If her soul had been capable of enthusiasm, Marne could have made the
trip on schedule time, but she was a burro good for nothing except to
carry a pack well nigh half her own weight, live on forage that might
have starved a goat, and smell water fifteen miles in time of drought.
Speed was not in her vocabulary, and accordingly it was late afternoon
rather than morning when Gregg, pointing his course between the ears of
Marne, steered her through Murphy's Pass and came out over Alder.
There they paused by mutual consent, and the burro flicked one long
ear forward to listen to the rushing of the Doane River. It filled the
valley with continual murmur, and just below them, where the brown,
white-flecked current twisted around an elbow bend, lay Alder tossed
down without plan, here a boulder and there a house. They seemed
marvelously flimsy structures, and one felt surprise that the weight the
winter snow had not crushed them, or that the Doane River had not sent
a strong current licking over bank and tossed the whole village crashing
down the ravine. One building was very much like other, but Gregg's
familiar eye pierced through the roofs and into Widow Sullivan's
staggering shack, into Hezekiah Whittleby's hushed sitting-room, down
to the moist, dark floor of the Captain's saloon into that amazing
junkshop, the General Merchandise store; but first and last he looked to
the little flag which gleamed and snapped above the schoolhouse, and it
spelled “my country” to Vic.
Marne consented to break into a neat-footed jog-trot going down the last
slope, and so she went up the single winding street of Alder, grunting
at every step, with Gregg's whistle behind her. In town, he lived
with his friend, Dug Pym, who kept their attic room reserved for his
occupancy, so he headed straight for that place. What human face would
he see first?
It was Mrs. Sweeney's little boy, Jack, who raced into the street
whooping, and Vic caught him under the armpits and swung him dizzily
into the air.
“By God,” muttered Vic, as he strode on, “that's a good kid, that
Jack.” And he straightway forgot all about that knife which Jackie had
purloined from him the summer before. “Me and Betty,” he thought, “we'll
have kids, like Jack; tougher'n leather.”
Old Garrigan saw him next and cackled from his truck garden in the
backyard, but Vic went on with a wave of his arm, and on past Gertie
Vincent's inviting shout (Gertie had been his particular girl before
Betty Neal came to town), and on with the determination of a soldier
even past the veranda of Captain Lorrimier's saloon, though Lorrimer
himself bellowed a greeting and “Chick” Stewart crooked a significant
thumb over his shoulder towards the open door. He only paused at the
blacksmith shop and looked in at Dug, who was struggling to make the
print of a hot shoe on a hind foot of Simpson's sorrel Glencoe.
“Hey, Dug!”
Pym raised a grimy, sweating forehead.
“You, boy; easy, damn you! Hello, Vic!” and he propped that restless
hind foot on his inner thigh and extended a hand.
“Go an workin', Dug, because I can't stop; I just want a rope to catch
Grey Molly.”
“You red devil--take that rope over there, Vic. You won't have no work
catchin' Molly. Which she's plumb tame. Stand still, damn you. I never
seen a Glencoe with any sense!--Where you goin', Vic? Up to the school?”
And his sweaty grin followed Vic as the latter went out with the coil of
rope over his shoulder. When Gregg reached the house, Nelly Pym hugged
him, which is the privilege of fat and forty, and then she sat at the
foot of the stairs and shouted up gossip while he shaved with
frantic haste and jumped into his best clothes. He answered her with
monosyllables and only half his mind.
“Finish up your work, Vic?”
“Nope.”
“You sure worked yourself all thin. I hope somebody appreciates it.” She
chuckled. “Ain't been sick, have you?”
“Say, who d'you think's in town? Sheriff Glass!”
This information sank in on him while he tugged at a boot at least a
size and half too small.
“Pete Glass!” he echoed. Then: “Who's he after?”
“I dunno. Vic, he don't look like such a bad one.”
“He's plenty bad enough,” Gregg assured her. “Ah-h-h!”
His foot ground into place, torturing his toes.
'“Well,” considered Mrs. Pym, in a philosophic rumble, “I s'pose them
quiet gents is the dangerous ones, mostly; but looking at Glass you
wouldn't think he'd ever killed all those men. Know about the dance?”
“Nope.”
“Down to Singer's place. Betty goin' with you?”
He jerked open the door and barked down at her: “Who else would she be
goin' with?”
“Don't start pullin' leather before the horse bucks,” said Mrs. Pym. “I
don't know who else she'd be goin' with. You sure look fine in that red
shirt, Vic!”
He grinned, half mollified, half shame-faced, and ducked back into the
room, but a moment later he clumped stiffly down the stairs, frowning.
He wondered if he could dance in those boots.
“Feel kind of strange in these clothes. How do I look, Nelly?” And he
turned in review at the foot of the stairs.
“Slick as a whistle, I'll tell a man.” She raised her voice to a shout
as he disappeared through the outer door. “Kiss her once for me, Vic.”
In the center of the little pasture he stood shaking out the noose, and
the three horses raced in a sweeping gallop around the fence, looking
for a place of escape, with Grey Molly in the lead. Nothing up the Doane
River, or even down the Asper, for that matter, could head Molly when
she was full of running, and the eyes of Gregg gleamed as he watched
her. She was not a picture horse, for her color was rather a dirty white
than a dapple, and besides, there were some who accused her of “tucked
up belly.” But she had the legs for speed in spite of the sloping croup,
and plenty of chest at the girth, and a small, bony head that rejoiced
the heart of a horseman. He swung the noose, and while the others darted
ahead, stupidly straight into the range of danger, Grey Molly whirled
like a doubling coyote and leaped away.
“Good girl!” cried Vic, in involuntary approbation. He ran a few steps.
The noose slid up and out, opened in a shaky loop, and swooped down. Too
late the gray saw the flying danger, for even as she swerved the riata
fell over her head, and she came to a snorting halt with all fours
planted, skidding through the grass. The first thing a range horse
learns is never to pull against a rope.
A few minutes later she was getting the “pitch” out of her system, as
any self-respecting cattle horse must do after a session of pasture and
no work. She bucked with enthusiasm and intelligence, as she did all
things. Sun-fishing, sun-fishing is the most deadly form of bucking, for
it consists of a series of leaps apparently aimed at the sun, and the
horse comes down with a sickening jar on stiff front legs. Educated
“pitchers” land on only one foot, so that the shock is accompanied by
a terrible sidewise, downward wrench that breaks the hearts of the best
riders in the world. Grey Molly was educated, and Mrs. Pym stood in
the doorway with a broad grin of appreciation on her red face, she knew
riding when she saw it. Then, out of the full frenzy, the mare lapsed
into high-headed, quivering attention, and Gregg cursed her softly, with
deep affection. He understood her from her fetlocks to her teeth. She
bucked like a fiend of revolt one instant and cantered like an angel of
grace the next; in fact she was more or less of an equine counterpart of
her rider.
But now he heard shrill voices passing down the street and he knew that
school was out and that he must hurry if he wanted to ride home with
Betty, so he waved to Mrs. Pym and cantered away. For over two days he
had been rushing towards this meeting; all winter he had hungered for
it, but now that the moment loomed before him he weakened; he usually
did when he came close to the girl. Not that her beauty overwhelmed
him, for though she had a portion of energetic good-health and freckled
prettiness, he had chosen her as an Indian chooses flint for his steel;
one could strike fire from Betty Neal. When he was far away he loved
her without doubt or question and his trust ran towards her like a river
setting towards the ocean because he knew that her heart was as big and
as true as the heart of Grey Molly herself. Only her ways were fickle,
and when she came near, she filled him with uneasiness, suspicion.