CIRCUS DAY AT MANCOS
Cowboys were seldom respecters of the feelings of their fellows. Few
topics were so sacred or incidents so grave they were not made the
subject of the rawest jests. Leading a life of such stirring adventure
that few days passed without some more or less serious mishap, reckless
of life, unheedful alike of time and eternity, they made the smallest
trifles and the biggest tragedies the subjects of chaff and badinage
till the next diverting occurrence. But to the Cross Cañon outfit Mat
Barlow's love for Netty Nevins was so obviously a downright worship, an
all-absorbing, dominating cult, that, in a way, and all unknown to her,
she became the nearest thing to a religion the Cross Cañonites ever had.
Eight years before Mat had come among them a green tenderfoot from a
South Missouri village, picked up in Durango by Tom McTigh, the
foreman, on a glint of the eye and set of the jaw that suggested
workable material. Nor was McTigh mistaken. Mat took to range work
like a duck to water. Within a year he could rope and tie a mossback
with the best, and in scraps with Mancos Jim's Pah-Ute horse raiders
had proved himself as careless a dare-devil as the oldest and toughest
trigger-twitcher of the lot.
But persuade and cajole as much as they liked, none of the outfit were
ever able to induce Mat to pursue his education as a cowboy beyond the
details incident to work and frolic on the open range. Old
past-masters in the classics of cowboy town deportment, expert light
shooters, monte players, dance-hall beaux, elbow-crookers, and red-eye
riot-starters labored faithfully with Mat, but, all to no purpose. To
town with them he went, but with them in their debauches he never
joined; indeed as a rule he even refused to discuss such incidents with
them academically. Thus he delicately but plainly made it known to the
outfit that he proposed to keep his mind as clean as his conduct.
Such a curiosity as Mat was naturally closely studied. The combined
intelligence of the outfit was trained upon him, for some time without
result. He was the knottiest puzzle that ever hit Cross Cañon. At
first he was suspected of religious scruples and nicknamed "Circuit
Rider." But presently it became apparent that he owned ability and
will to curse a fighting outlaw bronco till the burning desert air felt
chill, and it became plain he feared God as little as man. Mat had
joined the outfit in the Autumn, when for several weeks it was on the
jump; first gathering and shipping beeves, then branding calves, lastly
moving the herd down to its Winter range on the San Juan. Throughout
this period Cross Cañon's puzzle remained hopeless; but the very first
evening after the outfit went into Winter quarters at the home ranch,
the puzzle was solved.
Ranch mails were always small, no matter how infrequent their coming or
how large the outfit. The owner's business involved little
correspondence, the boys' sentiments inspired less. Few with close
home-ties exiled themselves on the range. Many were "on the scout"
from the scene of some remote shooting scrape and known by no other
than a nickname. For most of them such was the rarity of letters that
often have I seen a cowboy turning and studying an unopened envelope
for a half-day or more, wondering whoever it was from and guessing
whatever its contents could be. Thus it was one of the great
sensations of the season for McTigh and his red-sashers, when the ranch
cook produced five letters for Circuit Rider, all addressed in the same
neat feminine hand, all bearing the same post mark. And when, while
the rest were washing for supper, disposing of war sacks, or "making
down" blankets, Mat squatted in the chimney corner to read his letters,
Lee Skeats impressively whispered to Priest:
"Ben, I jest nachally hope never to cock another gun ef that thar
little ol' Circuit hain't got a gal that's stuck to him tighter'n a
tick makin' a gotch ear, or that ain't got airy damn thing to do to hum
but write letters. Size o' them five he's got must 'a kept her settin'
up nights to make 'em ever since Circuit jumped the hum reservation.
Did you _ever_ hear of a feller gettin' five letters from a gal to
wonst?"
"I shore never did," answered Ben; "Circuit must 'a been 'prentice to
some big Medicine Man back among his tribe and have a bagful o' hoodoos
hid out somewhere. He ain't so damn hijus to look at, but he shore
never knocked no gal plum loco that away with his p'rsn'l beauty. Must
be some sort o' Injun medicine he works."
"Ca'n't be from his mother," cogitated Lee. "Writin' ain't trembly
none--looks like it was writ by a school-marm, an' a lally-cooler at
that. Circuit will have to git one o' them pianer-like writin' makers
and keep poundin' it on the back till it hollers, ef he allows to lope
close up in that gal's writin' class.
"Lord! but won't thar be fun for us all Winter he'pin' him 'tend to his
correspondence!
"Let's you an' me slip round and tip off the outfit to shet up till
after supper, an' then all be ready with a hot line o' useful hints
'bout his answerin' her."
Ben joyously fell in with Lee's plan. The tips were quickly passed
round. But none of the hints were ever given, not a single one. A
facer lay ahead of them beside which the mere receipt of the five
letters was nothing. To be sure, the letters were the greatest
sensation the outfit had enjoyed since they stood off successfully two
troops of U. S. Cavalry, come to arrest them for killing twenty
maurauding Utes. But what soon followed filled them with an
astonishment that stilled their mischievous tongues, stirred sentiments
long dormant, and ultimately, in a measure, tuned their own
heart-strings into chord with the sweet melody ringing over Circuit's
own.
Supper was called, and upon it the outfit fell--all but Circuit. They
attacked it wolf-fashion according to their habit, bolting the steaming
food in a silence absolute but for the crunching of jaws and the shrill
hiss of sipped coffee. The meal was half over before Circuit, the last
letter finished, tucked his five treasures inside his shirt, stepped
over the bench to a vacant place at the table, and hastily swallowed a
light meal; in fact he rose while the rest were still busy gorging
themselves. And before Lee or the others were ready to launch at
Circuit any shafts of their rude wit, his manoeuvres struck them dumb
with curiosity.
Having hurried from the table direct to his bunk, Circuit was observed
delving in the depths of his war sack, out of which he produced a set
of clean under-clothing, complete from shirt to socks, and a razor.
Besides these he carefully laid out his best suit of store clothes, and
from beneath the "heading" of the bunk he pulled a new pair of boots.
All this was done with a rapidity and method that evinced some set
purpose which the outfit could not fathom, a purpose become the more
puzzling when, five minutes later, Circuit returned from the kitchen
bearing the cook's wash-tub and a pail of warm water. The tub he
deposited and filled in an obscure corner of the bunkroom, and shortly
thereafter was stripped to the buff, laboriously bathing himself. The
bath finished, Circuit carefully shaved, combed his hair, and dressed
himself in his cleanest and best.
While he was dressing, Bill Ball caught breath enough to whisper to
Lee: "By cripes! I've got it. Circuit's got a hunch some feller's
tryin' to rope an' hobble his gal, an' he's goin' to ask Tom for his
time, fork a cayuse, an' hit a lope for a railroad that'll take him to
whatever little ol' humanyville his gal lives at."
"Lope hell," answered Lee; "it's a run he's goin' to hit, with one spur
in the shoulder an' th' other in th' flank. Why, th' way he's throwin'
that whisker-cutter at his face, he's plumb shore to dewlap and wattle
his fool self till you could spot him in airy herd o' humans as fer as
you could see him."
But Bill's guess proved wide of the mark.
As soon as Circuit's dressing was finished and he had received
assurance from the angular fragment of mirror nailed above the
wash-basin that his hair was smoothly combed and a new neckerchief
neatly knotted, he produced paper and an envelope from his war sack,
seated himself at the end of the long dinner-table, farthest from the
fireplace, lighted a fresh candle, spread out his five treasures,
carefully sharpened a stub pencil, and duly set its lead end a-soak in
his mouth, preparatory to the composition of a letter. The surprise
was complete. Such painstaking preparation and elaborate costuming for
the mere writing of a letter none present--or absent, for that
matter--had ever heard of. But it was all so obviously eloquent of a
most tender respect for his correspondent that boisterous voices were
hushed, and for at least a quarter of an hour the Cross Cañonites sat
covertly watching the puckered brows, drawn mouth, and awkwardly
crawling pencil of the writer.
Presently Lee gently nudged Ball and passed a wink to the rest; then
all rose and softly tiptoed their way to the kitchen.
Comfortably squatted on his heels before the cook's fireplace, Lee
quietly observed: "Fellers, I allow it's up to us to hold a inquest on
th' remains o' my idee about stringin' Circuit over that thar gal o'
his'n. I moves that th' idee's done died a-bornin', an' that we bury
her. All that agrees, say so; any agin it, say so, 'n' then git their
guns an' come outside."
There were no dissenting votes. Lee's motion was unanimously carried.
"Lee's plumb right," whispered McTigh; "that kid's got it harder an'
worse than airy feller I ever heerd tell of, too hard for us to lite in
stringin' him 'bout it. Never had no gal myself; leastways, no good
one; been allus like a old buffalo bull whipped out o' th' herd, sorta
flockin' by my lonesome, an'--an'--" with a husky catch of the voice,
"an' that thar kid 'minds me I must a' been missin' a _hell_ of a lot
hit 'pears to me I wouldn't have no great trouble gittin' to like."
Then for a time there was silence in the kitchen.
Crouching over his pots, the black cook stared in surprised inquiry at
the semicircle of grim bronzed faces, now dimly lit by the flickering
embers and then for a moment sharply outlined by the flash of a
cigarette deeply inhaled by nervous lips. The situation was tense. In
each man emotions long dormant, or perhaps by some never before
experienced, were tumultuously surging; surging the more tumultuously
for their long dormancy or first recognition. Presently in a low,
hoarse voice that scarcely carried round the semicircle, Chillili Jim
spoke:
"Fellers, Circuit shore 'minds me pow'ful strong o' my ol' mammy. She
was monstrous lovin' to we-uns; an' th' way she scrubbed an' fixed up
my ol' pa when he comes home from the break-up o' Terry's Rangers, with
his ol' carcass 'bout as full o' rents an' holes as his ragged gray war
clothes! Allus have tho't ef I could git to find a gal stuck on me
like mammy on pa, I'd drop my rope on her, throw her into th' home
ranch pasture, an' nail up th' gate fer keeps."
"'Minds me o' goin' to meetin' when I was a six-year-old," mused Mancos
Mitch; "when Circuit's pencil got to smokin' over th' paper an' we-uns
got so dedburned still, 'peared to me like I was back in th' little ol'
meetin'-house in th' mosquito clearin', on th' banks o' th' Lee in ol'
Uvalde County. Th' air got that quar sort o' dead smell 'ligion allus
'pears to give to meetin'-houses, a' I could hear th' ol' pa'son
a-tellin' us how it's th' lovinest that allus gits th' longest end o'
th' rope o' life. Hits me now that ther ol' sky scout was 'bout right.
Feller cain't possibly keep busy _all_ th' love in his system, workin'
it off on nothing but a pet hoss or gun; thar's allus a hell of a lot
you didn't know you had comes oozin' out when a proper piece o' calico
lets you next."
"Boys," cut in Bill Ball, the dean of the outfit's shooters-up of town
and shooters-out of dance-hall lights; "boys, I allow it 's up to me to
'pologize to Circuit. Ef I wasn't such a damned o'nery kiyote I'd o'
caught on befo'. But I hain't been runnin' with th' drags o' th' she
herd so long that I can't 'preciate th' feelin's o' a feller that's got
a good gal stuck on him, like Circuit. Ef I had one, you-all kin
gamble yer _alce_ all bets would be off with them painted dance-hall
beer jerkers, an' it would be out in th' brush fo' me while th' corks
was poppin', gals cussin', red-eye flowin', an' chips rattlin'. That
thar little ol' kid has my 'spects, an' ef airy o' th' Blue Mountain
outfit tries to string him 'bout not runnin' with them oreide
propositions, I'll hand 'em lead till my belt's empty."
Ensued a long silence; at length, by common consent the inquest was
adjourned, and the members of the jury returned to the bunk-room, quiet
and solemn as men entering a death chamber. There at the table before
the guttering candle still sat Circuit, his hair now badly tousled, his
upper lip blackened with pencil lead, his brows more deeply puckered,
his entire underlip apparently swallowed, the table littered with
rudely scrawled sheets.
Slipping softly to their respective bunks, the boys peeled and climbed
into their blankets. And there they all lay, wide-awake but silent,
for an hour or two, some watching Circuit curiously, some enviously,
others staring fixedly into the dying fire until from its dull-glowing
embers there rose for some visions of bare-footed, nut-brown,
fustian-clad maids, and for others the finer lines of silk and lace
draped figures, now long since passed forever out of their lives.
Those longest awake were privileged to witness Circuit's final offering
at the shrine of his love.
His letter finished, enclosed, addressed, and stamped, he kissed it and
laid it aside, apparently all unconscious of the presence of his mates,
as he had been since beginning his letter. Then he drew from beneath
his shirt something none of them had seen before, a buckskin bag, out
of which he pulled a fat blank memorandum book, _into which he
proceeded to copy, in as small a hand as he could write, every line of
his sweetheart's letters_. Later they learned that this bag and its
contents never left Circuit's body, nestled always over his heart,
suspended by a buckskin thong!
Out of the close intimacies cow-camp life promotes, it was not long
before the well-nigh overmastering curiosity of the outfit was
satisfied. They learned how the "little ol' blue-eyed sorrel top," as
Bill Ball had christened her, had vowed to wait faithfully till Circuit
could earn and save enough to make them a home, and how Circuit had
sworn to look into no woman's eyes till he could again look into hers.
Before many months had passed, Circuit's regular weekly letter to
Netty--regular when on the ranch--and the ceremonial purification and
personal decking that preceded it, had become for the Cross Cañon
outfit a public ceremony all studiously observed. None were ever too
tired, none too grumpy, to wash, shave, and "slick up" of letter
nights, scrupulously as Moslems bathe their feet before approaching the
shrine of Mahomet and still as Moslems before their shrine all sat
about the bunk-room while Circuit wrote his letter and copied Netty's
last. Indeed, more than one well-started wild town orgy was stopped
short by one of the boys remarking: "Cut it, you kiyotes! Netty
wouldn't like it!"
And thus the months rolled on till they stacked up into years, but the
interchange of letters never ceased and the burden of Circuit's
buckskin bag grew heavier.
Twice Circuit ventured a financial _coup_, and both times
lost--invested his savings in horses, losing one band to Arizona
rustlers, and the other to Mancos Jim's Pah-Utes. After the last
experience he took no further chances and settled down to the slow but
sure plan of hoarding his wages.
Come the Fall of the eighth year of his exile from Netty, Circuit had
accumulated two thousand dollars, and it was unanimously voted by the
Cross Cañon outfit, gathered in solemn conclave at Circuit's request,
that he might venture to return to claim her. And before the conclave
was adjourned, Lee Skeats, the chairman, remarked: "Circuit, ef Netty
shows airy sign o' balkin' at th' size o' your bank roll, you kin jes'
tell her that thar 's a bunch out here in Cross Cañon that's been
lovin' her sort o' by proxy, that'll chip into your matrimonial play,
plumb double the size o' your stack, jest fo' th' hono' o' meetin' up
wi' her an' th' pleasure o' seein' their pardner hitched."
The season's work done and the herd turned loose on its Winter range on
the San Juan, the outfit decided to escort Circuit into Mancos and
there celebrate his coming nuptials. For them the one hundred and
seventy intervening miles of alternating cañon and mesa, much of the
journey over trails deadly dangerous for any creature less sure-footed
than a goat, was no more than a pleasant _pasear_. Thus it was barely
high noon of the third day when the thirty Cross Cañonites reached
their destination.
Deep down in a mighty gorge, nestled beside the stream that gave its
name alike to cañon and to town, Mancos stewed contentedly in a
temperature that would try the strength and temper of any unaccustomed
to the climate of southwestern Colorado. Framed in Franciscan-gray
sage brush, itself gray as the sage with the dust of pounding hoofs and
rushing whirlwinds, at a little distance Mancos looked like an
aggregation of dead ash heaps, save where, here and there, dabs of
faded paint lent a semblance of patches of dying embers.
While raw, uninviting, and even melancholy in its every aspect, for the
scattered denizens of a vast region round about Mancos's principal
street was the local Great White Way that furnished all the fun and
frolic most of them ever knew. To it flocked miners from their dusky,
pine-clad gorges in the north, grangers from the then new farming
settlement in the Montezuma Valley, cowboys from Blue Mountain, the
Dolores, and the San Juan; Navajos from Chillili, Utes from their
reservation--a motley lot burning with untamed elemental passions that
called for pleasure "straight."
Joyously descending upon the town at a breakneck lope before a
following high wind that completely shrouded them in clouds of dust, it
was not until they pulled up before their favorite feed corral that the
outfit learned that Mancos was revelling in quite the reddest
red-letter day of its existence, the day of its first visitation by a
circus--and also its last for many a year thereafter.
In the eighties Mancos was forty miles from the nearest railway, but
news of the reckless extravagances of its visiting miners and cowboys
tempted Fells Brothers' "Greatest Aggregation on Earth of Ring Artists
and Monsters" to visit it. Dusted and costumed outside of town, down
the main street of Mancos the circus bravely paraded that morning, its
red enamelled paint and gilt, its many-tinted tights and spangles,
making a perfect riot of brilliant colors over the prevailing dull gray
of valley and town.
Streets, stores, saloons, and dance halls were swarming with the
outpouring of the ranches and the mines, men who drank abundantly but
in the main a rollicking, good-natured lot.
While the Cross Cañonites were liquoring at the Fashion Bar (Circuit
drinking sarsaparilla), Lame Johny, the barkeeper, remarked: "You-uns
missed it a lot, not seein' the pr'cesh. She were a ring-tailed tooter
for fair, with the damnedest biggest noise-makin' band you ever heard,
an' th' p'rformers wearin' more pr'tys than I ever allowed was made.
An' say, they've got a gal in th' bunch, rider I reckon, that's jest
that damned good to look at it _hurts_. Damned ef I kin git her outen
my eyes yet. Say, she's shore prittier than airy red wagon in th' show
built like a quarter horse, got eyes like a doe, and a sorrel mane she
could hide in. She 's sure a _chile con carne_ proposition, if I ever
see one."
"Huh!" grunted Lee; "may be a good-looker, but I'll gamble she ain't in
it with our Sorrel-top; hey, boys? Here 's to _our_ Sorrel-top,
fellers, an' th' day Circuit prances into Mancos wi' her."
Several who tried to drink and cheer at the same time lost much of
their liquor, but none of their enthusiasm. After dinner at
Charpiot's, a wretched counterfeit of the splendid old Denver
restaurant of that name, the Cross Cañonites joined the throng
streaming toward the circus.
For his sobriety designated treasurer of the outfit for the day and
night, Circuit marched up to the ticket wagon, passed in a hundred
dollar bill and asked for thirty tickets. The tickets and change were
promptly handed him. On the first count the change appeared to be
correct, but on a recount Circuit found the ticket-seller had cunningly
folded one twenty double, so that it appeared as two bills instead of
one. Turning immediately to the ticket-seller, Circuit showed the
deception and demanded correction.
"Change was right; you can't dope and roll me; gwan!" growled the
ticket-agent.
"But it's plumb wrong, an' you can't rob me none, you kiyote," answered
Circuit; "hand out another twenty, and do it sudden!"
"Chase yourself to hell, you bow-legged hold-up," threatened the
ticket-seller.
When, a moment later, the ticket man plunged out of the door of his
wagon wildly yelling for his clan, it was with eyes flooding with blood
from a gash in his forehead due to a resentful tap from the barrel of
Circuit's gun.
Almost in an instant pandemonium reigned and a massacre was imminent.
Stalwart canvasmen rushed to their chief's call till Circuit's bunch
were outnumbered three to one by tough trained battlers on many a
tented field, armed with hand weapons of all sorts. Victors these men
usually were over the town roughs it was customarily theirs to handle;
but here before them was a bunch not to be trifled with, a quiet group
of thirty bronzed faces, some grinning with the anticipated joy of the
combat they loved, some grim as death itself, each affectionately
twirling a gleaming gun. One overt act on the part of the circus men,
and down they would go like ninepins and they knew it--knew it so well
that, within two minutes after they had assembled, all dodged into and
lost themselves in the throng of onlookers like rabbits darting into
their warrens.
"Mighty pore 'pology for real men, them elephant-busters," disgustedly
observed Bill Ball. "Come fellers, le's go in."
"Nix for me," spoke up Circuit; "I'm that hot in the collar over him
tryin' to rob me I've got no use for their old show. You-all go in,
an' I'll go down to Chapps' and fix my traps to hit the trail for the
railroad in the mornin'."
On the crest of a jutting bastion of the lofty escarpment that formed
the west wall of the cañon, the sun lingered for a good-night kiss of
the eastern cliffs which it loved to paint every evening with all the
brilliant colors of the spectrum; it lingered over loving memories of
ancient days when every niche of the Mancos cliffs held its little
bronze-hued line of primitive worshippers, old and young, devout,
prostrate, fearful of their Red God's nightly absences, suppliant of
his return and continued largess; over memories of ceremonials and
pastimes barbaric in their elemental violence, but none more
primitively savage than the new moon looked down upon an hour later.
Supper over, on motion of Lee Skeats the Cross Cañonites had adjourned
to the feed corral and gone into executive session.
Lee called the meeting to order.
"Fellers," he said, "that dod-burned show makes my back tired. A few
geezers an' gals flipfloopin' in swings an' a bunch o' dead ones on ol'
broad-backed work hosses that calls theirselves riders! Shucks! thar
hain't one o' th' lot could sit a real twister long enough to git his
seat warm; about th' second jump would have 'em clawin' sand.
"Only thing in their hull circus wo'th lookin' at is that red-maned
gal, an' she looks that sweet an' innercent she don't 'pear to rightly
belong in that thar bare-legged bunch o' she dido-cutters. They-all
must 'a mavericked her recent. Looks like a pr'ty ripe red apple among
a lot o' rotten ones.
"Hated like hell to see her thar, specially with next to nothin' on,
fer somehow I couldn't help her 'mindin' me o' our Sorrel-top. Reckon
ef we busted up their damn show, that gal'd git to stay a while in a
decent woman's sort o' clothes. What say, shall we bust her!"
"Fer one, I sits in an' draw cards in your play cheerful," promptly
responded Bill Ball; "kind o' hurt me too to see Reddy thar. An' then
them animiles hain't gittin' no squar' deal. Never did believe in
cagin' animiles more'n men. Ef they need it bad, kill 'em; ef they
don't, give 'em a run fo' their money, way ol' Mahster meant 'em to
have when He made 'em. Let's all saddle up, ride down thar, tie onto
their tents, an' pull 'em down, an' then bust open them cages an' give
every dod-blamed animile th' liberty I allows he loves same as humans!
An' then, jest to make sure she's a good job, le's whoop all their
hosses ove' to th' Dolores an' scatter 'em through th' piñons!"
This motion was unanimously carried, even Circuit cheerfully
consenting, from memories of the outrage attempted upon him earlier in
the day. Ten minutes later the outfit charged down upon the circus at
top speed, arriving among the first comers for the evening performance.
Flaming oil torches lit the scene, making it bright almost as day.
By united action, thirty lariats were quickly looped round guy ropes
and snubbed to saddle horns, and then, incited by simultaneous spur
digs and yells, thirty fractious broncos bounded away from the tent,
fetching it down in sheets and ribbons, ropes popping like pistols, the
rent canvas shrieking like a creature in pain, startled animals
threshing about their cages and crying their alarm. Cowboys were never
slow at anything they undertook. In three minutes more the side shows
were tentless, the dwarfs trying to swarm up the giant's sturdy legs to
safety or to hide among the adipose wrinkles of the fat lady, and the
outfit tackled the cages.
In another three minutes the elephant, with a sociable shot through his
off ear to make sure he should not tarry, was thundering down Mancos's
main street, trumpeting at every jump, followed by the lion, the great
tuft of hair at the end of his tail converted, by a happy thought of
Lee Skeats, into a brightly blazing torch that, so long as the fuel
lasted, lighted the shortest cut to freedom for his escaping mates--for
the lion hit as close a bee-line as possible trying to outrun his own
tail. For the outfit, it was the lark of their lives. Crashing pistol
shots and ringing yells bore practical testimony to their joy. But
they were not to have it entirely their own way.
Just as they were all balled up before the rhinoceros, staggered a bit
by his great bulk and threatening horn, out upon them charged a body of
canvasmen, all the manager could contrive to rally, for a desperate
effort to stop the damage and avenge the outrage. In their lead ran
the ticket seller, armed with a pistol and keen for evening up things
with the man who had hit him, dashing straight for Circuit. Circuit
did not see him, but Lee did; and thus in the very instant Circuit
staggered and dropped to the crack of his pistol, down beside Circuit
pitched the ticket man with a ball through his head. Then for two
minutes, perhaps, a hell of fierce hand-to-hand battle raged, cowboy
skulls crunching beneath fierce blows, circus men falling like autumn
leaves before the cowboys' fire. And so the fight might have lasted
till all were down but for a startling diversion.
Suddenly, just as Circuit had struggled to his feet, out from among the
wrecked wagons sprang a dainty figure in tulle and tights, masses of
hair red as the blood of the battlers streaming in waves behind her,
and fired at the nearest of the common enemy, which happened to be poor
Circuit. Swaying for a moment with the shock of the wound, down to the
ground he settled like an empty sack, falling across the legs of the
ticket-seller.
Startled and shocked, it seemed, by the consequences of her deed, the
woman approached and for a moment gazed down, horror-stricken, into
Circuit's face. Then suddenly, with a shriek of agony, she dropped
beside him, drew his head into her lap, wiped the gathering foam from
his lips, fondled and kissed him. Ripping his shirt open at the neck
to find his wound, she uncovered Circuit's buckskin bag and memorandum
book, showing through its centre the track of a bullet that had finally
spent itself in fracturing a rib over Circuit's heart, the
ticket-seller's shot, that would have killed him instantly but for the
shielding bulk Netty's treasured letters interposed. Moved, perhaps,
by some subtle instinctive suspicion of its contents, she glanced
within the book, started to remove it from Circuit's neck, and then
gently laid it back above the heart it so long had lain next and so
lately had shielded.
Meantime about this little group gathered such of the Cross Cañonites
as were still upon their legs, while, glad of the diversion, their
enemies hurriedly withdrew; round about the outfit stood, their fingers
still clutching smoking guns, but pale and sobered.
Circuit lay with eyes closed, feebly gasping for breath, and just as
the girl's nervous fingers further rent his shirt and exposed the
mortal wound through the right lung made by her own tiny pistol,
Circuit half rose on one elbow and whispered: "Boys, write--write Netty
I was tryin' to git to her."
And then he fell back and lay still.
For five minutes, perhaps, the girl crouched silent over the body,
gazing wide-eyed into the dead face, stunned, every faculty paralyzed.
Presently Lee softly spoke:
"Sis, if, as I allows, you're Netty, you shore did Mat a good turn
killin' him 'fore he saw you. Would 'a hurt him pow'ful to see you in
this bunch; hurts us 'bout enough, I reckon."
Roused from contemplation of her deed, the girl rose to her knees,
still clinging to Circuit's stiffening fingers, and sobbingly murmured,
in a voice so low the awed group had to bend to hear her:
"Yes, I'm Netty, and every day while I live I shall thank God Mat never
knew. This is my husband lying dead beneath Mat. They made me do
it--my family--nagged me to marry Tom, then a rich horse-breeder of our
county, till home was such a hell I couldn't stand it. It was four
long years ago, and never since have I had the heart to own to Mat the
truth. His letters were my greatest joy, and they breathed a love I
little have deserved.
"Reckon that's dead right, Netty," broke in Bill Ball; "hain't a bit
shore myself airy critter that ever stood up in petticoats deserved a
love big as Circuit's. Excuse _us_, please."
And at a sign from Bill, six bent and gently lifted the body and bore
it away into the town.
In the twilight of an Autumn day that happened to be the twenty-second
anniversary of Circuit's death, two grizzled old ranchmen, ambling
slowly out of Mancos along the Dolores trail, rode softly up to a
corner of the burying ground and stopped. There within, hard by, a
woman, bent and gnarled and gray as the sage-brush about her, was
tenderly decking a grave with piñon wreaths.
"Hope to never cock another gun, Bill Ball, ef she ain't thar ag'in!"
"She shore is, Lee," answered Bill; "provin' we-all mislaid no bets
reconsiderin', an' stakin' Sorrel-top to a little ranch and brand."
Thus, happily, does time sweeten the bitterest memories.