"No."
"You're American?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I was born here. It's my country."
"Ever read about your Pilgrim Fathers?"
"Why, of course."
"Frontiersmen, same as us. You're living on what they did. We're getting
this frontier ready for those who come after. Want our children to have
a better chance than we had. Our reason's same as theirs. Hillas told
you the truth. Country's all right if we had a railroad."
"Humph!" With a contemptuous look across the desert. "Where's your
freight, your grain, cattle----"
"_West_-bound freight, coal, feed, seed-grain, work, and more
neighbors."
"One-sided bargain. Road that hauls empties one way doesn't pay. No
Company would risk a line through here."
The angles of Dan's jaw showed white. "Maybe. Ever get a chance to pay
your debt to those Pilgrim pioneers? Ever take it? Think the stock was
worth saving?"
He lifted his whip-handle toward a pin-point of light across the stretch
of snow. "Donovan lives over there and Mis' Donovan. We call them 'old
folks' now; their hair has turned white as these drifts in two years.
All they've got is here. He's a real farmer and a lot of help to the
country, but they won't last long like this."
Dan swung his arm toward a glimmer nor' by nor'east. "Mis' Clark lives
there, a mile back from the stage road. Clark's down in Yankton earning
money to keep them going. She's alone with her baby holding down the
claim." Dan's arm sagged. "We've had women go crazy out here."
The whip-stock followed the empty horizon half round the compass to a
lighted red square not more than two miles away. "Mis' Carson died in
the Spring. Carson stayed until he was too poor to get away. There's
three children--oldest's Katy, just eleven." Dan's words failed, but his
eyes told. "Somebody will brag of them as ancestors some day. They'll
deserve it if they live through this."
Dan's jaw squared as he leveled his whip-handle straight at the
traveler. "I've answered your questions, now you answer mine! We know
your opinion of the country--you're not traveling for pleasure or your
health. What are you here for?"
"Business. My own!"
"There's two kinds of business out here this time of year. 'Tain't
healthy for either of them." Dan's words were measured and clipped.
"You've damned the West and all that's in it good and plenty. Now I say,
damn the people anywhere in the whole country that won't pay their debts
from pioneer to pioneer; that lets us fight the wilderness barehanded
and die fighting; that won't risk----"
A gray film dropped down over the world, a leaden shroud that was not
the coming of twilight. Dan jerked about, his whip cracked out over the
heads of the leaders and they broke into a quick trot. The shriek of the
runners along the frozen snow cut through the ominous darkness.
"Hillas," Dan's voice came sharply, "stand up and look for the light on
Clark's guide-pole about a mile to the right. God help us if it ain't
burning."
Hillas struggled up, one clumsy mitten thatching his eyes from the
blinding needles. "I don't see it, Dan. We can't be more than a mile
away. Hadn't you better break toward it?"
"Got to keep the track 'til we--see--light!"
The wind tore the words from his mouth as it struck them in lashing
fury. The leaders had disappeared in a wall of snow but Dan's lash
whistled forward in reminding authority. There was a moment's lull.
"See it, Hillas?"
"No, Dan."
Tiger-like the storm leaped again, bandying them about in its paws like
captive mice. The horses swerved before the punishing blows, bunched,
backed, tangled. Dan stood up shouting his orders of menacing appeal
above the storm.
Again a breathing space before the next deadly impact. As it came Hillas
shouted, "I see it--there, Dan! It's a red light. She's in trouble."
Through the whirling smother and chaos of Dan's cries and the struggling
horses the sled lunged out of the road into unbroken drifts. Again the
leaders swung sidewise before the lashing of a thousand lariats of ice
and bunched against the wheel-horses. Dan swore, prayed, mastered them
with far-reaching lash, then the off leader went down. Dan felt behind
him for Hillas and shoved the reins against his arm.
"I'll get him up--or cut leaders--loose! If I don't--come back--drive to
light. _Don't--get--out!_"
Dan disappeared in the white fury. There were sounds of a struggle; the
sled jerked sharply and stood still. Slowly it strained forward.
Hillas was standing, one foot outside on the runner, as they traveled a
team's length ahead. He gave a cry--"Dan! Dan!" and gripped a furry bulk
that lumbered up out of the drift.
"All--right--son." Dan reached for the reins.
Frantically they fought their slow way toward the blurred light,
staggering on in a fight with the odds too savage to last. They stopped
abruptly as the winded leaders leaned against a wall interposed between
themselves and insatiable fury.
Dan stepped over the dashboard, groped his way along the tongue between
the wheel-horses and reached the leeway of a shadowy square. "It's the
shed, Hillas. Help get the team in." The exhausted animals crowded into
the narrow space without protest.
"Find the guide-rope to the house, Dan?"
"On the other side, toward the shack. Where's--Smith?"
"Here, by the shed."
Dan turned toward the stranger's voice.
"We're going 'round to the blizzard-line tied from shed to shack. Take
hold of it and don't let go. If you do you'll freeze before we can find
you. When the wind comes, turn your back and wait. Go on when it dies
down and never let go the rope. Ready? The wind's dropped. Here, Hillas,
next to me."
Three blurs hugged the sod walls around to the north-east corner. The
forward shadow reached upward to a swaying rope, lifted the hand of the
second who guided the third.
"Hang on to my belt, too, Hillas. Ready--Smith? Got the rope?"
They crawled forward, three barely visible figures, six, eight, ten
steps. With a shriek the wind tore at them, beat the breath from their
bodies, cut them with stinging needle-points and threw them aside. Dan
reached back to make sure of Hillas who fumbled through the darkness
for the stranger.
Slowly they struggled ahead, the cold growing more intense; two steps,
four, and the mounting fury of the blizzard reached its zenith. The
blurs swayed like battered leaves on a vine that the wind tore in two at
last and flung the living beings wide. Dan, slinging to the broken rope,
rolled over and found Hillas with the frayed end of the line in his
hand, reaching about through the black drifts for the stranger. Dan
crept closer, his mouth at Hillas's ear, shouting, "Quick! Right behind
me if we're to live through it!"
The next moment Hillas let go the rope. Dan reached madly. "Boy, you
can't find him--it'll only be two instead of one! Hillas! Hillas!"
The storm screamed louder than the plainsman and began heaping the snow
over three obstructions in its path, two that groped slowly and one that
lay still. Dan fumbled at his belt, unfastened it, slipped the rope
through the buckle, knotted it and crept its full length back toward the
boy. A snow-covered something moved forward guiding another, one arm
groping in blind search, reached and touched the man clinging to the
belt.
Beaten and buffeted by the ceaseless fury that no longer gave quarter,
they slowly fought their way hand-over-hand along the rope, Dan now
crawling last. After a frozen eternity they reached the end of the line
fastened man-high against a second haven of wall. Hillas pushed open the
unlocked door, the three men staggered in and fell panting against the
side of the room.
The stage-driver recovered first, pulled off his mittens, examined his
fingers and felt quickly of nose, ears, and chin. He looked sharply at
Hillas and nodded. Unceremoniously they stripped off the stranger's
gloves; reached for a pan, opened the door, dipped it into the drift and
plunged Smith's fingers down in the snow.
"Your nose is white, too. Thaw it out."
Abruptly Dan indicated a bench against the wall where the two men seated
would take up less space.
"I'm----" The stranger's voice was unsteady. "I----," but Dan had turned
his back and his attention to the homesteader.
The eight by ten room constituted the entire home. A shed roof slanted
from eight feet high on the door and window side to a bit more than five
on the other. A bed in one corner took up most of the space, and the
remaining necessities were bestowed with the compactness of a ship's
cabin. The rough boards of the roof and walls had been hidden by a
covering of newspapers, with a row of illustrations pasted picture
height. Cushions and curtains of turkey-red calico brightened the homely
shack.
The driver had slipped off his buffalo coat and was bending over a baby
exhaustedly fighting for breath that whistled shrilly through a closing
throat. The mother, scarcely more than a girl, held her in tensely
extended arms.
"How long's she been this way?"
"She began to choke up day before yesterday, just after you passed on
the down trip."
The driver laid big finger tips on the restless wrist.
"She always has the croup when she cuts a tooth, Dan, but this is
different. I've used all the medicines I have--nothing relieves the
choking."
The girl lifted heavy eyelids above blue semicircles of fatigue and the
compelling terror back of her eyes forced a question through dry lips.
"Dan, do you know what membranous croup is like? Is this it?"
The stage-driver picked up the lamp and held it close to the child's
face, bringing out with distressing clearness the blue-veined pallor,
sunken eyes, and effort of impeded breathing. He frowned, putting the
lamp back quickly.
"Mebbe it is, Mis' Clark, but don't you be scared. We'll help you a
spell."
Dan lifted the red curtain from the cupboard, found an emptied
lard-pail, half filled it with water and placed it on an oil-stove that
stood in the center of the room. He looked questioningly about the four
walls, discovered a cleverly contrived tool-box beneath the cupboard
shelves sorted out a pair of pincers and bits of iron, laying the
latter in a row over the oil blaze. He took down a can of condensed
milk, poured a spoonful of the thick stuff into a cup of water and made
room for it near the bits of heating iron.
He turned to the girl, opened his lips as if to speak with a face full
of pity.
Along the four-foot space between the end of the bed and the opposite
wall the girl walked, crooning to the sick child she carried. As they
watched, the low song died away, her shoulder rubbed heavily against the
boarding, her eyelids dropped and she stood sound asleep. The next
hard-drawn breath of the baby roused her and she stumbled on, crooning a
lullaby.
Smith clutched the younger man's shoulder. "God, Hillas, look where
she's marked the wall rubbing against it! Do you suppose she's been
walking that way for three days and nights? Why, she's only a child--no
older than my own daughter."
Hillas nodded.
"Where are her people? Where's her husband?"
"Down in Yankton, Dan told you, working for the Winter. Got to have the
money to live."
"Where's the doctor?"
"Nearest one's in Haney--four days' trip away by stage."
The traveler stared, frowningly.
Dan was looking about the room again and after prodding the gay seat in
the corner, lifted the cover and picked up a folded blanket, shaking out
the erstwhile padded cushion. He hung the blanket over the back of a
chair.
"Mis' Clark, there's nothing but steam will touch membranous croup. We
saved my baby that way last year. Set here and I'll fix things."
He put the steaming lard-pail on the floor beside the mother and lifted
the blanket over the baby's head. She put up her hand.
"She's so little, Dan, and weak. How am I going to know if she--if
she----"
Dan re-arranged the blanket tent. "Jest get under with her yourself,
Mis' Clark, then you'll know all that's happening."
With the pincers he picked up a bit of hot iron and dropped it hissing
into the pail, which he pushed beneath the tent. The room was
oppressively quiet, walled in by the thick sod from the storm. The
blanket muffled the sound of the child's breathing and the girl no
longer stumbled against the wall.
Dan lifted the corner of the blanket and another bit of iron hissed as
it struck the water. The older man leaned toward the younger.
"Stove--fire?" with a gesture of protest against the inadequate oil
blaze.
Hillas whispered, "Can't afford it. Coal is $9.00 in Haney, $18.00
here."
They sat with heads thrust forward, listening in the intolerable
silence. Dan lifted the blanket, hearkened a moment, then--"pst!"
another bit of iron fell into the pail. Dan stooped to the tool-chest
for a reserve supply when a strangling cough made him spring to his feet
and hurriedly lift the blanket.
The child was beating the air with tiny fists, fighting for breath. The
mother stood rigid, arms out.
"Turn her this way!" Dan shifted the struggling child, face out. "Now
watch out for the----"
The strangling cough broke and a horrible something--"It's the membrane!
She's too weak--let me have her!"
Dan snatched the child and turned it face downward. The blue-faced baby
fought in a supreme effort--again the horrible something--then Dan laid
the child, white and motionless, in her mother's arms. She held the limp
body close, her eyes wide with fear.
"Dan, is--is she----?"
A faint sobbing breath of relief fluttered the pale lips that moved in
the merest ghost of a smile. The heavy eyelids half-lifted and the child
nestled against its mother's breast. The girl swayed, shaking with sobs,
"Baby--baby!"
She struggled for self-control and stood up straight and pale. "Dan, I
ought to tell you. When it began to get dark with the storm and time to
put up the lantern, I was afraid to leave the baby. If she strangled
when I was gone--with no one to help her--she would die!"
Her lips quivered as she drew the child closer. "I didn't go right away
but--I did--at last. I propped her up in bed and ran. If I hadn't----"
Her eyes were wide with the shadowy edge of horror, "If I hadn't--you'd
have been lost in the blizzard and--my baby would have died!"
She stood before the men as if for judgment, her face wet with unchecked
tears. Dan patted her shoulder dumbly and touched a fresh, livid bruise
that ran from the curling hair on her temple down across cheek and chin.
"Did you get this then?"
She nodded. "The storm threw me against the pole when I hoisted the
lantern. I thought I'd--never--get back!"
It was Smith who translated Dan's look of appeal for the cup of warm
milk and held it to the girl's lips.
"Drink it, Mis' Clark, you need it."
She made heroic attempts to swallow, her head drooped lower over the cup
and fell against the driver's rough sleeve. "Poor kid, dead asleep!"
Dan guided her stumbling feet toward the bed that the traveler sprang to
open. She guarded the baby in the protecting angle of her arm into
safety upon the pillow, then fell like a log beside her. Dan slipped off
the felt boots, lifted her feet to the bed and softly drew covers over
mother and child.
"Poor kid, but she's grit, clear through!"
Dan walked to the window, looked out at the lessening storm, then at the
tiny alarm-clock on the cupboard. "Be over pretty soon now!" He seated
himself by the table, dropped his head wearily forward on folded arms
and was asleep.
The traveler's face had lost some of its shrewdness. It was as if the
white frontier had seized and shaken him into a new conception of life.
He moved restlessly along the bench, then stepped softly to the side of
the bed and straightened the coverlet into greater nicety while his lips
twitched.
With consuming care he folded the blanket and restored the corner seat
to its accustomed appearance of luxury. He looked about the room, picked
up the gray kitten sleeping contentedly on the floor and settled it on
the red cushion with anxious attention to comfort.
He examined with curiosity the few books carefully covered in a corner
shelf, took down an old hand-tooled volume and lifted his eyebrows at
the ancient coat of arms on the book plate. He tiptoed across to the
bench and pointed to the script beneath the plate. "Edward Winslow (7)
to his dear daughter, Alice (8)."