THE MAN ON THE FRENCHMAN
Sinclair's place on the Frenchman backed up on a sharp rise against
the foothills of the Bridger range, and the ranch buildings were
strung along the creek. The ranch-house stood on ground high enough to
command the country for miles up and down the valley.
Only two roads lead from Medicine Bend and the south into the
Frenchman country: one a wagon-road following Smoky Creek and running
through Dale Canyon; the other a pack-road, known as the Gridley
trail, crossing the Topah Topah Hills and making a short cut from the
Dunning ranch on the Crawling Stone to the Frenchman. The entire
valley is, in fact, so difficult of access, save by the long and
roundabout wagon-road, that the sight of a complete outfit of
buildings such as that put up by Sinclair always came as a surprise to
the traveller who, reaching the crest of the hills, looked suddenly
down a thousand feet on his well-ordered sheds and barns and corrals.
The rider who reaches the Topah Topah crest on the Gridley trail now
sees in the valley below only traces of what was so laboriously
planned and perfectly maintained a few years ago. But even the ruins
left on the Frenchman show the herculean labor undertaken by the man
in setting up a comfortable and even an elaborate establishment in so
inaccessible a spot. His defiance of all ordinary means of doing
things was shown in his preference for bringing much of his
building-material over the trail instead of around by the Smoky Creek
road. A good part of the lumber that went into his house was packed
over the Gridley trail. His piano was brought through the canyon on a
wagon, but the mechanical player for the piano and his wagons
themselves were packed over the trail on the backs of mules. A heavy
steel range for the kitchen had been brought over the same way. For
Sinclair no work was hard enough, none went fast enough, and revelry
never rose high enough. During the time of his activity in the
Frenchman Valley Sinclair had the best-appointed place between
Williams Cache and the Crawling Stone, and in the Crawling Stone only
the Dunning ranch would bear comparison with his own. On the Frenchman
Sinclair kept an establishment the fame of which is still foremost in
mountain story. Here his cows ranged the canyons and the hills for
miles, and his horses were known from Medicine Bend to Fort Tracy.
Here he rallied his men, laid snares for his enemies, dispensed a
reckless hospitality, ruled his men with an oath and a blow, and
carried a six-shooter to explain orders and answer questions with.
Over the Gridley trail from the Crawling Stone Marion and Dicksie
Dunning rode early in the morning the day after McCloud and his men
left the Stone Ranch with their work done. The trail is a good three
hours long, and they reached Sinclair's place at about ten o'clock. He
was waiting for Marion--she had sent word she should come--and he came
out of the front door into the sunshine with a smile of welcome when
he saw Dicksie with her. Dicksie, long an admirer of Sinclair's, as
women usually were, had recast somewhat violently her opinions of him.
She faced him now with a criminal consciousness that she knew too
much. The weight of the dreadful secret weighed on her, and her
responsibility in the issue of the day ahead did not help to make her
greeting an easy one. One thing only was fixed in her mind and
reflected in the tension of her lips and her eyes: the resolve to keep
at every cost the promise she had given. For Dicksie had fallen under
the spell of a man even more compelling than Sinclair, and felt
strangely bounden to what she had said.
Sinclair, however, had spirit enough to smooth quite away every
embarrassment. "Bachelor's quarters," he explained roughly and
pleasantly, as he led the two women toward the house. "Cowmen make
poor housekeepers, but you must feel at home." And when Dicksie,
looking at his Indian rugs on the floors, the walls, and the couches,
said she thought he had little to apologize for, Sinclair looked
gratified and took off his hat again. "Just a moment," he said,
standing at the side of the door. "I've never been able to get Marion
over here before, so it happens that a woman's foot has never entered
the new house. I want to watch one of you cross the threshold for the
first time."
Dicksie, moving ahead, retreated with a laugh. "You first, then,
Marion."
"No, Dicksie, you."
"Never! you first." So Marion, quite red and wretchedly ill at ease,
walked into the ranch-house first.
Sinclair shone nowhere better than as a host. When he had placed his
guests comfortably in the living-room he told them the story of the
building of the house. Then he made a cicerone of himself, and
explained, with running comments, each feature of his plan as he
showed how it had been carried out through the various rooms.
Surprised at the attractiveness of things, Dicksie found herself
making mental notes for her own use, and began asking questions.
Sinclair was superb in answering, but the danger of admiring things
became at once apparent, for when Dicksie exclaimed over a handsome
bearskin, a rich dark brown grizzly-skin of unusual size, Sinclair
told the story of the killing, bared his tremendous forearm to show
where the polished claws had ripped him, and, disregarding Dicksie's
protests, insisted on sending the skin over to Crawling Stone Ranch as
a souvenir of her visit.
"I live a great deal alone over here," he said, waving Dicksie's
continued refusal magnificently aside as he moved into the next room.
"I've got a few good dogs, and I hunt just enough to keep my hand in
with a rifle." Dicksie quailed a little at the smile that went with
the words. "The men, at least the kind I mix with, don't care for
grizzly-skins, and to enjoy anything you've got to have sympathetic
company--don't you know that?" he asked, looking admiringly at
Dicksie. "I've got another skin for you--a silver-tip," he added in
deep, gentle tones, addressing Marion. "It has a fine head, as fine as
I ever saw in the Smithsonian. It is down at Medicine Bend now, being
dressed and mounted. By the way, I've forgotten to ask you, Miss
Dicksie, about the high water. How did you get through at the ranch?"
Dicksie, sitting on the piano-bench, looked up with resolution.
"Bravely!" she exclaimed. "Mr. McCloud came to our rescue with bags
and mattresses and a hundred men, and he has put in a revetement a
thousand feet long. Oh, we are regular river experts at our house now!
Had you any trouble here, Mr. Sinclair?"
"No, the Frenchman behaves pretty well in the rock. We had forty feet
of water here one day, though; forty feet, that's right. McCloud, yes;
able fellow, I guess, too, though he and I don't hit it off." Sinclair
sat back in his chair, and as he spoke he spoke magnanimously. "He
doesn't like me, but that is no fault of his; railroad men, and good
ones, too, sometimes get started wrong with one another. Well, I'm
glad he took care of you. Try that piano, Miss Dicksie, will you? I
don't know much about pianos, but that ought to be a good one. I would
wheel the player over for you, but any one that plays as beautifully
as you do ought not to be allowed to use a player. Marion, I want to
talk a few minutes with you, may I? Do you mind going out under the
cottonwood?"
Dicksie's heart jumped. "Don't be gone long, Marion," she exclaimed
impulsively, "for you know, Mr. Sinclair, we _must_ get back by two
o'clock." And Dicksie, pale with apprehension, looked at them both.
Marion, quite composed, nodded reassuringly and followed Sinclair out
of doors into the sunshine.
For a few minutes Dicksie fingered wildly on the piano at some
half-forgotten air, and in a fever of excitement walked out on the
porch to see where they were. To her relief, she saw Marion sitting
near Sinclair under the big tree in front of the house, where the
horses stood. Dicksie, with her hands on her girdle, walked forlornly
back and forth, hummed a tune, sat down in a rocking-chair, fanned
herself, rose, walked back and forth again, and reflected that she was
perfectly helpless, and that Sinclair might kill Marion a hundred
times before she could reach her. And the thought that Marion was
perhaps wholly unconscious of danger increased her anxiety.
She sat down in despair. How could Whispering Smith have allowed any
one he had a care for to be exposed in this dreadful way? Trying to
think what to do, Dicksie hurried back into the living-room, walked to
the piano, took the pile of sheet-music from the top, and sat down to
thumb it over. She threw song after song on the chair beside her. They
were sheets of gaudy coon songs and ragtime with flaring covers, and
they seemed to give off odors of cheap perfume. Dicksie hardly saw the
titles as she passed them over, but of a sudden she stopped. Between
two sheets of the music lay a small handkerchief. It was mussed, and
in the corner of it "Nellie" was written conspicuously in a laundry
mark. The odor of musk became in an instant sickening. Dicksie threw
the music disdainfully aside, and sprang up with a flushed face to
leave the room. Sinclair's remark about the first woman to cross his
threshold came back to her. From that moment Dicksie hated him. But no
sooner had she seated herself on the porch than she remembered she had
left her hat in the house, and rose to go in after it. She was
resolved not to leave it under the roof another moment, and she had
resolved to go over and wait where her horse was tied. As she
reentered the doorway she stopped. In the room she had just left a
cowboy sat at the table, taking apart a revolver to clean it. The
revolver was spread in its parts before him, but across the table lay
a rifle. The man had not been in the room when she left it a moment
before.
Dicksie passed behind him. He paid no attention to her; he had not
looked up when she entered the room. Passing behind him once more to
go out, Dicksie looked through the open window before which he sat.
Sinclair and Marion sitting under the cottonwood tree were in plain
sight, and the muzzle of the rifle where it lay covered them. Dicksie
thrilled, but the man was busy with his work. Breathing deeply, she
walked out on the porch again. Sinclair, she thought, was looking
straight at her, and in her anxiety to appear unconscious she turned,
walked to the end of the house, and at the corner almost ran into a
man sitting out of doors in the shade mending a saddle. He had removed
his belt to work, and his revolver lay in the holster on the bench,
its grip just within reach of his hand. Dicksie walked in front of
him, but he did not look up. She turned as if changing her mind, and
with a little flirt of her riding-skirt sat down in the porch chair,
feeling a faint moisture upon her forehead.
* * * * *
"I am going to leave this country, Marion," Sinclair was saying.
"There's nothing here for me; I can see that. What's the use of my
eating my heart out over the way I've been treated? I've given the
best years of my life to this railroad, and now they turn me down with
a kick and a curse. It's the old story of the Indian and his dog, only
I don't propose to let them make soup of me. I'm going to the coast,
Marion. I'm going to California, where I wanted to go when we were
married, and I wish to God we had gone there then. All our troubles
might never have been if I had got in with a different crowd from
these cow-boozers on the start. And, Marion, I want to know whether
you'll give me another chance and go with me."
Sinclair, on the bench and leaning against the tree, sat with folded
arms looking at his wife. Marion in a hickory chair faced him.
"No one would like to see you be all you ought to be more than I,
Murray; but you are the only one in the world that can ever give
yourself another chance to be that."
"The fellows in the saddle here now have denied me every chance to
make a man of myself again on the railroad--you know that, Marion. In
fact, they never did give me the show I was entitled to. I ought to
have had Hailey's place. Bucks never treated me right in that; he
never pushed me in the way he pushed other men that were just as bad
as I ever was. It discouraged me; that's the reason I went to
pieces."
"It could be no reason for treating me as you treated me: for bringing
drunken men and drunken women into our house, and driving me out of it
unless I would be what you were and what they were."
"I know I haven't treated you right; I've treated you shamefully. I
will do anything on earth you say to square it. I will! Recollect, I
had lived among men and in the same country with women like that for
years before I knew you. I didn't know how to treat you; I admit it.
Give me another chance, Marion."
"I gave you all that I had when I married you, Murray. I haven't
anything more to give to any man. You would be disappointed in me if I
could ever live with you again, and I could not do that without living
a lie every day."
He bent forward, looking at the ground. He talked of their first
meeting in Wisconsin; of the happiness of their little courtship; he
brought up California again, and the Northwest coast, where, he told
her, a great railroad was to be built and he should find the chance he
needed to make a record for himself--it had been promised him--a
chance to be the man his abilities entitled him to be in railroading.
"And I've got a customer for the ranch and the cows, Marion. I don't
care for this business--damn the cows! let somebody else chase after
'em through the sleet. I've done well; I've made money--a lot of
money--the last two years in my cattle deals, and I've got it put
away, Marion; you need never lift your hand to work in our house
again. We can live in California, and live well, under our own orange
trees, whether I work or not. All I want to know is, will you go with
me?"
"No! I will not go with you, Murray."
He moved in his seat and threw his head up appealingly. "Why not?"
"I will never be dishonest with you; I never have been and I never
will be. I have nothing in my heart to give you, and I will not live
upon your money. I am earning my own living. I am as content as I ever
can be, and I shall stay where I am and do what I am doing till I die,
probably. And this is why I came when you asked me to; to tell you the
exact truth. I am not a girl any longer--I never can be again. I am a
woman. What I was before I married you I never can be again, and you
have no right to ask me to be a hypocrite and say I can love you--for
that is what it all comes to--when I have no such thing in my heart or
life for you. It is dead and gone, and I cannot help it."
"That sounds pretty hard, Marion."
"It is only the truth. It sounded fearfully hard to me when you told
me that woman was your friend--that you knew her before you knew me
and would know her after I was dead; that she was as good as I, and
that if I didn't entertain her you would. But it was the truth; you
told me the truth, and it was better that you told it--as it is better
now that I tell it to you."
"I was drunk. I didn't tell you the truth. A man is a pretty tough
animal sometimes, but you are a woman and a pure one, and I care more
for you than for all the other women in the world, and it is not your
nature to be unforgiving."
"It is to be honest."
He looked suddenly up at her and spoke sharply: "Marion, I know why
you won't go."
"I have honestly told you."
"No; you have not honestly told me. The real reason is Gordon Smith."
"If he were I should not hesitate to tell you, Murray, but he is not,"
she said coldly.
Sinclair spoke harshly: "Do you think you can fool me? Don't you
suppose I know he spends his time loafing around your shop?"
Marion flushed indignantly. "It is not true!"
"Don't you suppose I know he writes letters back to Wisconsin to your
folks?"
"What have I to do with that? Why shouldn't he write to my mother? Who
has a better right?"
"Don't drive me too far. By God! if I go away alone I'll never leave
you here to run off with Whispering Smith--remember that!" She sat in
silence. His rage left her perfectly quiet, and her unmoved expression
shamed and in part silenced him. "Don't drive me too far," he muttered
sullenly. "If you do you will be responsible, Marion."
She did not move her eyes from the blue hills on the horizon. "I
expect you to kill me sometime; I feel sure you will. And that you may
do." Then she bent her look on him. "You may do it now if you want
to."
His face turned heavy with rage. "Marion," he cried, with an oath, "do
you know how close you are to death at this moment?"
"You may do it now."
He clinched the bench-rail and rose slowly to his feet. Marion sat
motionless in the hickory chair; the sun was shining in her face and
her hands were folded in her lap. Dicksie rocked on the porch. In the
shadow of the house the man was mending the saddle.