酷兔英语

章节正文

remarked, and took up new themes. The sun rose and set, the two trains
made their daily slight event and gathering; the water-tank, glaring

bulkily in the sun beaconed unmolested; and the agent's natural sleep was
unbroken by pistols, for the cow-boys did not happen to be in town. Separ

lay a clot of torpor that I was glad to leave behind me for a while. But
news is a strange, permeating substance, and it began to be sifted

through the air that Tubercle was going to God's country.
That is how they phrased it in cow-camp, meaning not the next world, but

the Eastern States.
"It's certainly a shame him leaving after we've got him so good and used

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

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

"That's you!" said Honey. "Schemin' mischief away ahead. You're the
leadin' devil in this country, and just because yu' wear a

faithful-looking face you're tryin' to fool a poor school-marm."
"Yes," drawled the Southerner, "that's what I'm aiming to do."

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

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

"Bring your new wife?" they inquired.
"No; she preferred Kentucky," Lin said.

"Bring the old one?"
"No; she preferred Laramie."

"Kentucky's a right smart way to chase after a girl," said the Virginian.
"Sure!" said Mr. McLean. "I quit at Edgeford."

He met their few remarks so smoothly that they got no joy from him; and
being asked had he seen the new agent, he answered yes, that Tubercle had

gone Wednesday, and his successor did not seem to be much of a man.
But to me Lin had nothing to say until noon camp was scattering from its

lunch to work, when he passed close, and whispered, "You'll see her
to-morrow if you go in with the outfit." Then, looking round to make sure

we were alone in the sage-brush, he drew from his pocket, cherishingly, a
little shining pistol. "Hers," said he, simply.

I looked at him.
"We've exchanged," he said.

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

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

I looked, and there was the word "Neighbor" engraved on it.
"Her idea," said he.

"A good one!" I murmured.
"It's on both, yu' know. We had it put on the day she settled to accept

the superintendent's proposition." Here Lin fired his small exchanged
weapon at a cotton-wood, striking low. "She can beat that with mine!" he

exclaimed, proud and tender. "She took four days deciding at Edgeford,
and I learned her to hit the ace of clubs." He showed me the cards they

had practiced upon during those four days of indecision; he had them in a
book as if they were pressed flowers. "They won't get crumpled that way,"

said he; and he further showed me a tintype. "She's got the other at
Separ," he finished.

I shook his hand with all my might. Yes, he was worthy of her! Yes, he
deserved this smooth course his love was running! And I shook his hand

again. To tonic her grief Jessamine had longed for some activity, some
work, and he had shown her Wyoming might hold this for her as well as

Kentucky. "But how in the world," I asked him, "did you persuade her to
stop over at Edgeford at all?"

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

But his face that evening round the fire, when they talked of their next
day's welcome to the new agent, became comedy of the highest, and he was

so desperately canny in the moments he chose for silence or for comment!
He had not been sure of their ignorance until he arrived, and it was a

joke with him too deep for laughter. He had a special eye upon the
Virginian, his mate in such a tale of mischiefs, and now he led him on.

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

"We mostly take their tricks," observed the Virginian.
"Yes," said Lin, nodding sagely at the fire, "that's so, too."

Yet not he, not any one, could have foreseen the mortifying harmlessness
of the outcome. They swept down upon Separ like all the hordes of legend-

-more egregiously, perhaps, because they were play-acting and no serious
horde would go on so. Our final hundred yards of speed and copious

howling brought all dwellers in Separ out to gaze and disappear like
rabbits--all save the new agent in the station. Nobody ran out or in

there, and the horde whirled up to the tiny, defenceless building and
leaped to earth--except Lin and me; we sat watching. The innocent door

stood open wide to any cool breeze or invasion, and Honey Wiggin tramped
in foremost, hat lowering over eyes and pistolprominent. He stopped

rooted, staring, and his mouth came open slowly; his hand went feeling up
for his hat, and came down with it by degrees as by degrees his grin

spread. Then in a milky voice, he said: "Why, excuse me, ma'am!
Good-morning."

There answered a clear, long, rippling, ample laugh. It came out of the
open door into the heat; it made the sun-baked air merry; it seemed to

welcome and mock; it genially hovered about us in the dusty quiet of
Separ; for there was no other sound anywhere at all in the place, and the

great plain stretched away silent all round it. The bulging water-tank
shone overhead in bland, ironic safety.

The horde stood blank; then it shifted its legs, looked sideways at
itself, and in a hesitating clump reached the door, shambled in, and

removed its foolish hat.
"Good-morning, gentlemen," said Jessamine Buckner, seated behind her

railing; and various voices endeavored to reply conventionally.
"If you have any letters, ma'am," said the Virginian, more inventive,

"I'll take them. Letters for Judge Henry's." He knew the judge's office
was seventy miles from here.

"Any for the C. Y.?" muttered another, likewiseknowing better.
It was a happy, if simple, thought, and most of them inquired for the

mail. Jessamine sought carefully, making them repeat their names, which
some did guiltily: they foresaw how soon the lady would find out no

letters ever came for these names!
There was no letter for any one present.

"I'm sorry, truly," said Jessamine behind the railing. "For you seemed
real anxious to get news. Better luck next time! And if I make mistakes,

please everybody set me straight, for of course I don't understand things
yet."

"Yes, m'm."
"Good-day, m'm."

"Thank yu', m'm.'
They got themselves out of the station and into their saddles.

"No, she don't understand things yet," soliloquized the Virginian. "Oh
dear, no." He turned his slow, dark eyes upon us. "You Lin McLean," said

he, in his gentle voice, "you have cert'nly fooled me plumb through this
mawnin'."

Then the horde rode out of town, chastened and orderly till it was quite
small across the sagebrush, when reaction seized it. It sped suddenly and

vanished in dust with far, hilarious cries and here were Lin and I, and
here towered the water-tank, shining and shining.

Thus did Separ's vigilante take possession and vindicate Lin's knowledge
of his kind. It was not three days until the Virginian, that lynx

observer, fixed his grave eyes upon McLean "'Neighbor' is as cute a name
for a six-shooter as ever I heard," said he. "But she'll never have need

of your gun in Separ--only to shoot up peaceful playin'-cyards while she
hearkens to your courtin'."

That was his way of congratulation to a brother lover. "Plumb strange,"
he said to me one morning after an hour of riding in silence, "how a man

will win two women while another man gets aged waitin' for one."
"Your hair seems black as ever," said I.

"My hopes ain't so glossy any more," he answered. "Lin has done better
this second trip."

"Mrs. Lusk don't count," said I.
"I reckon she counted mightyplentiful when he thought he'd got her

clamped to him by lawful marriage. But Lin's lucky." And the Virginian
fell silent again.

Lucky Lin bestirred him over his work, his plans, his ranch on Box Elder
that was one day to be a home for his lady. He came and went, seeing his

idea triumph and his girl respected. Not only was she a girl, but a good
shot too. And as if she and her small, neat home were a sort of

possession, the cow-punchers would boast of her to strangers. They would
have dealt heavily now with the wretch who should trifle with the

water-tank. When camp came within visiting distance, you would see one or
another shaving and parting his hair. They wrote unnecessary letters, and

brought them to mail as excuses for an afternoon call. Honey Wiggin, more
original, would look in the door with his grin, and hold up an ace of

clubs. "I thought maybe yu' could spare a minute for a shootin'-match,"
he would insinuate; and Separ now heard no more objectionable shooting

than this. Texas brought her presents of game--antelope, sage-chickens--
but, shyness intervening, he left them outside the door, and entering,

dressed in all the "Sunday" that he had, would sit dumbly in the lady's
presence. I remember his emerging from one of these placid interviews

straight into the hands of his tormentors.
"If she don't notice your clothes, Texas," said the Virginian, "just

mention them to her."
"Now yer've done offended her," shrilled Manassas Donohoe. "She heard

that."
"She'll hear you singin' sooprano," said Honey Wiggin. "It's good this

country has reformed, or they'd have you warblin' in some dance-hall and
corrupt your morals."

"You sca'cely can corrupt the morals of a soprano man," observed the
Virginian. "Go and play with Billy till you can talk bass."

But it was the boldest adults that Billy chose for playmates. Texas he
found immature. Moreover, when next he came, he desired play with no one.

Summer was done. September's full moon was several nights ago; he had
gone on his hunt with Lin, and now spelling-books were at hand. But more

than this clouded his mind, he had been brought to say good-bye to
Jessamine Buckner, who had scarcely seen him, and to give her a

wolverene-skin, a huntingtrophy. "She can have it," he told me. "I like
her." Then he stole a look at his guardian. "If they get married and send

me back to mother," said he, "I'll run away sure." So school and this old
dread haunted the child, while for the man, Lin the lucky, who suspected

nothing of it, time was ever bringing love nearer to his hearth. His
Jessamine had visited Box Elder, and even said she wanted chickens there;

since when Mr. McLean might occasionally have been seen at his cabin,
worrying over barn-yard fowls, feeding and cursing them with equal care.

Spring would see him married, he told me.
"This time right!" he exclaimed. "And I want her to know Billy some more

before he goes to Bear Creek."
"Ah, Bear Creek!" said Billy, acidly. "Why can't I stay home?"

"Home sounds kind o' slick," said Lin to me. "Don't it, now? 'Home' is
closer than 'neighbor,' you bet! Billy, put the horses in the corral, and

ask Miss Buckner if we can come and see her after supper. If you're good,
maybe she'll take yu' for a ride to-morrow. And, kid, ask her about

Laramie."
Again suspicion quivered over Billy's face, and he dragged his horses

angrily to the corral.
Lin nudged me, laughing. "I can rile him every time about Laramie," said

he, affectionately. "I wouldn't have believed the kid set so much store
by me. Nor I didn't need to ask Jessamine to love him for my sake. What

do yu' suppose? Before I'd got far as thinking of Billy at all-- right
after Edgeford, when my head was just a whirl of joy--Jessamine says to

me one day, 'Read that.' It was Governor Barker writin' to her about her
brother and her sorrow." Lin paused. "And about me. I can't never tell

you--but he said a heap I didn't deserve. And he told her about me
picking up Billy in Denver streets that time, and doing for him because

his own home was not a good one. Governor Barker wrote Jessamine all
that; and she said, 'Why did you never tell me?' And I said it wasn't

anything to tell. And she just said to me, 'It shall be as if he was your


文章标签:名著  

章节正文