Claim Number One Page 3

  CHAPTER III

  UNCONVENTIONAL BEHAVIOR

  Their situation was somewhat beyond the seat of noisy business andraucous-throated pleasure. Mrs. Reed, while living in an unending stateof shivers on account of the imagined perils which stalked the footstepsof June, was a bit assured by their surroundings.

  In front of them was a vacant plot, in which inoffensive horses tooktheir siesta in the sun, awaiting someone to come along and hire themfor rides of inspection over the lands which were soon to be apportionedby lot. A trifle farther along stood a little church, its unglazedwindows black and hollow, like gouged-out eyes. Mrs. Reed drew a vastamount of comfort from the church, and their proximity to it, knowingnothing of its history nor its present uses. Its presence there wasproof to her that all Comanche was not a waste of iniquity.

  Almost directly in front of their tent the road branched--one prongrunning to Meander, the county Seat, sixty miles away; the other to theBig Horn Valley. The scarred stagecoaches which had come down from theseventies were still in use on both routes, the two on the Meander linebeing reenforced by democrat wagons when there was an overflow ofbusiness, as frequently happened in those prosperous times.

  Every morning the company assembled before the tent under the canvasspread to protect the cookstove, to watch Mrs. Reed and SergeantSchaefer get breakfast, and to offer suggestions about the fire, andadmire June at her toast-making--the one branch of domestic art, asidefrom fudge, which she had mastered. About that time the stage wouldpass, setting out on its dusty run to Meander, and everybody on it andin it would wave, everybody in the genial company before the tent wouldwave back, and all of the adventurers on both sides would feel quiteprimitive, in spite of the snuffling of the locomotive at the railwaystation, pushing around freight-cars.

  The locomotive seemed to tell them that they should not be deceived,that all of this crude setting was a sham and a pretense, and that theyhad not yet outrun the conveniences of modern life.

  Dr. Slavens appeared to be getting the upper hand of his melancholy, andto be drawing the comfort from his black pipe that it was designed togive. Next to the sergeant he was the handiest man in the camp, showingby his readiness to turn a full hand at anything, from paring potatoesto making a fire, that he had shifted for himself before that day. Theladies all admired him, as they always admire a man who has a littlecloud of the mysterious about him. Mrs. Reed wondered, audibly, in thepresence of June and Miss Horton, if he had deserted his wife.

  The others were full of the excitement of their novel situation, anddrunk on the blue skies which strained the sunlight of its mists andmotes, pouring it down like a baptismal blessing. Even William Bentley,the toolmaker, romped and raced in the ankle-deep dust like a boy.

  Sunrise always found the floating population of Comanche settingbreakfastward in a clamoring tide. After that, when the land-officeopened at nine o'clock, the stream turned toward it, the crowd grewaround it, fringing off into the great, empty flat in which it stood--astretch of naked land so white and gleaming under the sun that it madethe eyes ache. There the land-seekers and thrill-hunters kicked up thedust, and got their thousands of clerkly necks burned red, and theirthousands of indoor noses peeled, while they discussed the chances ofdisposing of the high numbers for enough to pay them for the expense ofthe trip.

  After noonday the throngs sought the hydrant and the shade of thesaloons, and, where finances would permit, the solace of bottled beer.And all day over Comanche the heel-ground dust rose as from thetrampling of ten thousand hoofs, and through its tent-set streets thenumbers of a strong army passed and repassed, gazing upon its gaudylures. They had come there to gamble in a big, free lottery, where theonly stake was the time spent and the money expended in coming, in whichthe grand prize was Claim Number One.

  "It looks to me," said Horace Bentley, the bald lawyer, "like a greatmany people are going to be bitterly disappointed in this game. Morethan forty thousand have registered already, and there are three daysmore before the books close. The government circulars describing theland say there are eight thousand homesteads, all told--six hundred ofthem suitable for agriculture once they are brought under irrigation,the rest grazing and mineral land. It seems to me that, as far as ourexpectations go in that direction, we might as well pack up and gohome."

  Four days in camp had made old-timers out of the company gathered underthe awning before their tent, waiting for the meal which Mrs. Reed andher assistants were even then spreading on the trestle-built table.There had been a shower that afternoon, one of those gusty, blustery,desert demonstrations which had wrenched the tents and torn hundreds ofthem from their slack anchoring in the loose soil.

  After the storm, with its splash of big drops and charge of blindingdust, a cool serenity had fallen over the land. The milk had been washedout of the distances, and in the far southwest snowy peaks gleamedsolemnly in the setting sun, the barrier on the uttermost edge of thedesert leagues which so many thousand men and women were hungry toshare.

  "Yes, it's a desperate gamble for all of us," Dr. Slavens admitted. "Idon't see any more show of anybody in this party drawing a low numberthan I see hope for a man who stands up to one of the swindles in thegambling-tents over there."

  "Still," argued Milo Strong, the Iowa teacher, "we've got just the samechance as anybody out of the forty thousand. I don't suppose there's anyquestion that the drawing will be fair?"

  "It will be under the personal management of the United States LandCommissioner at Meander," said Horace Bentley.

  "How do they work it?" asked June, perking up her head in quick interestfrom her task of hammering together the seams of a leaky new tin cup.She had it over a projecting end of one of the trestles, and was goingabout it like a mechanic.

  "Where did you learn that trick?" inquired the toolmaker, a look in hiseyes which was pretty close kin to amazement.

  "Huh!" said June, hammering away. "What do you suppose a collegeeducation's good for, anyway? But how do they manage the drawing?" shepressed.

  "Did they teach you the game of policy at Molly Bawn?" the lawyerasked.

  "The idea!" sniffed Mrs. Reed.

  Miss Horton smiled into her handkerchief, and June shook her head invigorous denial.

  "I don't even know what it is," said she. "Is it some kind ofinsurance?"

  "It beats insurance for the man that runs the game," said Strong,reminiscently.

  "All of the names of those who register will be taken to Meander whenthe registration closes," explained Horace. "There are half a dozenclerks in the little office here transcribing the names on to smallcards, with the addresses and all necessary information for notifying awinner. On the day of the drawing the forty thousand-odd names will beput into a big hollow drum, fitted with a crank. They'll whirl it, andthen a blindfolded child will put his hand into the drum and draw outNumber One. Another child will then draw Number Two, and so on untileight thousand names have come out of the wheel. As there are only eightthousand parcels of land, that will end the lottery. What do you thinkof your chance by now, Miss Horton?"

  "Why, it looks fair enough, the way they do it," she answered,questioning Dr. Slavens with her eyes.

  He shook his head.

  "You can't tell," he responded. "I've seen enough crookedness in thistent-town in the past four days to set my suspicions against everythingand every official in it."

  "Well, the drawing's to be held at Meander, you know," reminded WilliamBentley, the toolmaker, "and Meander advertises itself as a moralcenter. It seems that it was against this town from the very start--itwanted the whole show to itself. Here's a circular that I got at Meanderheadquarters today. It's got a great knock against Comanche in it."

  "Yes, I saw it," said the doctor. "It sounds like one crook knockinganother. But it can't be any worse than this place, anyhow. I think I'lltake a ride over there in a day or so and size it up."

  "Well, I surrender all pretensions to Claim Number One," laughed Mrs.Reed, a straining of color in her cheek
s.

  June had not demanded fudge once in four days. That alone was enough toraise the colors of courage in her mother's face, even if there hadn'tbeen a change in the young lady for the better in other directions. Fourdays of Wyoming summer sun and wind had made as much difference in Juneas four days of September blaze make in a peach on the tip of an exposedbough. She was browning and reddening beautifully, and her hair wastaking on a trick of wildness, blowing friskily about her eyes.

  It was plain that June had in her all the making of a hummer. That'swhat Horace Bentley, the lawyer, owned to himself as he told hermother in confidence that a month of that high country, with itsfresh-from-creation air, would be better for the girl's naturalendowments than all the beauty-parlors of Boston or the specialistsof Vienna. Horace felt of his early bald spot, half believing thatsome stubby hairs were starting there already.

  There was still a glow of twilight in the sky when lights appeared inthe windowless windows of the church, and the whine of tuning fiddlescame out of its open door. Mrs. Reed stiffened as she located the sound,and an expression of outraged sanctity appeared in her face. She turnedto Dr. Slavens.

  "Are they going to--to--_dance_ in that building?" she demanded.

  "I'm afraid they are," said he. "It's used for dancing, they tell me."

  "But it's a church--it's consecrated!" she gasped.

  "I reckon it's worn off by this time," he comforted. "It was a church along, long time ago--for Comanche. The saloon man across from it told meits history. He considered locating in it, he said, but they wanted toomuch rent.

  "When Comanche was only a railroad camp--a good while before the railswere laid this far--a traveling preacher struck the town and warmed themup with an old-style revival. They chipped in the money to build thechurch in the fervor of the passing glow, and the preacher had it putup--just as you see it, belfry and all.

  "They even bought a bell for it, and it used to ding for the sheepmenand railroaders, as long as their religion lasted. When it ran out, thepreacher moved on to fresh fields, and a rancher bought the bell to callhis hands to dinner. The respectable element of Comanche--that is, thestorekeepers, their wives, daughters and sons, and the clerks, andothers--hold a dance there now twice a week. That is their onlyrelaxation."

  "It's a shame!" declared Mrs. Reed.

  "Oh, I don't know," said the doctor easily.

  "I'm _so_ disappointed in it!" said she.

  "Because it represents itself as a church when it's something else?"inquired the doctor softly. "Well, I shouldn't be, if I were you. It hasreally nothing to be ashamed of, for the respectable are mightily in theminority in Comanche, I can tell you, madam--that is, among the regularinhabitants."

  "Let's go over and look on," suggested William Bentley. "It may makesome of you gloomy people forget your future troubles for a while."

  The party soon found that looking on exposed them to the contagion ofsociability. They were such wholesome-looking people at the gathering,and their efforts to make the visitors who stood outside the door feelat home and comfortable were so genuine, that reserve dissolved mostunaccountably.

  It was not long before June's mother, her prejudices against suchfrivolous and worldly use of a church blown away, was pigeoning aroundwith William Bentley. Likewise Mrs. Mann, the miller out of sight andout of mind, stepped lightly with Horace, the lawyer, the sober blackbag doubled up and stored in the pocket of his coat, its handlesdangling like bridle-reins.

  June alone was left unpaired, in company with the doctor and MissHorton, who asserted that they did not dance. Her heels were itching tobe clicking off that jolly two-step which the Italian fiddlers andharpist played with such enticing swing. The school-teacher and thesergeant were not with them, having gone out on some expedition of theirown among the allurements of Comanche.

  But June hadn't long to bear the itch of impatience, for ladies were notplentiful at the dance. Before anybody had time to be astonished by hisboldness, a young man was bowing before June, presenting his crookedelbow, inviting her to the dance with all the polish that could possiblylie on any one man. On account of an unusually enthusiastic clatter ofheels at that moment, Dr. Slavens and Miss Horton, a few paces distant,could not hear what he said, but they caught their breaths a littlesharply when June took the proffered arm.

  "Surest thing you know," they heard her eager little voice say as shepassed them with a happy, triumphant look behind.

  Dr. Slavens looked at Miss Horton; Miss Horton looked at the doctor.Both laughed.

  "Well, I like that!" she exclaimed.

  "Yes," he agreed, but apparently from quite a different angle, "so do I.It's natural and unaffected; it's coming down to first principles. Well,I don't see that there's anything left for you and me to do but use upsome of this moonlight in a walk. I'd like to see the river in thislight. Come?"

  "Oh, that would be unconventional!" she protested.

  But it was not a strong protest; more of a question perhaps, which leftit all to him.

  "This is an unconventional country," he said. "Look at it, as white assnow under this summer moon."

  "It's lovely by night," she agreed; "but this Comanche is like a sorespot on a clean skin. It's a blight and a disfigurement, and thesenoises they make after dark sound like some savage revel."

  "We'll put them behind us for two hours or so," he decided with finalitywhich allowed no further argument.

  As they set off toward the river he did not offer her the support of hisarm, for she strode beside him with her hands swinging free, long stepto his long step, not a creature of whims and shams, he knew, quite ableto bear her own weight on a rougher road than that.

  "Still it _is_ unconventional," she reflected, looking away over theflat land.

  "That's the beauty of it," said he. "Let's be just natural."

  They passed beyond the straggling limits of Comanche, where the townblended out into the plain in the tattered tents and road-batteredwagons of the most earnest of all the home-seekers, those who had stakedeverything on the hope of drawing a piece of land which would serve atlast as a refuge against the world's buffeting.

  Under their feet was the low-clinging sheep-sage and the running herbsof yellow and gray which seemed so juiceless and dry to the eye, butwhich were the provender of thousands of sheep and cattle that neverknew the shelter of fold or stable, nor the taste of man-grown grain orfodder, from the day of their birth to the day of their marketing.Winter and summer alike, under the parching sun, under the stranglingdrifts, that clinging, gray vegetation was the animals' sole nutriment.

  Behind the couple the noises of Comanche died to murmurs. Ahead of themrose the dark line of cottonwoods which stood upon the river-shore.

  "I want to take another look at the Buckhorn Canyon," said the doctor,stalking on in his sturdy, farm-bred gait.

  "It makes a fearful roar," she remarked as they approached the placewhere the swift river, compressed into the flumelike passage which ithad whetted out of the granite, tossed its white mane in the moonlightbefore plunging into the dark door of the canyon.

  "I've been hearing yarns and traditions about that canyon ever since Icame here," he told her. "They say it's a thousand feet deep inplaces."

  "June and I came over here this morning," said Agnes, "along withSergeant Schaefer. He said he didn't believe that June could hike thatfar. I sat here on the rocks a long time watching it. I never saw somuch mystery and terror in water before."

  She drew a little nearer to him as she spoke, and he put his hand on hershoulder in an unconscious movement of restraint as she leaned overamong the black boulders and peered into the hissing current.

  "Do you suppose anybody ever went in there?" she asked.

  "They say the Indians know some way of getting through," he replied,"but no white man ever went into the canyon and came out alive. The lastone to try it was a representative of a Denver paper who came out hereat the beginning of the registration. He went in there with his cameraon his back after
a story."

  "Poor fellow! Did he get through--at all?"

  "They haven't reported him on the other side yet. His paper offers areward for the solution of the mystery of his disappearance, which is nomystery at all. He didn't have the right kind of footgear, and heslipped. That's all there is to it."

  He felt her shudder under his hand, which remained unaccountably on herwarm shoulder after the need of restraint had passed.

  "It's a forbidding place by day," said she, "and worse at night. Justthink of the despair of that poor man when he felt himself falling downthere in the dark!"

  "Moccasins are the things for a job like that," he declared. "I'vestudied it all out; I believe I could go through there without ascratch."

  "What in the world would anybody want to do it for? What is there to begained by it, to the good of anybody?" she wondered.

  "Well, there's the reward of five hundred dollars offered by thenewspaper in Denver," he answered.

  "It's a pitiful stake against such odds!" she scorned.

  "And all the old settlers say there's gold in there--rich pockets of it,washed out of the ledges in the sides of the walls and held by the rocksin the river-bed and along the margins. A nugget is picked up now andthen on the other side, so there seems to be ground for the belief thatfortune waits for the man who makes a careful exploration."

  "He couldn't carry enough of it out to make it worth while," sheobjected.

  "But he could go back," Dr. Slavens reminded her. "It would be easy thesecond time. Or he might put in effect the scheme a sheep-herder hadonce."

  "What was that?" she asked, turning her face up to him from her place onthe low stone where she sat, the moonlight glinting in her eyes.

  He laughed a little.

  "Not that it was much of a joke the way it turned out," he explained."He went in there to hunt for the gold, leaving two of his companions tolabor along the brink of the canyon above and listen for his signal shoutin case he came across any gold worth while. Then they were to let arope down to him and he'd send up the treasure. It was a great scheme,but they never got a chance to try it. If he ever gave any signal theynever heard it, for down there a man's voice strained to its shrillestwould be no more than a whisper against a tornado. You can believe that,can't you, from the way it roars and tears around out here?"

  "All the gold that remains unmined wouldn't tempt me a hundred feet downthat black throat," she shuddered. "But what became of the adventurerwith the scheme?"

  "He came through in time--they caught him at the outlet over there inthe mountains. The one pocket that remained in his shredded clothing wasfull of gold nuggets, they say. So he must have found it, even if hecouldn't make them hear."

  "What a dismal end for any man!"

  "A man could beat it, though," said he, leaning forward in thoughtfulattitude. "He'd need a strong light, and moccasins, so he could cling tothe rocks. I believe it could be done, and I've thought a good dealabout exploring it myself for a day or two past. If I don't draw a lownumber I think I'll tackle it."

  "Don't you attempt it!" she cried, clutching his arm and turning herwhite face to him affrightedly. "Don't you ever dare try it!"

  He laughed uneasily, his eyes on the black gash into which the foamingriver darted.

  "Oh, I don't know; I've heard of men doing riskier things than that formoney," he returned.

  Agnes Horton's excitement and concern seemed to pass with his words. Shepropped her chin in her palms and sat pensively, looking at the brokenwaters which reared around the barrier of scattered stones in itschannel.

  "Yes, men sometimes take big risks for money--even the risk of honor andthe everlasting happiness of others," said she.

  It was like the wind blowing aside a tent-flap as he passed, giving hima glimpse of its intimate interior. That little lifting of her reservewas a glance into the sanctuary of her heart. The melancholy of her eyeswas born out of somebody's escapade with money; he was ready to risk hislast guess on that.

  "Besides, there may be nothing to that story of nuggets. That may bejust one of these western yarns," she added.

  "Well, in any case, there's the five hundred the Denver paper offers,besides what I could make by syndicating the account of my adventureamong the Sunday papers. I used to do quite a lot of that when I was incollege."

  "But you don't need money badly enough to go into that place after it.Nobody ever needed it that badly," she declared.

  "Don't I?" he answered, a little biting of bitter sarcasm in his tone."Well, you don't know, my lady, how easy that money looks to me comparedto my ordinary channels of getting it."

  "It can't be so very hard in your profession," she doubted, as if a bitoffended by his attitude of martyrdom before an unappreciative world. "Idon't believe you have half as hard a time of it as some who have toomuch money."

  "The hardship of having too much money is one which I never experienced,so I can't say as to that," he said, moved to smiles by the humor of it."But to understand what I mean by hardship you must know how I'vestruggled in the ruts and narrow traditions of my profession, andfought, hoped, and starved. Why, I tell you that black hole over therelooks like an open door with a light inside of it compared to some ofthe things I've gone through in the seven years that I've been trying toget a start. Money? I'll tell you how that is, Miss Horton; I've thoughtalong that one theme so confounded long that it's worn a groove in mybrain.

  "Here you see me tonight, a piece of driftwood at thirty-five, and allfor the want of money enough to buy an automobile and take thedarned-fool world by storm on its vain side! You can't scratch it with adiamond on its reasoning side--I've scratched away on it until my nailsare gone.

  "I've failed, I tell you, I've botched it all up! And just for want ofmoney enough to buy an automobile! Brains never took a doctoranywhere--nothing but money and bluff!"

  "I wonder," she speculated, "what will become of you out here in thisraw place, where the need of a doctor seems to be the farthest thing inthe world, and you with your nerve all gone?"

  It would have reassured her if she could have seen the fine flush whichthis charge raised in his face. But she didn't even look toward him, andcouldn't have noted the change if she had, for the moonlight was notthat bright, even in Wyoming.

  "But I haven't lost my nerve!" he denied warmly.

  "Oh, yes, you have," she contradicted, "or you wouldn't admit thatyou're a failure, and you wouldn't talk about money that way. Moneydoesn't cut much ice as long as you've got nerve."

  "That's all right from your view," said he pettishly. "But you've hadeasy going of it, out of college into a nice home, with a lot of thosepink-faced chaps to ride you around in their automobiles, and opera andplays and horse-shows and all that stuff."

  "Perhaps," she admitted, a soft sadness in her voice. "But wait untilyou've seen somebody drunk with the passion of too much money and crazywith the hunger for more; wait until you've seen a man's soul grow blackfrom hugging it to his heart, and his conscience atrophy and his manhoodwither. And then when it rises up and crushes him, and all that are hiswith it----"

  He looked at her curiously, waiting for her to round it out with apersonal citation. But she said no more.

  "That's why you're here, hoping like the rest of us to draw NumberOne?"

  "Any number up to six hundred will do for me," she laughed, sittingerect once more and seeming to shake her bitter mood off as she spoke.

  "And what will you do with it? Sell out as soon as the law allows?"

  "I'll live on it," dreamily, as if giving words to an old vision whichshe had warmed in her heart. "I'll stay there and work through the hopeof summer and the bleakness of winter, and make a home. I'll smooth thewild land and plant trees and green meadows, and roses by the door, andwe'll stay there and it will be--_home_!"

  "Yes," he nodded, understanding the feeling better than she knew. "Youand mother; you want it just that way."

  "How did you know it was mother?" she asked, turning to him with aqui
ck, appreciative little start.

  "You're the kind of a woman who has a mother," he answered. "Mothersleave their stamp on women like you."

  "Thank you," said she.

  "I've often wanted to run away from it that way, too," he owned, "forfailure made a coward of me more than once in those hard years. There'sa prospect of independence and peace in the picture you make with thosefew swift strokes. But I don't see any--you haven't put any--any--_man_in it. Isn't there one somewhere?"

  "No," simply and frankly; "there isn't any man anywhere. He doesn'tbelong in the picture, so why should I draw him in?"

  Dr. Slavens sighed.

  "Yes; I've wanted to run away from it more than once."

  "That's because you've lost your nerve," she charged. "You shouldn'twant to run away from it--a big, broad man like you--and you must notrun away. You must stay and fight--and fight--and _fight_! Why, you talkas if you were seventy instead of a youth of thirty-five!"

  "Don't rub it in so hard on that failure and nerve business," he begged,ashamed of his hasty confession.

  "Well, _you_ mustn't talk of running away then. There are no ghostsafter you, are there?"

  The moonlight was sifting through the loose strands of her gleaming hairas she sat there bareheaded at his side, and the strength of his lifereached out to her, and the deep yearning of his lonely soul. He knewthat he wanted that woman out of all the world full of women whom he hadseen and known--and passed. He knew that he wanted her with such strongneed that from that day none other could come across the mirror of hisheart and dim her image out of it.

  Simply money would not win a woman like her; no slope-headed son of a hamfactory could come along and carry her off without any recommendation buthis cash. She had lived through that kind of lure, and she was there onhis own level because she wanted to work out her clean life in her ownclean way. The thought warmed him. Here was a girl, he reflected, with apiece of steel in her backbone; a girl that would take the world'slashings like a white elm in a storm, to spring resiliently back tostately poise after the turmoil had passed. Trouble would not breakher; sorrow would only make her fineness finer. There was a girl to standup beside a man!

  He had not thought of it before--perhaps he had been too melancholy andbitter over his failure to take by storm the community where he hadtried to make his start--but he believed that he realized that momentwhat he had needed all along. If, amid the contempt and indifference ofthe successful, he'd had some incentive besides his own ambition tostruggle for all this time, some splendid, strong-handed woman to standup in his gloom like the Goddess of Liberty offering an ultimate rewardto the poor devils who have won their way to her feet across the bitterseas from hopeless lands, he might have stuck to it back there and wonin the end.

  "That's what I've needed," said he aloud, rising abruptly.

  She looked up at him quickly.

  "I've needed somebody's sympathy, somebody's sarcasm, somebody's softhand--which could be correctional on occasion--and somebody'sheart-interest all along," he declared, standing before her dramaticallyand flinging out his hands in the strong feeling of his declaration."I've been lonely; I've been morose. I've needed a woman like you!"

  Without sign of perturbation or offense, Agnes rose and laid her handgently upon his arm.

  "I think, Dr. Slavens," she suggested, "we'd better be going back tocamp."

  They walked the mile back to camp with few words between them. Theblatant noises of Comanche grew as they drew nearer.

  The dance was still in progress; the others had not returned to camp.

  "Do you care to sit out here and wait for them?" he asked as theystopped before the tent.

  "I think I'll go to bed," she answered. "I'm tired."

  "I'll stand sentry," he offered.

  She thanked him, and started to go in. At the door she paused, went backto him, and placed her hand in her soothing, placid way upon his armagain.

  "You'll fight out the good fight here," said she, "for this is a countrythat's got breathing-room in it."

  She looked up into his face a bit wistfully, he thought, as if therewere more in her heart than she had spoken. "You'll win here--I knowyou'll win."

  He reached out to put his arm about her, drawn by the same warmattraction that had pulled the words from him at the riverside. Theaction was that of a man reaching out to lean his weary weight upon somefamiliar object, and there was something of old habit in it, as if hehad been doing it always.

  But she did not stay. He folded only moonlight, in which there is littlesubstance for a strong man, even in Wyoming. Dr. Slavens sighed as thetent-flap dropped behind her.

  "Yes; that's what I've needed all the time," said he.

  He sat outside with his pipe, which never had seemed so sweet. But, forall of its solace, he was disturbed by the thought that perhaps he hadmade a blunder which had placed him in a false light with MissHorton--only he thought of her as Agnes, just as if he had the right.For there were only occasions on which Dr. Slavens admitted himself tobe a fizzle in the big fireworks of the world. That was a charge whichhe sometimes laid to himself in mortification of spirit, or as aflagellant to spur him along the hard road. He had not meant to let itslip him aloud over there by the river, because he didn't believe it atall--at least not in that high-hoping hour.

  So he sat there in the moonlight before the tent, the noises of the townswelling louder and louder as the night grew older, his big framedoubled into the stingy lap of a canvas chair, his knees almost as highas his chin. But it was comfortable, and his tobacco was as pleasant tohis senses as the distillation of youthful dreams.

  He had not attained the automobile stage of prosperity and arrogance,certainly. But that was somewhere ahead; he should come to it in time.Out of the smoke of his pipe that dreamy night he could see it. Perhapshe might be a little gray at the temples when he came to it, and alittle lined at the mouth, but there would be more need of it then thannow, because his legs would tire more easily.

  But Agnes had taken that foolishly blurted statement for truth. Soit was his job henceforward to prove to Agnes that he was not bankruptin courage. And he meant to do it he vowed, even if he had to get atent and hang out his shingle in Comanche. That would take nerveunquestionably, for there were five doctors in the place already, noneof them making enough to buy stamps to write back home for money.

  Already, he said, he was out of the rut of his despondency; already therust was knocked off his back, and the eagerness to crowd up to thestarting-line was on him as fresh again as on the day when he had walkedaway from all competitors in the examination for a license before thestate board.

  At midnight the others came back from the dance and broke the trend ofhis smoke-born dreams. Midnight was the hour when respectable Comancheput out its lights and went to bed. Not to sleep in every case, perhaps,for the din was at crescendo pitch by then; but, at any event, todeprive the iniquitous of the moral support of looking on theirdebaucheries and sins.

  Dr. Slavens was in no mood for his sagging canvas cot, for his newenthusiasm was bounding through him as if he had been given anintravenous injection of nitroglycerin. There was Wyoming before him,all white and virginal and fresh, a big place for a big deed. Certainly,said Dr. Slavens. Just as if made to order for his needs.

  So he would look around a bit before turning in, with his high-steppinghumor over him, and that spot on his arm, where her hand had lain, stillaglow with her mysterious fire.