THE STRANGE TENT
"Do nothing until I return," ran her letter, which Dr. Slavens read by
the last muddy light of day. "I will hold you to a strict account of
your promise to me that you would not act in this matter without first
returning here."
There was no word of where she had gone, no time fixed for her to
return. He had found the envelope pinned to the tent-cloth when he rode
up, weary and grim, from his journey to Meander.
Inside the tent all was in order. There stood her boxes of canned goods
and groceries against the wall. There was her cot, its blanket folded
over the pillow and tucked in neatly to keep out the dust. She had not
left hastily, it appeared, although the nervous brevity of her note
seemed to indicate the contrary. She had contrived herself a broom of
greasewood branches, with which she swept the space between stove and
tent, keeping it clean down to hard earth. It stood there as she had
left it, handle down, as carefully placed as if it were a most expensive
and important utensil.
Slavens smiled as he lifted it. Even in the wilderness a true woman
could not live without her broom, a greater civilizing influence, he
thought, than the sword.
He did not go inside the tent, but stood holding up the flap, looking
around the dim interior. Her lantern stood on a box, matches beside it,
as if it had been left there ready to his hand in the expectation that
he would come in and make himself at home.
It was not likely, he thought, that any of the neighbors could tell him
where she had gone when she had not felt like giving him that much of
her confidence. But he went down to Smith's, making casual inquiry,
saying nothing about the note which she had left, not taking that to be
any of Smith's concern.
As always, Smith had been astir at an early hour. He had seen her pass,
going in the direction of Comanche. She was riding briskly, he said, as
if she had only a short journey ahead of her, and was out of hail before
he could push the pan of biscuits he was working over into the oven and
open the door. It was Smith's opinion, given with his usual volubility
and without solicitation, that she had gone out on one of her
excursions.
"More than likely," said the doctor. "I think I'll go back up there and
kind of keep an eye on her stuff. Somebody might carry some of it off."
This unmalicious reflection on the integrity of the community hurt
Smith. There was evidence of deep sorrow in his heart as he began to
argue refutation of the ingenuous charge. It was humiliating, he
declared, that a man should come among them and hold them in such low
esteem.
"In this country nobody don't go around stealin' stuff out of houses and
tents," he protested. "You can put your stuff down on the side of the
road and leave it there, and go back in a month and find it. Sheepmen
leave supplies for their herders that way, and I've known 'em to leave
their pay along with 'em. Maybe it'd be a week or two before them
fellers got around to it, but it'd be there when they got there. There's
no such a thing as a tramp in this country. What'd a tramp live on
here?"
"I don't question your defense of conditions as they were," the doctor
rejoined; "but I'm looking at things as they are. There are a lot of new
people in here, the country is becoming civilized; and the more
civilized men grow the more police and battle-ships and regiments of
soldiers they need to keep things happy and peaceful between them, and
to prevent their equally civilized and cultured neighbors from stepping
in from across the seas and booting them out of their comfortable homes.
You've got to keep your eyes on your suitcase and your hand on your
wallet when you sit down among civilized people, Smith."
"Say, I guess you're right about that," admitted Smith after some
reflection. "I read in the paper the other day that they're goin' to
build three new battle-ships. Yes, I reckon things'll change here in
this part of Wyoming now. It'll be so in a year or two that a man can't
leave his pants hangin' out on the line overnight."
"Yes, you'll come to that," the doctor agreed.
"Pants?" pursued Smith reminiscently. "Pants? Well, I tell you. There
was a time in this country, when I drove stage from Casper to Meander,
that I knew every pair of pants between the Chugwater and the Wind
River. If one man ever had come out wearin' another feller's pants, I'd
'a' spotted 'em quick as I would a brand on a stray horse. Pants wasn't
as thick in them days as they are now, and crooks wasn't as plentiful
neither. I knew one old sheepman back on the Sweetwater that wore one
pair of pants 'leven years."
"That's another of the inconveniences of civilization."
"Pants and pie-annos," said Smith. "But I don't care; I'll put in a
stock of both of 'em just as soon as folks get their houses built and
their alfalfa in."
"That's the proper spirit," commended Slavens.
"And insurance and undertakin'," added Smith. "I'll ketch 'em comin' and
goin'."
"If you had a doctor to hitch in with you on the deal," suggested
Slavens.
"What's the matter with you?" grinned Smith.
"I'll be cutting a streak out of here before long, I think."
"Soon as you sell that claim?"
Slavens nodded.
"Don't let 'em bluff you on the price," advised Smith. "They're long on
that game here."
Slavens answered as Smith doubtless expected, and with a show of the
deepest confidence in his own sagacity, no matter what feeling lay in
the well of his conscience at that hour. He left Smith and went back to
Agnes' camp, hoping to see a light as he drew near. There was none. As
he carried no food with him, he was forced to draw on her stores for
supper.
For a long time he lay upon his saddle, smoking beside the stove,
turning over in his mind a thousand conjectures to account for her
sudden and unexplained absence. He was not worried for her safety, for
he believed that she had gone to Comanche, and that was a ride too long
for her to attempt in a day. Doubtless she would set out on the return
early in the morning, and reach home about noon.
It was well in the turn of the following afternoon when Slavens decided
that he would wait in camp for her no longer. Fears were beginning to
rise in him, and doubt that all was with her as it should be. If she
went toward Comanche, she must return from Comanche; he might meet her
on the way to his own camp. If not, in the morning he would go on to
Comanche in search of her.
His horse, fresh and eager, knowing that it was heading for home,
carried him over the road at a handsome gait. At the first stage-station
out of Comanche, a matter of twenty-five miles, and of fifteen beyond
his camp, he made inquiry about Agnes.
She had passed there the morning before, the man in charge said,
measuring Slavens curiously with his little hair-hedged eyes as he stood
in the door of his shanty, half a cabbage-head in one hand, a
butcher-knife in the other. Slavens thanked him and drew on the reins.
"I'm breaking in on your preparations for supper."
"No; it's dinner," the man corrected.
"I didn't know that you'd come to six-o'clock dinners in this part of
the country," the doctor laughed.
"Not as I know of," the cook-horse-wrangler said. "This dinner that I'm
gittin' ready, stranger, is for tomorrow noon, when the stage comes by
from Comanche. I always cook it the day before to be sure it'll be ready
on time."
With that the forehanded cook turned and went back to his pot. As
Slavens rode away he heard the cabbage crunching under the cook's knife
as he sliced it for the passengers of the Meander stage, to have it hot
and steaming, and well soaked with the grease of corned beef, when they
should arrive at noon on the morrow.
Dusk was settling when the doctor reached his tent. Before he dismounted
he rode to a little clear place among the bewilderment of stones which
gave him a view of half a mile, and he sat there looking a while down
the stage-trail toward Comanche. Beyond him a few hundred yards another
tent had been planted. In front of it a man sat cooking his supper over
a little blaze.
"Boyle lost no time in getting here," muttered the doctor, turning to
his own shelter and kindling a fire on the ashes of other days.
Ashes were graying again over the embers long after he had boiled his
pot of coffee and put away his can of warmed-over beans. Night was
charged with a threat of frost, as is not uncommon in those altitudes at
the beginning of September. It was so chilly that Slavens had drawn a
blanket over his back as he sat before his dying fire, Indian fashion,
on the ground, drawing what solace he could from his pipe.
A sound of scrambling hoofs laboring up the sharp hill from the
direction of Meander came to him suddenly, startling him out of his
reflections. His thought leaped to the instant conclusion that it was
Agnes; he laid light fuel to the coals, blowing it to quicken a blaze
that would guide and welcome her.
When the rider appeared an eager flame was laving the rocks in the
yellow light, and Slavens was standing, peering beyond its radius. A
glance told him that it was not she for whom he had lighted his guiding
fire. It was a man. In a moment he drew up on the other side of the
blaze and leaned over, looking sharply into Slavens' face.
"Hello!" he hailed loudly, as if shouting across a river.
Slavens returned his bellowed hail with moderation, recognizing in the
dusty traveler Comanche's distinguished chief of police, Ten-Gallon, of
the diamond rings. Slavens never had been able to feel anything but the
most lively contempt for the fellow; now, since learning of Ten-Gallon's
treatment of Agnes, and his undoubted hand in the plot of Hun Shanklin
and Boyle against himself, the doctor held him to be nothing short of an
open enemy.
"I'm lookin' for a man by the name of Boyle," announced Ten-Gallon. "Are
you holdin' down camp for him?"
"He's on down the road a little way."
"Oh, yes," said Ten-Gallon, "I know you now. You're the feller that beat
him to it. Well, I had a complaint ag'in' you for stealin' a man's coat
over in Comanche."
"I'm out of your jurisdiction right now, I guess; but I'll go down to
Comanche and give you a chance at me if you want to take it," the doctor
told him, considerably out of humor, what with his own disappointment
and the fellow's natural insolence.
The police chief of Comanche laughed.
"I'd be about the last man to lay hands on you for anything you done to
that feller, even if you'd 'a' took his hide along with his coat," said
he.
"Then the crime trust of Comanche must be dissolved?" sneered Slavens.
"I don't git you, pardner," returned Ten-Gallon with cold severity.
"Oh, never mind."
"You're the feller that beat Boyle to it, too," added the chief; "and I
want to tell you, pardner, I take off my katy to you. You're one smart
guy!"
"You'll find your man on down the road about a quarter," directed
Slavens, on whose ear the encomiums of Ten-Gallon fell without savor.
"I heard in Meander today that you'd sold out to Boyle," said
Ten-Gallon.
"Well, you got it straight," the doctor told him.
Ten-Gallon slued in his saddle, slouching over confidentially.
"Say, it ain't any of my business, maybe, but how much did you git out
of this pile of rocks?"
"It isn't any of your business, but I'll tell you. I got more out of it
than this whole blasted country's worth!" Slavens replied.
Ten-Gallon chuckled--a deep, fat, well-contented little laugh.
"Pardner," said he admiringly, "you certainly are one smart guy!"
Ten-Gallon rode on in his quest of Boyle, while Slavens sat again beside
his fire, which he allowed to burn down to coals.
Slavens could not share the fellow's jubilation over the transfer of
the homestead to Boyle, for he had surrendered it on Boyle's own
terms--the terms proposed to Agnes at the beginning. As he filled
his big, comforting pipe and smoked, Slavens wondered what she would
say concerning his failure to return to her before signing the
relinquishment. There would be some scolding, perhaps some tears,
but he felt that he was steering the boat, and the return merely to
keep his word inviolate would have been useless.
He reviewed the crowded events of the past two days; his arrival at
Meander, his talk with the county attorney. While that official appeared
to be outwardly honest, he was inwardly a coward, trembling for his
office. He was candid in his expression that Boyle would make a case
against Agnes if he wanted it made, for there was enough to base an
action upon and make a public showing.
When it came to guarding that part of the people's heritage grandiloquently
described as "the public domain," the Boyles were not always at the front,
to be sure. They had entered hundreds of men on the public lands, paid
them a few dollars for their relinquishment, and in that way come into
illegal ownership of hundreds of thousands of acres of grazing land. But
all the big fish of the Northwest did it, said the county attorney; you
couldn't draw a Federal grand jury that would find a true bill in such a
case against a big landowner, for the men in shadow always were drawn on
the juries.
Of course, when one of them turned against somebody else that would be
different. In the case of the person whose entry of lands was covered by
the doctor's hypothetical statement, and whose name was not mentioned
between them, the crime had been no greater than their own--not so great
from a moral interpretation of the law. Cupidity prompted them; the
desire for a home the other. Still, that would have no weight. If Boyle
wanted to make trouble, said the county attorney, he could make it, and
plenty of it.
Seeing how far the shadow of the Boyles fell over that land, Slavens at
once dismissed the notion that he had carried to Meander with him of
bringing some legal procedure against Boyle and Boyle's accomplices on
account of the assault and attempted murder which they had practiced
upon him. There could be no hope of an indictment if brought before the
grand jury; no chance of obtaining a warrant for the arrest of Shanklin
and Boyle by lodging complaint with the county attorney.
Yet he took up that matter with the little lawyer, whose blond hair
stood out in seven directions when Slavens told him of the felonious
attack and the brutal disposition of what they had doubtless believed to
be his lifeless body. The county attorney shook his head and showed an
immediate disposition to get rid of Slavens when the story was done. It
was plain that he believed the doctor was either insane or the tallest
liar that ever struck that corner of the globe.
"You couldn't make a case stick on that," said he, shifting his feet and
his eyes, busying his hands with some papers on his desk, which he took
up in assumed desire to be about the duties of his office without
further loss of time. "All I can say to you on that is, when you get
ready to leave the country, take a shot at them. That's about the only
thing that's left open for you to do if you want to even it up. This
office can't help you any."
And that was his advice, lightly offered doubtless, with no thought that
it would be accepted and carried out; but strange advice, thought
Slavens, for the protector of the people's peace and dignity to give. In
case he should take it, he would have to be ready to leave, that was
certain.
At his meeting with Boyle in the hotel at Meander on the appointed hour,
Slavens found the Governor's son more arrogant and insistent than
before. Boyle set a limit of noon for Slavens to meet his demand.
"I've got everything greased," he boasted, "and I'll cut the string if
you don't come up to the lick-log then."
He offered to take Slavens to interview the official in charge of the
land-office if the doctor doubted that things had not been set in motion
to cause trouble for Agnes in the event of Slavens' refusal to yield.
While Slavens believed this to be pure bluff, knowing that whatever
influence Boyle might have with the person in question, the official
would be too wise to show his subserviency in any such manner, at the
same time the doctor was well enough convinced of Boyle's great and
pernicious influence without a further demonstration. He saw nothing to
be gained by holding out until he could return to Agnes and place the
situation before her, if Boyle had been willing to forego moving against
her that long.
They went to the land-office together, Boyle advancing the money to
Slavens for the outright purchase of the land under the provision of the
act of Congress under which the reservation had been opened. Slavens
immediately transferred title to Boyle, drew the money which he had on
deposit in the bank at Meander, and rode away with the intention of
quitting the state as soon as might be. How soon, depended upon the
readiness of someone to go with him.
Boyle had told him that he might take his own time about removing his
possessions from the land; but it was his intention, as he gloomed there
by his low fire, to get them off the next day. In the morning, he
intended to go to Comanche, which was only ten miles distant, and try to
find out what had become of Agnes. From there he would send out a wagon
to bring in his tent and baggage.
He turned again in his mind every reason, tenable and untenable, that he
could frame to account for Agnes' sudden and unexplained trip. He
thought she probably had gone for her mail, or to send a telegram and
receive a reply, or for money, or something which she needed in camp.
More than once he took up the probability that she had gone off on some
forlorn scheme to adjust their mutual affairs; but there was not a hook
of probability to sustain the weight of this conjecture, so with little
handling it had to be put down as profitless.
At the best she was gone, and had been gone now two days--a long time
for a trip to Comanche. He wondered if anything had happened to her on
the way; whether she had fled the state in precipitation, so that his
homestead might be saved from Boyle. She was generous enough to do it,
but not so thoughtless, he believed, knowing as she must know the
concern and worry to which he would be subject until he could have word
from her.
But for Agnes' return to round it out, Slavens' adventure in that
country had come to a close. Without Agnes it would be incomplete, as
without her there would be missing a most important part in the future
pattern of his life. He could not go without Agnes, although he had
nothing yet of success to offer her.
But that was on the way. The knocks which he had taken there in those
few weeks had cracked the insulation of hopelessness which the frost of
his profitless years had thickened upon him. Now it had fallen away,
leaving him light and fresh for the battle.
Agnes had said little about the money which Dr. Slavens had taken from
Shanklin at the gambler's own crooked game. Whether she countenanced it
or not, Slavens did not know. Perhaps it was not honest money, in every
application of the term, but it was entirely current, and there was a
most comfortable sense in the feel of it there bulked in the inner
pocket of his coat. He had no qualms nor scruples about it at all. Fate
had put it in his hands for the carrying out of his long-deferred
desires. If it hadn't worked honestly for Shanklin, it was about to set
in for a mighty reformation.
But there was the trouble of Agnes' absence, which persisted between him
and sleep when he arranged himself in his blankets. He turned with it,
and sighed and worked himself into a fever of anxiety. Many times he got
up and listened for the sound of hoofs, to go back to his tent and tell
himself that it was unreasonable to think that she would ride by night
over that lonely road.
When morning began to creep in it brought with it a certain assurance
that all was well with her, as daylight often brings its deceptive
consolation to a heart that suffers the tortures of despair in the dark.
Sleep caught him then, and held him past the hour that he had set for
its bound. When he awoke the sun was shining over the cold ashes of his
last night's fire.
Slavens got up with a deeper feeling of resentment against Boyle than he
ever had felt for any man. It seemed to come over him unaccountably,
like a disagreeable sound, or a chill from a contrary wind. It was not a
pettish humor, but a deep, grave feeling of hatred, as if the germ of it
had grown in the blood and spread to every tissue of his body. The
thought of Boyle's being so near him was discordant. It pressed on him
with a sense of being near some unfit thing which should be removed.
Dr. Slavens never had carried arms in his life, and he had no means of
buckling Hun Shanklin's old revolver about him, but he felt that he must
take it with him when he left the tent. Big and clumsy as it was, he
thrust it under the belt which sustained his trousers, where it promised
to carry very well, although it was not in a free-moving state in case
an emergency should demand its speedy use.
There would be no time for breakfast. Even then he should have been in
Comanche, he told himself with upbraidings for having slept so long. His
horse had strayed, too. Slavens went after it in resentful mood. The
creature had followed the scant grazing to the second bench, an
elevation considerably above its present site.
Slavens followed the horse's trail, wondering how the animal had been
able to scramble up those slopes, hobbled as it was. Presently he found
the beast and started with it back to camp. Rounding the base of a great
stone which stood perched on the hillside as if meditating a tumble,
Slavens paused a moment to look over the troubled slope of land which
had been his two days before.
There was Boyle's tent, with a fire before it, but no one in sight; and
there, on the land which adjoined his former claim on the south, was
another tent, so placed among the rocks that it could not be seen from
his own.
"It wasn't there when I left," Slavens reflected. "I wonder what he's
after?"