← catalogue

The Wrong Woman

by Charles D. Stewart · English · Gutenberg #22140 · 329,592 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Wrong Woman
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Wrong Woman

Author: Charles D. Stewart

Illustrator: Harold Brett


        
Release date: July 25, 2007 [eBook #22140]
                Most recently updated: January 2, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22140

Credits: E-text prepared by Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WRONG WOMAN ***


E-text prepared by Al Haines



Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
      file which includes the original lovely illustrations.
      See 22140-h.htm or 22140-h.zip:
      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/1/4/22140/22140-h/22140-h.htm)
      or
      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/1/4/22140/22140-h.zip)





THE WRONG WOMAN

by

CHARLES D. STEWART







[Frontispiece: She saw that she would have to continue her journey
afoot]



The Copp Clark Company Limited
Toronto

Copyright, 1912, by Charles D. Stewart
All Rights Reserved




ILLUSTRATIONS


   She saw that she would have to continue her
     journey afoot (page 13) . . . . . _Frontispiece_

   The stars, a vast audience, had all taken their places

   "There's number one," Steve remarked casually

   In the very midst of that dread ordeal, a test


   _From drawings by Harold M. Brett_




The Wrong Woman


CHAPTER I

Having made final inspection of the knots of her shoe-laces and the
fastenings of her skirt, Janet turned toward her "perfectly horrid"
oilcoat, which, as usual, had spent the night on the floor.  As it
would never come off till she had tortured her fingers on the edges of
its big rusty buttons, she always parted from it on unpleasant terms,
casting it from her; whereupon this masculine garment fell into the
most absurd postures, sprawling about on her bedroom floor, or even
sitting up, drunkenly, in the corner,--which latter it could easily do,
being as stiff as it was yellow.  This time it had caught by one arm on
the back of a chair, and it came so near standing alone that it seemed
to be on the point of getting along without the chair's assistance.  As
Janet stood considering its case, she turned her eyes toward the window
to see what the weather had decided, and now she saw the farmer leading
forth her pony.  She went to the window and opened it wider.

"Please, Mr. Wanger, make it tight.  He always swells himself out when
he sees he is going to be saddled.  Then, when he has gone a little
distance, he lets himself in, and both the girths are hanging loose.
That's one of his tricks."

She leaned farther out and made further observation of the weather.  As
the air was mild and the sky serenely blue (though you can never tell
about a Texas Norther), she took Sir Slicker by the nape of his
collar-band and dropped him out of the window to be lashed to the
saddle; then she turned to the mirror again, and, having done the best
she could with the hat, she went to take leave of the farmer's family,
who, as she judged by certain sounds, were assembled at the front of
the house awaiting her departure.  But scarcely had she stepped into
the adjoining room and shut the door behind her, when the buxom,
blue-eyed Lena, rushing in from the porch, met her with a hug that was
more like a welcome than a leave-taking.

"Oh, goo-o-o-bye, Miss Janey.  I am so-o-o sorry.  I t'ink you are
so-o-o sweet and nice."

And then Lena, whose open Swiss nature was either at the summit of
happiness or down in the valley of despair, regarded her ruefully for a
space, and after one more hug and the shedding of two large healthy
tears, accompanied her out to the porch.  There the Wangers were
waiting and the children standing in line to be kissed--quite as if she
were a dear relative, or at least an acquaintance of more than four
days' standing.  Janet kissed them all; and having done so she
proceeded to the hitching-post, followed by the entire family, down to
little Jacob, who stationed himself at the very heels of the broncho,
and was so far forgotten by them all, in their concern with Janet's
affairs, that they did not think to rescue him from his perilous
situation till it was everlastingly too late, the horse having by that
time moved away.  And then Jacob, who had been studying his elders
closely, after the manner of his tribe, guessed the meaning of those
farewell words which he had not been able to understand; and as she
drew away he opened his mouth and bawled.

Her route, which lay forty miles before her with but one stream to
ford, might be described as simply a fenced road on each side of which
was open prairie and the sky; for, though this land was all private
property, the holdings were so vast that the rest of the fence could
not be seen as far as the eye could reach.  As this gave the roadside
fence the appearance of not inclosing land at all, but rather of
inclosing the traveler as he crossed over the vacant waste from town to
town, the stretch of wire seemed to belong to the road itself as
properly as a hand-rail belongs to a bridge; and this expansive scene,
while it was somewhat rolling, was of so uniform and unaccentuated a
character in the whole, and so lacking in features to arrest the eye,
that the road might be said to pass nothing but its own fence-posts.

For a while Janet's thoughts dwelt upon her experience with the
farmer's family, the final scene of which now impressed her more deeply
as she realized how promptly these good folk had opened their hearts to
receive her, and how genuine was their sorrow at seeing her go; and
this reflection imparted so pleasant a flavor to the world that her
mind kept reënacting that simple scene of leave-taking.  But when she
had got well out to sea,--for that is the effect of it except that the
stretch of wire puts the mind in a sort of telegraphic touch with the
world,--she drifted along contemplating the prairie at large, all
putting forth in spring flowers, and for a time she seemed to have
ridden quite out of the Past; but finally, recalling her affairs, her
mind projected itself forward and she fell to wondering what the Future
might have in store.

There was nothing to answer her, and little to interrupt her
speculations.  About the middle of the forenoon, or later, she
encountered a fellow-traveler in the person of a cowboy on a bay pony.
At first a mere speck in the distance, he grew steadily on her vision,
and then went riding past, life-size and lifting his sombrero; which
salute she acknowledged pleasantly, smiling and inclining her head.  A
very strong fellow, she thought, whoever he might be.  A while later,
as she was jogging along with her mind on the horse, whose need of a
drink was now a matter of growing concern to her, she came to where a
wooden gate opened upon the roadside, and here, after a moment of
doubtful consideration, she entered; and having closed it and got into
the saddle again by means of its bars, she struck out across the
prairie with the intention of casting about until she should come upon
one of those spring-fed water-holes which are always to be found, here
and there, upon the cattle range.  For a time it looked as if her horse
would have to go thirsty; but just when she was beginning to feel that
she must not venture farther, she found herself upon a slight rise or
swell from which she made out a group of cattle in the distance, and
with this promise of success before her she put her horse to a gallop
and set out for it, slapping him with the reins.  Presently, the ring
of black muck becoming plainly visible, she knew her quest was at an
end; and her thirsty animal quickened his pace as if he caught scent of
the water.

There now ensued a course of conduct upon the part of the horse which
was strange.  There was a small mesquite bush near the water-hole which
lay directly in the horse's course, and Janet, seeing he was almost
upon it, and not wishing him to leap it, as a running cow-pony will
often do, gave the reins a jerk to make him dodge it, the which he did,
and that with a suddenness which only a cow-pony would be capable of.
A cowboy's horse is so used to outdodging wild cattle that such a
sudden turn is nothing to him.  But now, instead of going to drink, he
gave a leap and broke into a mad race, splashing right through one end
of the water-hole and continuing onward.  It was such a burst of speed
as only the wildest rider could have roused him to; and he kept it up
despite Janet's efforts to stop him.  To her, it seemed as if no horse
had ever gone at such a pace before.  At every leap forward she felt as
if he must shoot straight from under her.  She supposed he had taken
fright at something; but instead of slackening his pace as he got
farther away, he rather added to his speed like a horse in a race.
Though there was nothing ahead which he seemed to be going to, and
nothing behind which he could now be running from, he did not abate his
efforts; he pushed forward--

  As one pursued with yell and blow
  Still treads the shadow of his foe
  And forward bends his head.


Poor Janet, utterly ignorant of the cause, and knowing not whither she
was bound, rode a mad ride to nowhere-in-particular.  At times she
pulled hard on the bridle, but without effect; he kept right on with
her.  She clung desperately to her seat.  There was nothing for her to
do but ride; and so many strange things seemed to have happened at once
that she was almost bewildered.  Altogether he gave her a ride which,
in her own opinion afterwards, threw into insignificance the adventures
of Mazeppa or John Gilpin, or even the experiences of the Ancient
Mariner "alone on a wide, wide sea."

The reason for the horse's hurry would appear to be a very good one
when brought to light and explained; and this we shall probably be
expected to do at this point, an historian having no choice but to tell
what actually happened.  There had been a mishap in the saddle-bow.
The bow is that little arch in front which, when the saddle is in
place, fits over the bony ridge above the horse's shoulders.  This part
of Janet's saddle, instead of being made in the good old-fashioned
way,--which consists in selecting the fork of a tree and shaping it to
the purpose,--had been more cheaply manufactured of cast iron; and that
part of the bow which clasps the withers and sits on the shoulders
spread out in the form of iron wings or plates.  The saddle, at some
time in its history, had received a strain which was too much for it,
and one of the iron wings broke partly across; and this flaw, hidden by
leather and padding, had been lurking in the dark and biding its time.
When Janet braced her foot in the stirrup and made the horse dodge, it
cracked the rest of the way, whereupon the jagged point of metal
pressed into his shoulder with her weight upon it.  It was nothing less
than this that was spurring him on.

A saddle-bow, into which the horse's shoulders press like a wedge (for
it must not rest its weight on top of the withers), needs to be strong,
because it is the part which withstands whatever weight is thrown into
the stirrups in mounting or making sudden evolutions, besides which it
takes whatever strain is put on the horn; in short, it is what holds
the saddle in place.  With a broken bow and girths that are none too
tight, a rider's seat is but temporary at the best; and it is safe to
say that Janet's ride was not quite as long as it seemed.  With a
broken bow a saddle must, sooner or later, start to turn,--and it is a
strange sensation to upset while you are sitting properly in the saddle
with your feet in the stirrups; it is impossible seeming; and with a
woman, who is fastened more tightly to the saddle itself, the sliding
of the girth on the horse's barrel is as if she were soon going to be
riding upside down.

Janet, sticking valiantly to her seat and riding like a trooper, felt
suddenly that peculiar sensation and had a moment's horror of she knew
not what.  The next she was aware of she had struck ground in some
confused and complicated way and quickly got herself right side up.
And while she felt that she ought to be dead or at least badly injured,
she had done nothing worse than to crush down a lot of spring flowers.
And there sat Janet.

Her horse, relieved of the pressure on the sharp iron, and brought to a
halt by her final desperate pull on the reins, was standing
stock-still, his saddle askew like a Scotchman's bonnet, and his ears
laid back.  But scarcely had she located him when he began to pitch and
kick, and with the surprising result that the saddle slipped entirely
round.

This turn of affairs was hardly calculated to please a Texas horse.
What this one thought about it, Janet very soon discovered; for however
meekly his stubborn spirit had given in to certain things, he had _not_
consented to wear a saddle on his belly; and this time when he pitched
he seldom used earth to stand on.  He came down on this hateful globe
of ours only to stamp on it and kick it away from beneath him.  Up he
went and hung in space a moment as if he were being hoisted by his
middle and came down with a vengeance that jolted a snort out of him;
and up he went again, turning end for end and kicking the atmosphere
all the way round.  He was no sooner down than he went up again,--and
usually with a twist which threw him over to another hateful spot, from
which he flung himself as if it were hot.  And all the time the hooded
stirrup flew about like a boot on a boneless leg and kicked him fore
and aft.

Thoroughly insulted, he pitched by a mixture of methods which amazed
Janet; she ran farther back.  Now she beheld a fine vaulting movement,
going up with the hoofs together, opening out in midair and coming down
repeatedly in the same place; and here he worked away industriously,
stretching his loins with the regularity of a machine and hitting away
at the one spot in space with his fine punctuating heels; then he
settled down to a short shuttle-like movement, his forelegs out stiff
and his head down.  It shook the saddle like a hopper; and the stirrup
danced a jig.  In this movement he fairly scribbled himself on the air,
in red and white.  Finding that this did not accomplish the purpose, he
went back to mixed methods a while and threw a confusion of side jumps
and twisting leaps; and then, after a particularly fine flight, he came
down with a heavy lunge and paused.  He was standing with one of his
own feet in the stirrup.

Janet would now hardly have been surprised to see him throw a
somersault, as, indeed, he seemed on the point of doing at times when
he stood up so high that he almost went over backwards.  This time,
after a moment of inaction, he reared again, and as he stood up with
his hind hoof in the stirrup the girth strap parted and the saddle
dropped from him.  He jumped suddenly aside as if he were startled at
his success, and finding himself rid of it he gave a final flourish to
his heels and galloped away.  The last Janet saw of him, he was going
over a knoll with a cow running on before.  He seemed to be chasing it.
We are not at liberty to doubt that this was the case, for many a
cow-pony takes so much interest in his work that he will even crowd a
cow as if to bite her tail, and outdodge her every move.  And so it is
possible that Billy, finding a cow running before him, took a little
turn at his trade.

Janet, hatless, her hair half-down and her chatelaine bag yawning open,
had thus far given little thought to her various belongings scattered
about in the grass; but now that the accident was all done happening
and she saw that she would have to continue her journey afoot, her
first concern was to get herself together again.  Luckily the comb and
the hatpin had fallen in the same small territory with the hat and were
easily found--though the hatpin, standing upright amid the flowers, was
hard to distinguish for a while; and the contents of her bag, having
spilled almost together, were soon accounted for except a small
circular mirror.  This was very difficult, but presently she caught the
flash of it in the grass and gathered it up also.  And now,
ascertaining the condition of her hair, she went to the place that had
been made by her tumble from the horse, and seating herself in it
tailor-fashion, she set to work pulling out hairpins and dropping them
into her lap beside the rest of her property.

Having her hair in shape, she took up the hat.  This part of her
apparel, which had been stepped on without detriment but needed
brushing, might be described as a man's hat in the sense that its maker
had not intended it for a young lady.  It was a black hat, of soft
felt, with a wide flat rim which had been turned up in front and
fastened with a breastpin, a measure which had obviously been taken
because the rim caught the wind in such a way as to cause it to blow
down over the eyes--a thing which a true sombrero would not do.  When
she had furbished it and put it on, she glanced at the image of herself
in her lap, and then, having held the little mirror at a distance to
better view the effect, she took it off and set to work with pins,
making it three-cornered.  This proved to be quite a change; for
whatever it might be said to look like in her hands, it became a hat
the moment she put it on; it had an appearance and an air; and now the
dark surface lent itself all to contrast with her light, soft-hued hair
and clear, delicate skin.  It was still further improved, when, having
removed it again, she set it on at a rakish artillery angle.  Possibly,
if hers had been the dark, nut-brown beauty, she would have seen that
she looked best lurking beneath its sombre shade, and therefore have
turned the rim down some way to even increase the shade; but Janet
fitted that which was frank, open, and aboveboard.  And so she used the
black for contrast rather than obscurity--besides which there was
another sort of contrast, for a soldier hat on Janet was a striking
foil for her utter femininity.  And its romantic pretense (so different
from the dark gypsy-like romantic) was such an arrant little piece of
make-believe that it had the effect of playful candor, acknowledging
how impossible a man she would make; and while it was, strikingly, a
pure case of art for art's sake, you could not but remark how much
better _she_ looked in it than any soldier could ever have done.  To
tell the truth, we do not really pretend to know why Janet did this, or
what taught her how to do it; anyway, she did it; and now, having so
easily accomplished one of the most difficult parts of a self-made
woman, she fixed it in position with the hatpin, snapped shut her
chatelaine bag, and rose to go.

Looking forward in the direction she had turned to, her mind began to
be crossed with doubts as to whether that was the right way.  She
looked in other directions.  Then she turned slowly about.  What she
saw was simply prairie all the way round.  Which part of that horizon
had she come from--what point in space?  There is nothing so answerless.

She was now in a world where there was no such thing as direction
except that one side was opposite the other.  There seemed to be
nowhere that she could really consider as a Place!  The spot where she
had been sitting seemed to be a place; but now she realized that she
could go far from it in any direction and still be resting in the
middle of nature's lap.

How she strained her mind out to the very edge of things and tried to
think!  What endeavor she made to get out of her mind that which was
not in it!  She could not but feel that it was all because she was
"such a fool"--for she could hardly believe that a whole country could
be so lacking in information.

Poor Janet!  She even looked up toward the high sun and wondered what
kind of sailor science would compel him to divulge his relations with a
certain wooden gate.  But there was no recognition there, no
acknowledgment.  The four quarters of heaven were fitted together with
a viewless joint.  All was silent.  Everything was a secret.

Of course she finally thought of the obvious thing to do; but
afterwards she was sorry that she did, for that was just how she lost a
good part of the afternoon.  She found traces of her horse's
course--here some flower stems had been broken, and a little farther
on, some more; and now that all was made plain she took her slicker,
which was tied in a roll behind the saddle, and, putting her mind
straight ahead on the course, she set out.

In his high gallop her horse had left no trail that she could follow as
a path--nothing but slight records which might be discovered upon close
and particular search.  As his shoeless feet had made little or no
impression on the sward, and there were wide spaces where flowers were
sparse, she decided, in order to make progress, to go straight forward
in the direction which had been determined, and then, if the fence did
not put in an appearance, to refer to the trail again.

After a time, seeing nothing ahead, she began to look about, this side
and that, in doubt; and now, being "all turned round" again, she looked
for the trail.  But she could not find it.  Looking about everywhere,
round and round and farther and wider, she at last found herself
inspecting her own footsteps and following her own wandering path; and
here she gave it up utterly.  She knew she was lost.

Again she peered out at a point in space and wondered if _that_ was the
place she came from.  How different the distance looked now from what
it did when she saw it down that endless road.  That, at least, gave
some shape to the future; and though she had been in doubt as to what
it might be like, she at least knew it was there.  Now the future was
all around her.  A thousand futures now confronted her--all done up
alike in blue and awaiting her chance move, this direction or that;
whereby she may be said to have been confronted with the world as it
is--a veritable old wheel of fortune.  But she had to do something; and
the only thing to do was to walk.  Making up her mind to the Somewhere
in front of her, she simply went ahead; for the afternoon was going and
the night was sure to come--a prospect that filled her with dread.

It is no wonder that Lot's wife looked back when she was well out on
the plain.  Probably she wanted to see where she was going--so Janet
thought, as she trudged wearily along.  Or possibly the poor woman
wanted to make sure that she was going _at all_; for when you are
walking always at the middle of things, and not coming to anything,
there is no progress.  Janet thought--for she had to think
something--that she knew just how stationary Lot's wife felt when she
was turned into a pillar of salt.  Possibly, if the truth were known,
Lot's wife desired to be turned into a pillar of salt--who can tell?
Janet, walking along so unrelated and ineffectual, rather fancied that
she herself might want to be turned into a salt-lick (she had passed
one all worn hollow as the stone of Mecca by the tongues of many
Pilgrims); because if she were such a thing she would not be so utterly
useless and foolish under the eye of heaven.  But still she kept
trudging along, feeling the growing weight of the slicker in her arms,
for Janet was not much of a hand to carry anything on her shoulder.

Janet walked and walked, but her walking did not seem to have any
effect upon that endless land.  The fence did not put in its
appearance, neither did a house nor a path, nor anything else which
would make it different from the sky-covered plain that it was.  It
persisted in being itself, world without end, amen.  To make matters
worse, her shoe began to hurt (she had suspected it would and taken the
man's promise that it would n't), and the more she persevered the more
it clamped her toe and wrung her heel and drew fire to her instep.  But
there was nothing to do but walk; and she kept on with her footsteps
till the operation became monotonous.  Still that roadless scene was
unmoved.  The world was "round like an apple"; that she could plainly
see.  And as to her feelings, this globe was just a big treadmill under
her aching feet.

The only escape from such tyranny is to rise superior to it,
withdrawing the mind from its service; so she decided to think of
something else.  And now, as she went on with no company but her own
thoughts, she had a growing realization, more and more vivid, of her
fall from the horse and what the consequences might have been.  It was
a miraculous escape, due to no management of hers.  Suppose she had
been disabled!--and in such a place!  What a thought!  She became
frightened at what was past.  She had not really thought of it before;
and now that she did, her imagination was thrown wide open to the
future, and she looked into the possibilities ahead of her.  A cow, she
recalled, has been known to attack even a horse and rider.  And these
wild range cattle; how might they take the presence of a woman, never
having seen one before?  There were thousands of them wandering about
this big place, with horns that spread like the reach of a man's arms.
Her only recourse was to wish she were a man.  This was a favorite wish
of hers, indulged in upon those occasions when she discovered that she
had been a "silly coward" or a "perfect fool."  After all, she
considered, a woman is n't much loss.

"And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he
said. Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in
all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed. . . .
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of
salt."  It was an old Sunday-school lesson.  And Janet had to think
something.




CHAPTER II

While Janet was determinedly putting her foot down on pain and keeping
up the light of faith on the distant sky-line, another and quite
separate horizon was witnessing a little incident of its own.  On a
spot on the prairie which was no more a particular place than any other
part of it, a lamb was born.  The two occupants of those parts, a man
and a dog (not to mention a flock of sheep), were soon at the spot
where it lay, its small body marking down in white the beginning of the
Season.  Nature had thus dropped her card announcing that lambing-time
was now here; and so the little white form in the grass, meaning so
much, claimed all the attention due to an important message--albeit the
message was delivered with somewhat the carelessness of a handbill.
The man stooped over and looked straight down with an expression at
once pleased and perplexed.  As coming troubles cast their shadows
before, this little memento, coming on ahead of a gay and giddy throng,
raised visions of troublous and erratic times.  The dog, a genteel,
white-ruffed collie, sat down and viewed the infant with a fine look of
high-browed intelligence, as if he were the physician in the case.  The
lamb was an old friend of his--just back from nature's laundry.  The
newcomer, about a minute of age and not yet fully aware of itself,
raised its round white poll and looked forthwith a fixed gaze as
foolishly irresponsible as if it were a lamb that had just fallen off a
Christmas tree.

The man turned and strode away, leaving the dog on watch to mark the
place.  Just below a water-hole near by was a place thickly covered
with dry marsh grass, all combed over by the wind and matted down like
a thatched roof, beneath which shelter opossums and rabbits ran about
in tunnels of their own making.  To this place he went, and having
grabbed a handful of hay from the convenient mouth of a burrow, he
returned to the lamb, and kneeling down beside it he rubbed it into a
comfortable warmth and dryness.  Not quite satisfied with the results
(there was a touch of chill in the air), he produced a white pocket
handkerchief which had not yet been unfolded, and he used this to
perfect the work.

This latter touch was more than a Texas lamb can reasonably expect; but
there were distant circumstances which prompted the act, and the
sentimental effects of these were much augmented by the fact that the
first and only lamb was disowned by its mother.  She had given it a
cold-eyed look and walked away without even the formality of taking its
scent.  As she was now back at her grazing again, it was plain to be
seen that she was going to give herself no further concern in the
matter; indeed, it was likely that when the lamb should come forward to
make his claims upon her, she would resent and oppose such intimacy,
sheep being different from other animals in this regard.  The man felt,
naturally enough, that the first-born of such a host, and the
representative of so many idiots, mothered and motherless, who were
soon to arrive, deserved a better reception.  The lamb spelled Duty as
plain as chalk; and so he rubbed away, with a look of weighty concern
which almost obliterated the smile with which he began.  When the
fleece was perfectly dry and warm he stood up to await developments.

By this time the lamb, which had already tried to stand up, decided to
do it.  It got part-way up and fell.  Again it came up on its stilts,
wavered drunkenly and collapsed.  It had made a mistake of some kind.
But the only way to learn walking is to do it; and a lamb, being more
ambitious than either a colt or a calf, rises at once and starts right
in, regardless of the fact that it does not understand the machinery.
This one was weak but game; and it went down only to rise again.  It
went in for a course of Experience; and finally, having got the hang of
things, it was balancing on all fours with fair prospects of success.
Its status was a little uncertain,--like a sailor just landed on a
continent which seems to have been drinking,--but still it was up and
ready to try a step or two if necessary.  But now the dog, who had been
keeping a sharp eye on every move, became so personally interested that
he gave it a poke with his nose; and over it went.  This must have been
discouraging.  The lamb, dazed for a moment, waited for the spirit to
move it, and up it came again, a little groggy but still in the ring.
It staggered, got its legs crossed and dug its nose in the dirt, but by
using that for an extra support it got its bearings again and was not
frustrated.  This time it succeeded, its legs widely braced.  With the
general demeanor of a carpenter jack it continued to stand, for that
way was solid and scientific; and now it looked straight ahead for the
sheep that was not present.  In her place was empty air--nothing.  This
not being according to the order of nature, the lamb was at its wits'
end.

The man in the case, acting upon the philosophy of Mahomet, gathered up
the lamb and went to the ewe--which would have been more easily done
had the ewe been willing.  Having caught her and made her fast by
putting her head between his legs, which made very good stanchions, he
hung the lamb across his palm and set it down carefully on the proper
spot on the prairie; and now, everything being arranged as such things
should be arranged, little Me went straightway to the point, his
underpinning braced outward like the legs of a milking-stool.

With a well-filled stomach, the lamb stared out at the world in
general, and seemed greatly edified.  The man was about to let the ewe
go, but hesitated, considering that after she got back among the
multitude it might be quite a while before the lamb would have another
chance.  He had better keep her till he had made sure that the lamb
could not hold any more.  The lamb grew visibly in gumption; and
finally, after another swig at the bar of life, he was a made lamb.  He
actually started to walk.  His steps, to be sure, were rather
theoretical and absent-minded, and as he had not yet discovered just
where earth begins and air leaves off, he seemed to be putting his feet
into places that were not there; but considering the dizzy height of
his legs, and the unevenness of this wabbly world, he did as well as
any lamb can do on one dose of milk.  Once he seemed to be struck with
the idea of having fun; he gave a frisky twitch to a leg and a sort of
little jump-up in the rear.  The man, satisfied with this evidence, let
the ewe go, first taking the precaution to mark her by tying the
handkerchief round her neck.

All of which took but a short while.  A lamb, upon arriving, needs a
few moments to take notice that this is the Earth; but he has not much
more than come to a stop when he realizes that it is the place for
refreshments.  For this reason, the force of gravity cannot keep a good
lamb down; and as nature has provided him with just enough strength to
rise and partake, the sooner he is about it the better.  After a few
draughts from the fount of knowledge his education is complete; and it
is not many days till sheep life is too dull for him and he must lead a
livelier career.  Mary's lamb "followed her to school one day," and the
reason he followed her to school was (a fact never before published)
that he thought Mary was his mother.  It was a lamb whose mother had
disowned him, leaving the responsibility to Mary.  And if there were
any tag-ends or trimmings on Mary's dress, it is safe to say that they
bore evidence of having been in the lamb's mouth.

The present lamb, again deserted by its parent, was completely at sea;
and not having anything to attach itself to, it simply kept on standing
up, which was plenty of exercise for it just now.  The man, having
released the ewe, who went back to the flock with an inane _baa_ which
reminded a scattered score of other ewes to do the same, now turned his
attention to the problem of carrying the little stranger.  As this
visitation was entirely unlooked-for, he had not brought the lamb-bag
along, so he had to find some other way.  His coat, unbuttoned at the
top for the better insertion of his hand, he had been using as a sort
of capacious breast-pocket in which he stowed his lunch and other
incumbrances.  One side of it now bulged out with the carcass of a
cotton-tail which he had scared out of the marsh grass, together with
various conveniences which he had brought along from the shack.  These
things out of the way there would be room for the lamb to ride; he
therefore spilled everything on the ground and set to work to make an
entirely new arrangement, pausing, however, when he had unbuttoned his
coat (he had left his vest off) to observe the present state of his
white shirt-front, one side of which, in addition to its generally
soiled condition and the darker streak which marked the pathway of his
hand, had now a crimson spot from the head of the cotton-tail.  That
side, in comparison with the spotless and polished condition of the
other, presented a contrast as striking as did the new white lamb and
the weather-stained flock.  Having hung the rabbit to the canteen
strap, he put the lamb in where it was warm; and now, as he resumed his
ramble with the flock, the little grass orphan (or whatever we may call
an orphan whose parents are both living) bobbed his head up and down at
the powerful chest of his protector, and looked out upon the world with
all the advantages, and none of the disadvantages, of having been born.
This way with the young had previously been adopted by the aforesaid
Mrs. O'Possum, who always carries the children in her pocket; and whom
we may imagine noting the fact in terms of the very highest approval.

It had been his intention that morning to get back to the corral at an
earlier hour than usual; and as the sun was well past meridian he
ordered the dog out to turn the flock, the leaders of which were now
about a quarter of a mile away.  The collie, eager for work, skirted
round and brought them all face-about suddenly, barking his threats
along the van, and then closed in some stragglers, according to
instructions received from the distance.  The man stayed where he was
till the flock had drifted past him; then he took his place at the rear
again, the dog falling in close behind.  He idled along after them,
revolving in his mind his plans for the evening--some boards to be
nailed tight on the storm-shed, and certain repairs on the south side
of the pen.

Although the lamb had delayed him, the sun was still above the horizon
as he drew near home--if a word which means so much may be applied to a
herder's shack.  A shack is a residence about like a farmer's
smokehouse, being taller than it is wide or long; and as it is intended
only for sleeping purposes there is just enough floor space to allow
for a door, and room to turn yourself in as you shut the door.  Its
breadth is equal to the length of a Texan when he lies down in the bunk
built into it, the headboard and footboard of which are the walls of
the building itself.  It might be called a bedroom on the inside, but
as it is only a two-story bunk boarded in and roofed over, it is more
properly a room-bed; or rather it is comparable to a passage at sea
with its upper and lower bunk and the surrounding ocean of prairie--a
sort of stateroom in the flight of Time.  The architect of this one had
been short of lumber, or too economical, the result being that the
present occupant was a trifle too long for it; and he had considered
the advisability of cutting a little window in the side to let his feet
out.  Its inconveniences bothered him little, however, as he spent his
evenings stretched out on the prairie by the fire.  It was so far from
being Home to him that he never felt so far from home as when he
entered it; and as he seldom entered it except in the dark, it was
hardly a familiar place to him.  Outside it might be home all over;
inside was a timber tomb and the far-away country of sleep.  This
edifice stood on a low knoll from the heart of which issued a small
spring-fed stream which had cut itself a deep ditch or gully down to
the general level; and on the slope opposite to where the stream went
out was a narrow path where the sheep ran up.  The little eminence,
with its structures, was a shanty acropolis to a universe otherwise
unimproved.

It was to this place he was at last coming, his blatant rabble moving
gradually together as they neared their familiar destination.  Now that
he felt relieved of responsibility, his thoughts, which had hurried on
before him, as it were, dwelt with much satisfaction upon a certain
little prison-pen on the hill ahead.  Once arrived here, the lamb,
could get a meal from his unwilling mother, who would be confined in
such straits in the narrow little pen that she could not move nor help
herself.  The advantages of this arrangement the lamb would make full
use of; and thereafter he would get along very well, interrupting his
slumbers at any time and supping to his full satisfaction.  There was a
row of the separate little stalls or sheep stocks along the outside of
the corral, this department being the orphan asylum of the community;
and hereabouts there galloped and capered, in springtime, lambs whose
mothers had died in "havin'" them, lambs whose own mothers were too
poor to support them, and most frequently the child of a ewe like this.

The sheep crowded still closer together as they reached the beginning
of the sheep-path; and now the man's face may be said to have taken on
two coats of expression--a stern judicial look with a smile underneath.
The thought that he was about to execute Justice occupied his mind
wholly as the old wether led them into the strait and narrow way.  With
the object of catching the ewe, he ran on ahead toward the path, beside
which he stationed himself, halfway up the hillock, just as the head of
the column was coming; and when the misbehaved mother came trotting
along he laid hands upon her and pulled her out of the procession.  At
this, the lamb, which had become a very warm spot on his breast, said
something which sounded very much like _Ma-a-a_; whereupon he decided
that it might as well have supper at once, after which it could follow
afoot.  The lamb, having been carried so far through life, came down
rather carelessly on its newly unfolded legs and stumbled; but it soon
picked up what it had learned of the laws of mechanics and fell to
supper forthwith.  The man held the ewe as before, and when he judged
the lamb held a sufficiency, he hauled her away toward prison, pulling
her unceremoniously out of the lamb's mouth.  And then the lamb,
instead of following, stood braced on the spot as if unable to
comprehend that such a thing was possible.  It let out a quavering
complaint, a melting infant cry, at which the man stopped and turned
his head, and, seeing it standing there and looking ahead in a wooden
sort of way, he returned to get it, marching the ewe down the hill
again.

"I hope I'll have five hundred like you," he said, scooping it up under
his arm.  "Yes, I do.  You'll have me talking to myself yet.  Yes, you
will."

For a sheep-man to talk to himself is considered a bad sign; but the
present hermit had no chance to go farther in this course.  The dog,
dashing suddenly ahead, stopped at the corner of the shack and growled.
So occupied had the herder been with his distracting duties that he had
not taken much notice of the shack as he drew nearer to it; but now
that the dog raised the alarm he looked and saw a blue wraith of smoke
hovering over the roof.  His fire-hole, it seemed, was lit.  This was
not unwelcome news, as any one may imagine who has lived even a few
days so utterly alone.  But whether the visitor was a stranger or a
friend was made a matter of doubt by the conduct of the dog, who was
barking and growling and wagging his tail.  And his only change in
conduct towards his friend the enemy consisted in doing it all more
industriously, making threats with one end of himself and waving a
welcome with the other.  But no sound came from the other side of the
shack.  The intruder did not stand forth and show himself.  The herder
wondered that his approach had not been discovered.  In the meantime
the ewe, which he had absent-mindedly let go of, had made her escape
and was again mingling with the multitude which was now running
pell-mell into the corral.  It seemed strange that the person behind
the shack did not step forth.  Being now free of the ewe (who had in no
wise thwarted Justice by her act), he proceeded to investigate his
home.  And when he reached the corner of the shack he saw--a Woman.

A Woman.  At a sheep-shack.  She had his tin stew-pan on the fire and
was bending over it, sampling the contents.  On the ground was a
strange sight--two pieces of pie, two peaches, half a chicken,
sandwiches,--some with ham and some with jam,--pickles and cheese.  And
the coffee-pot under full steam.  The large-hearted and healthy Lena
had put all this into the package rolled into the slicker.  It was
partly this that had made Janet's burden so heavy.

The man's jaw dropped, as almost did the lamb; but catching himself in
time he hugged it closer with unconscious strength.  The woman replaced
the cover on the stew-pan, straightened up, and spoke.

"Good-evening," she said.  This in a tone of positive welcome (possibly
a little overdone).

"How do you do," he replied.

"I have just been making use of your fire-hole.  And your coffee-pot.
You see I was--I was--"

"Oh, that's all right.  That's all right.  Just make yourself right at
home.  Are the men folks gone somewhere?"  He cast his eyes about.

"There are no--no men folks.  You see I was just coming along by
myself--alone--without anybody--any men folks."  These words nearly
choked her.  But immediately she added, with the most brightening
smile, "I was _so_ frightened by your dog.  He scared me so."

Having said this, she dropped her eyes to the stew-pan, the contents of
which seemed to need attention just at that moment.

"Oh, he won't bite.  Anyway, he won't bite you.  He knows ladies."

"I am so afraid of them," she said, her eyes still occupied.

She needed a moment to recover her courage, thinking rapidly.  And as
for the man, he thought nothing whatever; he just looked.  She was
bright-eyed and fair and wholly perfect.  She was dressed in plain
black, with deep white cuffs which turned back upon the sleeves, and a
white turnover collar, as neat as a nun.  Offsetting, somehow, the
severity of this, was the boyish side-sweep of her hair, and the
watch-chain looped to a crocheted pocket on her breast.  And on the
ground lay the soldierly three-cornered hat.

To a man who had been expecting to come home to doughy hot bread and
fried rabbit and solitude, this was a surprise.  It was somewhat as if
Providence had taken note of his case and sent out a Sister of Charity;
and one who had the charming advantage of being also a dimpled Daughter
of the Regiment.  Once his eye had taken in the regular contour of her
nose and rested on that dimple, his gaze did not wander.  He did not
even wink--it would have been a complete loss of looking.  When she
removed the lid from the saucepan a spicy aroma spread itself abroad.
Dog and herder sniffed the evening air, sampling the new odor.  It was
a whiff of Araby the Blest.

"As I was just going to explain," she said, straightening up again, "I
had an accident with my horse.  I came in here to find a water-hole and
he ran away and threw me off.  Then I found I was lost"; and she went
on to relate the details of her adventure up to the time of her arrival
at the shack.

As she spoke, she felt as if she had been thrust out into the middle of
a big empty stage to make a speech to that momentous audience of one
man--a speech upon which everything depended.  However panic-stricken
she might be, she must not show it.  For that would give him an opening
for assurances, for allusions which would have to be recognized, for
asseverations which would have to be formally confided in--intimacy.
And that must not be.  The least betrayal of fear by her would bring it
about.  There must not be even the suggestion of a situation.  It had
been a godsend that, upon the first failure of her courage, the dog had
offered himself as a reason.  The dog had made an excellent cover for
her trepidation.  And now it was a support to feel that the dog was
walking about--an object upon which to saddle her nervous apprehension
at any moment when she lost control.

She delivered her speech with a naturalness and ease which surprised
her.  She even added a little high-handed touch or two, referring to
the aggravation of being thrown by one's horse and thus delayed in
one's business; not to speak of being made such an intruder.

The man stood and listened to the music of her voice.  As she began to
speak with so much ease, he was smitten with a consciousness of his
personal appearance, with the four awkward legs dangling down in front
of him.  In hope of making a more manly figure before her, he set the
lamb down, feasting his eyes meanwhile upon the dainty repast and the
two white napkins spread upon the ground.  And when he stood up again,
no one knew less than he whether he had set the lamb on its legs or its
back or stood it on its head.  It now occurred to him that he had not
removed his hat.  He did so immediately.

"And as I was coming across the range," she continued, "I saw your
place.  I had been so tired and hungry that I had lost my appetite.  A
person does, you know.  But I was just dying for a cup of hot coffee.
So I decided to use your conveniences.  And I intended to leave your
fire-hole burning for you--"

"Oh, that's all right.  I 'm glad you did."

She gave a sudden little scream.  This was so unexpected that the man,
whose nerves were not easily touched, drew himself up straighter and
stared at her in amazement.

"Oo-o-o-o-o!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands together and fixing her
gaze upon the supper.

It was the lamb again.  It was standing right in the middle of the
feast, its legs spread as usual and one foot deep in the sugar-bowl.
The lamb was waiting.  It was waiting till the spirit should move it to
the next idiotic thing to do; and it would no doubt have achieved it
had not the man taken quick action.  He seized upon the lamb
precipitately and snatched it away; then he stood with one hand around
its middle and its long legs hanging down, with the four hoofs together.

"Oh, is n't that a _sw-e-e-et_ little lamb!" she exclaimed,
delightedly.  "Oh, _is n't_ he a darling!"

"Well--yes," said the man, holding it out and regarding it critically.
"It was certainly trying to be a sweet little lamb."

She blushed.  She had not seen the lamb all by himself, before; and
these were the first free and natural words she had spoken.  After this
spontaneous outburst she proceeded more guardedly.

"And after the coffee was on," she continued, "I thought it would be
such a shame for a man to have to get his own supper after I had left,
with so _much_ to eat.  So I intended to leave your supper for you.
That is in case you did n't come along when I--I--You see I did n't
expect you home so early."  To which she quickly added, "You know, when
I first came along, I thought the place might possibly be vacant.  Of
course, I had to go in and see; and then, as long as I had already made
so free, I thought I might as well use your coffee-pot and things.  And
your coffee, too."

"Oh, that's all right--perfectly all right.  This place does n't all
belong to me.  There's plenty of room for everybody."

He delivered this with a sweep of his arm that seemed to give her
everything inside the horizon, and possibly lap over the edges.

"So I did take your coffee--and sugar.  And I hope you 'll like what I
have."

"Judging by the looks, it's mighty good.  Perfectly grand.  But I 'll
go now and put this lamb where he won't be scaring us again Miss----
Excuse me, but I haven't asked your name."

"My name is Smith.  Janet Smith."

"My name is Brown.  Stephen Brown.  Glad to meet you, Miss Smith."

He put his hat to his head in order to take it off.  She acknowledged
the formality with a slight bow.

"I 'll go and fix this lamb," he resumed.  "I intended to do some
repairing before sundown; that's why I came home a little early.  But
it's rather late now to do much.  There's other work I have to 'tend
to, though.  I hope it won't take very long."

So saying, he started away.  When he had gone a little distance, and
observed that the dog was remaining behind, an interested spectator, he
called back: "Don't mind him if he watches you.  His name is Shep.  He
likes ladies."

Janet finished setting Mr. Brown's table, which consisted of a place
where the grass was worn short.  When he was working among the sheep
with his back turned, she patted the dog on the head with the greatest
familiarity.  Janet "loved" dogs.  When next she looked up to see what
had become of her guest, or host, he was disappearing in the deep
little gully.




CHAPTER III

When the shack rose upon her vision, Janet's spirits gave a leap.  A
mere box it was, in the image of a house; but yet, from the moment its
countenance appeared on the scene, that lost and lorn prairie seemed to
have found a place for itself.  The whole interminable region attached
itself to the shack and became a front and backyard; the landscape was
situated and set right, knowing its right hand from its left.  Four
walls, a roof, and a door--all the things necessary to make a
threshold, that magic line across which woman faces the world with the
courage of divine right.  At the end of a lonesome, laborious day she
saw it; and she hurried to it with a sort of homing instinct.  Opening
the door, she gave a start and stepped back.  Another's "things" were
in it.  Now what should she do?  It was a question with half a dozen
answers; and they all said, Go.

Just outside the door was a box with a hinged lid.  It contained
kitchenware and supplies.  There was the coffee-pot--and coffee.  As
there was no one in sight (rolling ground is very deceptive), she
decided that, tired as she was and with the journey still before her,
this opportunity of rest and a comfortable supper, with plenty of
strong hot coffee, ought to be taken advantage of.  Then, as soon as
supper was over, she would retire from the scene and consider what was
best to do.  She would sit down and try her courage in the dark.
Possibly, under cover of night, she would come in closer to his
camp-fire and sit there on her slicker.  Or maybe there would be two
men!  But at present it was all undecidable, almost unthinkable; she
must take this little respite from being lost and try to make the most
of things.

The twigs of half-dried mesquite did not kindle readily.  With fanning
and blowing the fire consumed a great deal of time and matches; but at
last it got itself into the spirit of burning.  In the midst of these
preparations she heard the bark of a dog and a medley of _baas_, and
looking round the corner of the shack she saw that it was too late.

When Mr. Brown had recovered from his surprise and excused himself, she
became very industrious indeed, flitting about on the little space of
ground like a bird in a cage.  Despite her confusion, her mother wit
was still with her, prompting her to cover her agitation with the
appearance of housewifely activity; so every time that she beat against
the bars of her situation she carried a fork or a spoon or the lid of
something.  She set his place, fed the fire, put on more coffee.  He
continued to work about the corral.  Though the sight of him was not
quieting, she glanced up often enough to keep track of him.  He seemed
to take his time.

Janet, partially blinded by too much attention to the fire, looked up
through the dusk as he went to the edge of the little gully and
descended.  He was a "full fathom of a man," and as he sank from sight
his length seemed to go right down through the surface of things, like
Hamlet's father retiring to the lower regions.  When, finally, his head
had disappeared, she dropped her pretense of being cheerfully occupied
and turned her attention in another direction.  She looked hard at the
shack--its door half open and the two bunks showing.  Her brows drew
closer together, with the enigma between them.  That little Home, to
which she had hurried with such a feeling of relief, had taken on a
different guise.  It was now the place she must get away from.  At the
same time black night was coming on as if to drive her into it.  The
sun was sinking.  In the east the vanguard of darkness was already
advancing.  She gripped her chin tensely and tried to think, her
forefinger pressed deep into the dimple.  On the upper bunk was a faded
blue blanket; the lower one was red.

Which way should she turn, or how conduct herself?  Dreading to go and
afraid to stay, she was confronted with a problem the terms of which
seemed only able to repeat themselves.  With the terrors of the night
before her, she dared not venture away from this man; her very nature
courted his presence.  His strength and fearlessness she found herself
clinging to as if he belonged to her--and yet he was a menace!  Of
course there might be nothing to fear if----  But If was the dove that
found no rest for the sole of its foot.

The problem presented difficulty on every hand, as if things were on
his side.  The darkness and the shack worked together to prevent
escape; they seemed to have her completely surrounded.

What sort of man was he?

Repeatedly she had taken note of his features, but only to feel more
deeply how little can be told in that way.  Her inability to decide
what impression he _should_ have made on her was tantalizing--the
aching question still remained.  The face is but a likeness; you should
know the original.  And yet his countenance, so strongly painted on her
mind, seemed always on the point of answering her profoundest query.
It was as if she knew him.  She now contemplated her mental image more
deeply, feeling that she could get behind that countenance and have
absolute knowledge.  But it was a delusion.  The soul is invisible.

In utter homelessness she gazed down at that little space of ground
allotted to him and her.  And the supper which united them.  In nature
there seemed to be no barrier between man and woman; their paths led
toward each other.  The flat ground seemed paved with gradual
ingratiating approach; and no defense but outcry--too terrible and too
late.  Surely too late, for he was in the position of her protector,
and she would have to assume that he was a gentleman; and how is a girl
by that prairie camp-fire going to say just how much room her person
shall occupy?  Then how shall she set safe bounds?  With the darkness
closing in around her she felt trapped.

Her wits hard-pressed by this paradoxical plight, she looked with new
longing at the shack.  She felt that if she were on the other side of
that threshold, and it were hers by right, she could stand behind it
with some assurance of power against him, some dependence in forces not
her own.  For a door-sill is definite, and on it rises a formal
spectre; but the way to a woman's heart is not so.  Out here there were
no set bounds; nothing to give pause at a distance showing the first
and fatal step: no line in nature which becomes evident before it has
been passed.  Without it the moral dead-line was too close.  Oh! if
that shack were only hers--the rights of its lockless door.

But it was not hers.  Thus Janet's imagination battered at the doors of
Home, scarcely knowing what she thought, but taking mental action,
nevertheless, in the face of circumstance and the quick speech of
things.  It seemed to her--afterwards--that never till that moment had
she seen the full nature of Home.  That she could see any of its
features, even for a moment, in a shack so frail that a boot could
break it, did not seem reasonable, even to her; but the strength of a
house is not all in locks and bars.  She had caught the depth of the
man's first charmed look at her.  Even a shack can excuse one from the
scene, extinguish the light of beauty, and then say with the voice of
Society--keep out.  Thus things do not so easily and gradually come to
an issue.  But before her was only the prospect of her open presence,
without screen or barrier or warning sign.  And she, on her part, had
not failed to note that, besides his straightness and look of strength,
there was something of virile charm.  What a terrible thing to be a
woman!  So, having turned instinctively to the shack, and recoiled from
it, and then, with nothing else in sight, returned to it with the
imagination of despair, there was nothing left but to turn about and
stand with equal bafflement before the closed secrets of his soul.

As if by a deeper instinct, rewarding her efforts, she saw in him
certain abilities for evil--deep, deliberate, and daring.  He had quite
deliberately left her; then he had, as deliberately, and without saying
a word, gone down into that place.  The little gully was as steep,
almost, as a grave, deep, long, and narrow.  Her eyes turned toward its
gloomy shape.  What could he be doing down there?  What thinking?  She
could hear her watch tick.  A meaningless _baa_ broke out in the corral
and went round in changing tones among the sheep.  While she is so
standing, let us take a look at affairs in the gully.

Mr. Brown, upon arriving at the bottom, proceeded to cast a burden from
his breast--first, a stone which he had been saving for an opossum, a
rawhide thong, a newspaper which had done duty over and over, and which
he kept in hope that it might yield up some further bit of news, and
finally, the rabbit, all of which he dropped on the ground beside his
hat; and then, getting down on his knees, he washed his face.  Having
spluttered vigorously into double-handfuls of water from the little
stream and put the towel back on its bush, he turned his attention to
his twelve-dollar boots--for in the country of boots and saddles the
leatherwork is the soul of appearances.  He removed the mud with his
knife and brushed off the dust with the rabbit.  Finding that this
latter operation promised finer results, he damped the boots with the
tips of his fingers, and taking hold of the long ears and hind legs he
worked the rabbit back and forth so industriously that a fair polish
came forth.  With a careless twirl he threw the rabbit away.  It was
probably as well for Janet that she had no knowledge of what he was
doing down there; she would have been terrified by these too evident
indications of his intentions.  Having combed his hair and brushed his
clothes with the palms of his hands, he felt generally renovated and
pulled together; he took his hat in hand and straightened up in
readiness to make his appearance.  Then he sat down.

Before him was the spring with night already in its depths.  The little
stream murmured of its flowing in the overhanging grass, and caught the
color of the sunset as it ran out into the open.  A little farther on
it emptied its reflections into a pool of gold.  Steve Brown, having in
his mind's eye a vision lovelier than this, and much more interesting,
rested his gaze on a dark spot which was the spring.  At first, her
presence at his firehole had seemed unreal; and yet perfectly natural.
It was very much as if she had just stepped down out of the sky and
said, "Your wish has come true."  At least, he had been wishing that he
had something fit to eat, having become dissatisfied with himself as a
cook.  His period of due consideration did not take long; he again
picked up his hat, and after a momentary pause in this vestry or
anteroom of the scene he made his entrance.

Janet, having done the last possible thing to the supper, stood her
ground bravely as he issued from the trench and marched upon her camp;
for so it seemed to her, so conscious she was of swinging thighs and
formidable front as he advanced.  He hung his sombrero on a nail at the
corner of the shack, apologized for his delay, and stood with his arms
folded, awaiting her orders.

"Sit right down, Mr. Brown," she said, indicating his place and smiling
as best she could.  She seated herself on the grass opposite.

"It is very fine weather we are having, Mr. Brown," she remarked.

"Yes; it was a fine day.  Nice and bright; but a little chilly."

"It looks as if it might stay this way," she added.

"Yes--I think it will.  Hope it will anyway.  But you can't tell."

The last remark had the effect of bringing their beginning to an
end--as if this pliable subject had broken off in too strong hands.

While she poured the coffee, he served the meat, which she had put at
his place; and when he saw her take up his well-filled cup he lifted
her plate at the same moment and passed it to her, giving and receiving
together.  In the midst of this exchange, Janet (probably owing to the
ceremonious way in which he did it) suddenly saw into the little
formality as if a strange new light had been shed upon it; and
instantly she felt that if she had it to do again she would not set the
table in this husband-and-wife way.  She was smitten with
self-consciousness; and thinking it over it seemed strange that she,
who was so anxious to avoid all suggestion of intimacy, could have
arranged such a token between them and not have been aware of it.  In
that all-silent place the act was like words--as if mere Things had
spoken out loud.

"That is a pretty bouquet you have," he remarked.

The reference was to some spring flowers which she had plucked upon
arriving and used to fill up her cup of joy, the said cup being one of
Mr. Brown's.

"Yes; I thought they were very sweet.  In looks, I mean.  Especially
that blue kind."  Then suddenly, as the thought struck her, "But you
see so _many_ of them!"

For a moment he looked disconcerted, like a man accused of something.
Inquiringly he looked at the flowers, first at the ones which belonged
to her, then at the thousands just like them all around.

"But so did _you_ see a great many of them."  This was his defense.

"Oh, yes----  Well--but what I meant"--the fact being that she did not
know what she meant any more than he knew what he meant--"was----  Of
course _you_ would n't pick them for a bouquet, though, would you?"

Instantly she felt that matters had been made worse.  It was like
offering final proof that he had not admired her flowers, really; and
what was his defense?

"Oh, no--I suppose I would n't.  That is, not for myself."

It was the first step of his approach!

"Some people do not care for flowers so much as others do," she
answered hurriedly.  "I have even heard of persons to whom the perfume
was offensive; especially in damp, warm weather.  Odors are always
strongest in damp weather, you know."

It was a relief to feel that she had been able to lead away from it.

This put them on the weather again; then ensued a conversation
perfectly inconsequential, and yet remarkable, to Janet at least, for
the amount of guidance it needed.  She felt, as if her fate depended on
it, that there must be nothing of intimacy, not even suggestion.  So
much might come from the drift of the conversation.  She kept it as
inconsequential as she could--a sort of chat hardly worth setting down
except great art had been shown in it.  Had Janet been a more
experienced woman, and one with the firm sure touch of the
conversational pilot, there might be some interest in charting out her
secret course, showing all the quick invisible moves that were made,
and how she steered through swift hidden dangers and grazed imminent
perils unscathed, chatting inconsequentially all the while.  But Janet
was not that.  She was little more than a girl.

She did the best she could.  Meanwhile the flowers flaunted their
colors in the firelight, seeming now a danger signal to remind her of
her bungling start.  The flowers!  She wished she had not plucked them
or put them there.  Those preferred posies, standing there apart from
the crowd just like them, looked perfectly foolish.  She did not
understand what she had done it for.  The moment she had made that
remark she saw the only reason why he admired them: it was simply
because they were _hers_.  And she had almost pushed the matter to this
admission, so thoughtless she was.

While they talked, she took fuller observation of him, hoping to find
an answer to her great question.  He wore a white shirt--this had
flashed upon her first of all.  Further scrutiny told her that he had
better clothes than his calling would seem to allow, and in better
condition.  His suit was gray, and though somewhat worn and
unfurbished, was evidently of fine quality.  There was little about his
attire which would have attracted attention in a Northern city except,
possibly, the wide-brimmed hat and the boots with high heels.  He was
about thirty years of age.  In the shack shone a polished spur--there
seemed to be nothing else of cowboy accoutrement.  She could not make
him out.  He seemed taciturn at times and eyed her strangely.

Conversation can take such quick turns.  Words, even mere things, can
pop up with such unlooked-for allusions.  They had drifted into some
remarks upon sheep-herding, a trying occupation.  Mr. Brown attested
its monotonous and wearing nature.

"Yes," she said, "it must be so.  No doubt you are always glad enough,
Mr. Brown, when the time comes to get back home again."

"Yes--I prefer town to this.  But I can't exactly say that it is like
going home nowadays.  I have a house just outside of town on the
county-seat road.  But a house is n't home."

"Oh, no, indeed.  But a house is a very good thing to have--even in
this mild climate."  She paused a moment.  "But Texans," she added,
"keep the windows open so much, night and day, that one might just as
well sleep out of doors.  There is no difference really."

Considered in all its bearings, this answer seemed an improvement; it
encouraged her for the moment.  But it seemed impossible for them to
sit out there and talk in a man-to-man relation; they were Society.
The very phrases of society,--even the flowers, the supper, the yawning
shack,--everything, it seemed to her, was against it.  It is in the
nature of things; and the Devil is on the man's side.  They were Man
and Woman, sitting out there in that little circle of fire.  It seemed
to her at times as if some terrible light were being thrown upon them
with a burning focus.

One precaution she tried to keep constantly before her.  She must not
tell him her affairs--nothing of her situation in the world.  It did
not seem advisable even to tell him the nature of her errand to the
county-seat; too much might be reasoned from it, of her helplessness.
Her great danger lay in being questioned: this must be avoided.

But strangely--and its strangeness grew upon her--he did not ask such
questions.  He did not seem to have the least interest in her family,
her history, or the object of her journey.  He asked where she was
going, a conventional question, perfunctorily put.  His remarks all
seemed somewhat conventional.  Even these she had sometimes to evade
and direct into other channels; and naturally a conversation, conducted
solely with the idea of concealing her affairs, did not prosper.  He
began to say less.  Finally he did not talk at all.  He simply
listened.  His quiet way of waiting for her to continue bore in upon
her as if it were some new quality of silence.

To meet the situation she returned to the subject of her adventure; she
recounted that day's travels with endless inconsequential comment and
explanation.  If she paused, he made some obvious observation and
waited.  Janet, rather than face awkward pauses, silences which she
could hardly support, would take up her travels again.  She talked on
because there seemed no way to stop.  His way of waiting for her to
continue seemed quite in keeping with that deliberateness which she had
already noted.  What to make of it she did not know.  It might be that
he was simply satisfied with the sound of her voice.  Or possibly he
had not the least care as to her past or future.  Simply disinterest!
This latter feeling--despite the state of affairs was so
desirable--touched her in some deep part of her being.

She told herself he was full of studious design; but whenever he looked
straight at her and repeated her words in his quiet, well-modulated
tones, she found her better judgment softly set aside, and all put in
obeyance [Transcriber's note: abeyance?].  At such times a pleasant
feeling passed over her; all her speculations and apprehensions were
sunk in the atmosphere of his presence.  It was a soothing effect, a
personal influence which extended about him and pervaded her part of
the air.  As she talked on and on, and he gave her attention, she felt
it more and more, as if she were sitting, not merely in his presence
but within the circle of his being.  It was as if, with her eyes shut,
she could have entered his company and felt its atmosphere like
entering a room.

She had not been able to see any way of getting the immediate future
into her own hands.  Whenever she thought of bringing the story to an
end, her mind confronted her with the question, What next?  Something
certainly would be next.  With all her talking, she confined herself to
the details of that one day's experience.  It seemed capable of
indefinite expansion; there would never be any end unless she made it.
Having supported herself in conversational flight so long, she began to
feel that anything was better than suspense.  She must do something.
With this in mind she ceased and looked out into the night.  The stars,
a vast audience, had all taken their places.  She leaned forward and
began removing the dishes from her napkins.

[Illustration: The stars, a vast audience, had all taken their places]

"It is time for me to be going," she said.

He sat up straight--as suddenly erect as if he had been caught sleeping
in the saddle.

"Going!  Going where?"

"I'm going--on my way."

"Why, town is seventeen miles from here!"

"Oh, I can walk if--if I only knew the way."

"And hear the coyotes?  And no light!"

Getting his small heels directly under him, he rose to six feet and
looked directly down on her.  It was as if he had ascended to the top
of his stature to get a full view of such a proposition.  "Pshaw!" he
said.  "Stay right here.  I 'll fix you up all right."

Without pausing for further parley, or even looking to her for assent,
he turned and went into the shack.  From the inside of this
sleeping-place there came sounds of energetic house-cleaning: pieces of
property came tumbling out of the door--an old saddle-blanket, a yellow
slicker, a pair of boots, a tin bucket.  Finally a branding-iron
bounded back from the heap and fell rattling on the door-sill; then
there was a sound of wiping and dusting out.  Janet sat silent, her
hands in her lap.  In a little while he came crawling backwards out of
the door and brushed the accumulated dirt off the door-sill with a
light blue shirt.  He went in again, and after a moment appeared with
the red blanket, which he shook so that it made loud reports on the air
and then carried to the fire for inspection, and to find the long and
short of it.

"I guess there is n't any head or foot to this, is there?"  He smiled
dryly as if this comment pleased him; and without expecting an answer
he went into the shack with it and busied himself again.

"There, now!" he remarked as he came out.  "You can fix up the little
things to suit yourself.  And if there's anything else, just let me
know and I 'll do it for you."

"I am very much obliged to you," she said, rising.

"Oh, that's all right--no trouble at all.  And now, if you will just
excuse me, I 'll go and finish up around the place.  If you want to go
to bed before I get through, you will find a candle in the top bunk.  I
have n't got an extra lantern."

So saying he took his leave.  He put three of the coyote lanterns on
their poles at the corners of the pen, unwrapped the red cloth from the
fourth and used it to light his way over to the shed.  He came back,
wrapped the red around it again, and hoisted it to its place at the top
of the pole.  A watchful ram _baaed_ awesomely as it rose.

Janet's shoe had been hurting her unmercifully.  She had not been able
to compose herself in any way without in some degree sitting on her
foot; and it had kept up a throbbing pain.  As she stood up, it seemed
to reach new heights of aching and burning.  She decided that she had
better take possession of the shack at once; so she got the candle and
lit it at the fire.  The first thing she did upon entering was to
remove her shoes.  The relief was a luxury.  The door had no means of
locking; the wooden latch lifted from the outside.  Having latched it,
she sat down on the edge of the bunk.

Her shack!  But after a little this inward exclamation began to take
the form of a question.  Suddenly she rose and looked at the top bunk.
The blue blanket was still there.  She was very tired.  After sitting a
while in thought, she put the corner of the red blanket over her feet
and lay down, letting the candle burn.  She was sleepy as well as
tired; but she kept her eyes upon the door.  It was really his place,
not hers.  And that made it all so different--after all.

Of all our protectors, there is none whose rumorous presence is more
potent than the Spirit of the Threshold.  His speech is a whisper, and
before his airy finger even the desperado quails.  Thus doors are
stronger than they seem, and a house, if there is no other need of it,
is an excellent formality.  The accusing Spirit stands aside only for
the owner.

Janet kept her eyes half open, watching that ancient mark between Mine
and Thine.




CHAPTER IV

Janet, opening her eyes upon daylight, sat up drowsily and looked
about.  How long she had been sleeping she had not the least idea.  Her
windowless chamber, all shot through with sunlight, presented a
surprising array of cracks, and the slanting beams told her that the
sun was well up.  Her watch had stopped.

In the absence of toilet conveniences she arranged her hair as best she
could; and having adjusted her skirt-band and smoothed out the
wrinkles, she put her hand to the latch.  Her attention was caught by
certain sunlit inscriptions on the pine siding--verses signed by the
pencil of Pete Harding, Paducah, Kentucky.  Mr. Harding showed that he
had a large repertoire of ribald rhyme.  And he had chosen this bright
spot whereon to immortalize his name.  She opened the door and went out.

Mr. Brown was nowhere to be seen.  The flock, all eyes, turned in a
body and stared at her.  Presently she went to look for him.  He was
not in the storm-shed, nor anywhere down the slope, nor in the gully.
She walked slowly round the shack and scanned the prairie in all
directions.  The face of nature was quite innocent of his presence.
The dog, too, was gone.

As she came back to her starting place, the sheep again regarded her in
pale-eyed expectation.  A ewe emitted her one doleful note; another
gave hers, sadly.  The fire had been burning quite a while; it had made
a good bed of coals on which the kettle was steaming briskly.  She put
on the coffee and prepared breakfast; and as he still continued to be
absent, she sat down and ate alone.  Then she put up a lunch and stowed
it in the pocket of her slicker.  Its weight had diminished
considerably from what it was the day before, and as it did not now
have to be done up in the form of a bundle it could be carried in a
more convenient way.  She folded the slicker lengthwise and threw it
across her shoulder.

He had pointed out to her the direction in which the road lay at its
nearest point.  She walked up and down restlessly.  After much
indecision and aimless casting about, she turned suddenly toward her
own quarter of the horizon and set forth on her journey.  But having
proceeded a fair distance she slackened her pace and came to a stop;
and again she strolled up and down, looking occasionally in the
direction of the knoll.  Finally, she returned to it and resumed her
meditations, less impatient.

After a long time, or so it seemed to her, she looked up and saw him
coming.  He carried a rope, the long noose of which he was making
smaller to fit the coil on his arm.  As he reached the shack he threw
down the coil and lifted his hat.

"Good-morning, Miss Janet"--he used the Southern form of address--"are
you all ready to leave us?"

"Yes; I thought I ought to get as early a start as possible.  I made
the coffee right away.  I did not know but you might be back in a
little while."

"Oh, I had breakfast long ago.  I went out to see if I could get your
horse for you.  But I did n't catch sight of him.  I hunted for him
longer than I realized.  It is quite a distance for you to walk, and I
thought we might fix up some way for you to ride."

"That was very kind of you, Mr. Brown.  I shall be quite able to walk.
It was only necessary for me to be shown the direction."

"The road is over that way," he said, indicating its position with his
arm.  "Keep in that direction a while and you will strike a
wagon-trail.  Then follow that and it will bring you right out on the
road.  After you get to the road, you will find a house about a mile to
the right.  That is, if you intend to go that way."

"I am from Merrill, Mr. Brown.  I am on my way to the county-seat.  For
the past week I have been teaching school a few miles from Merrill.  It
is the little white schoolhouse near Crystal Spring."

"A teacher!" he exclaimed.

"I can hardly claim to be a teacher," she answered.  "The girl who has
that school was called home by the death of her brother.  I have only
been substituting.  I am on my way to Belleview to take a teacher's
examination."

As Janet offered this conscientious information, Steve Brown looked in
vain for any allusion to her secretiveness of the night before.  In her
bearing there was not the least vestige of arts and airs, nor any
little intimation of mutual understanding; she simply looked up with
wide-open eyes and told it to him.  This honesty, quite as if she owed
it, gave Steve a new experience in life; and he gazed into eyes that
charmed him by the clarity of their look.

"You are going to the court-house to get a certificate!" he remarked.

"I do not belong here in Texas," she said, continuing her story.  "I am
from Ohio.  I am stopping with the Dwights, down at Merrill.  But for
the past week I have been stopping at a farmer's in order to be nearer
the school."

"Will you be going back to Ohio, possibly?"

"It might be that I shall go back.  But it all depends.  I may get a
school if I pass."

She stepped forward to take leave of him.  But just at that moment he
thrust both hands deep into his pockets and bent his gaze intently upon
the ground, his brows knit together.  She waited.

"Miss Janet," he said, looking up suddenly, "I would be interested in
knowing whether you pass."

"Well," she said, "I suppose I might easily let you know."

"My address is Thornton, Box 20.  I get my mail every day--excepting
the last few days, of course;--but I will get it again promptly as soon
as I am out of this fix I am in.  I don't suppose--"

"Why, are you in some sort of trouble?" she asked, interrupting him.

"Not very serious.  I need a herder.  I really ought to have two or
three for a while now.  I don't suppose, Miss Janet, there is any
_doubt_ that you will pass?"

"I think," she said, a playful light now touching her features, "it is
quite possible for me not to pass.  I suppose I could have passed
easily enough four years ago.  But after I got out of the Academy, I
went to live with my aunt; and women, you know, don't keep up their
interest in algebra and things.  This winter when Aunt Mary died, in
Toledo, I came down here."

She stepped forward again and extended her hand.

He had been seeing more and more of beauty as he gazed into her eyes.
The Truth was in them deeper than words.  They were large gray eyes,
gentle and quiet and soft as dawn; and they had that fulfilling
influence which spread peace upon the waters of his soul.

"Good-bye, Mr. Brown.  I am very much obliged to you."

"Well--good-bye, Miss Janet.  Be sure and let me know."

She turned at once and proceeded on her way.

With her attention straight ahead, but without any landmark to go by,
she went resolutely forward, and when finally she turned to look back
she saw him standing just as she had left him.  He did not seem to have
moved.  Again she put forward, widening the distance in imagination;
and the next time she turned to view her work, the shack was sinking
behind a billow of land.  She stood now and gazed back at the flat,
flowered expanse; then she turned her back upon it for the last time.
One does not look long upon the gay curtain after it has closed upon
the scene.

"I would be interested in knowing whether you pass."  The morning had
shed new light upon her situation; and this shed a light upon morning.
And now that she could view her adventure in the light of its outcome,
she went back to the moment of their meeting, and did so, recalling
what next he said or did.  She lived it all over again; this time more
understandingly.  Meantime the prairie accommodated her with its
silence.  It was the same sameness as on the day before; but not to her.

With her eyes fixed upon infinity she went buoyantly forward; for this
time she was not lost.  The sun, already high when she arose, was
blazing somewhere in the regions above, and the strong light, flaring
in her face and shining on the broad reaches ahead, was very trying to
her eyes.  After peering against it ineffectually for a while she took
off the three-cornered hat and proceeded to undo her work of the day
before, removing the pins and letting down the rim.

The wearing of a man's hat was one of those things which she herself
would "never have thought of."  But just at a time when she had been
having experience with the tribulations of a big leghorn on horseback,
she saw a woman with a man's hat turned up at the side; and the next
day she had procured one like it, which she turned up in the same
manner with a breastpin.  And the leghorn, unsuited to trials of wind
and weather, was left at home.

The woman--Raymond her name was--was passing the school on horseback,
and she stopped in to get a drink.  Janet noticed the hat more
particularly because of its contrast with the woman's hair, which was
light like her own; although, as she observed to herself, of quite a
different shade.  As it was almost noon she stopped for lunch, and
Janet found her very good company if not quite to her fancy.  She
smelled horribly of perfume.

With the brim shading her eyes, Janet could now look forward with a
degree of comfort.  Presently she was brought to a stop by a small
stream.  It was a mere brook--probably the water from a single spring
such as the one which issued from the knoll; but at this point it
spread out and took the form of a wide patch of marsh grass.  Farther
down it gathered its laggard waters together and became a brook again.
Janet, keeping clear of the bog, went down here intending to jump
across.  Finding it too wide for her, she followed it along, its
varying width promising to let her pass.  She skirted round other
patches of marsh grass and black boggy places only to find it too wide
again.  At last she removed her shoes and stockings and waded it.

For some time she had been ignoring the troubles of her left foot, the
instep of which felt as if some one had been heaping coals of fire on
it.  It was such a relief to step out of the hot grip of leather into
the well-fitting water that she loitered a while in the current; then
it occurred to her that here was the place to stop for dinner.  With
her slicker spread out on the bank she sat down and had lunch, holding
her feet in the water while she ate.  Being done she sat a while
longer, and when the sun had dried her feet she put on the shoes again,
lacing them carefully with particular regard to the ailing instep.
Then she folded the slicker.

As she straightened up and turned to go, she beheld a Texas steer of
the longhorn variety only a short distance away.  He had been grazing
toward her, and as she arose he threw up his head.  At sight of him--he
seemed to be all horns--she turned and made straightway for the other
side of the stream.  She splashed through it as fast as she could go;
and being back where she came from, she turned upstream and ran.  She
kept on till she came to a particularly wide piece of marsh grass.
Here, with a good bog between herself and the appalling pair of horns,
she came to a stop.  Her shoes were now heavy with mud and water.

Janet can hardly be called a coward for acting as she did.  A Texas
longhorn of the old school was enough to move anybody,--better
calculated to do so than either the elk or deer.

Consider the stag raising his antlers in the forest aisle.  Held to the
spot by this display of headgear you contemplate it in all its
branches,--main-beam, brow-tine, bes-tine, royal and surroyal,--they
are all beautifully named.  To run is only second thought.  No
particular horn seems aimed at you.  Between so many there may be room
for escape.

But think of the Texas steer!  To right and left of him is one long
tapering tine.  Each of them, naked as a tusk, has a peculiar twist
which suggests that it is perfectly scientific.  Immediately you are
impressed with the idea of running.

He is a pitchfork on four legs.  And so is his wife.  With other beasts
of horn and antler, it is only the male who is thus favored; he has
them to fight out his differences over the ladies; and also, no doubt,
to make a grand impression.  But Mrs. Longhorn has them as well as he
and is quite able to take care of herself.  And so, meeting either of
them in their native state, you are inclined to regard the horizon as
one vast bull-ring.  Janet was not at all cowardly when she arose and
went.

Having reached a safer place, she turned her attention to the stream
again; and as she was now confronted by the bog, she had to find a
crossing somewhere else.  Naturally she did not turn her steps
downstream again.

The steer had grown small in the distance by the time she came to a
place where the black bottom looked safe.  She stepped in and got to
the other side without difficulty.

For quite a while now, Janet's journey might best be described by
saying that she walked.  The scenery was grass.  Evidently she had
missed the road.  Still, though the fence was not yet in sight, she did
not give up hope; a wire fence does not become visible at a very great
distance.  Her wet shoes were very annoying.  The imprisoned water
inwardly sucked and squirted at every step, and made queer sounds.
Unable to endure it longer she sat down and took them off, and while
they were draining, upside down, she removed the stockings and wrung
them out.  Although she did not get them thoroughly dry, the walking
was somewhat natural again at least.

Her shadow became long and stretched out indefinitely beside her.  The
sun came down from above and appeared in its own form; then quickly it
sank.  She kept steadily on.  She knew it could not be far now to the
fence; and once she was on the road she would feel safer.  But while
she walked the gray of evening came on; then somewhere in the distance
a coyote barked.  Her courage began to depart, as the dusk deepened; it
seemed to her as if all the loneliness in the world had come home to
roost.  It was no use to watch for the fence now; it would apprise her
of its presence when she came to it.  Regardless of the possibility of
running into its iron barbs, she walked faster; at times she ran.  A
star came out faintly.  It was night.

The swish-swish of her feet in the grass, the rustle of her skirts,
became prominent sounds.  She missed the company of her watch; she
wound it up and got it to ticking; anything to ward off the solitude.
The thought of camping out she did not like to entertain; but thoughts
are unavoidable.  Once she stood quite still to make a little trial of
it, but her pause was not long; she soon got her feet to going again.
She missed the sound of trees, the breezes playing upon them.  If there
had only been something,--she knew not what,--it would have seemed more
world-like.  There was an absence of everything familiar.

To stop and rest was now out of the question.  It were better to walk
and keep thinking of the road.  That would be human ground.  So she
thought of the road and tried to keep her mind flowing in its channel.
How far might it be now?  How long?

In the midst of this suspense she sighted a light ahead--a camp-fire.
It was somewhat to the left of her present course.  Steadily it drew
nearer, straight ahead--her footsteps had bent toward it.  When she was
beginning to distinguish the play of the flames, it sank from sight;
but presently it appeared again, more plainly.  Now a lantern was
moving about behind a pair of legs.  She could see just the legs,
scissors-like, cutting off the light at each step.  The lantern stopped
and burned steadily; then another appeared.  Then another.

The open side of a shed became visible, a block of deeper darkness
which made the night seem lighter.  Janet, scarce knowing her
intentions, kept going towards it.  The lantern which first stopped now
turned red and began ascending.  It was a coyote lantern.  It was going
up to the top of its pole.  A sheep _baaed_ with the suddenness of a
bagpipe.

Janet halted.  She had now gone dangerously near.  The fire invited her
to come; but many things warned her away.  What to do she did not know.

To her dismay, the problem very quickly took itself out of her hands.
The dog, alive to his duty, came out at her with alarming threats.  A
short distance from her he circled around her to make his attack from
the rear, as Scotch dogs wisely do.  Janet screamed and ran forward,
though not so willingly as a sheep.  As the dog desisted, in obedience
to a sharp command from his master, she halted again.  One of the
lanterns was suddenly lifted, and being held up to give a wider light
it shone full on the face of the man.  It was the countenance of Mr.
Stephen Brown.

"Goodness gracious!" said Janet.




CHAPTER V

Rumor worketh in a thousand ways her wonders to perform.

On the day of Janet's runaway, Tuck Reedy, of Thornton, rode in at the
southeast gate and struck out in the direction of certain water-holes,
his mission being to look over some B.U.J. cattle which had recently
been branded, and see whether their burns had "peeled" properly.

In a good many cases he found that the blow-flies had worked havoc, so
that, working single-handed, he had a great deal to do; and by the time
he had thrown a number of lusty calves and treated their sides with his
bottle of maggot medicine, he had pretty well worn-out the day.  Being
done, he turned his attention to a cow which had become deeply involved
in a boggy water-hole.  He threw the rope over her horns and pulled
with his pony this way and that, but without success.  Finally, when
the sun was going down on failure, he resolved to kill or cure.  He
gave the rope another turn round the horn of his saddle and started up
at imminent risk to her neck.  Her legs were rooted in the tough muck
as if they were the fangs of a colossal tooth, but Tuck pulled it; and
having now rounded out an honest day's work, his fancy turned toward
the fire of the sheep-herding Pete Harding.  Pete was a congenial
spirit, even if he was not much of a horseman, and he had a pack of
cards with which he passed much time, trying to beat himself at
solitaire.

Tuck did not know that Pete Harding was not at present in charge of the
sheep.  He eventually made the discovery by the light of Steve's fire;
and he made it at remarkably long range.  Like others whose vision has
been trained on far-off cattle, he was very long-sighted; his eye could
reach out and read the half-obliterated brand on a distant cow--a
faculty which saves a horse many steps, especially on a ranch where the
cattle do not all belong to one owner.  Tuck, being one of this kind,
was as yet afar off when he saw that there were two persons at the
fire.  Closer approach making the fact vividly plain, he pulled rein
and came to a stop.  Sure enough, it was a woman!  She was sitting
there eating supper!

The extraordinary spectacle quite balked his comprehension.  Having
taken in all visible details and circumstances, he very considerately
turned his horse and made himself "scarce."

On the following day, while everybody was waiting for the mail to be
distributed, Tuck was loitering up and down past the various groups on
Thornton's principal thoroughfare.  Coming finally to where the subject
of horse was being discussed, he joined himself to this multitude of
counselors; and finding Hank Bullen among those present, he related his
experience of the night before.  While the two speculated and
conjectured, others became included in the conversation, a process
which requires a story to be several times repeated.

"Did you say this was yesterday?" asked Ed Curtis, who had just caught
the drift of it.

"Last night," said Tuck.

"You say she wore a white collar and cuffs and a black felt hat?"

"No; I did n't see what sort of a hat she had.  She did n't have any
hat on.  I said she had on a dark dress with white around the wrists
and a wide white collar turned down."

"I passed that girl on the road yesterday.  She was going out that way.
She rode a sorrel with one stocking behind and a star."

"Why!" exclaimed Reedy, "that must 'a' been the horse I seen out on the
grass.  He was a short-coupled sorrel with a stocking on his near hind
leg, and he had a star.  I thought to myself that he looked corn-fed."

"That's hers.  She wore a man's hat.  It was turned up on one side with
a big breastpin.  I noticed it wasn't any eight-dollar hat; she had to
fix it that way to stiffen the brim in front.  It was a black hat."

"She must be intending to make a stay to turn him loose like that,"
remarked Bill Whallen.

Further discussion yielding nothing but these same facts, the talk came
round to horse-lore again.

A while later, Whallen, having called for his mail and received none,
stepped out of the post-office and ran his eye along the row of horses
at the hitching-rack.  At the end of the row was an extremely
starved-looking animal; and he was being stoutly defended by his owner,
Al Todd, against the aspersions of the drug clerk.

"All that horse needs," said Al Todd, "is a little something to eat.
What do you expect of a horse that is just out of the poor-house?
There's a real horse.  Look at his framework.  Look at them legs.  Look
at how he's ribbed up."

Whallen examined the horse's bones and teeth; then he stepped back and
took a general all-over view.

"What do you think of it?" asked the drug clerk.

"Is he for sale?" inquired Whallen, before answering.

"No, he ain't for sale," answered Todd.  "This fellow thinks he ain't a
nice horse."

"Well," said Whallen, "a man can easy enough put meat on a horse.  But
he can't put the bones in him."

"Nor the git-ap," added Todd.

"Does he know anything?" asked Whallen.

"That's just what he does," answered Todd.  "I threw a steer with him
yesterday and he held it while I made a tie.  A steer can't get any
slack rope on him.  He surprised me."

"Who had him?" inquired Whallen.

"Don't know.  I bought him up at the county-seat.  He was one of them
uncalled-for kind--like that suit of clothes they sold me up in
Chicago.  And Steve Brown says to me, 'I should say they were uncalled
for, entirely uncalled for.'  They can't fool me on horses, though."

"Say!" said Whallen; "Ed Curtis got in from Belleview yesterday.  When
he was coming along the road he met a girl on a sorrel.  And last night
Tuck Reedy--"

And Whallen went on to tell about the strange case of Steve Brown and
the woman.

"Was he sure that was Steve Brown?" the drug clerk questioned.

"Reedy could n't say it was Brown for certain; he did n't get a right
good view of his face.  He said it looked like him.  But he could see
the woman plain."

"Why, sure that was Brown," said the owner of the horse.  "I saw Pete
Harding when I was up at the county-seat; and he came along with me to
see them auction off the bunch of strays.  This horse was one of them;
that's why he's so thin.  I asked Harding who had his job now, and he
told me nobody had it because Brown was running the sheep himself."

"How did the woman come to be out there?"

"There was n't any woman out there when Pete left.  I know Pete.  Brown
came out there to see how things were doing, and while he was there
Pete remarked that sheep-life was getting pretty monotonous.  So Brown
told him to go away a while and give his mind a change.  Pete did n't
say anything about a woman."

"I guess Mr. Reedy did n't see very plain," remarked the drug clerk.

"See plain!" said Todd in disgust.  "You don't listen plain."

"Then Harding did n't quit on his own hook?" queried Whallen.

"He did n't quit at all.  He's going back in a few days if he gets
through being drunk.  He told me he had to get through before the lambs
was born.  He did n't know about any woman."

"Humph!  Brown went off by himself and did herding like that before.
He acts queer lately.  He don't say much."

"That's what Pete said.  Me and him trailed round Belleview all
morning, and I got him to go along and bid in this horse for me.  I saw
he was a good horse, but I did n't know he was rope-wise.  Look at his
backbone.  Look at how he's coupled up."

The drug clerk, having affected horse wisdom and miscarried, now
stepped forward and began feeling the distance between the horse's rump
and floating ribs, a move evidently intended to show his knowledge of
this last technical term.

"What's all that for!" inquired Todd, with a touch of surprise.  "Ain't
them bones plain enough to see?  I guess you think he is one of them
nice fat horses that you have got to feel."

"That's right, Al," remarked Whallen.  "Buy a horse like that and you
see what you 're getting.  What's the use feeling when the package is
open?"

The drug clerk, thus suddenly put out of countenance by the very bones
he had been flouting, stepped back and held his peace; and presently,
under cover of Whallen's going, he took his own departure.

Al, now that he had vanquished his opponent and made him seek the
intrenchment of his counter, cast his eye about and searched the length
of Main Street, one side and then the other.  He expected to get sight
of some one of the crew that had brought the cattle into the
loading-pens; but they had totally disappeared.  After looking into a
few likely places, and finding that he had guessed wrong, he paused on
a street corner to give the matter deeper thought.

"Come on, Al," said Toot Wilson, hastening past.

"Where at?"

"Up to the saddle-maker's.  They 're in there.  He is making a fine
one.  Did you see it?"

"No."

"It's for young Chase.  It's great work."

In John Diefenbach's workroom was a numerous company of saddle
admirers, sitting and lounging about in the seductive odor of new-mown
leather.  The saddler, happily busied among his patterns and punches
and embossing-tools, turned at times and peered over the rims of his
spectacles in evident satisfaction.  The heavy stock saddle, its
quantities of leather all richly beflowered, was mounted on a trestle
beside him.  It was so near completion that the long saddle-strings now
hung down in pairs all round, and these thongs, being of
lighter-colored leather, and sprouting out of the hearts of embossed
primroses, looked quite as if they were the natural new growth of that
spring--in fact the whole flourishing affair might have been expected
to put on a few more layers of leather out of its own powers of
luxuriance.  But there was nothing superfluous about it.

"What do you think of it, Al?" asked one of the company.

Todd looked it over, the broad hair girths fore and aft, the big cinch
rings and strong stirrup straps.  The stirrups were missing.  His eye
sought the hooks and pegs over the workbench.

"Do _them_ things go on it?" he asked, pointing an accusing finger.

Hanging on the wall was a pair of Mexican _tapaderas_--deep hooded
stirrups with a great superfluity of leather extending below as if they
were wings for the feet.

"Oh! no, no, no," said the saddler, turning hastily and holding up his
hand as if to quell this mental disturbance before it had gone too far.
"These go on it--these."  He held out a pair of plain wooden hoops.

Todd's countenance rearranged itself at once.

"She's a jim-dandy," said Todd.

With this verdict rendered, he seated himself on a chair which had a
nail-keg for legs and gave his attention to the principal speaker as he
resumed his account of a roping-match.  The story was rather long,
showing how it was that the best man did n't win.

In the ensuing silence Todd found his opportunity to speak.

"I just heard something," he said.  "Steve Brown is herding sheep."

"That's nothing," said the story-teller.  "He done that a couple of
times before."

"And they say there is a woman out there with him," added Todd.

"A woman!  What woman?"

"I don't know.  Tuck Reedy rode past and saw them sitting by the fire.
Ed Curtis saw her too."

"Whose sheep's he herdin'?" asked big Tom Brodie.

"I don't know anything about the sheep.  He's out there tending them.
And she's out there with him."

"I know what he's doing with them," said Harry Lee.  "He's
administrating them."

"What have they got?" inquired big Tom.

"Who's got what?"

"What is it that's ailin' them?  I say, what have they _got_?" repeated
Tom assertively, being a little in liquor.

"They have n't got anything.  I said he is administrating them.  When a
man dies, the court chooses somebody that's reliable to settle up what
he leaves.  And this other fellow sees that everything is tended to and
done on the square.  They were John Clarkson's sheep, and they belong
to his little boy.  He is administrating them."

"Huh!" grunted Tom, whose untutored mind now needed a rest.

"But how about this woman?" asked Frank Sloan.

"She's turned her horse out to grass; and she's out there with him.
Just him and her.  All alone."

"Pshaw!" said Harry Lee.  "They ain't alone.  How could Tuck Reedy tell
she was alone just by the light of the fire?  There might have been
somebody in the shack.  Or behind it."

"And maybe the horse had just pulled up his stake-rope," said another.

"Or maybe the horse had hobbles on," added another.

"_Did n't I tell you Ed Curtis saw the same woman?_" said Todd, now
growing assertive.  "And she was going out there alone.  And if there
was anybody else around would n't they be eating supper with them?  And
if a horse was dragging a stake-rope would n't Tuck Reedy know it?"

To make the matter unquestionable he now started at the very beginning
and told it all, going into details and pointing out how one witness
corroborated another.

"You say she wore a felt hat?  And was light-haired?"

"Yes.  It was black.  It was turned up at the side."

"Hell!  I know who that is!" exclaimed Sloan.

"Why, that's a woman that was up here at Preston.  Said she was an
actress.  She came along with a fellow and started a saloon over on the
other side of the tracks near the loading-pen.  After a while the women
folks got to talking about the place and making objections; so then the
rent was raised.  I heard just the other day that she left town on a
horse and was looking around the country.  She fastened the side of it
up with a big pin."

"A big breastpin," said Al Todd.

"That's her."

Here was a sufficient subject.  Recollection failed to bring up a
parallel.  It was something new in sheep-herding.

"Well," said Sloan, finally, "a man's liable to end almost anywhere if
he takes it into his head to herd sheep.  They can raise all of them
they want, but I 'll stick to cattle; 'specially in spring.  One thing
about a cow or a mare is that you don't ever have to teach her the
mamma business."

"Some sheep," remarked Todd, "ain't got natural human affections.  When
one of that kind has a lamb you've got to mix in and get her to adopt
it.  And half the time it's twins.  And maybe she's willin' to take one
and won't have the other.  I would n't have the patience."

"Nor me, either," said Harry Lee.  "I have a brother that tried it one
time.  And after he got through with that band of sheep, it would have
taken Solomon to straighten out the family troubles.  One thousand of
them.  Some had twins and some did n't have any, and the bunch was full
of robber lambs."

"What's robber lambs?" asked Diefenbach, who had now turned his back on
the workbench.

"That's a lamb that has n't got any mother in particular.  Maybe his
own mother died or disowned him.  And the other sheep all know their
own lambs and won't have anything to do with him.  You see, a sheep is
mighty particular; no admittance unless he 's the right one, according
to smell.  And maybe she won't take one anyway.  Then the lamb is up
against trouble; he keeps going round trying to get dinner everywhere.
If he 's a robber lamb, he finds out that if he comes up and takes his
dinner from behind she can't smell him and don't know the difference.
What a sheep don't know don't hurt her.  That's where a lot of trouble
comes in."

"What hurt does that do?" inquired the philosophic Diefenbach.  "Has
n't a lamb got to have some milk?"

"Sure.  But that sheep has got a lamb of her own; and pretty likely she
has twins, and it's all she can do to keep them.  So this lamb that's
onto the game comes and robs them."

"You see, it's like this," put in Sloan.  "Suppose you have a thousand
sheep; and over here is a lot of lambs playing around.  You see, a
sheep and a lamb don't always go together like a cow and a calf.  Sheep
are awful monotonous, and I guess the lambs know it.  So they go off in
a bunch and have a good time.  And when one of them gets hungry he lets
a bleat out of him and starts for the bunch of sheep.  They are all
tuned up to a different sound; so are the sheep.  And the lamb and the
sheep know each other by sound.  Well, the sheep will hear that and
she'll let out her sound and get an answer back, and that way he 'll
find her in the bunch.  Maybe they meet halfway; then she smells him
and it is all right.  Well, we have a thousand sheep all grazing
together; and off here is a bunch of lambs with a lot of robbers among
them, all playing and skipping around and having a hell of a time.
Well, a robber lamb gets hungry all of a sudden, so he skips off and
takes the first sheep that comes handy.  He takes what ain't his.  And
maybe it's twins.  After a while little Johnny and Mary come home and
then _they 're_ up against it."

"And if you let things go like that," added Lee, "one sheep won't have
any lamb or any milk and another will be feeding two twins and a
robber.  You can't raise sheep that way."

"But what is a man going to do about _that_?  How can _he_ help it?"
pursued Diefenbach.

"Why," said Lee, "he 's got to keep track of them when they 're being
born and see that every sheep takes her lamb and gets to liking it.
Whenever there's one that don't want a lamb he's got to tend to her."

"_Donnerwetter!_" exclaimed Diefenbach, reverting momentarily to his
native tongue.  He picked up a beading-punch and turned to his own line
of industry.

From sheep they got back to horses again,--conversation usually travels
in a circle,--and being now in their native element they continued in
one stay, discussing ways and means

  "To wind and turn a fiery Pegasus,
  And witch the world with noble horsemanship."


The story of the woman had reached this state, circumstantial and
complete, when, by divers methods, it got out to the more aristocratic
circles of Claxton Road.




CHAPTER VI

There was not a stone, it is safe to say, within half a day's walk of
Claxton Road.  Prairie country of the black-waxy variety is noticeably
bereft of this usual feature of life, the lazy Southern ocean which
formerly brooded over these parts having deposited black, rich muck
till it covered everything post-hole deep.  And so if a man had wanted
a stone to throw he would have had to walk several miles to find one,
by which time, of course, his anger would have cooled off.  Originally
there had been one here and there, but these solitary specimens, being
such a novelty, and standing out so plainly on the flat scene, had been
picked up by farmer or cowboy and taken home.  Thus each of the several
stones in those parts was engaged in holding open the barn door or the
ranch gate, or was established in the back yard to crack pecan nuts on,
much to the improvement of flatirons.  If a man had stolen one and used
it openly, he would sooner or later have been found out.  But why do we
speak of stones?

Shortly after supper, Mrs. Arthur Wright--Kitty they still called
her--came out of the front gate whistling, and going to the middle of
the road, there being no sidewalk that far out from town, she turned to
the left and set out for the Chautauqua meeting at Captain Chase's.
Claxton road, coming in from the county-seat, changed its name a mile
or so out of Thornton and became Claxton Road.  The Wright residence
may be said to have been located just where the capital R began.  At
this point the barb wire of the prairie thoroughfare gave way, on the
left-hand side, to the white fences of suburban estates with big front
yards and windmills and stables; and on the right there came, at the
same time, an unfenced vacancy, or "free grass," which, though it had a
private owner somewhere, might be called a common.  The estates along
Claxton Road faced this big common, looking across it toward the
cottages which marked the edge of town on the other side, and there was
nothing to obstruct the view except a time-blackened frame house which,
for some reason, had posted itself right in the middle of this spacious
prospect.  These places along Claxton Road were the homes of cattle and
sheep-men who owned vast ranches in adjacent counties.  They had thus
herded themselves together, largely, if not entirely, on account of
Woman and her institutions.

As the Wright place was the farthest out in this row of suburban
estates, Mrs. Wright was frequently the first to start to a Chautauqua
or other social affair; indeed, had it not been that she made a
practice of hurrying up the others as she went along, she would usually
have been the first to arrive.  A short walk brought her to Harmon's,
and here bringing to a hurried conclusion the Wedding March from
"Lohengrin,"--an excellent tune to march by,--she changed her flutelike
notes for a well-known piercing trill.  At the second shrill summons
Mrs. Harmon came to the door.

"Just a minute, Kitty--I 'm coming."

"Don't forget your specimen," called Mrs. Wright.

Mrs. Harmon, after a somewhat protracted minute, came out with nothing
on her arm but a book.

"I 've just been too busy for anything," she explained.  "You know I
had the dressmaker two days--I thought I 'd take the opportunity while
George was away at the ranch.  And, besides," she added, after a short
pause, "I did n't think of it."

"That's right, Statia.  Always tell the truth, even as an afterthought."

"My! but you 're coming out bright this evening," responded Mrs. Harmon.

"I hope we can depend upon the others," mused Kitty.

Mrs. Dix and Mrs. Norton came out of their respective homes
empty-handed except for books.  So also Mrs. Plympton and her mother.

"Well, I just don't care," said Mrs. Norton.  "How in the world could I
get a stone?  I have been having the awfulest time with our windmill.
The thingumajig that is supposed to turn it off has got broken or
something and it keeps pumping water all over where I don't want it to.
If I had an artificial pond like the Harmons I would know what to do
with so much water.  I wonder when Jonas Hicks will get back?"

"I wonder!" echoed Mrs. Dix.  "I was depending upon him.  Mr. Dix said
he expected him back in a day or two.  If it had n't been for that he
would n't have taken Fred along; for you know I can't put a saddle on
Major myself.  Jonas will probably be back to-day or to-morrow he said."

"I am su-u-u-ure," said little Grandma Plympton, in her sweet and
feeble tremolo,--"I am su-u-u-ure that if we had all asked Mr. Hicks to
get us a stone he would most willingly have done so.  Mr. Hicks would
do anything for a lady."

Grandma Plympton--what there was left of her after seventy-four years
of time's attrition--had a way of speaking which made it easy enough to
believe that she had, in her day, been a beautiful singer.  As her
message to the world was usually one of promise and reassurance, she
had the gift of dwelling with songlike sweetness on those words in
which the music lay.  She was altogether lovable and quaint.  On fine
days she would still go forth alone, bearing her mother-of-pearl
card-case, and she would leave her card here or there as naturally as a
flower drops a petal; for despite her years she had by no means turned
traitor to Society.  Nor had Society so much as thought of leaving her
out.  In her, indeed, the fine flower of aristocracy was still in
bloom, and delicately fragrant.

The party, suiting their pace to hers, went more slowly after passing
Plymptons', whereupon Grandma, finding herself thus accommodated, gave
over what efforts she had been making and went more slowly still; and
so, when they came to the Brown place, which faced the middle of the
common, they were moving at a most deliberate rate.  As they arrived
opposite the small gate, they all, as if by simultaneous thought,
stopped at once.

The object of their sudden interest was a rockery in the front yard.
This work, a pile of smooth boulders about three feet in height, and as
yet only partially covered with young vines, was the only scenic rival
to the artificial pond in the Harmons' front yard.  Steve Brown built
it to please his mother, picking up a boulder here and there in the
course of his travels and getting it home by balancing it on the horn
of his saddle.  During the last weeks of her illness, when her
wandering mind went back to the hills of her girlhood, her imagination
played continually around this mimic mountain of Steve's, and as it
seemed to be the one joy of her prairie-spent life, he would carry her
out on the porch in good weather and prop her up so that she could sit
and look at it.  Jonas Hicks, becoming interested, took a hand in the
work; he kept on making contributions as long as the resources of the
country held out.  Here was one reason that there was not a sole stone
remaining to be discovered.

"If we only had a few of them!" suggested Mrs. Norton.

"Yes--but he might not like it," said the younger Mrs. Plympton.

"But we would just borrow them, you know," explained Mrs. Norton.  "And
anyway, how are we going to get along without them?  Here we have
arranged for the Professor to come and tell us about them; and we all
promised to bring a specimen.  It will seem strange for not one of us
to have a rock."

"Oh, I don't think it would do any harm for us to borrow a few stones,"
said Kitty Wright.  "I don't see anything so awful about it."

There came a pause of indecision.  Mrs. Harmon--she was the dignified
Daniel Webster of the circle, and just the opposite of the small and
sprightly Mrs. Wright--was yet to be heard from.

"Really," she said, "we ought not to agree to do things and then not do
them.  We should have done it or else found somebody like Jonas Hicks
to do it for us.  What's everybody's business is nobody's business."

"And what's nobody's business is everybody's business," added Mrs.
Wright.

"Good!" exclaimed Mrs. Norton.  "Where did you hear that, Kitty?"

"I just heard myself say it.  I did it with my little hatchet."

"Sort of a double-edged axiom," observed Mrs. Harmon.

"I am su-u-u-ure," chimed Grandma Plympton, "that if Mr. Brown were
here, and knew the circumstances, he would most wi-i-i-llingly offer to
assist us.  Of course, we should never take--what does not belong to
us, without the owner's permission, but I am qui-i-i-i-ite sure that if
we were to take them and put them back just where we got them, Mr.
Brown would quite approve of it."

"Mother has a very high opinion of Stephen Brown," said Mrs. Plympton.

"Mr. Brown is quite a gentleman, indeed," said Grandma.

This advice, coming from so white a priestess, and in words that lent
so musical and sweet a sanction, removed the last mote of conjecture
from the air.  Mrs. Wright, as usual, was the first to take action.
Every set of women, probably, has its recognized clown, she who is just
too cute and killing.  And those who do not like her say she is
tiresome and "silly."  Mrs. Wright, in keeping with the character, went
through the gate with exaggerated show of dissolute abandon.

"Come on, girls," she said, breaking into the rockery.  "I do hope I
'll get one with feldspar in it, or something nice and interesting."

Mrs. Norton, having been the one to make the suggestion, now followed
her own advice; Mrs. Dix, taking example from Mrs. Norton, came next;
thus the motion was carried.  And pretty soon the caravan moved
forward, heavily laden with food for thought.

The next two houses in the line of march were those of Mrs. Jephson,
and Mrs. Osgood and her sister Hannah--she was quite usually spoken of
as Mrs. Osgood's sister; but the two latter had already gone.

"What do you think?" said Mrs. Jephson.  "I just got word that Oliver
would n't be home to-night, and he is probably gone for several days.
And Captain Chase, too.  The Captain had to go to San Antonio on
business, and Oliver went along."

"The Captain, too!  Not a man left in the neighborhood!" said Mrs.
Harmon.

"Except Uncle Israel," added Mrs. Wright.

Uncle Israel was the Captain's aged darky.

A shortage of men was nothing new to the ladies of this community.
Rather, being a cattle-raising country, it was a thing to be expected
at any time in spring or fall; and when Claxton Road did enumerate its
full quota of husbands, fathers, and brothers, many of them were liable
to be absent from Chautauqua.  Always with good excuse, however.  One
would be getting ready for a trip to the ranch; another would have to
stay at home to instruct his foreman; another would have to sit up with
a costly bull that was going through the rigors of acclimation; and on
more than one occasion it was the very man who was being depended upon
to tell them all about civil war or civil government who would have to
be excused by his wife for some such reason, upon which there would be
a chatter of regret and the meeting would fall into a conference upon
matters in general.  While the gentlemen would "expatiate and confer"
with one another as to what breeding would produce the most wrinkles on
a sheep's back (thus giving the greatest wool-bearing surface), the
ladies would devise new wrinkles to make use of it.  And usually the
ones who produced the raw material would be entirely through with their
plans while yet the consumers were settling fine points with regard to
the finished product.  In this matter of higher culture, the true bent
of masculine nature was likely to betray itself in absence.  But the
present scarcity of man may be said to have been somewhat above the
average.

For some distance the ladies went forward without saying a word.  A
spell of utter silence had fallen upon the party.  Then Mrs. Wright
spoke.

"Statia."

"Yes."

"Do you remember what we studied about gravity?"

"Why, certainly.  Every certain number of feet a thing falls it goes
twice as fast."

"Well, I have made a discovery just as good as Sir Isaac Newton's.
Every foot you carry a rock it gets twice as heavy."

Some one among them dropped her burden; instantly they all let go.  The
boulders struck the road with almost as simultaneous a thump as when
the drill-sergeant calls out "Ground arms."

"Oh!  I 'm nearly dead," said Mrs. Norton.

"So 'm I," gasped Mrs. Dix, sinking down on the roadside grass.

"O-h-h-h!" gasped Mrs. Plympton.

The next minute or two was devoted to breathing.

"Why did n't you _say_ you were nearly dead?" demanded Mrs. Harmon,
when she had somewhat recovered.

"Why did n't _you_ say something?" replied Mrs. Dix.

"Why did n't we all say something?" inquired Mrs. Norton.  "I did n't
know the rest of you were as tired as me."

Mrs. Wright, despite she was the smallest of the number, was evidently
the hardiest; she had calmly turned her stone over and sat down upon it.

"It's a wonder you don't all blame it on me," she said philosophically.

"Well, whatever I learn about this stone I 'll never forget," remarked
Mrs. Dix.  "Never as long as I live.  Let's take them back."

"Yes; but it's farther to go back than it is to keep on," said Mrs.
Harmon.  "And we certainly can't leave them here.  We are responsible
for them."

A very evident state of affairs.  Being begun it had to be done.

"Come on, stone, we're going," said Mrs. Wright, taking hers up again.

The others followed.  Again the rock-laden ladies went manfully onward.

When next they reached the limit of endurance, Chase's big red gate was
so near that they hung on with final determination, and when they were
almost to it they rushed forward to get inside the goal before the
rocks fell.  They all succeeded except Mrs. Plympton, who lost hers in
the middle of the road and then finished its journey by rolling it.

"I was never so glad in my life before that I am not a horse," she said.

Virginia Chase had come down the path to shut the gate, which some one
among the earlier arrivals had not properly fastened, and she was the
bearer of bad news.  The Professor, after all, would not be able to be
present.  He had one of his sick headaches again.

"And who else do you think is sick?" added Virginia.  "Aberdeen Boy.  I
wish Jonas Hicks was back, because Uncle Israel does not know very
much, really, about stock.  I am so worried.  He held his head out so
funny, I thought maybe it was something the matter with the ring in his
nose.  But it wasn't.  He is just sick."

"I am su-u-u-ure," said Grandma Plympton, "that if Jonas Hicks were
back he could give him something that would relieve him."

When the specimen-hunters had recovered from their labors they
accompanied Virginia up the driveway, explaining, as they went, the
whole case of the abducted rockery.  In the Chase's big sitting-room
the earlier contingent was drawn together in conversation as close as
chairs would permit, and as the belated ones entered they were greeted
with exclamations in which there was an extra touch of the joy of life,
it being in the very nature of gossip to seek new openings and exploit
itself in mystery and surprise.

"Hurry up, Statia; get your things off and come here----  Wait, Mrs.
Osgood; don't tell anymore till Kitty is here----  Sh-h-h-h; be careful
what you say before Grandma Plympton."

The newcomers, returning from the bedroom divested of their wraps,
began at once to relate their own experiences in geology, but they had
no more than stated the bare facts when they became aware that there
was a more absorbing topic in the air.  Somebody had told Mrs. Osgood's
hired man, who had told his wife, who told Mrs. Osgood--but for that
matter there was no great secret about it.

"Have n't you heard a thing about it, Mrs. Plympton--re-e-eally?"

This was asked by one who had herself heard of it only a few minutes
before.

"Why, no; what is it?"

"You tell it, Mrs. Osgood.  You can tell it best."

Then followed the story.  In the course of its travels it had not
suffered any loss of detail; it had rather prospered.  Each person to
whom it had been intrusted had sent it on its way richer and better; it
became longer and truer.  And so Mrs. Osgood told it, ably assisted by
those who had just heard it and kept seeing new phases of it.  Finally
the case was rested.

"What do you think of it, Mrs. Plympton?  You live nearest to him."

"I must say that I am surprised.  But then, I don't know whether a
person ought to be surprised at anything like that."

"And to think of it!" said Mrs. Dix.  "Away out there where nobody is
likely to come along once in two weeks.  What an idea!"

"Well," remarked Mrs. Harmon, who had been taking time, and might
therefore be supposed to have given the matter her weightier
consideration, "it is, in fact, just what one might expect.  He has
always been so steady and sober-minded.  It is n't as if he had had a
greater variety of interests and more social inclination and--wilder,
you know.  He was entirely devoted to his mother; and he has n't the
resources and flexibility to make so complete a change easily, and
naturally."

"He has been acting quite strangely since his mother died,"
interpolated Mrs. Dix.  "He cooks and eats and sleeps out on that
kitchen porch, and does n't seem to take any pleasure in being invited
out, or spending an evening at other people's houses."

"That's it," said Mrs. Harmon.  "In his position, and especially his
_dis_position, a man is just ripe for the first adventuress that comes
along.  In considering such things we ought to make allowances."

"I suppose so," remarked Mrs. Norton.  "But to think of it being _her_.
The low calculating thing!"

Grandma Plympton was out in the dining-room with Virginia sipping a
glass of wine, and having admired an embroidered sideboard scarf, a
recent work of Virginia's, she was now engaged in examining other
things as they came forth from a lower drawer, which creations
interested her so much that Virginia went still deeper into the family
treasury and finally brought forth a sampler and counterpane which her
own grandmother had wrought.  The examination of these things, together
with reminiscence of her own early achievements, kept Grandma Plympton
so long that by the time she reached the sitting-room the absorbing
topic had subsided from its first exclamatory stage and was being
treated in a more allusive and general way.  Grandma soon gathered from
the allusions that Stephen Brown had at last met the lady of his choice.

"Indeed!" she exclaimed.  "Now I am sure he will settle down and make
an excellent husband.  Not that there was anything bad about him, not
at all; but he was rather wild when he was a boy, and gave his mother a
great deal of worriment--especially, I mean, when he took his cattle up
into the Territory.  And in those days she could hardly keep him from
joining the Rangers.  But now he is older and more sensible and has had
responsibilities; and I am su-u-u-ure it will be a fine match for any
young lady."

It is hardly in human nature to shatter such illusions.  Thereafter,
the subject of the evening was more guardedly treated, pending her
departure.  Grandma Plympton, valiant as she was in the social cause,
could seldom stay up for more than the first few numbers of a dance,
and she could never, of late, remain to the end of an evening party.
Before a great while she signified her readiness to go, and after her
usual courtly leave-taking she went away on the arm of her
daughter-in-law.

"Do you know," said Mrs. Dix, "I hardly felt like saying anything
before her.  She is so old and innocent."

"Is n't she!" said Mrs. Osgood.

Virginia, much exercised over the health of Aberdeen Boy, had gone out
to the barn to have a talk with Uncle Israel, who, with a peacock
fly-fan moving majestically back and forth, was sitting up with
eighteen hundred pounds of sick bull.  Aberdeen Boy, a recent
importation, and one of the noblest of those who were to refine the
wild-eyed longhorns of Texas, was having no more trouble with
acclimation than his predecessors; he manifested his illness simply by
lying down and looking more innocent than usual, and heaving big sighs
which wrung Virginia's heart.

In the sitting-room the study of Steve Brown went forward prosperously
again, but especially now in regard to the woman in the case.  If the
one they named was anywhere within range of psychic influence, it is
safe to say her left ear burned that evening.  And when, finally, it
was all over, the guests, departing, paused at the gate and turned
their thoughts to the rocks there assembled.

"What will we do?  I would n't carry mine for anything," said Mrs.
Norton.

"Why, leave them here.  We 'll have Jonas Hicks come and get them,"
said Mrs. Harmon.




CHAPTER VII

Janet caught her breath and looked about her.  It was the same shack on
a hillock, the same gully and sheep-pen and dog, likewise the same Mr.
Brown.  Under the circumstances, it was natural for her to try to say
something, and she did the best she could.  When he had gathered, from
her rather unexplanatory remarks, just what had happened, the first
thought that crossed his mind was that he had eaten the last piece of
fruit-cake which she left behind.  If there is anything embarrassing to
a man, it is to have company come unexpectedly when there is not a
thing fit to eat in the house.  He had finished up the cake a short
while before, together with the remainder of crackers and a dill pickle.

"I have eaten up all the good stuff," he explained.  "Do you like
beans?"

"Yes, indeed," answered Janet, who was truly hungry.

He lifted the lid of the box and produced a small iron pot of boiled
beans.  They were beans of the Mexican variety, a kind which look nice
and brown because they are that color before you cook them.  When he
had put some bacon into the frying-pan and given it time to heat, he
scraped the beans in and stirred them up.  He had made bread for supper
by the usual method of baking soft dough in a skillet with the lid on;
there was left of this a wedge big enough to split the stoutest
appetite; and when he had placed this where it would warm up, he turned
his attention to the coffee-pot.

"Oh, you do not need to do that.  I can make my own coffee," offered
Janet.

"You had better let me get supper," he answered.  "You 're tired."

Several times during the day she had pondered upon his high-handed way
of taking charge of her affairs.  Submitting to this further dictation,
she spread her slicker before her place at table, as indicated by the
bare spot of ground, and sat down.  Mr. Brown took a bucket and
disappeared in the gully.  Evidently he had gone to get fresh water.
Janet now put her feet out farther toward the fire.

When he returned, he made some remarks upon the weather and put on the
coffee; then he turned about and went into the shack.  As on the
previous evening, everything came tumbling pell-mell out of the door.
Janet, having nothing else to do, looked up and gave her attention to a
big sixteen-carat star.

Shep, the dog, came and planted himself at the very edge of the bare
spot.  Without giving her so much as a glance, he sat there primly and
looked straight off the end of his nose at the sugar bowl in the
middle.  Not till this moment had Janet realized what a beautiful,
intelligent-looking collie dog Mr. Brown had.  His brown-buff coat, of
just the right shade, seemed slightly veiled with black; his full
out-arching front was pure white.

"Shep," said Janet.

His fine eyebrow rose as he gave her a look--a very short one, however.
When she addressed him again she could see his interest rising a
degree; finally he came and sat down beside her.  Encouraged by this
show of friendship, Janet put her hand on him.

When her host had got through with the more violent exercises of
practical courtesy,--which sounded somewhat like trouble in a
barroom,--he came out bearing a jug marked MOLASSES; this he set down
before her, and then, finding the coffee done, he proceeded to serve up
the viands.

"That is n't much of a supper," he remarked, sitting down opposite.

"It tastes very good," said Janet.

It hardly did seem the right thing to set before such a guest.  But
Janet, as good as her word, steadily made way with the _frijole_ beans
and did full justice to the hot bread; and soon, inspirited by his
powerful coffee, she continued the story of how she was frightened by
the steer and baffled by the brook, and how she was foolish enough to
think she was going straight forward all the time.

He had a way, whenever she came to a pause, of enticing her to go on.
Sometimes he primed the conversation by repeating the last thing she
had said; again, an apt word or two summed up the whole spirit of the
matter encouragingly; or there would be just a composed waiting for her
to resume.

Not that he had any difficulty in finding something to say.  He
evidently liked to hear her talk, and so he rather deferred to her.
Whether it was that she now had a feeling of this, or that there was
something in the influence of his presence, his voice and manner, which
removed all constraint, Janet had not the least difficulty in talking.
She told him how the teacher at the school "boarded round," what an
unnecessary number of classes Miss Porter had for so small a number of
pupils,--although it was difficult to remedy the matter by "setting
back" certain children, because their proud mothers would object to
such a leveling,--and how the Blodgett children, four of them, all came
to school on the back of one buckskin pony, the youngest having to hold
on tight to keep from slipping off at the tail.  "Buckskin,"; it
seemed, had won quite a place in Janet's affections, although he was
the worst behaved horse that came to school.  He used to graze in the
yard till school was out,--the other horses being staked out on the
prairie,--and he had become so familiar that he would sometimes go so
far as to put his head in at the window in hope of being fed.  And
Janet could not see, considering that Texas horses were used to being
staked out, what reason there had been for building a fence around a
school that stood out on open prairie, unless it was, perchance, that
the Texans thought they ought to have a corral to herd the children in.

While she was thus going on, there came from the corral a bleat in the
awe-inspiring tone of _Fa_, and this was followed by a succession of
bleats which reminded her of nothing so much as a child getting its
hands on the keyboard of an organ.  Steve, as if suddenly admonished of
something, rose to his feet, excused himself, and disappeared in the
direction of the corral.

With the place before her temporarily vacant, and unable to see out of
her circle of light except by looking upward, Janet instinctively
lifted her eyes to the scene above.  Thousands and thousands of stars
made the night big and beautiful.  They were so clear and so lively, as
if they took joy in their shining.  A mild southern breeze gave the
night motion and perfume.  Janet took a deep breath which was hardly a
sigh; it was rather a big drink of air and the final suspiration of all
her worries.  As she took in more deeply the constellated heavens and
the free fresh spirit of the roaming air, she began to feel that she
would rather like to be a sheep-herder herself.  From looking at so
many, her mind turned back to her selected star, the "captain jewel" of
them all, and her eye sought its whereabouts again.  In others she
could see tremulous tinges of red and blue; but this seemed to be the
pure spirit of light.  Unconsciously she had put her arm around the
dog, as if to hold on to this earth, and Shep, whose affection had been
steadily growing, nudged up closer and gave her a sense of warm
companionship.

When Steve returned from his mysterious errand, he looked at her a
moment and then fetched an armful of wood.  The fire, to serve better
the purposes of cooking, had been allowed to burn down to coals, and
the smouldering embers now gave so little light that the face and
figure of his guest were losing themselves in obscurity.  As this state
of affairs hardly suited him, he piled on the dry mesquite brush and
fanned it with his hat into leaping flames.  When Janet was lit up to
his satisfaction, he put down the hat and resumed his earthen lounge.

As he stretched himself out before her, lithe-limbed and big-chested,
the atmosphere of that firelit place seemed filled with a sense of
safety.  His deliberate manner of speech, quite different from the
slowness of a drawl, was the natural voice of that big starry world so
generous of time.  Occasionally he made a remark which ought to have
been flattery, but which, coming from him, was so quiet and true that
one might float on it to topics of unknown depth.  He was so evidently
interested in everything she said, and his attention was so
single-minded and sincere, that Janet was soon chatting again upon the
subject of her recent circumnavigation of the prairie, which, as she
now saw it in the light of the present, seemed more and more a sea of
flowers--as the Past always does.  Indeed, the whole recent course of
her experience was such a novelty--the trip to Texas was her first real
adventure in the world--that she saw things with the new vision of a
traveler; and the present situation, turning out so happily, put the
cap-sheaf on that dream which is truly Life.  Janet, recently delivered
from all danger, and yet sitting right in the middle of her adventures,
had a double advantage; she was living in the present as well as the
past, breathing the sweetness of the air, looking up at the big flock
of stars and seeing in them all nothing less than the divine
shepherding.

"But, of all the wonderful things I ever saw," she exclaimed.  "Why, it
was worth walking all day to see it."

"What was it?" he asked.

"Sensitive plants.  And when I came they all lowered their branches to
their sides like--well, slowly, like this--"

She held her right arm out straight and lowered it slowly and steadily
to her side.  And a most graceful and shapely arm it was.

"I would n't have been so much surprised," she continued, "to just see
leaves fold together, like clover.  You know clover leaves all shut up
at night and go to sleep.  But these plants were quite large and they
actually _moved_.  And of course the leaves shut together, too; they
were long like little tender locust leaves, and each one folded itself
right in the middle."

She placed her hands edge to edge and closed them together to show him.

"But, you know, while they were doing that, they were folding back
against their long stems, and the stems were folding back against the
branches, and the straight branches were all folding downwards against
the main stalk.  What I mean is that everything worked together, like
this--"

Janet extended both arms with her fingers widely spread; then, as her
arms gradually lowered, her fingers closed together.

"It was something like that," she added, "but not exactly; it was ten
times as much--something like the ribs of an umbrella going down all
around, with stems and rows of locust leaves all along them closing
together.  And every little leaf was like a rabbit laying back its
ears."

"Yes; I know what you mean," said Steve.  "They are a kind of mimosa.
Some people call them that."

"Well," said Janet, "I sat and watched one.  I just touched it with a
hatpin and it did that.  A person would almost think it had
intelligence.  And after a while--when it thought I was gone, I
suppose--it began to open its leaves and stems and put its arms out
again."

She raised her arms slowly, spreading her fingers.  Steve was a most
attentive listener and spectator.  He rather wished there were other
plants to imitate.

"But that wasn't really what I started to tell about," she went on.
"As I was walking along I came to a--well, you might say a whole
_crowd_ of them.  There was quite a growth like a patch of ferns.  I
had n't got to them yet, or even taken particular notice of them,--I
must have been ten or twelve feet away,--when they all began to close
up.  I stopped perfectly still; and pretty soon the green leaves were
gone and the place was all changed.  Now, how do you suppose those
plants ever _knew_ I was coming?  I would give anything to know how
such things can be."

"How much would you give?" inquired Steve.

For a moment, the spirit of this question hung in the balance.  He felt
the spell of her inquiring eyes as her hand dropped idly on Shep's back.

"Why--do you know?" she asked doubtfully.

"I think I do," he answered.  "You see, that kind of plants have very
long roots; they run away out.  You stepped on their toes."

"Well, I declare," said Janet, enthusiastic again.  "And what a way of
saying it."

"It looks simple enough, does n't it?" he remarked.

"And I never thought of it.  Why, it was enough to make a person
superstitious.  Isn't nature wonderful!"

As she took up the coffee, too long neglected, Steve got an imaginary
taste of it, and finding it neither hot nor cold, he arose and took her
cup.  Having refilled it and offered her more of the beans, which to
his surprise and gratification she accepted, he made another trip to
the corral.  In a little while he returned and promptly took his place.

"You were saying this morning," he began, "that you were going to the
county-seat.  Were you sure that you could find your way all alone?"

"Oh, yes," answered Janet.  "I was there before.  You see, I took an
examination a couple of months ago, when I first came."

"Oh; that's it.  What sort of a certificate did that
little--examiner--give you?"

There was something in the sound of this question which conveyed to her
that he regarded her standing in an examination largely as a matter of
luck.  Janet felt an instant approval of this philosophy of the matter.

"Third-class," she answered.

"Well, that's better than fourth-class," he remarked.

"Oh--but there _is_ no fourth-class," exclaimed Janet.

Her eyes widened as she waited to hear what his reply to this might be.

He entirely ignored the matter.

"That examiner is a kind of a cocky little rooster, is n't he?" he
commented.

"Did you ever have any trouble with him?" inquired Janet.

"Me!"  He was evidently surprised that she should think so.  "Why, no.
I don't know him.  I just saw him a few times.  He is a sort of a
dried-up little party.  You know I get up to the court-house once in a
while to have a brand registered or something like that."

"He _is_ rather important--for his size," mused Janet.  "And very
particular about his looks."

"They have a man teacher at a school near my house," remarked Steve, in
no seeming connection.

"I suppose he has a first-class certificate," said Janet.  "Until
lately it was easy to get a school in Texas.  But the country school
boards rate you by your certificate more and more.  This time I am
going to get first-class, or at least second.  If I don't I 'll have to
go back North."

"What kind of questions does that fellow ask when he examines people?"
Steve inquired.

"Well--for instance--'Give the source and course of the Orizaba.'"

"Huh!" remarked Steve.

"To tell the truth," said Janet, "I would n't have got even third-class
if it had n't been for the way I pulled through in geography."

"Are you good in geography?"

"Hardly.  I just passed.  He asked a great many questions about
climate, and every time he asked that I wrote that it was salubrious.
You see," she explained, with a sly little air, "in the children's
geographies the climate of a country is nearly always salubrious.  So I
took a chance on every country.  That brought my average up."

"Good for you," exclaimed Steve.  "Nothing like beating them at their
own game.  Won't you have some more coffee?"

"No, thank you," said Janet.  "Two cups is really more than I ought to
drink at night."

Having risen in expectation of getting the coffee, he gave the fire
another armful of mesquite.

"You take a good deal of notice of flowers, don't you!" he said,
sitting down again.

"A person could hardly help it in Texas.  Lilies and trumpet-flowers
and lobelias and asters and dahlias and wax-plants--they all grow wild
here.  And in spring it is just wonderful.  There is scarcely room for
grass."

"Texas won't be like that long, if it keeps on."

"No?"

"These plants all grow from seed.  And when the land is heavily grazed
they don't have a chance to plant themselves.  They become--what do you
call it--extinguished?"

"Extinct," prompted Janet.

"On my ranch, about twelve miles from here, it is n't what it used to
be in springtime.  We've got it pretty heavily stocked; we 're working
it over into shorthorn.  This place that we're on now has a fence all
around it; the country is becoming crowded.  And they are breaking
farms all the time, too.  It won't last long."

"Won't that be a shame!" said Janet.  "People spoil everything, don't
they?  I am glad I came down here just to see the Texas prairie in
spring.  Even if I do have to go back again.  Just look at that!"

She reached out, and, grasping a handful, she bent the still rooted
bouquet so that the light shone full upon its countenance.

"How did you come to know the names of them all?" he asked.

"Why, we grow them in gardens up North.  I know their names in that
way.  They are old acquaintances."

"Oh, that's it.  Well, it is n't hard to grow them here.  Us fellows
out on the prairie make all our flower-beds round."

Janet paused.

"Oh!" she exclaimed.  "You mean the _horizon_.  Is n't that an idea!  I
am going to tell that to Ruth Ferguson the first time I write."

Steve made no reply.  Janet gave her attention for a space to the
beans.  Then, suddenly reminded, she put down her fork.

"Mr. Brown!  If you were teaching just ten or twelve children, would
n't it strike you as rather foolish to call the roll every morning?
You know there were only fourteen pupils in the school where I was
substituting; so of course I got acquainted with them all right away.
Well, one morning when the weather was bad there were only six present;
so when the hour came I just began to teach.  But a little boy who is
in the first reader held up his hand and told me I had to call the roll
first.  I could hardly keep from smiling.  As if I could n't see the
six that were there.  Then I made inquiry and I found that Miss Porter
called the roll when there were only four there.  Does n't it seem
funny for a person to go through a formality like that just
because--well, just because?"

"That's because you 've got sense," said Steve.

She dropped her eyes and ate.  When this remark had had time to pass
over, Janet's sociable spirit, never self-conscious for long, began to
unfold its leaves and raise its stems and lift up its branches again.

In this juncture, the dog profited.  Shep had been giving her such
unremitting attention, his wistful brown eyes following each forkful as
it went from plate to mouth, that Janet's consciousness of her selfish
situation kept bearing in upon her till now every bean carried reproach
with it.  Thinking to convince him that it was only beans, and not
desirable, she put him down a forkful from her own too generous
allowance.  She was surprised at the suddenness with which it
disappeared.  Beans were his staff of life also, a discovery which made
her smile.  And as one good turn deserves another--at least Shep seemed
to think so--she was expected to do it again; thus supper, with his
assistance, was soon over.  And now Janet, with nothing whatever to do,
sat face to face with her situation.

"Have you got a dishpan?" she inquired.

"Oh, you don't need to mind that.  I have n't got anything you are used
to.  I just take them down to the stream and swab them off with a bunch
of dry grass."

"Oh!" remarked Janet.

She felt, however, that it would be easier to be doing something.  She
gathered things together and made general unrest among the dishes.  Mr.
Brown, instead of being stirred by this operation of cleaning up,
stretched himself out more contentedly, moved up a little closer, and
took still fuller possession of her presence; and as he did so he poked
up the fire and struck her a light on a new topic.  But this time the
train of conversation did not catch.  Janet was thinking.  And like
most of us she could not talk well while thinking.

Mr. Brown seemed quite contented, then, with silence and peace.
Evidently he too was thinking.  After a little time he sat up and
reached into an inside pocket.  He drew forth a large leather wallet
which, upon being opened, disclosed two compartments well filled with
bank-notes and documentary-looking papers.  There was another
compartment with a flap on it and a separate fastening, opening which
he took out an object wrapped in tissue paper.  Having carefully
unwrapped it, he folded the paper again and placed it where it would
not blow away.

"That's my mother's picture," he said, handing it over formally to his
guest.

Janet received it rather vaguely and sat looking at it, saying nothing.

"She died just last winter," he added, in his usual deliberate way.

"Oh, did she?"

What else to say, she hardly knew.  Turning it to the light she studied
it more closely and noted each resemblance to his own features, looking
up at him in an impersonal sort of way and with a soberness of
countenance which was a reflection of his own entirely serious mood.

"She had a very kind-looking face," she said.

To this there was no reply.  Janet, about to hand it back, was
momentarily in doubt as to how long a proper respect should prompt her
to retain it; this, however, settled itself when she observed that he
had ready to offer her a long newspaper clipping.

"I had the editor put some of that in myself," he said, reaching the
long ribbon of paper over to her.

It was an obituary of Mrs. Stephen P. Brown, who passed to "the realms
beyond" on the eighteenth of November.  With this Janet found no
difficulty.

"But," he added suddenly as it occurred to him, "I did n't have him
print that part at the bottom.  He just put that in himself.  I mean
that stuff about me."

Janet at once turned her attention to the bottom.  He sat silently with
the wallet in hand, his countenance a shade more solemn than usual.  In
the midst of this waiting there came a wail from the corral and he left
suddenly upon one of his unexplained errands, this time without
excusing himself.  He got back while Janet was still engaged upon the
article.  When she looked up he was standing beside the fire looking
down at her.  There was something new in his face, a look half
lugubrious, semi-humorous, apologetic.

"We've got another lamb," he announced.

"Oh!--another little lamb?" she exclaimed.

"There are only three so far.  Three lambs and two mothers.  It has n't
really got started yet, but I 'm afraid it will.  My herder ought to
have got back yesterday and brought help along."

"Then you have a great deal to do?" queried Janet.

"Yes; after it once gets really started.  Then it never rains but it
pours.  I have been hoping it would hold off a day or two longer; but
you can't tell exactly."

He put more wood on the fire and took his place again.

"You mustn't let me interfere with your work," she suggested.

"Oh, that is n't it at all.  I was just explaining.  I'll get through
somehow; it won't amount to anything."

With a characteristic sweep of his arm he waved the whole subject aside
as if he did not want to have it interfere with her reading of the
newspaper clipping.  Janet had dropped it absent-mindedly in her lap;
she now took it up again.  Besides the tribute to Mrs. Brown's
character, who was not a native of Texas but had come to the state in
her girlhood from West Virginia, there was a considerable memoir of
Stephen Brown, senior, relating his activities and adventures as a
Texas patriot.  He had "crossed the Great Divide" six years before.
Finally, there was a paragraph of sympathy with the only son, "one of
our most valued citizens."

"Your father knew Houston, did n't he?" remarked Janet.

"Oh, yes; he knew a lot about him."

"How interesting that must have been.  Your father was a pioneer, was
n't he?"

"Oh, no.  You 've got to go back pretty far in history to be a Texas
pioneer.  He was just a Texan."

She gave another perusal to certain parts and offered it back.

"There is another piece on the other side," he said.

She turned it over and found a shorter clipping carefully pasted to the
back.  This also she read.


AN ARTISTIC MONUMENT

Mr. Stephen Brown yesterday received from Austin the monument which he
had made for the grave of his mother, Mrs. Stephen P. Brown, who died
last November.  It is a most beautiful work of art and was much admired
by those who saw it.  It is a massive block of imported gray granite
skillfully carved with clusters of grapes in high relief.  Mr. Brown
ordered it from the leading marble-cutters in Austin.  The reverse side
of the stone was cut after his own design, and consists simply of a
Lone Star.  On the base is the word Mother.  Many of our citizens were
enabled to inspect it as it went up Main Street, Mr. Jonas Hicks
stopping his three yoke of oxen to accommodate those who wished to look
it over.  It will be by far the most beautiful work of art in our local
cemetery.


Janet folded up the clipping carefully, according to the creases in it,
and passed it back.  When he had returned it to its compartment in the
wallet,--an operation which was somewhat delayed by his difficulties
with the tissue paper around the picture,--she questioned him further
about the Comanche Indians and his father's adventures in the war with
Mexico.  Now the conversational situation was turned about, Janet
becoming the interlocutor; and as she had the advantage of so copious a
source of information, there was no end to her questioning.  And as the
stream of talk broadened, it began to include his own experiences and
adventures, most interesting of which, to Janet, was a short account of
the fight of a sheriff's posse with the train-robbers intrenched near
the Post Oaks, a most determined encounter in which the sheriff was
among those killed while Steve Brown received only a blunted thumb, for
the clumsy appearance of which his story was rather an apology.

"That's all I got," he said.  "And it works as good as ever."

To demonstrate which fact, he held it up and made it work.

Now that she had material by which to lead the conversation, she found
him not nearly so taciturn as she had at first thought him.  Indeed, he
talked on without remembering to fix the fire.  And when it had nearly
faded out he continued on, unconscious of the fact that the real Janet
was no longer in sight except as she was partially lit by the moon
which now hove upon the scene.

"But I am keeping you up too late," she said, suddenly rising.

Steve gathered himself together and stood up, hat in hand.

"Oh, I am used to all hours," he said.  "Anyway, I 've got to keep an
eye on things."

"And I am sorry to put you out," she added.

"Don't mention it.  I put myself out.  I could let you have a lantern
if you need it.  There 's a piece of candle and some matches on the top
bunk.  It's down near the foot."

"Oh, that will be all the light I need.  Good-night."

"Good-night, Miss Janet,"--saluting her by raising his hat to the side
of his head and then bringing it down with a large sweep.

When the door had closed upon her and the shack showed light at all its
cracks, he turned and went to the corral, closely followed by Shep.  He
took a look at the two sheep, each confined in one of the narrow little
prison-pens along with the lamb whose property it was.  The lambs were
evidently full of milk; they were sleeping.  Seeing that all was well,
he got an old discarded saddle out of the shed, threw it on his
shoulder, and descended to the general level to find himself a
buffalo-wallow.  Having picked one out he kicked a longhorn skull away
from its vicinity, threw the saddle down at its edge, and lined the
grassy interior with his slicker.  Then he sat down in the middle,
crushing the slicker deep into the spring bloom.  Here he sat a while.

It is not easy for the human mind, constituted as it is, to pick out a
bed on a prairie.  It offers such a large field of choice, and no
grounds for preference.  Steve had long ago formed the habit of
sleeping in a wallow, always to be found within a short distance, and,
when found, possessing the advantage of being a "place."  Such a
place--a bowl-like depression--was made by the bison who pawed away the
tough sward to get at mother earth, and then wore it deep and circular
as he tried to roll on his unwieldy hump.  Steve Brown, anywhere
between Texas and Montana, had often slept in the "same old place,"
though in a different locality, and for some reason he was never so
content--either because it was really a "place," or because he liked a
bed that sagged in the middle, or because (which is more likely) he
found a certain atmosphere of sleep in one of these places so long ago
dedicated to rest and comfort.  Which hollow is all that is now left of
the buffalo--a vacancy.

He sat down in the middle, his attention fixed upon the shack, which
now existed as a sort of picture of itself drawn in lines of light.
When suddenly it was erased from the night, he pressed the slicker down
and lay back with his head in the saddle.  He folded his hands and
waited, looking straight up.  In a little while the world receded and
he was only conscious of sundry stars.  Thus, looking heaven in the
eye, his hands clasped across his chest, Steve Brown sunk to sleep, his
head and feet sticking up at the ends.  Again Eternity held sway; and
only Shep was left.

Shep turned round and round till he had trampled a place among the
flowers, his usual way of winding up the day.  He lay down in it with
his chin on his paws.  But soon he got up and went at it again.  He
milled round and round, with several pauses as if he were not quite
satisfied; then he dropped down with a decisiveness that settled the
matter for good.  With his chin on the brink of the wallow he went to
sleep; or rather he went as near asleep as a dog with such great
responsibilities allows himself to do.




CHAPTER VIII

The sheep, having several times broken the silence of the dawn, were
growing impatient to be let out.  Now that the sun had appeared and the
bars were not let down, there was unanimous expression of opinion in
the corral, an old wether stamping his foot sternly and leading the
chorus with a doleful note.  It was very much as if he had put the
question and they had all voted "aye."  What was the matter with the
man who was running this part of the world?

Steve Brown was otherwise engaged.  He was sitting on the ground behind
the storm-shed with a lamb in his lap.  He was trying to remove from
its back the pelt of another lamb which had been neatly fitted on over
its own.  This was a trick on the mother of the dead lamb intended to
get her to care for the present lamb, who was an orphan; which is to
say, the extra pelt was the lamb's meal-ticket, and she had given him
several meals on the evidence of smell.  The deception had worked all
the more readily because she had not had time to become familiar with
her own lamb's voice; and now that a sort of vocal relationship had
been established between the two, things promised to go along
naturally, with probably a little insistence upon the lamb's part.

In accordance with the usual practice in such cases, the pelt, with
head and legs removed, had been fastened on by means of holes cut at
the corners, through which the live one's legs were inserted, care
being taken to leave on the tail, which part, when a lamb is nursing,
is most convenient to smell.

As Steve Brown was not used to this sort of tailoring, he had made
rather too close a fit of it, and now that it was dried up at the edges
and slightly shrunk, he found difficulty in removing it.  Seeing, upon
further effort, that he could not get it off without risk of straining
the lamb's anatomy, he laid the problem across his knees again and
searched his pockets for his knife.  He had felt for it, not very
thoroughly, before.  The knife seemed to be lost.

Janet, awakened by the clamor in the pen, arose from the bunk and set
to work arranging her hair.  Rather drowsily she moved about through
the rifts of sunshine which beamed from the cracks; then, as she
realized what a golden day the sun was weaving, she put her eye to a
crack and looked out.  In her elongated picture of things there were
several miles of prairie, the sun just edge-to-edge with the horizon,
and any amount of blue sky above.  In the sky were some birds soaring
at a great height.  Smaller birds went skimming over the prairie,--now
a golden meadowlark, then a darker scissortail snipping the air off
behind it in swift flight.  Suddenly, and rather precipitately, there
came from around the corner of the storm-shed a lamb in full action.
Its gait was as effective as it was erratic; it looked very much as if
the legs were running away with it.

From the corner of the shed it made a joyous gambol in the direction of
the fire and the steaming kettle, from which point it made for the
down-slope of the knoll.  Steve Brown, whose legs were none too long
for the race, came running after.  A moment later the dog arrived on
the scene; he made a sudden dash and performed his part in a most
creditable manner, overtaking the lamb and upsetting it with a poke of
his nose.  The lamb, not at all disconcerted by the tumble, which was
only a variation of its method of progress, came over on its knees and
rose at once to go ahead; but the delay had been sufficient.  Steve
caught up; and the next instant, the truant, feeling the ground removed
from under it, hung helpless across the hand of its captor.

"Je-e-emima!" Steve remarked.  "You 're feeling awful glad this
morning."

Janet, who could not see the end of this performance, but only that
part of it which came within range of the crack, stepped back in
surprise.  As who would not be surprised to see a black lamb with a
white head and white legs, and two tails.  Such being the result of her
prying upon the world, she turned her attention to her toilet again and
made haste to go out and see whether her eyes had deceived her.

In the mean time Steve, not being able to find the knife, stood with
the lamb in his arms and bent the whole force of his mind upon the
problem of its whereabouts.  Suddenly he remembered that he had last
used it in front of the shack to put the pelt on the lamb.  Naturally,
it was still there.  Having it again, he sat down near the fire-hole,
where he could keep an eye on the kettle, placed the lamb on his lap
and opened the blade.  He had just got to work on one of the legs when
the door opened and his guest made her appearance.  He rose at once to
pay his respects, the lamb in one hand and his hat in the other.

"Good-morning, Miss Janet."

"Good-morning, Mr. Brown.  It is a very beautiful day, is n't it?"

"First-class," he replied.  "I 'm just doing a little work on this
lamb.  I guess you know him; he 's the one you saw when you first came."

"What!  The one that stepped in the sugar bowl?"

"Yes, that's him.  He doesn't look exactly natural, does he?  I had to
make some changes in him.  You see his mother did n't think she wanted
any lamb.  But another sheep had one that died and I could see she
wanted a lamb, so that was an opening for this fellow.  And I had to
fix him up so that she 'd take him."

"What a funny thing to do," said Janet.

"Is n't it!  Do you wonder that sheep-herders go crazy?  Just wait a
minute, Miss Janet, and I 'll have this off of him."

He sat down again with the lamb in his lap.  Turning it over on its
back he set to work on the hind legs.  Janet, becoming interested,
stooped down beside him.  She patted the infant on its high forehead.

"And did n't the other sheep want to adopt him?" she asked.

"Oh, no.  Sheep don't believe in charity."

"And won't even have their own sometimes!  Is n't that strange!"

"Some of them seem to be built that way, especially if it is their
first one.  But that sheep did n't have much milk anyway, and maybe she
thought he might as well die.  If it had n't been for that I would have
tried to make her take him.  But I saw the other sheep could do better
by him."

"There is really a great deal to think of, is n't there?" said Janet,
lending a hand to the operation by catching hold of a too active hind
leg.  "But I don't see how you could fool her that way.  Could n't she
see that this lamb had a white head?  And white legs?  And an extra
tail?"

"Oh, they don't go by looks," he explained.  "They go by smell.  And
later on by voice, too.  Appearances don't count."

"The idea!  You seem to know all about them."

"Not much," he said.  "I 'm no sheep-man."

"But anyway, you do get along with them."

"If they were my sheep," he answered, "and I was n't responsible for
them, I would n't be so particular.  Especially with this one; he has
been a lot of trouble.  As far as money goes--he is n't worth over
fifty cents--I would have let him die."

"Oh, no-o-o-o!" protested Janet, lending further assistance with the
pelt.

"But after I had carried him around with me all day I got to feeling
responsible for him."

"A person naturally would," said Janet.

"And besides," he added, holding the lamb upright while she, with her
more skillful fingers, removed the fore legs from the armholes of the
pelt, "a fellow sort of hates to lose the first one, you know."

Janet, finding the lambskin left on her hands, examined it curiously,
running her fingers over the soft black wool.

"What shall I do with this, Mr. Brown?"

"Oh, just throw it away.  But no," he added, upon second thought, "I
guess you had better keep that.  It would be good for you to sit on."

Following this suggestion she took it to her "place" on the prairie and
spread it down.  Then, as he seemed to be waiting for her, she returned.

"Miss Janet, I guess you 'll want to wash up.  The best I can offer you
is the place down below the spring.  You 'll find some soap down there
in a cigar-box.  The bank is a little steep for you to climb down, so I
guess you had better go round and get in the front way.  On your way
around you 'll find a towel on a bush; it is pretty clean,--I washed it
last night.  And you 'd better take the lambskin along to kneel on."

Steve carried the lamb away to its breakfast.  Janet took the pelt and
followed his instructions, going down the slope and skirting round the
base of the knoll till she came to where the stream issued forth.

The little gully was hardly more than a deep grass-grown ditch made by
the spring as it won its way out of the heart of the knoll; or rather
it was a green hallway, overtopped with a frieze of mesquite, leading
in privately to the source of the stream.  Janet, as she entered the
house-like cosiness of this diminutive valley, felt very much as if she
had just stepped in out of the universe.  On a prairie there is such an
insistent stare of space, so great a lack of stopping-place for the
mind, that this little piece of outdoors, with the sun shining in at
its eastern end, was a veritable snug-harbor in an ocean of land.  As
she turned and looked out of its sunny portal, she told herself that if
she had to live in the shack this place would be her front yard.

Just below the spring was a grassy bank against which the water ran
invitingly; she spread the lambskin here, rolled up her sleeves, took
off her collar, and conformed to the customs of the place.  The cool
water was so invigorating, and there was something so intimate in the
live push of the current against her hand, that she lathered her arms
an unnecessary number of times and kept rinsing them off.  It was a
brisk little stream and so bent upon its business that she could almost
feel its impatience when she obstructed it,--for which reason,
probably, she interfered with it the more; and finally, being done, she
made a little heap of foam in her palm and reached it down just to see
the water run away with it.

As she came round to the sheep-path again, she met Steve, who had been
standing on the side of the knoll and started down the moment he saw
her.  Evidently he had been waiting his turn.

"Breakfast is all ready," he announced as he passed.  "I 'll be up in a
minute."

By the time she reached the shack there was a great spluttering and
splashing and blowing of water down below.  It was Mr. Brown "washing
up."  In little more than the minute he was back again.  Finding her
seated upon the lambskin, he took his place opposite her and passed the
hot bread.

"I saw you chasing that lamb this morning," she said, quite directly.
"I was looking out of a crack to find what the weather was like."

"Did you?  Did you see the dog throw him?"

"No; I couldn't see it all.  But I saw how he had learned to use his
legs.  Why, it does n't seem possible."

"Oh, that's nothing.  He's an old hand now--this is his third day on
earth."

"Yes; but is n't he unusually smart?"

"Oh, no.  They 've got to catch on pretty quick, you know, or they
could n't keep up with the procession.  He's just about like the rest
of them.  They all learn fast."

"But it hardly seems possible that such a _helpless_ little thing as he
was could learn so much.  Why, when I first saw him he was just able to
stand up."

"They're animals," replied Steve, spreading a thick coat of molasses on
a large piece of hot bread.  "It only takes them a few minutes to learn
standing up?"

"But they do have to learn, don't they?"

"Oh, yes.  They don't always get it right the first time.  Lambs make
mistakes the same as anybody else.  But if they get started out right,
with a good meal the first thing, and a warm sleep, they go ahead
surprisingly.  The trouble with them at first is that they are a little
weak."

"I don't suppose, then, that a lamb can get right up and follow the
flock?" she queried.

"Oh, no.  That would be expecting too much.  They can toddle around
pretty well in a few hours; but they could n't really travel till
they've had time to grow strong."

Janet paused in her questioning.  She spent a few moments reflecting
upon the information gained thus far.

"Then I can't understand, Mr. Brown, how you can herd those sheep and
take care of the lambs too.  You surely can't carry them all?"

"That 's just what the trouble is," he answered.  "I guess that Harding
must be drunk.  If he doesn't get back soon and bring help it's likely
to get serious."

"And what will you do?"

"You see, Miss Janet," he said, laying down knife and fork for a formal
statement of the difficulty, "when you 're grazing a bunch of sheep and
one of them drops a lamb she stays right there with it.  That is, she
does if she is one of the natural kind.  Pretty soon the flock has gone
on and she is left behind.  After a while another has a lamb and she
drops out and is left behind.  And so on.  So there ought to be
somebody to take them back to the corral.  But of course the lambs
can't travel.  They 've got to be carried."

"How long do you suppose that man will take--at the farthest?"

"He ought to be back now.  He may come any time.  If I only knew he was
coming before night I would know how to manage.  I would go right along
and leave the wet-lambs and their mothers stringing along behind; then
when he came with help he could get them in for the night.  They would
be all right to stay out on the prairie for a while--all except those
whose mothers did n't care for them.  But I would do that; and those
whose mothers did n't stick to them would have to die."

"Oh, that would be such a shame!" Janet's eyes opened wide as she
contemplated this state of affairs.  "And how about the ones who had
mothers?  Would it be all right if they had to stay out on the prairie
till the next day?"

"No-o-o-o--it would hardly do to leave lambs scattered around on the
prairie all night even if their mothers were with them.  Coyotes would
get them."

"Oh, dear!  Don't you think, Mr. Brown, that that man is quite certain
to get back sometime to-day?"

"I don't see how he can stay away much longer.  He knows mighty well he
has my horse, too.  He might come along any time."

For a while they ate in silence.

"Miss Janet," he said suddenly, "I don't think you had better start out
alone again.  When he gets back with my horse and I am free of this
place, I can show you the road and see that you are all right.  I would
feel more satisfied that way."

"Well, then, couldn't I be of some assistance--if I stay?"

"Oh, that is n't necessary.  I 'll get along somehow.  I don't suppose,
though, that you 'd care to sit here alone at the shack; so maybe you
'd better come along with me.  And if you want to drop behind once in a
while and help a lamb out, why, of course you can.  You seem to be
pretty handy with them."

This plan was adopted.  When breakfast was over he let down the bars;
the sheep poured forth; Shep sprang to life and barked orders right and
left.  The crowding multitude spread out on the prairie in grazing
order, and when Shep had executed certain commands necessary to get
them headed in the right direction, the trio of caretakers began their
slow progress through the day.  Shep, subject to orders, followed at
Steve's heels; Janet walked at his right hand; thus they wandered along
in the desultory manner of the sheep-herder, standing a while, sitting
down a while, advancing now and then as the flock grazed farther away.

"There's number one," Steve remarked casually.

[Illustration: "There's number one," Steve remarked casually]

They had ascended, almost imperceptibly, one of those slow rises or
folds in the prairie from which more distant objects, if there are any,
come into view.  Janet had just been taking her bearings; ahead of them
there had now come to sight the long file of trees which marked the
course of Comanche Creek; looking back she could still see the shack,
quite plainly, on its knoll.  As he spoke, and pointed, her eyes
followed the new direction, off to the left.  A sheep had fallen out of
the flock; she was now standing some distance behind.  From the way she
nosed in the grass without advancing, it was evident what had taken
place.

"Well, good-bye," said Janet.  Then, feeling suddenly that these words
had too serious a sound, she added, "But I suppose I will catch up with
you before long."

"Shall I go over with you?"

"Oh, no," she answered, and hurried away.

"Don't forget what I said about the creek," he called out after her.

As she looked back he pointed first at the shack and then at the creek,
bringing his arm around in a semicircle as if it were a sort of
dial-hand to the prairie.  "Don't get lost," he added.

When she nodded to show that she understood, he strode on after the
sheep.  They had been gaining ground steadily and had got far ahead.

Janet, reaching the scene of the nativity, became very much interested.
The lamb was just beginning to look up and take notice; she stooped
over him in rapt contemplation.  His little merino back was wrinkled as
fine as a frown.  His little hoofs were already beginning to feel the
ground under them; he was going to rise!  Then ensued a lamb's usual
drunken contest with the laws of gravity.  While he stepped on air and
tried to get the hang of things, Janet followed his fortunes with bated
breath.  When he had got his four legs firmly planted, the first thing
he did was to shake himself; and he did it with such vigor that he
upset himself.  This was a surprise to Janet if not to the lamb; he had
shaken himself off his feet; everything had to be done over again.  He
seemed a little stultified by this turn of affairs; but though he was
down the fall had not knocked any of the ambition out of him; he
immediately went at it again.  This time he conquered and stood right
up to the bar of life, much to Janet's relief.

Having filled himself and spent a moment looking at nothing in
particular, he decided that the best thing to do was to veer around and
have some more; in taking this step, however, there was some sort of
error in the proceedings and he went down forward on his knees.  A
moment later the hind legs stumbled and fell, and he was all down; now
he decided to take a rest.  As the mother nosed him over and showed
every sign of affection, Janet began to see that her services were not
needed; her presence was of no consequence whatever.  There was nothing
for her to do but to stroke his back and pat him on the head; having
done which she rose and again went forward upon her charitable mission.

The flock by this time had eaten its way into the distance.  It was not
so far away, however, but that she could soon have overtaken it.  She
walked along at a moderate pace, looking alternately to right and left
for such as might fall under her care.

She had not gone far when she sighted another.  As this one had dropped
out of the right wing of the army ahead, he was off to one side of her
present course.  By the time she arrived he had already succeeded in
standing up; he even took a distinct step; then he shook himself like a
dog just out of water.  Like the other lamb, he shook himself down; he
hit the ground with rather more decisive a drop.  When he had again
mastered the difficulties, and achieved his reward, Janet sat down near
by and waited to see whether the two would become acquainted.  This
again proved to be a happy union.

Janet felt a little disappointed.  She had expected to be of some use.
Now that she had proved to be a mere looker-on she began to take
thought about the lamb's future.  There came to her again those
words--"The coyotes would get them."  She rose at once.  A man would
carry them back to the corral; why not she?  She took the lamb in her
arms intending to go off a distance and see whether the mother would
follow.  The experiment proved unnecessary, however; the ewe not only
followed but kept close at her side.  Accompanied thus by the mother
she went back to the first halting-place where the other ewe joined
them; thence she set a course straight for the shack, a lamb on each
arm and a sheep at each side of her.  Things went much easier than she
had expected.

In this turn of affairs, she felt quite satisfied.  Although it was the
first time she had ever touched a lamb or had any experience with a
sheep, the work seemed perfectly natural.  Indeed, as she marched along
between the two watchful ewes, and hugged to her breast the warm
objects of their attention, it seemed to her--a very puzzling
delusion--that she had done this same thing before; it was like a
half-faded memory.  Nor did it seem natural to think of Mr. Brown as a
stranger; it seemed that she had known him a long time ago--always.
Possibly this was because she felt so much at home in this sort of
work.  Then, too, we dream dreams, and they have a way of bringing
themselves to pass in some shape or other.

Having reached the corral she managed to let down the bars without
getting the infants mixed up--a matter which had given her much
concern; and now that she had them safely inside she thought it
advisable to wait a while and make sure that family relations were
going to be permanent, after her interference.  She rested herself by
sitting on the top rail of the corral; meantime she took an interested
survey of the stuffed clothes of Mr. Pete Harding under whose manly
presentment the lambs enjoyed protection.  Mr. Brown had made a very
good imitation of a man by filling the herder's working-clothes with
marsh grass; the figure had been made to stand up by means of a pole
thrust through the fence, to the end of which Mr. Harding was suspended
by the neck as if he had been hung in effigy.  The man himself had not
yet put in his appearance.  Janet, as she thought of him, scanned the
horizon for signs of his approach.  There was no indication of his
coming.  But still the day was not half over; possibly, she told
herself, he would arrive early in the afternoon.  Having become
satisfied that all was well, so far as the lambs were concerned, she
put up the top bar and went forth again to her work.

By looking back occasionally and sighting her route by means of the
shack and the storm-shed, the relative positions of which she had been
careful to observe when she first went out, she held her course so well
that when she next came in sight of the line of trees she was at the
same point as before.  Here she set straight out for the bend in the
creek, which landmark was to guide her on the next stage of her quest.
As before, she kept a sharp lookout for stranded sheep.

She had not gone a great distance when another case presented itself.
This time it was twins.  The pair were sleeping.  The mother, having
licked them nicely into shape, had lain down beside them; when Janet
arrived she got up suddenly and stared at her in alarm.  The twins had
evidently been successful, so far, in all their undertakings, not the
least of which is to take a rest.  They were in very good condition to
be carried.  She took them up and arranged them comfortably, one on
each arm, and soon they were on their way to safety, the anxious mother
trotting first to one side of Janet and then to the other.  These also
were added to the ones in the corral.

Janet did not feel so tired but that she could have turned about at
once; she would have done so had it not been that it was dinner-time
and she was hungry.  Mr. Brown had taken along with him an extra large
lunch which he expected her to share with him somewhere along the
shaded banks of the Comanche; the little plan passed momentarily
through her mind as she raised the lid of the box and took out a pan of
beans.  There was also a piece of bread left; it tasted better than she
would have expected cold hot-bread to do.

Luckily for the work she had taken upon herself, Steve Brown had
planned a route for the day which any one could easily follow.  He was
going to graze the sheep along Comanche Creek, downstream, on the
right-hand side; he would bring them back not very wide of the same
course.  This arrangement he had made entirely with a view to being
quickly found in case help arrived; he had left a note behind giving
instructions.  As this was all very plain sailing, Janet saw that she
would be quite free to come and go, and she had been quick to turn this
arrangement to the lambs' advantage.  When she had satisfied the worst
of her hunger she started out again.  The consciousness that she could
find him whenever she wished, and was, virtually, in touch with him all
the time, made her task entirely enjoyable.

This time she reached the creek and gave herself over to its guidance.
Comanche Creek, like other prairie streams, had its line of trees which
very plainly belonged to it and not to the prairie.  This impression of
foreignness to the region was emphasized by their extending in unbroken
procession from horizon to horizon, as if they were merely crossing the
plains.  While the stream hurried on to its congregation of waters, the
trees seemed bound for some distant forest.  Quite strictly they kept
to the course; none of them, beech, hickory, live-oak, nor pecan,
encroached beyond the right of way nor seemed ever to have been
forgetful that these were the Plains.  It was very much as if they
recognized that trees ought not to grow here.  As, indeed, they ought
not.  The prairie is itself as much as is the ocean or forest, and it
has no room to spare.  Space, like wood and water, must have its own
exclusive regions wherein to exercise its larger and deeper spell.
These were the earthly fastnesses of space; and so preëmpted.  Many
grapevines looped along the route, some of them of ancient growth,
hanging like big ropes from tree to tree; these had the appearance of
keeping a still closer regard to the direction of the stream itself,
their more sinuous wood flowing along in a like spirit and keeping the
waters company.  Nowhere so artfully, perhaps, as in a prairie stream,
are eye and ear addressed by the manifold activities of wood and water.
To come across it in the course of a long monotonous journey is as
sudden as falling in love--and very much like it.

Comanche Creek, having such advantages of contrast and sharp
comparison, was well calculated to strike the mind with the whole charm
of stream and forest; and so it worked upon Janet.  To her right was
the prairie as monotonous as duty; to her left the creek with its
mirrored vistas, its rippling bends, its comfortable resting-places
where sun and shade played together.  Inviting as it all was, however,
she kept well out on the open where her business lay; only occasionally
did she let her gaze wander from its set task to loiter in this more
restful scene.  She kept on looking for lambs.  But after a while she
awoke to the fact that she had been walking closer and closer when she
ought to be keeping out on the prairie; instead of using it as a guide
in her work she was making a companion of it.  She turned at once and
marched out to the scene of duty.

As she got out nearer to the centre of her field of operations,--twelve
hundred sheep cut a pretty wide swath,--she thought she heard the cry
of a lamb.  She stopped and listened.  All was silence.  It might have
been imagination, assisted, possibly, by some rumor of the distant
flock; but yet the still small voice had seemed to come from somewhere
near at hand.  She went forward, listening intently.  Presently she
heard it again; then she saw him.  He was so close that she could see
his little red tongue as he opened his mouth and called to her.

Poor little lamb!  There was not a sheep in sight.  There was just him
and the prairie.  He was barely managing to stand up; she could easily
see that he was on his last legs as well as his first ones.  As she
went to him he took a step or two as if to meet her, but his legs
lacked stiffening and he fell on his nose.  She ran and picked him up.
As she took him in her arms he opened his mouth again and called upon
his mother.

Which way to take him in search of milk became now a pressing problem.
She thought she felt him shiver.  If he was to be saved, it would not
do for him to starve much longer; nature demands that if a lamb is to
live he must have his first meal without delay.  She paused to decide
the matter, holding his passive little hoofs in her hand.  To keep
right on after the flock might prove the quickest way; but again it
might not; it would be taking a chance.  Back at the corral, far though
it was, the services of a mother were certain.  The surest way seemed
the best to her, and having decided so, she turned about at once,
walking rapidly.

The return trip seemed very long, and the forced pace told upon her
strength.  She kept it up, however, till the goal had been reached.
Having her orphan inside the bars she deposited him in a corner while
she turned her attention to the row of little stalls or prison-pens
which were built along the outside of the fence.  This institution she
had observed with great interest.  Each pen was just large enough to
crowd a ewe in, being calculated to allow her no liberty in any way;
they were all built so that sheep could be put into them from the
inside of the corral.  She opened one of them, seized upon the first
lamb at hand and put it in, and when the fond mother put her nose in
after it Janet gave her a good push from behind and sent her in also;
then she abstracted the rightful lamb and put the other in its place.
Having closed the opening she climbed over the fence and sat down on
the prairie beside the pen where she could look in between the rails
and watch developments.

The lamb, probably because it had gone too long without that first
drink which is the making of a lamb, did not seem able to rise.  Janet
put her hand in between the rails and gave it a lift.  Once it had its
legs under it, it managed for itself.  To Janet's great satisfaction it
filled up visibly.  When it was done, she let out the ewe, who hastened
to find her own again, knocking down the orphan in the process of
getting out.  As he made no effort to rise, Janet again took him in her
arms.

The lamb seemed dispirited and chilled.  This is a condition which is
quite likely to overtake a "wet-lamb" if it is neglected from the
outset, in which case its little stock of vitality is not easily
regained.  Despite the brightness of the weather there was a touch of
chill in the air.  Janet sat down in the doorway of the shack and held
the lamb in her lap, doubling her skirt up over it in order to get it
warm.  Like any other lamb it submitted to whatever was done to it.
Now it lay so quietly in her lap, and looked so innocent and helpless,
that she felt permanently responsible for it.  Especially as she did
not know what else to do with it.  Presently she felt it growing warmer
and warmer; then it went to sleep.

Janet was tired.  She sat there watching the prairie.  In the sky the
same dark birds were soaring.  The suspended effigy of Mr. Pete
Harding, swayed by the slightest breeze, moved its loose-hung arms and
legs as if it were being visited by the drunken spirit of its owner.
At intervals the solitude found expression in a sheep's automatic
_baa_.  The birds, which were buzzards, wheeled round and round as the
time passed and brought them nothing.  One of them, tired of wheeling
round and round, sat on one of the posts of the corral and waited for
something to happen.  These were the dusky angels that carried away the
lamb's body of the day before; she had seen its little white bones down
at the foot of the knoll.  The present watcher, a stoop-shouldered,
big, rusty-black bird, was quite indifferent to human presence; he sat
on his post like a usurer on his high stool, calculating and immovable.
Janet knew what was in his mind.  She drew the lamb a little closer and
tucked her skirt in around it.  Again she fell to contemplating the
prairie--and the sky.  The birds above seemed connected with the
machinery of Time.  At unexpected moments a sheep gave voice to it all
"in syllable of dolour."

No, she would not really want to be a sheepherder; at least not alone.
Last night, or whenever Steve Brown was about, everything looked quite
different.  Even now, she reflected, it was not so bad as it might be,
and she did not really mind it much; it was his place; he was just over
the horizon somewhere; and as long as it was his place she did not feel
so lonesome.  He had long ago turned the flock about; she could picture
him as he followed them along, nearer and nearer.  After a while he
would be home.

She sat holding the lamb till the sun began to redden; then it occurred
to her that, under the circumstances, it was her duty to get supper.
It was a welcome thought; she would see what she could do.  She put the
orphan at the foot of the bunk, drew the quilt over it and set to work.

It had now become apparent that she was destined to spend another night
at the shack; this, however, gave her no serious concern.  It entered
her mind only in the form of the pleasant reflection that nobody would
be worried by her absence; the farmer's family would think she had gone
to the county-seat and then reached her destination at Merrill; the
folks at Merrill would think she was still at the school, all of which
was very fortunate, and so she thought no more about it.  She was
mainly concerned with the lambs, and particularly, at the present
moment, with supper.  She spread down her two white napkins, which had
not seen service the night before, placing them corner to corner or
diamondwise on the ground; then she set the table and examined further
into the resources of the provision box.  While the fire was getting
itself under way, she completed the effect by arranging some flowers in
a cup and placing a nosegay upon the bosom of nature.  Before long
there was a good bed of coals in the fire-hole.

Supper was just ready when the flock reached the knoll and began
streaming up the slope into the corral; then followed Steve Brown
escorted by three sheep.  He carried four lambs, one on each arm, and
two others whose heads protruded from the breast of his coat.

"Four more!" she exclaimed, stepping forward to meet them.  "Did you
get all there were, Mr. Brown?"

"I got all I saw, Miss Janet," he answered, casting a bright and
intelligent look at the fire-hole.  "And I was afraid I had lost you.
You got supper, did n't you?  That looks nice."

Steve Brown's conversation was largely illumined by the light of his
eye; likewise his silences, which were many.  They were direct eyes
which paid close attention and shot their beams straight as along the
barrel of a rifle.  The live interest of his look, and the slight but
expressive play of his features, made up quite well for the occasional
scarcity of words.

"Yes, everything is all ready," she said.

"Well, I won't keep you waiting long."

When he had rid himself of the lambs he strode down the slope to the
spring, and presently she heard him "washing up" with more than his
usual vigor.  Pretty soon he came up and bore a beaming countenance to
supper.

Janet, as she poured the coffee and passed the hot bread, gave an
account of her day's work, telling first about the orphan and how she
managed with him; then she took up the other lambs, consecutively.

"I got four altogether," she ended.

"Oh, you should not have done that."

"No?"

There was mingled surprise and disappointment in her look; but mainly
disappointment.

"You could never have handled them that way--if they had been really
coming fast.  It would take a wagon.  There is no use of your working
like that."

"But," she insisted, after a pause, "you could n't have carried more
than those four, could you?"

"No--that was just about a load."

"And we got them all in, did n't we?"

"Oh, yes--yes.  What I meant was that you ought n't to work like that.
But we certainly did get them all in.  And it's the only way we could
have done it.  As it turned out, it was just the right thing to do--all
that was necessary."  After a moment's silence he felt he had not said
quite enough.  "You did first-class," he added.  "The fact is, nobody
could have done better."

Janet recovered her cheerfulness at once.  She resumed her story of the
day, and then, as she got around to the subject of the lamb again, she
went into the shack and brought him out.  Having been assured that he
was looking well and was likely to recover, she sat down at her place
again with the lamb in her lap.  He lay there contentedly while she
finished her supper.

"Yes," said Steve in answer to another of her questions, "lambs are
kind of cute.  Sometimes I feel bad for a lamb myself when his mother
won't have anything to do with him.  You ought to be out here later on,
Miss Janet, when the lambs have all been born and are starting to get
frisky.  That's when the fun begins."

"I have heard that lambs play together like children," she said.

"Oh, they do.  You see they've got to learn jumping, too.  And
climbing--like a goat.  That first lamb will soon be so lively that
plain running won't be good enough for him.  He 'll want to do fancy
tricks."

"Nature teaches them to play," observed Janet.  "That's to give them
practice and make them strong."

"I should say she did," said Steve, referring thus familiarly to
Nature.  "She puts all sorts of notions into their heads."

"What do they do, for instance, Mr. Brown?"

"Well, for one thing, a lamb likes to practice jumping.  You see, sheep
don't belong on prairies, like cattle.  Cattle belong on prairies the
same as buffalo, but sheep don't; they belong on mountains; that's the
reason the young ones are so handy with their hoofs.  They like to
climb and jump, but on a prairie there is n't any place to jump off of.
Well, maybe some day a lamb will be galloping and cavorting around, and
he 'll come across a hunk of rock salt that has been all licked off
smooth on top and hollowed out.  He 'll take a running jump at that and
land on it with all four hoofs in one spot and then he'll take a leap
off the top.  Then, when he sees what a good circus actor he is, he
will gallop right around and do it over again; and the rest of his gang
will start in and follow him, because what one sheep does the rest have
got to do.  That way they get to running in a circle round and round
and taking turns at jumping."

"How perfectly funny!" exclaimed Janet.

"That's the way they do.  They run races and play 'stump-the-leader'
and 'hi-spy' and 'ring-around-the-rosy.'  Why, Miss Janet, if you were
out here a little later on, you would think it was _recess_ all the
time."

"I wish I might be," said Janet.

"A lamb likes to be on the go," he continued.  "Sheep really ain't
lively enough for a lamb, so he has to go off and have his own fun.  He
'll gallop around with a troop of other lambs and won't stop except
long enough to go home for dinner."

"I don't see," said Janet, "how a lamb can go away like that and ever
find his mother again, in such a crowd.  They all look alike."

"That's easy enough.  Every sheep's voice is keyed up to a different
pitch; they all sound different some way or another.  And every lamb
has a little voice of his own."

"Yes, I've noticed that.  But I did n't know there was any object in
it.  Or that they knew each other's voices."

"Oh, certainly they do.  When a lamb gets hungry he whisks right around
and runs into the flock and starts up his tune.  She'll hear it and
she'll start up too; and that way they'll keep signaling to e

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/22140