Lin McLean Part 27

she said. "But don't you reckon perhaps the men around did? Why, maybe even the girls kind o' did!"

"She's hard to beat, ain't she?" inquired Lin, admiringly, of me.

In my opinion she was. She had her wish, too about Texas; for we found him waiting on the railroad platform, dressed in his best, to say good-bye. The friendly things she told him left him shuffling and repeating that it was a mistake to go, a big mistake; but when she said the b.u.t.ter was not good enough, his laugh cracked joyously up into the treble. The train's arrival brought quick sadness to her face, but she made herself bright again with a special farewell for each acquaintance.

"Don't you ride any more cow-catchers," she warned Billy Lusk, "or I'll have to come back and look after you."

"You said you and me were going for a ride, and we ain't," shouted the long-memoried nine-year-old. "You will," murmured Mr. McLean, oracularly.

As the train's pace quickened he did not step off, and Miss Buckner cried "Jump!"

"Too late," said he, placidly. Then he called to me, "I'm hard to beat, too!" So the train took them both away, as I might have guessed was his intention all along.

"Is that marriage again?" said Billy, anxiously. "He wouldn't tell me nothing."

"He's just seeing Miss Buckner as far as Edgeford," said the agent. "Be back to-morrow."

"Then I don't see why he wouldn't take me along," Billy complained. And Separ laughed.

But the lover was not back to-morrow. He was capable of anything, gossip remarked, and took up new themes. The sun rose and set, the two trains made their daily slight event and gathering; the water-tank, glaring bulkily in the sun beaconed unmolested; and the agent's natural sleep was unbroken by pistols, for the cow-boys did not happen to be in town.

Separ lay a clot of torpor that I was glad to leave behind me for a while. But news is a strange, permeating substance, and it began to be sifted through the air that Tubercle was going to G.o.d's country.

That is how they phrased it in cow-camp, meaning not the next world, but the Eastern States.

"It's certainly a shame him leaving after we've got him so good and used to us," said the Virginian.

"We can't tell him good-bye," said Honey Wiggin. "Separ'll be slow."

"We can give his successor a right hearty welcome," the Virginian suggested.

"That's you!" said Honey. "Schemin' mischief away ahead. You're the leadin' devil in this country, and just because yu' wear a faithful-looking face you're tryin' to fool a poor school-marm."

"Yes," drawled the Southerner, "that's what I'm aiming to do."

So now they were curious about the successor, planning their hearty welcome for that official, and were encouraged in this by Mr. McLean.

He reappeared in the neighborhood with a manner and conversation highly casual.

"Bring your new wife?" they inquired.

"No; she preferred Kentucky," Lin said.

"Bring the old one?"

"No; she preferred Laramie."

"Kentucky's a right smart way to chase after a girl," said the Virginian.

"Sure!" said Mr. McLean. "I quit at Edgeford."

He met their few remarks so smoothly that they got no joy from him; and being asked had he seen the new agent, he answered yes, that Tubercle had gone Wednesday, and his successor did not seem to be much of a man.

But to me Lin had nothing to say until noon camp was scattering from its lunch to work, when he pa.s.sed close, and whispered, "You'll see her to-morrow if you go in with the outfit." Then, looking round to make sure we were alone in the sage-brush, he drew from his pocket, cheris.h.i.+ngly, a little s.h.i.+ning pistol. "Hers," said he, simply.

I looked at him.

"We've exchanged," he said.

He turned the token in his hand, caressing it as on that first night when Jessamine had taken his heart captive.

"My idea," he added, unable to lift his eyes from the treasure. "See this, too."

I looked, and there was the word "Neighbor" engraved on it.

"Her idea," said he.

"A good one!" I murmured.

"It's on both, yu' know. We had it put on the day she settled to accept the superintendent's proposition." Here Lin fired his small exchanged weapon at a cotton-wood, striking low. "She can beat that with mine!" he exclaimed, proud and tender. "She took four days deciding at Edgeford, and I learned her to hit the ace of clubs." He showed me the cards they had practiced upon during those four days of indecision; he had them in a book as if they were pressed flowers. "They won't get crumpled that way," said he; and he further showed me a tintype. "She's got the other at Separ," he finished.

I shook his hand with all my might. Yes, he was worthy of her! Yes, he deserved this smooth course his love was running! And I shook his hand again. To tonic her grief Jessamine had longed for some activity, some work, and he had shown her Wyoming might hold this for her as well as Kentucky. "But how in the world," I asked him, "did you persuade her to stop over at Edgeford at all?"

"Yu' mustn't forget," said the lover (and he blushed), "that I had her four hours alone on the train."

But his face that evening round the fire, when they talked of their next day's welcome to the new agent, became comedy of the highest, and he was so desperately canny in the moments he chose for silence or for comment!

He had not been sure of their ignorance until he arrived, and it was a joke with him too deep for laughter. He had a special eye upon the Virginian, his mate in such a tale of mischiefs, and now he led him on.

He suggested to the Southerner that caution might be wise; this change at Separ was perhaps some new trick of the company's.

"We mostly take their tricks," observed the Virginian.

"Yes," said Lin, nodding sagely at the fire, "that's so, too."

Yet not he, not any one, could have foreseen the mortifying harmlessness of the outcome. They swept down upon Separ like all the hordes of legend--more egregiously, perhaps, because they were play-acting and no serious horde would go on so. Our final hundred yards of speed and copious howling brought all dwellers in Separ out to gaze and disappear like rabbits--all save the new agent in the station. n.o.body ran out or in there, and the horde whirled up to the tiny, defenceless building and leaped to earth--except Lin and me; we sat watching. The innocent door stood open wide to any cool breeze or invasion, and Honey Wiggin tramped in foremost, hat lowering over eyes and pistol prominent. He stopped rooted, staring, and his mouth came open slowly; his hand went feeling up for his hat, and came down with it by degrees as by degrees his grin spread. Then in a milky voice, he said: "Why, excuse me, ma'am!

Good-morning."

There answered a clear, long, rippling, ample laugh. It came out of the open door into the heat; it made the sun-baked air merry; it seemed to welcome and mock; it genially hovered about us in the dusty quiet of Separ; for there was no other sound anywhere at all in the place, and the great plain stretched away silent all round it. The bulging water-tank shone overhead in bland, ironic safety.

The horde stood blank; then it s.h.i.+fted its legs, looked sideways at itself, and in a hesitating clump reached the door, shambled in, and removed its foolish hat.

"Good-morning, gentlemen," said Jessamine Buckner, seated behind her railing; and various voices endeavored to reply conventionally.

"If you have any letters, ma'am," said the Virginian, more inventive, "I'll take them. Letters for Judge Henry's." He knew the judge's office was seventy miles from here.

"Any for the C. Y.?" muttered another, likewise knowing better.

It was a happy, if simple, thought, and most of them inquired for the mail. Jessamine sought carefully, making them repeat their names, which some did guiltily: they foresaw how soon the lady would find out no letters ever came for these names!

There was no letter for any one present.

"I'm sorry, truly," said Jessamine behind the railing. "For you seemed real anxious to get news. Better luck next time! And if I make mistakes, please everybody set me straight, for of course I don't understand things yet."