The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains
other respects. Well, suppose you’re camping out, and suppose it’s a hot
night, or you’re in a hurry, and you’ve made camp late, or anyway you
haven’t got inside any tent, but you have just bedded down in the open.
Skunk comes travelling along and walks on your blankets. You’re warm. He
likes that, same as a cat does. And he tramps with pleasure and comfort,
same as a cat. And you move. You get bit, that’s all. And you die of
hydrophobia. Ask anybody.”
“Most extraordinary!” said I. “But did you ever see a person die from
this?”
“No, sir. Never happened to. My cousin at Bald Knob did.”
“Died?”
“No, sir. Saw a man.”
“But how do you know they’re not sick skunks?”
“No, sir! They’re well skunks. Well as anything. You’ll not meet skunks
in any state of the Union more robust than them in Arkansaw. And thick.”
“That’s awful true,” sighed another. “I have buried hundreds of dollars’
worth of clothes in Arkansaw.”
“Why didn’t yu’ travel in a sponge bag?” inquired Scipio. And this
brought a slight silence.
“Speakin’ of bites,” spoke up a new man, “how’s that?” He held up his
thumb.
“My!” breathed Scipio. “Must have been a lion.”
The man wore a wounded look. “I was huntin’ owl eggs for a botanist from
Boston,” he explained to me.
“Chiropodist, weren’t he?” said Scipio. “Or maybe a sonnabulator?”
“No, honest,” protested the man with the thumb; so that I was sorry for
him, and begged him to go on.
“I’ll listen to you,” I assured him. And I wondered why this politeness
of mine should throw one or two of them into stifled mirth. Scipio, on
the other hand, gave me a disgusted look and sat back sullenly for a
moment, and then took himself out on the platform, where the Virginian
was lounging.
“The young feller wore knee-pants and ever so thick spectacles with a
half-moon cut in ’em,” resumed the narrator, “and he carried a tin box
strung to a strap I took for his lunch till it flew open on him and a
horn toad hustled out. Then I was sure he was a botanist--or whatever
yu’ say they’re called. Well, he would have owl eggs--them little
prairie-owl that some claim can turn their head clean around and
keep a-watchin’ yu’, only that’s nonsense. We was ridin’ through that
prairie-dog town, used to be on the flat just after yu’ crossed the
south fork of Powder River on the Buffalo trail, and I said I’d dig an
owl nest out for him if he was willing to camp till I’d dug it. I wanted
to know about them owls some myself--if they did live with the dogs and
snakes, yu’ know,” he broke off, appealing to me.
“Oh, yes,” I told him eagerly.
“So while the botanist went glarin’ around the town with his glasses to
see if he could spot a prairie-dog and an owl usin’ the same hole, I was
diggin’ in a hole I’d seen an owl run down. And that’s what I got.” He
held up his thumb again.
“The snake!” I exclaimed.
“Yes, sir. Mr. Rattler was keepin’ house that day. Took me right there.
I hauled him out of the hole hangin’ to me. Eight rattles.”
“Eight!” said I. “A big one.”
“Yes, sir. Thought I was dead. But the woman--”
“The woman?” said I.
“Yes, woman. Didn’t I tell yu’ the botanist had his wife along? Well, he
did. And she acted better than the man, for he was losin’ his head,
and shoutin’ he had no whiskey, and he didn’t guess his knife was sharp
enough to amputate my thumb, and none of us chewed, and the doctor
was twenty miles away, and if he had only remembered to bring his
ammonia--well, he was screeching out ’most everything he knew in the
world, and without arranging it any, neither. But she just clawed his
pocket and burrowed and kep’ yelling, ‘Give him the stone, Augustus!’
And she whipped out one of them Injun medicine-stones,--first one I ever
seen,--and she clapped it on to my thumb, and it started in right away.”
“What did it do?” said I.
“Sucked. Like blotting-paper does. Soft and funny it was, and gray. They
get ’em from elks’ stomachs, yu’ know. And when it had sucked the poison
out of the wound, off it falls of my thumb by itself! And I thanked the
woman for saving my life that capable and keeping her head that cool.
I never knowed how excited she had been till afterward. She was awful
shocked.”
“I suppose she started to talk when the danger was over,” said I, with
deep silence around me.
“No; she didn’t say nothing to me. But when her next child was born, it
had eight rattles.”
Din now rose wild in the caboose. They rocked together. The enthusiast
beat his knee tumultuously. And I joined them. Who could help it? It
had been so well conducted from the imperceptible beginning. Fact and
falsehood blended with such perfect art. And this last, an effect so
new made with such world-old material! I cared nothing that I was
the victim, and I joined them; but ceased, feeling suddenly somehow
estranged or chilled. It was in their laughter. The loudness was too
loud. And I caught the eyes of Trampas fixed upon the Virginian with
exultant malevolence. Scipio’s disgusted glance was upon me from the
door.
Dazed by these signs, I went out on the platform to get away from the
noise. There the Virginian said to me: “Cheer up! You’ll not be so easy
for ’em that-a-way next season.”
He said no more; and with his legs dangled over the railing, appeared to
resume his newspaper.
“What’s the matter?” said I to Scipio.
“Oh, I don’t mind if he don’t,” Scipio answered. “Couldn’t yu’ see? I
tried to head ’em off from yu’ all I knew, but yu’ just ran in among ’em
yourself. Couldn’t yu’ see? Kep’ hinderin’ and spoilin’ me with askin’
those urgent questions of yourn--why, I had to let yu’ go your way! Why,
that wasn’t the ordinary play with the ordinary tenderfoot they treated
you to! You ain’t a common tenderfoot this trip. You’re the foreman’s
friend. They’ve hit him through you. That’s the way they count it. It’s
made them encouraged. Can’t yu’ see?”
Scipio stated it plainly. And as we ran by the next station, “Howard!”
they harshly yelled. “Portland 1256!”
We had been passing gangs of workmen on the track. And at that last yell
the Virginian rose. “I reckon I’ll join the meeting again,” he said.
“This filling and repairing looks like the washout might have been
true.”
“Washout?” said Scipio.
“Big Horn bridge, they say--four days ago.”
“Then I wish it came this side Rawhide station.”
“Do yu’?” drawled the Virginian. And smiling at Scipio, he lounged in
through the open door.
“He beats me,” said Scipio, shaking his head. “His trail is turruble
hard to anticipate.”
We listened.
“Work bein’ done on the road, I see,” the Virginian was saying, very
friendly and conversational.
“We see it too,” said the voice of Trampas.
“Seem to be easin’ their grades some.”
“Roads do.”
“Cheaper to build ’em the way they want ’em at the start, a man would
think,” suggested the Virginian, most friendly. “There go some more
I-talians.”
“They’re Chinese,” said Trampas.
“That’s so,” acknowledged the Virginian, with a laugh.
“What’s he monkeyin’ at now?” muttered Scipio.
“Without cheap foreigners they couldn’t afford all this hyeh new
gradin’,” the Southerner continued.
“Grading! Can’t you tell when a flood’s been eating the banks?”
“Why, yes,” said the Virginian, sweet as honey. “But ’ain’t yu’ heard
of the improvements west of Big Timber, all the way to Missoula, this
season? I’m talkin’ about them.”
“Oh! Talking about them. Yes, I’ve heard.”
“Good money-savin’ scheme, ain’t it?” said the Virginian. “Lettin’ a
freight run down one hill an’ up the next as far as she’ll go without
steam, an’ shavin’ the hill down to that point.” Now this was an honest
engineering fact. “Better’n settin’ dudes squintin’ through telescopes
and cypherin’ over one per cent reductions,” the Southerner commented.
“It’s common sense,” assented Trampas. “Have you heard the new scheme
about the water-tanks?”
“I ain’t right certain,” said the Southerner.
“I must watch this,” said Scipio, “or I shall bust.” He went in, and so
did I.
They were all sitting over this discussion of the Northern Pacific’s
recent policy as to betterments, as though they were the board of
directors. Pins could have dropped. Only nobody would have cared to hear
a pin.
“They used to put all their tanks at the bottom of their grades,” said
Trampas.
“Why, yu’ get the water easier at the bottom.”
“You can pump it to the top, though,” said Trampas, growing superior.
“And it’s cheaper.”
“That gets me,” said the Virginian, interested.
“Trains after watering can start down hill now and get the benefit of
the gravity. It’ll cut down operating expenses a heap.”
“That’s cert’nly common sense!” exclaimed the Virginian, absorbed. “But
ain’t it kind o’ tardy?”
“Live and learn. So they gained speed, too. High speed on half the coal
this season, until the accident.”
“Accident!” said the Virginian, instantly.
“Yellowstone Limited. Man fired at engine driver. Train was flying past
that quick the bullet broke every window and killed a passenger on the
back platform. You’ve been running too much with aristocrats,” finished
Trampas, and turned on his heel.
“Haw, hew!” began the enthusiast, but his neighbor gripped him to
silence. This was a triumph too serious for noise. Not a mutineer moved;
and I felt cold.
“Trampas,” said the Virginian, “I thought yu’d be afeared to try it on
me.”
Trampas whirled round. His hand was at his belt. “Afraid!” he sneered.
“Shorty!” said Scipio, sternly, and leaping upon that youth, took his
half-drawn pistol from him.
“I’m obliged to yu’,” said the Virginian to Scipio. Trampas’s hand left
his belt. He threw a slight, easy look at his men, and keeping his back
to the Virginian, walked out on the platform and sat on the chair where
the Virginian had sat so much.
“Don’t you comprehend,” said the Virginian to Shorty, amiably, “that
this hyeh question has been discussed peaceable by civilized citizens?
Now you sit down and be good, and Mr. Le Moyne will return your gun when
we’re across that broken bridge, if they have got it fixed for heavy
trains yet.”
“This train will be lighter when it gets to that bridge,” spoke Trampas,
out on his chair.
“Why, that’s true, too!” said the Virginian. “Maybe none of us are
crossin’ that Big Horn bridge now, except me. Funny if yu’ should end by
persuadin’ me to quit and go to Rawhide myself! But I reckon I’ll not. I
reckon I’ll worry along to Sunk Creek, somehow.”
“Don’t forget I’m cookin’ for yu’,” said Scipio, gruffy.
“I’m obliged to yu’,” said the Southerner.
“You were speaking of a job for me,” said Shorty.
“I’m right obliged. But yu’ see--I ain’t exackly foreman the way this
comes out, and my promises might not bind Judge Henry to pay salaries.”
A push came through the train from forward. We were slowing for the
Rawhide station, and all began to be busy and to talk. “Going up to the
mines to-day?” “Oh, let’s grub first.” “Guess it’s too late, anyway.”
And so forth; while they rolled and roped their bedding, and put on
their coats with a good deal of elbow motion, and otherwise showed
off. It was wasted. The Virginian did not know what was going on in the
caboose. He was leaning and looking out ahead, and Scipio’s puzzled
eye never left him. And as we halted for the water-tank, the Southerner
exclaimed, “They ’ain’t got away yet!” as if it were good news to him.
He meant the delayed trains. Four stalled expresses were in front of us,
besides several freights. And two hours more at least before the bridge
would be ready.
Travellers stood and sat about forlorn, near the cars, out in the
sage-brush, anywhere. People in hats and spurs watched them, and Indian
chiefs offered them painted bows and arrows and shiny horns.
“I reckon them passengers would prefer a laig o’ mutton,” said the