"Poor thing!" said Dallas, in compa.s.sion.
He stopped to look back.
"Good-by," she said as he went on; "good-by."
When he reached the river-bank, he turned again. The frost-blighted cottonwoods that bordered the Missouri were behind him, gleaming as yellowly as if, during the short, hot summer, their leafy branches had caught and imprisoned all the sunshine. Against that belt of brilliant colour stood out his spare, burdened frame.
Watching, she saw his gaunt face slowly relax in a friendly grin.
CHAPTER IV
MISUNDERSTANDINGS
Snow fell on the very heels of the cavalry. Scarcely were the Indians safe in the stockade and the troopers once more in barracks, when some first flakes, like down plucked by the wind from the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the southward-hastening wild-fowl, came floating out of the sky. Soon the long sumach leaves on the coulee edge were drooping under a crystalline weight, the black plowed strip was blending with the unplowed prairie, and the shock head of the cottonwood shack was donning a spotless night-cap. And so heavy and ceaseless was the downfall that, at supper-time, the sweet trumpet notes of "retreat" were wafted out from Brannon across a covered plain.
When morning dawned, the heavens were cloudless, and the laggard sun, as it rose, shone with blinding glory upon peaceful miles. Nowhere was a sign of wallow, path or road, and the coulee yawned, white-lipped. Even the Missouri was not unchanged. For, away to the northwest, there had been a mighty rainstorm, and the murky river tumbled by in waves that were angry and swollen.
Since his early boyhood, the section-boss had not known snow. Before the previous day, Dallas and Marylyn had never seen it. It was with exclamations of delight, therefore, that, crowding together in the doorway, the three first caught sight of the glistening drifts.
"Pa, it"s like a Christmas card," cried the younger girl. And, bareheaded, she ran out to frolic before the shack.
To Dallas, the scene had a deeper meaning. Here was what would discourage and block anyone who had put off necessary improvements! And this would last long after the expiration of that six months! "I guess there"ll be no building or plowing _now_," she said to her father, happily.
He, fully as relieved, returned a confident a.s.sent.
A little later, Old Michael, the ferryman, drove by, breaking a track along the blotted road. His ancient corduroys, known to every river-man from Bismarck to Baton Rouge, were hidden beneath layers of overcoats.
Through the wool cap pulled down to his collar, two wide holes gave him outlook; a third, and smaller aperture, was filled by the stem of a corn-cob pipe. He was headed for the cattle-camp, the lines over a four-in-hand hitched to three empty wagons, a third team tied to the tailboard of the hindmost box.
On the arrival of the saloon gang, the pilot had left his steamboat in the hands of his two helpers and made his way to Shanty Town. There, in a shingle hut, perched atop a whisky cask, and kicking its rotund belly complacently with his heels, he had wet a throat, long dry, from the amber depths beneath him.
With each succeeding gla.s.s, his obligations had grown apace.
Nevertheless, for a lifetime of rough service had brought about an immunity that belied his Celtic blood, his brain remained clear, his step steady and his eye unbleared. Thus it happened that when, cut off from grazing, it was necessary for the Shanty Town teams to be returned at once to Clark"s, Old Michael was on hand and in condition to take them, and, by so doing, wipe out his drinking-account.
As he came opposite the shack, Marylyn was still running about in the snow, while Dallas was sweeping out some long, narrow drifts that had sifted in through window-and door-cracks. Squinting across at them, he recalled, all at once, a heated conversation that had taken place at Shanty Town the afternoon of the southward departure of a Dodge City courier. And he shook his head sorrowfully.
"Ye"ll have yer han"s fule before long," he advised aloud, "or it"s me that"s not good at guessin"." And, lifting the front of his cap, he sympathetically blew the purple b.u.mp that served him for a nose till it rang through the crisp air like a throaty bugle.
Farther on, as he sat pondering deeply and letting the leaders choose their course, a horseman came cantering toward him, and drew rein beside his wheel. It was Lounsbury, buried to the ears in a buffalo coat.
"Sure, it"s somethin" important, John, that"s a-bringin" ye out t"-day,"
cried Old Michael, roguishly, his brogue disclosing his ident.i.ty. "It"s ayther tillegrams or l-a-a-ydies."
The storekeeper coloured under his visor. "It"s nay-ther," he mocked laughingly.
"None o" yer shillyshallin"," warned the ferryman, giving the other a playful whack with his gad. "Oi kin rade ye loike a buke."
"You can"t read a book," declared Lounsbury. "But I"ll tell you: I"m going to the Lancasters"."
Old Michael nodded, with a sly wink through the portholes of his mask.
"Oi knowed it!" he said. Then, after fishing out a tobacco-bag from under his many coats and lighting the corn-cob in the protecting bowl of his palms, "In that case, man, Oi got somethin" t" say t" ye."
He leaned over the wheel confidentially, and Lounsbury bent toward him, so that the smoke of the pipe fed the storekeeper"s nostrils. They talked for a half-hour, the one relating his story, the other putting in quick questions. At the end of their conversation, Lounsbury held out his hand.
"If their letter brings him, Mike," he said, "don"t you fail to let me know."
"Aye, aye," promised the pilot, earnestly.
They parted. Old Michael continued his way with an easy mind. But Lounsbury was troubled. Instead of carrying--as on his former visit--good news to the little family on the bend, he must now be the bearer of evil.
And when, having stalled his horse with Ben and Betty, he entered the cottonwood shack, his heart smote him still more. For, secretly, he had hoped that he was to tell them what they already knew. But it seemed precisely the reverse. There was nothing in the appearance and actions of the Lancasters that suggested anxiety. The section-boss, though his manner was not without a certain reserve (as if he half believed something was about to be wormed out of him), greeted Lounsbury good-naturedly enough. Marylyn hurried up in a timid flutter to take his cap and coat. While, facing him from the hearth-side, her hair coiled upon her head like a crown, her grey eyes bright, her cheeks glowing, was a new Dallas.
"Well, how"ve you all been?" asked Lounsbury, accepting a bench.
"Oh, spright "nough," answered the section-boss. "But it"s cold, it"s cold. Keeps me tremblin" like a guilty n.i.g.g.e.r."
"You"ll get over that," a.s.sured the other, rubbing the blood into his hands. "It"s natural for you to be soft as chalk-rock the first winter--you"ve been living South."
"Ah reckon," agreed Lancaster. He sat down beside the younger man, eyeing him closely. "How d" y" come t" git away fr"m business?" he queried.
"Well, you see," Lounsbury answered, "I"ve got an A 1 man in my Bismarck store, and at Clark"s there"s nothing to do week days, hardly. So I just took some tobacco to Skinney"s, where the boys could get at it, and loped down here." Then, playfully, "But I don"t see much happening in these parts." He stretched toward a window. "The town of Lancaster ain"t growing very fast."
Dallas, seated on a bench with Marylyn, looked across at him smilingly.
"I"m glad of it," she declared. "We ain"t used to towns."
"You folks"ve never lived in one?"
"No--we never even _been_ in one."
He puckered his forehead. "Funny," he said. "Somehow, I always think of you two as town girls."
"Aw, shucks!" exclaimed Lancaster, scowling.
But Dallas was leaning forward, interested. "That"s on account of our teachers," she said. "There was a school-house up the track, in Texas, and we went to it on the hand-car. Every year we had a different teacher, and all of "em came from big Eastern places like New Orleans or St. Louis. So--so you see, we kinda got towny from our school-ma"ams."
"One had a gold tooth," put in Marylyn. Her eyes, wide with recollection, were fixed upon Lounsbury.
"But you pa.s.sed through cities coming north," argued the storekeeper.
"N-n-no," said Dallas, slowly; "we--we skirted "em."
"What a pity!" He turned to the section-boss.
"Pity!" echoed the latter. "Huh! You save you" pity. My gals is better off ef they don" meet no town hoodlums."