.
“He’d like it, and it’s what we want,–all simple,” he said.
In the light of the fire they stood with hands joined, and the little man, too, got to his feet, helping himself up by the cairn against which he had been leaning.
Then, with the unceasing beats of the funeral-drum in their ears, he made them man and wife.
“Do you, Ruel, take Prudence by the right hand to receive her unto yourself to be your lawful and wedded wife, and you to be her lawful and wedded husband for time and eternity–“
Thus far he had followed the formula of his Church, but now he departed from it with something like defiance coming up in his voice.
“–with a covenant and promise on your part that you will cleave to her and to none other, so help you God, taking never another wife in spite of promise or threat of any priesthood whatsoever, cleaving unto her and her alone with singleness of heart?”
When they had made their responses, and while the drum was beating upon his heart, he pronounced them man and wife, sealing upon them “the blessings of the holy resurrection, with power to come forth in the morning clothed with glory and immortality.”
When he had spoken the final words of the ceremony, he seemed to lose himself from weakness, reaching out his hands for support. They helped him down on to the saddle-blanket that Follett had brought, and the latter now went for more wood.
When he came back they were again reciting the psalm that had seemed to quiet the sufferer.
“_’Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.’_”
Follett spread the other saddle-blanket over him. He lay on his side, his face to the fire, one moment saying over the words of the psalm, but the next listening in abject terror to something the others could not hear.
“I wonder you don’t hear their screams,” he said, in one of these moments; “but their blood is not upon you.” Then, after a little:–
“See, it is growing light over there. Now they will soon be here. They will know where I had to come, and they will have a spade.” He seemed to be fainting in his last weakness.
Another hour they sat silently beside him. Slowly the dark over the eastern hill lightened to a gray. Then the gray paled until a flush of pink was there, and they could see about them in the chill of the morning.
Then came a silence that startled them all. The drum had stopped, and the night-long vibrations ceased from their ears.
They looked toward the little man with relief, for the drumming had tortured him. But his breathing was shallow and irregular now, and from time to time they could hear a rattle in his throat. His eyes, when he opened them, were looking far off. He was turning restlessly and muttering again. She took his hands and found them cold and moist.
“His fever must have broken,” she said, hopefully. The little man opened his eyes to look up at her, and spoke, though absently, and not as if he saw her.
“They will have a spade with them when they come, never fear. And the spot must not be forgotten–three hundred yards north to the dwarf cedar, then straight over the ridge and half-way down, to the other cedar below the sandstone–and uncoffined, with the book here in this pocket where I have it. ‘Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.'”
He started up in terror of something that seemed to be behind him, but fell back, and a moment later was rambling off through some sermon of the bygone year.
“Sometimes, brethren, it has seemed to my inner soul that Christ came not alone to reveal God to man, but to reveal man to God; taking on that human form to reconcile the Father to our sins. Sometimes I have thought He might so well have done this that God would view our sins as we view the faults of our well-loved little children–loving us through all–perhaps touched–even more amused than offended, at our childish stumblings in these blind, twisted paths of right and wrong; knowing at the last He should save the least of us who have been most awkward. But, oh, brethren! beware of the sin for which you cannot win forgiveness from that other God, that spirit of the true Father, fixed forever in the breast of each of you.”
The light was coming swiftly. Already their fire had paled, and the embers, but a little before glowing red, seemed now to be only white ashes.
From over the ridge back of them, whence had come the notes of the funeral-drum, an Indian now slouched toward them, drawn by curiosity; stopping to look, then advancing, to stop again.
At length he stood close by them, silent, gazing. Then, as if understanding, he spoke to Follett.
“Big sick–go get big medicine! Then you give chitcup!”
He ran swiftly back, disappearing over the ridge.
The sick man was now delirious again, muttering disjointed texts and bits of old sermons with which the Lute of the Holy Ghost, young and ardent, had once thrilled the Saints.
“‘For without shedding of blood there shall be no remission’–‘but where are now your prophets which prophesied unto you, saying the King of Babylon shall not come against you nor against this land’–‘But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.’ That is where the stain was,–the bloody stain that held the leaves together–but I tore them apart and read,–“
The Indian who had come to them first now appeared again over the ridge, and with him another. The second was accoutered lavishly with a girdle of brilliant feathers, anklets of shell, and bracelets of silver, his face barred by alternating streaks of vermilion and yellow, a lank braid of his black hair hanging either side of his face, and on his head the horns and painted skull of a buffalo. In one hand was a wand of red-dyed wood with a beaded and quilled amulet at the end. The other down by his side held something they did not at first notice.
The little man was growing weaker each moment, but still muttered as he turned restlessly on the blanket.
“‘And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.'” His quick ear detecting the light step of the approaching Indians, he sat up and grasped Follett’s arm.
“What do they want? Let no one come now. Death is here and I am going out to meet it–I am glad to go–so tired!”
Follett, looking up at the two Indians now standing awkwardly by them, said, in a low tone, with a wave of his free arm:
“_Vamose_!”
“Big medicine!” grunted the Indian who had first come to them, pointing to his companion. In an instant this other was before the sick man, chanting and making passes with his wand.
Then, before Follett could rise, the Indian’s other hand came up, and they saw, slowly waved before the staring eyes of the little man, a long mass of yellow hair that writhed and ran in little gleaming waves as if it lived. It was tied about the wrist of the Indian with strips of scarlet flannel–tied below a broad silver bracelet that glittered from the bronzed arm.
The face of the sick man had a moment before been tranquil, almost smiling; but now his eyes followed the hair with something of fascination in them. Then a shade of terror darkened the peaceful look, like the shadow of a cloud hurried by the wind over a fair green garden.
But with its passing there came again into his eyes the light of sanity. He gazed at the hair, breathless, still in wonder; and then very slowly there grew over his face the look of an unearthly peace, so that they who were by him deferred the putting aside of the Indian. With eyes wide open, full of a calm they could not understand, he looked and smiled, his wan face flushing again in that last time. Then, reaching suddenly out, his long white fingers tangled themselves feebly in the golden skein, and with a little loving uplift of the eyes he drew it to his breast. A few seconds he held it so, with an eagerness that told of some sweet and mighty relief come to his soul,–some illumination of grace that had seemed to be struck by the first sunrays from that hair into his wondering eyes.
Slowly, then, the little smile faded,–the wistful light of it dying for the last time. The tired head fell suddenly back and the wan lids closed over lifeless eyes.
Still the hand clutched the hair to the quiet heart, the yellow strands curling peacefully through the dead fingers as if in forgiveness. From the look of rest on the still face it was as if, in his years of service and sacrifice, the little man had learned how to forgive his own sin in the flash of those last heart-beats when his soul had rushed out to welcome Death.
Prudence had arisen before the end came and was standing in front of the Indian to motion him away. Follett was glad she did not see the eyes glaze nor the head drop. He leaned forward and gently loosed the limp fingers from the yellow tangle. Then he sprang quickly up and put his arm about Prudence. The two Indians backed off in some dismay. The one who had first come to them spoke again.
“Big medicine! You give some chitcup?”
“No–no! Got no chitcup! _Vamose_!”
They turned silently and trotted back over the ridge.
“Come, sit here close by the fire, dear–no, around this side. It’s all over now.”
“Oh! Oh! My poor, sorry little father–he was so good to me!” She threw herself on the ground, sobbing.
Follett spread a saddle-blanket over the huddled figure at the foot of the cross. Then he went back to take her in his arms and give her such comfort as he could.
CHAPTER XLIII.
_The Gentile Carries off his Spoil_
Half an hour later they heard the sound of voices and wheels. Follett looked up and saw a light wagon with four men in it driving into the Meadows from the south. The driver was Seth Wright; the man beside him he knew to be Bishop Snow, the one they called the Entablature of Truth. The two others he had seen in Amalon, but he did not know their names.
He got up and went forward when the wagon stopped, leaning casually on the wheel.
“He’s already dead, but you can help me bury him as soon as I get my wife out of the way around that oak-brush–I see you’ve brought along a spade.”
The men in the wagon looked at each other, and then climbed slowly out.
“Now who could ‘a’ left that there spade in the wagon?” began the Wild Ram of the Mountains, a look of perplexity clouding his ingenuous face.
The Entablature of Truth was less disposed for idle talk.
“Who did you say you’d get out of the way, young man?”
“My wife, Mrs. Ruel Follett.”
“Meaning Prudence Rae?”
“Meaning her that was Prudence Rae.”
“Oh!”
The ruddy-faced Bishop scanned the horizon with a dreamy, speculative eye, turning at length to his companions.
“We better get to this burying,” he said.
“Wait a minute,” said Follett.
They saw him go to Prudence, raise her from the ground, put a saddle-blanket over his arm, and lead her slowly up the road around a turn that took them beyond a clump of the oak-brush.
“It won’t do!” said Wright, with a meaning glance at the Entablature of Truth, quite as if he had divined his thought.
“I’d like to know why not?” retorted this good man, aggressively.
“Because times has changed; this ain’t ’57.”
“It’ll almost do itself,” insisted Snow. “What say, Glines?” and he turned to one of the others.
“Looks all right,” answered the man addressed. “By heck! but that’s a purty saddle he carries!”
“What say, Taggart?”
“For God’s sake, no, Bishop! No–I got enough dead faces looking at me now from this place. I’m ha’nted into hell a’ready, like he said he was yisterday. By God! I sometimes a’most think I’ll have my ears busted and my eyes put out to git away from the bloody things!”
“Ho! Scared, are you? Well, I’ll do it myself. _You_ don’t need to help.”
“Better let well enough alone, Brother Warren!” interposed Wright.
“But it _ain’t_ well enough! Think of that girl going to a low cuss of a Gentile when Brigham wants her. Why, think of letting such a critter get away, even if Brigham didn’t want her!”
“You know they got Brother Brigham under indictment for murder now, account of that Aiken party.”
“What of it? He’ll get off.”
“That he will, but it’s because he’s Brigham. _You_ ain’t. You’re just a south country Bishop. Don’t you know he’d throw you to the Gentile courts as a sop quicker’n a wink if he got a chance,–just like he’ll do with old John D. Lee the minute George A. peters out so the chain will be broke between Lee and Brigham?”
“And maybe this cuss has got friends,” suggested Glines.
“Who’d know but the girl?” Snow insisted. “And Brother Brigham would fix _her_ all right. Is the household of faith to be spoiled?”
“Well, they got a railroad running through it now,” said Wright, “and a telegraph, and a lot of soldiers. So don’t you count on _me_, Brother Snow, at any stage of it now or afterwards. I got a pretty sizable family that would hate to lose me. Look out! Here he comes.”
Follett now came up, speaking in a cheerful manner that nevertheless chilled even the enthusiasm of the good Bishop Snow.
“Now, gentlemen, just by way of friendly advice to you,–like as not I’ll be stepping in front of some of you in the next hour. But it isn’t going to worry me any, and I’ll tell you why. I’d feel awful sad for you all if anything was to happen to me,–if the Injuns got me, or I was took bad with a chill, or a jack-rabbit crept up and bit me to death, or anything. You see, there’s a train of twenty-five big J. Murphy wagons will be along here over the San Bernardino trail. They are coming out of their way, almost any time now, on purpose to pick me up. Fact is, my ears have been pricking up all morning to hear the old bull-whips crack. There were thirty-one men in the train when they went down, and there may be more coming back. It’s a train of Ezra Calkins, my adopted father. You see, they know I’ve been here on special business, and I sent word the other day I was about due to finish it, and they wasn’t to go through coming back without me. Well, that bull outfit will stop for me–and they’ll _get_ me or get pay for me. That’s their orders. And it isn’t a train of women and babies, either. They’re such an outrageous rough lot, quick-tempered and all like that, that they wouldn’t believe the truth that I had an accident–not if you swore it on a stack of Mormon Bibles topped off by the life of Joe Smith. They’d go right out and make Amalon look like a whole cavayard of razor-hoofed buffaloes had raced back and forth over it. And the rest of the two thousand men on Ezra Calkins’s pay-roll would come hanging around pestering you all with Winchesters. They’d make you scratch gravel, sure!
“Now let’s get to work. I see you’ll be awful careful and tender with me. I’ll bet I don’t get even a sprained ankle. You folks get him, and I’ll show you where he said the place was.”
Two hours later Follett came running back to where Prudence lay on the saddle-blanket in the warm morning sun.
“The wagon-train is coming–hear the whips? Now, look here, why don’t we go right on with it, in one of the big wagons? They’re coming back light, and we can have a J. Murphy that is bigger than a whole lot of houses in this country. You don’t want to go back there, do you?”
She shook her head.
“No, it would hurt me to see it now. I should be expecting to see him at every turn. Oh, I couldn’t stand that–poor sorry little father!”
“Well, then, leave it all; leave the place to the women, and good riddance, and come off with me. I’ll send one of the boys back with a pack-mule for any plunder you want to bring away, and you needn’t ever see the place again.”
She nestled in his arms, feeling in her grief the comfort of his tenderness.
“Yes, take me away now.”
The big whips could be heard plainly, cracking like rifle-shots, and shortly came the creaking and hollow rumbling of the wagons and the cries of the teamsters to their six-mule teams. There were shouts and calls, snatches of song from along the line, then the rattling of harness, and in a cloud of dust the train was beside them, the teamsters sitting with rounded shoulders up under the bowed covers of the big wagons.
A hail came from the rear of the train, and a bronzed and bearded man in a leather jacket cantered up on a small pony.
“Hello there, Rool! I’m whoopin’ glad to see you!”
He turned to the driver of the foremost wagon.
“All right, boys! We’ll make a layby for noon.”
Follett shook hands with him heartily, and turned to Prudence.
“This is my wife, Lew. Prudence, this is Lew Steffins, our wagon-master.”
“Shoo, now!–you young cub–married? Well, I’m right glad to see Mrs. Rool Follett–and bless your heart, little girl!”
“Did you stop back there at the settlement?”
“Yes; and they said you’d hit the pike about dark last night, to chase a crazy man. I told them I’d be back with the whackers if I didn’t find you. I was afraid some trouble was on, and here you’re only married to the sweetest thing that ever–why, she’s been crying! Anything wrong?”
“No; never mind now, anyway. We’re going on with you, Lew.”
“Bully proud to have you. There’s that third wagon–“
“Could I ride in that?” asked the girl, looking at the big lumbering conveyance doubtfully.
“It carried six thousands pounds of freight to Los Angeles, little woman,” answered Steffins, promptly, “and I wouldn’t guess you to heft over one twenty-eight or thirty at the outside. I’ll have the box filled in with spruce boughs and a lot of nice bunch-grass, and put some comforts over that, and you’ll be all snug and tidy. You won’t starve, either, not while there’s meat running.”
“And say, Lew, she’s got some stuff back at that place. Let the extra hand ride back with a packjack and bring it on. She’ll tell him what to get.”
“Sure! Tom Callahan can go.”
“And give us some grub, Lew. I’ve hardly had a bite since yesterday morning.”
An hour later, when the train was nearly ready to start, Follett took his wife to the top of the ridge and showed her, a little way below them, the cedar at the foot of the sandstone ledge. He stayed back, thinking she would wish to be there alone. But when she stood by the new grave she looked up and beckoned to him.
“I wanted you by me,” she said, as he reached her side. “I never knew how much he was to me. He wasn’t big and strong like other men, but now I see that he was very dear and more than I suspected. He was so quiet and always so kind–I don’t remember that he was ever stern with me once. And though he suffered from some great sorrow and from sickness, he never complained. He wouldn’t even admit he was sick, and he always tried to smile in that little way he had, so gentle. Poor sorry little father!–and yesterday not one of them would be his friend. It broke my heart to see him there so wistful when they turned their backs on him. Poor little man! And see, here’s another grave all grown around with sage and the stones worn smooth; but there’s the cross he spoke of. It must be some one that he wanted to lie beside. Poor little sorry father! Oh, you will have to be so much to me!”
The train was under way again. In the box of the big wagon, on a springy couch of spruce boughs and long bunch-grass, Prudence lay at rest, hurt by her grief, yet soothed by her love, her thoughts in a whirl about her.
Follett, mounted on Dandy, rode beside her wagon.
“Better get some sleep yourself, Rool,” urged Steffins.
“Can’t, Lew. I ain’t sleepy. I’m too busy thinking about things, and I have to watch out for my little girl there. You can’t tell what these cusses might do.”
“There’s thirty of us watching out for her now, young fellow.”
“There’ll be thirty-one till we get out of this neighbourhood, Lew.”
He lifted up the wagon-cover softly a little later; and found that she slept. As they rode on, Steffins questioned him.
“Did you make that surround you was going to make, Rool?”
“No, Lew, I couldn’t. Two of them was already under, and, honest, I couldn’t have got the other one any more than you could have shot your kid that day he up-ended the gravy-dish in your lap.”
“Hell!”
“That’s right! I hope I never have to kill any one, Lew, no matter _how_ much I got a right to. I reckon it always leaves uneasy feelings in a man’s mind.”
* * * * *
Eight days later a tall, bronzed young man with yellow hair and quick blue eyes, in what an observant British tourist noted in his journal as “the not unpicturesque garb of a border-ruffian,” helped a dazed but very pretty young woman on to the rear platform of the Pullman car attached to the east-bound overland express at Ogden.
As they lingered on the platform before the train started they were hailed and loudly cheered, averred the journal of this same Briton, “by a crowd of the outlaw’s companions, at least a score and a half of most disreputable-looking wretches, unshaven, roughly dressed, heavily booted, slouch-hatted (they swung their hats in a drunken frenzy), and to this rough ovation the girl, though seemingly a person of some decency, waved her handkerchief and smiled repeatedly, though her face had seemed to be sad and there were tears in her eyes at that very moment.”
At this response from the girl, the journal went on to say, the ruffians had redoubled their drunken pandemonium. And as the train pulled away, to the observant tourist’s marked relief, the young outlaw on the platform had waved his own hat and shouted as a last message to one “Lew,” that he “must not let Dandy get gandered up,” nor forget “to tie him to grass.”
Later, as the train shrieked its way through Echo Canon, the observant tourist, with his double-visored plaid cap well over his face, pretending to sleep, overheard the same person across the aisle say to the girl:–
“Now we’re on our own property at last. For the next sixty hours we’ll be riding across our own front yard–and there aren’t any keys and passwords and grips here, either–just a plain Almighty God with no nonsense about Him.”
Whereupon had been later added to the journal a note to the effect that Americans are not only quite as prone to vaunt and brag and tell big stories as other explorers had asserted, but that in the West they were ready blasphemers.
Yet the couple minded not the observant tourist, and continued to enlarge and complicate his views of American life to the very bank of the Missouri. Unwittingly, however, for they knew him not nor saw him nor heard him, being occupied with the matter of themselves.
“You’ll have to back me up when we get to Springfield,” he said to her one late afternoon, when they neared the end of their exciting journey. “I’ve heard that old Grandpa Corson is mighty peppery. He might take you away from me.”
Her eyes came in from the brown rolling of the plain outside to light him with their love; and then, the lamps having not yet been lighted, the head of grace nestled suddenly on its pillow of brawn with only a little tremulous sigh of security for answer.
This brought his arm quickly about her in a protecting clasp, plainly in the sidelong gaze of the now scandalised but not less observant tourist.
THE END.