THE MAN TRAIL
"What do you think of him, Wid?" asked Sim Gage after a time, when they
were well on their way homeward in the late afternoon.
"Looks like a good doctor, all right," replied Wid. "Clean-cut and
strictly on to his game. I reckon he got plenty practice in the war.
I'm sorry neither of us was young enough to git into that war. Your
leg hurt much now?"
"Say yes!" replied Sim. "You know, I reckon we didn't get there any
too soon with that leg. Fine lot of us, up to my house, huh? Me laid
up, and her can't see a wink on earth."
"And yet you said I couldn't come over and see her. So there you are,
both alone."
"Well, it's this way, Wid, and you know it," insisted his friend. "The
girl is right strange there yet--it's a plumb hard thing to figure out.
We got to get her gentled down some. There's been a hell of a
misunderstanding all around, Wid, we got to admit that. And we're all
to blame for it."
"Well, she's to blame too, ain't she?"
"No, she _ain't_! I won't let no man say that. She's just done the
best she knew how. Women sometimes don't know which way to jump."
"She didn't make none too good a jump out here," commented his friend.
"Has she ever told you anything about herself yet?"
"Not to speak of none, no. She sets and cries a good deal. Says she's
broke and blind and all alone. She's got one friend back home--girl
she used to room with, but she's going to get married, and so she, this
lady, Miss Warren, comes out here plumb desperate, not knowing what
kind of a feller I am, or what kind of a place this is--which is both a
damn shame, Wid, and you know it. I say I'm up against it right now."
"The real question, Sim, is what are folks going to say? There's
people in this valley that ain't a-going to stand it for you and that
girl to live there unless you're married. You know that."
"Of course I know that. But do you suppose I'd marry that girl even if
she was willing? No, sir, I wouldn't--not a-tall. It wouldn't be
right."
"Now listen, Sim. Leave it to me. I'd say that if you ever do want to
get married, Sim--and you got to if she stays here--why, here's the one
and only chancet of your whole life. Of course, if the girl wasn't
blind, she wouldn't never marry you. I don't believe any woman would,
real. The way she is, and can't see, maybe she will, after a while,
like, when she's gentled down, as you say. It looks like a act of
Providence to me."
"Well," said Sim, pondering, "I hadn't just thought of it that way. Do
you believe in them things--acts of Providence?"
"I don't believe in nothing much except we're going to get into camp
mighty late to-night. It's getting sundown, and I ain't keen to cut
wood in the dark."
"I'll tell you what, Wid," said Sim suddenly relenting. "You come on
down to our house to-night. I'll introduce you to her after all--Miss
Warren. It ain't no more'n fair, after all."
Wid only nodded. They pushed along up the road until finally they
arrived, within a few miles of their own homesteads, at the little
roadside store and postoffice kept by old Pop Bentley. They would have
pulled up here, but as they approached the dusty figure of the mail
carrier of that route came out, and held up a hand.
"Hold on, Sim," said he. "I heard at Nels Jensen's place that you had
gone down the river. Well, it's time you was gettin' back."
Sim Gage smiled with a sense of his own importance as he took the
letter, turning it over in his hand. "What's it say, Wid?" said he.
His neighbor looked at the inscription. "It's for her," said he.
"Miss Mary Warren, in care of Sim Gage, Two Forks, Montany."
"Who's it from?" said Sim. "Here's some writing on the back."
"From Annie B. Squires, 9527 Oakford Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio. But
listen----"
"That's the girl that Miss Warren told me about!" said Sim. "That's a
letter from her. I'd better be getting back."
"I just told you you had," said the mail driver, something of pity in
his tone. "I'm trying to tell you _why_ you had. Why I brought this
letter down is, you ain't _got_ no place to get back _to_."
"What you mean?" said Wid Gardner suddenly.
"Hell's loose in this valley to-day," said the mail carrier. "Five
fires, when I come through before noon. Wid, your house is gone, and
your barn, too. Sim, somebody's burned your hay and your barn, and
shot your stock, and set your house afire--it would of burned plumb
down if Nels Jensen hadn't got there just in time. They saved the
house. It wasn't burned very much anyways, so Nels told me."
Sim Gage and his companion, stupefied, sat looking at the bearer of
this news.
"Who done it?" asked Wid Gardner grimly after a time. "That ain't no
accident."
"Pop Bentley in here said Big Aleck, the squatter, come up the valley
this morning right early----"
"That hellion!" exclaimed Sim. "He's always made trouble in this
valley. We seen him down below here, driving a broad-tire wagon."
"Yes, a Company wagon, and a Company team. We found that wagon hitched
above your lane, Sim. Your mail box was busted down. There wasn't no
Big Aleck around, nor no one else."
"Not no one else?--_No one in the house_?"
"Nels said there wasn't."
"Light down, Sim," said Wid. "Let's go in and talk to Pop Bentley."
Pop Bentley, the keeper of the meager grocery store and little-used
post-office, met them with gravity on his whiskered face. He was a
tall and thin man, much stooped, who, as far as the memory of man, had
always lived here in Two-Forks Valley.
"Well, you heard the news, I reckon," said he to his neighbors. Both
men nodded.
"Big Aleck told me he was working on the Government job. He said he
was going on up with his team to help finish some roads."
"Well, if it was him," said Wid Gardner, "or any one else, we're
a-goin' to find out who it was done this. We been hearing a long while
about the free Industrials, whatever the damned Bolsheviks call
theirselves. They wander around now and won't settle. Hobos, I call
them, no more, but crazy ones. They threatened to burn all the hay in
the settlements below, and to wipe out all the wheat crop. Why? They
been busting up threshing machines acrosst the range--the paper's been
full of it. Why? They've got in here, and that's all about it. Well,
fellers, you reckon we're goin' to stand fer this sort of Bolshevik
business on the Two-Forks?"
"I say, Pop," broke in Sim Gage to the postmaster, with singular
irrelevance at this time, "haven't you got a litter of pups around here
somewheres, and a couple hens I can buy? I'm lookin' fer a dog, and
things."
"Yard's full of pups, man. If you want one help yourself. But hens,
now----"
"Sell me two or three hens and a rooster or so. I promised I'd take
'em home, and I plumb forgot."
Pop Bentley threw up his hands at his feckless neighbor. "You'd better
be getting a _place_ fer your hens and dogs, seems like."
Sim put a forefinger to his puckered lip. "I don't know as I want to
take more'n about one pup now, and three or four hens. I'll fix up the
price with you sometime. Yes, I got to be getting home now."
The mail carrier, the postmaster and Sim's friend looked at one another
as these details went forward.
"Well," said Pop Bentley, shrugging his bent shoulders, "if you would
go away and leave a woman alone in a place like that----"
"What do you mean?" said Sim Gage suddenly.
"Why, that woman ain't _there_ no more, you fool. She's gone!"
"Gone? What do you mean?"
"Whoever set fire to your place took her away, or else she's got lost
somewheres."
"Gone?" said Sim Gage. "Blind! You, Wid!"--he turned upon his friend
half-savagely--"you was talking to me about acts of Providence. There
ain't no such thing as Providence if this here's true. Come on--I got
to get home."
They did start home, at a gallop, Sim half unconscious of what he did,
carrying in his arm an excited puppy, impetuously licking his new
master's hands and face. In the bottom of the wagon lay a disregarded
sack with a half-dozen fowl, their heads protruding through holes cut
for that purpose. Sim never knew how or when they got into the wagon.
At the next gate, that of Nels Jensen's homestead, Sim's neighbor
below, the woman of the place came running. "You heard about
it?--You're all burned out, both of you."
"Yes, we know," said Wid, nodding. "Tell Nels to come on up to Sim's
place early in the morning. We're going to get the neighbors
together." Again the tired team was forced into a dull gallop.
They had not far to go. A turn of the road freed them of the screen of
willows. There lay before them in the evening light, long prolonged at
this season in that latitude, that portion of the valley which these
two neighbors owned. For a moment they sat silent.
"Mine's gone," said Wid succinctly. "Not a thing left."
Sim sat clasping the puppy in his arms as he turned to look at his own
homestead.
"Mine's gone too," said he. "Barn's burned, and all the hay. House is
there, anyhow. Lemme out, Wid."
"No, hold on," said his neighbor. "There's no hurry for me to go home,
now that's sure. Your leg's bad, Sim. I'll take you down."
So they drove down Sim Gage's lane between the wire fence and the
willows. Sim was looking eagerly ahead. Continually he moaned to
himself low, as if in pain. But the hard-faced man on the seat beside
him knew it was not in physical pain.
They fastened the team and hurried on about, searching the premises.
The barn was gone, and the hay. Two or three head of slaughtered stock
lay partially consumed, close to the hay stack. The house still stood,
for the dirt roof had stopped the flames which were struggling up from
the door frame along the heavy logs.
"The damn, murdering thieves," said Wid Gardner. "Look, Sim--your
horse and mule was both killed in there." He pointed to the burned
barn. "What _made_ them? What do they gain by this? _I_ know!"
But Sim Gage was hobbling to his half-burnt home. Gasping, he looked
in. It was empty!
"Where's she gone, Wid?" said he, when he could speak. "You reckon Big
Aleck--? No. No!"
"Nothing's too low down for him," said Wid Gardner.
There were footprints in the path where the neighbors had stood, but
Sim's eye caught others not trampled out, in the strip of sand toward
the willows--two footprints, large, and beside them two others, small.
The two, old big-game hunters as they were, began to puzzle out this
double trail.
"He was a-leading her out this way, Sim," said Wid, pointing. "Look
a-yonder, where we come in--them wheel tracks wasn't yours nor mine.
Now, look-a-here, in this little open place where the ants has ate it
clean--here's her footprints, right here. No use to hunt the creek or
the willers, Sim--she's went off in a wagon."
"He took my six-shooter," said Sim, who had hurriedly examined the
interior of his home. "Nothing else is gone. Wait while I go git my
rifle. It's in the tent."
When he had returned with rifle and belt, Wid turned towards him.
"I'll tell you, Sim," said he, "we'll run over to my place and look
around, and come back here and eat before it gets plumb dark. I'll
saddle up and pass the word."
They climbed back into the wagon seat and once more passed out along
Sim Gage's little lane. At the end, where it joined the main road, Wid
pulled up.
"Look yonder, Sim!" said he. "There's where that broad-tire wagon was
tied."
"The road's full of all sorts of tracks," said Sim, looking down, rifle
in hand, from his seat. He carried the puppy again in his arms, and
the hens still were expostulating in the bottom of the wagon. "Is them
car tracks?"
"A car could be a hundred and fifty miles away by now," said Wid.
They passed on to Wid Gardner's gate. It was wide open. There were
wheel tracks there, also, of some sort.
The ruin of this homestead also was complete. The last stack of hay,
the barn, house, all, were burned to the ground.
"Well, that's all I want here," said Wid, sighing. "We'll stop at your
place for a spell, Sim--that's the best thing we can do."
"But look here!" he went on, his eyes running along the ground. "Been
a car in here--this wasn't a wagon--it was a car! There must of been
more'n one of 'em."
"Uh huh," said Sim, climbing down stiffly from the wagon seat now and
joining him in the task of puzzling out the trail. They followed it to
a place where some ashes had been trodden in the yard. Here the wheels
of the car had left their clearest record.
"Not a big one," said Wid. "Ragged tire on the nigh hind wheel. See
this?"
They ran the trail on out to the gate, picking it up here and there,
catching it plain in the loose sand which covered the gravel road bed.
"Whoever done the work at my place," said Sim, "was drunk. Look how he
busted down my mail box."
"Look how this car was running here," assented Wid. "You set here by
the gate, Sim, and hold the team. I want to run up the road a piece to
where the timber trail turns up the canyon."
"Sure, Wid," said Sim. "I can't walk good."
It was half an hour or more before his friend had returned from his
hasty scout further along the road, and by that time it was dark.
"That's where they went, Sim," said Wid Gardner. "I seen the track of
that busted tire plain in the half-dried mud, little ways up the trail.
Whoever it was done this, has went right up there. When we get a few
of the fellers together we'll start. To-morrow morning, early."
"To-morrow!" said Sim. "Why, Wid----"
Wid Gardner laid a hand on his friend's shoulder. "It's the best we
can do, Sim," said he.
Without more speech they drove once more along Sim Gage's lane. As
they approached the entrance, Sim turned. "Hold up a minute, Wid,"
said he, "while I look over here where the wagon was tied."
He limped across the road, bent to examine the marks dimly visible in
the half darkness.
"Look-a-here," said he, "there's been a car here too--the same car,
with the busted tire! They come up in that wagon from my place after
they burned me out. They must of taken her out of the wagon and put
her in the car, and like you say, they're maybe a couple of hundred
miles away by now. Oh, my God A'mighty, Wid, what has you and me done
to that pore girl!"
Wid only laid the large hand again on his shoulder. "It'll be
squared," said he.
Their rude meal was prepared in silence, and eaten in silence. Sim
Gage felt in his pocket, and drawing out the letter he had received,
smoothed out the envelope on the table top.
"It's addressed to her, Wid," said he after a time, "and she ain't
here."
"I don't see why we oughtn't to open it and read it," said Wid. "Some
one'd have to anyhow, if she was here, for she couldn't read, herself."
Sim, by means of a table knife, opened the envelope.
"You read it, Wid," said he. "You can read better'n I can." And so
Wid accepted Sim's conventional fiction, knowing he could neither read
nor write.
"Dear Mary," said Anne's letter, "I got to write to you. I wisht you
hadn't went away when you did and how you did, for, Mary, I feel so
much alone.
"You know when you started out I was joking you about Charlie
Dorenwald. I told you, even if you did have an inside chance you maybe
might not be married any sooner than I was. That was just a little
while ago. So far as it's all concerned you can come right on back.
There's nothing doing now between Charlie and I.
"You know he was foreman in the factory. He ought to of had money laid
up but he didn't. On Installments I'd soon have got a place fixed up,
though Charlie and me was going to fix it up on Installments. But I
got to talking with him, right away after you had left, it was all
about the war and I said to him, 'Charlie, why didn't you go over?' He
says one thing and he says another. Well you know that sort of got me
started and at last we had it, and do you know when he got rattled he
began to talk Dutch to me? Well, I talked turkey to him. One thing
and another went on and Charlie and me we split up right there.
"'I couldn't join the army noways,' he says, 'they wouldn't take me. I
had flat feet.'
"'You got a flat tire, that's what ails you,' I says to him, 'Well now
I wouldn't marry you at all, not if you was the last man, which you
look to me like you was.'
"Well, the way he talked, Mary, I wouldn't be surprised if he was
married already anyhow. One of the girls said he'd been living with
another woman not four blocks off. He ain't hurt none and I don't know
as I am neither although of course a girl feels mortified that people
think she's going to get married and then she ain't.
"But I'm thinking of you. I've gone back in our old room where it's
cheaper and let them take back the Installment furniture. I ain't got
a thing to do after hours except read the papers. The country's all
stirred up. But anyhow I'm rid of my Dutch patriot. That's why I'm
writing to you now.
"I wonder what you're doing out there. Are you married yet? What did
he look like, Mary? I know he's a good man after all, kind and
chivalrous like he said. If he wasn't you'd be wiring me telling me
when you was coming home. I guess you're too happy to write to anybody
like me. You'll have a Home of your own.
"And all the time I thought I was stronger than you was and abler to
get on and here you are married and happy and me back in the old room!
But don't worry none about me--I'll get another job. The most is I
miss you so much and you haven't wrote me a word I suppose. When a
girl gets married all the girls is crazy to hear all about her and her
husband and I haven't heard a word from you.
"Respectfully your friend,
"Annie Squires."
The two men sat for a time. Wid reached in his pocket for his pipe.
"By God! she come out here maybe to get married, on the level and
honest, after a while!" said he. "She'll have to, now!"
"That's what I was thinking, Wid," said Sim Gage. "It's--it's
chivalerous. We got to find her, now."