CHAPTER XVII
A PLAN
The man who had supplied the horse-blanket for covering the deadsheep-herder had taken it away, but the board upon which they hadstretched him still lay under the tree where they had left it. There wasblood on it where the wound had drained, a disturbing sight whichpersisted in meeting Agnes' eye every time she came out of the tent. Shewas debating in her mind whether to throw the board in the river orsplit it up and burn it in the stove, when Smith came along and claimedit.
"Scarce as wood's goin' to be in this valley six months from now," Smithremarked, rubbing dust over the stain which did not appear to give himany qualms, "a man's got to take care of it. That's a shelf out of mystore."
"I don't suppose you'll ever put goods on it again."
"Sure. Why not?"
"Well, not groceries, at any rate," she ventured.
"It won't hurt canned goods," Smith told her, turning it stain downward."Doctor gone back?"
"He's gone on to Meander on some business."
"Smart feller," commended Smith. "If I had to have my leg took off I'djust as lief have that man do it as any doctor I ever saw."
"I'm sure he would appreciate your confidence," she smiled.
"Been acquainted with him a good while?" he wanted to know.
"Only since I've been in this country. We met on the train coming toComanche."
Smith sighed as if oppressed by a secret trouble, and cast his wise eyeabout the camp.
"I wouldn't leave them things around out here at night," he advised,indicating some boxes of supplies with which she was rather liberallyprovided. "Animals might git at 'em."
"You don't mean bears?" she asked with lively concern.
"No; not likely bears," said he. "Badgers, more like. They're awfulthieves."
"Thank you for the advice. I meant to put them in today, but I've beenso distracted by last night's awful events----"
"Yes, I know," Smith nodded. "I'll put 'em in for you."
Smith stored the boxes within the tent. The exertion brought out thesweat on his red face. He stood wiping it, his hat in his hand, turninghis eyes to see how she regarded his strength.
"I tell you, a woman needs a man to do the heavy work for her in a placelike this," he hinted.
"I'm finding that out," she laughed.
Smith sat down comfortably on the box lately occupied by Dr. Slavens. Hebuckled his hands over a knee and sat with that foot raised from theground in a most ungainly, but perhaps refreshing, attitude.
"Thinkin' about marryin'?" he asked.
The frankness of the question relieved her of embarrassment. Shesmiled.
"I suppose every woman thinks of that, more or less," she admitted.
Smith nodded, and slowly lowered his foot, looking up at her with slyconfidence, as if discovering to her a mighty secret which he had justbecome convinced she was worthy to share.
"Well, so am I," said he.
It began to look like dangerous ground, but she didn't know how to turnhim. Thinking to try a show of abstract interest, she told him she wasglad to hear it.
"There's money to be made in this country," he continued, warming up tohis argument, "and I know how to make it. Inside of five years I'll beable to put up a house with a cupola on it, and a picket fence in front,and grass in the yard, for the woman that marries me."
"I believe you will," she agreed. "What kind of a noise does a bearmake?"
"Dang bears!" said Smith, disconcerted by having his plans thrown out ofjoint in such an abrupt way.
"I thought I heard one the night before last," she went on. "I wasafraid."
"No need to be," he assured her. "Bears don't come down here any more.What could a bear live on down here, I'd like to know? Snakes? Well,bears don't eat snakes."
"Oh!" said she, enlightened.
"There's not a bear in a hundred miles of here," he told her.
"That's comforting knowledge," she said. "You've never told me about thebig grizzly that you killed. Was it long ago?"
"Not so very long," Smith replied, sighing as he saw himself led so faraway from the subject nearest his heart, and despairing of working hiscourage up to it again that day.
"It was a big one, wasn't it?"
"Well, I got fifty dollars off of a feller for the hide."
"Tell me about it," she requested.
Inwardly she wished that Smith would go, so she might take a sleep, butshe feared lest he might get back to the subject of houses and wives ifshe allowed him to depart from bears, and the historic grizzly inparticular.
"Well, I'll tell you. I didn't kill that bear on purpose," he began. "Ididn't go out huntin' him, and I didn't run after him. If he'd mindedhis own business like I minded mine, he'd be alive today for all I'mconcerned."
"Oh, it was an accident?" she asked.
"Part accident," Smith replied. "I was a deputy game-warden in themdays, and a cowboy on the side, up in the Big Horn Valley. A gang offellers in knee-pants and yeller leggings come into that country,shootin' everything that hopped up. Millionaires, I reckon they must 'a'been, countin' their guns and the way they left game to rot on theground. They killed just to kill, and I tracked 'em by the smell of thecarcasses behind 'em. They made a sneak and got into Yellowstone Park,and there's where I collared 'em. They was all settin' around a fire onenight when I come up to 'em, their guns standin' around. I throwed downon 'em, and one fool feller he made a grab for a gun. I always was sorryfor that man."
"What did you do to him?" she asked.
"Busted a diamond he had in a ring," said Smith. "Well, they got fines,them fellers did, when I marched 'em out of there, I'm here to tell you!If it'd been me that was judge I'd 'a' sent 'em all to jail for life.
"When I was comin' back to the ranch from that trip I met that bearyou've heard so much talk and mostly lies, about. That bear he's themost slandered bear that ever lived."
"Slandered?"
"That's it. He wasn't wallered to death, choked to death, pounded todeath, nor run down. He was just plain shot in the top of the head."
"What a queer place to shoot a bear! How did you manage it?"
"He managed it. He come under the tree where I was at."
"Oh, I see."
"And that's all there is to _that_ yarn, ma'am. I got a man today that Ican put on that work of levelin' off for you in the morning, if you wantme to."
"I think we'll let it stand a day or two," she told him. "I'll let youknow when to take it up again. I've got so much to think about right nowthat I just stand turning round and round."
"Yes, you do feel that way in a new place, sometimes," Smith allowed."Well, I guess I'll have to be goin' on down to the store. Business ispickin' up so fast I'll have to keep open all the time, not onlyevenin's like I have been doin'."
"I'm glad to hear it," said she.
"Yes; I'll have to hire a clerk, because I've got to 'tend to my outsidework. I've been paintin' a sign to go over the front, and I tell youthat name don't look so bad when it's in print, neither."
"It isn't a name to be ashamed of, I'm sure," she cheered. "It's just asgood as any other name, as far as I can see."
"Phogenphole has got a good many shanks to it when you come to write it,though," reflected Smith. "It looks a lot better printed out. I thinkI'll git me one of these here typewritin'-machines. But say! Stop in andtake a look at that sign the first time you're passin'; will you?"
Agnes assured him that she would. Smith upended his board as if to go.
"That feller, Boyle, he's gone," said he, nodding as if to confirm hisown statement. "I saw him ride off up the river an hour or so ago."
"Yes; I believe he went to Meander also."
"He's a bad egg," Smith continued, "and he comes out of a basket of badeggs. His old man, he's doin' more to keep this state down than anythingyou can name. He's got millions--and when I say millions, ma'am, I_mean_ millions--of acres of government land fenced and set off to hisown use, and school lands, and other la
nds belongin' to you and me andthe high-minded citizens of this country, and he don't pay a cent forthe use of 'em, neither. Taxes? That man don't know what taxes is."
"Why do the people permit him to do it?"
"People! Huh! He's got rings in their noses, that's why. What he don'town he's got cowed. I tell you, I know of a town with three or fourthousand people in it, and a schoolhouse as big as one of themold-country castles up on a hill, that ranchers has to go forty milesaround to git to. Can't put a road through Boyle's land--governmentland, every inch of it. What do you think of that?"
"I think a stop ought to be put to it, somehow."
"Sure it had! All of it's subject to homestead entry, but it's got afive-wire fence around it, and thousands of sheep and cattle that thepeople of this country feed and bring up and fatten for nothing, for theHon. Mr. Boyle. More than one man's been shot by Boyle's fence-ridersfor tryin' to homestead a piece of land he claims he's got a lease on.He ain't got no lease, but that don't matter.
"There's men settled here in this reservation that's run up and downthis state till they turned gray tryin' to locate on a piece of land.They've been hustled and humped along till they've lost heart, most of'em, and I reckon they doubt now whether they're goin' to be let stayhere from one day to another.
"Cattlemen's kicked 'em out of one place, sheepmen out of another, tillthis state ain't got no farms--the only thing that it needs. Yes, I tellyou, when a man sets up ag'in' a Boyle or any of that crowd in thisstate, he's due to lose. Well, say, don't forgit to stop in and see thatsign; will you?"
Agnes promised again to do so, and Smith departed, the sheep-herder'scooling-board under his arm.
With Smith's going, the temperature of her spirits, which had risen alittle to help her through with him, suffered a recession. She lookedabout with the thought of finding another location for her camp, feelingthat the disturbing associations of the previous night never would allowher to spend a comfortable hour there again.
Her homestead did not offer another spot with the advantages which sheenjoyed right where she was. There the river-bank was low, coming downas the stream did to a gravelly, fordable place, and there the treesoffered shelter against the summer sun, the thick-matted willows a breakfor the winter winds. There was a home look about it, too, such asnature sometimes contrives in uninhabited places, upon which thetraveler lights with satisfaction and restful delight.
She spent the remainder of the afternoon up and down her half-mile ofriver-bank, trying to choose between the next likeliest spots, but shehadn't much heart in the hunt. Perhaps it would be unwise to allow anyaffection to grow for the place, one location or another, or for anyhope to take deeper root than the sickly sprigs which she had planted atthe beginning.
Drooping and weary, she returned to her tent when the sun was low, forthe thought of sleep had left her with Smith's discussion of the blightof the Boyles upon that land. There appeared little use in trying tostand out against the son of this great obstructionist who, with a fewfriends and servitors, had kept the state for years as another man mightkeep his field. Others might look into the enclosure and see theopportunities which were being wasted, but none might touch.
If the gang were deprived of their chief weapon of menace, namely, thehold which the Federal laws had upon her, Dr. Slavens might be able towithstand their covetous attempt to dispossess him of his valuableholdings. She knew that Slavens would not stand by and see her indictedby the creatures of the Boyles, nor any more nearly threatened with thedisgrace of prison than she was at that hour. He would put downeverything to save her, even now when the fruition of his hard-livedyears was at hand.
She sat in the failing sun, scooping a little furrow with the heel ofher boot as she reflected. She still wore the divided riding-skirt whichshe had worn the day before on her excursion into the hills, and withher leather-weighted hat she looked quite like any other long-stridinglady of the sagebrush. Sun and wind, and more than a week of bareheadeddisregard of complexion had put a tinge of brown on her neck and face,not much to her advantage, although she was well enough with it.
How was it, she wrangled in her mind, that the lines of their lives hadcrossed in that place, this physician's and hers? Perhaps it was onlythe trick of chance, or perhaps it was the fulfilment of the plan drawnfor them to live by from the first. But it seemed unfair to Dr. Slavens,who had made a discouraging beginning, that he must be called upon tosurrender the means of realizing on his ambition when he held them inhis hand, and for no other purpose than to save her, a stranger.
It was unfair of fate to lay their lines so, and it would be doublyignoble and selfish of her to permit him to make the sacrifice. Dr.Slavens cared enough for her to ask her to marry him, and to expect herto marry him, although she had given him no word to confirm suchexpectation. He had taken hold of that matter to shape it for himself,and he intended to marry her, that was plain.
Her heart had jumped and turned warm with a softness toward him when hespoke of "this family" so naturally and frankly to Jerry Boyle. Itseemed to her that those words gave her a dignity and a standing beforethe world which all the shadows of her troubled life could not dim.
But there were the shadows, there were the ghosts. She felt that itwould be exceedingly burdensome to him to assume the future of two agedpeople, besides that of her own. Marrying her would be marrying afamily, indeed, for she had wasted on that desert hope much of the smallbit of money which the scraping and cleaning of their once greatproperties had yielded. And there lay the scheme prostrate, winded, apoor runner in a rugged race.
Of course, she might come clear of the tangle by permitting Dr. Slavensto surrender his homestead to Boyle; she might do that, and impoverishhim, and accept that sacrifice as the price of herself. For after thedoctor had given up his claim she could marry him and ride offcomplacently by his side, as heartless and soulless as anything which isbought and sold.
That's all it would amount to--a downright sale, even though she did notmarry the doctor. She would be accepting immunity at the shameful priceof a man's biggest chance in all his days. It was too much. She couldn'tdo it; she never intended to do it; she couldn't bring it around so thatit would present an honorable aspect from any angle.
Evening came over the hills with a chill, which it gave to thecottonwoods as it passed them on the river-bank. Their leaves trembledand sighed, and some were so frightened by the foreboding of winter inthat touch that they lost their hold upon the boughs and came circlingdown. In the tall grass which thrived rankly in that sub-irrigated spotthe insects of summer were out of voice. The choristers of the brushwoodseemed to be in difficulties over the beginning, also. They set out inshivering starts, and left off with jerky suddenness, as if they had noheart for singing against this unmistakable warning that their summerconcert season had come to its end.
Agnes fired up her stove and sat by it, watching the eager sparks maketheir brave plunge into the vast night which so soon extinguished them,as the world engulfs and silences streams and clouds of little men whorush into it with a roar. So many of them there are who go forth so dayby day, who avail, with all their fuss and noise, no more against itthan the breath of an infant against a stone.
Sitting there with the night drawing in around her, she felt the coldtruth in her heart about that place, and the acknowledgment of it, whichshe had kept away from her up to that hour. It wasn't worth while; shedid not care for it. Then and there she was ready to give it up andleave it to whoever might come after her and shape its roughness into ahome.
There was a heaviness upon her, and a weight of sadness such as comesout of the silent places of the night. It was such a wide and empty landfor a young heart, and its prospect was such a waste of years! Thethought of refuge and peace was sweet, but there is refuge to be foundand peace to be won among men and the works of men; among books, and thesofter ways of life.
At that hour she was ready to give it up, mount her horse, and rideaway. If giving it up would save Dr. Slavens his ha
rd-won claim, shewould not hesitate, she told herself, to ride to Comanche that night andtake the first train for the East. But flight would not put her out ofthe reach of the Federal officials, and if she should fly, that wouldonly bring the spite of Boyle down upon her more swiftly and sharplythan remaining there, facing him, and defying him to do his worst.
No; flight would be useless, because Jerry Boyle knew exactly where shewould go. There was but one place; they would follow her to it and findher, and that would be carrying trouble to a home that had enough of itas it stood. There must be some other way. Was there no bond oftenderness in that dark man's life which she could touch? no softinfluence which she might bring to bear upon him and cause him torelease his rapacious hold?
None. So far as she could fit the pieces of the past together she couldfashion no design which offered relief.
Agnes brought up her horse and gave it a measure of oats near the tentfor the sake of the companionship of its noise, and large presence inthe lantern light. She thought that even after she had gone to sleepthere would be comfort in the sense of the animal's nearness.
And so, beside her stove, the lonely night around her, the dread ache of"the lonesomeness" in her heart, she sat watching the sparks run out ofthe stovepipe like grains of sand running in a glass. Distance and hopealike have their enchantments, she owned, which all the powers of reasoncannot dispel. Hand to hand this land was not for her. It was empty ofall that she yearned for; it was as crude as the beginning.
And out of the turmoil of this thought and heartache there came tearswhich welled copiously and without a sob, as one weeps for things whichhave not been and cannot be; as one weeps for hopelessness. And thewhisperings of memory stirred in her heart, and the soft light ofrecollection kindled like a flame. Out of the past there rose aface--and flash!
A plan!
There was something to be done now; there was hot blood in the heartagain. In one moment the way had straightened before her, and resolutionhad taken firm captaincy. With a pang of hunger she remembered that fora day she had subsisted principally on coffee.
After a hasty supper, sleep was necessary, and rest. The horse hadfinished its oats, and was now watching her sudden activity withforward-thrown ears, its bright eyes catching the lantern-gleam as itturned its head. Satisfied, apparently, that the bustle included noimmediate plans for itself, the animal lounged easily on three legs andwent to sleep.
Agnes stopped to give it a caressing pat as she went in. Sleep was theimportant thing now, for her plan called for endurance and toil. Butthere was one little thing to be done tonight for which the early lightof morning, in which she must be stirring, might not suffice--just alittle writing. It was quickly done, her suitcase held across her kneesserving for a desk.