The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains by Owen Wister (beach read book txt) 📗
- Author: Owen Wister
Book online «The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains by Owen Wister (beach read book txt) 📗». Author Owen Wister
“No. Not a word. He wouldn't tell me.”
“Well, yu' see, I arrived home hyeh this evenin' with several thoughts workin' and stirrin' inside me. And not one o' them thoughts was what yu'd call Christian. I ain't the least little bit ashamed of 'em. I'm a human. But after the Judge—well, yu' heard him. And so when I went away from that talk and saw how positions was changed—”
A step outside stopped him short. Nothing more could be read in his face, for there was Trampas himself in the open door.
“Good morning,” said Trampas, not looking at us. He spoke with the same cool sullenness of yesterday.
We returned his greeting.
“I believe I'm late in congratulating you on your promotion,” said he.
The Virginian consulted his watch. “It's only half afteh six,” he returned.
Trampas's sullenness deepened. “Any man is to be congratulated on getting a rise, I expect.”
This time the Virginian let him have it. “Cert'nly. And I ain't forgetting how much I owe mine to you.”
Trampas would have liked to let himself go. “I've not come here for any forgiveness,” he sneered.
“When did yu' feel yu' needed any?” The Virginian was impregnable.
Trampas seemed to feel how little he was gaining this way. He came out straight now. “Oh, I haven't any Judge behind me, I know. I heard you'd be paying the boys this morning, and I've come for my time.”
“You're thinking of leaving us?” asked the new foreman. “What's your dissatisfaction?”
“Oh, I'm not needing anybody back of me. I'll get along by myself.” It was thus he revealed his expectation of being dismissed by his enemy.
This would have knocked any meditated generosity out of my heart. But I was not the Virginian. He shifted his legs, leaned back a little, and laughed. “Go back to your job, Trampas, if that's all your complaint. You're right about me being in luck. But maybe there's two of us in luck.”
It was this that Scipio had preferred me to see with my own eyes. The fight was between man and man no longer. The case could not be one of forgiveness; but the Virginian would not use his official position to crush his subordinate.
Trampas departed with something muttered that I did not hear, and the Virginian closed intimate conversation by saying, “You'll be late for breakfast.” With that he also took himself away.
The ladies were inclined to be scandalized, but not the Judge. When my whole story was done, he brought his fist down on the table, and not lightly this time. “I'd make him lieutenant general if the ranch offered that position!” he declared.
Miss Molly Wood said nothing at the time. But in the afternoon, by her wish, she went fishing, with the Virginian deputed to escort her. I rode with them, for a while. I was not going to continue a third in that party; the Virginian was too becomingly dressed, and I saw KENILWORTH peeping out of his pocket. I meant to be fishing by myself when that volume was returned.
But Miss Wood talked with skilful openness as we rode. “I've heard all about you and Dr. MacBride,” she said. “How could you do it, when the Judge places such confidence in you?”
He looked pleased. “I reckon,” he said, “I couldn't be so good if I wasn't bad onced in a while.”
“Why, there's a skunk,” said I, noticing the pretty little animal trotting in front of us at the edge of the thickets.
“Oh, where is it? Don't let me see it!” screamed Molly. And at this deeply feminine remark, the Virginian looked at her with such a smile that, had I been a woman, it would have made me his to do what he pleased with on the spot.
Upon the lady, however, it seemed to make less impression. Or rather, I had better say, whatever were her feelings, she very naturally made no display of them, and contrived not to be aware of that expression which had passed over the Virginian's face.
It was later that these few words reached me while I was fishing alone: “Have you anything different to tell me yet?” I heard him say.
“Yes; I have.” She spoke in accents light and well intrenched. “I wish to say that I have never liked any man better than you. But I expect to!”
He must have drawn small comfort from such an answer as that. But he laughed out indomitably: “Don't yu' go betting on any such expectation!” And then their words ceased to be distinct, and it was only their two voices that I heard wandering among the windings of the stream.
XXII. “WHAT IS A RUSTLER?”
We all know what birds of a feather do. And it may be safely surmised that if a bird of any particular feather has been for a long while unable to see other birds of its kind, it will flock with them all the more assiduously when they happen to alight in its vicinity.
Now the Ogdens were birds of Molly's feather. They wore Eastern, and not Western, plumage, and their song was a different song from that which the Bear Creek birds sang. To be sure, the piping of little George Taylor was full of hopeful interest; and many other strains, both striking and melodious, were lifted in Cattle Land, and had given pleasure to Molly's ear. But although Indians, and bears, and mavericks, make worthy themes for song, these are not the only songs in the world. Therefore the Eastern warblings of the Ogdens sounded doubly sweet to Molly Wood. Such words as Newport, Bar Harbor, and Tiffany's thrilled her exceedingly. It made no difference that she herself had never been to Newport or Bar Harbor, and had visited Tiffany's more often to admire than to purchase. On the contrary, this rather added a dazzle to the music of the Ogdens. And Molly, whose Eastern song had been silent in this strange land, began to chirp it again during the visit that she made at the Sunk Creek Ranch.
Thus the Virginian's cause by no means prospered at this time. His forces were scattered, while Molly's were concentrated. The girl was not at that point where absence makes the heart grow fonder. While the Virginian was trundling his long, responsible miles in the caboose, delivering the cattle at Chicago, vanquishing Trampas along the Yellowstone, she had regained herself.
Thus it was that she could tell him so easily during those first hours that they were alone after his return, “I expect to like another man better than you.”
Absence had recruited her. And then the Ogdens had reenforced her. They brought the East back powerfully to her memory, and her thoughts filled with it. They did not dream that they were assisting in any battle. No one
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