A Man in the Open Part 8

"May I say picturesque?"

He spat. "Thank Gawd I ain't that, either. I'd shoot myself if I thought I was showing off, or dressing operatic, or playing at bein' more than I am."

Seeing him really hurt, I made one last wriggle.

"May I say what I mean by romance?"

He held the stirrup for me to mount, offered his hand.

"Do you never get hungry," I asked, "for what's beyond the horizon?"

He sighed with sheer relief, then turned, his eyes seeing infinite distances. "Why, yes! That country beyond the sky-line's always calling.

Thar's something I want away off, and I don't know what I want."

"That land beyond the sky-line's called romance."

He clenched his teeth. "What does a s.h.i.+p want when she strains at anchor? What she wants is drift. And I'm at anchor because I've sworn off drift."

At that we parted, and I went slowly homeward, up to my anchor. Dear G.o.d! If I might drift!

CHAPTER II

THE TREVOR ACCIDENT

N.B.--Mr. Smith, while living alone, had a habit of writing long letters to his mother. After his mother's death the habit continued, but as the letters could not be sent by mail, and to post them in the stove seemed to suggest unpleasant ideas, they were stowed in his saddle wallets.

Dear Mother in Heaven:

There's been good money in this here packing contract, and the wad in my belt-pouch has been growing till Doctor McGee suspecks a tumor. He thinks I'll let him operate, and sure enough that would reduce the swelling.

Once a week I take my little pack outfit up to the Sky-line claim for a load of peac.o.c.k copper. It runs three hundred dollars to the ton in horn silver, and looks more like jewels than mineral. Iron Dale's cook, Mrs.

Jubbin, runs to more species of pies and cake than even Hundred Mile House, and after dinner I get a rim-fire cigar which pops like a cracker, while I sit in front of the scenery and taste the breath of the snow mountains. Then I load the ponies, collects Mick out of the cook house, which he's partial to for bones, Iron slings me the mail-pouch, and I hits the trail. I aim to make good bush gra.s.s in the yellow pines by dusk, and the second day brings me down to Brown's Ferry, three miles short of my home. From the ferry there's a good road in winter to Hundred Mile House, so I tote the cargoes over there by sleigh. There my contract ends, because Tearful George takes on with his string team down to the railroad. I'd have that contract, too, only Tearful is a low-lived sort of person, which can feed for a dollar a week, whereas when I get down to the railroad, I'm more expensive.

Did you hear tell of the c.o.c.k and Bull Ranch? Seeing it's run by a missionary you may have the news in Heaven. This man starts a stock ranch with a bull and cow, a billy-goat and nanny-goat, a rooster and hen; but it happened the cow, the hen, and the nanny-goat got drowned on the way up-country; and ever since then the breeding ain't come up to early expectations.

Well, it's much the same way with me since my stallion William died--of trapezium, I think the doctor said. The mares are grinning at me ever since, and it will take nine months more of this packing contract before I can buy another stud horse. Then there's the mortgage, and the graveyard artist has seized your tombstone until I pay for repairing the angel on top. Life's full of worries, mother.

Your affectionate son,

JESSE.

Rain-storm coming.

P. S.--It's a caution to see how Jones steps out on the home trail.

Or'nary as a muel when she has to climb, she hustles like a little running horse to git back down to bush gra.s.s. All night in the pines I'll hear her bell through my dreams, while she and her ponies feed, then the stopping of the bell wakes me up, for them horses doze off from when the Orion sets until its c.o.c.klight when I start my fire. By loading-time they've got such gra.s.s bellies on them that I has to be quite severe with the lash rope. They hold their wind while I cinch them, and that's how their stomachs get kicked.

Yes, it's a good life, and I don't envy no man. Still it made me sort of thoughtful last time as I swung along with that Jones mare snuggling at my wrist, little Mick snapping rear heels astern, and the sun just scorching down among the pines. Women is infrequent, and spite of all my experiences with the late Mrs. Smith--most fortunate deceased, life ain't all complete without a mate. It ain't no harm to any woman, mother, if I just varies off my trail to survey the surrounding stock.

Mrs. Jubbin pa.s.ses herself off for a widow, and all the boys at the mine take notice that she can cook. Apart from that, she's homely as a barb-wire fence, and Bubbly Jock, her husband, ain't deceased to any great extent, being due to finish his sentence along in October, and handy besides with a rifle.

Then of the three young ladies at Eighty Mile, Sally is a sound proposition, but numerously engaged to the stage drivers and teamsters along the Cariboo Road. Miss Wilth, the schoolma'am, keeps a widow mother with tongue and teeth, so them as smells the bait is ware of the trap. That's why Miss Wilth stays single. The other girl is a no-account young person. Not that I'm the sort to shy at a woman for squinting, the same being quite persistent with sound morals, but I hold that a person who scratches herself at meals ain't never quite the lady. She should do it private.

There's the Widow O'Flynn on the trail to Hundred Mile,--she's harsh, with a wooden limb. Besides she wants to talk old times in Abilene. I don't.

As to the married women, I reckon that tribe is best left alone, with respects. If you sees me agin, it will be in Heaven, and I don't aim to disappoint you by turning up at the other place. I'd get religion, mother, but for the sort of swine I seen converted, but even for the sake of finding grace I ain't going to graze with them cattle.

While I've mostly kep' away from the married ladies, and said "deliver us from temptation" regular every night, there was no harm as I came along down, in being sorry for Mrs. Trevor. Women are reckoned mighty cute at reading men, but I've noticed when I've struck the complete polecat, that he's usually married. So long as a woman keeps her head she's wiser than a man, but when she gets rattled she's a sure fool.

She'll keep her head with the common run of men, but when she strikes the all-round stinker, like a horse runs into a fire, she ups and marries him. Anyway, Mrs. Trevor had got there.

Said to be Tuesday.

Trip before last was the first time I seen this lady. The trail from Trevor's meets in with the track from Sky-line just at the Soda Spring.

From there a sure-enough wagon road snakes down over the edge of the bench and curves away north to Brown's Ferry. At the spring you get the sound of the rapids, you catch the smell of the river like a wet knife, you looks straight down into white water, and on the opposite bench is my ranch.

Happens Jones reckoned she'd been appointed inspector of snakes, so I'd had to lay off at the spring, and Mrs. Trevor comes along to get shut of her trouble. She's hungry; she ain't had anything but her prize hawg to speak to for weeks, and she's as curious as Mother Eve, anyway.

Curiosity in antelopes and women projuces venison and marriages, both species being too swift and shy to be met up with otherwise.

She's got allusions, too, seeing things as large as a sceart horse, so she's all out of focus, supposin' me to be romantic and picturesk, wharas I'm a workingman out earning dollars. Still it's kind in any lady to take an interest, and I done what you said in aiming at the truth, no matter what I hits.

Surely my meat's transparent by the way her voice struck through among my bones. If angels speak like that I'd die to hear. She told me nothin', not one word about the trouble that's killing her, but her voice made me want to cry. If you'd spoke like that when I was your puppy, you'd a had no need of that old slipper, mother.

'Cause I couldn't tear him away from the beef bones, I'd left Mick up at the Sky-line, or I'd ast that lady to accept my dog. You see, he'd bite Trevor all-right, wharas I has to diet myself, and my menu is sort of complete. Still by the time she stayed in camp, my talk may have done some comfort to that poor woman. She didn't know then that her trouble was only goin' to last another week.

This is pie day. I comes now to describing my last trip down from the Sky-line, when I hustled the ponies just in case Mrs. Trevor might be taking her _cultus cooly_ along toward Soda Spring. Of course she wasn't there.

You'd have laughed if you'd seen Jones after she drank her fill of water out of the bubbly spring, crowded with soda bubbles. She just goes hic, t.i.ttup, hic, down the trail, changing step as the hiccups jolted her poor old ribs. The mare looked so blamed funny that at first I didn't notice the tracks along the road.

To judge by the hind shoes, Mrs. Trevor's mean colt had gone down toward the river not more'n ten minutes ago, on the dead run, then back up the road at a racking out-of-breath trot. Something must have gone wrong, and sure enough as I neared a point of rocks which hid the trail ahead, Jones suddenly s.h.i.+ed hard in the midst of a hiccup. There was the Widow Bear's track right across the road, and Mick had to yell blue blazes to get the other ponies past the smell. Ahead of me the tracks of the Trevor colt were dancing the width of the road, bucking good and hard at the stink of bear. Then I rounded the point of rocks.

There lay Mrs. Trevor all in a heap. The afternoon sun caught her hair, which flamed gold, and a green humming-bird whirred round as though it were some big flower. Since Jones would have s.h.i.+ed over the tree-tops at a corpse or a whiff of blood, I knew she'd only fainted, but felt at her breast to make sure. I tell you it felt like an outrage to lay my paw on a sleeping lady, and still worse I'd only my dirty old hat to carry water from a seepage in the cliff. My heart thumped when I knelt to sprinkle the water, and when that blamed humming-bird came whirring past my ear, I jumped as though the devil had got me, splas.h.i.+ng the hatful over Mrs. Trevor. At that her eyes opened, staring straight at my face, but she made out a sort of smile when she saw it was only me.

"Jesse!"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Seen my husband?"

"No, ma'am."

"I don't know what's come over him," she moaned, clenching her teeth; "he fired at me."

"That gun I traded to him?"