Late the next summer, I got a fine long letter from Horace—and blame
if he didn’t succeed in surprisin’ me again. He wrote this letter from
Africa, which is about the foreignest parts this world is able to
exhibit, I reckon. He told about the East not findin’ favor with
Promotheus, though he had done all he could for him, startin’ out with
high society and endin’ up by takin’ him down one night to a sailor’s
saloon and lettin’ him mix into a general fight; but that Promotheus
just simply couldn’t stand the tameness, and so they had gone to
Africa to hunt big game, and give the folks out our way a chance to
forget there ever had been such a cuss as Badger-face.
He sent along some photographs, too, and they was as novel as a blue
moon—Horace, Promotheus, and a lot o’ naked niggers totin’ packs on
their heads. Horace was the funniest lookin’ mortal a body ever saw;
but Promotheus had him beat a mile. They both wore bowls on their
heads an’ colored glasses; but Promotheus with side-burns was sure
enough to frighten a snake into convulsions! His gnawin’ teeth stuck
out through a self-satisfied grin; and I was willin’ to bet that as
soon as the heathen saw him, they’d give up bowin’ down to wood an’
stone.
The next time I saw Friar Tuck, he told me about receivin’ a letter
from Horace who had gone to Berlin on his way to Africa, but hadn’t
been able to learn anything satisfactory. The singer had been the big
card at their concerts, an’ there had been some talk about her gettin’
drugged by an Austrian who belonged to the em-bassy; but she had
disappeared complete, an’ nobody could be found who seemed to know
anything about it. The Friar kept himself goin’ like a steam-engine
these days; but while he became a little more tender if possible, he
lacked something of his old-time spirits. Before this, he used to come
sweepin’ along like a big cool breeze, an’ a feller’s spirits just got
up an’ whirled along with him, like dry leaves dancin’ in the wind.
He said ’at since Promotheus had slipped out o’ the country, the
Cross-branders hadn’t bothered Olaf any; but I called his attention to
the fact that this was a wet spring, an’ told him ’at when we had a
long dry spell, Ty Jones would just swallow Olaf like quicksand.
Things drifted along purty steady in our parts for several years. Once
in a while, the Friar would tell me something about Olaf or something
about Ty Jones; but for the most part, I was too much took up with
other things to care much for even the Friar’s doin’s.
I was takin’ my own Moses-trip durin’ these years; and I say now, as I
allus have said, that it wasn’t a square shake to show Moses the
promised land, an’ then not let him into it for even one meal o’ milk
an’ honey. I’ve handled a small bunch o’ men an’ trailed cattle with
’em for only three months at a stretch; but I don’t mind tellin’ you
that the’ was times when I had to sit up till after midnight, sewin’
up the rips in my patience—an’ we didn’t have any women an’ children
along either. Moses had forty years of it in the desert; with a whole
blame tribe of Israelites; and yet, instead o’ praisin’ him for
hangin’ on to his sanity with all the odds again’ him, he was handed a
tantalizer, simply because he said he couldn’t see why somethin’
didn’t happen in a natural, orderly way, once in a while, without
everlastingly ringin’ in some new kind of a miracle on him.
If I had to pilot a mob like that through a desert for forty years,
follerin’ a cloud by day an’ a pillar o’ fire by night, havin’ dressed
quail an’ breakfast-food tossed to me out o’ the sky, gettin’ my
drinkin’ water by knockin’ it out of a rock, an’ tryin’ to satisfy the
tourists that it wasn’t altogether my fault that we traveled so
everlastin’ slow—I’d ’a’ been mad enough to bite all the enamel off
my teeth, and yet as far as I could see, Moses didn’t do a single
thing but show out a little peevish once in a while.
Still, we didn’t choose our natures nor the kind o’ life to range ’em
over nor the sorts o’ temptations we’d prefer to wrastle with; an’
even our own experiences are more ’n we can understand—to say nothin’
o’ settin’ back an’ decidin’ upon the deeds of others. My own test
wasn’t the one I’d ’a’ chosen; and yet, for all I know, it may ’a’
been the very best one, for me.
Little Barbie had finally grown up through childhood to the gates o’
womanhood—and as generally happens, she had found a man waitin’ for
her there. Through all the years of her growin’, she had been sendin’
out tendrils which reached over an’ wound about my heart, and grew
into it an’ through it, and became part of it. If it hadn’t ’a’ been
for Friar Tuck, I might ’a’ married her, myself; for I could have done
it, if all the men I’d had to fight had been other men—but the man I
couldn’t overcome, was myself.
Through all the years I had known Friar Tuck an’ rode with him an’
worked with him an’ slept out under the stars with him, he had been
quietly trainin’ me for the time when it would be my call to take my
own love by the throat, for the sake of the woman I loved. It don’t
weaken a man to do this; but it tears him—My God, how it does tear
him!
I, my own self, brought back the man she loved to her, and gave her
into his arms; and I’ve never regretted it for one single minute; but
I doubt if I’ve ever forgot it for much longer ’n this either.
I did what it seemed to me I had to do—an’ the Friar thinks I did
right, which counts a whole lot more with me ’n what others think. I
went through my desert, I climbed my hill, for just one moment I saw
into my promised land—and then I was jerked back, and not even given
promotion into the next world, which Moses drew as his consolation
prize. And yet, takin’ it all around, I can see where life has been
mighty kind and generous to me after all, and I’m not kickin’ for a
minute.
The great break in my life came in the fall, and it left ol’ Cast
Steel a more changed man ’n it did me. I wanted to swing out wide—to
ride and ride and ride until I forgot who I was and what had happened;
but the ol’ man worked on my pity, an’ I agreed to stay on with him a
spell. Durin’ the three years precedin’, I had got into the handlin’
of the ranch, more ’n he had, himself; so I spent the winter makin’ my
plans, an’ goin’ over ’em with him. He came out toward spring and was
more like himself; but when the first flowers blossomed on the
benches, they seemed to be drawin’ their life blood out o’ my very
heart. All day long I had a burnin’ in my eyes, everywhere I went I
missed somethin’, until the empty hole in my breast seemed likely to
drive me frantic; an’ one day I pertended to be mad about some little
thing, an’ threw up my job for good and all.
The ol’ man was as decent as they ever get. He knew how I had been
hit, an’ he didn’t try any foolishness. He gave me what money I
wanted, told me to go and have it out with myself, an’ come back to
him as soon as I could. I rode away without havin’ any aim or end in
view, just rode an’ rode an’ rode with memories crowdin’ about me so
thick, I couldn’t see the trail I was goin’.
Then one night I drew up along side o’ Friar Tuck’s fire, saw the
steady light of his courage blazin’ out through his own sadness, the
same as it had done all those years; an’ I flopped myself off my hoss,
threw myself flat on the grass, an’ only God and the Friar know how
many hours I lay there with his hand restin’ light on my shoulder, the
little fire hummin’ curious, soothin’ words o’ comfort, and up above,
the same ol’ stars shinin’ down clear and unchangin’ to point out,
that no matter how the storms rage about the surface o’ the earth,
it’s allus calm and right, if a feller only gets high enough.