A week later Madison Wayne was seated alone in his cabin. His supper
table had just been cleared by his Chinese coolie, as it was getting
late, and the setting sun, which for half an hour had been persistently
making a vivid beacon of his windows for the benefit of wayfarers along
the river bank, had at last sunk behind the cottonwoods. His head was
resting on his hand; the book he had been reading when the light faded
was lying open on the table before him. In this attitude he became aware
of a hesitating step on the gravel outside his open door. He had been
so absorbed that the approach of any figure along the only highway--the
river bank--had escaped his observation. Looking up, he discovered
that Mr. Alexander McGee was standing in the doorway, his hand resting
lightly on the jamb. A sudden color suffused Wayne's cheek; his hand
reached for his book, which he drew towards him hurriedly, yet half
automatically, as he might have grasped some defensive weapon.
The Bell-ringer of Angel's noticed the act, but not the blush, and
nodded approvingly. “Don't let me disturb ye. I was only meanderin'
by and reckoned I'd say 'How do?' in passin'.” He leaned gently back
against the door-post, to do which comfortably he was first obliged to
shift the revolver on his hip. The sight of the weapon brought a slight
contraction to the brows of Wayne, but he gravely said: “Won't you come
in?”
“It ain't your prayin' time?” said McGee politely.
“No.”
“Nor you ain't gettin' up lessons outer the Book?” he continued
thoughtfully.
“No.”
“Cos it don't seem, so to speak, you see, the square thing to be
botherin' a man when he might be doin' suthin' else, don't you see? You
understand what I mean?”
It was his known peculiarity that he always seemed to be suffering from
an inability to lucid expression, and the fear of being misunderstood in
regard to the most patent or equally the most unimportant details of his
speech. All of which, however, was in very remarkable contrast to his
perfectly clear and penetrating eyes.
Wayne gravely assured him that he was not interrupting him in any way.
“I often thought--that is, I had an idea, you understand what I mean--of
stoppin' in passing. You and me, you see, are sorter alike; we don't
seem to jibe in with the gin'ral gait o' the camp. You understand what I
mean? We ain't in the game, eh? You see what I'm after?”
Madison Wayne glanced half mechanically at McGee's revolver. McGee's
clear eyes at once took in the glance.
“That's it! You understand? You with them books of yours, and me with
my shootin' iron--we're sort o' different from the rest, and ought to be
kinder like partners. You understand what I mean? We keep this camp in
check. We hold a full hand, and don't stand no bluffing.”
“If you mean there is some effect in Christian example and the life of a
God-fearing man”--began Madison gravely.
“That's it! God-fearin' or revolver-fearin', it amounts to the same when
you come down to the hard pan and bed-rock,” interrupted McGee. “I ain't
expectin' you to think much of my style, but I go a heap on yours, even
if I can't play your game. And I sez to my wife, 'Safie'--her that trots
around with me sometimes--I sez, 'Safie, I oughter know that man, and
shall. And I WANT YOU to know him.' Hol' on,” he added quickly, as
Madison rose with a flushed face and a perturbed gesture. “Ye don't
understand! I see wot's in your mind--don't you see? When I married
my wife and brought her down here, knowin' this yer camp, I sez: 'No
flirtin', no foolin', no philanderin' here, my dear! You're young and
don't know the ways o' men. The first man I see you talking with, I
shoot. You needn't fear, my dear, for accidents. I kin shoot all round
you, under your arm, across your shoulders, over your head and between
your fingers, my dear, and never start skin or fringe or ruffle. But I
don't miss HIM. You sorter understand what I mean,' sez I, 'so don't!' Ye
noticed how my wife is respected, Mr. Wayne? Queen Victoria sittin' on
her throne ain't in it with my Safie. But when I see YOU not herdin'
with that cattle, never liftin' your eyes to me or Safie as we pass,
never hangin' round the saloons and jokin', nor winkin', nor slingin'
muddy stories about women, but prayin' and readin' Scripter stories,
here along with your brother, I sez to myself, I sez, 'Sandy, ye kin
take off your revolver and hang up your shot gun when HE'S around. For
'twixt HIM and your wife ain't no revolver, but the fear of God and hell
and damnation and the world to come!' You understand what I mean, don't
ye? Ye sorter follow my lead, eh? Ye can see what I'm shootin' round,
don't ye? So I want you to come up neighborly like, and drop in to see
my wife.”
Madison Wayne's face became set and hard again, but he advanced towards
McGee with the book against his breast, and his finger between the
leaves. “I already know your wife, Mr. McGee! I saw her before YOU ever
met her. I was engaged to her; I loved her, and--as far as man may
love the wife of another and keep the commands of this book--I love her
still!”
To his surprise, McGee, whose calm eyes had never dimmed or blenched,
after regarding him curiously, took the volume from him, laid it on the
table, opened it, turned its leaves critically, said earnestly, “That's
the law here, is it?” and then held out his hand.
“Shake!”
Madison Wayne hesitated--and then grasped his hand.
“Ef I had known this,” continued McGee, “I reckon I wouldn't have
been so hard on Safie and so partikler. She's better than I took her
for--havin' had you for a beau! You understand what I mean. You follow
me--don't ye? I allus kinder wondered why she took me, but sens you've
told me that YOU used to spark her, in your God-fearin' way, I reckon it
kinder prepared her for ME. You understand? Now you come up, won't ye?”
“I will call some evening with my brother,” said Wayne embarrassedly.
“With which?” demanded McGee.
“My brother Arthur. We usually spend the evenings together.”
McGee paused, leaned against the doorpost, and, fixing his clear eyes on
Wayne, said: “Ef it's all the same to you, I'd rather you did not bring
him. You understand what I mean? You follow me; no other man but you and
me. I ain't sayin' anything agin' your brother, but you see how it is,
don't you? Just me and you.”
“Very well, I will come,” said Wayne gloomily. But as McGee backed out
of the door, he followed him, hesitatingly. Then, with an effort he
seemed to recover himself, and said almost harshly: “I ought to tell you
another thing--that I have seen and spoken to Mrs. McGee since she
came to the Bar. She fell into the water last week, and I swam out and
dragged her ashore. We talked and spoke of the past.”
“She fell in,” echoed McGee.
Wayne hesitated; then a murky blush came into his face as he slowly
repeated, “She FELL in.”
McGee's eyes only brightened. “I have been too hard on her. She might
have drowned ef you hadn't took risks. You see? You understand what I
mean? And she never let out anything about it--and never boasted o' YOU
helpin' her out. All right--you'll come along and see her agin'.” He
turned and walked cheerfully away.
Wayne re-entered the cabin. He sat for a long time by the window until
the stars came out above the river, and another star, with which he had
been long familiar, took its place apparently in the heart of the wooded
crest of the little promontory. Then the fringing woods on the opposite
shore became a dark level line across the landscape, and the color
seemed to fade out of the moist shining gravel before his cabin.
Presently the silhouette of his dark face disappeared from the window,
and Mr. McGee might have been gratified to know that he had slipped to
his knees before the chair whereon he had been sitting, and that his
head was bowed before it on his clasped hands. In a little while he rose
again, and, dragging a battened old portmanteau from the corner, took
out a number of letters tied up in a package, with which, from time to
time, he slowly fed the flame that flickered on his hearth. In this way
the windows of the cabin at times sprang into light, making a somewhat
confusing beacon for the somewhat confused Arthur Wayne, who was
returning from a visit to Angel's, and who had fallen into that slightly
morose and irritated state which follows excessive hilarity, and is also
apt to indicate moral misgivings.
But the last letter was burnt and the cabin quite dark when he entered.
His brother was sitting by the slowly dying fire, and he trusted that
in that uncertain light any observation of his expression or manner--of
which he himself was uneasily conscious--would pass unheeded.
“You are late,” said Madison gravely.
At which his brother rashly assumed the aggressive. He was no later than
the others, and if the Rogers boys were good enough to walk with him
for company he couldn't run ahead of them just because his brother was
waiting! He didn't want any supper, he had something at the Cross Roads
with the others. Yes! WHISKEY, if he wanted to know. People couldn't
keep coffee and temperance drinks just to please him and his brother,
and he wasn't goin' to insult the others by standing aloof. Anyhow, he
had never taken the pledge, and as long as he hadn't he couldn't see
why he should refuse a single glass. As it was, everybody said he was a
milksop, and a tender-foot, and he was just sick of it.
Madison rose and lit a candle and held it up before his brother's face.
It was a handsome, youthful face that looked into his, flushed with the
excitement of novel experiences and perhaps a more material stimulation.
The little silken moustache was ostentatiously curled, the brown curls
were redolent of bear's grease. Yet there was a certain boyish timidity
and nervousness in the defiance of his blue eyes that momentarily
touched the elder brother.
“I've been too hand with him,” he said to himself, half consciously
recalling what McGee had said of Safie. He put the candle down, laid
his hand gently on Arthur's shoulder, and said, with a certain cautious
tenderness, “Come, Arty, sit down and tell me all about it.”
Whereupon the mercurial Arthur, not only relieved of his nervousness but
of his previous ethical doubts and remorse, became gay and voluble.
He had finished his purchases at Angel's, and the storekeeper had
introduced him to Colonel Starbottle, of Kentucky, as one of “the Waynes
who had made Wayne's Bar famous.” Colonel Starbottle had said in his
pompous fashion--yet he was not such a bad fellow, after all--that the
Waynes ought to be represented in the Councils of the State, and
that he, Starbottle, would be proud to nominate Madison for the next
Legislature and run him, too. “And you know, really, Mad, if you mixed
a little more with folks, and they weren't--well, sorter AFRAID of
you--you could do it. Why, I've made a heap o' friends over there,
just by goin' round a little, and one of old Selvedge's girls--the
storekeeper, you know--said from what she'd heard of us, she always
thought I was about fifty, and turned up the whites of my eyes instead
of the ends of my moustache! She's mighty smart! Then the Postmaster has
got his wife and three daughters out from the States, and they've asked
me to come over to their church festival next week. It isn't our church,
of course, but I suppose it's all right.”
This and much more with the volubility of relieved feelings. When he
stopped, out of breath, Madison said, “I have had a visitor since you
left--Mr. McGee.”
“And his wife?” asked Arthur quickly. Madison flushed slightly. “No; but
he asked me to go and see her.”
“That's HER doin', then,” returned Arthur, with a laugh. “She's always
lookin' round the corners of her eyes at me when she passes. Why, John
Rogers was joking me about her only yesterday, and said McGee would blow
a hole through me some of these days if I didn't look out! Of course,”
he added, affectedly curling his moustache, “that's nonsense! But you
know how they talk, and she's too pretty for that fellow McGee.”
“She has found a careful helpmeet in her husband,” said Madison sternly,
“and it's neither seemly nor Christian in you, Arthur, to repeat the
idle, profane gossip of the Bar. I knew her before her marriage, and if
she was not a professing Christian, she was, and is, a pure, good woman!
Let us have no more of this.”
Whether impressed by the tone of his brother's voice, or only affected
by his own mercurial nature, Arthur changed the subject to further
voluble reminiscences of his trip to Angel's. Yet he did not seem
embarrassed nor disconcerted when his brother, in the midst of his
speech, placed the candle and the Bible on the table, with two chairs
before it. He listened to Madison's monotonous reading of the evening
exercise with equally monotonous respect. Then they both arose, without
looking at each other, but with equally set and stolid faces, and knelt
down before their respective chairs, clasping the back with both hands,
and occasionally drawing the hard, wooden frames against their breasts
convulsively, as if it were a penitential act. It was the elder brother
who that night prayed aloud. It was his voice that rose higher by
degrees above the low roof and encompassing walls, the level river camp
lights that trembled through the window, the dark belt of riverside
trees, and the light on the promontory's crest--up to the tranquil,
passionless stars themselves.
With those confidences to his Maker this chronicle does not
lie--obtrusive and ostentatious though they were in tone and attitude.
Enough that they were a general arraignment of humanity, the Bar,
himself, and his brother, and indeed much that the same Maker had
created and permitted. That through this hopeless denunciation still
lingered some human feeling and tenderness might have been shown by the
fact that at its close his hands trembled and his face was bedewed by
tears. And his brother was so deeply affected that he resolved hereafter
to avoid all evening prayers.