Again we broke camp. We rolled down from the plateau into that wizard basin lying all beautiful and and spell-locked like some land of heart’s desire. We our water casks from the tank cars, we for a little feed, we occasionally exchanged greetings with , and with grading crews. In due time we passed end o’ track, where a of sweated men were moiling like mad, clanging down the rails upon the hasty ties and ever calling for more, more. I witnessed little General “Jack” of Ohio—a small man with full russet beard and bold blue eyes—teetering and at his whiskers and swearing while he drove the work forward. And we left end o’ track, vainly reaching out after us, until the ring of the rails and the staccato of the rapid faded upon our ears.
Now we were following the long line of bare grade, upturned reddish by the and scrapers and picks and ; sometimes elevated, for contour, sometimes with the desert itself. There the navvies digged and , scarcely taking time to glance 224at us. And day by day we in the interminable clouds of desert dust raised by the supply .
Captain Hyrum fought shy of their camps. The were mainly Irish, trans-shipped from steerage, dock, and Bowery, and imported from Western mining centers; turbulent in their and supplied with whiskey: companies, they, not at all to the Mormon mind. Consequently we halted apart from them—and well so, for those were womanless camps and the daily bred strong appetites.
There were places where we made half circuit out from the grade and abandoned it . In this way we escaped the dust, the rough talk, and the temptations; now and again obtained a of in the shape of coarse weedy grasses at the borders of sinks.
But it was a cruel country on men and beasts. Our teamsters who had been through by the Overland Trail said that the Bitter desert was yet worse: drier, barer, dustier and uglier. Nevertheless this was our daily program:
To rise after a shivery night, into the crisp dawn which once or twice glinted upon a film of ice formed in the water buckets; to the animals and place them convenient; to swallow our hot coffee and our pork and beans, and flapjacks when the cooks were in the humor; to hook the teams to the wagons and break corral, and amidst cracking of stretch out into column, then to and , at snail’s pace, through the constantly increasing day until soon we also were and by a heat succeeding the frosty night.
The sleeping beauties of the realm were ever farther removed. In the distances they awaited, with promise of magic-invested battlements, languid reds and yellows like , and patches of liquid blue and dazzling snowy white, by a soft, sky. But when we arrived, near spent, the battlements were only sandstone outcrops inhabited by rattlesnakes, the reds and yellows were sun-baked soil as hard, the liquid blue was poisonous, sinks, the snow patches were and bitter alkali, the luxurious sky was the same old white-hot , reflecting the blazing sun upon the earth.
Then at sunset we made corral; against theft, when near the grade; against Indians and when out from the grade, with the animals under herd guard. There were fires, there was singing at the Mormon camp, there was the heavy sleep beneath blanket and robe, through the biting chill of a breezeless night, the ground a welcomed bed, the stars from horizon to horizon, the wolves stalking and like ghouls.
So we dulled to the falsity of the desert and the of the trail; and as the grading camps became less frequent the men grew riper for any diversion. That My Lady and Daniel and I were to furnish it seemed to be generally accepted. Here were the time-old elements: two men, one woman—elements so constituted that in other situation they might have brought comedy but upon such a trail must and should pronounce for tragedy, at least for true .
Besides, I was expected to uphold the honor of our Gentile mess along with my own honor. That was demanded; ever offered in cajolery to encourage my pistol practice. I was, in short, “elected,” by an equal to a conviction; and what with her as a bonus I never was permitted to lose sight of the ghastly prize of skill added to merit.
At first the matter had disturbed and me , to the extent that I anticipated the issue while preparing against it. Surely this was the current of a dream. And dreams I had—frightfully tumultuous dreams, of red anger and redder blood, sometimes my own blood, sometimes another’s; dreams from which I in cold nightmare sweat.
To be infused, even by bunkum and , with the idea of , is a sad of balance. I would not have conceived the thing possible to me a month back. But the desert trail, the close companying with , open minds, and the 227strict upon individual rights—yes, and the of the same faces, the same figures, the same fare, the same , the same recreations, all worked as poison, to depress and and like alternant chills and fever.
Practice I did, if only in friendly of the others, as a pass-the-time. I improved a little in drawing easily and firing snap-shot. The art was good to know, bad to depend upon. In the beginnings it worried me as a sleight-of-hand, until I saw that it was the established code and that Daniel himself looked to no other.
In fact, he me on, not so much by word as by manner, which was worse. Since that evening when, in the approving of my friends, I had “cut him out” by walking with her to the Adams fire, we had exchanged scarcely a word; he about at his end of the train and mainly in his own precincts, and I held myself in at mine, with self-consciousness most annoying to me.
But his manner, his manner—by swagger and and ostentatious triumph of possession an unwearied challenge to my manhood. My revolver practice, I might mark, moved him to and flings; when he hulked by me he did so with a stare and a boastful grin, but without other response to my attempted “Howdy?”; now and again he assiduously cleaned his gun, sitting out where I should see even if I did not straightway look; in this 228he was most faithful, with flourishes babying me by thinking to .
Withal he gave me never excuse of ending him or him, but shifted upon me the burden of choosing time and spot.
Once, indeed, we near had it. That was on an early morning. He was driving in a of oxen that had strayed, and he stopped short in passing where I was busied with our .
“Say, Mister, I want a word with yu,” he demanded.
“Well, out with it,” I bade; and my heart began to . Possibly I paled, I know that I blinked, the sun being in my eyes.
He laughed, and over his shoulder, from the saddle.
“Needn’t be skeered. I ain’t goin’ to hurt ye. I ’laow yu expected to make up to that woman, didn’t yu, ’fore this?”
“What woman?” I encouraged; but I was wondering if my revolver was loose.
“Edna. ’Cause if yu did, ’tain’t no use, Mister. Why,” indulgently, “yu couldn’t marry her—yu couldn’t marry her no more’n yu could kill me. Yu’re a Gentile, an’ yu’d be bustin’ yore own laws. But thar ain’t no Gentile laws for the Lord’s an’inted; so I thought I’d tell yu I’m liable to marry her myself. Yu’ve kep’ away from her consider’ble; this is to tell yu yu mought as well keep keepin’ away.”
“I sha’n’t discuss Mrs. Montoyo with you, sir,” I broke, cold, instead of hot, watching him very narrowly (as I had been taught to do), my hand nerved for the . “But I am her friend—her friend, mind you; and if she is in danger of being imposed upon by you, I stand ready to protect her. For I want you to know that I’m not afraid of you, day or night. Why, you low dog——!” and I choked, for the crisis.
He gawked, reddening; his right hand quivered; and to my he slowly laughed, scanning me.
“I seen yu practicin’. Go ahead. I wouldn’t kill yu naow. Or if yu want practice in ’arnest, start to draw.” He waited a moment, in easy . I did not draw. “Let yore dander cool. Thar’s no use yu tryin’ to the Mormons. I’ve warned ye.” And he passed on, cracking his .
Suddenly I was aware that, as seemed, every eye in the camp had been fastened upon us two. My fingers shook while with show of I resumed adjusting the halters.
“Gosh! Looked for a minute like you and him was to have it out proper,” Jenks commented, matter of fact, when I came in. “Hazin’ you a bit, was he? What’d he say?”
“He warned me to keep away from Mrs. Montoyo. Went so far as to lay claim to her himself, the whelp. Boasted of it.”
“Throwed it in your face, did he? Wall, you goin’ to let him cache her away?”
“Look here,” I said , still a-tremble: “Why do you men put that up to me? Why do you egg me on to ? She’s no more to me than she is to you. Damn it, I’ll take care of myself but I don’t see why I should shoulder her, except that she’s a woman and I won’t see any woman mistreated.”
He pulled his whiskers, and grinned.
“Dunno jest how fur you’re elected. Looks like there was something between you and her—though I don’t say for shore. But she’s your kind; she may be a leetle devil, but she’s your kind—been eddicated and acts the lady. She ain’t our kind. Thunderation! What’d we do with her? She’d be better off marryin’ Dan’l. He’d give her a home. If you hadn’t been with this train I don’t believe she’d have follered in. That’s the proposition. You got to fight him anyway; he’s set out to back you down. It’s your , isn’t it?”
“I know it,” I admitted. “He’s been ugly toward me from the first, without reason.”
“Reckoned to amuse himself. He’s one o’ them fellers that think to show off by ridin’ somebody they think they can ride. The boys hate to see you lay down to that; for you’d better call him and eat lead or else quit the country. So you might as well give him a full dose and take the pot.”
“What pot?”
“The woman, o’ course.”
“I tell you, Mrs. Montoyo has nothing to do with it, any more than any woman. It’s a matter between him and me—he began it by at me before she appeared. I want her left out of it.”
“Oh, pshaw!” Jenks . “That can’t be did. He’s fetched her into it. What do you aim to do, then? her? When you’re dodgin’ her you’re dodgin’ him, or so he’ll take it............