_The Gentile Carries off his Spoil_
Half an hour later they heard the sound of voices and wheels. Follett
looked up and saw a light wagon with four men in it driving into the
Meadows from the south. The driver was Seth Wright; the man beside him
he knew to be Bishop Snow, the one they called the Entablature of Truth.
The two others he had seen in Amalon, but he did not know their names.
He got up and went forward when the wagon stopped, leaning casually on
the wheel.
"He's already dead, but you can help me bury him as soon as I get my
wife out of the way around that oak-brush--I see you've brought along a
spade."
The men in the wagon looked at each other, and then climbed slowly out.
"Now who could 'a' left that there spade in the wagon?" began the Wild
Ram of the Mountains, a look of perplexity clouding his ingenuous face.
The Entablature of Truth was less disposed for idle talk.
"Who did you say you'd get out of the way, young man?"
"My wife, Mrs. Ruel Follett."
"Meaning Prudence Rae?"
"Meaning her that was Prudence Rae."
"Oh!"
The ruddy-faced Bishop scanned the horizon with a dreamy, speculative
eye, turning at length to his companions.
"We better get to this burying," he said.
"Wait a minute," said Follett.
They saw him go to Prudence, raise her from the ground, put a
saddle-blanket over his arm, and lead her slowly up the road around a
turn that took them beyond a clump of the oak-brush.
"It won't do!" said Wright, with a meaning glance at the Entablature of
Truth, quite as if he had divined his thought.
"I'd like to know why not?" retorted this good man, aggressively.
"Because times has changed; this ain't '57."
"It'll almost do itself," insisted Snow. "What say, Glines?" and he
turned to one of the others.
"Looks all right," answered the man addressed. "By heck! but that's a
purty saddle he carries!"
"What say, Taggart?"
"For God's sake, no, Bishop! No--I got enough dead faces looking at me
now from this place. I'm ha'nted into hell a'ready, like he said he was
yisterday. By God! I sometimes a'most think I'll have my ears busted
and my eyes put out to git away from the bloody things!"
"Ho! Scared, are you? Well, I'll do it myself. _You_ don't need to
help."
"Better let well enough alone, Brother Warren!" interposed Wright.
"But it _ain't_ well enough! Think of that girl going to a low cuss of a
Gentile when Brigham wants her. Why, think of letting such a critter get
away, even if Brigham didn't want her!"
"You know they got Brother Brigham under indictment for murder now,
account of that Aiken party."
"What of it? He'll get off."
"That he will, but it's because he's Brigham. _You_ ain't. You're just a
south country Bishop. Don't you know he'd throw you to the Gentile
courts as a sop quicker'n a wink if he got a chance,--just like he'll do
with old John D. Lee the minute George A. peters out so the chain will
be broke between Lee and Brigham?"
"And maybe this cuss has got friends," suggested Glines.
"Who'd know but the girl?" Snow insisted. "And Brother Brigham would fix
_her_ all right. Is the household of faith to be spoiled?"
"Well, they got a railroad running through it now," said Wright, "and a
telegraph, and a lot of soldiers. So don't you count on _me_, Brother
Snow, at any stage of it now or afterwards. I got a pretty sizable
family that would hate to lose me. Look out! Here he comes."
Follett now came up, speaking in a cheerful manner that nevertheless
chilled even the enthusiasm of the good Bishop Snow.
"Now, gentlemen, just by way of friendly advice to you,--like as not
I'll be stepping in front of some of you in the next hour. But it isn't
going to worry me any, and I'll tell you why. I'd feel awful sad for you
all if anything was to happen to me,--if the Injuns got me, or I was
took bad with a chill, or a jack-rabbit crept up and bit me to death, or
anything. You see, there's a train of twenty-five big J. Murphy wagons
will be along here over the San Bernardino trail. They are coming out of
their way, almost any time now, on purpose to pick me up. Fact is, my
ears have been pricking up all morning to hear the old bull-whips crack.
There were thirty-one men in the train when they went down, and there
may be more coming back. It's a train of Ezra Calkins, my adopted
father. You see, they know I've been here on special business, and I
sent word the other day I was about due to finish it, and they wasn't to
go through coming back without me. Well, that bull outfit will stop for
me--and they'll _get_ me or get pay for me. That's their orders. And it
isn't a train of women and babies, either. They're such an outrageous
rough lot, quick-tempered and all like that, that they wouldn't believe
the truth that I had an accident--not if you swore it on a stack of
Mormon Bibles topped off by the life of Joe Smith. They'd go right out
and make Amalon look like a whole cavayard of razor-hoofed buffaloes had
raced back and forth over it. And the rest of the two thousand men on
Ezra Calkins's pay-roll would come hanging around pestering you all with
Winchesters. They'd make you scratch gravel, sure!
"Now let's get to work. I see you'll be awful careful and tender with
me. I'll bet I don't get even a sprained ankle. You folks get him, and
I'll show you where he said the place was."
Two hours later Follett came running back to where Prudence lay on the
saddle-blanket in the warm morning sun.
"The wagon-train is coming--hear the whips? Now, look here, why don't we
go right on with it, in one of the big wagons? They're coming back
light, and we can have a J. Murphy that is bigger than a whole lot of
houses in this country. You don't want to go back there, do you?"
She shook her head.
"No, it would hurt me to see it now. I should be expecting to see him at
every turn. Oh, I couldn't stand that--poor sorry little father!"
"Well, then, leave it all; leave the place to the women, and good
riddance, and come off with me. I'll send one of the boys back with a
pack-mule for any plunder you want to bring away, and you needn't ever
see the place again."
She nestled in his arms, feeling in her grief the comfort of his
tenderness.
"Yes, take me away now."
The big whips could be heard plainly, cracking like rifle-shots, and
shortly came the creaking and hollow rumbling of the wagons and the
cries of the teamsters to their six-mule teams. There were shouts and
calls, snatches of song from along the line, then the rattling of
harness, and in a cloud of dust the train was beside them, the teamsters
sitting with rounded shoulders up under the bowed covers of the big
wagons.
A hail came from the rear of the train, and a bronzed and bearded man in
a leather jacket cantered up on a small pony.
"Hello there, Rool! I'm whoopin' glad to see you!"
He turned to the driver of the foremost wagon.
"All right, boys! We'll make a layby for noon."
Follett shook hands with him heartily, and turned to Prudence.
"This is my wife, Lew. Prudence, this is Lew Steffins, our
wagon-master."
"Shoo, now!--you young cub--married? Well, I'm right glad to see Mrs.
Rool Follett--and bless your heart, little girl!"
"Did you stop back there at the settlement?"
"Yes; and they said you'd hit the pike about dark last night, to chase a
crazy man. I told them I'd be back with the whackers if I didn't find
you. I was afraid some trouble was on, and here you're only married to
the sweetest thing that ever--why, she's been crying! Anything wrong?"
"No; never mind now, anyway. We're going on with you, Lew."
"Bully proud to have you. There's that third wagon--"
"Could I ride in that?" asked the girl, looking at the big lumbering
conveyance doubtfully.
"It carried six thousands pounds of freight to Los Angeles, little
woman," answered Steffins, promptly, "and I wouldn't guess you to heft
over one twenty-eight or thirty at the outside. I'll have the box filled
in with spruce boughs and a lot of nice bunch-grass, and put some
comforts over that, and you'll be all snug and tidy. You won't starve,
either, not while there's meat running."
"And say, Lew, she's got some stuff back at that place. Let the extra
hand ride back with a packjack and bring it on. She'll tell him what to
get."
"Sure! Tom Callahan can go."
"And give us some grub, Lew. I've hardly had a bite since yesterday
morning."
An hour later, when the train was nearly ready to start, Follett took
his wife to the top of the ridge and showed her, a little way below
them, the cedar at the foot of the sandstone ledge. He stayed back,
thinking she would wish to be there alone. But when she stood by the new
grave she looked up and beckoned to him.
"I wanted you by me," she said, as he reached her side. "I never knew
how much he was to me. He wasn't big and strong like other men, but now
I see that he was very dear and more than I suspected. He was so quiet
and always so kind--I don't remember that he was ever stern with me
once. And though he suffered from some great sorrow and from sickness,
he never complained. He wouldn't even admit he was sick, and he always
tried to smile in that little way he had, so gentle. Poor sorry little
father!--and yesterday not one of them would be his friend. It broke my
heart to see him there so wistful when they turned their backs on him.
Poor little man! And see, here's another grave all grown around with
sage and the stones worn smooth; but there's the cross he spoke of. It
must be some one that he wanted to lie beside. Poor little sorry father!
Oh, you will have to be so much to me!"
The train was under way again. In the box of the big wagon, on a springy
couch of spruce boughs and long bunch-grass, Prudence lay at rest, hurt
by her grief, yet soothed by her love, her thoughts in a whirl about
her.
Follett, mounted on Dandy, rode beside her wagon.
"Better get some sleep yourself, Rool," urged Steffins.
"Can't, Lew. I ain't sleepy. I'm too busy thinking about things, and I
have to watch out for my little girl there. You can't tell what these
cusses might do."
"There's thirty of us watching out for her now, young fellow."
"There'll be thirty-one till we get out of this neighbourhood, Lew."
He lifted up the wagon-cover softly a little later; and found that she
slept. As they rode on, Steffins questioned him.
"Did you make that surround you was going to make, Rool?"
"No, Lew, I couldn't. Two of them was already under, and, honest, I
couldn't have got the other one any more than you could have shot your
kid that day he up-ended the gravy-dish in your lap."
"Hell!"
"That's right! I hope I never have to kill any one, Lew, no matter _how_
much I got a right to. I reckon it always leaves uneasy feelings in a
man's mind."
* * * * *
Eight days later a tall, bronzed young man with yellow hair and quick
blue eyes, in what an observant British tourist noted in his journal as
"the not unpicturesque garb of a border-ruffian," helped a dazed but
very pretty young woman on to the rear platform of the Pullman car
attached to the east-bound overland express at Ogden.
As they lingered on the platform before the train started they were
hailed and loudly cheered, averred the journal of this same Briton, "by
a crowd of the outlaw's companions, at least a score and a half of most
disreputable-looking wretches, unshaven, roughly dressed, heavily
booted, slouch-hatted (they swung their hats in a drunken frenzy), and
to this rough ovation the girl, though seemingly a person of some
decency, waved her handkerchief and smiled repeatedly, though her face
had seemed to be sad and there were tears in her eyes at that very
moment."
At this response from the girl, the journal went on to say, the ruffians
had redoubled their drunken pandemonium. And as the train pulled away,
to the observant tourist's marked relief, the young outlaw on the
platform had waved his own hat and shouted as a last message to one
"Lew," that he "must not let Dandy get gandered up," nor forget "to tie
him to grass."
Later, as the train shrieked its way through Echo Canon, the observant
tourist, with his double-visored plaid cap well over his face,
pretending to sleep, overheard the same person across the aisle say to
the girl:--
"Now we're on our own property at last. For the next sixty hours we'll
be riding across our own front yard--and there aren't any keys and
passwords and grips here, either--just a plain Almighty God with no
nonsense about Him."
Whereupon had been later added to the journal a note to the effect that
Americans are not only quite as prone to vaunt and brag and tell big
stories as other explorers had asserted, but that in the West they were
ready blasphemers.
Yet the couple minded not the observant tourist, and continued to
enlarge and complicate his views of American life to the very bank of
the Missouri. Unwittingly, however, for they knew him not nor saw him
nor heard him, being occupied with the matter of themselves.
"You'll have to back me up when we get to Springfield," he said to her
one late afternoon, when they neared the end of their exciting journey.
"I've heard that old Grandpa Corson is mighty peppery. He might take you
away from me."
Her eyes came in from the brown rolling of the plain outside to light
him with their love; and then, the lamps having not yet been lighted,
the head of grace nestled suddenly on its pillow of brawn with only a
little tremulous sigh of security for answer.
This brought his arm quickly about her in a protecting clasp, plainly in
the sidelong gaze of the now scandalised but not less observant tourist.
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Lions of the Lord, by Harry Leon Wilson