the kemah county court convened on a tuesday, the second week in december. the judge coming with his court reporter to velpen on monday found the river still open. december had crept softly to its appointed place in the march of months with a gentle heralding of warm, southwest winds.
“weather breeder,” said mrs. higgins of the bon ami, with a mournful shake of her head. “you mark my words and remember i said it. it’s a sorry day for the cows when the river’s running in december.”
she was serving the judicial party herself, and capably, too. she dearly loved the time the courts met, on either side of the river. it brought many interesting people to the bon ami, although not often the judge. his coming for supper was a most unusual honor, and it was due to louise, who had playfully insisted. he had humored her much against his will, it must be confessed; for he had a deeply worn habit of making straight for the hotel from the station and there remaining until hank bruebacher, liveryman, who never permitted anything to interfere with or any one to usurp his prerogative of driving his honor to and from kemah when court was in session, whistled with shameless familiarity the following morning to make his honor cognizant of the fact that he, hank, was ready. but he had come to the bon ami because louise wished it, and he reflected whimsically on the astonishment, amounting almost to horror, on the face of his good landlord at the velpen house when it became an assured fact that he was not and had not been in the dining-room.
“you are right, mrs. higgins,” assented the judge gravely to her weather predictions, “and the supper you have prepared for us is worthy the hand that serves it. kings and potentates could ask no better. louise, dear child, i am fond of you and i hope you will never go back east.”
“thank you, uncle hammond,” said louise, who knew that an amusing thought was seeping through this declaration of affection. “i am sorry to give you a heartache, but i am going back to god’s country some day, nevertheless.”
“maybe so—maybe not,” said the judge. “mrs. higgins, my good woman, how is our friend, the canker-worm, coming on these days?”
“canker-worm?” repeated mrs. higgins. “meanin’, your honor—”
“just what i say—canker-worm. isn’t he the worm gnawing in discontent at the very core of the fair fruit of established order and peace in the cow country?”
“i—i—don’t understand, your honor,” faltered the woman, in great trepidation. would his honor consider her a hopeless stupid? but what was the man talking about? louise looked up, a flush of color staining her cheeks.
“maybe fire-brand would suit you better, madame? my young friend, the fire-brand,” resumed the judge, rising. “that is good—fire-brand. is he not inciting the populace to ‘open rebellion, false doctrine, and schism’? is it not because of him that roofs are burned over the very heads of the helpless homesteader?”
“for shame, uncle hammond,” exclaimed louise, still flushed and with a mutinous little sparkle in her eyes. “you are poking fun at me. you haven’t any right to, you know; but that’s your way. i don’t care, but mrs. higgins doesn’t understand.”
“don’t you, mrs. higgins?” asked the judge.
“no, i don’t,” snapped mrs. higgins, and she didn’t, but she thought she did. “only if you mean mr. richard gordon, i’ll tell you now there ain’t no one in this here god-forsaken country who can hold a tallow candle to him. just put that in your pipe and smoke it, will you?”
she piled up dishes viciously. she did not wait for her guests to depart before she began demolishing the table. it was a tremendous breach of etiquette, but she didn’t care. to have an ideal shattered ruthlessly is ever a heart-breaking thing.
“but my dear mrs. higgins,” expostulated the judge.
“you needn’t,” said that lady, shortly. “i don’t care,” she went on, “if the president himself or an archangel from heaven came down here and plastered dick gordon with bad-smellin’ names from the crown of his little toe to the tip of his head, i’d tell ’em to their very faces that they didn’t know what they was a talkin’ about, and what’s more they’d better go back to where they belong and not come nosin’ round in other people’s business when they don’t understand one single mite about it. we don’t want ’m puttin’ their fingers in our pie when they don’t know a thing about us or our ways. that’s my say,” she closed, with appalling significance, flattering herself that no one could dream but that she was dealing in the most off-hand generalities. she was far too politic to antagonize, and withal too good a woman not to strike for a friend. she congratulated herself she had been true to all her gods—and she had been.
louise smiled in complete sympathy, challenging the judge meanwhile with laughing eyes. but the judge—he was still much of a boy in spite of his grave calling and mature years—just threw back his blonde head and shouted in rapturous glee. he laughed till the very ceiling rang in loud response; laughed till the tears shone in his big blue eyes. mrs. higgins looked on in undisguised amazement, hands on hips.
“dear me, suz!” she sputtered, “is the man gone clean daffy?”
“won’t you shake hands with me, mrs. higgins?” he asked, gravely. “i ask your pardon for my levity, and i assure you there isn’t a man in the whole world i esteem more or hold greater faith in than dick gordon—or love so much. i thank you for your championship of him. i would that he had more friends like you. louise, are you ready?”
their walk to the hotel was a silent one. later, as she was leaving him to go to her own room, louise laid her head caressingly on her uncle’s sleeve.
“uncle hammond,” she said, impulsively, “you are—incorrigible, but you are the best man in all the world.”
“the very best?” he asked, smilingly.
“the very best,” she repeated, firmly.
there was a full calendar that term, and the close of the first week found the court still wrestling with criminal cases, with that of jesse black yet uncalled. gordon reckoned that black’s trial could not possibly be taken up until tuesday or wednesday of the following week. long before that, the town began filling up for the big rustling case. there were other rustling cases on the criminal docket, but they paled before this one where the suspected leader of a gang was on trial. the interested and the curious did not mean to miss any part of it. they began coming in early in the week. they kept coming the remainder of that week and sunday as well. even as late as monday, delayed range riders came scurrying in, leaving the cattle mostly to shift for themselves. the velpen aggregation, better informed, kept to its own side of the river pretty generally until the sunday, at least, should be past.
the flats southeast of town became the camping grounds for those unable to find quarters at the hotel, and who lived too far out to make the nightly ride home and back in the morning. they were tempted by the unusually mild weather. these were mostly indians and half-breeds, but with a goodly sprinkling of cowboys of the rougher order. camp-fires spotted the plain, burning redly at night. there was plenty of drift-wood to be had for the hauling. blanketed indians squatted and smoked around their fires—a revival of an older and better day for them. sometimes they stalked majestically through the one street of the town.
the judicial party was safely housed in the hotel, with the best service it was possible for the management to give in this busy season of congested patronage. it was impossible to accommodate the crowds. even the office was jammed with cots at night. mary williston had come in from white’s to be with louise. she was physically strong again, but ever strangely quiet, always sombre-eyed.
“what shall i do, louise?” she asked, one night. they were sitting in darkness. from their east window they could see the gleaming red splotches that were fires on the flat.
“what do you mean, mary?” asked louise, dreamily. she was thinking how much sterner gordon grew every day. he still had a smile for his friends, but he always smiled under defeat. that is what hurt so. she had noticed that very evening at supper how gray his hair was getting at the temples. he had looked lonely and sad. was it then all so hopeless?
“i mean, to make a living for myself,” mary answered, earnestly. “there is no one in the world belonging to me now. there were only father and i. what shall i do, louise?”
“mary, dear, dear mary, what are you thinking of doing?”
“anything,” she answered, her proud reticence giving way before her need, “that will keep me from the charity of my friends. the frock i have on, plain as it is, is mine through the generosity of paul langford. the bread i eat he pays for. he—he lied to me, louise. he told me the cowmen had made a purse for my present needs. they hadn’t. it was all from him. i found out. mrs. white is poor. she can’t keep a great, strapping girl like me for nothing. i am such a hearty eater, and he has been paying her, louise, for what i ate. think of it! i thought i should die when i found it out. i made her promise not to take another cent from him—for me. so i have been working to make it up. i have washed and ironed and scrubbed and baked. i was man of affairs at the ranch while mr. white went out with the gang for the fall round-up. i have herded. but one has to have things besides one’s bread. the doctor was paid out of that make-believe purse, but it must all be made up to paul langford—every cent of it.”
“mr. langford would be very much hurt if you should do that,” began louise, slowly. “it was because of him, you know, primarily, that—”
“he owes me nothing,” interrupted mary, sharply.
“oh,” said louise, smiling in the dark.
“i believe i could teach school,” went on mary, with feverish haste, “if i could get a school to teach.”
“i should think mr. gordon could help you to secure a place here,” said louise.
“i have not told mr. gordon my troubles,” said mary, gravely. “i should not dream of intruding with such petty affairs while his big fight is on—his glorious fight. he will avenge my father. nothing matters but that. he has enough to bear—without a woman’s trivial grievances.”
“but he would be glad to take that little trouble for you if he knew,” persisted louise. she was feeling small and of little worth in the strength of mary’s sweeping independence. she was hauntingly sure that in like circumstances she would be weak enough to take her trouble to—a man like gordon, for instance. it came to her, there in the dark, that maybe he loved mary. she had no cause to wonder, if this were true. mary was fine—beautiful, lovable, stanch and true and capable, and he had known her long before he knew there was such a creature in existence as the insignificant, old-maidenish, mouse-haired reporter from the east. the air of the room suddenly became stifling. she threw open a window. the soft, damp air of the cloudy, warm darkness floated in and caressed her hot cheeks. away, away over yonder, beyond the twinkling camp-fires on the flat, across the river, away to the east, were her childhood’s home and her kin. here were the big, unthinking, overbearing cow country and—the man who loved mary williston, maybe.
it was getting late bedtime. men were shuffling noisily through the hall on their way to their rooms. scraps of conversation drifted in to the two girls.
“he’s a fool to make the try without williston.”
“it takes some folks a mighty long time to learn their place in this here county.”
“well, i reckon he thinks the county kin afford to stand good for his fool play.”
“he’ll learn his mistake—when jesse gets out.”
“naw! not the ghost of a show!”
“he’d ought to be tarred and feathered and shot full o’ holes, and shipped back to where he come from to show his kind how we deal with plumb idjits west o’ the river.”
“well, he’ll dance a different stunt ’gainst this is over.”
“you bet! jesse’ll do his stunt next.”
and then they heard the lazy doctor’s voice drawling, “mebby so, but let’s wait and see, shall we?”
men’s minds were set unshiftingly on this coming trial. how gordon would have to fight for a fair jury!
“i think it is as you said,” said mary, presently. “mr. langford feels he owes me—bread and clothes. he is anxious to pay off the debt so there will be nothing on his conscience. he owes me nothing, nothing, louise, but he is a man and he thinks he can pay off any obligation he may feel.”
“that is a harsh motive you ascribe to mr. langford,” said louise, closing the window and coming to sit affectionately at mary’s feet. “i don’t think he means it in that way at all. i think it is a fine and delicate and manly thing he has done. he did not intend for you to know—or any one. and don’t you think, mary, that the idea of making up a purse should have come from some one else—just as he tried to make you believe? it was not done, so what was left for mr. langford to do? he had promised to see your father through. he was glad to do it. i think it was fine of him to do—what he did—the way he did it.”
she had long thought the boss dreamed dreams of mary. she was more sure of it than ever to-night. and now if gordon did, too—well, mary was worth it. but she would be sorry for one of them some day. they were fine men—both of them.
“but i shall pay him back—every cent,” replied mary, firmly. “he owes me nothing, louise, nothing, i tell you. i will not accept alms—of him. you see that i couldn’t, don’t you?”
“i know he does not feel he owes you anything—in the way you are accusing him,” answered louise, wisely. “he is doing this because you are you and he cannot bear to think of you suffering for things when he wants to help you more than he could dare to tell you now. mary, don’t you see? i think, too, you must pay him back some day, but don’t worry about it. you would hurt him too much if you do not take plenty of time to get strong and well before repaying him—paltry dollars. there will be a way found, never fear. meanwhile you can amuse yourself correcting my transcripts to keep you content till something turns up, and we will make something turn up. wait until this term is over and don’t fret. you won’t fret, will you?”
“i will try not to, louise,” said mary, with a little weary gesture of acquiescence.
