"Sweet is the vale where the Mohawk gently glides
On its fair, windin' way to the sea--"
Up-State lent over, his elbows on his knees, and his face in his hands.
The boss looked at me. I give a jerk of my haid to show him he'd best
go. And he walked off, grindin' his teeth.
It seemed to me I could hear Up-State whisperin' into his fingers. I
stooped over. "What is it, pardner?" I ast.
"It's full of home," he says, "--it's full of home! Cupid! Cupid!"
(Darned if I don't wisht them lungers wouldn't come down here, anyhow.
They plumb give a feller the misery.)
Doc Trowbridge stopped by just then. "How you makin' it t'-day,
Up-State?" he ast.
Up-State got to his feet, slow though, and put a hand on Billy's
shoulder. "The next sandstorm, ole man," he says; "the next
sandstorm."
"Up-State," says Billy, "buck up. You got more lives'n a cat."
"No show," Up-State whispers back.
He was funny that-a-way. Now, most lungers fool theyselves. Allus
"goin' to git better," y' savvy. But Up-State--_he knew_.
"Come over to my tent t'-night," he goes on to Billy. "I got
somethin' I want to talk to you about."
"All right," says Billy. "Two haids is better 'n one, if one _is_
a sheep's haid."
After supper, I passed Silverstein's two 'r three times, and about
nine o'clock I seen Macie. She was 'way back towards the end of the
store, a lamp and a book in front of her; and she was a-workin' like a
steam-thrasher.
Somehow it come over me all to oncet then that she'd meant ev'ry
single word she said, and that, sooner 'r later--she was goin'.
_Goin'_. And I'd be stayin' behind. I looked 'round me. Say! Briggs
City didn't show up _much_. "Without _her,_" I says, (they was that
red-hot-iron feelin' inside of me again) "--without her, what is
it?--the jumpin'-off place!"
Beyond me, a piece, was Up-State's tent. A light was burnin' inside it,
too, and Doc Trowbridge was settin' in the moonlight by the openin'.
Behind him, I could see Up-State, writin'.
I trailed home to my bunk. But you can understand I didn't sleep good.
And 'way late, I had a dream. I dreamed the Bar Y herd broke fence
and stampeded through Briggs, and after 'em come about a hunderd
bull-whackers, all a-layin' it on to them steers with the flick of
they lashes _-zip, zip, zip, zip_.
Next mornin, I woke quick--with a jump, y' might say. I looked at my
nickel turnip. It was five-thirty. I got up. The sun was shinin', the
air was nice and clear and quiet and the larks was just singin' away.
But outside, along the winda-sill, was stretched _a' inch-wide trickle
of sand!_
In no time I was hoofin' it down the street. When I got to Up-State's
tent, Billy Trowbridge was inside it, movin' 'round, puttin' stuff
into a trunk, and--wipin' the sand outen his eyes.
"He was right?" I says, when I goes in, steppin' soft, and
whisperin'--like Up-State 'd allus whispered. Billy turned to me and
kinda smiled, fer all he felt so all-fired bad. "Yas, Cupid," he says,
"he was right. One more storm."