Lin McLean

PART III

To-day, Drybone has altogether returned to the dust. Even in that day its hour could have been heard beginning to sound, but its inhabitants were rather deaf. Gamblers, saloon-keepers, murderers, outlaws male and female, all were so busy with their cards, their lovers, and their bottles as to make the place seem young and vigorous; but it was second childhood which had set in.

Drybone had known a wholesome adventurous youth, where manly lives and deaths were plenty. It had been an army post. It had seen horse and foot, and heard the trumpet. Brave wives had kept house for their captains upon its bluffs. Winter and summer they had made the best of it. When the War Department ordered the captains to catch Indians, the wives bade them Godspeed. When the Interior Department ordered the captains to let the Indians go again, still they made the best of it. You must not waste Indians. Indians were a source of revenue to so many people in Washington and elsewhere. But the process of catching Indians, armed with weapons sold them by friends of the Interior Department, was not entirely harmless. Therefore there came to be graves in the Drybone graveyard. The pale weather-washed head-boards told all about it: “Sacred to the memory of Private So-and-So, killed on the Dry Cheyenne, May 6, 1875.” Or it would be, “Mrs. So-and-So, found scalped on Sage Creek.” But even the financiers at Washington could not wholly preserve the Indian in Drybone's neighborhood. As the cattle by ten thousands came treading with the next step of civilization into this huge domain, the soldiers were taken away. Some of them went West to fight more Indians in Idaho, Oregon, or Arizona. The battles of the others being done, they went East in better coffins to sleep where their mothers or their comrades wanted them. Though wind and rain wrought changes upon the hill, the ready-made graves and boxes which these soldiers left behind proved heirlooms as serviceable in their way as were the tenements that the living had bequeathed to Drybone. Into these empty barracks came to dwell and do business every joy that made the cow-puncher's holiday, and every hunted person who was baffling the sheriff. For the sheriff must stop outside the line of Drybone, as shall presently be made clear. The captain's quarters were a saloon now; professional cards were going in the adjutant's office night and day; and the commissary building made a good dance-hall and hotel. Instead of guard-mounting, you would see a horse-race on the parade-ground, and there was no provost-sergeant to gather up the broken bottles and old boots. Heaps of these choked the rusty fountain. In the tufts of yellow, ragged grass that dotted the place plentifully were lodged many aces and queens and ten-spots, which the Drybone wind had blown wide from the doors out of which they had been thrown when a new pack was called for inside. Among the grass tufts would lie visitors who had applied for beds too late at the dance-hall, frankly sleeping their whiskey off in the morning air.

Above, on the hill, the graveyard quietly chronicled this new epoch of Drybone. So-and-so was seldom killed very far out of town, and of course scalping had disappeared. “Sacred to the memory of Four-ace Johnston, accidently shot, Sep. 4, 1885.” Perhaps one is still there unaltered: “Sacred to the memory of Mrs. Ryan's babe. Aged two months.” This unique corpse had succeeded in dying with its boots off.

But a succession of graves was not always needed to read the changing tale of the place, and how people died there; one grave would often be enough. The soldiers, of course, had kept treeless Drybone supplied with wood. But in these latter days wood was very scarce. None grew nearer than twenty or thirty miles—none, that is, to make boards of a sufficient width for epitaphs. And twenty miles was naturally far to go to hew a board for a man of whom you knew perhaps nothing but what he said his name was, and to whom you owed nothing, perhaps, but a trifling poker debt. Hence it came to pass that headboards grew into a sort of directory. They were light to lift from one place to another. A single coat of white paint would wipe out the first tenant's name sufficiently to paint over it the next comer's. By this thrifty habit the original boards belonging to the soldiers could go round, keeping pace with the new civilian population; and though at first sight you might be puzzled by the layers of names still visible beneath the white paint, you could be sure that the clearest and blackest was the one to which the present tenant had answered.

So there on the hill lay the graveyard, steadily writing Drybone's history, and making that history lay the town at the bottom—one thin line of houses framing three sides of the old parade ground. In these slowly rotting shells people rioted, believing the golden age was here, the age when everybody should have money and nobody should be arrested. For Drybone soil, you see, was still government soil, not yet handed over to Wyoming; and only government could arrest there, and only for government crimes. But government had gone, and seldom worried Drybone! The spot was a postage-stamp of sanctuary pasted in the middle of Wyoming's big map, a paradise for the Four-ace Johnstons. Only, you must not steal a horse. That was really wicked, and brought you instantly to the notice of Drybone's one official—the coroner! For they did keep a coroner—Judge Slaghammer. He was perfectly illegal, and lived next door in Albany County. But that county paid fees and mileage to keep tally of Drybone's casualties. His wife owned the dance-hall, and between their industries they made out a living. And all the citizens made out a living. The happy cow-punchers on ranches far and near still earned and instantly spent the high wages still paid them. With their bodies full of youth and their pockets full of gold, they rode into town by twenties, by fifties, and out again next morning, penniless always and happy. And then the Four-ace Johnstons would sit card-playing with each other till the innocents should come to town again.

To-night the innocents had certainly come to town, and Drybone was furnishing to them all its joys. Their many horses stood tied at every post and corner—patient, experienced cow-ponies, well knowing it was an all-night affair. The talk and laughter of the riders was in the saloons; they leaned joking over the bars, they sat behind their cards at the tables, they strolled to the post-trader's to buy presents for their easy sweethearts their boots were keeping audible time with the fiddle at Mrs. Slaghammer's. From the multitude and vigor of the sounds there, the dance was being done regularly. “Regularly” meant that upon the conclusion of each set the gentleman led his lady to the bar and invited her to choose and it was also regular that the lady should choose. Beer and whiskey were the alternatives.

Lin McLean's horse took him across the square without guiding from the cow-puncher, who sat absently with his hands folded upon the horn of his saddle. This horse, too, was patient and experienced, and could not know what remote thoughts filled his master's mind. He looked around to see why his master did not get off lightly, as he had done during so many gallant years, and hasten in to the conviviality. But the lonely cow-puncher sat mechanically identifying the horses of acquaintances.

“Toothpick Kid is here,” said he, “and Limber Jim, and the Doughie. You'd think he'd stay away after the trouble he—I expect that pinto is Jerky Bill's.”

“Go home!” said a hearty voice.

McLean eagerly turned. For the moment his face lighted from its sombreness. “I'd forgot you'd be here,” said he. And he sprang to the ground. “It's fine to see you.”

“Go home!” repeated the Governor of Wyoming, shaking his ancient friend's hand. “You in Drybone to-night, and claim you're reformed?

“Yu' seem to be on hand yourself,” said the cow-puncher, bracing to be jocular, if he could.

“Me! I've gone fishing. Don't you read the papers? If we poor governors can't lock up the State House and take a whirl now and then—”

“Doc,” interrupted Lin, “it's plumb fine to see yu'!” Again he shook hands.

“Why, yes! we've met here before, you and I.” His Excellency the Hon. Amory W. Barker, M.D., stood laughing, familiar and genial, his sound white teeth shining. But behind his round spectacles he scrutinized McLean. For in this second hand-shaking was a fervor that seemed a grasp, a reaching out, for comfort. Barker had passed through Separ. Though an older acquaintance than Billy, he had asked Jessamine fewer and different questions. But he knew what he knew. “Well, Drybone's the same old Drybone,” said he. “Sweet-scented hole of iniquity! Let's see how you walk nowadays.”

Lin took a few steps.

“Pooh! I said you'd never get over it.” And his Excellency beamed with professional pride. In his doctor days Barker had set the boy McLean's leg; and before it was properly knit the boy had escaped from the hospital to revel loose in Drybone on such another night as this. Soon he had been carried back, with the fracture split open again.

“It shows, does it?” said Lin. “Well, it don't usually. Not except when I'm—when I'm—”

“Down?” suggested his Excellency.

“Yes, Doc. Down,” the cow-puncher confessed.

Barker looked into his friend's clear hazel eyes.

Beneath their dauntless sparkle was something that touched the Governor's good heart. “I've got some whiskey along on the trip—Eastern whiskey,” said he. “Come over to my room awhile.”

“I used to sleep all night onced,” said McLean, as they went. “Then I come to know different. But I'd never have believed just mere thoughts could make yu'—make yu' feel like the steam was only half on. I eat, yu' know!” he stated, suddenly. “And I expect one or two in camp lately have not found my muscle lacking. Feel me, Doc.”

Barker dutifully obeyed, and praised the excellent sinews.

Across from the dance-hall the whining of the fiddle came, high and gay; feet blurred the talk of voices, and voices rose above the trampling of feet. Here and there some lurking form stumbled through the dark among the rubbish; and clearest sound of all, the light crack of billiard balls reached dry and far into the night Barker contemplated the stars and calm splendid dimness of the plain. “'Though every prospect pleases, and only man is vile,'” he quoted. “But don't tell the Republican party I said so.”

“It's awful true, though, Doc. I'm vile myself. Yu' don't know. Why, I didn't know!”

And then they sat down to confidences and whiskey; for so long as the world goes round a man must talk to a man sometimes, and both must drink over it. The cow-puncher unburdened himself to the Governor; and the Governor filled up his friend's glass with the Eastern whiskey, and nodded his spectacles, and listened, and advised, and said he should have done the same, and like the good Governor that he was, never remembered he was Governor at all with political friends here who had begged a word or two. He became just Dr. Barker again, the young hospital surgeon (the hospital that now stood a ruin), and Lin was again his patient——Lin, the sun-burnt free-lance of nineteen, reckless, engaging, disobedient, his leg broken and his heart light, with no Jessamine or conscience to rob his salt of its savor. While he now told his troubles, the quadrilles fiddled away careless as ever, and the crack of the billiard balls sounded as of old.

“Nobody has told you about this, I expect,” said the lover. He brought forth the little pistol, “Neighbor.” He did not hand it across to Barker, but walked over to Barker's chair, and stood holding it for the doctor to see. When Barker reached for it to see better, since it was half hidden in the cow-puncher's big hand, Lin yielded it to him, but still stood and soon drew it back. “I take it around,” he said, “and when one of those stories comes along, like there's plenty of, that she wants to get rid of me, I just kind o' take a look at 'Neighbor' when I'm off where it's handy, and it busts the story right out of my mind. I have to tell you what a fool I am.”

“The whiskey's your side,” said Barker. “Go on.”

“But, Doc, my courage has quit me. They see what I'm thinking about just like I was a tenderfoot trying his first bluff. I can't stick it out no more, and I'm going to see her, come what will.

“I've got to. I'm going to ride right up to her window and shoot off 'Neighbor,' and if she don't come out I'll know—”

A knocking came at the Governor's room, and Judge Slaghammer entered. “Not been to our dance, Governor?” said he.

The Governor thought that perhaps he was tired, that perhaps this evening he must forego the pleasure.

“It may be wiser. In your position it may be advisable,” said the coroner. “They're getting on rollers over there. We do not like trouble in Drybone, but trouble comes to us—as everywhere.”

“Shooting,” suggested his Excellency, recalling his hospital practice.

“Well, Governor, you know how it is. Our boys are as big-hearted as any in this big-hearted Western country. You know, Governor. Those generous, warm-blooded spirits are ever ready for anything.”

“Especially after Mrs. Slaghammer's whiskey,” remarked the Governor.

The coroner shot a shrewd eye at Wyoming's chief executive. It was not politically harmonious to be reminded that but for his wife's liquor a number of fine young men, with nothing save youth untrained and health the matter with them, would to-day be riding their horses instead of sleeping on the hill. But the coroner wanted support in the next campaign. “Boys will be boys,” said he. “They ain't pulled any guns to-night. But I come away, though. Some of 'em's making up pretty free to Mrs. Lusk. It ain't suitable for me to see too much. Lusk says he's after you,” he mentioned incidentally to Lin. “He's fillin' up, and says he's after you.” McLean nodded placidly, and with scant politeness. He wished this visitor would go. But Judge Slaghammer had noticed the whiskey. He filled himself a glass. “Governor, it has my compliments,” said he. “Ambrosier. Honey-doo.”

“Mrs. Slaghammer seems to have a large gathering,” said Barker.

“Good boys, good boys!” The judge blew importantly, and waved his arm. “Bull-whackers, cow-punchers, mule-skinners, tin-horns. All spending generous. Governor, once more! Ambrosier. Honey-doo.” He settled himself deep in a chair, and closed his eyes.

McLean rose abruptly. “Good-night,” said he. “I'm going to Separ.”

“Separ!” exclaimed Slaghammer, rousing slightly. “Oh, stay with us, stay with us.” He closed his eyes again, but sustained his smile of office.

“You know how well I wish you,” said Barker to Lin. “I'll just see you start.”

Forthwith the friends left the coroner quiet beside his glass, and walked toward the horses through Drybone's gaping quadrangle. The dead ruins loomed among the lights of the card-halls, and always the keen jockey cadences of the fiddle sang across the night. But a calling and confusion were set up, and the tune broke off.

“Just like old times!” said his Excellency. “Where's the dump-pile!” It was where it should be, close by, and the two stepped behind it to be screened from wandering bullets. “A man don't forget his habits,” declared the Governor. “Makes me feel young again.”

“Makes me feel old,” said McLean. “Hark!”

“Sounds like my name,” said Barker. They listened. “Oh yes. Of course. That's it. They're shouting for the doctor. But we'll just spare them a minute or so to finish their excitement.”

“I didn't hear any shooting,” said McLean. “It's something, though.”

As they waited, no shots came; but still the fiddle was silent, and the murmur of many voices grew in the dance-hall, while single voices wandered outside, calling the doctor's name.

“I'm the Governor on a fishing-trip,” said he. “But it's to be done, I suppose.”

They left their dump-hill and proceeded over to the dance. The musician sat high and solitary upon two starch-boxes, fiddle on knee, staring and waiting. Half the floor was bare; on the other half the revellers were densely clotted. At the crowd's outer rim the young horsemen, flushed and swaying, retained their gaudy dance partners strongly by the waist, to be ready when the music should resume. “What is it?” they asked. “Who is it?” And they looked in across heads and shoulders, inattentive to the caresses which the partners gave them.

Mrs. Lusk was who it was, and she had taken poison here in their midst, after many dances and drinks.

“Here's Doc!” cried an older one.

“Here's Doc!” chorused the young blood that had come into this country since his day. And the throng caught up the words: “Here's Doc! here's Doc!”

In a moment McLean and Barker were sundered from each other in this flood. Barker, sucked in toward the centre but often eddied back by those who meant to help him, heard the mixed explanations pass his ear unfinished—versions, contradictions, a score of facts. It had been wolf-poison. It had been “Rough on Rats.” It had been something in a bottle. There was little steering in this clamorous sea; but Barker reached his patient, where she sat in her new dress, hailing him with wild inebriate gayety.

“I must get her to her room, friends,” said he.

“He must get her to her room,” went the word. “Leave Doc get her to her room.” And they tangled in their eagerness around him and his patient.

“Give us 'Buffalo Girls!'” shouted Mrs. Lusk.... “'Buffalo Girls,' you fiddler!”

“We'll come back,” said Barker to her.

“'Buffalo Girls,' I tell yus. Ho! There's no sense looking at that bottle, Doc. Take yer dance while there's time!” She was holding the chair.

“Help him!” said the crowd. “Help Doc.”

They took her from her chair, and she fought, a big pink mass of ribbons, fluttering and wrenching itself among them.

“She has six ounces of laudanum in her,” Barker told them at the top of his voice. “It won't wait all night.”

“I'm a whirlwind!” said Mrs. Lusk. “That's my game! And you done your share,” she cried to the fiddler. “Here's my regards, old man! 'Buffalo Girls' once more!”

She flung out her hand, and from it fell notes and coins, rolling and ringing around the starch boxes. Some dragged her on, while some fiercely forbade the musician to touch the money, because it was hers, and she would want it when she came to. Thus they gathered it up for her. But now she had sunk down, asking in a new voice where was Lin McLean. And when one grinning intimate reminded her that Lusk had gone to shoot him, she laughed out richly, and the crowd joined her mirth. But even in the midst of the joke she asked again in the same voice where was Lin McLean. He came beside her among more jokes. He had kept himself near, and now at sight of him she reached out and held him. “Tell them to leave me go to sleep, Lin,” said she.

Barker saw a chance. “Persuade her to come along,” said he to McLean. “Minutes are counting now.”

“Oh, I'll come,” she said, with a laugh, overhearing him, and holding still to Lin.

The rest of the old friends nudged each other. “Back seats for us,” they said. “But we've had our turn in front ones.” Then, thinking they would be useful in encouraging her to walk, they clustered again, rendering Barker and McLean once more well-nigh helpless. Clumsily the escort made its slow way across the quadrangle, cautioning itself about stones and holes. Thus, presently, she was brought into the room. The escort set her down, crowding the little place as thick as it would hold; the rest gathered thick at the door, and all of them had no thought of departing. The notion to stay was plain on their faces.

Barker surveyed them. “Give the doctor a show now, boys,” said he. “You've done it all so far. Don't crowd my elbows. I'll want you,” he whispered to McLean.

At the argument of fair-play, obedience swept over them like a veering of wind. “Don't crowd his elbows,” they began to say at once, and told each other to come away. “We'll sure give the Doc room. You don't want to be shovin' your auger in, Chalkeye. You want to get yourself pretty near absent.” The room thinned of them forthwith. “Fix her up good, Doc,” they said, over their shoulders. They shuffled across the threshold and porch with roundabout schemes to tread quietly. When one or other stumbled on the steps and fell, he was jerked to his feet. “You want to tame yourself,” was the word. Then, suddenly, Chalkeye and Toothpick Kid came precipitately back. “Her cash,” they said. And leaving the notes and coins, they hastened to catch their comrades on the way back to the dance.

“I want you,” repeated Barker to McLean.

“Him!” cried Mrs. Lusk, flashing alert again. “Jessamine wants him about now, I guess. Don't keep him from his girl!” And she laughed her hard, rich laugh, looking from one to the other. “Not the two of yus can't save me,” she stated, defiantly. But even in these last words a sort of thickness sounded.

“Walk her up and down,” said Barker. “Keep her moving. I'll look what I can find. Keep her moving brisk.” At once he was out of the door; and before his running steps had died away, the fiddle had taken up its tune across the quadrangle.

“'Buffalo Girls!'” exclaimed the woman. “Old times! Old times!”

“Come,” said McLean. “Walk.” And he took her.

Her head was full of the music. Forgetting all but that, she went with him easily, and the two made their first turns around the room. Whenever he brought her near the entrance, she leaned away from him toward the open door, where the old fiddle tune was coming in from the dark. But presently she noticed that she was being led, and her face turned sullen.

“Walk,” said McLean.

“Do you think so?” said she, laughing. But she found that she must go with him. Thus they took a few more turns.

“You're hurting me,” she said next. Then a look of drowsy cunning filled her eyes, and she fixed them upon McLean's dogged face. “He's gone, Lin,” she murmured, raising her hand where Barker had disappeared.

She knew McLean had heard her, and she held back on the quickened pace that he had set.

“Leave me down. You hurt,” she pleaded, hanging on him.

The cow-puncher put forth more strength.

“Just the floor,” she pleaded again. “Just one minute on the floor. He'll think you could not keep me lifted.”

Still McLean made no answer, but steadily led her round and round, as he had undertaken.

“He's playing out!” she exclaimed. “You'll be played out soon.” She laughed herself half-awake. The man drew a breath, and she laughed more to feel his hand and arm strain to surmount her increasing resistance. “Jessamine!” she whispered to him. “Jessamine! Doc'll never suspicion you, Lin.”

“Talk sense,” said he.

“It's sense I'm talking. Leave me go to sleep. Ah, ah, I'm going! I'll go; you can't—”

“Walk, walk!” he repeated. He looked at the door. An ache was numbing his arms.

“Oh yes, walk! What can you and all your muscle—Ah, walk me to glory, then, craziness! I'm going; I'll go. I'm quitting this outfit for keeps. Lin, you're awful handsome to-night! I'll bet—I'll bet she has never seen you look so. Let me—let me watch yus. Anyway, she knows I came first!”

He grasped her savagely. “First! You and twenty of yu' don't—God!! what do I talk to her for?”

“Because—because—I'm going; I'll go. He slung me off—but he had to sling—you can't—stop—”

Her head was rolling, while the lips smiled. Her words came through deeper and deeper veils, fearless, defiant, a challenge inarticulate, a continuous mutter. Again he looked at the door as he struggled to move with her dragging weight. The drops rolled on his forehead and neck, his shirt was wet, his hands slipped upon her ribbons. Suddenly the drugged body folded and sank with him, pulling him to his knees. While he took breath so, the mutter went on, and through the door came the jigging fiddle. A fire of desperation lighted in his eyes. “Buffalo Girls!” he shouted, hoarsely, in her ear, and got once more on his feet with her as though they were two partners in a quadrille. Still shouting her to wake, he struck a tottering sort of step, and so, with the bending load in his grip, strove feebly to dance the laudanum away.

Feet stumbled across the porch, and Lusk was in the room. “So I've got you!” he said. He had no weapon, but made a dive under the bed and came up with a carbine. The two men locked, wrenching impotently, and fell together. The carbine's loud shot rang in the room, but did no harm; and McLean lay sick and panting upon Lusk as Barker rushed in.

“Thank God!” said he, and flung Lusk's pistol down. The man, deranged and encouraged by drink, had come across the doctor, delayed him, threatened him with his pistol, and when he had torn it away, had left him suddenly and vanished. But Barker had feared, and come after him here. He glanced at the woman slumbering motionless beside the two men. The husband's brief courage had gone, and he lay beneath McLean, who himself could not rise. Barker pulled them apart.

“Lin, boy, you're not hurt?” he asked, affectionately, and lifted the cow-puncher.

McLean sat passive, with dazed eyes, letting himself be supported.

“You're not hurt?” repeated Barker.

“No,” answered the cow-puncher, slowly. “I guess not.” He looked about the room and at the door. “I got interrupted,” he said.

“You'll be all right soon,” said Barker.

“Nobody cares for me!” cried Lusk, suddenly, and took to querulous weeping.

“Get up,” ordered Barker, sternly.

“Don't accuse me, Governor,” screamed Lusk. “I'm innocent.” And he rose.

Barker looked at the woman and then at the husband. “I'll not say there was much chance for her,” he said. “But any she had is gone through you. She'll die.”

“Nobody cares for me!” repeated the man. “He has learned my boy to scorn me.” He ran out aimlessly, and away into the night, leaving peace in the room.

“Stay sitting,” said Barker to McLean, and went to Mrs. Lusk.

But the cow-puncher, seeing him begin to lift her toward the bed without help, tried to rise. His strength was not sufficiently come back, and he sank as he had been. “I guess I don't amount to much,” said he. “I feel like I was nothing.”

“Well, I'm something,” said Barker, coming back to his friend, out of breath. “And I know what she weighs.” He stared admiringly through his spectacles at the seated man.

The cow-puncher's eyes slowly travelled over his body, and then sought Barker's face. “Doc,” said he, “ain't I young to have my nerve quit me this way?”

His Excellency broke into his broad smile.

“I know I've racketed some, but ain't it ruther early?” pursued McLean, wistfully.

“You six-foot infant!” said Barker. “Look at your hand.”

Lin stared at it—the fingers quivering and bloody, and the skin grooved raw between them. That was the buckle of her belt, which in the struggle had worked round and been held by him unknowingly. Both his wrists and his shirt were ribbed with the pink of her sashes. He looked over at the bed where lay the woman heavily breathing. It was a something, a sound, not like the breath of life; and Barker saw the cow-puncher shudder.

“She is strong,” he said. “Her system will fight to the end. Two hours yet, maybe. Queer world!” he moralized. “People half killing themselves to keep one in it who wanted to go—and one that nobody wanted to stay!”

McLean did not hear. He was musing, his eyes fixed absently in front of him. “I would not want,” he said, with hesitating utterance—“I'd not wish for even my enemy to have a thing like what I've had to do to-night.”

Barker touched him on the arm. “If there had been another man I could trust—”

“Trust!” broke in the cow-puncher. “Why, Doc, it is the best turn yu' ever done me. I know I am a man now—if my nerve ain't gone.”

“I've known you were a man since I knew you!” said the hearty Governor. And he helped the still unsteady six-foot to a chair. “As for your nerve, I'll bring you some whiskey now. And after”—he glanced at the bed—“and tomorrow you'll go try if Miss Jessamine won't put the nerve—”

“Yes, Doc, I'll go there, I know. But don't yu'—don't let's while she's—I'm going to be glad about this, Doc, after awhile, but—”

At the sight of a new-comer in the door, he stopped in what his soul was stammering to say. “What do you want, Judge?” he inquired, coldly.

“I understand,” began Slaghammer to Barker—“I am informed—”

“Speak quieter, Judge,” said the cow-puncher.

“I understand,” repeated Slaghammer, more official than ever, “that there was a case for the coroner.”

“You'll be notified,” put in McLean again. “Meanwhile you'll talk quiet in this room.”

Slaghammer turned, and saw the breathing mass on the bed.

“You are a little early, Judge,” said Barker, “but—”

“But your ten dollars are safe,” said McLean.

The coroner shot one of his shrewd glances at the cow-puncher, and sat down with an amiable countenance. His fee was, indeed, ten dollars; and he was desirous of a second term.

“Under the apprehension that it had already occurred—the misapprehension—I took steps to impanel a jury,” said he, addressing both Barker and McLean. “They are—ah—waiting outside. Responsible men, Governor, and have sat before. Drybone has few responsible men to-night, but I procured these at a little game where they were—ah—losing. You may go back, gentlemen,” said he, going to the door. “I will summon you in proper time.” He looked in the room again. “Is the husband not intending—”

“That's enough, Judge,” said McLean. “There's too many here without adding him.”

“Judge,” spoke a voice at the door, “ain't she ready yet?”

“She is still passing away,” observed Slaghammer, piously.

“Because I was thinking,” said the man—“I was just—You see, us jury is dry and dead broke. Doggonedest cards I've held this year, and—Judge, would there be anything out of the way in me touching my fee in advance, if it's a sure thing?”

“I see none, my friend,” said Slaghammer, benevolently, “since it must be.” He shook his head and nodded it by turns. Then, with full-blown importance, he sat again, and wrote a paper, his coroner's certificate. Next door, in Albany County, these vouchers brought their face value of five dollars to the holder; but on Drybone's neutral soil the saloons would always pay four for them, and it was rare that any jury-man could withstand the temptation of four immediate dollars. This one gratefully received his paper, and, cherishing it like a bird in the hand, he with his colleagues bore it where they might wait for duty and slake their thirst.

In the silent room sat Lin McLean, his body coming to life more readily than his shaken spirit. Barker, seeing that the cow-puncher meant to watch until the end, brought the whiskey to him. Slaghammer drew documents from his pocket to fill the time, but was soon in slumber over them. In all precincts of the quadrangle Drybone was keeping it up late. The fiddle, the occasional shouts, and the crack of the billiard-balls travelled clear and far through the vast darkness outside. Presently steps unsteadily drew near, and round the corner of the door a voice, plaintive and diffident, said, “Judge, ain't she most pretty near ready?”

“Wake up, Judge!” said Barker. “Your jury has gone dry again.”

The man appeared round the door—a handsome, dishevelled fellow—with hat in hand, balancing himself with respectful anxiety. Thus was a second voucher made out, and the messenger strayed back happy to his friends. Barker and McLean sat wakeful, and Slaghammer fell at once to napping. From time to time he was roused by new messengers, each arriving more unsteady than the last, until every juryman had got his fee and no more messengers came. The coroner slept undisturbed in his chair. McLean and Barker sat. On the bed the mass, with its pink ribbons, breathed and breathed, while moths flew round the lamp, tapping and falling with light sounds. So did the heart of the darkness wear itself away, and through the stone-cold air the dawn began to filter and expand.

Barker rose, bent over the bed, and then stood. Seeing him, McLean stood also.

“Judge,” said Barker, quietly, “you may call them now.” And with careful steps the judge got himself out of the room to summon his jury.

For a short while the cow-puncher stood looking down upon the woman. She lay lumped in her gaudiness, the ribbons darkly stained by the laudanum; but into the stolid, bold features death had called up the faint-colored ghost of youth, and McLean remembered all his Bear Creek days. “Hind sight is a turruble clear way o' seein' things,” said he. “I think I'll take a walk.”

“Go,” said Barker. “The jury only need me, and I'll join you.”

But the jury needed no witness. Their long waiting and the advance pay had been too much for these responsible men. Like brothers they had shared each others' vouchers until responsibility had melted from their brains and the whiskey was finished. Then, no longer entertained and growing weary of Drybone, they had remembered nothing but their distant beds. Each had mounted his pony, holding trustingly to the saddle, and thus, unguided, the experienced ponies had taken them right. Across the wide sagebrush and up and down the river they were now asleep or riding, dispersed irrevocably. But the coroner was here. He duly received Barker's testimony, brought his verdict in, and signed it, and even while he was issuing to himself his own proper voucher for ten dollars came Chalkeye and Toothpick Kid on their ponies, galloping, eager in their hopes and good wishes for Mrs. Lusk. Life ran strong in them both. The night had gone well with them. Here was the new day going to be fine. It must be well with everybody.

“You don't say!” they exclaimed, taken aback. “Too bad.”

They sat still in their saddles, and upon their reckless, kindly faces thought paused for a moment. “Her gone!” they murmured. “Hard to get used to the idea. What's anybody doing about the coffin?”

“Mr. Lusk,” answered Slaghammer, “doubtless—”

“Lusk! He'll not know anything this forenoon. He's out there in the grass. She didn't think nothing of him. Tell Bill—not Dollar Bill, Jerky Bill, yu' know; he's over the bridge—to fix up a hearse, and we'll be back.” The two drove their spurs in with vigorous heels, and instantly were gone rushing up the road to the graveyard.

The fiddle had lately ceased, and no dancers stayed any longer in the hall. Eastward the rose and gold began to flow down upon the plain over the tops of the distant hills. Of the revellers, many had never gone to bed, and many now were already risen from their excesses to revive in the cool glory of the morning. Some were drinking to stay their hunger until breakfast; some splashed and sported in the river, calling and joking; and across the river some were holding horse-races upon the level beyond the hog-ranch. Drybone air rang with them. Their lusty, wandering shouts broke out in gusts of hilarity. Their pistols, aimed at cans or prairie dogs or anything, cracked as they galloped at large. Their speeding, clear-cut forms would shine upon the bluffs, and, descending, merge in the dust their horses had raised. Yet all this was nothing in the vastness of the growing day.

Beyond their voices the rim of the sun moved above the violet hills, and Drybone, amid the quiet, long, new fields of radiance, stood august and strange.

Down along the tall, bare slant from the graveyard the two horsemen were riding back. They could be seen across the river, and the horse-racers grew curious. As more and more watched, the crowd began to speak. It was a calf the two were bringing. It was too small for a calf. It was dead. It was a coyote they had roped. See it swing! See it fall on the road!

“It's a coffin, boys!” said one, shrewd at guessing.

At that the event of last night drifted across their memories, and they wheeled and spurred their ponies. Their crowding hoofs on the bridge brought the swimmers from the waters below and, dressing, they climbed quickly to the plain and followed the gathering. By the door already were Jerky Bill and Limber Jim and the Doughie and always more, dashing up with their ponies; halting with a sharp scatter of gravel to hear and comment. Barker was gone, but the important coroner told his news. And it amazed each comer, and set him speaking and remembering past things with the others. “Dead!” each one began. “Her, does he say?”

“Why, pshaw!”

“Why, Frenchy said Doc had her cured!”

Jack Saunders claimed she had rode to Box Elder with Lin McLean. “Dead? Why, pshaw!”

“Seems Doc couldn't swim her out.”

“Couldn't swim her out?”

“That's it. Doc couldn't swim her out.”

“Well—there's one less of us.”

“Sure! She was one of the boys.”

“She grub-staked me when I went broke in '84.”

“She gave me fifty dollars onced at Lander, to buy a saddle.”

“I run agin her when she was a biscuit-shooter.”

“Sidney, Nebraska. I run again her there, too.”

“I knowed her at Laramie.”

“Where's Lin? He knowed her all the way from Bear Creek to Cheyenne.”

They laughed loudly at this.

“That's a lonesome coffin,” said the Doughie. “That the best you could do?”

“You'd say so!” said Toothpick Kid.

“Choices are getting scarce up there,” said Chalkeye. “We looked the lot over.”

They were arriving from their search among the old dug-up graves on the hill. Now they descended from their ponies, with the box roped and rattling between them. “Where's your hearse, Jerky?” asked Chalkeye.

“Have her round in a minute,” said the cowboy, and galloped away with three or four others.

“Turruble lonesome coffin, all the same,” repeated the Doughie. And they surveyed the box that had once held some soldier.

“She did like fixin's,” said Limber Jim.

“Fixin's!” said Toothpick Kid. “That's easy.”

While some six of them, with Chalkeye, bore the light, half-rotted coffin into the room, many followed Toothpick Kid to the post-trader's store. Breaking in here, they found men sleeping on the counters. These had been able to find no other beds in Drybone, and lay as they had stretched themselves on entering. They sprawled in heavy slumber, some with not even their hats taken off and some with their boots against the rough hair of the next one. They were quickly pushed together, few waking, and so there was space for spreading cloth and chintz. Stuffs were unrolled and flung aside till many folds and colors draped the motionless sleepers, and at length a choice was made. Unmeasured yards of this drab chintz were ripped off, money treble its worth was thumped upon the counter, and they returned, bearing it like a streamer to the coffin. While the noise of their hammers filled the room, the hearse came tottering to the door, pulled and pushed by twenty men. It was an ambulance left behind by the soldiers, and of the old-fashioned shape, concave in body, its top blown away in winds of long ago; and as they revolved, its wheels dished in and out like hoops about to fall. While some made a harness from ropes, and throwing the saddles off two ponies backed them to the vehicle, the body was put in the coffin, now covered by the chintz. But the laudanum upon the front of her dress revolted those who remembered their holidays with her, and turning the woman upon her face, they looked their last upon her flashing, colored ribbons, and nailed the lid down. So they carried her out, but the concave body of the hearse was too short for the coffin; the end reached out, and it might have fallen. But Limber Jim, taking the reins, sat upon the other end, waiting and smoking. For all Drybone was making ready to follow in some way. They had sought the husband, the chief mourner. He, however, still lay in the grass of the quadrangle, and despising him as she had done, they left him to wake when he should choose. Those men who could sit in their saddles rode escort, the old friends nearest, and four held the heads of the frightened cow-ponies who were to draw the hearse. They had never known harness before, and they plunged with the men who held them. Behind the hearse the women followed in a large ranch-wagon, this moment arrived in town. Two mares drew this, and their foals gambolled around them. The great flat-topped dray for hauling poles came last, with its four government mules. The cow-boys had caught sight of it and captured it. Rushing to the post-trader's, they carried the sleeping men from the counter and laid them on the dray. Then, searching Drybone outside and in for any more incapable of following, they brought them, and the dray was piled.

Limber Jim called for another drink and, with his cigar between his teeth, cracked his long bull-whacker whip. The ponies, terrified, sprang away, scattering the men that held them, and the swaying hearse leaped past the husband, over the stones and the many playing-cards in the grass. Masterfully steered, it came safe to an open level, while the throng cheered the unmoved driver on his coffin, his cigar between his teeth.

“Stay with it, Jim!” they shouted. “You're a king!”

A steep ditch lay across the flat where he was veering, abrupt and nearly hidden; but his eye caught the danger in time, and swinging from it leftward so that two wheels of the leaning coach were in the air, he faced the open again, safe, as the rescue swooped down upon him. The horsemen came at the ditch, a body of daring, a sultry blast of youth. Wheeling at the brink, they turned, whirling their long ropes. The skilful nooses flew, and the ponies, caught by the neck and foot, were dragged back to the quadrangle and held in line. So the pageant started the wild ponies quivering but subdued by the tightened ropes, and the coffin steady in the ambulance beneath the driver. The escort, in their fringed leather and broad hats, moved slowly beside and behind it, many of them swaying, their faces full of health, and the sun and the strong drink. The women followed, whispering a little; and behind them the slow dray jolted, with its heaps of men waking from the depths of their whiskey and asking what this was. So they went up the hill. When the riders reached the tilted gate of the graveyard, they sprang off and scattered among the hillocks, stumbling and eager. They nodded to Barker and McLean, quietly waiting there, and began choosing among the open, weather-drifted graves from which the soldiers had been taken. Their figures went up and down the uneven ridges, calling and comparing.

“Here,” said the Doughie, “here's a good hole.”

“Here's a deep one,” said another.

“We've struck a well here,” said some more. “Put her in here.”

The sand-hills became clamorous with voices until they arrived at a choice, when some one with a spade quickly squared the rain-washed opening. With lariats looping the coffin round, they brought it and were about to lower it, when Chalkeye, too near the edge, fell in, and one end of the box rested upon him. He could not rise by himself, and they pulled the ropes helplessly above.

McLean spoke to Barker. “I'd like to stop this,” said he, “but a man might as well—”

“Might as well stop a cloud-burst,” said Barker.

“Yes, Doc. But it feels—it feels like I was looking at ten dozen Lin McLeans.” And seeing them still helpless with Chalkeye, he joined them and lifted the cow-boy out.

“I think,” said Slaghammer, stepping forward, “this should proceed no further without some—perhaps some friend would recite 'Now I lay me?”'

“They don't use that on funerals,” said the Doughie.

“Will some gentleman give the Lord's Prayer?” inquired the coroner.

Foreheads were knotted; triad mutterings ran among them; but some one remembered a prayer book in one of the rooms in Drybone, and the notion was hailed. Four mounted, and raced to bring it. They went down the hill in a flowing knot, shirts ballooning and elbows flapping, and so returned. But the book was beyond them. “Take it, you; you take it,” each one said. False beginnings were made, big thumbs pushed the pages back and forth, until impatience conquered them. They left the book and lowered the coffin, helped again by McLean. The weight sank slowly, decently, steadily, down between the banks. The sound that it struck the bottom with was a slight sound, the grating of the load upon the solid sand; and a little sand strewed from the edge and fell on the box at the same moment. The rattle came up from below, compact and brief, a single jar, quietly smiting through the crowd, smiting it to silence. One removed his hat, and then another, and then all. They stood eying each his neighbor, and shifting their eyes, looked away at the great valley. Then they filled in the grave, brought a head-board from a grave near by, and wrote the name and date upon it by scratching with a stone.

“She was sure one of us,” said Chalkeye. “Let's give her the Lament.”

And they followed his lead:

   “Once in the saddle, I used to go dashing,
    Once in the saddle, I used to go gay;
    First took to drinking, and then to card-playing;
    Got shot in the body, and now here I lay.

   “Beat the drum slowly, Play the fife lowly,
    Sound the dead march as you bear me along.
    Take me to Boot-hill, and throw the sod over me—
    I'm but a poor cow-boy, I know I done wrong.”
 

When the song was ended, they left the graveyard quietly and went down the hill. The morning was growing warm. Their work waited them across many sunny miles of range and plain. Soon their voices and themselves had emptied away into the splendid vastness and silence, and they were gone—ready with all their might to live or to die, to be animals or heroes, as the hours might bring them opportunity. In Drybone's deserted quadrangle the sun shone down upon Lusk still sleeping, and the wind shook the aces and kings in the grass.