第39章 SEPAR'S VIGILANTE(1)

We had fallen half asleep,my pony and I,as we went jogging and jogging through the long sunny afternoon.Our hills of yesterday were a pale-blue coast sunk almost away behind us,and ahead our goal lay shining,a little island of houses in this quiet mid-ocean of sage-brush.For two hours it had looked as clear and near as now,rising into sight across the huge dead calm and sinking while we travelled our undulating,imperceptible miles.The train had come and gone invisibly,except for its slow pillar of smoke I had watched move westward against Wyoming's stainless sky.Though I was still far off,the water-tank and other buildings stood out plain and complete to my eyes,like children's blocks arranged and forgotten on the floor.So I rode along,hypnotized by the sameness of the lazy,splendid plain,and almost unaware of the distant rider,till,suddenly,he was close and hailing me.

"They've caved!"he shouted.

"Who?"I cried,thus awakened.

"Ah,the fool company,"said he,quieting his voice as he drew near.

"They've shed their haughtiness,"he added,confidingly,as if I must know all about it.

"Where did they learn that wisdom?"I asked,not knowing in the least.

"Experience,"he called over his shoulder (for already we had met and passed);"nothing like experience for sweating the fat off the brain."He yelled me a brotherly good-bye,and I am sorry never to have known more of him,for I incline to value any stranger so joyous.But now Iwaked the pony and trotted briskly,surmising as to the company and its haughtiness.I had been viewing my destination across the sagebrush for so spun-out a time that (as constantly in Wyoming journeys)the emotion of arrival had evaporated long before the event,and I welcomed employment for my otherwise high-and-dry mind.Probably he meant the railroad company;certainly something large had happened.Even as Idismounted at the platform another hilarious cow-puncher came out of the station,and,at once remarking,"They're going to leave us alone,"sprang on his horse and galloped to the corrals down the line,where some cattle were being loaded into a train.I went inside for my mail,and here were four more cow-punchers playing with the agent.They had got a letter away from him,and he wore his daily look of anxiety to appreciate the jests of these rollicking people."Read it!"they said to me;and Idid read the private document,and learned that the railroad was going to waive its right to enforce law and order here,and would trust to Separ's good feeling."Nothing more,"the letter ran,"will be done about the initial outrage or the subsequent vandalisms.We shall pass over our wasted outlay in the hope that a policy of friendship will prove our genuine desire to benefit that section.

"'Initial outrage,'"quoted one of the agent'large playmates."Ain't they furgivin'?""Well,"said I,"you would have some name for it yourself if you sent a deputy sheriff to look after your rights,and he came back tied to the cow-catcher!"The man smiled luxuriously over this memory.

"We didn't hurt him none.Just returned him to his home.Hear about the label Honey Wiggin pinned on to him?'Send us along one dozen as per sample.'Honey's quaint!Yes,"he drawled judicially,"I'd be mad at that.But if you're making peace with a man because it's convenient why,your words must be pleasanter than if you really felt pleasant."He took the paper from me,and read,sardonically:"'Subsequent vandalisms ...

wasted outlay.'I suppose they run this station from charity to the cattle.Saves the poor things walking so far to the other railroad 'Policy of friendship ...genuine desire'--oh mouth-wash!"And,shaking his bold,clever head,he daintily flattened the letter upon the head of the agent."Tubercle,"said he (this was their name for the agent,who had told all of us about his lungs),"it ain't your fault we saw their fine letter.They just intended you should give it out how they wouldn't bother us any more,and then we'd act square.The boys'll sit up late over this joke."Then they tramped to their horses and rode away.The spokesman had hit the vital point unerringly;for cow-punchers are shrewdly alive to frankness,and it often draws out the best that is in them;but its opposite affects them unfavorably;and I,needing sleep,sighed to think of their late sitting up over that joke.I walked to the board box painted "Hotel Brunswick"--"hotel"in small italics and "Brunswick"in enormous capitals,the N and the S wrong side up.

Here sat a girl outside the door,alone.Her face was broad,wholesome,and strong,and her eyes alert and sweet.As I came she met me with a challenging glance of good-will.Those women who journeyed along the line in the wake of payday to traffic with the men employed a stare well known;but this straight look seemed like the greeting of some pleasant young cowboy.In surprise I forgot to be civil,and stepped foolishly by her to see about supper and lodging.

At the threshold I perceived all lodging bespoken.On each of the four beds lay a coat or pistol or other article of dress,and I must lodge myself.There were my saddle-blankets--rather wet;or Lin McLean might ride in to-night on his way to Riverside;or perhaps down at the corrals I could find some other acquaintance whose habit of washing I trusted and whose bed I might share.Failing these expedients,several empties stood idle upon a siding,and the box-like darkness of these freight-cars was timely.Nights were short now.Camping out,the dawn by three o'clock would flow like silver through the universe,and,sinking through my blankets,remorselessly pervade my buried hair and brain.But with clean straw in the bottom of an empty,I could sleep my fill until five or six.

I decided for the empty,and opened the supper-room door,where the table was set for more than enough to include me;but the smell of the butter that awaited us drove me out of the Hotel Brunswick to spend the remaining minutes in the air.