A WOMAN'S EYES
There had been a day when Willets was but a name, designating a water
tank and a railroad siding where panting locomotives, hot and dry from a
long run through an arid, sandy desert that stretched westward from the
shores of civilization, rested, while begrimed, overalled men adjusted a
metal spout which poured refreshing water into gaping reservoirs.
In that day Willets sat in the center of a dead, dry section, swathed in
isolation so profound that passengers in the coaches turned to one
another with awe in their voices and spoke of God and the insignificance
of life.
But there was a small river near the water tank--the headwaters of the
Wolf--or there had been no tank. And a prophet of Business, noting
certain natural advantages, had influenced the railroad company to build
a corral and a station.
From that day Willets became assured of a future. Cattlemen in the Wolf
River section began to ship stock from the new station, rather than
drive to Red Rock--another shipping point five hundred miles east.
From the first it became evident that Willets would not be a boom town.
It grew slowly and steadily until its fame began to trickle through to
the outside world--though it was a cattle town in the beginning, and a
cattle town it would remain all its days.
Therefore, because of its slow growth, there were old buildings in
Willets. The frame station had an ancient appearance. Its roof sagged in
the center, its walls were bulging with weakness. But it stood defiantly
flaunting its crimson paint above the wooden platform, a hardy pioneer
among the moderns.
Business had strayed from the railroad track; it had left the station,
the freighthouse, the company corral, and some open sheds, to establish
its enterprises one block southward. There, fringing a wide, unpaved
street that ran east and west, parallel with the gleaming steel rails,
Business reared its citadels.
Willets buildings were not imposing. One-story frames predominated, with
here and there a two-storied structure, or a brick aristocrat seeming to
call attention to its substantial solidity.
Willets had plenty of space in which to grow, and the location of the
buildings on their sites, seemed to indicate that their builders
appreciated the fact that there was no need for crowding. Between each
building was space, suggestive of the unending plains that surrounded
the town. Willets sat, serene in its space and solitude, unhurried,
uncramped, sprawling over a stretch of grass level--a dingy, dirty,
inglorious Willets, shamed by its fringe of tin cans, empty bottles, and
other refuse--and by the clean sweep of sand and sage and grass that
stretched to its very doors. For Willets was man-made.
From the second story of a brick building that stood on the southern
side of the street, facing the station, Gary Warden could look past the
red station into the empty corrals beside the railroad track. Jim
Lefingwell, Warden's predecessor, had usually smiled when he saw the
corral comfortably filled with steers. But Gary Warden smiled because
the corral was empty.
Warden was standing beside a flat-topped desk at one of his office
windows. Warden was big, though not massive. He seemed to have the frame
of a tall, slender man, and had he stayed slender he might have carried
his flesh gracefully. But Warden had lived well, denying himself
nothing, and the flesh which had been added had formed in flabby
bunches, drooping his shoulders, sagging his jaws, swelling the back of
his neck.
And yet Warden was not old; he had told some new-made friends in Willets
that he was thirty-five. But he looked older, for a certain blasé
sophistication that shone from his eyes and sat on the curves of his
lips, did much to create the impression of past maturity.
Warden dressed well. He was coatless, but he wore a shirt of some soft,
striped material, with a loose, comfortable-looking collar and a neat
bow tie. His hair was short, with bristles in the roll of fat at the
back of his neck; while at his forehead it was punctiliously parted, and
plastered down with precision.
Warden was not alone. At another window, her elbows on the sill, her
hands crossed, her chin resting on the knuckles of the upper one, sat a
woman.
She was young, slender, lissom. There was grace in every line of her,
and witchery in the eyes that watched Warden with a steady gaze. She
too, was hatless, seemingly conscious of the beauty of her hair, which
was looped and twisted into glistening strands that fell over her
temples and the back of her neck.
As she watched Warden, who was smiling at the empty corral, she withdrew
her elbows from the window-sill, twisted around, so that she faced
Warden, and idly twirled the felt hat that she took from her lap.
"Does something please you, Gary?" she asked with slight, bantering
emphasis.
Warden's smile broadened. "Well, I'm not exactly displeased."
"With Willets--and the rest of it?"
"With that corral--over there." He pointed.
"Why, it's empty!"
"That's why."
"Why you are pleased! That is odd. As a buyer, I should think you would
be more pleased if the corral were full--had cows in it. That is what
you are here for, isn't it?"
"Yes," grinned Warden; "to keep it empty until it is filled with steers
at my price."
"Oh, bother!" The woman yawned. "I am glad it is you and not I who is to
deal with these clod-hoppers. I should turn sour--or laugh myself to
death."
"Getting tired of it already, Della?"
"Dreadfully tired, Gary. If I could see one interesting person, or a
good-looking man with whom I could flirt----"
"Don't forget our engagement, Della," warned Warden.
She laughed, shooting a mischievous glance at him. "Oh, it would be
harmless, I assure you--mere moral exercise. Do you imagine I could lose
my heart to one of these sagebrush denizens?"
"Not you, Della," grinned Warden; "that isn't your style."
The girl yawned again, and got to her feet, smoothing her ruffled
skirts. Then she walked to a mirror on a wall near the door, and spent
some time placing the felt hat on her head at a precise angle, making
certain that the coils of hair under it were arranged in the most
effective manner. She tucked a stray wisp into the mass at the nape of
her neck, patted the glistening coils so that they bulged a little
more--smiling with smooth serenity at the reflection in the glass.
"Well, good-bye, Gary. I left Aunt Hannah at Corwin's store. She'll be
afraid I've eloped with you. No," she added, as Warden advanced toward
her; "no kisses now. I'll look in again before we leave town."
She opened the door, and as it closed she flashed a smile at Warden.
Then he heard her descending the stairs. He watched the closed door for
an instant, frowning disappointedly; then he strode again to one of the
front windows, grinning as his gaze rested on the empty corral.