Parker Lowe's government claim was a fractional section, triangular in
shape, with its base on the grant line of Rancho la Laguna, and its apex
high up on the mountain-side. Parker's cabin was perched upon the
highest point, at the mouth of the canon, in a patch of unconquerable
boulders. Other government settlers were wont to remark the remoteness
of his residence from the tillable part of his claim, but Parker
remained loyal to his own fireside.
"It's a sightly place," he asserted, "and nigh to the water, and it
ain't no furder goin' down to work than it would be comin' up fer a
drink, besides bein' down-grade. I lay out to quit workin' some o' these
days, but I don't never lay out to quit drinkin'."
This latter determination on Parker's part had come to be pretty well
understood, and the former would have obtained ready credence except for
the fact that one cannot very well quit what he has never begun. Without
risking the injustice of the statement that Parker was lazy, it is
perhaps safe to say that he belonged by nature to the leisure class,
and doubtless felt the accident of his birth even more keenly than the
man of unquenchable industry who finds himself born to wealth and
idleness. "Holdin' down a claim" had proved an occupation as well
adapted to his tastes as anything that had ever fallen to his lot, and
his bachelor establishment among the boulders was managed with an
economy of labor, and a resultant of physical comfort, hitherto unknown
in the annals of housekeeping. The house itself was of unsurfaced
redwood, battened with lath to keep out the winter rain. The furniture
consisted of a wide shelf upon which he slept, two narrower ones which
held the tin cans containing his pantry stores, a bench, a table which
"let down" against the wall by means of leathern hinges when not in use,
a rusty stove, and a much-mended wooden chair. From numerous nails in
the wall smoky ends of bacon were suspended by their original hempen
strings, and the size of the grease-spot below testified to the length
of the "side" which Parker had carried in a barley sack from Barney
Wilson's store at Elsmore, five miles away on the other side of the
lake. Parker surveyed these mural decorations with deep, inward
satisfaction not untinged with patriotism.
"There wa'n't many folks right here when I filed on to this claim," he
had been known to remark, "an' I may have trouble provin' up. But if the
Register of the General Land-Office wants to come an' take a look, he
c'n figger up from them ends o' bacon just about how long I've lived
here, an' satisfy himself that I've acted fair with the gover'ment,
which I've aimed to do, besides makin' all these improvements."
The improvements referred to were hardly such as an artist would have so
designated, but Parker surveyed them with taste and conscience void of
offense. The redwood shanty; a dozen orange-trees, rapidly diminishing
in size and number by reason of neglect and gophers; a clump of slender,
smoky eucalypti; a patch of perennial tomato-vines; and a few acres of
what Barney Wilson called "veteran barley,"--it having been sown once,
and having "volunteered" ever since,--constituted those additions to the
value of the land, if not to the landscape, upon which Parker based his
homestead rights.
Since the Laguna Ranch had been subdivided, and settlers had increased,
and especially since Eben Starkweather had bought the Slater place, and
Ida Starkweather had invaded the foot-hills with her vigorous,
self-reliant, breezy personality, Parker had been contemplating further
improvements in his domicile--improvements which, in moments of
flattered hope, assumed the dignity of a lean-to, a rocking-chair, and a
box-spring mattress. The dreams which had led him to a consideration of
this domestic expansion he had confided to no one but Mose Doolittle,
who had a small stock-ranch high up on the mountain, and who found
Parker's cabin a convenient resting-place on his journeys up and down
the trail.
"I tell ye," he had said to Mose, "that girl is no slouch. Her pa is an
infant in arms, a babe an' a suckling, beside her. Her ma is sickly; one
o' your chronics. Idy runs the ranch. I set here of evenin's, an' watch
'em through this yer field-glass. She slams around that place like a
house a-fire. It's inspirin' to see her. Give me a woman that makes
things hum, ever-ee time!"
"Somebody said she had a hell of a temper," ventured Mose, willing to be
the recipient of further confidences.
"Somebody lied. She's got spunk. When she catches anybody in a mean
trick she don't quote poetry to 'im; she gives 'im the straight goods.
Some folks call that temper. I call it sand. There'll be a picnic when
she gets hold o' Barden!"
Parker raised the field-glass again, and leveled it on the Starkweather
homestead.
"There's the infant now, grubbin' greasewood. He's a crank o' the first
water; you'd ought to hear 'im talk. He went through the war, an' he's
short one lung, an' he's got the asmy so bad he breathes like a squeaky
windmill, an' he won't apply fer a pension because he says he was awful
sickly when he enlisted, an' he thinks goin' South an' campin' out saved
his life. That's what I call lettin' yer 'magination run away with ye."
"What does Idy think about it?" queried Mose innocently.
"Idy stands up fer her pa; that's what I like about 'er. I like a woman
that'll back a man up, right er wrong; it's proper an' female. It's
what made me take a shine to 'er."
"You wouldn't want her to back Barden up." Mose made the suggestion
preoccupiedly, with his eyes discreetly wandering over the landscape, as
if he had suddenly missed some accustomed feature of it.
Parker lowered the glass and glanced at him suspiciously. "No, sir-ee!
If there's any backin' done there, Barden'll do it. She'll make 'im
crawfish out o' sight when she ketches 'im. That's another thing I like
about 'er; she'll stand up fer a feller; that is, fer any feller that
b'longs to 'er--that is, I mean, fer a feller she b'longs to."
Mose got up and turned around, and brushed the burr-clover from his
overalls.
"Well, I guess I must be movin'," he said, with a highly artificial
yawn. "Come here, you Muggins!" he called to his burro, which had
strayed into the alfilaria. "Give me an invite to the weddin', Parker.
I'll send you a fresh cow if you do."
Parker held the glass between his knees, and looked down at it with
gratified embarrassment.
"There's a good deal to be gone through with yet, Mose," he said
dubiously. "I set up here with this yer field-glass, workin' myself up
to it, an' then I go down there, an' she comes at me so brash I get all
rattled, an' come home 'thout 'complishin' anythin'. But I'll make it
yet," he added, with renewed cheerfulness. "She sewed a button on fer me
t' other day. Now, between ourselves, Mose, don't ye think that's kind
o' hopeful?"
Hopeful! Mose would say it was final. No girl had ever sewed a button on
for him. When one did, he would propose to her on the spot. He wondered
what Parker was thinking of not to seize such an opportunity.
"That's what I had ought to 'a' done," acknowledged Parker, shaking his
head ruefully. "Yes, sir; that's what I'd ought to 'a' done. I had ought
to 'a' seized that opportunity an' pressed my suit."
"That's the idea, Park," said his companion gravely, as he bestrode
Muggins, and jerked the small dejected creature out into the trail.
"You'd ought to 'a' pressed your suit; there's nothin' a woman likes
better 'n pressin' your suit. Whoop-la, Muggins!"
Some time after Mose had disappeared up the canon, Parker heard a loud
echoing laugh. He turned his head to listen, and then raised the glass
and leveled it on Starkweather's ranch.
"I thought at first that was Idy," he said to himself, "but it wa'n't.
She 's got a cheerful disposition, but I don't believe she'd laugh that
a-way when she's a-learnin' a bull calf to drink; that ain't what I call
a laughin' job. Jeemineezer! don't she hold that cantankerous little
buzzard's head down pretty. Whoa there, Calamity! don't you back into
the chicken corral. That's right, Idy, jam his head into the bucket, an'
set down on it--you're a daisy!"