THE STAGE COACH

At the very threshold of life Julian Grabo met with an Obstacle. It filled the doorway. He could not pass nor see beyond it.

"By Jove, what a nuisance!" he had cried when the doctor told him he had not more than six months to live.

"But perhaps," said the physician, "if you'll go into the arid country, you'll make the six months into a year."

"I could put in a year excellently," mused Grabo. "I believe I'll go."

He could hardly realize that he was in danger. He did not feel depleted nor weakened. He was full of excitable life, and interested in everything,–men, women, animals, poetry, history, and possibilities.

"You could put me anywhere and I'd amuse myself," he said to a friend. "I never yet complained about anything,–not even my coffee. It seems such a waste of good nature for ME to go off!"

His friends were incredulous,–the men swore and the women wept. But Grabo, who had once bellowed like a calf when his football team had been beaten by a rival college, now shed no tear. He sent out his farewell cards, packed up his portable possessions, and set off post haste for a sheep ranch in Colorado, which was kept by a young Englishman he had met on his travels.

On the cars he tried to think things over, but his mind would not concentrate. All he could think of was Stevenson's epitaph, which the rails rattled off at a brisk tempo: –

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

"But the real trouble with all that is," he said to the rails, "that this hunter has not yet been to the hill, nor this sailor to the sea."

The rails kept up an idiot-iteration, however: –

Glad did I live and gladly die.
Glad did I live and gladly die!

He grew more and more dejected as he went westward. He resented the vigor of the engineer who stuck his grimy face out of the cab to nod to Grabo as he paced the platform; he was angry with the brunette young woman who was on her way to Los Angeles and expected to find it gay; he detested the hale old man who told stories in the smoking compartment. He grew bitter at the inequalities of fate. By degrees he reached despair, then abjection. He sank into a sodden reverie, forgot to eat, slept as if he were drugged, and awoke with a semi-prostration upon him. This made him exaggerate his symptoms.

"It will not be even three months," his frightened spirit shrieked out to his trembling body.

At Upper Mesa he was to take a stage coach, and he loathed the idea, for it meant that he was to have companions. And, truly enough, he found himself in intimate proximity to them. He would have liked to shut them out of his consciousness, but so far from being able to do that, he was forced into a minute yet distasteful observation of them.

As a man doomed to die before sundown will watch the progress of a fly on the wall, or count the tiles on the floor of his cell, so Julian observed his companions, though they were to him as negligible as tiles or flies.

There were five passengers within the coach and one outside with the driver. To begin with, there was Grabo, the doomed and unreconciled. Then there was an old man, a woman of forty, a woman of seventy-five, and a child–a girl–of seven. Outside were Tuttle Underwood, a miner, and Henry Victor, the owner and driver of the stage coach. These two men had introduced themselves to Grabo. Victor measured six feet three, and he handled the ribbons of his four-in-hand with happy nonchalance. The Rockies have a breed of their own, and Victor was a Rocky Mountain man. His hands, face, and beard were the color of well-seasoned sandstone, and he affected the same color in his clothes. Never did a human being fit more unobtrusively into a landscape. His voice had an agreeable monotone which accorded with the minor, undulating harmonies of wind, water, and trees which soughed in the cañons. If some over-musician, reflected Grabo, could find the keynote to the Rockies, that would be the keynote to Henry Victor, too.

As for his four bays, they were mountain horses as surely as their driver was a mountain man, and no one of them was rendered in the least nervous by the fact that the rear wheels of the coach were flirting over the precipice as the vehicle flung around the buttressed rock.

Underwood, the miner, was as lean as a coyote. His iron-gray hair was shaggy, his eyes in perfect focus, his hand good for the exigeant shot. He wore a dust-colored hat, a blue flannel shirt, a faded coat, trousers of the same sad fabric tucked in handsome boots, and he was belted and armed. He looked to Grabo as if he would probably live forever.

As for the people within the coach, each one was alone. None had known any other member of the company till that hour. Even the child was alone, her only companion being an ugly doll.

"You are my little girl," she was heard to babble. "Really and truly you are, though I haven't seen you since ever. You've been living away off with your grandmother for years 'n' years, and now you're coming home to your own mamma. You'd better look nice, or she won't like you, so there!"

She found a bit of string in the bottom of the coach and tied it around the doll's neck.

"There!" she said in satisfied accents, "now you've got a tag on, telling just who you are and where you're going, and there wouldn't be any sense in your getting lost. You just go up to anybody, man or woman, and show 'em that tag, and they'll help you on. Folks is always good to a child."

This optimistic remark was followed by a sigh on the part of the child, and seemed to be more of a creed than a conviction. It created a mild sensation. The old man looked appealingly at the women. The old woman felt in her bag for treasures which she did not find. The woman of forty started up from a reverie, regarded the child in a puzzled and somewhat embarrassed fashion, and then seated herself by her.

"I hope you're not getting tired," she said. There was a minor cadence to the voice, which was rather deep and serious.

"I don't think I'm tired," said the child, turning eyes of heavenly blue upon the woman, "but it's dreadful when no one says a word!"

"Oh, well, you see," said the woman apologetically, letting a smile creep into her rather bitter face, "we don't know each other."

"Except you and me," cried the child, with a laugh which revealed two rows of minute and pearly teeth. "We got acquainted quick, didn't we?"

"Very," said the woman with flattering gravity.

"I've come a long way," continued the little one, "and my grandma cried when I left her. Here, read this!" She tugged at a string which ran about her neck, and drew out a tag. The woman read from it: –

"Margaret Samsom, Arline, Colorado."

"That's my name and where I'm go- ing," announced the child. "And my mamma's name is just the same as mine. She'll be waiting for me when I get out of the coach."

Her penetrating treble reached the men on the front seat, and Underwood nudged Victor.

"D'yeh hear that?" he whispered. "She's th' daughter of Red Mag!"

They turned in their seats and regarded the child with curiosity and something akin to horror. She had a face as tender as a flower. Her blue eyes were beaming with excitement, brown ringlets clustered about her low, blue-veined temples, her teeth were like little grains of rice, and her parted lips were exquisitely arched. As her soft glowing neck crept away between the clean ruffles of her gingham frock, it conveyed an idea of delicacy and loveliness of person. She beamed at the miner as he regarded her with frowning anxiety.

"Peter's eye!" he said, and spat twice in the road. At intervals he ejaculated with disgust, "Red Mag!" And once he said, "The only decent thing for you to do, Hank, is to run this here stage over the gulch, and end it for her before she meets her 'mamma.'"

"Have you a tag around your neck?" little Margaret asked of the bitter-faced woman.

"No, dear."

"What am I going to call you when I want to speak to you?"

"Mrs. Ellery–no, aunt Anna."

The horses were toiling up the slope. They were in the midst of a great gorge. The world about them was vast and dead,–its fires burned out, its floods spent, its tumult stilled. As they climbed up and up, the very old woman began to move her head from side to side curiously, and several times she put her hand to her throat.

"There's a dreadful noise in my ears," she complained.

"Never bin up as high as this before, I reckon?" said Victor interrogatively.

"Who–me?" piped the old woman. "No; I've always lived at Morgansport. That ain't a hilly place."

"Going to live out this-a-way?"

"Well, yes, I bethought myself to," responded the old lady in a neighborly tone. "My sister Marthy, that I've bin livin' with, is twenty years younger than me, and a very spry person. I got under foot. I could see it. She didn't like me fussin' about her kitchen, nur weedin' in the garden, and it seemed to her that I had to burn a most uncommon amount of wood to keep warm. I kin see as plain as anything how it struck Marthy. I didn't want her grudgin' me my days, and I took matters in my own hands, and lit right out for my son James's. I knew Jim would want me!" She put her head on one side, exhibiting that last form of coquetry–that of a mother for a well-loved son.

"Does your son live at Arline, ma'am?" inquired Victor.

"Yes," she answered, smiling till her toothless gums were fully revealed. "James Farnam. Maybe you know him? He was always great for makin' friends."

Grabo saw the men on the front seat exchange one swift and frightened look.

"Now I will drive the blamed old stage over the rim!" swore Victor to Underwood. They smiled at each other grimly.

"What's to pay?" wondered Grabo.

The day wore on pleasantly enough. Grabo forgot himself a little. Or, rather, the mysticism which was his inheritance from a line of dreamers began to anæsthetize him. The vastness of the world about him, the endurability of those mountain ranges, the clarity of the sapphire heavens, the swing of the high sun, the obvious fret and fume of man's little life as indicated in the group there in the coach, all reconciled him somewhat to his grief. The old, old woman swayed feebly in her seat, yet still smiled on, thinking of "Jim." The little child grew fretful, and the bitter-faced woman comforted her with infinite tenderness. The two men on the front seat were telling tales to each other to pass away the time. Only the old man and Grabo sat silent. There seemed to be something hunted in the old man's face.

"What's his trouble?" wondered Grabo, "and how long before oblivion will overtake him? The trouble with me is, I have no trouble. I'm in fit shape for life, and not attaining it." He remembered with sudden self-pity that he had not even kissed a woman as men kiss the women they love. This made him turn the eye of masculine appraisement on the bitter-faced person near him. He noticed that her eyes were gray, half-closed, as if from instinctive reserve of soul; that her lips were softly compressed, that they were shapely and mournful. Her complexion was that of a woman who has lost anticipation, and in whose veins the blood moves wearily. A plume of gray hair showed above her brow in the midst of the brown. She was costumed with conspicuous neatness in black, and about her neck gear was just a touch of brightness, as if, after long denial, she had awakened to the joys of decoration.

"She's beginning over," mused Grabo. "She has seen a mirage on the desert, and she's making for it."

Silence seemed to lie on Grabo like a spell. The fundamental silence of the abyss, of the vault, of the everlasting hills, had come up and seized him by the throat. It became a pain at last,–for Grabo had always been loquacious till he met the Obstacle. He made up his mind to speak, and he turned to the old man.

"You are going west for the first time, sir?" He spoke out of a dry throat, and the trifling inquiry represented a triumph of will.

"Me?" said the old man pleasantly, with a kind of timid neighborliness. "Yes–the first time. I've lived in Ohio all my life."

"Quite a break-up–coming away out here," said Grabo.

"Yes, yes. Well, I've been living with my son's wife. My son died three years ago, and Lucy set out to do her duty by me. It was hard for her–and harder for me!" he gave a sardonic little twist to his lips, which were loose and pitiful and discouraged-looking. "A while ago I could see she was taking interest in a man down street, – a good man, too. I sold some things I had. 'Lucy,' says I, 'I'm going to take myself off.'–'How'll you live, father?' says she. – 'There's my pension,' says I, 'and there's old Luke Bailey. He was in my regiment, you see, and he baches it out in Red Butte. He's often written urging me to come out.'–'But father,' says Lucy, 'I always wanted to be with you in your last hours.' She was still thinking of her duty. That's Lucy's style.–'Lucy,' says I, 'spare yourself the pleasure. You're a good girl, and that's why I'm getting out of your way.'"

His faded eyes watered, and he sat staring at the wall of rock beside which the coach was running.

"There ain't nothing so satisfying as being out from under foot," observed Underwood, who had been listening.

"It ain't just what I pictured for myself," said the old man. "I've had good homes, and a good wife and children, and responsibility in my community. They're all gone. Sometimes I think I never had them,–that it was a kind o' dream. Anyhow, now I'm going on to a new place. It took sixty-five years for my roots to strike in, and then I tore 'em up."

"What's your name, sir?" asked Grabo respectfully. His heart warmed genially toward this man who had built up the structure of life and seen it tumble about his feet.

"John Siller," responded the man, with a ring in his voice, as if the name had its significance. Grabo was sure it was a name which had counted here and there,–perhaps at town meetings, perhaps at local elections, maybe in abolition gatherings, certainly on the roster of a volunteer regiment.

"You've walked a long road," said Grabo gently.

"Eh? Oh yes! Walked a long road! Well, you'd think so if you'd walked it with me. The people that have passed–they'd make a cityful! But walking a long road ain't the only thing, young man."

He looked at Grabo with a penetrating glance.

"He sees I'm doomed," thought the young man.

"Walking a road, and not being driven along it, is the thing," said Anna Ellery. There was an accent of wrath and sorrow in her voice. "My idea is to walk it and set my own pace."

It had the gusto of a fresh declaration of independence.

"Evidently," thought Grabo, "she found the path too narrow for two."

It came lunch time, and being in a grove of pines, they all seated themselves on the ground and ate together. Mrs. Ellery made coffee; Grabo looked after the child, who was fastidious, and did not take well to the cold food. Mrs. Farnam, the old woman, could not eat at all, and the coffee she drank intoxicated her.

"If it wa'n't for the thought of Jim," she gasped again and again, "I don't know how I could git up spirit to go on."

"There ain't nothing to do, ma'am, but git on," said Victor cheerily. "You'll come out all right, ma'am."

But as the afternoon wore on she became more and more distressed. Mrs. Ellery noted how the breath fluttered in the poor old throat. Grabo, who watched her with fascinated eyes, and who – so strange was his mood–appeared to feel the winds of Destiny blowing continually upon this party of stragglers in search of happiness, saw a peculiar pallor spreading over her face. He was not surprised when the poor little figure toppled forward. He caught it in his arms, and called to Victor to rein in. The brakes clamped the wheels, and Grabo got out with the old woman in his arms. She was no heavier than a child, but repulsive with the repulsion of wasted flesh, sunken eyes, and inert limbs. Her cheeks began to puff out curiously, and her eyes to toll. The coach was, fortunately, at a small level semicircle of honest horizontal earth. The soil had washed down here, and piñon trees–seven in number – stood together in a confidential and frightened group. Grabo put the old soul there. Nay–the soul, which may have been young or old, had escaped, but whether it was in the purple and solemn valley beneath them, or in the sweet clarity of daffodil sky above, no man ventured to surmise. All looked at the pitiful body, which, bereft of that which gave it its trifling significance, lay supine.

There being neither prayers nor tears at hand, the bitter-faced woman, who had been supporting the dead woman, kissed her on the forehead.

"Good-by, mother," she said gently. Grabo felt the tears leap to his eyes.

"I didn't know women were so sweet," he thought.

"You heard her say she was goin' to Arline to visit her darlin' son, didn't yeh?" asked Underwood with emotion.

Grabo nodded.

"Well," said Underwood, "she wouldn't hev seen him. He tried to knife Bill Upton in Garey's place three weeks back, and got shot between the eyes."

"Dead?" asked Anna Ellery.

'You bet, ma'am," said Underwood devoutly.

"Poor mother!" said Anna Ellery once more.

The panting beasts stood at rest. The old man, Siller, was hanging on to the child, lest she should go too near the precipice. A rigor began to creep over the dead woman.

"Shall we take her to Arline?" asked Victor.

Grabo turned sick at the idea. The old man shivered. Anna Ellery shook her head.

"It's no good," she said. "Whom would we take her to? This is a beautiful place for a–for a grave."

"And handy to heaven," muttered Underwood.

"How about gettin' through to our journey's end?" asked John Siller.

"We'll have to camp here to-night," Victor said. "The Rattlesnake River, three miles from here, has been doing its best lately. I wouldn't take anybody through it in the dark that I was anyways responsible for–not to mention the hosses." He looked affectionately at his beasts.

"It would be too bad to risk the horses," smiled Grabo. He was thinking the others might take the Long Voyage merrily enough. Yet who could tell! There is a saying that the young are prodigal of life, but the old economical of it. Perhaps old man Siller wanted to live!

"You think, then," said Victor, "that we'd best plant the old soul right here?" He spoke almost tenderly.

"Not till the child's asleep," whispered Anna Ellery.

Victor took command, sending Underwood to chop wood, and Grabo to get the victuals from the coach, while he himself looked after the horses.

Anna led the child back among the rocks.

"See," she said, "you can have a little playhouse here." She made a miniature pantry for her with pebbles and bits of mica for the dishes. Then she returned to the "poor mother." She combed her straggling locks, made her decent, covered her face with a clean handkerchief and the whole body with a horse blanket. By this time the men had a fire, and a repast with hot coffee. A good deal of time had been consumed, and already the shadows were groping their way far down the gorge,–trooping down like blind men bound on some grim and final errand. In the inlet of land–for the blue ether of space ran about them like a fluid sea–the day began to gloom. Anna called the child to her, and they all sat about the fire and ate. It grew chilly, and she wrapped the child in her cape. When the little one began to fret Anna held her close till she fell asleep, and then carried her over to the shelter of the rocks, and wrapped her well. When she came back the men had already begun to dig the grave with whatever implements they had at hand. There was one shovel, an axe, and three knives in the party. They were all utilized for the task, and in a little while the shallow grave was dug. Victor and Grabo laid the old woman in her comfortable bed. They covered her over without the "dust to dust." No one prayed. No one sang. But Mrs. Ellery had found the dead woman's full name on a letter within her pocket, and Grabo graved the name on the rock.

MARY FARNAM. DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH UNKNOWN.
DIED ON THE ROAD, AND BURIED BY HER FELLOW TRAVELERS.

He put the date last. They all watched him, and stirred the fire from time to time to give him light. After it was over, Anna went to look at the child. She was sleeping delicately, and when Anna stooped close to her she noticed that her breath was like that of a young calf. She came back to the fire and seated herself among the men. Her eyes were shining, her mouth tender, all her aspect sisterly.

"Pretty fine little gal, ma'am," said Underwood, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb.

"Oh!" said Anna, unable to articulate her appreciation of the child.

"You want to know the kindest thing you kin do to her?" persisted Underwood. Anna's silent gesture answered.

"Well, throw her over this here gorge while she sleeps. She'll never know nothin' after that."

"What do you mean?"

"You ain't acquainted in Arline, ma'am, but if you wus, you'd know Red Mag. Every man there knows 'er. Every woman runs from 'er. She lives in a filthy hut, and talks filthier than she looks. That's the young un's ma."

"But I won't have it!" Mrs. Ellery cried, clasping her hands. "I won't have her go to a woman like that!"

She appeared to be shaken by some strange passion. Grabo listened to the wind wailing through the gorge, but he smiled to himself, and said that of course it was the windage of Destiny's wings. For surely this night Her presence was felt. He turned gleaming eyes upon Anna. "Maternity has come to her," he reflected, "without birth pangs." He was convinced that she would never let the child go to its mother.

"I like an intelligent breaker of the law," he mused. He threw himself back on the ground, his hands under his head. He was happy. He liked his companions. They seemed to him more alive than any persons he had previously met.

"The stars are more neighborly than I had supposed," he said, conscious that his calm remark was out of key with Anna's emotion, but willing to take the attention from her.

"They do look that way out here," admitted Underwood. "I suppose it's because they're the only neighbors you kin get."

"I like the way they mind their own business," observed Victor. "You'd think, to look at 'em, that they was thicker than snakes at Slaney's Pocket, but they never git mixed up."

Grabo was cheerfully misquoting some lines of Tennyson's. Underwood caught the last couplet: –

– "yet with power to burn and brand
His nothingness into man."

He debated the point.

"I don't know about nothingness!" he said. "When I see the way men come it over these hulking, ugly brutes of mountains, and git their livings out of 'em, and pick and peck at 'em, and tunnel and bridge 'em, I don't know about nothingness. I ain't the man to take a back seat fur a star or a mountain."

The stars seemed to grow in brilliancy. The blackness deepened. It was impenetrable, chill, yet with streams of warmth flowing through it like currents of charity through a censorious world. The precipice yawned a few feet distant. The little company rested at ease on a narrow shelf midway between earth and heaven. They were bound together by the torrent, which impeded their journey, by the night which encompassed yet could not extinguish them, by the new-made grave of their fellow traveler, by the sleeping child, and by the fire.

"It's odd," said old John Siller, lighting his pipe, "but I don't know when I've felt so at home."

Julian Grabo let his hand fall so that, in the darkness, it touched Anna Ellery's dress. He held the fabric between his fingers, as he used to hold his mother's gown when he was a child.

They all talked together softly, often with a friendly incoherence. Anna had a sense of being watched over. The men smiled at her brother-wise. Finally Grabo urged her to sleep, and she went once more to see to the covering of the child; then she stood for a space by Mary Farnam's grave. Grabo joined her.

"She is well covered," he said.

"I've been saying a prayer," confessed Anna, "and I'd almost forgotten how."

"Were you praying for the living or the dead?" asked Grabo.

"I hardly know," smiled Anna. "To-night I could easily imagine that we are all dead."

Their eyes met. A shiver of sympathy shook them, and then, with decision, they withdrew their gaze. It is the fashion–world old–for souls thus to salute each other. These, having saluted, bade each other farewell. Anna lay down beside the child and slept a little while. It was dawn when she awoke, and shafts of marvelous purple light were streaming into the uttermost recess of the gorge. Some far mountains were bathed in rose. The world was glorious as a Transfiguration. Anna rose up as one who comes into a new life. The child awoke, too, and laughed at her, dewy-fresh. They kissed, and while the men were getting ready the horses Anna bathed the little one's face and hands, and combed her curls. Then she made herself tidy, and had time, before all was in readiness, to cover the grave of the "fellow traveler" with piñon boughs.

Grabo helped her and Margaret into the coach. Siller sat with Grabo. Underwood and Victor mounted in front. The horses had had their breakfast, though the people had not, and they started on their way with careful speed. The ford was reached, and they plunged among foaming waters and hidden rocks. Little Margaret threw her arms about Mrs. Ellery's neck with a cry of alarm. Old Siller grasped Grabo's arm.

"I believe we're going down," Siller whimpered.

"I think not," soothed Julian. "Our friends the horses would be ashamed to let us, you know."

Once more the eyes of Anna and Julian met. They were wondering the same thing,–whether it would be a better matter if the torrent should overcome them.

"Life is too sardonic for that," reflected Grabo. "That innocent baby will live to grow up under the tutelage of her mother, Red Mag; Mrs. Ellery, in her search for liberty, will find some new form of slavery; old Siller will not perish till senility has disintegrated him; as for me, I shall exist to watch death creeping on me like a tide; as for the fellows on the front seat, they wouldn't ruin their reputations by dying in so innocent a manner!"

They emerged upon a fine mesa, and sped on swiftly to the place of relay of horses and breakfast. At the meal they felt the hour of parting hanging over them heavily.

"I git tired, sometimes," said Underwood in an outburst, "of livin' up a gulch. Strikin' a pile ain't the only thing in life. It's about time I took a little comfort, seems to me, and got a family about me." His eyes rested on Margaret, who had gone into semi-eclipse behind a bowl of milk. Her soft curls, her pink chin, and her dimpled hands only were visible.

"Yes," said old Siller, who was mumbling his food after the fashion of the toothless, "family life's the thing. If only my son" – He did not finish, but fixed a wistful gaze on Grabo.

Julian was, indeed, a good sight to look upon this morning. He held his head high, his eyes were clear and blue, his complexion like a girl's, his figure elegant, his garments a perfect fit. He looked as carefully attired as if he had come newly from his chamber. There was something poignant in the glance Anna turned upon him.

"If such a man had been my lover"–she thought brokenly, and then sank into heavy reminiscence.

"Well," said Victor aloud, "I sometimes think I'd like to settle down, too. I git tired of drivin' people around."

He regarded Anna with frank admiration. Underwood followed his gaze, and for the first time a personal speculation took possession of him. Both of them estimated the woman's excellent physique, her kind yet sad eyes, the efficiency of her manner, the modest yet striking fashion of her dress.

When the time came to resume their journey with fresh horses, they had about them that stalwart interest which follows the eating of a good meal. The very pangs of parting diverted them. Siller, particularly, was alert.

"I wonder what old Luke Bailey will think when he sees me loomin' up," he mused, chuckling with anticipatory glee. "I mean to keep my settin'-room always spic up for company," he announced. It was intended for a general invitation.

"So shall I," said Anna in her minor, vibratory voice. "I shall make friends of my own choosing. I shall go to church with good people. I mean to be useful. I am going to have some new dresses. After a little while I'm going to invite people to supper." She looked demure, and evidently saw the pitifulness of her spoken aspirations. "You see," she said by way of explanation, "it's years since–he–let me hold up my head."

The words were almost whispered, but every one heard them. A sympathetic silence fell. No one asked a question, but all four men wondered as to the legal status of her liberty. Margaret was playing with some little tassels on Anna's jacket. She looked up in Anna's face with sudden winsomeness.

"I like you," she said, and hung her head. Anna snatched her close.

"I like you!" she declared fiercely.

Victor turned in his seat.

"In a little while we'll be at Arline." The words were significant,–even ominous.

Anna Ellery must have heard them, but she gave no sign. She fixed her eyes upon the landscape, and a peculiar smile fastened itself upon her face. Margaret began to yawn, showing those ricelike teeth, and Anna lifted her up into her lap, and absently soothed her till she fell asleep. The curious smile never left her face.

A few straggling cabins came into view, and then the raw streets of a mining town.

"We're here," announced Underwood gloomily.

There was a gathering in front of the general store,–ranchers, loafers, Mexicans, Chinese, Indians, Negroes. The coach stopped, and Victor threw off the mail bag and handed out packages.

Down the street came a large woman, her arm locked in that of a male companion. Both were staggering and vociferous. Grabo guessed the truth instantly. This was Red Mag,–this was Margaret's mother! He tried once more to think philosophically of the wings of Destiny, but he was in hot revolt. His hands clenched involuntarily. Old Siller was trembling, and his jaw worked up and down.

"Mag's celebratin'," Grabo heard one of the crowd remark.

"Expectin' her daughter," said a sardonic voice.

Anna patted the sleeping child, and stared straight ahead.

A silence spread through the crowd as Mag came staggering on. Grabo looked at the bloated face, the dare-devil eyes, the frowzy red hair, the slovenly gown, and then at the woman who treasured the child in her arms.

"I'm going to see an event," he reflected.

Red Mag seemed to have forgotten temporarily what she had come for. Then, with an oath, she remembered. She stuck her head in the coach.

"That's my gal!" she declared.

Underwood and Victor kept their eyes on Anna, as men in an orchestra fasten their gaze upon the conductor. Grabo noticed that each sat with a hand clapped to his pistol pocket.

"I'm lookin' fur my gal," Mag said defiantly. Her companion came forward pugnaciously.

"Where's that there young un that took passage with you, Hank Victor?" he demanded.

"There's no child here but my daughter," said Anna Ellery in her penetrating voice.

It was the lift of the bâton, and the orchestra responded.

"Git out of the way, there!" commanded Victor. He raised his whip. Mag began to pour forth oaths fluently. But the whip fell. The horses leaped from the watering trough, their check reins hanging.

A mile out of town, Grabo leaned forward, lifted one of Anna Ellery's hands where it still clasped the sleeping child, and put it to his lips. Old Siller was weeping. Underwood and Victor sat close together on the front seat and seemed to be enjoying themselves.

In an hour they reached Grabo's place. It was the cross-roads on a high and sunny plain, where the pungent smell of sage-brush perfumed the air. Grabo looked about him, in the spirit of reconnaissance. He had a sense that he was to be left in space. But he liked it.

There was an open wagon and a pair of mules waiting for him, and they were driven by an alert boy with freckles.

"I came down yisterday," he said to Grabo, "expectin' you. When you didn't come, I camped. Mr. Memory is awful anxious to see ye, sir. He's laid up with a twisted knee. Got throwed off his bronc."

"You see I'm wanted," Grabo smiled at Siller. "And I think you'll be!"

He shook hands with all the men, and they slapped him on the shoulder. He and Anna looked once more in each other's eyes. For a second or two they were motionless. Then he removed a curious little pin from the inside of his coat, regarded its cabalistic insignia affectionately, and pinned it on her dress.

"It's a decoration for distinguished conduct," he said with such nonchalance as he had at command.

He kissed Margaret on her moist forehead.

"She'll grow up a good woman," he prophesied. "She'll be a comfort to you. In a day or two I shall send her a gift. Once in three months it will be repeated. Perhaps you'll write me how she gets on."

He was, indeed, laying plans for the child even as he talked. The freckled boy transferred Julian's belongings to the wagon.

"Sometimes when you drive by I'll be here at the cross-roads to yell at you," Grabo told Victor.

He got in the wagon, and both vehicles started on their ways.

For a few moments Grabo sat tense, throbbing with curious emotions.

Then twelve shots rent the air,–the parting salute of his fellow travelers. He stood up in the wagon and waved his adieux. He could see Anna waving, and little Margaret, whom the shooting had awakened, and he recognized Siller's bandana. When he sat down the freckled boy said,–

"You'll git jest as hearty a hullo when ye reach Amber Ranch."

"Shall I?" cried Grabo. "And who are you, friend?"

"Me? Biff Hathaway. I'm herdin' f'r Mr. Memory. I come out here to die. The doctor giv me a month."

"How long ago was that?" asked Grabo.

"Four year," grinned the freckled boy.

Grabo straightened his shoulders. He took in the flowing spacious plain, the perfect arch of the cloudless vault, the windings of the persistent road.

"Doesn't it seem to you we're taking it a little too easy?" he asked.

The freckle-faced boy snapped his whip, and the tawny mules leaped forward. Julian sat straining his eyes into the distance. Miraculously, the common dust of the highway had been transmuted into gold.

Elia W. Peattie.

Atlantic Monthly, May 1904, 93

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