Chapter 9

In the chronology of the little town, day followed day, as monotonously as ticks the tall clock on the wall. Only in multiple they merged into the seasons which glided so smoothly, one into the other, that the change was unnoticed, until it had taken place.

Thus three months passed by, and man's work for the year was nearly done. The face of the prairie had become one of many colors; eternal badge of civilization as opposed to Nature, who paints each season with its own hue. Beside the roadways great, rank sunflowers turned their glaring yellow faces to the light. In every direction stretched broad fields of flax; unequally ripening, their color scheme ranging from sky blue of blossoms to warm browns of maturity. Blotches of sod corn added here and there a dash of green to the picture. Surrounding all, a setting for all, the unbroken virgin prairie, mottled green and brown, stretched, smiling, harmonious, beneficent; a land of promise and of plenty for generations yet unborn.

All through the long, hot summer Asa Arnold had stayed in town, smoking a big pipe in front of the hotel of Hans Becher. Indolent, abnormally indolent, a stranger seeing him thus would have commented; but, save Hans the confiding, none other of the many interested observers were deceived. No man merely indolent sleeps neither by night nor by day; and it seemed the little man never slept. No man merely indolent sits wide-eyed hour after hour, gazing blankly at the earth beneath his feet--and uttering never a word. Brooding, not dreaming, was Asa Arnold; brooding over the eternal problem of right and wrong. And, as passed the slow weeks, he moved back--back on the trail of civilization, back until Passion and not Reason was the god enthroned; back until one thought alone was with him morning, noon, and night,--and that thought preponderant, overmastering, deadly hate.

Observant Curtis, the doctor, shrugged his shoulders.

"The old, old trail," he satirized.

It was to Bud Evans, the little agent, that he made the observation.

"Which has no ending," completed the latter.

The doctor shrugged afresh.

"That has one inevitable termination," he refuted.

"Which is--"

"Madness--sheer madness."

The agent was silent a moment.

"And the end of that?" he suggested.

Curtis pursed his lips.

"Tragedy, or a strait-jacket. The former, in this instance."

Evans was silent longer than before.

"Do you really mean that?" he queried at last, significantly.

"I've warned Maurice,"--sententiously. "I can do no more."

"And he?" quickly.

"Thanked me."

"That was all?"

"That was all."

The two friends looked at each other, steadily; yet, though they said no more, each knew the thought of the other, each knew that in future no move of Asa Arnold's would pass unnoticed, unchallenged.

Again, weeks, a month, passed without incident. It was well along in the fall and of an early evening that a vague rumor of the unusual passed swiftly, by word of mouth, throughout the tiny town. Only a rumor it was, but sufficient to set every man within hearing in motion.

On this night Hans Becher had eaten his supper and returned to the hotel office, as was his wont, for an evening smoke, when, without apparent reason, Bud Evans and Jim Donovan, the blacksmith, came quietly in and sat down.

"Evening," they nodded, and looked about them.

A minute later Dr. Curtis and Hank Judge, the machine man, dropped unostentatiously into chairs. They likewise muttered "Evening," and made observation from under their hat-brims. Others followed rapidly, until the room was full and dark figures waited outside. At last Curtis spoke.

"Your boarder, Asa Arnold, where is he, Hans?"

The unsuspecting German blew a cloud of smoke.

"He a while ago went out." Then, as an afterthought: "He will return soon."

Silence once more for a time, and a steadily thickening haze of smoke in the room.

"Did he have supper, Hans?" queried Bud Evans, impatiently.

Again the German's face expressed surprise.

"No, it is waiting for him. He went to shoot a rabbit he saw."

The men were on their feet.

"He took a gun, Hans?"

"A rifle, to be sure." The mild brown eyes glanced up reproachfully. "A man does not go hunting without--... What is this!" he completed in consternation, as, finding himself suddenly alone, he hurried outside and stood confusedly scratching his bushy poll, in the block of light surrounding the open doorway.

The yard was deserted. As one snuffs a candle, the men had vanished. Hans' pipe had gone out and he went inside for a match. Though the stars fell, the German must needs smoke. Only a minute he was gone, but during that time a group of horsemen had gathered in the street. Others were coming across lots, and still others were emerging from the darkness of alleys. Some were mounted; some led by the rein, wiry little bronchos. Watching, it almost seemed to the German that they sprang from the ground.

"Are you all ready?" called a voice, Bud Evans' voice.

"Here--"

"Here--"

"All ready?"

"Yes--"

"We're off, then."

There was a sudden, confused trampling, as of cattle in stampede; a musical creaking of heavy saddles; a knife-like swish of many quirts through the air; a chorus of dull, chesty groans as the rowels of long spurs bit the flanks of the mustangs, and they were gone--down the narrow street, out upon the prairie, their hoof beats pattering _diminuendo_ into silence; a cloud of dust, grayish in the starlight, marking the way they had taken.

Jim Donovan, the blacksmith, came running excitedly up from a side street. He stopped in front of the hotel, breathlessly. Holding his sides, he followed with his eyes the trail of dust leading out into the night.

"Have they gone?" he panted. "I can't find another horse in town."

"Where is it to?" sputtered the German.

"Have they gone, I say?"

Hans gasped.

"Yes, to be sure."

"They'll never make it." The blacksmith mopped his brow with conviction. "He has an hour's start."

Hans grasped the big man by the coat.

"Who is too late?" he emphasized. "Where are they going?"

Jim Donovan turned about, great pity for such density in his eyes.

"Is it possible you don't understand? It's to Ichabod Maurice's they're going, to tell him of Arnold." The speaker mopped his face anew. "It's useless though. They're too late," he completed.

"But Arnold is not there," protested the German. "He went for a rabbit, out on the breaking. He so told me."

"He lied to you. He's mad. I tell you they're too late," repeated the smith, obstinately.

Hans clung tenaciously to the collar.

"Some one knew and told them?" He pointed in the direction the dust indicated.

"Yes, Bud Evans; but they wouldn't believe him at first, and"--bitterly--"and waited." Donovan shook himself free, and started down the walk. "I'm going to bed," he announced conclusively.

Meanwhile the cloud of dust was moving out over the prairie like the wind. The pace was terrific, and the tough little ponies were soon puffing steadily. Small game, roused from its sleep by the roadside, sprang winging into the night. Once a coyote, surprised, ran a distance confusedly ahead in the roadway; then, an indistinct black ball, it vanished amongst the tall grass.

Well out on the prairie, Bud Evans, the leader, raised in his stirrups and looked ahead. There was no light beyond where the little cottage should be. The rowels of his spur dug anew at the flank of his pony as he turned a voice like a fog-horn back over his shoulder.

"The place is dark, boys," he called. "Hurry."

Answering, a muttering sound, not unlike an approaching storm, passed along the line, and in accompaniment the quirts cut the air anew.

Silent as the grave was the little farmstead when, forty odd minutes from the time of starting, they steamed up at the high fence bounding the yard. One of Ichabod's farm horses whinnied a lone greeting from the barn as they hastily dismounted and swarmed within the inclosure.

"We're too late," prophesied a voice.

"I'm glad my name's not Arnold, if we are," responded another, threateningly.

Hurrying up the path in advance, the little land-agent stumbled over a soft, dark object, and a curse fell from his lips as he recognized the dead body of the big collie.

"Yes, we're too late," he echoed.

The door of the house swung ajar, creaking upon its hinges; and, as penetrates the advance wave of a flood, the men swarmed through the doorway inside, until the narrow room was blocked. Simultaneously, like torches, lighted matches appeared aloft in their hands, and the tiny whitewashed room flashed into light. As simultaneously there sprang from the mouth of each man an oath, and another, and another. Waiting outside, not a listener but knew the meaning of that sound; and big, hairy faces crowded tightly to the one small window.

For a moment not a man in the line stirred. Death was to them no stranger; but death such as this--

In more than one hand the match burned down until it left a mark like charcoal, and without calling attention. One and all they stood spellbound, their eyes on the floor, their lips unconsciously uttering the speech universal of anger and of horror, the instinctive language of anathema.

On the floor, sprawling, as falls a lifeless body, lay the long Ichabod. On his forehead, almost geometrically near the centre, was a tiny, black spot, around it a lighter red blotch; his face otherwise very white; his hair, on the side toward which he leaned, a little matted; that was all.

Prostrate across him, in an attitude of utter abandon, reposed the body of a woman, soft, graceful, motionless now as that of the man: the body of Camilla Maurice. One hand had held his head and was stained dark. On her lips was another stain, but lighter. The meaning of that last mark came as a flash to the spectators, and the room grew still as the figures on the floor.

Suddenly in the silence the men caught their breath, with the quick guttural note that announces the unexpected. That there was no remaining life they had taken for granted--and Camilla's lips had moved! They stared as at sight of a ghost; all except Curtis, the physician.

"A lamp, men," he demanded, pressing his ear to Camilla's chest.

"Help me here, Evans," he continued without turning. "I think she's fainted is all," and together they carried their burden into the tiny sleeping-room, closing the door behind.

That instant Ole, the Swede, thrust a curious head in at the outer doorway. He had noticed the light and the gathering, and came to ascertain their meaning. Wondering, his big eyes passed around the waiting group and from them to the floor. With that look self-consciousness left him; he crowded to the front, bending over the tall man and speaking his name.

"Mr. Maurice," he called. "Mr. Maurice."

He snatched off his own coat, rolling it under Ichabod's head, and with his handkerchief touched the dark spot on the forehead. It was clotted already and hardening, and realization came to the boy Swede. He stood up, facing the men, the big veins in his throat throbbing.

"Who did this?" he thundered, crouching for a spring like a great dog. "Who did this, I say?"

It was the call to action. In the sudden horror of the tragedy the big fellows had momentarily forgotten their own grim epilogue. Now, at the words, they turned toward the door. But the Swede was in advance, blocking the passage.

"Tell me first who did this thing," he challenged, threateningly.

A hand was laid gently upon his shoulder.

"Asa Arnold, my boy," answered a quiet voice, which continued, in response to a sudden thought, "You live near here; have you seen him to-night?"

The Swede dropped the bar.

"The little man who stays with Hans Becher?"

The questioner nodded.

"Yes, a half-hour ago." The boy-man understood now. "He stopped at my house, and--"

"Which direction did he go?"

Ole stepped outside, his arm stretched over the prairie, white now in the moonlight.

"That way," he indicated. "East."

As there had been quiescence before, now there was action. No charge of cavalry was ever more swift than their sudden departure.

"East, toward Schooner's ranch," was called and repeated as they made their way back to the road; and, following, the wiry little bronchos groaned in unison as the back cinch to each one of the heavy saddles, was, with one accord, drawn tight. Then, widening out upon the reflected whiteness of prairie, there spread a great black crescent. A moment later came silence, broken only by the quivering call of a lone coyote.

Ole watched them out of sight, then turned back to the door; the mood of the heroic passed, once more the timid, retiring Swede. But now he was not alone. Bud Evans was quietly working over the body on the floor, laying it out decently as the quick ever lay out the dead.

"Evans," called the doctor from the bedroom. As the agent responded, Ole heard the smothered cry of a woman in pain.

The big boy hesitated, then sat down on the doorstep. There was nothing now for him to do, and suddenly he felt very tired. His head dropped listlessly into his hands; like a great dog, he waited, watching.

Minutes passed. On the table the oil lamp sputtered and burned lower. Out in the stable the horse repeated its former challenging whinny. Once again through the partition the listener caught the choking wail of pain, and the muffled sound of the doctor's voice in answer.

At last Bud Evans came to the door, his face very white. "Water," he requested, and Ole ran to the well and back. Then, impassive, he sat down again to wait.

Time passed, so long a time it seemed to the watcher that the riders must soon be returning. Finally Evans emerged from the side room, walking absently, his face gray in the lamplight.

The Swede stood up.

"Camilla Maurice, is she hurt?" he asked.

The little agent busied himself making a fire.

"She's dead," he answered slowly.

"Dead, you say?"

"Yes, dead,"--very quietly.

The fire blazed up and lit the room, shining unpityingly upon the face of the man on the floor.

Evans noticed, and drawing off his own coat spread it over the face and hands, covering them from sight; then, uncertain, he returned and sat down, mechanically holding his palms to the blaze.

A moment later Dr. Curtis appeared at the tiny bedroom entrance; and, emerging as the little man had done before him, he closed the door softly behind. In his arms he carried a blanket, carefully rolled. From the depths of its folds, as he slowly crossed the room toward the stove, there escaped a sudden cry, muffled, unmistakable.

The doctor sank down wearily in a chair. Ole, the boy-faced, without a question brought in fresh wood, laying it down on the floor very, very softly.

"Will he--live?" asked Bud Evans, suddenly, with an uncertain glance at the obscuring blanket; and hearing the query, the Swede paused in his work to listen.

The big doctor hesitated, and cleared his throat.

"I think so; though--God forgive me--I hope not." And he cleared his throat again.

JOURNEY'S END

I

"Steve!" It was the girl who spoke, but the man did not seem to hear. He was staring through the window, unseeingly, into the heart of his bitter foe, Winter. He sat silent, helpless.

"Steve!"

At last he awoke.

"Mollie!--girlie!"

An hour had passed since he left the doctor's office to reel and stagger drunkenly through the slush and the sleet, and the icy blasts, which bit cruelly into his very vitals.

Now he and Mollie were alone in the tiny library. Babcock had been warmed, washed, fed. Seemingly without volition on his part, he was before the hard-coal blaze, his feet on the fender, the light carefully shaded from his eyes. Once upon a time--

But Steve Babcock, master mechanic, had not lost his nerve--once upon a time.

"Steve"--the voice was as soft as the wide brown eyes, as the dainty oval chin--"Steve, tell me what it is."

The man's hand, palm outward, dropped wearily, eloquently. That was all.

"But tell me," the girl's chair came closer, so that she might have touched him, "you went to see the doctor?"

"Yes."

"And he--?"

Again the silent, hopeless gesture, more fear-inspiring than words.

"Don't keep me in suspense, please." A small hand was on the man's knee, now, frankly unashamed. "Tell me what he said."

For an instant there was silence, then Babcock shrugged awkwardly, in an effort at nonchalance.

"He said I was--was--" in spite of himself, the speaker paused to moisten his lips--"a dead man."

"Steve!"

Not a word this time; not even a shrug.

"Steve, you--you're not--not joking with me?"

Lower and lower, still in silence, dropped the man's chin.

"Steve," in a steadier voice, "please answer me. You're not joking?"

"Joking!" At last the query had pierced the fear-dulled brain. "Joking! God, no! It's real, real, deadly real, that's what ... Oh, Mollie--!" Instinctively, as a child, the man's head had gone to the girl's lap. Though never before had they spoken of love or of marriage, neither noted the incongruity now. "It's all over. We'll never be married, never again get out into the country together, never even see the green grass next Spring--at least I won't--never.... Oh, Mollie, Mollie!" The man's back rose and fell spasmodically. His voice broke. "Mollie, make me forget; I can't bear to think of it. Can't! Can't!"

Not a muscle of the girl's body stirred; she made no sound. No one in advance would have believed it possible, but it was true. Five minutes passed. The man became quiet.

"Steve," the voice was very even, "what else did the doctor say?"

"Eh?" It was the doddering query of an old man.

The girl repeated the question, slowly, with infinite patience, as though she were speaking to a child.

"What else did the doctor say?"

Her tranquillity in a measure calmed the man.

"Oh, he said a lot of things; but that's all I remember--what I told you. It was the last thing, and he kind of tilted back in his chair. The spring needed oil; it fairly screamed. I can hear it now.

"'Steve Babcock,' said he, 'you've got to go some place where it's drier, where the air's pure and clean and sweet the year round. Mexico's the spot for you, or somewhere in the Far West where you can spend all your time in the open--under the roof of Heaven.'

"He leaned forward, and again that cursed spring interrupted.

"'If you don't go, and go right away,' he said, 'as sure as I'm talking to you, you're a dead man.'"

Babcock straightened, and, leaden-eyed, looked dully into the blaze.

"Those," he whispered, "were his last words."

"And if you do go?"--very quietly.

"He said I had a chance--a fighting chance." Once more the hopeless, deprecatory gesture.

"But what's the use? You know, as well as I, that I haven't a hundred dollars to my name. He might just as well have told me to go to the moon.

"We poor folks are like rats in a trap when they turn the water on--helpless. We--"

Babcock had wandered on, forgetting, for the moment, that it was his own case he was analyzing. Now of a sudden it recurred to him, cumulatively, crushingly and, as before, his head instinctively sought refuge.

"We can't do anything but take our medicine, Mollie--just take our medicine."

_Patter_, _patter_ sounded the sleet against the window-panes, mingling with the roar of the wind in the chimney, with the short, quick breaths of the man. In silence he reached out, took one of the girl's hands captive, and held it against his cheek.

For a minute--five minutes--she did not stir, did not utter a sound; only the soft oval face tightened until its gentle outlines grew sharp, and the brown skin almost white.

All at once her lips compressed; she had reached a decision.

"Steve, sit up, please; I can talk to you better so." Pityingly, protectingly, she placed an arm around him and drew him close; not as man to maid, but--ah, the pity of it!--as a feeble child to its mother.

"Listen to what I say. To-day is Thursday. Next Monday you are going West, as the doctor orders."

"What--what did you say, Mollie?"

"Next Monday you go West."

"You mean, after all, I'm to have a chance? I'm not going to die like--like a rat?"

For a moment, a swiftly passing moment, it was the old vital Steve who spoke; the Babcock of a year ago; then, in quick recession, the mood passed.

"You don't know what you're talking about, girl. I can't go, I tell you. I haven't the money."

"I'll see that you have the money, Steve."

"You?"

"I've been teaching for eight years, and living at home all the while."

The man, surprised out of his self centredness, looked wonderingly, unbelievingly, at her.

"You never told me, Mollie."

"No, I never saw the need before."

The man's look of wonder passed. Another--fearful, dependent, the look of a child in the dark--took its place.

"But--alone, Mollie! A strange land, a strange people, a strange tongue! Oh, I hate myself, girl, hate myself! I've lost my nerve. I can't go alone. I can't."

"You're not going alone, Steve." There was a triumphant note in her voice that thrilled the man through and through. She continued:

"Only this morning--I don't know why I did it; it seems now like Providence pointing the way--I read in the paper about the rich farm lands in South Dakota that are open for settlement. I thought of you at the time, Steve; how such a life might restore your health; but it seemed so impossible, so impracticable, that I soon forgot about it.

"But--Steve--we can each take up a quarter-section--three hundred and twenty acres, altogether. Think of it! We'll soon be rich. There you will have just the sort of outdoor life the doctor says you need."

He looked at her, marvelling.

"Mollie--you don't mean it--now, when I'm--this way!" He arose, his breath coming quick, a deep blot of red in the centre of each cheek. "It can't be true when--when you'd never let me say anything before."

"Yes, Steve, it's true."

She was so calm, so self-possessed and withal so determined, that the man was incredulous.

"That you'll marry me? Say it, Mollie!"

"Yes, I'll marry you."

"Mollie!" He took a step forward, then of a sudden, abruptly halted.

"But your parents," in swift trepidation. "Mollie, they--"

"Don't let's speak of them,"--sharply. Then in quick contrition, her voice softened; once more it struck the maternal note.

"Pardon me, I'm very tired. Come. We have a spare room; you mustn't go home to-night."

The man stopped, coughed, advanced a step, then stopped again.

"Mollie, I can't thank you; can't ever repay you--"

"You mustn't talk of repaying me," she said shyly, her dark face coloring. It was the first time during the interview that she had shown a trace of embarrassment.

"Come," she said, meeting his look again, her hand on the door; "it's getting late. You must not venture out."

A moment longer the man hesitated, then obeyed. Not until he was very near, so near that he could touch her, did a vestige of his former manhood appear. He paused, and their eyes were locked in a soul-searching look. Then all at once his arm was round her waist, his face beside her face.

"Mollie, girl, won't you--just once?"

"No, no--not that! Don't ask it." Passionately the brown hands flew to the brown cheeks, covering them protectingly. But at once came thought, the spirit of sacrifice, and contrition for the involuntary repulse.

"Forgive me, Steve; I'm unaccountable to-night." Her voice, her manner were constrained, subdued. She accepted his injured look without comment, without further defence. She saw the perplexed look on his thin face; then she reached forward--up--and her two soft hands brought his face down to the level of her own.

Deliberately, voluntarily, she kissed him fair upon the lips.

II

The sun was just peering over the rim of the prairie, when Mrs. Warren turned in from the dusty road, picked her way among the browning weeds to the plain, unpainted, shanty-like structure which marked the presence of a homesteader. Except to the east, where stood the tents and shacks of the new railroad's construction gang, not another human habitation broke the dull, monotonous rolling sea of prairie.

Mrs. Warren pounded vigorously upon the rough boards of the door.

A full half-minute she waited; then she glared petulantly at the unresponsive barrier, and pounded upon it again.

Ordinarily she would have waited patiently, for the multitude of duties of one day often found Mrs. Babcock still weary with the dawning of the next--especially since Steve had allied himself with Jack Warren's engineering corps.

Funds had run low, and the two valetudinarians had reached the stage of desperation where they were driven to acknowledge failure, when Jack Warren happened along, in the van of the new railroad.

The work of home-building, from the raw material, had been too much for Steve's enfeebled physique; so it happened that Mollie performed most of his share, as well as all of her own. Yet Steve toiled to the limit of his endurance, and each day, at sundown, flung himself upon his blanket, spread beneath the stars, dog-tired, fairly trembling with weariness. But he soon developed a prodigious appetite, and, after the first few weeks, slept each night like a dead man, until sunrise.

This morning Annie Warren was too full of her errand to pause an instant. She stood a moment listening, one ear to the splintery, unfinished boards, then--

"Mollie," she ventured, "are you awake?"

No answer.

"Mollie"--more insistent, "wake up and let me in."

Still no response.

"Mollie," for the third time, "it is I, Annie; may I enter?"

"Come." The voice was barely audible.

Within the uncomfortably low, dim room the visitor impetuously crossed the earthen floor half-way to a rude bunk built against the wall, then paused, her round, childlike face soberly lengthening.

"Mollie, you have been crying!" she charged, resentfully, as if the act constituted a personal offence. "You can't deceive me. The pillow is soaked, and your eyes are red." She came forward, impulsively, and threw herself on the bed, her arm about the other.

"What is it? Tell me--your friend--Annie."

Beneath the light coverlet, Mollie Babcock made a motion of deprecation, almost of repugnance.

"It is nothing. Please don't pay any attention to me."

"But it _is_ something. Am I not your friend?"

For a moment neither spoke. Annie Warren all at once became conscious that the other woman was looking at her in a way she had never done before.

"Assuredly you are my friend, Annie. But just the same, it's nothing." The look altered until it became a smile.

"Tell me, instead, why you are here," Mollie went on. "It is not usual at this time of day."

Annie Warren felt the rebuff, and she was hurt.

"It is nothing." The visitor was on her feet, her voice again resentful; her chin was held high, while her long lashes drooped. "Pardon me for intruding, for--"

"Annie!"

No answer save the quiver of a sensitive red lip.

"Annie, child, pardon me. I wouldn't for the world hurt you; but it is so hard, what you ask." Mollie Babcock rose, now, likewise. "However, if you wish--"

"No, no!" The storm was clearing. "It was all my fault. I know you'd rather not." She had grasped Mollie's arms, and was forcing her backward, toward the bunk, gently, smilingly. "Be still. I've something to tell you. Are you quite ready to listen?"

"Yes, I'm quite ready."

"You haven't the slightest idea what it is? You couldn't even guess?"

"No, I couldn't even guess."

"I'll tell you, then." The plump Annie was bubbling like a child before a well-filled Christmas stocking. "It's Jack: he's coming this very day. A big, fierce Indian brought the letter this morning." She sat down tailor fashion on the end of the bunk. "He nearly ate up Susie--Jack christened her Susie because she's a Sioux--because she wouldn't let him put the letter right into my own hand. That's why I'm up so early."

She looked slyly at the woman on the bed.

"Who do you suppose is coming with him?" she asked.

"I'm sure I don't know," in a tone of not caring, either.

"Guess, Mollie!"

"Steve?"

"Of course--Steve. You knew all the time, only you wouldn't admit it. Oh, I'm so glad! I want to hug some one. Isn't it fine?"

"Yes, fine indeed. But you don't mean that you want to hug Steve?"

"No, goose. You know I meant Jack; but I--" She regarded her friend doubtfully. But Mollie Babcock was dressing rapidly, and her face was averted.

"And Mollie, I didn't tell you all--almost the best. We're going home, Jack says; going right away; this very week, maybe."

For a moment the dressing halted. "I am very glad--for you," said Mollie, in an even voice.

"Glad, for me!" mimickingly, baitingly. "Mollie Babcock, if I didn't know you better, I'd say you were envious."

Mollie said nothing.

"Or weren't glad your husband is coming."

Still no word.

"Or--or--Mollie, what have I done?" Annie cried in dismay. "Don't cry so; I was only joking. Of course you know that I didn't mean that you envied our good luck, or that you wouldn't be crazy to see Steve."

"But it's so. God help me, it's so!"

"Mollie!" Mrs. Warren was aghast. "Forgive me! I'm ashamed of myself!"

"There's nothing to forgive; it's so."

"Please don't." The two were very close, very tense, but not touching. "Don't say any more. I didn't hear--"

"You did hear. And you suspected, or you wouldn't have suggested!"

"Mollie, I never dreamed. I--"

Of a sudden the older woman faced about. Seizing the other by the shoulders, she held her prisoner. She fixed the frightened woman's eyes with a stern look.

"Will you swear that you never knew--that it was mere chance--what you said?"

"Yes."

"You swear you didn't?"--the grip tightened--"you swear it?"

"I swear--oh, you're hurting me!"

Mollie Babcock let her hands drop.

"I believe you"--wearily. "It seemed that everybody knew. God help me!" She sank to the bed, her face in her hands. "I believe I'm going mad!"

"Mollie--Mollie Babcock! You mustn't talk so--you mustn't!" The seconds ticked away. Save for the quick catch of suppressed sobs, not a sound was heard in the mean, austere little room; not an echo penetrated from the outside world.

Then suddenly the brown head lifted from the pillow, and Mollie faced almost fiercely about.

"You think I am--am mad already." Then, feverishly: "Don't you?"

Helpless at a crisis, Annie Warren could only stand silent, the pink, childish under-lip held tight between her teeth to prevent a quiver. Her fingers played nervously with the filmy lace shawl about her shoulders.

Mollie advanced a step. "Don't you?"

Annie found her voice.

"No, no, no! Oh, Mollie, no, of course not! You--Mollie--" Instinct all at once came to her rescue. With a sudden movement she gathered the woman in her arms, her tender heart quivering in her voice and glistening in her eyes. "Mollie, I can't bear to have you so! I love you, Mollie. Tell me what it is--me--your friend, Annie."

Mollie's lips worked without speech, and Annie became insistent.

"Tell me, Mollie. Let me share the ache at your heart. I love you!"

Here was the crushing straw to one very, very heartsick and very weary. For the first time in her solitary life, Mollie Babcock threw reticence to the winds, and admitted another human being into the secret places of her confidence.

"If you don't think me already mad, you will before I'm through." Like a caged wild thing that can not be still, she was once more on her feet, vibrating back and forth like a shuttle. "I'm afraid of myself at times, afraid of the future. It's like the garret used to be after dark, when we were children: it holds only horrors.

"Child, child!" She paused, her arms folded across her breast, her throat a-throb. "You can't understand--thank God, you never will understand--what the future holds for me. You are going back home; back to your own people, your own life. You've been here but a few months. To you it has been a lark, an outing, an experience. In a few short weeks it will be but a memory, stowed away in its own niche, the pleasant features alone remaining vivid.

"Even, while here, you've never known the life itself. You've had Jack, the novelty of a strange environment, your anticipation of sure release. You are merely like a sightseer, locked for a minute in a prison-cell, for the sake of a new sensation.

"You can't understand, I say. You are this, and I--I am the life-prisoner in the cell beyond, peering at you through the bars, viewing you and your mock imprisonment."

Once more the speaker was in motion, to and fro, to and fro, in the shuttle-trail. "The chief difference is, that the life-prisoner has a hope of pardon; I have none--absolutely none."

"Mollie"--pleadingly, "you mustn't. I'll ask Jack to give Steve a place at home, and you can go--"

"Go!" The bitterness of her heart welled up and vibrated in the word. "Go! We can't go, now or ever. It's death to Steve if we leave. I've got to stay here, month after month, year after year, dragging my life out until I grow gray-haired--until I die!" She halted, her arms tensely folded, her breath coming quick. Only the intensity of her emotion saved the attitude from being histrionic. In a sudden outburst, she fiercely apostrophized:

"Oh, Dakota! I hate you, I hate you! Because I am a woman, I hate you! Because I would live in a house, and not in this endless dreary waste of a dead world, I hate you! Because your very emptiness and solitude are worse than a prison, because the calls of the living things that creep and fly over your endless bosom are more mournful than death itself, I hate you! Because I would be free, because I respect sex, because of the disdain for womanhood that dwells in your crushing silence, I hate--oh, my God, how I hate you!" She threw her arms wide, in a frantic gesture of rebellion.

"I want but this," she cried passionately: "to be free; free, as I was at home, in God's country. And I can never be so here--never, never, never! Oh, Annie, I'm homesick--desperately, miserably homesick! I wish to Heaven I were dead!"

Annie Warren, child-woman that she was, was helpless, when face to face with the unusual. Her senses were numbed, paralyzed. One thought alone suggested itself.

"But"--haltingly--"for Steve's sake--certainly, for him--"

"Stop! As you love me, stop!" Again no suggestion of the histrionic in the passionate voice. "Don't say that now. I can't stand it. I--oh, I don't mean that! Forget that I said it. I'm not responsible this morning. Please leave me."

She was prostrate on the bed at last, her whole body a-tremble.

"But--Mollie--"

"Go--go!" cried Mollie, wildly. "Please go!"

Awed to silence, Annie Warren stared helplessly a moment, then gathered her shawl about her shoulders, and slipped silently away.

III

Mollie Babcock was listlessly going about some imperative domestic task, behind the mean structure which represented home for her, when Steve came upon her.

She was not looking for him. He had been gone so long, out there somewhere, in that abomination of desolation, building a railroad, that the morbid fancy had come to dwell with her that the prairie had swallowed him, and that she would never see him more. So he came upon her unawares.

The buffalo grass rustled with the passage of her skirts. His eyes lighted, the man seemed to grow in stature--six feet of sun-blessed, primitive health. Now was the time--

"Mollie!"

There was a sudden gasp from the woman. With a hand to her throat, she wheeled swiftly round, confronting him.

"I'm back at last. Aren't you glad to see me?"

She was as pallid as an Easter-lily; pallid, despite the fact that she had decided, and had nerved herself for his coming.

Steve was puzzled. "Mollie, girl"--he did not advance, merely stood as he was--"aren't you glad to see me? Won't you--come?"

There was a long space of silence; the woman did not stir. Then a strange, inarticulate cry was smothered in her throat. Swiftly, all but desperately, she stumbled blindly forward, although her eyes were shining with the enchantment of his presence; close to him she came, flung her arms around his broad chest, and strained him to her with the abandon of a wild creature.

"Steve!" tensely, "how could you? Glad? You know I'm glad--oh, so glad! You startled me, that was all."

"Mollie, girlie"--he lifted her at arms' length, joying in this testimony of his renewed strength and manhood--"I rode all last night to get here--to see you. Are you happy, girlie, happy?"

"Yes, Steve"--her voice was chastened to a murmur--"I--I'm very happy."

"That completes my happiness." Drawing her tenderly to him, he kissed her again and again--hungrily, passionately; then, abruptly, he fell to scrutinizing her, with a meaning that she was quick to interpret.

"Isn't there something you've forgotten, Mollie?"

"No, I've not forgotten, Steve." She drew the bearded face down to her own. Had Steve been observant he would have noticed that the lips so near his own were trembling; but he was not observant, this Steve Babcock. Once, twice and again she kissed him.

"I think I'll never forget, Steve, man--never!" With one hand she indicated the prairie that billowed away to the skyline. "This is our home, and I love it because it is ours. I shall always have you--I know now, Steve. And I'm the happiest, most contented woman in all the wide world."

She drew away with a sudden movement, her face aglow with love and happiness. She was pulling at his arm with all her might.

"Where are you going?" he asked, surprised.

"Over to the camp--to Journey's End. I must tell Annie Warren just as soon as ever I can find her."

A PRAIRIE IDYL

A beautiful moonlight night early in September, the kind of night one remembers for years, when the air is not too cold to be pleasant, and yet has a suggestion of the frost that is to come. A kind of air that makes one think thoughts which cannot be put into words, that calls up sensations one cannot describe; an air which breeds restless energy; an air through which Mother Nature seems to speak, saying--"Hasten, children; life is short and you have much to do."

It was nearing ten o'clock, and a full moon lit up the rolling prairie country of South Dakota for miles, when the first team of a little train of six moved slowly out of the dark shadow blots thrown by the trees at the edge of the Big Sioux, advancing along a dim trail towards the main road. From the first wagon sounded the suggestive rattle of tin cooking-utensils, and the clatter of covers on an old cook stove. Next behind was a load piled high with a compound heap of tents, tennis nets, old carpets, hammocks, and the manifold unclassified paraphernalia which twenty young people will collect for a three weeks' outing.

These wagons told their own story. "Camp Eden," the fanciful name given to the quiet, shady spot where the low chain of hills met the river; the spot where the very waters seemed to lose themselves in their own cool depths, and depart sighing through the shallows beyond,--Camp Eden was deserted, and a score of very tired campers were reluctantly returning to home and work.

Last in the line and steadily losing ground, came a single trap carrying two people. One of them, a young man with the face of a dreamer, was speaking. The spell of the night was upon him.

"So this is the last of our good time--and now for work." He stopped the horse and stood up in the wagon. "Good-bye, little Camp Eden. Though I won't be here, yet whenever I see the moon a-shining so--and the air feeling frosty and warm and restless--and the corn stalks whitening, and the young prairie chickens calling--you'll come back to me, and I'll think of you--and of the Big Sioux--and of--" His eyes dropped to a smooth brown head, every coil of the walnut hair glistening.

It made him think of the many boat rides they two had taken together in the past two weeks, when he had watched the moonlight shimmering on rippling, running water, and compared the play of light upon it and upon that same brown head--and had forgotten all else in the comparison. He forgot all else now. He sat down, and the horse started. The noisy wagons ahead had passed out of hearing. The pair were alone.

He was silent a moment, looking sideways at the girl. The moonlight fell full upon her face, drawing clear the line of cheek and chin; bringing out the curve of the drooping mouth and the shadow from the long lashes. She seemed to the sensitive lad more than human. He had loved her for years, with the pure silent love known only to such a nature as his--and never had he loved her so wildly as now.

He was the sport of a multitude of passions; love and ambition were the strongest, and they were fighting a death struggle with each other. How could he leave her for years--perhaps never see her again--and yet how could he ask her to be the wife of such as he was now--a mere laborer? And again, his college course, his cherished ambition for years--how could he give it up; and yet he felt--he knew she loved him, and trusted him.

He had been looking squarely at her. She turned, and their eyes met. Each knew the thought of the other, and each turned away. He hesitated no longer; he would tell her all, and she should judge. His voice trembled a little as he said: "I want to tell you a story, and ask you a question--may I?"

She looked at him quickly, then answered with a smile: "I'm always glad to hear stories--and at the worst one can always decline to answer questions."

He looked out over the prairie, and saw the lights of the little town--her home--in the distance.

"It isn't a short story, and I have only so long"--he pointed along the road ahead to the village beyond--"to tell it in." He settled back in the seat, and began speaking. His voice was low and soft, like the prairie night-wind.

"Part of the story you know; part of it I think you have guessed; a little of it will be new. For the sake of that little, I will tell all."

"Thirteen years ago, what is now a little prairie town--then a very little town indeed--gained a new citizen--a boy of nine. A party of farmers found him one day, sleeping in a pile of hay, in the market corner. He lay so they could see how his face was bruised--and how, though asleep, he tossed in pain. He awoke, and, getting up, walked with a limp. Where he came from no one knew, and he would not tell; but his appearance told its own story. He had run away from somewhere. What had happened they could easily imagine.

"It was harvest-time and boys, even though minus a pedigree, were in demand; so he was promptly put on a farm. Though only a child, he had no one to care for him--and he was made to work ceaselessly.

"Years passed and brought a marked change in the boy. How he lived was a marvel. It was a country of large families, and no one cared to adopt him. Summers, he would work for his board and clothes, and in winter, by the irony of Nature, for his board only; yet, perhaps because it was the warmest place he knew, he managed to attend district school.

"When a lad of fifteen he began to receive wages--and life's horizon seemed to change. He dressed neatly, and in winter came to school in the little prairie town. He was put in the lower grades with boys of ten, and even here his blunders made him a laughing-stock; but not for long, for he worked--worked always--and next year was put in the high school.

"There he established a precedent--doing four years' work in two--and graduated at eighteen. How he did it no one but he himself knew--studying Sundays, holidays, and evenings, when he was so tired that he had to walk the floor to keep awake--but he did it."

The speaker stopped a moment to look at his companion. "Is this a bore? Somehow I can't help talking to-night."

"No, please go on," said the girl quickly.

"Well, the boy graduated--but not alone. For two years he had worked side by side with a brown-haired, brown-eyed girl. From the time he had first seen her she was his ideal--his divinity. And she had never spoken with him five minutes in her life. After graduation, the girl went away to a big university. Her parents were wealthy, and her every wish was gratified."

Again the speaker hesitated. When he went on his face was hard, his voice bitter.

"And the boy--he was poor and he went back to the farm. He was the best hand in the country; for the work he received good wages. If he had worked hard before, he worked now like a demon. He thought of the girl away at college, and tried at first to crowd her from his memory--but in vain. Then he worked in self-defence--and to forget.

"He saw years slipping by--and himself still a farmhand. The thought maddened him, because he knew he was worthy of something better.

"Gradually, his whole life centred upon one object--to save money for college. Other boys called him close and cold; but he did not care. He seldom went anywhere, so intent was he upon his one object. On hot summer nights, tired and drowsy he would read until Nature rebelled, and he would fall asleep to dream of a girl--a girl with brown eyes that made one forget--everything. In winter, he had more time--and the little lamp in his room became a sort of landmark: it burned for hours after every other light in the valley had ceased shining.

"Four years passed, and at last the boy had won. In a month he would pass from the prairie to university life. He had no home, few friends--who spoke; those who did not were safely packed at the bottom of his trunk. His going from the little town would excite no more comment than had his coming. He was all ready, and for the first time in his life set apart a month--the last--as a vacation. He felt positively gay. He had fought a hard fight--and had won. He saw the dawning of a great light--saw the future as a battle-ground where he would fight; not as he was then, but fully equipped for the struggle.... But no matter what air-castles he built; they were such as young men will build to the end of time."

The speaker's voice lowered--stopped. He looked straight out over the prairie, his eyes glistening.

"If so far the boy's life had been an inferno, he was to be repaid. The girl--she of the brown eyes--was home once more, and they met again as members of a camping party." He half-turned in his seat to look at her, but she sat with face averted, so quiet, so motionless, that he wondered if she heard.

"Are you listening?" he asked.

"Listening!" Her voice carried conviction, so the lad continued.

"For a fortnight he lived a dream--and that dream was Paradise. He forgot the past, ignored the future, and lived solely for the moment--with the joy of Nature's own child. It was the pure love of the idealist and the dreamer--it was divine.

"Then came the reaction. One day he awoke--saw things as they were--saw again the satire of Fate. At the very time he left for college, she returned--a graduate. She was young, beautiful, accomplished. He was a mere farmhand, without money or education, homeless, obscure. The thought was maddening, and one day he suddenly disappeared from camp. He didn't say good-bye to any one; he felt he had no apology that he could offer. But he had to go, for he felt the necessity for work, longed for it, as a drunkard longs for liquor."

"Oh!" The exclamation came from the lips of the girl beside him. "I--we--all wondered why--."

"Well, that was why.

"He fell in with a threshing-crew, and asked to work for his board. They thought him queer, but accepted his offer. For two days he stayed with them, doing the work of two men. It seemed as if he couldn't do enough--he couldn't become tired. He wanted to think it all out, and he couldn't with the fever in his blood.

"At night he couldn't sleep--Nature was pitiless. He would walk the road for miles until morning.

"With the third day came relief. All at once he felt fearfully tired, and fell asleep where he stood. Several of the crew carried him to a darkened room, and there he slept as a dumb animal sleeps. When he awoke, he was himself again; his mind was clear and cool. He looked the future squarely in the face, now, and clearly, as if a finger pointed, he saw the path that was marked for him. He must go his way--and she must go hers. Perhaps, after four years or more--but the future was God's."

The boy paused. The lights of the town were nearing, now; but he still looked out over the moon-kissed prairie.

"The rest you know. The dreamer returned. The party scarcely knew him, for he seemed years older. There were but a few days more of camp life, and he spent most of the time with the girl. Like a malefactor out on bail, he was painting a picture for the future. He thought he had conquered himself--but he hadn't. It was the same old struggle. Was not love more than ambition or wealth? Had he not earned the right to speak? But something held him back. If justice to himself, was it justice to the girl? Conscience said 'No.' It was hard--no one knows how hard--but he said nothing."

Once more he turned to his companion, in his voice the tenderness of a life-long passion.

"This is the story: did the boy do right?" A life's work--greater than a life itself, hung on the answer to that question.

The girl understood it all. She had always known that she liked him; but now--now--As he had told his story, she had felt, first, pity, and then something else; something incomparably sweeter; something that made her heart beat wildly, that seemed almost to choke her with its ecstasy.

He loved her--had loved her all these years! He belonged to her--and his future lay in her hands.

His future! The thought fell upon her new-found happiness with the suddenness of a blow. She could keep him, but had she the right to do so? She saw in him something that he did not suspect--and that something was genius. She knew he had the ability to make for himself a name that would stand among the great names of the earth.

Then, did his life really belong to her? Did it not rather belong to himself and to the world?

She experienced a struggle, fierce as he himself had fought. And the boy sat silent, tense, waiting for her answer.

Yes, she must give him up; she would be brave. She started to speak, but the words would not come. Suddenly she buried her face in her hands, while the glistening brown head trembled with her sobs.

It was the last drop to the cup overflowing. A second, and then, his arms were around her. The touch was electrifying--it was oblivion--it was heaven--it was--but only a young lover knows what.

"You have answered," said the boy. "God forgive me--but I can't go away now."

Thus Fate sported with two lives.

THE MADNESS OF WHISTLING WINGS