The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains
I have things to do of an unsure nature and a good number of such. Do
not believe reports about Indians. They are started by editors to keep
the soldiers in the country. The friends of the editors get the hay and
beef contracts. Indians do not come to settled parts like Bear Creek is.
It is all editors and politicianists.
Nothing has happened worth telling you. I have read that play Othello.
No man should write down such a thing. Do you know if it is true? I have
seen one worse affair down in Arizona. He killed his little child as
well as his wife but such things should not be put down in fine language
for the public. I have read Romeo and Juliet. That is beautiful language
but Romeo is no man. I like his friend Mercutio that gets killed. He
is a man. If he had got Juliet there would have been no foolishness and
trouble.
Well Miss Wood I would like to see you to-day. Do you know what I think
Monte would do if I rode him out and let the rein slack? He would come
straight to your gate for he is a horse of great judgement. (“That’s the
first word he has misspelled,” said Molly.) I suppose you are sitting
with George Taylor and those children right now. Then George will get
old enough to help his father but Uncle Hewie’s twins will be ready for
you about then and the supply will keep coming from all quarters all
sizes for you to say big A little a to them. There is no news here. Only
calves and cows and the hens are laying now which does always seem news
to a hen every time she does it. Did I ever tell you about a hen Emily
we had here? She was venturesome to an extent I have not seen in other
hens only she had poor judgement and would make no family ties. She
would keep trying to get interest in the ties of others taking charge
of little chicks and bantams and turkeys and puppies one time, and she
thought most anything was an egg. I will tell you about her sometime.
She died without family ties one day while I was building a house for
her to teach school in. (“The outrageous wretch!” cried Molly! And her
cheeks turned deep pink as she sat alone with her lover’s letter.)
I am coming the first day I am free. I will be a hundred miles from you
most of the time when I am not more but I will ride a hundred miles for
one hour and Monte is up to that. After never seeing you for so long I
will make one hour do if I have to. Here is a flower I have just been
out and picked. I have kissed it now. That is the best I can do yet.
Molly laid the letter in her lap and looked at the flower. Then suddenly
she jumped up and pressed it to her lips, and after a long moment held
it away from her.
“No,” she said. “No, no, no.” She sat down.
It was some time before she finished the letter. Then once more she got
up and put on her hat.
Mrs. Taylor wondered where the girl could be walking so fast. But she
was not walking anywhere, and in half an hour she returned, rosy with
her swift exercise, but with a spirit as perturbed as when she had set
out.
Next morning at six, when she looked out of her window, there was Monte
tied to the Taylor’s gate. Ah, could he have come the day before, could
she have found him when she returned from that swift walk of hers!
XXV. PROGRESS OF THE LOST DOG
It was not even an hour’s visit that the Virginian was able to pay
his lady love. But neither had he come a hundred miles to see her. The
necessities of his wandering work had chanced to bring him close enough
for a glimpse of her, and this glimpse he took, almost on the wing. For
he had to rejoin a company of men at once.
“Yu’ got my letter?” he said.
“Yesterday.”
“Yesterday! I wrote it three weeks ago. Well, yu’ got it. This cannot
be the hour with you that I mentioned. That is coming, and maybe very
soon.”
She could say nothing. Relief she felt, and yet with it something like a
pang.
“To-day does not count,” he told her, “except that every time I see you
counts with me. But this is not the hour that I mentioned.”
What little else was said between them upon this early morning shall be
told duly. For this visit in its own good time did count momentously,
though both of them took it lightly while its fleeting minutes passed.
He returned to her two volumes that she had lent him long ago and
with Taylor he left a horse which he had brought for her to ride. As a
good-by, he put a bunch of flowers in her hand. Then he was gone, and
she watched him going by the thick bushes along the stream. They were
pink with wild roses; and the meadow-larks, invisible in the grass,
like hiding choristers, sent up across the empty miles of air their
unexpected song. Earth and sky had been propitious, could he have
stayed; and perhaps one portion of her heart had been propitious too.
So, as he rode away on Monte, she watched him, half chilled by reason,
half melted by passion, self-thwarted, self-accusing, unresolved.
Therefore the days that came for her now were all of them unhappy ones,
while for him they were filled with work well done and with changeless
longing.
One day it seemed as if a lull was coming, a pause in which he could
at last attain that hour with her. He left the camp and turned his face
toward Bear Creek. The way led him along Butte Creek. Across the stream
lay Balaam’s large ranch; and presently on the other bank he saw Balaam
himself, and reined in Monte for a moment to watch what Balaam was
doing.
“That’s what I’ve heard,” he muttered to himself. For Balaam had led
some horses to the water, and was lashing them heavily because they
would not drink. He looked at this spectacle so intently that he did not
see Shorty approaching along the trail.
“Morning,” said Shorty to him, with some constraint.
But the Virginian gave him a pleasant greeting, “I was afraid I’d not
catch you so quick,” said Shorty. “This is for you.” He handed his
recent foreman a letter of much battered appearance. It was from the
Judge. It had not come straight, but very gradually, in the pockets of
three successive cow-punchers. As the Virginian glanced over it and saw
that the enclosure it contained was for Balaam, his heart fell. Here
were new orders for him, and he could not go to see his sweetheart.
“Hello, Shorty!” said Balaam, from over the creek. To the Virginian he
gave a slight nod. He did not know him, although he knew well enough who
he was.
“Hyeh’s a letter from Judge Henry for yu’” said the Virginian, and he
crossed the creek.
Many weeks before, in the early spring, Balaam had borrowed two horses
from the Judge, promising to return them at once. But the Judge, of
course, wrote very civilly. He hoped that “this dunning reminder” might
be excused. As Balaam read the reminder, he wished that he had sent the
horses before. The Judge was a greater man than he in the Territory.
Balaam could not but excuse the “dunning reminder,”--but he was ready to
be disagreeable to somebody at once.
“Well,” he said, musing aloud in his annoyance, “Judge Henry wants them
by the 30th. Well, this is the 24th, and time enough yet.”
“This is the 27th,” said the Virginian, briefly.
That made a difference! Not so easy to reach Sunk Creek in good order by
the 30th! Balaam had drifted three sunrises behind the progress of the
month. Days look alike, and often lose their very names in the quiet
depths of Cattle Land. The horses were not even here at the ranch.
Balaam was ready to be very disagreeable now. Suddenly he perceived the
date of the Judge’s letter. He held it out to the Virginian, and struck
the paper.
“What’s your idea in bringing this here two weeks late?” he said.
Now, when he had struck that paper, Shorty looked at the Virginian. But
nothing happened beyond a certain change of light in the Southerner’s
eyes. And when the Southerner spoke, it was with his usual gentleness
and civility. He explained that the letter had been put in his hands
just now by Shorty.
“Oh,” said Balaam. He looked at Shorty. How had he come to be a
messenger? “You working for the Sunk Creek outfit again?” said he.
“No,” said Shorty.
Balaam turned to the Virginian again. “How do you expect me to get those
horses to Sunk Creek by the 30th?”
The Virginian levelled a lazy eye on Balaam. “I ain’ doin’ any
expecting,” said he. His native dialect was on top to-day. “The Judge
has friends goin’ to arrive from New Yawk for a trip across the Basin,”
he added. “The hawsses are for them.”
Balaam grunted with displeasure, and thought of the sixty or seventy
days since he had told the Judge he would return the horses at once.
He looked across at Shorty seated in the shade, and through his uneasy
thoughts his instinct irrelevantly noted what a good pony the youth
rode. It was the same animal he had seen once or twice before. But
something must be done. The Judge’s horses were far out on the big
range, and must be found and driven in, which would take certainly the
rest of this day, possibly part of the next.
Balaam called to one of his men and gave some sharp orders, emphasizing
details, and enjoining haste, while the Virginian leaned slightly
against his horse, with one arm over the saddle, hearing and
understanding, but not smiling outwardly. The man departed to saddle up
for his search on the big range, and Balaam resumed the unhitching of
his team.
“So you’re not working for the Sunk Creek outfit now?” he inquired of
Shorty. He ignored the Virginian. “Working for the Goose Egg?”
“No,” said Shorty.
“Sand Hill outfit, then?”
“No,” said Shorty.
Balaam grinned. He noticed how Shorty’s yellow hair stuck through a hole
in his hat, and how old and battered were Shorty’s overalls. Shorty had
been glad to take a little accidental pay for becoming the bearer of the
letter which he had delivered to the Virginian. But even that sum was no
longer in his possession. He had passed through Drybone on his way, and
at Drybone there had been a game of poker. Shorty’s money was now in the
pocket of Trampas. But he had one valuable possession in the world left
to him, and that was his horse Pedro.
“Good pony of yours,” said Balaam to him now, from across Butte Creek.
Then he struck his own horse in the jaw because he held back from coming
to the water as the other had done.
“Your trace ain’t unhitched,” commented the Virginian, pointing.
Balaam loosed the strap he had forgotten, and cut the horse again for
consistency’s sake. The animal, bewildered, now came down to the water,
with its head in the air, and snuffing as it took short, nervous steps.
The Virginian looked on at this, silent and sombre. He could scarcely
interfere between another man and his own beast. Neither he nor Balaam
was among those who say their prayers. Yet in this omission they were
not equal. A half-great poet once had a wholly great day, and in that
great day he was able to write a poem that has lived and become, with
many, a household word. He called it The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
And it is rich with many lines that possess the memory; but these are
the golden ones:
“He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.”
These lines are the pure gold. They are good to teach children; because
after the children come to be men, they may believe at least some part
of them still. The Virginian did not know them,--but his heart had
taught him many things. I doubt if Balaam knew them either. But on him
they would have been as pearls to swine.
“So you’ve quit the round-up?” he resumed to Shorty.
Shorty nodded and looked sidewise at the Virginian.
For the Virginian knew that he had been turned off for going to sleep
while night-herding.
Then Balaam threw another glance on Pedro the horse.