Produced by Bill Brewer
LIN McLEAN
By Owen Wister
DEDICATION
MY DEAR HARRY MERCER: When Lin McLean was only a hero in manuscript, hereceived his first welcome and chastening beneath your patient roof. Bynone so much as by you has he in private been helped and affectionatelydisciplined, an now you must stand godfather to him upon this publicpage.
Always yours,
OWEN WISTER
Philadelphia, 1897
HOW LIN McLEAN WENT EAST
In the old days, the happy days, when Wyoming was a Territory with afuture instead of a State with a past, and the unfenced cattle grazedupon her ranges by prosperous thousands, young Lin McLean awaked earlyone morning in cow camp, and lay staring out of his blankets upon theworld. He would be twenty-two this week. He was the youngest cow-puncherin camp. But because he could break wild horses, he was earning moredollars a month than any man there, except one. The cook was a moreindispensable person. None save the cook was up, so far, this morning.Lin's brother punchers slept about him on the ground, some motionless,some shifting their prone heads to burrow deeper from the increasingday. The busy work of spring was over, that of the fall, or beefround-up, not yet come. It was mid-July, a lull for these hard-ridingbachelors of the saddle, and many unspent dollars stood to Mr. McLean'scredit on the ranch books.
"What's the matter with some variety?" muttered the boy in his blankets.
The long range of the mountains lifted clear in the air. They slantedfrom the purple folds and furrows of the pines that richly cloaked them,upward into rock and grassy bareness until they broke remotely intobright peaks, and filmed into the distant lavender of the north and thesouth. On their western side the streams ran into Snake or into GreenRiver, and so at length met the Pacific. On this side, Wind River flowedforth from them, descending out of the Lake of the Painted Meadows. Amere trout-brook it was up there at the top of the divide, with easyriffles and stepping-stones in many places; but down here, outsidethe mountains, it was become a streaming avenue, a broadening course,impetuous between its two tall green walls of cottonwood-trees. And soit wound away like a vast green ribbon across the lilac-gray sage-brushand the yellow, vanishing plains.
"Variety, you bet!" young Lin repeated, aloud.
He unrolled himself from his bed, and brought from the garments thatmade his pillow a few toilet articles. He got on his long boy legs andlimped blithely to the margin. In the mornings his slight lameness wasalways more visible. The camp was at Bull Lake Crossing, where thefork from Bull Lake joins Wind River. Here Lin found some convenientshingle-stones, with dark, deepish water against them, where he plungedhis face and energetically washed, and came up with the short curly hairshining upon his round head. After enough looks at himself in the darkwater, and having knotted a clean, jaunty handkerchief at his throat, hereturned with his slight limp to camp, where they were just sitting atbreakfast to the rear of the cook-shelf of the wagon.
"Bugged up to kill!" exclaimed one, perceiving Lin's careful dress.
"He sure has not shaved again?" another inquired, with concern.
"I ain't got my opera-glasses on," answered a third.
"He has spared that pansy-blossom mustache," said a fourth.
"My spring crop," remarked young Lin, rounding on this last one, "hasjuicier prospects than that rat-eaten catastrophe of last year's haywhich wanders out of your face."
"Why, you'll soon be talking yourself into a regular man," said theother.
But the camp laugh remained on the side of young Lin till breakfast wasended, when the ranch foreman rode into camp.
Him Lin McLean at once addressed. "I was wantin' to speak to you," saidhe.
The experienced foreman noticed the boy's holiday appearance. "Iunderstand you're tired of work," he remarked.
"Who told you?" asked the bewildered Lin.
The foreman touched the boy's pretty handkerchief. "Well, I have a wayof taking things in at a glance," said he. "That's why I'm foreman, Iexpect. So you've had enough work?"
"My system's full of it," replied Lin, grinning. As the foreman stoodthinking, he added, "And I'd like my time."
Time, in the cattle idiom, meant back-pay up to date.
"It's good we're not busy," said the foreman.
"Meanin' I'd quit all the same?" inquired Lin, rapidly, flushing.
"No--not meaning any offence. Catch up your horse. I want to make thepost before it gets hot."
The foreman had come down the river from the ranch at Meadow Creek,and the post, his goal, was Fort Washakie. All this part of the countryformed the Shoshone Indian Reservation, where, by permission, pasturedthe herds whose owner would pay Lin his time at Washakie. So the youngcow-puncher flung on his saddle and mounted.
"So-long!" he remarked to the camp, by way of farewell. He mightnever be going to see any of them again; but the cow-punchers were notdemonstrative by habit.
"Going to stop long at Washakie?" asked one.
"Alma is not waiter-girl at the hotel now," another mentioned.
"If there's a new girl," said a third, "kiss her one for me, and tellher I'm handsomer than you."
"I ain't a deceiver of women," said Lin.
"That's why you'll tell her," replied his friend.
"Say, Lin, why are you quittin' us so sudden, anyway?" asked the cook,grieved to lose him.
"I'm after some variety," said the boy.
"If you pick up more than you can use, just can a little of it for me!"shouted the cook at the departing McLean.
This was the last of camp by Bull Lake Crossing, and in the foreman'scompany young Lin now took the road for his accumulated dollars.
"So you're leaving your bedding and stuff with the outfit?" said theforeman.
"Brought my tooth-brush," said Lin, showing it in the breast-pocket ofhis flannel shirt.
"Going to Denver?"
"Why, maybe."
"Take in San Francisco?"
"Sounds slick."
"Made any plans?"
"Gosh, no!"
"Don't want anything on your brain?"
"Nothin' except my hat, I guess," said Lin, and broke into cheerfulsong:
"'Twas a nasty baby anyhow, And it only died to spite us; 'Twas afflicted with the cerebrow Spinal meningitis!'"
They wound up out of the magic valley of Wind River, through thebastioned gullies and the gnome-like mystery of dry water-courses,upward and up to the level of the huge sage-brush plain above. Behindlay the deep valley they had climbed from, mighty, expanding, its treeslike bushes, its cattle like pebbles, its opposite side towering alsoto the edge of this upper plain. There it lay, another world. One stepfarther away from its rim, and the two edges of the plain had flowedtogether over it like a closing sea, covering without a sign or ripplethe great country which lay sunk beneath.
"A man might think he'd dreamed he'd saw that place," said Lin to theforeman, and wheeled his horse to the edge again. "She's sure there,though," he added, gazing down. For a moment his boy face grewthoughtful. "Shucks!" said he then, abruptly, "where's any joy inmoney that's comin' till it arrives? I have most forgot the feel o'spot-cash."
He turned his horse away from the far-winding vision of the river, andtook a sharp jog after the foreman, who had not been waiting for him.Thus they crossed the eighteen miles of high plain, and came down toFort Washakie, in the valley of Little Wind, before the day was hot.
His roll of wages once jammed in his pocket like an old handkerchief,young Lin precipitated himself out of the post-trader's store and awayon his horse up the stream among the Shoshone tepees to an unexpectedentertainment--a wolf-dance. He had meant to go and see what the newwaiter-girl at the hotel looked like, but put this off promptly toattend the danc
e. This hospitality the Shoshone Indians were extendingto some visiting Ute friends, and the neighborhood was assembled towatch the ring of painted naked savages.
The post-trader looked after the galloping Lin. "What's he quitting hisjob for?" he asked the foreman.
"Same as most of 'em quit."
"Nothing?"
"Nothing."
"Been satisfactory?"
"Never had a boy more so. Good-hearted, willing, a plumb dare-devil witha horse."
"And worthless," suggested the post-trader.
"Well--not yet. He's headed that way."
"Been punching cattle long?"
"Came in the country about seventy-eight, I believe, and rode for theBordeaux Outfit most a year, and quit. Blew in at Cheyenne till he wentbroke, and worked over on to the Platte. Rode for the C. Y. Outfit mosta year, and quit. Blew in at Buffalo. Rode for Balaam awhile on ButteCreek. Broke his leg. Went to the Drybone Hospital, and when thefracture was commencing to knit pretty good he broke it again at thehog-ranch across the bridge. Next time you're in Cheyenne get Dr. Barkerto tell you about that. McLean drifted to Green River last year and wentup over on to Snake, and up Snake, and was around with a prospectingoutfit on Galena Creek by Pitchstone Canyon. Seems he got interestedin some Dutchwoman up there, but she had trouble--died, I think theysaid--and he came down by Meteetsee to Wind River. He's liable to go toMexico or Africa next."
"If you need him," said the post-trader, closing his ledger, "you canoffer him five more a month."
"That'll not hold him."
"Well, let him go. Have a cigar. The bishop is expected for Sunday, andI've got to see his room is fixed up for him."
"The bishop!" said the foreman. "I've heard him highly spoken of."
"You can hear him preach to-morrow. The bishop is a good man."
"He's better than that; he's a man," stated the foreman--"at least sothey tell me."
Now, saving an Indian dance, scarce any possible event at the Shoshoneagency could assemble in one spot so many sorts of inhabitants as avisit from this bishop. Inhabitants of four colors gathered to view thewolf-dance this afternoon--red men, white men, black men, yellow men.Next day, three sorts came to church at the agency. The Chinese laundrywas absent. But because, indeed (as the foreman said), the bishop wasnot only a good man but a man, Wyoming held him in respect and wentto look at him. He stood in the agency church and held the Episcopalservice this Sunday morning for some brightly glittering army officersand their families, some white cavalry, and some black infantry; theagency doctor, the post-trader, his foreman, the government scout, threegamblers, the waiter-girl from the hotel, the stage-driver, who wasthere because she was; old Chief Washakie, white-haired and royal inblankets, with two royal Utes splendid beside him; one benchful ofsquatting Indian children, silent and marvelling; and, on the backbench, the commanding officer's new hired-girl, and, beside her, LinMcLean.
Mr. McLean's hours were already various and successful. Even at thewolf-dance, before he had wearied of its monotonous drumming andpageant, his roving eye had rested upon a girl whose eyes he caughtresting upon him. A look, an approach, a word, and each was soon contentwith the other. Then, when her duties called her to the post from himand the stream's border, with a promise for next day he sought the hoteland found the three gamblers anxious to make his acquaintance; for whena cow-puncher has his pay many people will take an interest in him. Thethree gamblers did not know that Mr. McLean could play cards. He leftthem late in the evening fat with their money, and sought the tepees ofthe Arapahoes. They lived across the road from the Shoshones, and amongtheir tents the boy remained until morning. He was here in church now,keeping his promise to see the bishop with the girl of yesterday; andwhile he gravely looked at the bishop, Miss Sabina Stone allowed his armto encircle her waist. No soldier had achieved this yet, but Lin was thefirst cow-puncher she had seen, and he had given her the handkerchieffrom round his neck.
The quiet air blew in through the windows and door, the pure, lightbreath from the mountains; only, passing over their foot-hills it hadcaught and carried the clear aroma of the sage-brush. This it broughtinto church, and with this seemed also to float the peace and greatsilence of the plains. The little melodeon in the corner, played by oneof the ladies at the post, had finished accompanying the hymn, and nowit prolonged a few closing chords while the bishop paused before hisaddress, resting his keen eyes on the people. He was dressed in aplain suit of black with a narrow black tie. This was because the UnionPacific Railroad, while it had delivered him correctly at Green River,had despatched his robes towards Cheyenne.
Without citing chapter and verse the bishop began:
"And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great wayoff, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on hisneck and kissed him."
The bishop told the story of that surpassing parable, and then proceededto draw from it a discourse fitted to the drifting destinies in whosepresence he found himself for one solitary morning. He spoke unlike manyclergymen. His words were chiefly those which the people round him used,and his voice was more like earnest talking than preaching.
Miss Sabina Stone felt the arm of her cow-puncher loosen slightly, andshe looked at him. But he was looking at the bishop, no longer gravelybut with wide-open eyes, alert. When the narrative reached the elderbrother in the field, and how he came to the house and heard sounds ofmusic and dancing, Miss Stone drew away from her companion and let himwatch the bishop, since he seemed to prefer that. She took to readinghymns vindictively. The bishop himself noted the sun-browned boy faceand the wide-open eyes. He was too far away to see anything but thealert, listening position of the young cow-puncher. He could not discernhow that, after he had left the music and dancing and begun to drawmorals, attention faded from those eyes that seemed to watch him, andthey filled with dreaminess. It was very hot in church. Chief Washakiewent to sleep, and so did a corporal; but Lin McLean sat in the samealert position till Miss Stone pulled him and asked if he intended tosit down through the hymn. Then church was out. Officers, Indians, andall the people dispersed through the great sunshine to their dwellings,and the cow-puncher rode beside Sabina in silence.
"What are you studying over, Mr. McLean?" inquired the lady, after ahundred yards.
"Did you ever taste steamed Duxbury clams?" asked Lin, absently.
"No, indeed. What's them?"
"Oh, just clams. Yu' have drawn butter, too." Mr. McLean fell silentagain.
"I guess I'll be late for settin' the colonel's table. Good-bye," saidSabina, quickly, and swished her whip across the pony, who scamperedaway with her along the straight road across the plain to the post.
Lin caught up with her at once and made his peace.
"Only," protested Sabina, "I ain't used to gentlemen taking me outand--well, same as if I was a collie-dog. Maybe it's Wind Riverpoliteness."
But she went riding with him up Trout Creek in the cool of theafternoon. Out of the Indian tepees, scattered wide among the flatlevels of sage-brush, smoke rose thin and gentle, and vanished. Theysplashed across the many little running channels which lead waterthrough that thirsty soil, and though the range of mountains came nonearer, behind them the post, with its white, flat buildings and greentrees, dwindled to a toy village.
"My! but it's far to everywheres here," exclaimed Sabina, "and it'slittle you're sayin' for yourself to-day, Mr. McLean. I'll have to dothe talking. What's that thing now, where the rocks are?"
"That's Little Wind River Canyon," said the young man. "Feel like goin'there, Miss Stone?"
"Why, yes. It looks real nice and shady like, don't it? Let's."
So Miss Stone turned her pony in that direction.
"When do your folks eat supper?" inquired Lin.
"Half-past six. Oh, we've lots of time! Come on."
"How many miles per hour do you figure that cayuse of yourn can travel?"Lin asked.
"What are you a-talking about, anyway? You're that strange to-day," s
aidthe lady.
"Only if we try to make that canyon, I guess you'll be late settin' thecolonel's table," Lin remarked, his hazel eyes smiling upon her. "Thatis, if your horse ain't good for twenty miles an hour. Mine ain't, Iknow. But I'll do my best to stay with yu'."
"You're the teasingest man--" said Miss Stone, pouting. "I might haveknowed it was ever so much further nor it looked."
"Well, I ain't sayin' I don't want to go, if yu' was desirous of campin'out to-night."
"Mr. McLean! Indeed, and I'd do no such thing!" and Sabina giggled.
A sage-hen rose under their horses' feet, and hurtled away heavily overthe next rise of ground, taking a final wide sail out of sight.
"Something like them partridges used to," said Lin, musingly.
"Partridges?" inquired Sabina.
"Used to be in the woods between Lynn and Salem. Maybe the woods aregone by this time. Yes, they must be gone, I guess."
Presently they dismounted and sought the stream bank.
"We had music and dancing at Thanksgiving and such times," said Lin, hiswiry length stretched on the grass beside the seated Sabina. He was notlooking at her, but she took a pleasure in watching him, his curly headand bronze face, against which the young mustache showed to its fulladvantage.
"I expect you used to dance a lot," remarked Sabina, for a subject.
"Yes. Do yu' know the Portland Fancy?"
Sabina did not, and her subject died away.
"Did anybody ever tell you you had good eyes?" she inquired next.
"Why, sure," said Lin, waking for a moment; "but I like your color best.A girl's eyes will mostly beat a man's."
"Indeed, I don't think so!" exclaimed poor Sabina, too much expectantto perceive the fatal note of routine with which her transient admirerpronounced this gallantry. He informed her that hers were like the sea,and she told him she had not yet looked upon the sea.
"Never?" said he. "It's a turruble pity you've never saw salt water.It's different from fresh. All around home it's blue--awful blue inJuly--around Swampscott and Marblehead and Nahant, and around theislands. I've swam there lots. Then our home bruck up and we went toboard in Boston." He snapped off a flower in reach of his long arm.Suddenly all dreaminess left him.
"I wonder if you'll be settin' the colonel's table when I come back?" hesaid.
Miss Stone was at a loss.
"I'm goin' East to-morrow--East, to Boston."
Yesterday he had told her that sixteen miles to Lander was the farthestjourney from the post that he intended to make--the farthest from thepost and her.
"I hope nothing ain't happened to your folks?" said she.
"I ain't got no folks," replied Lin, "barring a brother. I expect he istaking good care of himself."
"Don't you correspond?"
"Well, I guess he would if there was anything to say. There ain't beennothin'."
Sabina thought they must have quarrelled, but learned that they had not.It was time for her now to return and set the colonel's table, so Linrose and went to bring her horse. When he had put her in her saddle shenoticed him step to his own.
"Why, I didn't know you were lame!" cried she.
"Shucks!" said Lin. "It don't cramp my style any." He had sprung onhis horse, ridden beside her, leaned and kissed her before she got anymeasure of his activity.
"That's how," said he; and they took their homeward way galloping. "No,"Lin continued, "Frank and me never quarrelled. I just thought I'd havea look at this Western country. Frank, he thought dry-goods was goodenough for him, and so we're both satisfied, I expect. And that's a lotof years now. Whoop ye!" he suddenly sang out, and fired his six-shooterat a jack-rabbit, who strung himself out flat and flew over the earth.
Both dismounted at the parade-ground gate, and he kissed her again whenshe was not looking, upon which she very properly slapped him; and hetook the horses to the stable. He sat down to tea at the hotel, andfound the meal consisted of black potatoes, gray tea, and a gutteringdish of fat pork. But his appetite was good, and he remarked to himselfthat inside the first hour he was in Boston he would have steamedDuxbury clams. Of Sabina he never thought again, and it is likely thatshe found others to take his place. Fort Washakie was one hundred andfifty miles from the railway, and men there were many and girls werefew.
The next morning the other passengers entered the stage withresignation, knowing the thirty-six hours of evil that lay before them.Lin climbed up beside the driver. He had a new trunk now.
"Don't get full, Lin," said the clerk, putting the mail-sacks in at thestore.
"My plans ain't settled that far yet," replied Mr. McLean.
"Leave it out of them," said the voice of the bishop, laughing, insidethe stage.
It was a cool, fine air. Gazing over the huge plain down in which liesFort Washakie, Lin heard the faint notes of the trumpet on the paradeground, and took a good-bye look at all things. He watched the Americanflag grow small, saw the circle of steam rising away down by the hotsprings, looked at the bad lands beyond, chemically pink and rose amidthe vast, natural, quiet-colored plain. Across the spreading distanceIndians trotted at wide spaces, generally two large bucks on one smallpony, or a squaw and pappoose--a bundle of parti-colored rags. Presidingover the whole rose the mountains to the west, serene, lifting into theclearest light. Then once again came the now tiny music of the trumpet.
"When do yu' figure on comin' back?" inquired the driver.
"Oh, I'll just look around back there for a spell," said Lin. "About amonth, I guess."
He had seven hundred dollars. At Lander the horses are changed; andduring this operation Lin's friends gathered and said, where was anysense in going to Boston when you could have a good time where youwere? But Lin remained sitting safe on the stage. Toward evening, at thebottom of a little dry gulch some eight feet deep, the horses decidedit was a suitable place to stay. It was the bishop who persuaded themto change their minds. He told the driver to give up beating, andunharness. Then they were led up the bank, quivering, and a broken tracewas spliced with rope. Then the stage was forced on to the level ground,the bishop proving a strong man, familiar with the gear of vehicles.They crossed through the pass among the quaking asps and the pines,and, reaching Pacific Springs, came down again into open country. Thatafternoon the stage put its passengers down on the railroad platformat Green River; this was the route in those days before the mid-wintercatastrophes of frozen passengers led to its abandonment. The bishop wasgoing west. His robes had passed him on the up stage during the night.When the reverend gentleman heard this he was silent for a very shortmoment, and then laughed vigorously in the baggage-room.
"I can understand how you swear sometimes," he said to Lin McLean; "butI can't, you see. Not even at this."
The cow-puncher was checking his own trunk to Omaha.
"Good-bye and good luck to you," continued the bishop, giving his handto Lin. "And look here--don't you think you might leave that 'gettingfull' out of your plans?"
Lin gave a slightly shamefaced grin. "I don't guess I can, sir," hesaid. "I'm givin' yu' straight goods, yu' see," he added.
"That's right. But you look like a man who could stop when he'd hadenough. Try that. You're man enough--and come and see me whenever we'rein the same place."
He went to the hotel. There were several hours for Lin to wait. Hewalked up and down the platform till the stars came out and the brightlights of the town shone in the saloon windows. Over across the waypiano-music sounded through one of the many open doors.
"Wonder if the professor's there yet?" said Lin, and he went across therailroad tracks. The bartender nodded to him as he passed through intothe back room. In that place were many tables, and the flat clicking andrattle of ivory counters sounded pleasantly through the music. Lindid not join the stud-poker game. He stood over a table at which sat adealer and a player, very silent, opposite each other, and whereon werepainted sundry cards, numerals, and the colors red and black in squares.The legend "Jacks pay" was also clear
ly painted. The player placed chipson whichever insignia of fortune he chose, and the dealer slid cards(quite fairly) from the top of a pack that lay held within a skeletoncase made with some clamped bands of tin. Sometimes the player's pile ofchips rose high, and sometimes his sumptuous pillar of gold pieces waslessened by one. It was very interesting and pretty to see; Lin hadmuch better have joined the game of stud-poker. Presently the eye ofthe dealer met the eye of the player. After that slight incident theplayer's chip pile began to rise, and rose steadily, till the dealermade admiring comments on such a run of luck. Then the player stopped,cashed in, and said good-night, having nearly doubled the number of hisgold pieces.
"Five dollars' worth," said Lin, sitting down in the vacant seat. Thechips were counted out to him. He played with unimportant shiftingsof fortune until a short while before his train was due, and then,singularly enough, he discovered he was one hundred and fifty dollarsbehind the game.
"I guess I'll leave the train go without me," said Lin, buying fivedollars' worth more of ivory counters. So that train came and went,removing eastward Mr. McLean's trunk.
During the hour that followed his voice grew dogged and his remarksbriefer, as he continually purchased more chips from the now surprisedand sympathetic dealer. It was really wonderful how steadily Linlost--just as steadily as his predecessor had won after that meeting ofeyes early in the evening.
When Lin was three hundred dollars out, his voice began to clear of itshuskiness and a slight humor revolved and sparkled in his eye. When hisseven hundred dollars had gone to safer hands and he had nothing left atall but some silver fractions of a dollar, his robust cheerfulness wasall back again. He walked out and stood among the railroad tracks withhis hands in his pockets, and laughed at himself in the dark. Then hisfingers came on the check for Omaha, and he laughed loudly. The trunk bythis hour must be nearing Rawlins; it was going east anyhow.
"I'm following it, you bet," he declared, kicking the rail. "Not yetthough. Nor I'll not go to Washakie to have 'em josh me. And yonder laysBoston." He stretched his arm and pointed eastward. Had he seen anotherman going on in this fashion alone in the dark, among side-trackedfreight cars, he would have pitied the poor fool. "And I guess Boston'llhave to get along without me for a spell, too," continued Lin. "A mandon't want to show up plumb broke like that younger son did after eatin'with the hogs the bishop told about. His father was a Jim-dandy, thathog chap's. Hustled around and set 'em up when he come back home. Frank,he'd say to me 'How do you do, brother?' and he'd be wearin' a good suito' clothes and--no, sir, you bet!"
Lin now watched the great headlight of a freight train bearing slowlydown into Green River from the wilderness. Green River is the end of adivision, an epoch in every train's journey. Lanterns swung signals,the great dim thing slowed to its standstill by the coal chute, itslocomotive moved away for a turn of repose, the successor backedsteaming to its place to tackle a night's work. Cars were shifted,heavily bumping and parting.
"Hello, Lin!" A face was looking from the window of the caboose.
"Hello!" responded Mr. McLean, perceiving above his head Honey Wiggin, agood friend of his. They had not met for three years.
"They claimed you got killed somewheres. I was sorry to hear it." Honeyoffered his condolence quite sincerely.
"Bruck my leg," corrected Lin, "if that's what they meant."
"I expect that's it," said Honey. "You've had no other trouble?"
"Been boomin'," said Lin.
From the mere undertone in their voices it was plain they were goodfriends, carefully hiding their pleasure at meeting.
"Wher're yu' bound?" inquired Honey.
"East," said Lin.
"Better jump in here, then. We're goin' west."
"That just suits me," said Lin.
The busy lanterns wagged among the switches, the steady lights of thesaloons shone along the town's wooden facade. From the bluffs thatwall Green River the sweet, clean sage-brush wind blew down in currentsfreshly through the coal-smoke. A wrench passed through the train fromlocomotive to caboose, each fettered car in turn strained into motionand slowly rolled over the bridge and into silence from the steam andthe bells of the railroad yard. Through the open windows of the caboosegreat dull-red cinders rattled in, and the whistles of distant UnionPacific locomotives sounded over the open plains ominous and long, likeships at sea.
Honey and Lin sat for a while, making few observations and far between,as their way is between whom flows a stream of old-time understanding.Mutual whiskey and silence can express much friendship, and eloquently.
"What are yu' doing at present?" Lin inquired.
"Prospectin'."
Now prospecting means hunting gold, except to such spirits as the boyLin. To these it means finding gold. So Lin McLean listened to the talkof his friend Honey Wiggin as the caboose trundled through the night. Hesaw himself in a vision of the near future enter a bank and thump downa bag of gold-dust. Then he saw the new, clean money the man would handhim in exchange, bills with round zeroes half covered by being foldedover, and heavy, satisfactory gold pieces. And then he saw the bluewater that twinkles beneath Boston. His fingers came again on his trunkcheck. He had his ticket, too. And as dawn now revealed the gray countryto him, his eye fell casually upon a mile-post: "Omaha, 876." He beganto watch for them:--877, 878. But the trunk would really get to Omaha.
"What are yu' laughin' about?" asked Honey.
"Oh, the wheels."
"Wheels?"
"Don't yu' hear 'em?" said Lin. "'Variety,' they keep a-sayin'.'Variety, variety.'"
"Huh!" said Honey, with scorn. "'Ker-chunka-chunk' 's all I make it."
"You're no poet," observed Mr. McLean.
As the train moved into Evanston in the sunlight, a gleam of dismay shotover Lin's face, and he ducked his head out of sight of the window, butimmediately raised it again. Then he leaned out, waving his arm with acertain defiant vigor. But the bishop on the platform failed to noticethis performance, though it was done for his sole benefit, nor would Linexplain to the inquisitive Wiggin what the matter was. Therefore, verynaturally, Honey drew a conclusion for himself, looked quickly out ofthe window, and, being disappointed in what he expected to see remarked,sulkily, "Do yu' figure I care what sort of a lookin' girl is stuck onyu' in Evanston?" And upon this young Lin laughed so loudly that hisfriend told him he had never seen a man get so foolish in three years.
By-and-by they were in Utah, and, in the company of Ogden friends,forgot prospecting. Later they resumed freight trains and journeyednorth In Idaho they said good-bye to the train hands in the caboose,and came to Little Camas, and so among the mountains near Feather Creek.Here the berries were of several sorts, and growing riper each day, andthe bears in the timber above knew this, and came down punctuallywith the season, making variety in the otherwise even life of theprospectors. It was now August, and Lin sat on a wet hill makingmud-pies for sixty days. But the philosopher's stone was not in the washat that placer, nor did Lin gather gold-dust sufficient to cover thenail of his thumb. Then they heard of an excitement at Obo, Nevada, and,hurrying to Obo, they made some more mud-pies.
Now and then, eating their fat bacon at noon, Honey would say, "Lin,wher're yu' goin'?"
And Lin always replied, "East." This became a signal for drinks.
For beauty and promise, Nevada is a name among names. Nevada! Pronouncethe word aloud. Does it not evoke mountains and clear air, heightsof untrodden snow and valleys aromatic with the pine and musical withfalling waters? Nevada! But the name is all. Abomination of desolationpresides over nine-tenths of the place. The sun beats down as on a roofof zinc, fierce and dull. Not a drop of water to a mile of sand. Themean ash-dump landscape stretches on from nowhere to nowhere, a spotof mange. No portion of the earth is more lacquered with paltry,unimportant ugliness.
There is gold in Nevada, but Lin and Honey did not find it. Prospectingof the sort they did, besides proving unfruitful, is not comfortable.Now and again, losing patience, Lin
would leave his work and stalk aboutand gaze down at the scattered men who stooped or knelt in the water.Passing each busy prospector, Lin would read on every broad, upturnedpair of overalls the same label, "Levi Strauss, No. 2," with a pictureof two lusty horses hitched to one of these garments and vainlystruggling to split them asunder. Lin remembered he was wearing a labeljust like that too, and when he considered all things he laughed tohimself. Then, having stretched the ache out of his long legs, he wouldreturn to his ditch. As autumn wore on, his feet grew cold in the mushygravel they were sunk in. He beat off the sand that had stiffened on hisboots, and hated Obo, Nevada. But he held himself ready to say "East"whenever he saw Honey coming along with the bottle. The cold weatherput an end to this adventure. The ditches froze and filled with snow,through which the sordid gravel heaps showed in a dreary fashion; so thetwo friends drifted southward.
Near the small new town of Mesa, Arizona, they sat down again in thedirt. It was milder here, and, when the sun shone, never quite froze.But this part of Arizona is scarcely more grateful to the eye thanNevada. Moreover, Lin and Honey found no gold at all. Some men near themfound a little. Then in January, even though the sun shone, it quitefroze one day.
"We're seein' the country, anyway," said Honey.
"Seein' hell," said Lin, "and there's more of it above ground than Ithought."
"What'll we do?" Honey inquired.
"Have to walk for a job--a good-payin' job," responded the hopefulcow-puncher. And he and Honey went to town.
Lin found a job in twenty-five minutes, becoming assistant to theapothecary in Mesa. Established at the drug-store, he made up thesimpler prescriptions. He had studied practical pharmacy inBoston between the ages of thirteen and fifteen, and, besides thisqualification, the apothecary had seen him when he first came into Mesa,and liked him. Lin made no mistakes that he or any one ever knew of;and, as the mild weather began, he materially increased the apothecary'sbusiness by persuading him to send East for a soda-water fountain. Theladies of the town clustered around this entertaining novelty, and whilesipping vanilla and lemon bought knickknacks. And the gentlemen ofthe town discovered that whiskey with soda and strawberry syrup wasdelicious, and produced just as competent effects. A group of them weregenerally standing in the shop and shaking dice to decide who shouldpay for the next, while Lin administered to each glass the necessaryingredients. Thus money began to come to him a little more steadily thanhad been its wont, and he divided with the penniless Honey.
But Honey found fortune quickly, too. Through excellent card-playing hewon a pinto from a small Mexican horse-thief who came into town from theSouth, and who cried bitterly when he delivered up his pet pony to thenew owner. The new owner, being a man of the world and agile on hisfeet, was only slightly stabbed that evening as he walked to thedance-hall at the edge of the town. The Mexican was buried on the nextday but one.
The pony stood thirteen two, and was as long as a steamboat. He hadwhite eyelashes, pink nostrils, and one eye was bright blue. If youspoke pleasantly to him, he rose instantly on his hind-legs and triedto beat your face. He did not look as if he could run, and that was whatmade him so valuable. Honey travelled through the country with him, andevery gentleman who saw the pinto and heard Honey became anxious to getup a race. Lin always sent money for Wiggin to place, and he soonopened a bank account, while Honey, besides his racing-bridle, bought asilver-inlaid one, a pair of forty-dollar spurs, and a beautiful saddlerichly stamped. Every day (when in Mesa) Honey would step into thedrug-store and inquire, "Lin, wher're yu' goin'?"
But Lin never answered any more. He merely came to the soda-waterfountain with the whiskey. The passing of days brought a choked seasonof fine sand and hard blazing sky. Heat rose up from the ground and hungheavily over man and beast. Many insects sat out in the sun rattlingwith joy; the little tearing river grew clear from the swollen mud, andshrank to a succession of standing pools; and the fat, squatting cactusbloomed everywhere into butter-colored flowers big as tulips in thesand. There were artesian wells in Mesa, and the water did not tastevery good; but if you drank from the standing pools where the riverhad been, you repaired to the drug-store almost immediately. A troop ofwandering players came dotting along the railroad, and, reaching Mesa,played a brass-band up and down the street, and announced the powerfuldrama of "East Lynne." Then Mr. McLean thought of the Lynn marshes thatlie between there and Chelsea, and of the sea that must look so cool.He forgot them while following the painful fortunes of the Lady Isabel;but, going to bed in the back part of the drug-store, he remembered howhe used to beat everybody swimming in the salt water.
"I'm goin'," he said. Then he got up, and, striking the light, heinspected his bank account. "I'm sure goin'," he repeated, blowing thelight out, "and I can buy the fatted calf myself, you bet!" for he hadoften thought of the bishop's story. "You bet!" he remarked once more ina muffled voice, and was asleep in a minute. The apothecary was sorry tohave him go, and Honey was deeply grieved.
"I'd pull out with yer," he said, "only I can do business round Yuma andwestward with the pinto."
For three farewell days Lin and Honey roved together in all sorts ofplaces, where they were welcome, and once more Lin rode a horse andwas in his native element. Then he travelled to Deming, and so throughDenver to Omaha, where he was told that his trunk had been sold forsome months. Besides a suit of clothes for town wear, it had contained abuffalo coat for his brother--something scarce to see in these days.
"Frank'll have to get along without it," he observed, philosophically,and took the next eastbound train.
If you journey in a Pullman from Mesa to Omaha without a waistcoat, andwith a silk handkerchief knotted over the collar of your flannel shirtinstead of a tie, wearing, besides, tall, high-heeled boots, a soft,gray hat with a splendid brim, a few people will notice you, but notthe majority. New Mexico and Colorado are used to these things. As Iowa,with its immense rolling grain, encompasses you, people will stare alittle more, for you're getting near the East, where cow-punchers arenot understood. But in those days the line of cleavage came sharp-drawnat Chicago. West of there was still tolerably west, but east ofthere was east indeed, and the Atlantic Ocean was the next importantstopping-place. In Lin's new train, good gloves, patent-leathers, andsilence prevailed throughout the sleeping-car, which was for Bostonwithout change. Had not home memories begun impetuously to floodhis mind, he would have felt himself conspicuous. Town clothes andconventions had their due value with him. But just now the boy'ssingle-hearted thoughts were far from any surroundings, and he wasmurmuring to himself, "To-morrow! tomorrow night!"
There were ladies in that blue plush car for Boston who looked at Linfor thirty miles at a stretch; and by the time Albany was reachedthe next day one or two of them commented that he was the mostattractive-looking man they had ever seen! Whereas, beyond his tallness,and wide-open, jocular eyes, eyes that seemed those of a not highlyconscientious wild animal, there was nothing remarkable about youngLin except stage effect. The conductor had been annoyed to have sucha passenger; but the cow-puncher troubled no one, and was extremelysilent. So evidently was he a piece of the true frontier that curiousand hopeful fellow-passengers, after watching him with diversion, morethan once took a seat next to him. He met their chatty inquiries withmonosyllables so few and so unprofitable in their quiet politeness thatthe passengers soon gave him up. At Springfield he sent a telegram tohis brother at the great dry-goods establishment that employed him.
The train began its homestretch after Worcester, and whirled and swungby hills and ponds he began to watch for, and through stations with oldwayside names. These flashed on Lin's eye as he sat with his hat offand his forehead against the window, looking: Wellesley. Then, not longafter, Riverside. That was the Charles River, and did the picnic woodsused to be above the bridge or below? West Newton; Newtonville; Newton."Faneuil's next," he said aloud in the car, as the long-forgottenhome-knowledge shone forth in his recollection. The traveller seatednear said, "Beg pardon?" but, turning
, wondered at the all-unconsciousLin, with his forehead pressed against the glass. The blue water flashedinto sight, and soon after they were running in the darkness betweenhigh walls; but the cow-puncher never moved, though nothing could beseen. When the porter announced "Boston," he started up and followedlike a sheep in the general exodus. Down on the platform he moved alongwith the slow crowd till some one touched him, and, wheeling round, heseized both his brother's hands and swore a good oath of joy.
There they stood--the long, brown fellow with the silk handkerchiefknotted over his flannel shirt, greeting tremendously the sprucecivilian, who had a rope-colored mustache and bore a faintheartedresemblance to him. The story was plain on its face to the passers-by;and one of the ladies who had come in the car with Lin turned twice, andsmiled gently to herself.
But Frank McLean's heart did not warm. He felt that what he had beenafraid of was true; and he saw he was being made conspicuous. He saw menand women stare in the station, and he saw them staring as he and hisWestern brother went through the streets. Lin strode along, sniffing theair of Boston, looking at all things, and making it a stretch for hissleek companion to keep step with him. Frank thought of the refinedfriends he should have to introduce his brother to; for he hadrisen with his salary, and now belonged to a small club where thepaying-tellers of banks played cards every night, and the head clerk atthe Parker House was president. Perhaps he should not have to revealthe cow-puncher to these shining ones. Perhaps the cow-puncher wouldnot stay very long. Of course he was glad to see him again, and he wouldtake him to dine at some obscure place this first evening. But this wasnot Lin's plan. Frank must dine with him, at the Parker House. Frankdemurred, saying it was he that should be host.
"And," he added, "they charge up high for wines at Parker's." Then forthe twentieth time he shifted a sidelong eye over his brother's clothes.
"You're goin' to take your grub with me," said Lin. "That's all right, Iguess. And there ain't any 'no' about it. Things is not the same likeas if father was livin'--(his voice softened)--and here to see me comehome. Now I'm good for several dinners with wines charged up high, Iexpect, nor it ain't nobody in this world, barrin' just Lin McLean, thatI've any need to ask for anything. 'Mr. McLean,' says I to Lin, 'canyu' spare me some cash?' 'Why, to be sure, you bet!' And we'll start offwith steamed Duxbury clams." The cow-puncher slapped his pocket, wherethe coin made a muffled chinking. Then he said, gruffly, "I supposeSwampscott's there yet?"
"Yes," said Frank. "It's a dead little town, is Swampscott."
"I guess I'll take a look at the old house tomorrow," Lin pursued.
"Oh, that's been pulled down since--I forget the year they improved thatblock."
Lin regarded in silence his brother, who was speaking so jauntily of thefirst and last home they had ever had.
"Seventy-nine is when it was," continued Frank. "So you can save thetrouble of travelling away down to Swampscott."
"I guess I'll go to the graveyard, anyway," said the cow-puncher in hisoffish voice, and looking fixedly in front of him.
They came into Washington Street, and again the elder McLean uneasilysurveyed the younger's appearance.
But the momentary chill had melted from the heart of the genial Lin."After to-morrow," said he, laying a hand on his brother's shoulder,"yu' can start any lead yu' please, and I guess I can stay with yu'pretty close, Frank."
Frank said nothing. He saw one of the members of his club on the otherside of the way, and the member saw him, and Frank caught divertedamazement on the member's face. Lin's hand weighed on his shoulder, andthe stress became too great. "Lin," said he, "while you're running withour crowd, you don't want to wear that style of hat, you know."
It may be that such words can in some way be spoken at such a time, butnot in the way that these were said. The frozen fact was irrevocablyrevealed in the tone of Frank's voice.
The cow-puncher stopped dead short, and his hand slid off his brother'sshoulder. "You've made it plain," he said, evenly, slanting his steadyeyes down into Frank's. "You've explained yourself fairly well. Runalong with your crowd, and I'll not bother yu' more with comin' roundand causin' yu' to feel ashamed. It's a heap better to understand thesethings at once, and save making a fool of yourself any longer 'n yu'need to. I guess there ain't no more to be said, only one thing. If yu'see me around on the street, don't yu' try any talk, for I'd be liableto close your jaw up, and maybe yu'd have more of a job explainin' thatto your crowd than you've had makin' me see what kind of a man I've gotfor a brother."
Frank found himself standing alone before any reply to these sentenceshad occurred to him. He walked slowly to his club, where a friend jokedhim on his glumness.
Lin made a sore failure of amusing himself that night; and in thebright, hot morning he got into the train for Swampscott. At thegraveyard he saw a woman lay a bunch of flowers on a mound and kneel,weeping.
"There ain't nobody to do that for this one," thought the cow-puncher,and looked down at the grave he had come to see, then absently gazed atthe woman.
She had stolen away from her daily life to come here where her griefwas shrined, and now her heart found it hard to bid the lonely placegoodbye. So she lingered long, her thoughts sunk deep in the motionlesspast. When she at last looked up, she saw the tall, strange man re-enterfrom the street among the tombs, and deposit on one of them an ungainlylump of flowers. They were what Lin had been able hastily to buy inSwampscott. He spread them gently as he had noticed the woman do, buther act of kneeling he did not imitate. He went away quickly. For somehours he hung about the little town, aimlessly loitering, watching thesalt water where he used to swim.
"Yu' don't belong any more, Lin," he miserably said at length, and tookhis way to Boston.
The next morning, determined to see the sights, he was in New York, anddrifted about to all places night and day, till his money was mostlygone, and nothing to show for it but a somewhat pleasure-beaten face anda deep hatred of the crowded, scrambling East. So he suddenly bought aticket for Green River, Wyoming, and escaped from the city that seemedto numb his good humor.
When, after three days, the Missouri lay behind him and his holiday, hestretched his legs and took heart to see out of the window the signsof approaching desolation. And when on the fourth day civilizationwas utterly emptied out of the world, he saw a bunch of cattle, and,galloping among them, his spurred and booted kindred. And his mannertook on that alertness a horse shows on turning into the home road. Asthe stage took him toward Washakie, old friends turned up every fiftymiles or so, shambling out of a cabin or a stable, and saying, in casualtones, "Hello, Lin, where've you been at?"
At Lander, there got into the stage another old acquaintance, the Bishopof Wyoming. He knew Lin at once, and held out his hand, and his greetingwas hearty.
"It took a week for my robes to catch up with me," he said, laughing.Then, in a little while, "How was the East?"
"First-rate," said Lin, not looking at him. He was shy of theconversation's taking a moral turn. But the bishop had no intention ofreverting--at any rate, just now--to their last talk at Green River, andthe advice he had then given.
"I trust your friends were all well?" he said.
"I guess they was healthy enough," said Lin.
"I suppose you found Boston much changed? It's a beautiful city."
"Good enough town for them that likes it, I expect," Lin replied.
The bishop was forming a notion of what the matter must be, but he hadno notion whatever of what now revealed itself.
"Mr. Bishop," the cow-puncher said, "how was that about that fellow youtold about that's in the Bible somewheres?--he come home to his folks,and they--well there was his father saw him comin'"--He stopped,embarrassed.
Then the bishop remembered the wide-open eyes, and how he had noticedthem in the church at the agency intently watching him. And, justnow, what were best to say he did not know. He looked at the young mangravely.
"Have yu' got a Bible?" pursued Lin. "For, excuse me,
but I'd like yu'to read that onced."
So the bishop read, and Lin listened. And all the while this goodclergyman was perplexed how to speak--or if indeed to speak at this timeat all--to the heart of the man beside him for whom the parable had goneso sorely wrong. When the reading was done, Lin had not taken his eyesfrom the bishop's face.
"How long has that there been wrote?" he asked.
He was told about how long.
"Mr. Bishop," said Lin, "I ain't got good knowledge of the Bible, and Inever figured it to be a book much on to facts. And I tell you I'm moreplumb beat about it's having that elder brother, and him being angry,down in black and white two thousand years ago, than--than if I'd seena man turn water into wine, for I'd have knowed that ain't so. But theelder brother is facts--dead-sure facts. And they knowed about that, andput it down just the same as life two thousand years ago!"
"Well," said the bishop, wisely ignoring the challenge as to miracles,"I am a good twenty years older than you, and all that time I've beenfinding more facts in the Bible every day I have lived."
Lin meditated. "I guess that could be," he said. "Yes; after that yu'vebeen a-readin', and what I know for myself that I didn't know tilllately, I guess that could be."
Then the bishop talked with exceeding care, nor did he ask uncomfortablethings, or moralize visibly. Thus he came to hear how it had fared withLin his friend, and Lin forgot altogether about its being a parson hewas delivering the fulness of his heart to. "And come to think," heconcluded, "it weren't home I had went to back East, layin' round thembig cities, where a man can't help but feel strange all the week. No,sir! Yu' can blow in a thousand dollars like I did in New York, andit'll not give yu' any more home feelin' than what cattle has put ina stock-yard. Nor it wouldn't have in Boston neither. Now this countryhere" (he waved his hand towards the endless sage-brush), "seein' itonced more, I know where my home is, and I wouldn't live nowheres else.Only I ain't got no father watching for me to come up Wind River."
The cow-puncher stated this merely as a fact, and without any note ofself-pity. But the bishops face grew very tender, and he looked awayfrom Lin. Knowing his man--for had he not seen many of this kind in hisdesert diocese?--he forbore to make any text from that last sentence thecow-puncher had spoken. Lin talked cheerfully on about what he shouldnow do. The round-up must be somewhere near Du Noir Creek. He wouldjoin it this season, but next he should work over to the Powder Rivercountry. More business was over there, and better chances for a man totake up some land and have a ranch of his own. As they got out at FortWashakie, the bishop handed him a small book, in which he had turnedseveral leaves down, carefully avoiding any page that related ofmiracles.
"You need not read it through, you know," he said, smiling; "justread where I have marked, and see if you don't find some more facts.Goodbye--and always come and see me."
The next morning he watched Lin riding slowly out of the post towardsWind River, leading a single pack-horse. By-and-by the little movingdot went over the ridge. And as the bishop walked back into theparade-ground, thinking over the possibilities in that untrained manlysoul, he shook his head sorrowfully.