CHAPTER XI

ON THE ROUND-UP

Mose was awakened next morning by the whirring of the coffee mill, a

vigorous and cheerful sound. Mrs. Reynolds and Cora were busily

preparing breakfast, and their housewifely movements about the kitchen

below gave the boy a singular pleasure. The smell of meat in the pan

rose to his nostrils, and the cooing laughter of the baby added a final

strand in a homely skein of noises. No household so homelike and secure

had opened to him since he said good-by to his foster parents in Rock

River.

He dressed and hurried down and out to the barn. Frost lay white on the

grass, cattle were bawling somewhere in the distance. The smoke of the

kitchen went up into the sky straight as a poplar tree. The beautiful

plain, hushed and rapt, lay waiting for the sun.

As he entered the stable, Mose found Reynolds looking carefully at Jack.

"That looks a gentle horse; I can't see a mean thing about him. I don't

reckon he's a cow hoss, is he?"

"No, I don't suppose he is a regular cow horse, but he'll soon learn."

"I must trade you outen that hoss. I certainly am 'blieged to do so. I'm

growin' old, boy. I don't take the pleasu' in a broncho that I once did.

I certainly am tired of hosses I can't touch with my hand. Fo' fo'ty

yeahs I have handled these locoed hosses--they ah all locoed in my

judgment--and I am plum tired of such. I shall send to Missouri aw

Tennessee and get me a hoss I can trust. Meanwhile, you leave me yo'

hoss an' take my bald-face pinto there; he is the fastest hoss on the

range an' a plum devil, but that won't mattah to you, for you ah young

an' frisky."

Mose hated to yield up his gentle and faithful horse even for a short

time, but could not decently refuse. He shifted his saddle to the pinto

with Reynolds' help.

"Whoa, there, Wild Cat," called the rancher, as the wicked eyes began to

roll. "He'll get usen to ye after a day or two," he said reassuringly.

Mose's horsemanship was on trial, and though nervous and white, he led

the pinto out and prepared to mount.

"If he wants to gambol a little, just let him go, only keep his head

up," said Reynolds with careless glance.

Cora came out of the house and stood looking on, while Mose tightened

the cinch again, and grasping the pommel with both hands put his toe in

the stirrup. The pinto leaped away sidewise, swift as a cat, but before

he could fairly get into motion Mose was astride, with both feet in the

stirrups. With a series of savage sidewise bounds, the horse made off at

a tearing pace, thrusting his head upon the bit in the hope to jerk his

rider out of his seat. Failing of this he began to leap like a sheep.

Just as he was about to let up on this Mose sank the rowels into him

with a wild yell, and hotly lashed him from side to side with the end of

his rope. For a few rods the horse continued to leap with stiffened legs

and upraised back, then abandoned all tricks and ran up the hill like a

scared antelope.

When Reynolds caught up with his new "hand" he smiled and said: "I

reckon you can be trusted to look out fo' yo'sef," and the heart of the

youth glowed with pleasure.

Again he felt the majesty and splendor of the life into which he had

penetrated. The measureless plain, dimpled and wrinkled, swept downward

toward the flaming eastern sky unmarked of man. To the west, cut close

across their snow tops by the plain's edge, three enormous and

snow-armored peaks arose, the sunlight already glittering on the thin,

new-fallen snows.

Coyotes, still at vigil on the hills, slid out of sight at the coming of

the horsemen. The prairie dogs peered sleepily from their burrows.

Cattle in scattered bands snuffed and stared or started away hulking,

yet swift, the bulls sullen and ferocious, the calves wild as deer.

There were no fences, no furrows, no wagon tracks, no sign of sheep. It

was the cow country in very truth.

On the way Reynolds said very little. Occasionally as they drew their

ponies to a walk he remarked upon the kindliness of the horse, and said,

"I hope you'll like my horse as well as I like youah's."

It was nearly twelve o'clock when they topped a treeless ridge and came

in sight of the round-up. Below them, in the midst of a wide, grassy

river flat, stood several tents and a covered wagon. Nearby lay a strong

circular corral of poplar logs filled with steers. At some distance from

the corral a dense mass of slowly revolving cattle moved, surrounded by

watching horsemen. Down from the hills and up the valley came other

horsemen, hurrying forward irregular bands of cows and calves. A small

fire near the corral was sending up a pale strand of smoke, and at the

tail of the wagon a stovepipe, emitting a darker column, told that

dinner was in preparation. Over the scene the cloudless September sky

arched. Dust arose under the heels of the herds, and the bawling roar of

bulls, the call of agonized cows, and the answering bleat of calves

formed the base of the shrill whoopings and laughter of the men. Nothing

could be wilder, more stirring, more picturesque, except a camp of Sioux

or Cheyennes in the days of the buffalo.

In a few minutes Mose was in the midst of the turmoil. Everyone greeted

Reynolds with affection, and he replied in the stately phrases which had

made him famous, "How do you do, gentlemen. I certainly am glad to see

you enjoyin' this fine fall day. Captain Charlesworth, allow me to

present my young friend, Moses Harding."

Captain Charlesworth, a tall man with a squint eye and a humorous

glance, came up to shake hands as Mose slipped from his broncho.

Reynolds went on: "Captain Charlesworth is cow boss, an' will see that

you earn yo' bo'd. Cap'n, this young man comes from my good friend,

Cap'n Delmar, of Sante Fe. You know Delmar?"

"I should think so," said the boss. "It seems this youngster kin ride,

seem's he's on Wild Cat."

Reynolds smiled: "I reckon you can consider him both able and willin',

captain."

"Well, slip off an' eat. I'll take care o' the cayuses."

On the ground, scattered among the tents, and in the shade of the cook

wagon, were some twenty or thirty herders. For the most part they were

slender, bronzed, and active, of twenty-five or thirty, with broad white

hats (faded and flapping in the brim), gray or blue woolen shirts (once

gay with red lacing), and dark pantaloons, tucked into tall boots with

long heels. Spurs jingled at the heels of their tall boots, and most of

them wore bandannas of silk or cotton looped gracefully about their

necks. A few of the younger ones wore a sort of rude outside trouser of

leather called "chaps," and each of them carried a revolver slung at the

hip. They were superb examples of adaptation to environment, alert,

bold, and graceful of movement.

A relay of them were already at dinner, with a tin plate full of "grub"

and a big tin cup steaming with coffee before each man. They sat almost

anywhere to eat, on saddles, wagon tongues--any convenient place. Some

of them, more orderly, were squatted along a sort of table made of

folded blankets piled through the center of a tent. Here Reynolds took a

seat, and Mose followed, shrinking a little from the keen scrutiny of

the men. The fact that Reynolds vouched for him, however, was

introduction, and the cook made a place for him readily enough, and

brought him a plate and a cup.

"Boys," said Reynolds, "this young feller is just come to town. His name

is Mose Harding, and he can ride a hoss all right, all right. He's

a-goin' to make a hand here in my place; treat him fair."

There was a moment's awkward pause, and then Mose said: "I'm going to

try to do my share."

As he had time to look around he began to individualize the men. One of

the first to catch his eye was an Indian who sat near the door of the

tent. He was dressed like the other men, but was evidently a full-blood.

His skin was very dark, not at all red or copper colored, and Mose

inferred that he was a Ute. His eyes were fixed on Mose with intent

scrutiny, and when the boy smiled the Indian's teeth gleamed white in

ready good nature, and they were friends at once. The talk was all about

the work on hand, the tussles with steers, the number of unbranded

calves, the queries concerning shipment, etc.

Dinner was soon over, and "Charley," as the cow boss was called by his

men, walked out with Mose toward the corral. "Kin ye rope?" he asked.

"No, not for a cent."

"Let him hold the herd foh a day or two," suggested Reynolds. "Give him

time to work in."

"All right, s'pose you look after him this afternoon."

Together Reynolds and Mose rode out toward the slowly "milling" herd, a

hungry, hot, and restless mob of broadhorns, which required careful

treatment. As he approached, the dull roar of their movement, their

snuffling and moaning, thrilled the boy. He saw the gleaming, clashing

horns of the great animals uplift and mass and change, and it seemed to

him there were acres and acres of them.

Reynolds called out to two sweating, dusty, hoarse young fellows: "Go to

grub, boys."

Without a word they wheeled their horses and silently withdrew, while

Reynolds became as instantly active.

His voice arose to a shout: "Now, lively, Mose, keep an eye on the herd,

and if any cow starts to break out--lively now--turn him in."

A big bay steer, lifting his head, suddenly started to leave the herd.

Mose spurred his horse straight at him with a yell, and turned him

back.

"That's right," shouted Reynolds.

Mose understood more of it than Reynolds realized. He took his place in

the cordon, and aided in the work with very few blunders. The work was

twofold in character. Fat cattle were to be cut out of the herd for

shipment, unbranded calves were to be branded, and strays tallied and

thrown back to their own feeding grounds. Into the crush of great,

dusty, steaming bodies, among tossing, cruel, curving horns the men rode

to "cut out" the beeves and to rope the calves. It was a furious scene,

yet there was less excitement than Mose at first imagined. Occasionally,

as a roper returned, he paused on the edge of the herd long enough to

"eat" a piece of tobacco and pass a quiet word with a fellow, then

spurring his horse, re-entered the herd again. No matter how swift his

action, his eyes were quiet.

It was hard work; dusty, hot, and dangerous also. To be unhorsed in that

struggling mass meant serious injury if not death. The youth was glad of

heart to think that he was not required to enter the herd.

That night, when the horse herd came tearing down the mesa, Reynolds

said: "Now, Mose, you fall heir to my shift of horses, too. Let me show

them to you. Each man has four extra horses. That wall-eyed roan is

mine, so is the sorrel mare with the star face. That big all-over bay,

the finest hoss in the whole outfit, is mine, too, but he is unbroken.

He shore is a hard problem. I'll give him to you, if you can break him,

or I'll trade him for your Jack."

"I'll do it," cried Mose, catching his breath in excitement as he

studied the splendid beast. His lithe, tigerlike body glittered in the

sun, though his uplifted head bore a tangled, dusty mat of mane. He was

neglected, wary, and unkempt, but he was magnificent. Every movement of

his powerful limbs made the boy ache to be his master.

Thus Mose took his place among the cowboys. He started right, socially,

this time. No one knew that he had been a sheep herder but Reynolds, and

Reynolds did not lay it up against him. He was the equal of any of them

in general horsemanship, they admitted that at the end of the second

day, though he was not so successful in handling cattle as they thought

he should be. It was the sense of inefficiency in these matters which

led him to give an exhibition of his skill with the revolver one evening

when the chance offered. He shot from his horse in all conceivable

positions, at all kinds of marks, and with all degrees of speed, till

one of the boys, accustomed to good shooting, said:

"You kin jest about shoot."

"That's right," said the cow boss; "I'd hate to have him get a grutch

agin me."

Mose warmed with pardonable pride. He was taking high place in their

ranks, and was entirely happy during these pleasant autumn days. On his

swift and wise little ponies he tore across the sod in pursuit of swift

steers, or came rattling down a hillside, hot at the heels of a

wild-eyed cow and calf, followed by a cataract of pebbles. Each day he

bestrode his saddle till his bones cried out for weariness, and his

stomach, walls ground together for want of food, but when he sat among

his fellows to eat with keenest pleasure the beef and beans of the pot

wrestler's providing, he was content. He had no time to think of Jack or

Mary except on the nights when he took his trick at watching the night

herd. Then, sometimes in the crisp and fragrant dusk, with millions of

stars blazing overhead, he experienced a sweet and powerful longing for

a glimpse of the beautiful girlish face which had lightened his days and

nights in prison.

The herders were rough, hearty souls, for the most part, often obscene

and rowdy as they sat and sang around the camp fire. Mose had never

been a rude boy; on the contrary, he had always spoken in rather

elevated diction, due, no doubt, to the influence of his father, whose

speech was always serious and well ordered. Therefore, when the songs

became coarse he walked away and smoked his pipe alone, or talked with

Jim the Ute, whose serious and dignified silence was in vivid contrast.

Some way, coarse speech and ribald song brought up, by the power of

contrast, the pure, sweet faces of Mary and his sister Maud. Two or

three times in his boyhood he had come near to slaying pert lads who had

dared to utter coarse words in his sister's presence. There was in him

too much of the essence of the highest chivalry to permit such things.

It happened, therefore, that he spent much time with "Ute Jim," who was

a simple and loyal soul, thoughtful, and possessing a sense of humor

withal. Mose took great pleasure in sitting beside the camp fire with

this son of the plains, while he talked of the wild and splendid life of

the days before the white man came. His speech was broken, but Mose

pieced it out by means of the sign language, so graceful, so dignified,

and so dramatic, that he was seized with the fervid wish to acquire a

knowledge of it. This he soon did, and thereafter they might be seen at

any time of day signaling from side to side of the herd, the Indian

smiling and shaking his head when the youth made a mistake.

Jim believed in his new friend, and when questions brought out the

history of the dispossession of his people he grew very sorrowful. His

round cheeks became rigid and his eyes were turned away. "Injun no like

fight white man all time. Injun gotta fight. White man crowd Injun back,

back, no game, no rain, no corn. Injun heap like rivers, trees, all

same--white man no like 'um, go on hot plain, no trees, no mountains, no

game."

But he threw off these somber moods quickly, and resumed his stories of

himself, of long trips to the snowpeaks, which he seemed to regard in

the light of highest daring. The high mountains were not merely far from

the land of his people; they were mythic places inhabited by monstrous

animals that could change from beast to fowl, and talk--great, conjuring

creatures, whose powers were infinite in scope. As the red man struggled

forward in his story, attempting to define these conceptions, the heart

of the prairie youth swelled with a poignant sense of drawing near a

great mystery. The conviction of Jim's faith for the moment made him

more than half believe in the powers of the mountain people. Day by day

his longing for the "high country" grew.

At the first favorable moment he turned to the task of subduing the

splendid bay horse for which he had traded his gentle Jack. One Sunday,

when he had a few hours off, Mose went to Alf, the chief "roper," and

asked him to help him catch "Kintuck," as Reynolds called the bay.

"All right," said Alf; "I'll tie him up in a jiffy."

"Can you get him without marking him all up?"

"I don't believe it. He's going to thrash around like h--l a-blazin';

we'll have to choke him down."

Mose shook his head. "I can't stand that. I s'pose it'll skin his

fetlocks if you get him by the feet."

"Oh, it may, may not; depends on how he struggles."

Mose refused to allow his shining, proud-necked stallion to be roped and

thrown, and asked the boys to help drive him into a strong corral,

together with five or six other horses. This was done, and stripping

himself as for a race, Mose entered the coral and began walking rapidly

round and round, following the excited animals. Hour after hour he kept

this steady, circling walk, till the other horses were weary, till

Kintuck ceased to snort, till the blaze of excitement passed out of his

eyes, till he walked with a wondering backward glance, as if to ask:

"Two-legged creature, why do you so persistently follow me?"

The cowboys jeered at first, but after a time they began to marvel at

the dogged walk of the youth. They gathered about the walls of the

corral and laid bets on the outcome. At the end of the third hour

Kintuck walked with a mechanical air, all the fire and fury gone out of

him. He began to allow his pursuer to approach him closely, almost near

enough to be touched. At the end of the four hours he allowed Mose to

lay his hand on his nose, and Mose petted him and went to dinner. Odds

stood in Mose's favor as he returned to the corral. He was covered with

dust and sweat, but he was confident. He began to speak to the horse in

a gentle, firm voice. At times the stallion faced him with head lifted,

a singular look in his eyes, as though he meditated leaping upon his

captor. At first Mose took no notice of these actions, did not slacken

his pace, but continued to press the bay on and on. At last he began to

approach the horse with his hand lifted, looking him in the eyes and

speaking to him. Snorting as if with terror, the splendid animal faced

him again and again, only to wheel at the last moment.

The cowboys were profanely contemptuous. "Think of taking all that

trouble."

"Rope him, and put a saddle on him and bust him," they called

resoundingly.

Mose kept on steadily. At last, when all the other horses had been

turned loose, Kintuck, trembling, and with a curious stare in his eyes,

again allowed Mose to lay his hand on his nose. He shrank away, but did

not wheel. It was sunset, and the horse was not merely bewildered, he

was physically tired. The touch of his master's hand over his eyes

seemed to subjugate him, to take away his will. When Mose turned to walk

away the horse followed him as though drawn by some magnetic force, and

the herders looked at each other in amazement. Thereafter he had but to

be accustomed to the bridle and saddle, and to be taught the duties of a

cow horse. He had come to love his master.

This exploit increased the fame of "Dandy Mose," as the cowboys came to

call him, because of the nature of his dress. He was bronzed now, and a

very creditable brown mustache added to the maturity of his face. He was

gaunt with hard riding, and somber and reticent in manner, so that he

seemed to be much older than his years. Before the beef round-up was

ended, he could rope a steer fairly well, could cut out or hold the

herd as well as the best, and in pistol practice he had no equal.

He was well pleased with himself. He loved the swift riding, the night

watches, the voices of wolves, the turmoil of the camp, the rush of the

wild wide-horned herd, and the pounding roar of the relay horses as they

came flying into camp of a morning. It all suited well with the leaping

blood of his heart and the restless vigor of his limbs. He thought of

his old home very little--even Mary was receding into the mist of

distance.

When the beef herd was ready to be driven to the shipping point,

Reynolds asked him if he wished to go. He shook his head. "No, I'll stay

here." He did not say so, but he was still a little afraid of being

called to account for his actions in Running Bear. He saw the herd move

off with regret, for he would have enjoyed the ride exceedingly. He

cared little for the town, though he would have liked the opportunity to

make some purchases. He returned to the Reynolds ranch to spend the

autumn and the winter in such duties as the stock required.

As the great peaks to the west grew whiter and whiter, looming ever

larger at dawn, the heart of the boy grew restless. The dark cañons

allured him, the stream babbled strange stories to him--tales of the

rocky spaces from which it came--until the boy dreamed of great white

doors that opened on wondrous green parks.

One morning when Cora called the men to breakfast Mose and Jim did not

respond. A scrawl from Mose said: "We've gone to the mountains. I'll be

back in the spring. Keep my outfit for me, and don't worry."

PART II

CHAPTER XII

THE YOUNG EAGLE FLUTTERS THE DOVE-COTE

The little town of Marmion was built on the high, grassy, parklike bank

of the Cedar River; at least, the main part of the residences and stores

stood on the upper level, while below, beside the roaring water, only a

couple of mills and some miserable shacks straggled along a road which

ran close to the sheer walls of water-worn limestone.

The town was considered "picturesque" by citizens of the smaller farm

villages standing bleakly where the prairie lanes intersected. To be

able to live in Marmion was held to be eminent good fortune by the

people roundabout, and the notion was worth working for. "If things turn

out well we will buy a lot in Marmion and build a house there," husbands

occasionally said to their wives and daughters, to console them for the

mud, or dirt, or heat, or cold of the farm life. One by one some of

those who had come into the country early, and whose land had grown

steadily in value as population increased, were able to rent their farms

to advantage and "move into town." Thus the streets gradually lengthened

out into the lanes, and brick blocks slowly replaced the battlemented

wooden stores of earlier frontier construction.

To Harold Excell, fresh from the wide spaces of the plains, the town

appeared smothered in leaves, and the air was oppressively stagnant. He

came into the railway station early one July morning, tired and dusty,

with a ride of two days and a night in an ordinary coach. As he walked

slowly up the street toward the center of the sleeping village, the odor

of ripe grain and the familiar smell of poplar and maple trees went to

his heart. His blood leaped with remembered joys. Under such trees, in

the midst of such fragrance, he had once walked with his sister and with

Jack. His heart swelled with the thought of the Burns' farm, and the

hearty greeting they would give him could he but ride up to the door.

And Mary! How would she seem to him now? Four years was a long time at

that period of a girl's life, but he was certain he would recognize her.

He had not written to her of his coming, for he wished to announce

himself. There were elements of adventure and surprise in the plan which

pleased him. He had not heard from her for nearly a year, and that

troubled him a little; perhaps she had moved away or was married. The

thought of losing her made him shiver with sudden doubt of the good

sense of his action. Anyhow, he would soon know.

The clerk of the principal hotel was sleeping on a cot behind the

counter, and Mose considerately decided not to wake him. Taking a seat

by the window, he resumed his thinking, while the morning light

infiltrated the sky. He was only twenty-two years of age, but in his own

thought he had left boyhood far behind. As a matter of fact he looked to

be five years older than he was. His face was set in lines indicating

resolution and daring, his drooping mustache hid the boyish curves of

his lips, and he carried himself with a singular grace, self-confident,

decisive, but not assertive. The swing of his shoulders had charm, and

he walked well. The cowboy's painful hobble had not yet been fastened

upon him.

Sitting there waiting the dawn, his face became tired, somber, almost

haggard, with self-accusing thought. He was not yet a cattle king, he

was, in fact, still a cowboy. The time had gone by when a hired hand

could easily acquire a bunch of cattle and start in for himself--and

yet, though he had little beyond his saddle and a couple of horses, he

was in Marmion to look upon the face of the girl who had helped him to

keep "square" and clean in a land where dishonesty and vice were common

as sage brush. He had sworn never to set foot in Rock River again, and

no one but Jack knew of his visit to Marmion.

Now that he was actually in the town where Mary lived he was puzzled to

know how to proceed. He had wit enough to know that in Marmion a girl

could not receive visits from a strange young man and escape the fire of

infuriate gossip. He feared to expose her to such comment, and yet,

having traveled six hundred miles to see her, he was not to be deterred

by any other considerations, especially by any affecting himself.

He knew something, but not all, of the evil fame his name conveyed to

the citizens in his native state. As "Harry Excell, _alias_ Black Mose,"

he had figured in the great newspapers of Chicago, and Denver, and

Omaha. Imaginative and secretly admiring young reporters had heaped

alliterative words together to characterize his daring, his skill as a

marksman and horseman, and had also darkly hinted of his part in

desperate stage and railway robbery in the Farther West. To all this--up

to the time of his return--Harold had replied, "These chaps must earn a

living some way, I reckon." He was said to have shot down six men in

his first "scrimmage." "No one presumes to any impertinent inquiries

when 'Black Mose' rides into town."

Another enterprising newspaper youth had worked out the secret history

of "Black Mose": "He began his career of crime early; at sixteen years

of age he served in State's prison for knifing a rival back in the

States." This report enabled the Rock River Call to identify Harold

Excell with "Black Mose," to the pain and humiliation of Pastor Excell.

Harold paid very little heed to all this till his longing to see Mary

grew intolerable--even now, waiting for the Sabbath day to dawn, he did

not fully realize the black shadow which streamed from his name and his

supposititious violences. He divined enough of it to know that he must

remain unknown to others, and he registered as "M. Harding, Omaha."

He was somewhat startled to find himself without appetite, and pushing

away his tough steak and fried potatoes, he arose and returned to the

street. The problem before him required delicacy of handling, and he was

not one to assume a tactful manner. The closer he came to the meeting

the more difficult it became. He must see her without causing comment,

and without Jack's aid he saw no way of doing it. He had written to

Jack, asking him to meet him, and so he waited.

He was a perilously notable figure in spite of his neat black suit and

quiet ways. His wide hat sat upon his head with a negligence which

stopped short of swagger, and his coat revealed the splendid lines of

his muscular shoulders. He had grown to a physical manhood which had the

leopard's lithe grace and the lion's gravity. His dimpled and

clean-shaven chin was strong, and the line of his lips firm. His eyes

were steady and penetrating, giving an impression of reticence. His

hands were slender and brown, and soft in the palms as those of a girl.

The citizens marveled over him as he moved slowly through the streets,

thinking himself quite indistinguishable among the other young men in

dark suits and linen collars.

Waiting was most difficult, and to remain indoors was impossible, so he

walked steadily about the town. As he returned from the river road for

the fifth time, the bells began to ring for church, filling him with

other memories of his youth, of his father and his pulpit, and brought

to his mind also the sudden recollection of one of Jack's letters,

wherein he mentioned Mary's singing in the choir. If she were at home

she would be singing yet, he argued, and set forth definitely to find

her.

To inquire was out of the question--so he started in at the largest

church with intent to make the rounds. After waiting till the choir was

about to begin the first hymn, he slipped in and took a seat near the

door, his heart beating loudly and his breath much quickened.

The interior was so familiar, it seemed for the moment to be his

father's church in Rock River. The odors, sounds, movements were quite

the same. The same deaf old men, led by determined, sturdy old women,

were going up the aisle to the front pews. The pretty girls, taking

their seats in the middle pews (where their new hats could be enjoyed by

the young men at the rear) became Dot, and Alice, and Nettie--and for

the moment the cowboy was very boyish and tender. The choir assembling

above the pulpit made him shiver with emotion. "Perhaps one of them will

be Mary and I won't know her," he said to himself. "I will know her

voice," he added.

But, as the soprano took her place, his heart ceased to pound--she was

small, and dark, and thin. He arose and slipped out to continue his

search.

They were singing as he entered the next chapel, and it required but a

moment's listening to convince himself that Mary was not there. The

third church was a small stone building of odd structure, and while he

hesitated before its door, a woman's voice took up a solo strain,

powerful, exultant, and so piercingly sweet that the plainsman shivered

as if with sudden cold. Around him the softly moving maples threw

dappling shadows on the walk. The birds in the orchards, the insects in

the grass, the clouds overhead seemed somehow involved in the poetry and

joy of that song. The wild heart of the young trailer became like that

of a child, made sweet and tender by the sovereign power of a voice.

He did not move till the clear melody sank into the harmony of the

organ, then, with bent head and limbs unwontedly infirm, he entered the

lovely little audience room. He stumbled into the first seat in the

corner, his eyes piercing the colored dusk which lay between him and the

singer. It was Mary, and it seemed to him that she had become a

princess, sitting upon a throne. Accustomed to see only the slatternly

women of the cow towns, or the thin, hard-worked, and poorly-dressed

wives and daughters of the ranchers, he humbled himself before the

beauty and dignity and refinement of this young singer.

She was a mature woman, full-bosomed, grave of feature, introspective of

glance. Her graceful hat, her daintily gloved hands, her tasteful dress,

impressed the cowboy with a feeling that all art and poetry and

refinement were represented by her. For the moment his own serenity and

self-command were shaken. He cowered in his seat like a dust-covered

plowman in a parlor, and when Mary looked in his direction his breath

quickened and he shrank. He was not yet ready to have her recognize him.

The preacher, a handsome and scholarly young fellow, arose to speak, and

Harold was interested in him at once. The service had nothing of the

old-time chant or drawl or drone. In calm, unhesitating speech the young

man proceeded, from a text of Hebrew scripture, to argue points of right

and wrong among men, and to urge upon his congregation right thinking

and right action. He used a great many of the technical phrases of

carpenters and stonemasons and sailors. He showed familiarity also with

the phrases of the cattle country. Several times a low laugh rippled

over his congregation as he uttered some peculiarly apt phrase or made

use of some witty illustration. To the cowboy this sort of preaching

came with surprise. He thought: "The boys would kieto to this chap all

right." He was not eager to have them listen to Mary singing.

Sitting there amid the little audience of thoughtful people, his brain

filled with new conceptions of the world and of human life. Nothing was

clearly defined in the tumult of opposing pictures. At one moment he

thought of his sister and his family, but before he could imagine her

home or decide on how to see her, a picture of his father, or Jack, or

the peaceful Burns' farm came whirling like another cloud before his

brain, and all the time his eyes searched Mary's calm and beautiful

face. He saw her smile, too, when the preacher made a telling

application of a story. How would she receive him after so many years?

She had not answered his last letter; perhaps she was married. Again the

chilly wind from the cañon of doubt blew upon him. If she was, why that

ended it. He would go back to the mountains and never return.

The minister finished at last and Mary arose again to sing. She was

taller, Harold perceived, and more matronly in all ways. As she sang,

the lonely soul of the plainsman was moved to an ecstasy which filled

his throat and made his eyes misty with tears. He thought of his days in

the gray prison, and of this girlish voice singing like an angel to

comfort him. She did not seem to be singing to him now. She sang as a

bird sings out of abounding health and happiness, and as she sang, the

mountains retreated into vast distances. The rush of the cattle on the

drive was fainter than the sigh of the wind, and the fluting of the Ute

lover was of another world. For the moment he felt the majesty and the

irrevocableness of human life.

He stood in a shadowed corner at the close of the service and watched

her come down the aisle. As she drew near his breath left him, and the

desire to lay his hand on her arm became so intense that his fingers

locked upon the back of his pew--but he let her pass. She glanced at him

casually, then turned to smile at some word of the preacher walking just

behind her. Her passing was like music, and the fragrance of her

garments was sweeter than any mountain flower. The grace of her walk,

the exquisite fairness of her skin subdued him, who acknowledged no

master and no mistress. She walked on out into the Sabbath sunshine and

he followed, only to see her turn up the sidewalk close to the shoulder

of the handsome young minister.

The lonely youth walked back to his hotel with manner so changed his

mountain companions would have marveled at it. A visit which had seemed

so simple on the Arickaree became each moment more complicated in

civilization. The refined young minister with the brown pointed beard,

so kindly and thoughtful and wholesome of manner, was a new sort of man

to such as Harold Excell. He feared no rivalry among the youth of the

village, but this scholar----

Jack met him at the hotel--faithful old Jack, whose freckled face

beamed, and whose spectacled eyes were dim with gladness. They shook

hands again and again, crying out confused phrases. "Old man, how are

you?" "I'm all right, how are you?" "You look it." "Where'd you find the

red whiskers?" "They came in a box." "Your mustache is a wonder."

Ultimately they took seats and looked at each other narrowly and

quietly. Then Harold said, "I'm Mr. Harding here."

Jack replied: "I understand. Your father knows, too. He wants to come up

and see you. I said I'd wire, shall I?"

"Of course--if he wants to see me--but I want to talk to you first. I've

seen Mary!"

"Have you? How did you manage?"

"I trailed her. Went to all the churches in town. She sings in a little

stone church over here."

"I know. I've been up here to see her once or twice myself."

Harold seized him by the arm. "See here, Jack--I must talk with her. How

can I manage it without doing her harm?"

"That's the question. If these people should connect you with 'Black

Mose' they'd form a procession behind you. Harry, you don't know, you

can't imagine the stories they've got up about you. They've made you

into a regular Oklahoma Billy the Kid and train robber. The first great

spread was that fight you had at Running Bear, that got into the Omaha

papers in three solid columns about six months after it happened. Of

course I knew all about it from your letters--no one had laid it to you

then, but now everybody knows you are 'Black Mose,' and if you should be

recognized you couldn't see Mary without doing her an awful lot of harm.

You must be careful."

"I know all that," replied Harold gloomily. "But you must arrange for me

to see her right away, this afternoon or to-night."

"I'll manage it. They know me here and I can call on her and take a

friend, an old classmate, you see, without attracting much

attention--but it isn't safe for you to stay here long, somebody is

dead-sure to identify you. They've had two or three pictures of you

going around that really looked like you, and then your father coming up

may let the secret out. We must be careful. I'll call on Mary

immediately after dinner and tell her you are here."

"Is she married? Some way she seemed like a married woman."

"No, she's not married, but the young preacher you heard this morning

is after her, they say, and he's a mighty nice chap."

There was no more laughter on the gentle, red-bearded face of young

Burns. Had Harold glanced at him sharply at that moment, he would have

seen a tremor in Jack's lips and a singular shadow in his eyes. His

voice indeed did affect Harold, though he took it to be sympathetic

sadness only.

Jack brightened up suddenly. "I can't really believe it is you, Harry.

You've grown so big and burly, and you look so old." He smiled. "I wish

I could see some of that shooting they all tell about, but that _would_

let the cat out."

Harold could not be drawn off to discuss such matters.

"Come out to the ranch and I'll show you. But how are we to meet father?

If he is seen talking with me it may start people off----"

"I'll tell you. We'll have him come up and join you on the train and go

down to Rock River together. I don't mean for you to get off, you can

keep right on. Now, you mustn't wear that broad hat; you wear a

grape-box straw hat while you're here. Take mine and I'll wear a cap."

He took charge of Harold's affairs with ready and tactful hand. He was

eager to hear his story, but Harold refused to talk on any other

subject than Mary. At dinner he sat in gloomy silence, disregarding his

friend's pleasant, low-voiced gossip concerning old friends in Rock

River.

After Jack left the hotel Harold went to his room and took a look at

himself in the glass. He was concerned to see of what manner of man he

really was. He was not well-satisfied with himself; his face and hands

were too brown and leathery, and when he thought of his failure as a

rancher his brow darkened. He was as far from being a cattle king as

when he wrote that boyish letter four years before, and he had sense

enough to know that a girl of Mary's grace and charm does not lack for

suitors. "Probably she is engaged or married," he thought. Life seemed a

confusion and weariness at the moment.

As soon as he heard Jack on the stairs he hurried to meet him.

"What luck? Have you seen her?"

Jack closed the door before replying, "Yes."

"What did she say?"

"She turned a little paler and just sat still for a minute or two. You

know she isn't much of a talker. Then she said, 'Was he at church

to-day?' I said 'Yes'; then she said, 'I think I saw him. I saw a

stranger and was attracted by his face, but of course I never thought

it could be Harold.' She was completely helpless for a while, but as I

talked she began to see her way. She finally said, 'He has come a long

way and I must see him. I _must_ talk with him, but people must not know

who he is.' I told her we were going to be very careful for her sake."

"That's right, we must," Harold interrupted.

"She didn't seem scared about herself. 'It won't harm me,' she said,

'but father is hard to manage when anything displeases him. We must be

careful on Harold's account.'"

Harold's throat again contracted with emotion. "She never thinks of

herself; that's her way."

"Now we've just got to walk boldly up the walk, the two of us together,

and call on her. I'll introduce you to her father or she will; he knows

me. We will talk about our school days while the old gentleman is

around. He will drift away after a time, naturally. If he doesn't I'll

take him out for a walk."

This they did. Made less of a cowboy by Jack's straw hat, Harold went

forth on a trail whose course was not well-defined in his mind, though

now that Jack had arranged details so deftly that Mary was not in danger

of being put to shame, his native courage and resolution came back to

him. In the full springtide of his powerful manhood Mary's name and face

had come at last to stand for everything worth having in the world, and

like a bold gambler he was staking all he had on a single whirl of the

wheel.

Their meeting was so self-contained that only a close observer could

have detected the tension. Mary was no more given to externalizing her

emotions than he. She met him with a pale, sweet, dignified mask of

face. She put out her hand, and said, "I am glad to see you, Mr.

Harding," but his eyes burned down into hers with such intensity that

she turned to escape his glance. "Father, you know Mr. Burns, and this

is his friend, Mr. Harding, whom I used to know."

Jack came gallantly to the rescue. He talked crops, politics, weather,

church affairs, and mining. He chattered and laughed in a way which

would have amazed Harold had he not been much preoccupied. He was

unprepared for the change in Mary. He had carried her in his mind all

these years as a little slip of a maiden, wrapt in expression, somber of

mood, something half angel and half child, and always she walked in a

gray half light, never in the sun. Now here she faced him, a dignified

woman, with deep, serene eyes, and he could not comprehend how the pale

girl had become the magnetic, self-contained woman. He was thrown into

doubt and confusion, but so far from showing this he sat in absolute

silence, gazing at her with eyes which made her shiver with emotion.

Talk was purposeless and commonplace at first, a painful waiting.

Suddenly they missed Jack and the father. They were alone and free to

speak their most important words. Harold seized upon the opportunity

with most disconcerting directness.

"I've come for you, Mary," he said, as if he had not hitherto uttered a

word, and his voice aroused some mysterious vibration within her bosom.

"I'm not a cattle king; I have nothing but two horses, a couple of guns,

and a saddle--but all the same, here I am. I got lonesome for you, and

at last I took the back trail to find out whether you had forgot me or

not."

His pause seemed to require an answer and her lips were dry as she said

in a low voice, "No, I did not forget, but I thought you had forgotten

_me_."

"A man don't forget such a girl as you are, Mary. You were in my mind

all the time. Your singing did more for me than anything else. I've

tried to keep out of trouble for your sake. I haven't succeeded very

well as you know--but most of the stories about me are lies. I've only

had two fights and they were both in self-defense and I don't think I

killed anybody. I never know exactly what I'm doing when I get into a

scrap. But I've kept out of the way of it on your account. I never go

after a man. It's pretty hard not to shoot out there where men go on the

rampage so often. It's easier, now than it used to be, for they are

afraid of me."

He seemed to come to a halt in that direction, and after a moment's

pause took a new start. "I saw you at church to-day, and I saw you walk

off with the minister, and that gave me a sudden jolt. It seemed to me

you--liked him mighty well----"

She was sitting in silence and apparent calmness, but she flushed and

her lips set close together. It was evident that no half-explanations

would suffice this soul of the mountain land.

He arose finally and stood for an instant looking at her with piercing

intentness. His deep excitement had forced him to physical action.

"I could see he was the man for you, not me. Right there I felt like

quitting. I went back to my hotel doing more thinking to the square

minute than ever before in my life, I reckon. I ought to have pulled out

for the mountains right then, but you see, I had caught a glimpse of

you again, and I couldn't. The smell of your dress----" he paused a

moment. "You are the finest girl God ever made and I just couldn't go

without seeing you, at least once more."

He was tense, almost rigid with the stress of his sudden passion. She

remained silent with eyes fixed upon him, musing and somber. She was

slower to utter emotion than he, and could not speak even when he had

finished.

He began to walk up and down just before her, his brows moodily knitted.

"I'm not fit to ask a girl like you to marry me, I know that. I've

served time in jail, and I'm under indictment by the courts this very

minute in two States. I'm no good on earth but to rope cattle. I can't

bring myself to farm or sell goods back here, and if I could you

oughtn't to have anything to do with me--but all the same you're worth

more to me than anything else. I don't suppose there has been an hour of

my life since I met you first that I haven't thought of you. I dreamed

of you--when I'm riding at night--I try to think----"

He stopped abruptly and caught up her left hand. "You've got a ring on

your finger--is that from the minister?"

Her eyes fled from his and she said, "Yes."

He dropped her hand. "I don't blame you any. I've made a failure of it."

His tone was that of a bankrupt at fifty. "I don't know enough to write

a letter--I'm only a rough, tough fool. I thought you'd be thinking of

me just the way I was thinking of you, and there was nothing to write

about because I wasn't getting ahead as I expected. So I kept waiting

till something turned up to encourage me. Nothing did, and now I'm paid

for it."

His voice had a quality which made her weep. She tried to think of some

words of comfort but could not. She was indeed too deeply concerned with

her own contending emotions. There was marvelous appeal in this

powerful, bronzed, undisciplined youth. His lack of tact and gallantry,

his disconcerting directness of look and speech shook her, troubled her,

and rendered her weak. She was but a year younger than he, and her life

had been almost as simple exteriorly, but at center she was of far finer

development. She had always been introspective, and she had grown

self-analytic. She knew that the touch of this young desperado's hand

had changed her relation toward the world. As he talked she listened

without formulating a reply.

When at last she began to speak she hesitated and her sentences were

broken. "I am very sorry--but you see I had not heard from you for a

long time--it would be impossible--for me to live on the plains so far

away--even if--even if I had not promised Mr. King----"

"Well, that ends it," he said harshly, and his voice brought tears

again. "I go back to my cow punching, the only business I know. As you

say, the cow country is no place for a girl like you. It's a mighty hard

place for women of any kind, and you ... Besides, you're a singer, you

can't afford to go with me. It's all a part of my luck. Things have gone

against me from the start."

He paused to get a secure hold on his voice. "Well, now, I'm going, but

I don't want you to forget me; don't pray for me, just _sing_ for me.

I'll hear you, and it'll help keep me out of mischief. Will you do

that?"

"Yes--if you--if it will help----"

Jack's voice, unusually loud, interrupted her, and when the father

entered, there was little outward sign of the passionate drama just

enacted.

"Won't you sing for us, Mary?" asked Jack a few minutes later.

Mary looked at Harold significantly and arose to comply. Harold sat with

head propped on his palm and eyes fixed immovably upon her face while

she sang, If I Were a Voice. The voice was stronger, sweeter, and the

phrasing was more mature, but it was after all the same soul singing

through the prison gloom, straight to his heart. She charged the words

with a special, intimate, tender meaning. She conveyed to him the

message she dared not speak, "Be true in spite of all. My heart is sore

for you, let me comfort you."

He, on his part, realized that one who could sing like that had a wider

mission in the world than to accompany a cowboy to the bleak plains of

the West. To comfort him was a small part of her work in the world. It

was her mission to go on singing solace and pleasure to thousands all

over the nation.

When she had finished he arose and offered his hand with a singular

calmness which moved the girl more deeply than any word he had said.

"When you sing that song, think of me, sometimes, will you?"

"Yes--always," she replied.

"Good-by," he said abruptly. Dropping her-hand, he went out without

speaking another word.

Jack, taking her hand in parting, found it cold and nerveless.

"May I see you again before we go?" he asked.

Her eyes lighted a little and her hand tightened in his. "Yes--I want to

speak with you," she said, and ended in a whisper, "about him."

Jack overtook Harold but remained silent. When they reached their room,

Harold dropped into a chair like one exhausted by a fierce race.

"This ends it, Jack, I'll never set foot in the States again; from this

time on I keep to the mountains."

CHAPTER XIII

THE YOUNG EAGLE DREAMS OF A MATE

As the young men sat at supper that night a note was handed to Jack by

the clerk. Upon opening it he found a smaller envelope addressed to "Mr.

Harding." Harold took it, but did not open it, though it promised well,

being quite thick with leaves. Jack read his note at a glance and passed

it across the table. It was simple:

"DEAR MR. BURNS: Won't you please see that the inclosed note

reaches Harold. I wish you could persuade him to come and see me

once more before he goes. I shall expect to see _you_ anyhow.

Father does not suspect anything out of the ordinary as yet, and

it will be quite safe.

"Your friend,

"MARY YARDWELL."

As soon as he decently could Harold went to his room and opened the

important letter. In it the reticent-girl had uttered herself with

unusual freedom. It was a long letter, and its writer must have gone to

its composition at once after the door had closed upon her visitors. It

began abruptly, too:

"DEAR FRIEND: My heart aches for you. From the time I first

saw you in the jail I have carried your face in my mind. I

can't quite analyze my feeling for you now. You are so

different from the boy I knew. I think I am a little afraid

of you, you scare me a little. You are of another world, a

strange world of which I would like to hear. I have a woman's

curiosity, I can't let you go away until you tell me all your

story. I would like to say something on my own side

also. Can't you come and see me once more? My father is going

to be away at his farm all day to-morrow, can't you come with

Mr. Burns and take dinner with me and tell me all about

yourself--your life is so strange.

"There will be no one there (I mean at dinner) but Mr. Burns

and you, and we can talk freely. Does being 'under

indictment' mean that you are in danger of arrest? I want to

understand all about that. You can't know how strange and

exciting all these things are to me. My life is so humdrum

here. You come into it like a great mountain wind. You take

my words away as well as my breath. I am not like most women,

words are not easy to me even when I write, though I write

better than I talk--I think.

"Mr. King asked me to be his wife some months ago, and I

promised to do so, but that is no reason why we should not be

good friends. You have been too much in my life to go out of

it altogether, though I had given up seeing you again, and

then we always think of our friends as we last saw them, we

can't imagine their development. Don't you find this so? You

said you found me changed.

"I have little to tell you about myself. I graduated and then

I spent one winter in Chicago to continue my music studies. I

am teaching here summers to get pin money. It is so quiet

here one grows to think all the world very far away, and the

wild things among which you have lived and worked are almost

unimaginable even when the newspapers describe them with the

greatest minuteness.

"This letter is very rambling, I know, but I am writing as

rapidly as I can, for I want to send it to you before you

take the train. Please come to see me to-morrow. To-night I

sing in the song service at the church. I hope you will be

there. The more I think about your story the more eager to

listen I become. There must be some basis of stirring deeds

for all the tales they tell of you. My friends say I have a

touch of the literary poison in my veins; anyhow I like a

story above all things, and to hear the hero tell his own

adventures will be the keenest delight.

"I am sorry I could not do more to make things easier for you

to-day, but I come of men and women who are silent when they

mean most. I am never facile of speech and to-day I was

dumb. Perhaps if we meet on a clear understanding we will get

along better. Come, anyhow, and let me know you as you

are. Perhaps I have never really known you, perhaps I only

imagined you.

"Your friend,

"MARY YARDWELL.

"P.S. The reason for the postscript is that I have re-read

the foregoing letter and find it unsatisfactory in everything

except the expression of my wish to see you. I had meant to

say so much and I have said so little. I am afraid now that I

shall not see you at all, so I add my promise. I shall always

remember you and I _will_ think of you when I sing, and I

will sing If I Were a Voice every Sunday for you, especially

when I am all alone, and I'll send it out to you by thought

waves. You shall never fail of the best wishes of

"MARY YARDWELL."

Not being trained in psychologic subtleties, Harold took this letter to

mean only what it said. He was not as profoundly moved by it as he would

have been could he have read beneath the lines the tumult he had

produced in the tranquil life of its writer. One skilled in perception

of a woman's moods could have detected a sense of weakness, or

irresolution, or longing in a girl whose nature had not yet been tried

by conflicting emotions.

Jack perceived something of this when Harold gave him the letter to

read. His admiration of Harold's grace and power, his love for every

gesture and every lineament of his boyish hero, made it possible for him

to understand how deeply Mary had been moved when brought face to face

with a handsome and powerful man who loved as lions love. He handed the

letter back with a smile: "I think you'd better stay over and see her."

"I intend to," replied Harold; "wire father to come up."

"Let's go walk. We may happen by the church where she sings," suggested

Jack.

It was a very beautiful hour of the day. The west was filled with cool,

purple-gray clouds, and a fresh wind had swept away all memory of the

heat of the day. Insects filled the air with quavering song. Children

were romping on the lawns. Lovers sauntered by in pairs or swung under

the trees in hammocks. Old people sat reading or listlessly talking

beside their cottage doors. A few carriages were astir. It was a day of

rest and peace and love-making to this busy little community. The mills

were still and even the water seemed to run less swiftly, only the

fishes below the dam had cause to regret the day's release from toil,

for on every rock a fisherman was poised.

The tension being a little relieved, Harold was able to listen to Jack's

news of Rock River. His father was still preaching in the First Church,

but several influential men had split off and were actively antagonizing

the majority of the congregation. The fight was at its bitterest. Maud

had now three children, and her husband was doing well in hardware. This

old schoolmate was married, that one was dead, many had moved West.

Bradley Talcott was running for State Legislator. Radbourn was in

Washington.

Talking on quietly the two young men walked out of the village into a

lane bordered with Lombardy poplars. Harold threw himself down on the

grass beneath them and said:

"Now I can imagine I am back on the old farm. Tell me all about your

folks."

"Oh, they're just the same. They don't change much. Father scraped some

money together and built a new bedroom on the west side. Mother calls it

'the boys' room.' By 'boys' they mean you and me. They expect us to

sleep there when you come back on a visit. They'll be terribly

disappointed at not seeing you. Mother seems to think as much of you as

she does of me."

There was charm in the thought of the Burns' farm and Mrs. Burns coming

and going about the big kitchen stove, the smell of wholesome cooking

about her clothing, and for the moment the desperado's brain became as a

child's. There was sadness in the thought that he never again could see

his loyal friends or the old walks and lanes.

Jack aroused him and they walked briskly back toward the little church

which they found already quite filled with young people. The choir,

including Mary, smiled at the audience and at each other, for the spirit

of the little church was humanly cheerful.

The strangers found seats in a corner pew together with a pale young man

and a very pretty little girl. Jack was not imaginative, but he could

not help thinking of the commotion which would follow if those around

him should learn that "Black Mose" was at that moment seated among them.

Mary, seeing the dark, stern face of the plainsman, had some such

thought also. There was something gloriously unfettered, compelling, and

powerful in his presence. He made the other young men appear commonplace

and feeble in her eyes, and threw the minister into pale relief,

emphasizing his serenity, his scholarship, and his security of position.

Harold gave close attention to the young minister, who, as Mary's lover,

became important. As a man of action he put a low valuation on a mere

scholar, but King was by no means contemptible physically. Jack also

perceived the charm of such a man to Mary, and acknowledged the good

sense of her choice. King could give her a pleasant home among people

she liked, while Harold could only ask her to go to the wild country, to

a log ranch in a cottonwood gulch, there to live month after month

without seeing a woman or a child.

A bitter and desperate melancholy fell upon the plainsman. What was the

use? Such a woman was not for him. He had only the pleasure of the wild

country. He would go back to his horses, his guns, and the hills, and

never again come under the disturbing influence of this beautiful

singer. She was not of his world; her smiles were not for him. When the

others arose in song he remained seated, his sullen face set toward the

floor, denying himself the pleasure of even seeing Mary's face as she

sang.

Her voice arose above the chorus, guiding, directing, uplifting the less

confident ones. When she sang she was certain of herself, powerful,

self-contained. That night she sang with such power and sweetness that

the minister turned and smiled upon her at the end. He spoke over the

low railing which separated them: "You surpass yourself to-night."

Looking across the heads of the audience as they began to take seats

Harold saw this smile and action, and his face darkened again.

For her solo Mary selected one which expressed in simple words the

capabilities each humble soul had for doing good. If one could not storm

the stars in song one could bathe a weary brow. If one could not write a

mighty poem one could speak a word of cheer to the toiler by the way.

It was all poor stuff enough, but the singer filled it with significance

and appeal. At the moment it seemed as if such things were really worth

doing. Each word came from her lips as though it had never been uttered

by human lips before, so simple, so musical, so finely enunciated, so

well valued was it. To Harold, so long separated from any approach to

womanly art, it appealed with enormous power. He was not only

sensitive, he was just come to the passion and impressionability of

full-blooded young manhood. Powers converged upon him, and simple and

direct as he was, the effects were confusion and deepest dejection. He

heard nothing but Mary's voice, saw nothing but her radiant beauty. To

him she was more wonderful than any words could express.

At the end of the singing he refused to wait till she came down the

aisle, but hurried out into the open air away from the crowd. As Jack

caught up with him he said: "You go to bed; I've got to take a run out

into the country or I can't sleep at all. Father will be up in the

morning, I suppose. I'll get off in the six o'clock train to-morrow

night."

Jack said nothing, not even in assent, and Mose set off up the lane with

more of mental torment than had ever been his experience before.

Hitherto all had been simple. He loved horses, the wild things, the

trail, the mountains, the ranch duties, and the perfect freedom of a man

of action. Since the door of his prison opened to allow him to escape

into the West he had encountered no doubts, had endured no remorse, and

had felt but little fear. All that he did was forthright, manly,

single-purposed, and unhesitating.

Now all seemed changed. His horses, his guns, the joys of free spaces,

were met by a counter allurement which was the voice of a woman. Strong

as he was, stern as he looked, he was still a boy in certain ways, and

this mental tumult, so new and strange to him, wearied him almost to

tears. It was a fatigue, an ache which he could not shake off, and when

he returned to the hotel he had settled nothing and was ready to flee

from it all without one backward look. However, he slept soundlier than

he thought himself capable of doing.

He was awakened early by Jack: "Harry, your father is here, and very

anxious to see you."

Mose arose slowly and reluctantly. He had nothing to say to his father,

and dreaded the interview, which he feared would be unpleasantly

emotional. The father met him with face pale and hands trembling with

emotion. "My son, my son!" he whispered. Mose stood silently wondering

why his father should make so much fuss over him.

Mr. Excell soon recovered his self-command, and his voice cleared. "I

had almost given up seeing you, Harold. I recognize you with

difficulty--you have changed much. You seem well and strong--almost as

tall as I was at your age."

"I hold my own," said Harold, and they all sat down more at ease. "I got

into rough gangs out there, but I reckon they got as good as they

sent."

"I suppose the newspapers have greatly exaggerated about your

conflicts?"

Harold was a little disposed to shock his father. "Oh, yes, I don't

think I really killed as many men as they tell about; I don't know that

I killed any."

"I hope you did not lightly resort to the use of deadly weapons," said

Mr. Excell sadly.

"It was kill or be killed," said Harold grimly. "It was like shooting a

pack of howling wolves. I made up my mind to be just one shot ahead of

anybody. There are certain counties out there where the name 'Black

Mose' means something."

"I'm sorry for that, my son. I hope you don't drink?"

"Don't you worry about that. I can't afford to drink, and if I could I

wouldn't. Oh, I take a glass of beer with the boys once in a while on a

hot day, but it's my lay to keep sober. A drunken man is a soft mark."

He changed the subject: "Seems to me you're a good deal grayer."

Mr. Excell ran his fingers through the tumbled heap of his grizzled

hair. "Yes; things are troubling me a little. The McPhails are fighting

me in the church, and intend to throw me out and ruin me if they can,

but I shall fight them till the bitter end. I am not to be whipped out

like a dog."

"That's the talk! Don't let 'em run you out. I got run out of Cheyenne,

but I'll never run again. I was only a kid then. After you throw 'em

down, come out West and round up the cowboys. They won't play any

underhanded games on you, and mebbe you can do them some

good--especially on gambling. They are sure enough idiots about cards."

They went down to breakfast together, but did not sit together.

Jack and Harold talked in low voices about Mr. Excell.

"The old man looks pretty well run down, don't he?" said Harold.

"He worries a whole lot about you."

"He needn't to. When does he go back?"

"He wants to stay all day--just as long as he can."

"He'd better pull right out on that ten o'clock train. His being here is

sure to give me away sooner or later."

It was hard for the father to say good-by. He had a feeling that it was

the last time he should ever see him, and his face was gray with

suffering as he faced his son for the last time. Harold became not

merely unresponsive, he grew harsher of voice each moment. His father's

tremulous and repeated words seemed to him foolish and absurd--and also

inconsiderate. After he was gone he burst out in wrath.

"Why can't he act like a man? I don't want anybody to snivel over me.

Suppose I _am_ to be shot this fall, what of it?"

This disgust and bitterness prepared him, strange to say, for his call

upon Mary. He entered the house, master of himself and the situation.

His nerves were like steel, and his stern face did not quiver in its

minutest muscle, though she met him in most gracious mood, dressed as

for conquest and very beautiful.

"I'm so glad you stayed over," she said. "I have been so eager to hear

all about your life out there." She led the way to the little parlor

once more and drew a chair near him.

"Well," he began, "it isn't exactly the kind of life your Mr. King

leads."

There was a vengeful sneer in his voice which Mary felt as if he had

struck her, but she said gently:

"I suppose our life does seem very tame to you now."

"It's sure death. I couldn't stand it for a year; I'd rot."

Mary was aware that some sinister change had come over him, and she

paused to study him keenly. The tremulous quality of his voice and

action had passed away. He was hard, stern, self-contained, and she

(without being a coquette) determined that his mood should give way to

hers. He set himself hard against the charm of her lovely presence and

the dainty room. Mary ceased to smile, but her brows remained level.

"You men seem to think that all women are fond only of the quiet things,

but it isn't true. We like the big deeds in the open air, too. I'd like

to see a cattle ranch and take a look at a 'round-up,' though I don't

know exactly what that means."

"Well, we're not on the round-up all the time," he said, relaxing a

little. "It's pretty quiet part of the time; that is, quiet for our

country. But then, you're always on a horse and you're out in the air on

the plains with the mountains in sight. There's a lot of hard work about

it, too, and it's lonesome sometimes when your're ridin' the lines, but

I like it. When it gets a little too tame for me I hit the trail for the

mountains with an Indian. The Ogallalahs are my friends, and I'm going

to spend the winter with them and then go into the West Elk country. I'm

due to kill a grizzly this year and some mountain sheep." He was started

now, and Mary had only to listen. "Before I stop, I'm going to know all

there is to know of the Rocky Mountains. With ol' Kintuck and my

Winchester I'm goin' to hit the sunset trail and hit it hard. There's

nothing to keep me now," he said with a sudden glance at her. "It don't

matter where I turn up or pitch camp. I reckon I'd better not try to be

a cattle king." He smiled bitterly and pitilessly at the poor figure he

cut. "I reckon I'm a kind of a mounted hobo from this on."

"But your father and sister----"

"Oh, she isn't worryin' any about me; I haven't had a letter from her

for two years. All I've got now is Jack, and he'd be no earthly good on

the trail. He'd sure lose his glasses in a fight, and then he couldn't

tell a grizzly from a two-year-old cow. So you see, there's nothing to

hinder me from going anywhere. I'm footloose. I want to spend one summer

in the Flat Top country. Ute Jim tells me it's fine. Then I want to go

into the Wind River Mountains for elk. Old Talfeather, chief of the

Ogallalahs, has promised to take me into the Big Horn Range. After that

I'm going down into the southwest, down through the Uncompagre country.

Reynolds says they're the biggest yet, and I'm going to keep right down

into the Navajo reservation. I've got a bid from old Silver Arrow, and

then I'm going to Walpi and see the Mokis dance. They say they carry

live rattlesnakes in their mouths. I don't believe it: I'm going to see.

Then I swing 'round to the Grand Cañon of the Colorado. They say that's

the sorriest gash in the ground that ever happened. Reynolds gave me a

letter to old Hance; he's the man that watches to see that no one

carries the hole away. Then I'm going to take a turn over the Mohave

desert into Southern California. I'm due at the Yosemite Valley about a

year from next fall. I'll come back over the divide by way of Salt

Lake."

He was on his feet, and his eyes were glowing. He seemed to have

forgotten all women in the sweep of his imaginative journey.

"Oh, that will be grand! How will you do it?"

"On old Kintuck, if his legs don't wear off."

"How will you live?"

"Forage where I can. Turn to and help on a 'round-up,' or 'drive' where

I can--shoot and fish--oh, I'll make it if it takes ten years."

"Then what?" Mary asked, with a curious intonation.

"Then I'll start for the Northwest," he replied after a little

hesitation--"if I live. Of course the chances are I'll turn up my toes

somewhere on the trail. A man is liable to make a miss-lick somewhere,

but that's all in the game. A man had better die on the trail than in a

dead furrow."

Mary looked at him with dreaming eyes. His strange moods filled her with

new and powerful emotions. The charm of the wild life he depicted

appealed to her as well as to him. It was all a fearsome venture, but

after all it was glorious. The placid round of her own life seemed for

the moment intolerably commonplace. There was epic largeness in the

circuit of the plainsman's daring plans. The wonders of Nature which he

catalogued loomed large in the misty knowledge she held of the West. She

cried out:

"Oh, I wish I could see those wonderful scenes!"

He turned swiftly: "You can; I'll take you."

She shrank back. "Oh, no! I didn't mean that--I meant--some time----"

His face darkened. "In a sleeping car, I reckon. That time'll never

come."

Then a silence fell on them. Harold knew that his plans could not be

carried out with a woman for companion--and he had sense enough to know

that Mary's words were born of a momentary enthusiasm. When he spoke it

was with characteristic blunt honesty.

"No; right here our trails fork, Mary. Ever since I saw you in the jail

the first time, you've been worth more to me than anything else in the

world, but I can see now that things never can go right with you and me.

I couldn't live back here, and you couldn't live with me out there. I'm

a kind of an outlaw, anyway. I made up my mind last night that I'd hit

the trail alone. I won't even ask Jack to go with me. There's something

in me here"--he laid his hand on his breast--"that kind o' chimes in

with the wind in the piñons and the yap of the ky-ote. The rooster and

the church bells are too tame for me. That's all there is about it.

Maybe when I get old and feeble in the knees I'll feel like pitchin' a

permanent camp, but just now I don't; I want to be on the move. If I had

a nice ranch, and you, I might settle down now, but then you couldn't

stand even a ranch with nearest neighbors ten miles away." He turned to

take his hat. "I wanted to see you--I didn't plan for anything

else--I've seen you and so----"

"Oh, you're not going now!" she cried. "You haven't told me your story."

"Oh, yes, I have; all that you'd care to hear. It don't amount to much,

except the murder charges, and they are wrong. It wasn't my fault. They

crowded me too hard, and I had to defend myself. What is a man to do

when it's kill or be killed? That's all over and past, anyway. From this

time on I camp high. The roosters and church bells are getting too thick

on the Arickaree."

He crushed his hat in his hand as he turned to her, and tears were in

her eyes as she said:

"Please don't go; I expected you to stay to dinner with me."

"The quicker I get out o' here the better," he replied hoarsely, and she

saw that he was trembling. "What's the good of it? I'm out of it."

She looked up at him in silence, her mind filled with the confused

struggle between her passion and her reason. He allured her, this grave

and stern outlaw, appealing to some primitive longing within her.

"I hate to see you go," she said slowly. "But--I--suppose it is best. I

don't like to have you forget me--I shall not forget you, and I will

sing for you every Sunday afternoon, and no matter where you are, in a

deep cañon, or anywhere, or among the Indians, you just stop and listen

and think of me, and maybe you'll hear my voice."

Tears were in her eyes as she spoke, and he took a man's advantage of

her emotion.

"Perhaps if I come back--if I make a strike somewhere--if you'd say

so----"

She shook her head sadly but conclusively. "No, no, I can't promise

anything."

"All right--that settles it. Good-by."

And she had nothing better to say than just "Good-by, good-by."

CHAPTER XIV

THE YOUNG EAGLE RETURNS TO HIS EYRIE

It was good to face the West again. The wild heart of the youth flung

off all doubt, all regret. Not for him were the quiet joys of village

life. No lane or street could measure his flight. His were the gleaming,

immeasurable walls of the Sangre de Cristo range, his the grassy

mountain parks and the silent cañons, and the peaks. "To hell with the

East, and all it owns," was his mood, and in that mood he renounced all

claim to Mary.

He sat with meditative head against the windowpane, listless as a caged

and sullen eagle, but his soul was far ahead, swooping above the swells

that cut into the murky sky. His eyes studied every rod of soil as he

retraced his way up that great wind-swept slope, noting every change in

vegetation or settlement. Five years before he had crept like a lizard;

now he was rushing straight on like the homing eagle who sees his home

crag gleam in the setting sun.

The cactus looked up at him with spiney face. The first prairie dog

sitting erect uttered a greeting to which he smiled. The first mirage

filled his heart with a rush of memories of wild rides, and the grease

wood recalled a hundred odorous camp fires. He was getting home.

The people at the stations grew more unkempt, untamed. The broad hats

and long mustaches of the men proclaimed the cow country at last. It

seemed as though he might at any moment recognize some of them. At a

certain risk to himself he got off the train at one or two points to

talk with the boys. As it grew dark he took advantage of every wait to

stretch his legs and enjoy the fresh air, so different in its clarity

and crisp dryness from the leaf-burdened, mist-filled atmosphere of

Marmion. He lifted his eyes to the West with longing too great for

words, eager to see the great peaks peer above the plain's rim.

The night was far spent when the brakeman called the name of the little

town in which he had left his outfit, and he rose up stiff and sore from

his cramped position.

Kintuck, restless from long confinement in a stall, chuckled with joy

when his master entered and called to him. It was still dark, but that

mattered little to such as Mose. He flung the saddle on and cinched it

tight. He rolled his extra clothes in his blanket and tied it behind

his saddle, and then, with one hand on his pommel, he said to the

hostler, moved by a bitter recklessness of mind:

"Well, that squares us, stranger. If anybody asks you which-a-way 'Black

Mose' rode jist say ye didn't notice." A leap, a rush of hoofs, and the

darkness had eaten both horse and man.

It was a long ride, and as he rode the dawn came over the plains, swift,

silent, majestic with color. His blood warmed in his limbs and his head

lifted. He was at home in the wild once more, all ties were cut between

him and the East. Mary was not for him. Maud had grown indifferent, Jack

would never come West, and Mr. and Mrs. Burns were merely cheery

memories. There was nothing now to look backward upon--nothing to check

his career as hunter and explorer. All that he had done up to this

moment was but careful preparation for great journeys. He resolved to

fling himself into unknown trails--to know the mountains as no other man

knew them.

Again he rode down into the valley of the Arickaree, and as the boys

came rolling out with cordial shouts of welcome, his eyes smarted a

little. He slipped from his horse and shook hands all around, and ended

by snatching Pink and pressing her soft cheek against his

lips--something he had never done before.

They bustled to get his breakfast, while Reynolds took care of Kintuck.

Cora, blushing prettily as she set the table for him, said: "We're

mighty glad to see you back, Mose. Daddy said you'd never turn up again,

but I held out you would."

"Oh, I couldn't stay away from Kintuck and little Pink," he replied.

"How'd they feed ye back there?" inquired Mrs. Reynolds.

"Oh, fair to middlin'--but, of course, they couldn't cook like Ma

Reynolds."

"Oh, you go hark!" cried Mrs. Reynolds, vastly delighted. "They've got

so much more to do with."

It was good to sit there in the familiar kitchen and watch these simple,

hearty women working with joy to feed him. His heart was very tender,

and he answered most of their questions with unusual spirit, fending

off, however, any reference to old sweethearts. His talk was all of

absorbing interest to the women. They were hungry to know how people

were living and dressing back there. It was so sweet and fine to be able

to return to the East--and Mrs. Reynolds hoped to do so before she died.

Cora drew from Mose the information that the lawns were beautifully

green in Marmion, and that all kinds of flowers were in blossom, and

that the birds were singing in the maples. Even his meagre descriptions

brought back to the girl the green freshness of June.

"Oh, I'm so tired of these bare hills," she said wistfully. "I wish I

could go East again, back to our old home in Missouri."

"I wish now I'd stayed here and sent you," said Mose.

She turned in surprise. "Why so, Mose?"

"Because I had so little fun out of it, while to you it would have been

a picnic."

"You're mighty good, Mose," was all she said in reply, but her eyes

lingered upon his face, which seemed handsomer than ever before, for it

was softened by his love, his good friends, and the cheerful home.

In the days that followed Cora took on new youth and beauty. Her head

lifted, and the swell of her bosom had more of pride and grace than ever

before in her life. She no longer shrank from the gaze of men, even of

strangers, for Mose seemed her lover and protector. Before his visit to

the East she had doubted, but now she let her starved heart feed on

dreams of him.

Mose had little time to give to her, for (at his own request) Reynolds

was making the highest use of his power. "I want to earn every cent I

can for the next three months," Mose explained, and he often did double

duty. He was very expert now with the rope and could throw and tie a

steer with the best of the men. His muscles seemed never to tire nor his

nerves to fail him. Rain, all-night rides, sleeping on the ground

beneath frosty blankets, nothing seemed to trouble him. He was never

cheery, but he was never sullen.

One day in November he rode up to the home ranch leading a mule with a

pack saddle fully rigged.

"What are you doing with that mule?" asked Reynolds as he came out of

the house, followed by Pink.

"I'm going to pack him."

"Pack him? What do you mean?"

"I'm going to hit 'the long trail.'"

Cora came hurrying forward. "Good evening, Mose."

"Good evening, Cory. How's my little Pink?"

"What did you say about hittin' the trail, Mose?"

"Now I reckon you'll give an account of yourself," said Reynolds with a

wink.

Mose was anxious to avoid an emotional moment; he cautiously replied:

"Oh, I'm off on a little hunting excursion; don't get excited about it.

I'm hungry as a coyote; can I eat?"

Cora was silenced but not convinced, and after supper, when the old

people withdrew from the kitchen, she returned to the subject again.

"How long are you going to be gone this time?"

Mose saw the storm coming, but would not lie to avoid it.

"I don't know; mebbe all winter."

She dropped into a chair facing him, white and still. When she spoke her

voice was a wail. "O Mose! I can't live here all winter without you."

"Oh, yes, you can; you've got Pink and the old folks."

"But I want _you_! I'll die here without you, Mose. I can't endure it."

His face darkened. "You'd better forget me; I'm a hoodoo, Cory; nobody

is ever in luck when I'm around. I make everybody miserable."

"I was never really happy till you come," she softly replied.

"There are a lot of better men than I am jest a-hone'in to marry you,"

he interrupted her to say.

"I don't want them--I don't want anybody but you, and now you go off and

leave me----"

The situation was beyond any subtlety of the man, and he sat in silence

while she wept. When he could command himself he said:

"I'm mighty sorry, Cory, but I reckon the best way out of it is to just

take myself off in the hills where I can't interfere with any one's fun

but my own. Seems to me I'm fated to make trouble all along the line,

and I'm going to pull out where there's nobody but wolves and grizzlies,

and fight it out with them."

She was filled with a new terror: "What do you mean? I don't believe you

intend to come back at all!" She looked at him piteously, the tears on

her cheeks.

"Oh, yes, I'll round the circle some time."

She flung herself down on the chair arm and sobbed unrestrainedly.

"Don't go--please!"

Mose felt a sudden touch of the same disgust which came upon him in the

presence of his father's enforcing affection. He arose. "Now, Cory, see

here; don't you waste any time on me. I'm no good under the sun. I like

you and I like Pinkie, but I don't want you to cry over me. I ain't

worth it. Now that's the God's truth. I'm a black hoodoo, and you'll

never prosper till I skip; I'm not fit to marry any woman."

Singularly enough, this gave the girl almost instant comfort, and she

lifted her head and dried her eyes, and before he left she smiled a

little, though her face was haggard and tear stained.

Mose was up early and had his packs ready and Kintuck saddled when Mrs.

Reynolds called him to breakfast. Cora's pale face and piteous eyes

moved him more deeply than her sobbing the night before, but there was a

certain inexorable fixedness in his resolution, and he did not falter.

At bottom the deciding cause was Mary. She had passed out of his life,

but no other woman could take her place--therefore he was ready to cut

loose from all things feminine.

"Well, Mose, I'm sorry to see you go, I certainly am so," said Reynolds.

"_But_, you ah you' own master. All I can say is, this old ranch is

open to you, and shall be so long as we stay hyer--though I am mighty

uncertain how long we shall be able to hold out agin this new land-boom.

You had better not stay away too long, or you may miss us. I reckon we

ah all to be driven to the mountains very soon."

"I may be back in the spring. I'm likely to need money, and be obliged

to come back to you for a job."

On this tiny crumb of comfort Cora's hungry heart seized greedily. The

little pink-cheeked one helped out the sad meal. She knew nothing of the

long trail upon which her hero was about to set foot, and took

possession of the conversation by telling of a little antelope which

one of the cowboys had brought her.

The mule was packed and Mose was about to say good-by. The sun was still

low in the eastern sky. Frost was on the grass, but the air was crisp

and pleasant. All the family stood beside him as he packed his outfit on

the mule and threw over it the diamond hitch. As he straightened up he

turned to the waiting ones and said: "Do you see that gap in the range?"

They all looked where he pointed. Down in the West, but lighted into

unearthly splendor by the morning light, arose the great range of snowy

peaks. In the midst of this impassable wall a purple notch could be

seen.

"Ever sence I've been here," said Mose, with singular emotion, "I've

looked away at that range and I've been waiting my chance to see what

that cañon is like. There runs my trail--good-by."

He shook hands hastily with Cora, heartily with Mrs. Reynolds, and

kissed Pink, who said: "Bring me a little bear or a fox."

"All right, honey, you shall have a grizzly."

He swung into the saddle. "Here I hit the trail for yon blue notch and

the land where the sun goes down. So long."

"Take care o' yourself, boy."

"Come back soon," called Cora, and covered her face with her shawl in a

world-old gesture of grief.

In the days that followed she thought of him as she saw him last, a

minute fleck on the plain. She thought of him when the rains fell, and

prayed that he might not fall ill of fever or be whelmed by a stream. He

seemed so little and weak when measured against that mighty and

merciless wall of snow. Then when the cold white storms came and the

plain was hid in the fury of wind and sleet, she shuddered and thought

of him camped beside a rock, cold and hungry. She thought of him lying

with a broken leg, helpless, while his faithful beasts pawed the ground

and whinnied their distress. She spoke of these things once or twice,

but her father merely smiled.

"Mose can take care of himself, daughter, don't you worry."

Months passed before they had a letter from him, and when it came it

bore the postmark of Durango.

"DEAR FRIENDS: I should a-written before, but the fact is I

hate to write and then I've been on the move all the time. I

struck through the gap and angled down to Taos, a Pueblo

Indian town, where I stayed for a while--then went on down

the Valley to Sante Fee. Then I hunted up Delmar. He was

glad to see me, but he looks old. He had a hell of a time

after I left. It wasn't the way the papers had it--but he won

out all right. He sold his sheep and quit. He said he got

tired of shooting men. I stayed with him--he's got a nice

family--two girls--and then I struck out into the Pueblo

country. These little brown chaps interest me but they're a

different breed o' cats from the Ogallalahs. Everybody talks

about the Snake Dance at Moki, so I'm angling out that

way. I'm going to do a little cow punchin' for a man in

Apache County and go on to the Dance. I'm going through the

Navajoe reservation. I stand in with them. They've heard of

me some way--through the Utes I reckon."

The accounts of the Snake Dance contained mention of "Black Mose," who

kept a band of toughs from interfering with the dance. His wonderful

marksmanship was spoken of. He did not write till he reached Flagstaff.

His letter was very brief. "I'm going into the Grand Cañon for a few

days, then I go to work on a ranch south of here for the winter. In the

spring I'm going over the range into California."

When they heard of him next he was deputy marshal of a mining town, and

the Denver papers contained long despatches about his work in clearing

the town of desperadoes. After that they lost track of him

altogether--but Cora never gave him up. "He'll round the big circle one

o' these days--and when he does he'll find us all waiting, won't he,

pet?" and she drew little Pink close to her hungry heart.

PART III

CHAPTER XV

THE EAGLE COMPLETES HIS CIRCLE

All days were Sunday in the great mining camp of Wagon Wheel, so far as

legal enactment ran, but on Saturday night, in following ancient habit,

the men came out of their prospect holes on the high, grassy hills, or

threw down the pick in their "overland tunnels," or deep shafts and

rabbitlike burrows, and came to camp to buy provisions, to get their

mail, and to look upon, if not to share, the vice and tumult of the

town.

The streets were filled from curb to curb with thousands of men in

mud-stained coats and stout-laced boots. They stood in the gutters and

in the middle of the street to talk (in subdued voices) of their claims.

There was little noise. The slowly-moving streams of shoppers or

amusement seekers gave out no sudden shouting. A deep murmur filled the

air, but no angry curse was heard, no whooping. In a land where the

revolver is readier than the fist men are wary of quarrel, careful of

abuse, and studiously regardful of others.

There were those who sought vice, and it was easily found. The saloons

were packed with thirsty souls, and from every third door issued the

click of dice and whiz of whirling balls in games of chance.

Every hotel barroom swarmed with persuasive salesmen bearing lumps of

ore with which to entice unwary capital. All the talk was of

"pay-streaks," "leads," "float," "whins," and "up-raises," while in the

midst of it, battling to save souls, the zealous Salvation Army band

paraded to and fro with frenzied beating of drums. Around and through

all this, listening with confused ears, gazing with wide, solemn eyes,

were hundreds of young men from the middle East, farmers' sons, cowboys,

mountaineers, and miners. To them it was an awesome city, this lurid

camp, a wonder and an allurement to dissipation.

To Mose, fresh from the long trail, it was irritating and wearying. He

stood at the door of a saloon, superbly unconscious of his physical

beauty, a somber dream in his eyes, a statuesque quality in his pose. He

wore the wide hat of the West, but his neat, dark coat, though badly

wrinkled, was well cut, and his crimson tie and dark blue shirt were

handsomely decorative. His face was older, sterner, and sadder than

when he faced Mary three years before. No trace of boyhood was in his

manner. Seven years of life on the long trail and among the mountain

peaks had taught him silence, self-restraint, and had also deepened his

native melancholy. He had ridden into Wagon Wheel from the West, eager

to see the great mining camp whose fame had filled the world.

As he stood so, with the light of the setting sun in his face, the

melancholy of a tiger in his eyes, a woman in an open barouche rode by.

Her roving glance lighted upon his figure and rested there. "Wait!" she

called to her driver, and from the shadow of her silken parasol she

studied the young man's absorbed and motionless figure. He on his part

perceived only a handsomely dressed woman looking out over the crowd.

The carriage interested him more than the woman. It was a magnificent

vehicle, the finest he had ever seen, and he wondered how it happened to

be there on the mountain top.

A small man with a large head stepped from the crowd and greeted the

woman with a military salute. In answer to a question, the small man

turned and glanced toward Mose. The woman bowed and drove on, and Mose

walked slowly up the street, lonely and irresolute. At the door of a

gambling house he halted and looked in. A young lad and an old man were

seated together at a roulette table, and around them a ring of excited

and amused spectators stood. Mose entered and took a place in the

circle. The boy wore a look of excitement quite painful to see, and he

placed his red and white chips with nervous, blundering, and ineffectual

gestures, whereas the older man smiled benignly over his glasses and

placed his single dollar chip each time with humorous decision. Each

time he won. "This is for a new hat," he said, and the next time, "This

is for a box at the theater." The boy, with his gains in the circle of

his left arm, was desperately absorbed. No smile, no jest was possible

to him.

Mose felt a hand on his shoulder, and turning, found himself face to

face with the small man who had touched his hat to the woman in the

carriage. The stranger's countenance was stern in its outlines, and his

military cut of beard added to his grimness, but his eyes were

surrounded by fine lines of good humour.

"Stranger, I'd like a word with you."

Mose followed him to a corner, supposing him to be a man with mines to

sell, or possibly a confidence man.

"Stranger, where you from?"

"From the Snake country," replied Mose.

"What's your little game here?"

Mose was angered at his tone. "None of your business."

The older man flushed, and the laugh went out of his eyes. "I'll make it

my business," he said grimly. "I've seen you somewhere before, but I

can't place you. You want to get out o' town to-night; you're here for

no man's good--you've got a 'graft.'"

Mose struck him with the flat of his left hand, and, swift as a

rattlesnake's stroke, covered him with his revolver. "Wait right where

you are," he said, and the man became rigid. "I came here as peaceable

as any man," Mose went on, "but I don't intend to be ridden out of town

by a jackass like you."

The other man remained calm. "If you'll kindly let me unbutton my coat,

I'll show you my star; I'm the city marshal."

"Be quiet," commanded Mose; "put up your hands!"

Mose was aware of an outcry, then a silence, then a rush.

From beneath his coat, quick as a flash of light from a mirror, he drew

a second revolver. His eyes flashed around the room. For a moment all

was silent, then a voice called, "What's all this, Haney?"

"Keep them quiet," said Mose, still menacing the officer.

"Boys, keep back," pleaded the marshal.

"The man that starts this ball rolling will be sorry," said Mose,

searching the crowd with sinister eyes. "If you're the marshal, order

these men back to the other end of the room."

"Boys, get back," commanded the marshal. With shuffling feet the crowd

retreated. "Shut the door, somebody, and keep the crowd out."

The doors were shut, and the room became as silent as a tomb.

"Now," said Mose, "is it war or peace?"

"Peace," said the marshal.

"All right." Mose dropped the point of his revolver.

The marshal breathed easier. "Stranger, you're a little the swiftest man

I've met since harvest; would you mind telling me your name?"

"Not a bit. My friends call me Mose Harding."

"'Black Mose'!" exclaimed the marshal, and a mutter of low words and a

laugh broke from the listening crowd. Haney reached out his hand. "I

hope you won't lay it up against me." Mose shook his hand and the

marshal went on: "To tell the honest truth, I thought you were one of

Lightfoot's gang. I couldn't place you. Of course I see now--I have your

picture at the office--the drinks are on me." He turned with a smile to

the crowd: "Come, boys--irrigate and get done with it. It's a horse on

me, sure."

Taking the mildest liquor at the bar, Mose drank to further friendly

relations, while the marshal continued to apologize. "You see, we've

been overrun with 'rollers' and 'skin-game' men, and lately three

expresses have been held up by Lightfoot's gang, and so I've been facing

up every suspicious immigrant. I've had to do it--in your case I was too

brash--I'll admit that--but come, let's get away from the mob. Come over

to my office, I want to talk with you."

Mose was glad to escape the curious eyes of the throng. While his life

was in the balance, he saw and heard everything hostile, nothing

more--now, he perceived the crowd to be disgustingly inquisitive. Their

winks, and grins, and muttered words annoyed him.

"Open the door--much obliged, Kelly," said the marshal to the man who

kept the door. Kelly was a powerfully built man, dressed like a miner,

in broad hat, loose gray shirt, and laced boots, and Mose admiringly

studied him.

"This is not 'Rocky Mountain Kelly'?" he asked.

Kelly smiled. "The same; 'Old Man Kelly' they call me now."

Mose put out his hand. "I'm glad to know ye. I've heard Tom Gavin speak

of you."

Kelly shook heartily. "Oh! do ye know Tom? He's a rare lump of a b'y, is

Tom. We've seen great times together on the plains and on the hills.

It's all gone now. It's tame as a garden since the buffalo went; they've

made it another world, b'y."

"Come along, Kelly, and we'll have it out at my office."

As the three went out into the street they confronted a close-packed

throng. The word had passed along that the marshal was being "done," and

now, singularly silent, the miners waited the opening of the door.

The marshal called from the doorstep: "It's all right. Don't block the

street. Break away, boys, break away." The crowd opened to let them

pass, fixing curious eyes upon Mose.

As the three men crossed the street the woman in the carriage came

driving slowly along. Kelly and the marshal saluted gallantly, but Mose

did not even bow.

She leaned from her carriage and called:

"What's that I hear, marshal, about your getting shot?"

"All a mistake, Madam. I thought I recognized this young man and was

politely ordering him out of town when he pulled his gun and nailed me

to the cross."

The woman turned a smiling face toward Mose. "He must be a wonder.

Introduce me, please."

"Certain sure! This is Mrs. Raimon, Mose; 'Princess Raimon,' this is my

friend, Mose Harding, otherwise known as 'Black Mose.'"

"Black Mose!" she cried; "are _you_ that terrible man?"

She reached out her little gloved hand, and as Mose took it her eyes

searched his face. "I think we are going to be friends." Her voice was

affectedly musical as she added: "Come and see me, won't you?"

She did not wait for his reply, but drove on with a sudden assumption of

reserve which became her very well.

The three men walked on in silence. At last, with a curious look at

Kelly, the marshal said, "Young man, you're in luck. Anything you want

in town is yours now. How about it, Kelly?"

"That's the thrue word of it."

"What do you mean?" asked Mose.

"Just this--what the princess asks for she generally gets. She's taken a

fancy to you, and if you're keen as I think you are, you'll call on her

without much delay."

"Who is she? How does she happen to be here?"

"She came out here with her husband--and stays for love of men and

mines, I reckon. Anyhow, she always has a man hangin' on, and has

managed to secure some of the best mines in the camp. She works 'em,

too. She's a pretty high roller, as they call 'em back in the States,

but she helps the poor, and pays her debts like a man, and it's no call

o' mine to pass judgment on her."

The marshal's office was an old log shanty, one of the first to be built

on the trail, and passing through the big front room in which two or

three men were lounging, the marshal led his guests to his inner office

and sleeping room. A fire was blazing in a big stone fireplace. Skins

and dingy blankets were scattered about, and on the mantle stood a

bottle and some dirty glasses.

"Sit down, gentlemen," said the marshal, "and have some liquor."

After they were served and cigars lighted, the marshal began:

"Mose, I want you to serve as my deputy."

Mose was taken by surprise and did not speak for a few moments. The

marshal went on:

"I don't know that you're after a job, but I'm sure I need you. There's

no use hemming and hawing--I've made a cussed fool of myself this

evenin', and the boys are just about going to drink up my salary for me

this coming week. I can't afford _not_ to have you my deputy because you

unlimbered your gun a grain of a second before me--beat me at my own

trick. I need you--now what do you say?"

Mose took time to reply. "I sure need a job for the winter," he

admitted, "but I don't believe I want to do this."

The marshal urged him to accept. "I'll call in the newspaper men and let

them tell the whole story of your life, and of our little jamboree

to-day--they'll fix up a yarn that'll paralyze the hold-up gang.

Together we'll swoop down on the town. I've been planning a clean-out

for some weeks, and I need you to help me turn 'em loose."

Mose arose. "I guess not; I'm trying to keep clear of gun-play these

days. I've never hunted that kind of thing, and I won't start in on a

game that's sure to give me trouble."

The marshal argued. "Set down; listen; that's the point exactly. The

minute the boys know who you are we won't _need_ to shoot. That's the

reason I want you--the reporters will prepare the way. Wherever we go

the 'bad men' will scatter."

But Mose was inexorable. "No, I can't do it. I took just such a job

once--I don't want another."

Haney was deeply disappointed, but shook hands pleasantly. "Well,

good-night; drop in any time."

Mose went out into the street once more. He was hungry, and so turned in

at the principal hotel in the city for a "good square meal." An Italian

playing the violin and his boy accompanying him on the harp, made up a

little orchestra. Some palms in pots, six mirrors set between the

windows, together with tall, very new, oak chairs gave the dining room a

magnificence which abashed the bold heart of the trailer for a moment.

However, his was not a nature to show timidity, and taking a seat he

calmly spread his damp napkin on his knee and gave his order to the

colored waiter (the Palace Hotel had the only two colored waiters in

Wagon Wheel) with such grace as he could command after long years upon

the trail.

As he lifted his eyes he became aware of "the princess" seated at

another table and facing him. She seemed older than when he saw her in

the carriage. Her face was high-colored, and her hair a red-brown. Her

eyes were half closed, and her mouth drooped at the corners. Her chin,

supported on her left hand, glittering with jewels, was pushed forward

aggressively, and she listened with indifference to the talk of her

companion, a dark, smooth-featured man, with a bitter and menacing

smile.

Mose was oppressed by her glance. She seemed to be looking at him from

the shadow as a tigress might glare from her den, and he ate awkwardly,

and his food tasted dry and bitter. Ultimately he became angry. Why

should this woman, or any woman, stare at him like that? He would have

understood her better had she smiled at him--he was not without

experience of that sort, but this unwavering glance puzzled and annoyed

him.

Putting her companion aside with a single gesture, the princess arose

and came over to Mose's table and reached her hand to him. She smiled

radiantly of a sudden, and said, "How do you do, Mr. Harding; I didn't

recognize you at first."

Mose took her hand but did not invite her to join him. However, she

needed no invitation, and taking a seat opposite, leaned her elbows on

the table and looked at him with eyes more inscrutable than

ever--despite their nearness. They were a mottled yellow and brown, he

noticed, unusual and interesting eyes, but by contrast with the clear

deeps of Mary's eyes they seemed like those of some beautiful wild

beast. He could not penetrate a thousandth part of a hair line beyond

the exterior shine of her glance. The woman's soul was in the

unfathomable shadow beneath.

"I know all about you," she said. "I read a long article about you in

the papers some months ago. You stood off a lot of bogus game wardens

who were going to butcher some Shoshonees. I liked that. The article

said you killed a couple of them. I hope you did."

Mose was very short. "I don't think any of them died at my hands, but

they deserved it, sure enough."

She smiled again. "After seeing you on the street, I went home and

looked up that slip--I saved it, you see. I've wanted to see you for a

long time. You've had a wonderful life for one so young. This article

raked up a whole lot of stuff about you--said you were the son of a

preacher--is that so?"

"Yes, that part of it was true."

"Same old story, isn't it? I'm the daughter of a college

professor--sectarian college at that." She smiled a moment, then became

as suddenly grave. "I like men. I like men who face danger and think

nothing of it. The article said you came West when a mere boy and got

mixed up in some funny business on the plains and had to take a sneak to

the mountains. What have you been doing since? I wish you'd tell me the

whole story. Come to my house; it's just around the corner."

As she talked, her voice became more subtly pleasing, and the lines of

her mouth took on a touch of girlish grace.

"I haven't time to do that," Mose said, "and besides, my story don't

amount to much. You don't want to believe all they say of me. I've just

knocked around a little like a thousand other fellows, that's all. I

pull out to-night. I'm looking up an old friend down here on a ranch."

She saw her mistake. "All right," she said, and smiled radiantly. "But

come some other time, won't you?" She was so winning, so frank and

kindly that Mose experienced a sudden revulsion of feeling. A powerful

charm came from her superb physique, her radiant color, and from her

beautiful, flexile lips and sound white teeth. He hesitated, and she

pressed her advantage.

"You needn't be afraid of me. The boys often drop in to see me of an

evening. If I can be of any use to you, let me know. I'll tell you what

you do. You take supper with me here to-morrow night. What say?"

Mose looked across at the scowling face of the woman's companion and

said hesitatingly:

"Well, I'll see. If I have time--maybe I will."

She smiled again and impulsively reached her hand to him, and as he took

it he was nearly won by her friendliness. This she did not know, and he

was able to go out into the street alone. He could not but observe that

the attendants treated him with added respect by reason of his

acquaintance with the wealthiest and most powerful woman in the camp.

She had made his loneliness very keen and hard to bear.

As he walked down the street he thought of Mary--she seemed to be a

sister to the distant, calm and glorious moon just launching into the

sky above the serrate wall of snowy peaks to the East. There was a

powerful appeal in the vivid and changeful woman he had just met, for

her like had never touched his life before.

As he climbed back up the hill toward the corral where he had left his

horse, he was filled with a wordless disgust of the town and its people.

The night was still and cool, almost frosty. The air so clear and so

rare filled his lungs with wholesomely sweet and reanimating breath. His

head cleared, and his heart grew regular in its beating. The moon was

sailing in mid-ocean, between the Great Divide and the Christo Range,

cold and sharp of outline as a boat of silver. Lizard Head to the south

loomed up ethereal as a cloud, so high it seemed to crash among the

stars. The youth drew a deep breath and said: "To hell with the town."

Kintuck whinnied caressingly as he heard his master's voice. After

putting some grain before the horse, Mose rolled himself in his blanket

and went to sleep with only a passing thought of the princess, her

luxurious home, and her radiant and inscrutable personality.

CHAPTER XVI

AGAIN ON THE ROUND-UP

It was good to hear again the bawling of the bulls and the shouts of the

cowboys, and to see the swirling herd and the flying, guarding, checking

horsemen. Mose, wearied, weather-beaten, and somber-visaged, looked down

upon the scene with musing eyes. The action was quite like that on the

Arickaree; the setting alone was different. Here the valley was a wide,

deliciously green bowl, with knobby hills, pine-covered and abrupt,

rising on all sides. Farther back great snow-covered peaks rose to

enormous heights. In the center of this superb basin the camps were

pitched, and the roping and branding went on like the action of a

prodigious drama. The sun, setting in orange-colored clouds, brought out

the velvet green of the sward with marvelous radiance. The tents gleamed

in the midst of the valley like flakes of pearl.

The heart of the wanderer warmed within him, and with a feeling that he

was almost home he called to his pack horse "Hy-ak-boy!" and started

down the hill. As he drew near the herd he noted the great changes which

had come over the cattle. They were now nearly all grades of Hereford or

Holstein. They were larger of body, heavier of limb, and less active

than the range cattle of the plains, but were sufficiently speedy to

make handling them a fine art.

As he drew near the camp a musical shout arose, and Reynolds spurred his

horse out to meet him. "It's Mose!" he shouted. "Boy, I'm glad to see

ye, I certainly am. Shake hearty. Where ye from?"

"The Wind River."

"What have you been doing up there?"

"Oh, knocking around with some Shoshones on a hunting trip."

"Well, by mighty, I certainly am glad to see ye. You look thin as a

spring steer."

"My looks don't deceive me then. My two sides are rubbin' together. How

are the folks?"

"They ah very well, thank you. Cora and Pink will certainly go plumb

crazy when they see you a-comin'."

"Where's your house?"

"Just over that divide--but slip your packs off. Old Kintuck looks well;

I knew him when you topped the hill."

"Yes, he's still with me, and considerable of a horse yet."

They drew up to the door of one of the main tents and slipped the

saddles from the weary horses.

"Do ye hobble?"

"No--they stay with me," said Mose, slapping Kintuck. "Go on, boy,

here's grass worth while for ye."

"By mighty, Mose!" said Reynolds, looking at the trailer tenderly, "it

certainly is good for sore eyes to see ye. I didn't know but you'd got

mixed up an' done for in some of them squabbles. I heard the State

authorities had gone out to round up that band of reds you was with."

"We did have one brush with the sheriff and some game wardens, but I

stood him off while my friends made tracks for the reservation. The

sheriff was for fight, but I argued him out of it. It looked like hot

weather for a while."

While they were talking the cook set up a couple of precarious benches

and laid a wide board thereon. Mose remarked it.

"A table! Seems to me that's a little hifalutin'."

"So it is, but times are changing."

"I reckon the range on the Arickaree is about wiped out."

"Yes. We had a couple of years with rain a-plenty, and that brought a

boom in settlement; everything along the river was homesteaded, and so I

retreated--the range was overstocked anyhow. This time I climbed high. I

reckon I'm all right now while I live. They can't raise co'n in this

high country, and not much of anything but grass. They won't bother us

no mo'. It's a good cattle country, but a mighty tough range to ride, as

you'll find. I thought I knew what rough riding was, but when it comes

to racin' over these granite knobs, I'm jest a little too old. I'm

getting heavy, too, you notice."

"_Grub-pile! All down for grub!_" yelled the cook, and the boys came

trooping in. They were all strangers, but not strange to Mose. They

conformed to types he already knew. Some were young lads, and the word

having passed around that "Black Mose" was in camp, they approached with

awe. The man whose sinister fame had spread throughout three States was

a very great personage to them.

"Did you come by way of Wagon Wheel?" inquired a tall youth whom the

others called "Brindle Bill."

"Yes; camped there one night."

"Ain't it a caution to yaller snakes? Must be nigh onto fifteen thousand

people there now. The hills is plumb measly with prospect holes, and

you can't look at a rock f'r less'n a thousand dollars. It shore is the

craziest town that ever went anywhere."

"Bill's got the fever," said another. "He just about wears hisself out

a-pickin' up and a-totein' 'round likely lookin' rocks. Seems like he

was lookin' fer gold mines 'stid o' cattle most of the time."

"You're just in time for the turnament, Mose."

"For the how-many?"

"The turnament and bullfight. Joe Grassie has been gettin' up a

bullfight and a kind of a show. He 'lows to bring up some regular

fighters from Mexico and have a real, sure-'nough bullfight. Then he's

offered a prize of fifty dollars for the best roper, and fifty dollars

for the best shooter."

"I didn't happen to hear of it, but I'm due to take that fifty; I need

it," said Mose.

"He 'lows to have some races--pony races and broncho busting."

"When does it come off?" asked Mose with interest.

"On the fourth."

"I'll be there."

After supper was over Reynolds said: "Are you too tired to ride over to

the ranch?"

"Oh, no! I'm all right now."

"Well, I'll just naturally throw the saddles on a couple of bronchos and

we'll go see the folks."

Mose felt a warm glow around his heart as he trotted away beside

Reynolds across the smooth sod. His affection for the Reynolds family

was scarcely second to his boyish love for Mr. and Mrs. Burns.

It was dark before they came in sight of the light in the narrow valley

of the Mink. "There's the camp," said Reynolds. "No, I didn't build it;

it's an old ranch; in fact, I bought the whole outfit."

Mrs. Reynolds had not changed at all in the three years, but Cora had

grown handsomer and seemed much less timid, though she blushed vividly

as Mose shook her hand.

"I'm glad to see you back," she said.

Moved by an unusual emotion, Mose replied: "You haven't pined away any."

"Pined!" exclaimed her mother. "Well, I should say not. You should see

her when Jim Haynes----"

"Mother!" called the girl sharply, and Pink, now a beautiful child of

eight, came opportunely into the room and drew the conversation to

herself.

As Mose, with Pink at his knee, sat watching the two women moving about

the table, a half-formed resolution arose in his brain. He was weary of

wandering, weary of loneliness. This comfortable, homely room, this

tender little form in his arms, made an appeal to him which was as

powerful as it was unexpected. He had lived so long in his blanket, with

only Kintuck for company, that at this moment it seemed as if these were

the best things to do--to stay with Reynolds, to make Cora happy, and to

rest. He had seen all phases of wild life and had carried out his plans

to see the wonders of America. He had crossed the Painted Desert and

camped beside the Colorado in the greatest cañon in the world. He had

watched the Mokis while they danced with live rattlesnakes held between

their lips. He had explored the cliff-dwellings of the Navajo country

and had looked upon the sea of peaks which tumbles away in measureless

majesty from Uncompahgre's eagle-crested dome. He had peered into the

boiling springs of the Yellowstone, and had lifted his eyes to the white

Tetons whose feet are set in a mystic lake, around which the loons laugh

all the summer long. He knew the chiefs of a dozen tribes and was a

welcome guest among them. In his own mind he was no longer young--his

youth was passing, perhaps the time had come to settle down.

Cora turned suddenly from the table, where she stood arranging the

plates and knives and forks with a pleasant bustle, and said:

"O Mose! we've got two or three letters for you. We've had 'em ever so

long--I don't suppose they will be of much good to you now. I'll get

them for you."

"They look old," he said as he took them from her hand. "They look as if

they'd been through the war." The first was from his father, the second

from Jack, and the third in a woman's hand--could only be Mary's. He

stared at it--almost afraid to open it in the presence of the family. He

read the one from his father first, because he conceived it less

important, and because he feared the other.

"MY DEAR SON: I am writing to you through Jack, although he

does not feel sure we can reach you. I want to let you know

of the death of Mrs. Excell. She died very suddenly of acute

pneumonia. She was always careless of her footwear and went

out in the snow to hang out some linen without her rubber

shoes. We did everything that could be done but she only

lived six days after the exposure. Life is very hard for me

now. I write also to say that as I am now alone and in bad

health I shall accept a call to Sweetwater Springs, Colorado,

for two reasons. One is that my health may be regained, and

for the reason, also, my dear son, that I may be nearer

you. If this reaches you and you can come to see me I hope

you will do so. I am lonely now and I long for you. The

parish is small and the pay meager, but that will not matter

if I can see you occasionally. Maud and her little family

are well. I go to my new church in April.

"Your father,

"SAMUEL EXCELL."

For a moment this letter made Mose feel his father's loneliness, and had

he not held in his hand two other and more important letters he would

have replied with greater tenderness than ever before in his life.

"Well, Mose, set up," said Mrs. Reynolds; "letters'll keep."

He was distracted all through the meal in spite of the incessant

questioning of his good friends. They were determined to uncover every

act of his long years of wandering.

"Yes," he said, "I've been hungry and cold, but I always looked after my

horse, and so, when I struck a cow country I could whirl in and earn

some money. It don't take much to keep me when I'm on the trail."

"What's the good of seein' so much?" asked Mrs. Reynolds.

He smiled a slow, musing smile. "Oh, I don't know. The more you see the

more you want to see. Just now I feel like taking a little rest."

Cora smiled at him. "I wish you would. You look like a starved cat--you

ought'o let us feed you up for a while."

"Spoil me for the trail," he said, but his eyes conveyed a message of

gratitude for her sympathy, and she flushed again.

After supper Mrs. Reynolds said: "Now if you want to read your letters

by yourself, you can." She opened a door and he looked in.

"A bed! I haven't slept in a bed for two years."

"Well, it won't kill ye, not for one night, I reckon," she said.

He looked around the little room, at the dainty lace curtains tied with

little bows of ribbon, at the pictures and lambrequins, and it filled

his heart with a sudden stress of longing. It made him remember the

pretty parlor in which Mary had received him four years before, and he

opened her letter with a tremor in his hands. It was dated the Christmas

day of the year of his visit; it was more than three years belated, but

he read it as if it were written the day before, and it moved him quite

as powerfully.

"MY DEAR FRIEND: The impulse to write to you has grown

stronger day by day since you left. Your wonderful life and

your words appealed to my imagination with such power that I

have been unable to put them out of my mind. Without

intending to do so you have filled me with a great desire to

see the West which is able to make you forget your family and

friends and calls you on long journeys. I have sung for you

every Sunday as I promised to do. Your friend Jack called to

see me last night and we had a long talk about you. He is to

write you also and gave me your probable address. You said

you were not a good writer but I wish you would let me know

where you are and what you are doing, for I feel a deep

interest in you, although I can not make myself believe that

you are not the Harold Excell I saw in Rock River. In reality

you are not he, any more than I am the little prig who sang

those songs to save your soul! However, I was not so bad as

I seemed even then, for I wanted you to admire my voice.

"I hope this Christmas day finds you in a warm and sheltered

place. It would be a great comfort to me if I could know you

were not cold and hungry. Jack brought me a beautiful

present--a set of George Eliot. I ought not to have accepted

it but he seemed so sure it would please me I had not the

heart to refuse. I would send something to you only I can't

feel sure of reaching you, and neither does Jack.

"It may be of interest to you to know that Mr. King the

pastor, in whose church I sang, has resigned his pastorate to

go abroad for a year. His successor is a man with a family--I

don't see how he will manage to live on the salary. Mr. King

had independent means and was a bachelor."

Right there the youth stopped. Something told him that he had reached

the heart of the woman's message. King had resigned to go abroad. Why?

The tone of the letter was studiedly cold. Why? There were a few more

lines to say that Jack was coming in to eat Christmas dinner with her

and that she would sing If I Were a Voice. He was not super-subtle and

yet something in this letter made his throat fill and his head a little

_dizzy_. If it did not mean that she had broken with King, then truth

could not be conveyed in lines of black ink.

He tore open Jack's letter. It was short and to the point.

"DEAR HARRY: If you can get away come back to Marmion and see

Mary again. She wants to see you _bad_. I don't know what has

happened but I _think_ she has given King his walking

papers--and all on account of you. _I know it._ It can't be

anybody else. She talked of you the entire evening. O man!

but she was beautiful. She sang for me but her mind was away

in the mountains. I could see that. It was her interest in

you made her so nice to me. Now that's the God's truth. Come

back and get her.

"Yours in haste,

"JACK."

Mose tingled with the sudden joy of it. Jack's letter, so unlike his

usual calm, was convincing. He sprang up, a smile on his face, his eyes

shining with happiness, his blood surging through his heart, and then he

remembered the letters were three years old! The gray cloud settled down

upon him--his limbs grew cold, and the light went out of his eyes.

Three years! While he was camping in the Grand Cañon with the lizards

and skunks she was waiting to hear from him. While he sat in the shade

of the walls of Walpi, surrounded by hungry dogs and pot-bellied

children, she was singing for him and wondering whether her letter had

ever reached him. Three years! A thousand things could happen in three

years. She may have died!--a cold shudder touched him--she might tire of

waiting and marry some one else--or she might have gone away to the

East, that unknown and dangerous jungle of cities.

He sprang up again. "I will go to see her!" he said to himself. Then he

remembered. His horse was worn, he had no money and no suitable

clothing. Then he thought: "I will write." It did not occur to him to

telegraph, for he had never done such a thing in his life.

He walked out into the sitting-room, his letters in his hands.

"How far do you call it to Wagon Wheel?"

"About thirty miles, and all up hill."

"Will you loan me one of your bronchos?"

"Certain sure, my boy."

"I want to ride up there and send a couple of letters."

"Better wait till morning," said Reynolds. "Your letters have waited

three years--I reckon they'll keep over night."

"That's so," said Mose with a smile.

Sleep came to him swiftly, in spite of his letters, for he was very

tired, but he found the room close and oppressive when he arose in the

morning. The women were already preparing breakfast and Reynolds sat by

the fire pulling on his boots.

As they were walking out to the barn Reynolds plucked him by the sleeve

and said:

"I reckon I've lost my chance to kill Craig."

"Why?"

"A Mexican took the job off my hands." His face expressed a sort of

gloomy dissatisfaction. Then without looking at Mose he went on: "That's

one reason daughter looks so pert. She's free of that skunk's clutches

now--and can hold up her head. She's free to marry a decent man."

Mose was silent. Mary's letter had thrust itself between his lips and

Cora's shapely head, and all thought of marriage with her was gone.

As they galloped up to the camp the boys were at work finishing the last

bunch of calves. The camp wagon was packed and ready to start across the

divide, but the cook flourished a newspaper and came running up.

"Here you are, posted like a circus."

Mose took the paper, and on the front page read in big letters:

BLACK MOSE!

Mysterious as Ever.

The Celebrated Dead Shot.

Visits Wagon Wheel, and Swiftly Disappears.

"Damn 'em!" said Mose, "can't they let me alone? Seems like they can't

rest till they crowd me into trouble."

CHAPTER XVII

MOSE RETURNS TO WAGON WHEEL

As Mose threw the rope over the bald-faced pinto the boys all chuckled

and drew near, for they knew the character of the horse. Reynolds had

said, "Take your pick o' the bunch," and Mose, with the eye of a

horseman, had roped the pinto because of his size, depth of chest, and

splendid limbs.

As he was leading his captive out of the bunch the cook said to Mose,

"Better not take that pinto; he's mean as a hornet."

"Is his wind all right?"

"He's one o' the best horses on the range, all right, but he shore is

mean all the way through. He always pitches at the start like he was

fair crazy."

"Does he go when he gets through?" asked Mose of Reynolds.

"Yes, he's a good traveler."

"I don't want to be delayed, that's all. If he'll go, I'll stay by him."

The boys nudged elbows while Mose threw the saddle on the cringing

brute and cinched it till the pinto, full of suffering, drew great,

quiet gulps of breath and groaned. Swift, practiced, relentless, Mose

dragged at the latigo till the wide hair web embedded itself in the

pony's hide. Having coiled the rope neatly out of the way, while the

broncho stood with drooping head but with a dull red flame in his eyes,

Mose flung the rein over the pony's head. Then pinto woke up. With a

mighty sidewise bound he attempted to leave his rider, but Mose,

studiedly imperturbable, with left hand holding the reins and right hand

grasping the pommel, went with him as if that were the ordinary way of

mounting. Immense power was in the stiff-legged leaping of the beast.

His body seemed a ball of coiled steel springs. His "watch-eye" rolled

in frenzy. It seemed he wished to beat his head against his rider's face

and kill him. He rushed away with a rearing, jerking motion, in a series

of jarring bounds, snapping his rider like the lash of a whip, then

stopped suddenly, poised on his fore feet, with devilish intent to

discharge Mose over his head. With the spurs set deep into the quivering

painted hide of his mount Mose began plying the quirt like a flail. The

boys cheered and yelled with delight. It was one of their chief

recreations, this battle with a pitching broncho.

Suddenly the desperate beast paused and, rearing recklessly high in the

air, fell backward hoping to crush his rider under his saddle. In the

instant, while he towered, poised in the air, Mose shook his right foot

free of the stirrup and swung to the left and alighted on his feet,

while the fallen horse, stunned by his own fall, lay for an instant,

groaning and coughing. Under the sting of the quirt, he scrambled to his

feet only to find his inexorable rider again on his back, with merciless

spurs set deep in the quick of his quivering sides. With a despairing

squeal he set off in a low, swift, sidewise gallop, and for nearly an

hour drummed along the trail, up hill and down, the foam mingling with

the yellow dust on his heaving flanks.