IN THE 
 
 COUNTRY 
 
 GOD FORGOT 
 
 FRANCES CHARLES 
 

 
 

In the Country God Forgot 
 
In the 
 Country God Forgot 
 
 A STORY OF TO-DAY 
 
 By 
 FRANCES CHARLES 
 
 Author of The Siege of Youth," " The Awakening 
 of the Duchess," etc. 
 
 > /, \ \ '*/, * *. ; ". 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY 
 1906 
 
Copyright, 1902, 
 BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 PUBLISHED APRIL, 1902 
 
 8. J. PARKHILL ft Co., BOSTON, U. 8. 
 
To that which has abided through many years, the 
 influence of my sister's life 
 
 "When good men die their goodness does not perish, 
 But lives though they are gone " 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Part First 
 
 PAG. 
 
 MEES BAX I 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF HOPE 7 
 
 A GU'L 16 
 
 ON A STAGE 27 
 
 COALS TO NEWCASTLE 48 
 
 WHOM GOD HATH JOINED 60 
 
 MAID AND MAN 73 
 
 Two LETTERS 91 
 
 A BRANDING SCENE 103 
 
 ON WOMAN u IN OUR HOURS OF EASE" . . 117 
 
 CAMP AND A GIRL 130 
 
 ON A CALENDAR (SECONDARILY) 140 
 
 THE DEED OF A FADED DAGUERREOTYPE . . 150 
 
 Part Second 
 
 ON UNPRACTISED " SCIENCE " 171 
 
 MASTER? 182 
 
 A DREAMER AND SOME DREAMS 192 
 
 AN INTERLUDE ON MATHEMATICS 200 
 
 vii 
 
Contents 
 
 PACK 
 
 SUMMONS'S ADVICE . 213 
 
 THE CAUSE OF A FIGHT 222 
 
 IN THE NAME OF GOD AMEN ! 236 
 
 ONE NIGHT 243 
 
 MR. AND MRS. BOSTON JIM 260 
 
 ABOUT A "CLUB" 271 
 
 THE DAY 280 
 
 A LITTLE STORY 300 
 
 THE SACRIFICIAL LAMB 304 
 
 A SWORD LAID BY 313 
 
 ON A CHILD 319 
 
 VI 11 
 
In the Country <3bd Fbrgbt 
 
 PART FIRST 
 
 MEES BAX 
 
 ONE day, in a year of our Lord which is 
 too recent as yet to mention, a woman 
 stood in the doorway of Carl Weffold's 
 adobe. She was staring out on the God-forgotten 
 country which people have baptized Arizona. 
 During this long trailing survey of her hot, hand- 
 some eyes, it were well to study the cactus land, 
 as reflected. 
 
 The utter silences of working-time wrapped her 
 in a sort of desolation which seemed to make 
 her throbbing distaste of immediate surroundings 
 doubly dumb, for there are some things we 
 should not say, even have we listeners for them. 
 
 She was also pale, as one still listless from a 
 too hot summer. Complexion and manner both 
 implied this. I think, too, this impression was 
 heightened by the simple black gown that she 
 wore, like one of mourning. 
 
 In the same manner, eyes and height alike 
 proclaimed her no native of Arizona. For there 
 was in one the stretching heimweh of some goodly 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 distance, while the form half propped against the 
 sturdy ; p'ost was' as wirrely tali as the proverbial 
 goddess. 
 
 Her drab, hopeless personality became more 
 and more fixed as one gazed upon her. There 
 was naturally the suggestion of such conflicts as 
 are inevitable when alien bodies meet ; but more 
 than this seemed suggested, the sacrifices attend- 
 ing assimilation. For what we have lost is still 
 often ours by its very absence. 
 
 She knew many things as she leaned there. She 
 let thoughts come, and then despised herself for 
 their recurrence woman-like. It is women 
 who represent your endless variety. They make 
 playthings of their own emotions. So with 
 Mees Bax that day. She exulted now over the 
 Weffold possessions. She seemed to hold in a 
 measure the future mighty issues of both cattle 
 and land; her woman's heart throbbed with the 
 gladness and pity, femininely intermingled, at- 
 tendant on owning great water-rights in a famish- 
 ing country. 
 
 It was a womanly face with this tender phase 
 of feeling on it, but presently were also blent 
 the breathless remembrances of her own little 
 romance, the majesties of her labor and mother- 
 hood. 
 
 She stretched her arms a little, as one stirring 
 
 2 
 
Mees Bax 
 
 in a pleasant trance. She tried to raise her con- 
 trite eyes to Heaven, as located to our childish 
 minds. But even so, half-way wandering, 
 tender, sentimental there came a chilling nega- 
 tiveness to them. 
 
 It was the Major coming along his own high- 
 road. His meagre hair fell under his wide white 
 sombrero, long and gray ; his keen eyes under 
 their bushy brows were impenetrably cold as 
 ever ; over a noticeable hollowness of chest rested 
 the long quiet beard. Otherwise, he was very 
 erect for his age, and rather tall, in all very much 
 like any other seventy-year-old soldier. 
 
 Robbie was Mees Bax's sister who lived in 
 Chicago, and wrote long, intolerant-of-the-country 
 society-letters to Weffold's once a week. She had 
 been the kind of person one called incorrigible as 
 a little girl and totally charming as a big one. The 
 only sad part to this fact was that she knew it. 
 
 "Your description of your father-in-law, my 
 dear," she would write, " reminds me forcibly of 
 the wooden soldiers on frame-work which we used 
 to play with when we were young. They used 
 to be very irritating, only I did n't know it then. 
 We had to stand them up to begin with, and then 
 knock them over before they fell, it is too au- 
 tomatic : not human enough for humans don't 
 you think ? " 
 
 Mrs. Bax would write back on these occasions : 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 "Your remarks about my father-in-law, dear- 
 est, were not nice. For one thing, I don't re- 
 member what we thought as children, and for 
 another, I don't think now " After a suffi- 
 cient period to justify distance and the mail, Mrs. 
 Bax would open six or seven thin, closely-scribbled 
 sheets. " The worst fault," she would read, " of 
 the country is, it obliterates personality so effect- 
 ually in time, just like boarding-houses and 
 marriage," every extra-expressive adverb, verb, 
 etc., being English capitalized. 
 
 " You are an absorption, not an entity. Some- 
 thing is at work on your individuality lately. I 
 can't believe Bax guilty of it. I think it is your 
 father-in-law." 
 
 On such occasions the woman who was reading 
 would stir and grow restless, and seem to yearn 
 over this thing which, 't was said, was slipping from 
 her. Seated in her queer little room, perhaps she 
 would stare around her, as if seeking satisfaction 
 for her queries, peace for her wonder, recovery of 
 her own. 
 
 And staring back at her often on these occa- 
 sions from bed, chair, child's crib, or bureau would 
 be a woollen elephant, solemn, inanimate, well- 
 handled, on one side the strong smell of pepper- 
 mint candy, but compensatory beyond all doubt 
 Do I need to tell you any more? 
 
 4 
 
Mees Bax 
 
 As Mees Bax turned aside now, her recent in- 
 timate and innocent reflections became so familiar 
 as to turn her heart sick at the mere remembrance 
 of them. 
 
 For the country God forgot, with its limits, its 
 calm and barrennesses, found a certain imitation 
 of its sterility here. 
 
 A bitter agony of revolt possessed her. 
 
 " It is unbearable," Mees Bax muttered. 
 
 It was in the hallway. 
 
 She walked slowly. She drank punishingly 
 of her humiliation ; she bent her proud head 
 now in shame ; she raised it again in burning 
 wrath. 
 
 Two spots glowed on either side of her face. 
 Out of her mental rage she mastered the great 
 facts of the house and her presence. 
 
 Presently she reached a room wherein a little 
 child was playing. He did not see her just at 
 first, but when he did, his face lighted. He did 
 not discard the mucilage pot from which he had 
 been procuring amusement, but, with the liberality 
 of our young affections, accepted both pleasures 
 with a quaint complacence. 
 
 As his mother continued, he even tried to solve 
 her mood by his own autocratic measures, and 
 successful as they generally were, the little de- 
 liberate voice cooled the bitterness of the problem 
 for her. 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 " Me luv oo/ J it said ; " come 'ere, me 'ont to 
 'ug oo." 
 
 She understood. It was manlike consolation 
 enough, embryonic, as you will. In a wild 
 whirl of true feminine submission, she flung her- 
 self on her knees beside him. Her head leaned 
 on Carl WeffbkTs broad bed ; she knelt on Carl 
 Weffold's floor; his roof covered both her and 
 her offspring. 
 
 Her head seemed to burst with its helplessness 
 over the complexities of her own misplacement. 
 
 She, the woman who most despised him, the 
 woman he most despised, the wife and mother 
 of his heirs 
 
 As she continued sobbing, the child forgot his 
 mucilage pot. It became secondary, and, upset- 
 ting, flowed over her rich dark hair. Seeing this, 
 he patted the damp places gently with a furtive 
 entertainment in it of which he was probably not 
 even aware. His little fat hand came to glisten 
 kindly. Once it closed tightly around her neck. 
 Between whiles he called, cc Mommie, mommie, 
 mommie dear ! " 
 
THE ROMANCE OF HOPE 
 
 THE "West Bound" rolled through 
 Short's at four o'clock in the morning. 
 Short's was not much of itself, save that 
 it held solitary railroad communication with the 
 lively little town of Hope, some twenty miles or 
 so distant. 
 
 There had been no Short's, or Hope either, 
 till the third summer or so before. People just 
 called that part of the country " Weffold's 
 Range." It was a vague, yet comprehensive, 
 term which took in more square miles than a man 
 could do in a day on horseback. This dated 
 back farther than history. Before man had set 
 even the foot of possession firmly in Arizona, 
 Carl Weffold's Range had existed. He had 
 come in the midst of the worst Apache warfare ; 
 he had defied them with but one friend, his 
 rifle; he had stood by the country through 
 drought and famine, until now he stood hand in 
 hand with its progress, a stern old pioneer of 
 the waste of sand hills. 
 
 But in this God-forgotten country there are 
 signs, as all know, in His emulation. Thus, so 
 
 7 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 that limit might be placed to the Weffold past- 
 ures, nature had thrown up her barren hills in 
 rude, compelling fences. The Major, content 
 with his own little kingdom, stopped at these 
 uplifted hands of authority. 
 
 Then one day a tramp came along a weary, 
 happy-go-lucky fellow. He had a little pro- 
 spector's pack on his back, and much of the 
 divine grace which is laid to the sum of a prince in 
 some ancient story. He laughed now and again 
 as he kicked up the dust ; he whistled as he toiled 
 alongside the barbed-wire fence which guarded 
 the Weffold tanks and its pastures, its great herds 
 of cattle and well-built corrals. Once he raised 
 his tattered cap with mocking grace to some 
 stampeding cattle. The day was perfect, and he 
 lent himself charmingly to harmony. 
 
 He stopped at the gate leading to Maj'r Wef- 
 fold's adobe. It swung by a homemade contriv- 
 ance of two tin cans filled with clods of earth. 
 It was very funny, and afforded a childlike 
 amusement which was nearly French. He was 
 very hungry, but begged neither food nor drink. 
 He chatted lightly, entertainingly, casually to his 
 host. After a whiskey or so, Texan's measure, 
 he approached an even greater perfection of non- 
 chalance. He laughed, and it was good acting. 
 He was a New Yorker Garnet, by name (with 
 
The Romance of Hope 
 
 a bow) Richard Garnet. Dick was better, merely 
 Dick. It was a good name in his own part of 
 the country. 
 
 He would not detain the Maj'r longer. He 
 did not know the length of his own journey. It 
 was toward Hope. Just two hours after he had 
 seen the last of this stranger, the joke penetrated 
 Carl Weffold's mercilessly practical head. He re- 
 called the suave, mocking face, the white, gentle- 
 manly hands, the light, graceful figure, the clever 
 intuitions of the fellow who had just gone, and 
 there came in bitter, overwhelming contrast, Bax's 
 deadly, immovable earnestness and strong, quiet 
 face. 
 
 Over that thought, he went to the door, and, 
 as one on whom God had bestowed a fool for 
 his first-born, gulped down the great Nazarene's 
 name in fierce, gurgling wrath. 
 
 The stranger slept that night on the hills, the 
 next perhaps, and several more of them. 
 
 Two weeks later, a party of strangers put up at 
 Weffold's a gay night or so. The first stranger 
 was there also. He drank whiskey oftener. He 
 seemed more feverish than ever. When their 
 verdict over his find came in, he staggered out 
 of the room at last, like one in liquor, and 
 every one imagined it was so, and that the new 
 protege of Fortune had gone to sleep it off. In- 
 
 9 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 stead of that he went into his bed-room, carefully 
 closing and locking the door. He sat down by 
 a small deal table. He stared a little while 
 drunkenly before him (but not with wine). He 
 stretched out his arms with a strange, yearning 
 gesture, and then suddenly burst into tears, 
 such as men weep when their strength is gone 
 from them by some treacherous prank such as 
 the emotions can play. 
 
 Just seven and one-half days later a letter 
 arrived in New York. It was to a woman. It 
 bore the whimsical trace of joy and grief, futile 
 remorse, and a transfigurement of hope. 
 
 She read it, and then went to a drawer in her 
 desk and extracted a blotted, well-handled note, 
 in the same handwriting. She laid the two side 
 by side. As she read them both, her heart beat 
 fast, and a strange film covered her strong, pure 
 eyes. It was impossible to read like that; so 
 she rose to her feet and walked unsteadily to the 
 window. There the birds sang gloriously, as if 
 in a passionate Te Deum. 
 
 As this woman watched, God put it into the 
 feet of an old, stooped, weary woman to turn a 
 curve in the cottage path beneath her and appear 
 to the onlooker above. A little lad capered well 
 before her, and clinging on to the grandmother's 
 hand was another child. Their laughter mingled 
 
 10 
 
The Romance of Hope 
 
 innocently. Obeying the impulse to thank some 
 one, the watcher sank suddenly to her knees. 
 
 Meanwhile we will read the tattered letter. It 
 was dated a year before. 
 
 It said: 
 
 MY WIFE : I cannot bear it. Try to forgive me ; 
 I am going away. You should have married a man such 
 as Claude will be. Your eyes are the same. What a 
 team you would have made to be sure ! What a man 
 he looked the other evening when he turned over his 
 allowance to my account ! Has Heaven compensated 
 my mother for one bad son by three such noble fellows 
 as my brothers ? I have been a fine executor for his 
 father for him our father I still dare to say it I 
 gambler, drunkard, forg nay, fool, my wife. 
 
 With your prayers and my burden of desolation I go 
 forth. DICK. 
 
 The note written on Weffold's Range, in old 
 Carl's Spartan empty chamber, was on the back 
 of a scrap of paper he had torn from a book on 
 leaving home. It was like him, as the woman 
 who read it knew. It was soiled and creased, 
 and old and greasy. Probably it had stolen rides 
 on freight trains, been driven out of yards by 
 dogs, been starved and cursed ?.nd derided, ac- 
 cording to the fortunes of its owner. 
 
 " And that I may not make you weep, I have 
 not related the story with tears of blood torn 
 
 ii 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 from the eyes, as they are torn from my heart by 
 the grief which fills it, at seeing that our line of 
 Yncas is ended, and our empire lost." 
 
 Penned below this by the hand with most 
 power of all the earth to make or mar her life, 
 rich with the passion of resurrection, were traced 
 haltingly these words : 
 
 To THE HOME I ONCE DESOLATED, MY MOTHER'S, 
 MY CHILDREN'S, MY WIFE'S : The Garnet mine was 
 incorporated July 27th, at Hope, Arizona. I have been 
 given two hundred thousand for half interest. I want to 
 see my children. Have I earned my welcome home ? 
 
 DICK. 
 
 We have not much to do with him; only it 
 is a pretty story. Hope tells it to the new- 
 comers still. It has been worked into soft, 
 wide-eyed Spanish, where it takes on a more 
 fairy-like atmosphere than is true. 
 
 It tells of a tramp become a millionaire in one 
 night near old Carl Weffold's tanks and his past- 
 ures and long accumulations by slow German 
 thrift, on the very hills where, little Bax Weffold 
 had played and built sand houses in the long ago 
 many and many a time, at the very hour when 
 Bax Weffold, grown, lying fever-struck in smil- 
 ing San Francisco, heard the sound of the wolf 
 and its claws at his threshold, and in the room 
 with him were wife and child. 
 
 12 
 
The Romance of Hope 
 
 But it is not thus sadly that Hope shall end 
 its gay little beginning. Surely not so. 
 
 For it is of a man, a woman, two children, and 
 a holiday ramble, that I wish to close this chapter 
 on Dick Garnet's luck and his after life. 
 
 Every year, three now, they tell me, these four 
 come of a summer to Hope, and the great team 
 goes to Short's to meet them, and there is 
 great rejoicing throughout the town. But they 
 will have none of this. They mount the crazy, 
 rattling, little stage, which is only a country 
 wagon with one seat behind the one before, and 
 the little heir of nearly entire Garnet climbs 
 alongside Shorty, who is much embarrassed, 
 though a good fifty years. 
 
 And the little lad says every summer: 
 
 " And is Short's name aPer you, Mr. Shorty ? " 
 
 And each summer Shorty claps his hand on 
 his knee and shouts : 
 
 " Gee ! just listen just listen, will yer ! " and 
 laughs aloud. 
 
 And so they jog on the twenty miles, with in- 
 nocent, holy pleasure, this blue-shirted, over- 
 ailed, awkward man, these lucky little beggars of 
 children, this woman with the kind, noble lines 
 to her face, and this prosperous man whom the 
 devil had captured, but God had claimed again, 
 and great had been the redemption. 
 
 And thus they enter the cluster of mining huts 
 '3 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 which man has decreed to call town ; and here, in 
 the superintendents house (which is a fine adobe 
 structure with all sorts of modern improvements, 
 even unto electric lights, so they say), great prep- 
 aration has been made for them, and the fatted 
 -calf (which had once been one of little Don 
 Weffold's well loved possessions) killed, and 
 much else besides. 
 
 But this is not to be either. This great family 
 goes to the Palace Hotel, which is two wooden 
 rows of rooms and a respectable hall to join them, 
 and, amidst great rejoicing, because the landlady's 
 horse must needs poke his head wonderingly 
 through the window, the owners and possessors 
 of this throbbing, wonderful mine so near them 
 "put up," in Hope language, here. 
 
 And every July, rain or shine, though it is 
 always shine, and too much of it, this marvellous 
 family walks abroad, over the country by Carl 
 Weffold's pastures, past his corrals and his great 
 tanks of water, on to the Garnet mine. 
 
 And every year, for he is still a little fellow, 
 little Dick Garnet walks on ahead. 
 
 "This," he calls, trudging sturdily over the 
 heated stubbles, " is where funny papa got out 
 of bread and butter, or was it only bread and not 
 butter, papa dear ? And this is where the River 
 of Whiskey dried sudden'y up. When a thing 
 do dry up, dear papa, where does it go ? And 
 
The Romance of Hope 
 
 this is where Dorothy stumbled las' year, and the 
 year before ; and here 's where you kiss mamma 
 like you was sorry, when she cried an' 
 an' " 
 
 " I think I shall do it again," says Dick. 
 
 Women are funny creatures. There were 
 prayers and tears and smiles, all three in her 
 eyes as she raised them, and there was a certain 
 look to his own face which was no work of the 
 devil's, for all this made Dick a better man. 
 And so Amen to it. 
 
A GU'L 
 
 SHORTY was polishing his rusty bridle. 
 He had already washed the wheels of his 
 stage, glaring furtively, from time to time, 
 around him lest Campbell detect this unwonted 
 cleanliness. His face was bent and twisted, as if 
 he imagined his mind was all on his labor, and 
 it was very red. Now and again he conversed 
 with himself about the bridle, yet in a guilty, 
 embarrassed way, as if he feared it or some other 
 self might up and accuse him, if he allowed per- 
 fect silence. 
 
 " Guess use fine bridles on city horses. Gawd, 
 this is funny ; can't tell how it got so brown ! 
 Wonder if oughter wear my coat. Pshaw ! how 
 silly, don't care. O Laud ! never knowed blamed 
 coat was ripped that bad. Damn you for a blazin' 
 fool " 
 
 The horses switched at flies in silence. Pres- 
 ently Campbell appeared. He bespoke sturdy 
 British ancestry. His chest was like a black- 
 smith's. He had a set, sunburnt face and sun- 
 burnt hair. His eyes were pale blue and fastened 
 on some invisible object straight before him as he 
 
 talked. 
 
 16 
 
A Gul 
 
 He also wore overalls and a cotton, unorna- 
 mented shirt. He moralized by a yard-measure 
 method. It just ran out, ending with a click. 
 On such occasions Mr. Campbell was either too 
 angry to continue, or too much out of breath. 
 He did not look at Shorty nor the bridle, the 
 horses nor the stage, but above them and beyond 
 them all. 
 
 " A gu'l is going up with us on the stage," he 
 announced. 
 
 "Pshaw! Can't be," said Shorty; "who 
 say'd?" 
 
 " No one say'd," returned Campbell ; " did n't 
 J see her myself? " 
 
 " You don't mean it," persisted Shorty ; " where 
 did she come from ? " 
 
 " Offern the train," answered Campbell. He 
 spoke in a thick, British voice. 
 
 Shorty's face was bursting. His suspenderless 
 trousers had slipped a bit, and lent him a gro- 
 tesque stomach. He went perfidiously to the 
 door, and gazed long at an unusual and dainty 
 figure poised on the threshold of the waiting- 
 room. 
 
 " Well, I '11 be blowed," he said. 
 
 Campbell could stand no more of it. 
 
 " You seen her, I say," he remarked. His 
 eyes were fixed, but his tone was aggressive. 
 
 " I did n't neither. What do you mean ? " 
 2 17 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 "You did. I seen you pr'parin' to take 
 her up." 
 
 Shorty sputtered futilely. His face became 
 more ashamed and purplish. 
 
 " 'Pears like you are pretty much slicked up 
 yourself," he snapped. 
 
 This had to do with Mr. Campbell's cleaner 
 face (if I may so express it) and his wet hair. 
 
 Meanwhile the girl in question stepped out of 
 the waiting-room door. She was worth a glance. 
 It was in August then, and the sun, which in an 
 hour or so would steal the acumen of critics 
 entirely, lent a golden friendliness to her beauty 
 now. Her loneliness, as well, seemed under 
 the severe and rather ridiculous protection of 
 that independence peculiar to American maidens, 
 every one of whom is a princess, they say. She 
 was indeed not so very different from the several 
 million princesses of her land. She had neutral 
 hair and eyes, not blonde, nor yet tropic. In 
 fact, just such hair and eyes as American inter- 
 marriage should produce as a result in time. 
 More than this, she wore the cool regulation 
 shirt-waist, the neat dark skirt, and prim, gentle- 
 manly tie. Yet she was very pretty. Sometimes 
 I think it was, after all, her fair, clean skin, more 
 than the straight, true little features. It is nice, 
 in this dried, sallow territory of ours, to see a skin 
 
 18 
 
A Gu'l 
 
 like that, smooth as a good grade of satin, and 
 cool as an oasis in a desert, as if the springs 
 were pure. 
 
 At a respectable distance from the house, she 
 said something. It was to the hills, to the few, 
 very few shanties toward which she walked, or to 
 the surrounding ether ; certainly to no living soul, 
 since Shorty and Mr. Campbell, while admiring 
 her very self, were very invisible while at it, and 
 the person of whom she spoke could hardly be 
 adjudged a reasonable audience for the utterance. 
 
 " I hate that man," was the remark. 
 
 That man was twenty feet in the rear. He did 
 not look remarkably guilty of hatred, save that 
 in this great state of bold, free, fine cow-men he 
 wore a coat, a boiled shirt, and a college air. 
 Otherwise, he was made in the usual image as- 
 cribed by the chosen to God. He was tall beside 
 the girl (which counts a great deal in this story) ; 
 his hair, his eyes, his mouth, were much the same 
 as those of his fellows. And as youth was plainly 
 favoring his days, it is safe to presume, in a year 
 or so, he would have a very seemly moustache on 
 that firm upper lip where only poor but eminently 
 respectable hairs appeared occasionally now. 
 
 It was not, alas, his rather sallow skin which 
 called public attention to him, as a man, a citizen, 
 or a soul. It was merely that something which, 
 in occasional boyhood, is accounted pure ; in man- 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 hood, a strength passing understanding, on which 
 a part of the world must lean. This man, I had 
 better tell it, was in much of his boyhood still. 
 He was very young, perhaps twenty-four. 
 
 He was watching the girl before him. He did 
 not know she hated him, but recognized that she 
 was a lady, a very young lady, and he was saying 
 to himself: If she were his daughter (a daughter 
 of his, mind you, at twenty-four), she should not 
 be travelling unprotected. 
 
 A very worthy sentiment, however high-strung, 
 we are sure. 
 
 The dining-room of the principal, in fact, only 
 hotel of Short's was like a large-sized box of 
 boards planted, impromptu fashion, on mother- 
 earth, open end down, leaving a natural flooring, 
 as you may deduce, which was pleasantly prime- 
 val. A tin pan hung outside this resort, upon 
 which Boston Jim and his wife were wont to beat 
 thrice a day with an iron spoon, and thus summon 
 their guests to meals. 
 
 The interior of this remarkable building was 
 fully as unique as the exterior. Light, the same 
 golden dawn (for it was still only five) which had 
 enveloped the little stranger, entered by great, 
 kindly-disposed cracks which someway could not 
 help suggesting their parallel behavior during 
 such a contingency as an ambitious, "up-to-date" 
 thunderstorm. 
 
 20 
 
A Gul 
 
 A table ran down the middle of the room. As 
 the floor was bumpy, and no attempt had been 
 made to remedy this natural attraction, it wobbled, 
 from time to time, while great flapping sheets of 
 brown wrapping-paper added to the liveliness of 
 the scene. These were amateur attempts at fly- 
 drivers, and were manipulated from time to time 
 by a wire hung from end to end of the room, 
 which the guests stirred solemnly by turns. 
 
 A lank curtain was strung across the end of 
 this novel apartment, making a very pretentious 
 kitchen at a very modest cost, say seven or eight 
 yards of crinoline, or cretonne, or other feminine 
 material, such as is turned by women into deco- 
 ration. 
 
 Over a very hot wood stove in this sub-sanctum, 
 Mrs. Boston Jim (may one so convert his title ?) 
 prepared flap-cakes, fried eggs, boiled ham, and 
 other edibles inappropriate to hot weather. 
 
 On such occasions as when some dashed Mexi- 
 can dared eat unformulated mixtures, great mone- 
 tary discussions arose between this gifted couple 
 which were wafted tableward in due time, along 
 with the very compound smell of the cooking. 
 
 Meanwhile, out at the hotel proper, the girl 
 had drawn up hesitatingly. 
 
 Since it may be disrespectful not to mention 
 
 this edifice separately, we may say that it was 
 
 21 
 
/// the Country God Forgot 
 
 evidently built with the same idea of architectural 
 freedom which characterized the dining-room. 
 There were no ignoble pretentions to it like 
 studied lines or paint. In fact, the only way one 
 knew it was the hotel proper was by the door and 
 a man within who was snoring. 
 
 Standing forlornly here, staring into the break- 
 fast-room beyond her, with increasing (and very 
 attractive) color, stood the maiden already de- 
 scribed. 
 
 To her view, through the aperture which mod- 
 ern civilization usually adorns with a door, she saw 
 the table d'hote of Short's, and many men seated 
 thereat, eating. In fact, so different the process 
 seemed from the studied, conventional meals of 
 her short city existence, that it seemed, to her 
 over-wrought imagination then, that all these men 
 were gobbling. 
 
 She was too new to frontier life to know that 
 her mere feminine presence would strike every 
 honest one of them abashed and dumb. A ter- 
 rible homesickness overcame her. Within twenty 
 miles of her destination, the courage of its two 
 thousand miles' preface melted with overwhelm- 
 ing inconsistency. She felt bold, unwomanly, all 
 of a sudden. She thought miserably of the man 
 who had travelled this long, silent distance with 
 her, and miserably also, as all at once she read what 
 
 22 
 
A Gu'l 
 
 his quiet, presumptuously old eyes had said each 
 time they rested on her : 
 
 "What can your brother be thinking of?" 
 (Yes, not her mother or father, aunt or older 
 sister, but brother ! And I have to tell you, she 
 struck it; but you must remember, he was but 
 twenty-four.) 
 
 Unfortunately, at this very instant, she raised 
 her eyes, and she saw him this pedantic, solemn- 
 faced, abominable young man whom she hated 
 standing before her, bare-headed, as if he had 
 come to her rescue and his own senses at last. 
 
 But her heart was hot with wrath (which is a 
 lofty name for mere injured vanity), so she could 
 not stand it any longer. She commenced to 
 speak. Forever after the advantage of temper- 
 dignity was his. (You don't know how much 
 that counts in the matter, especially with your 
 wife. She may commence to scold you. " I told 
 you so/* you say. She may rebel against your 
 infallible authority, my friends. " It is only what 
 I expected," and you sigh.) 
 
 There is absolutely no limit to what you can 
 do after that. 
 
 But the girl did not know just at this moment 
 that she might become the young stranger's wife. 
 It was certainly unspeculative, to an unfeminine 
 degree, now one stops to think of it. 
 
 But to go on 
 
 23 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 Seated at proper distances, in some proper par- 
 lors, with the very proper sisters of some of his 
 college friends, he had never come very near the 
 little humannesses of girlhood. 
 
 Nor had the women of his household assisted 
 this ignorance of his, noble as had been his ser- 
 vice to them, a mother, his brothers* wives, a 
 little niece or so to cling to his finger to steady 
 her wandering, wobbling little fancy (located in 
 as wobbling little legs) : were these fit tutors for 
 a man to profit in witchery by ? 
 
 In this one startling onslaught by my marvel- 
 lously cool little barbarian who travelled alone 
 under escort of the air of a princess, the entire 
 reverence of a lifetime became clownishness, out- 
 stripping forgiveness to him. 
 
 " Who are you," she cried, " that you would 
 not speak to me all that long, long, horrid journey 
 we travelled together, and alone ? I would not 
 bite you ; I am not a plague. You would not 
 even take my check for me. In cities men 
 gentlemen don't act like that." 
 
 The lofty, disapproving, cold little voice ceased. 
 The man within was still snoring. The man 
 outside felt some castles tumble, we call it feel- 
 ing heart-sick, I believe. 
 
 They stood staring at each other. 
 
 He forbore to tell her who he was ; he over- 
 looked the instinctive truth within him that the 
 
 24 
 
A Gu'l 
 
 bites of women are as the balm of Gilead to men ; 
 he did not stoop to boast he was from a city, 
 the very greatest one in her brave, fine land, but 
 through his set forgiving lips (remember, she was 
 very pretty) came the abashed mumble of manly 
 words : 
 
 " Miss," he commenced, but it sounded shoppy, 
 so he said, " Madam," and saw, even as he said 
 it, her fair, wondrous skin and the sweet dawn of 
 first life throughout her, so just one simple, 
 straightforward, little line came from his shame 
 and his wonder. 
 
 " I was only trying to treat you as I should 
 like my sister to be." 
 
 They stood staring straight at each other all 
 over again. All the fight (as we say in this coun- 
 try) had gone out of the girl, and she who was 
 never at loss with a clever, happy opinion on 
 man, saint, or devil, had no apt word ready for 
 this solemn youth, until the old ball-room rep- 
 artee came to her, and she said : 
 
 " Have you a sister ? " with quaint, appealing, 
 almost irresistible coquetry. 
 
 He said, " No," with a great calm, almost a 
 resignation, through which the hovering joke 
 dared not penetrate, possibly. 
 
 Almost simultaneously her eyes again encoun- 
 tered the door of the dining-room opposite ; the 
 almost visible clatter, the grotesque hangings, the 
 
 2 S 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 i 
 
 gobbling men, and the great unwholesome morsels 
 they were transferring from plate to self. 
 
 In an instant, the man was protector. His 
 too grave young face was now totally unlighted. 
 
 " May I enter the dining-room with you?" he 
 asked ; " I should like to offer you my protection." 
 
 She gave a quick look up from the ground 
 where her gaze had fallen : 
 
 " Did you intend to do that all along ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " Yes," he answered simply. 
 
 Then they moved on toward the breakfast- 
 room. She walked on beside him with lowered 
 eyes. Both were very pale, very silent, very, 
 very sick of heart at their recent combat, and the 
 foolish fancy that life ended there, as well as 
 their better knowledge of each other. 
 
 They were seated close together, because, by 
 some happy surmise, Boston Jim thought them 
 man and wife. 
 
 26 
 
ON A STAGE 
 
 MR. CAMPBELL was staring straight 
 ahead of him. He sat alongside Shorty 
 on the stage. I do not know on what 
 his eyes were really fastened, but, according to the 
 Holy Scripture, all that even a prophet or a king 
 could have seen was a road, some cactus land, and 
 the dust which no rain had lain for three long- 
 lived moons. 
 
 Aware of the silent presence of that girl near, 
 he suddenly spoke in a very loud voice, and even 
 more dogmatically than ever. Two reasons were 
 involved in this : his national prejudice against 
 the far-away chirp women seemed to be making 
 for their mentality and independence ; his desire 
 to prove to his stricken companion that a gu'l 
 could n't tie his tongue. He laid special emphasis 
 on his in this, and despised the low-water marks 
 on Shorty. 
 
 His first remark was about the sky. 
 
 He was not looking at the sky as he said it. 
 None of the actual tragedy of the inevitable was 
 as yet in his heavy utterance ; but there are just 
 such occasions, when there blows on idle ears the 
 
 27 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 unheeded foreteller of a mighty storm. But it is 
 a disintegration. This little gust we know not 
 of its course or might. No more by the sound 
 of his horse's hoofs do we know it is Death who 
 conies on his coal-black charger and all praise 
 to the God who made such things so. 
 
 " This is a drou't sky," Campbell said. 
 
 It fell on idle ears, I say ; as the couple whom 
 Boston Jim took for man and wife sat on the 
 back seat in tense, angry silence. Angry, if you 
 please, at themselves, at chance, at creation, so 
 Shorty alone was left to answer. 
 
 " Why is it a drou't sky ? " he asked, after a 
 little silence, in which he had said the self-same 
 words over to see how they would sound when 
 uttered. He was overwhelmed by the conscious- 
 ness of the girl's wonderful and unexpected 
 appearance. His voice sounded terrible to his 
 ear after all ; like an old music-box gone ungov- 
 ernable at last, such a one as grinds out only 
 funeral notes on a holiday. 
 
 " Why is it a drou't sky ? " asked Shorty. 
 
 " Because it is a drou't sky." 
 
 Who told you o' 't ? " 
 
 Indignation marked Mr. Campbell's utterance. 
 It grew more husky : 
 
 " No one told me o' 't," he replied. He 
 raised his whole remark one key. Telegraph 
 poles, lean kine, and great-eyed calves now 
 
 28 
 
On a Stage 
 
 appeared on his range of vision, but he made no 
 apparent note of the change of panorama. 
 
 " Do I need to be told o' 't ? " he went on. 
 "Ain't a drou't a drou't wheresoever, Texas, 
 hell, or here ? " 
 
 Red as have been painted the festivities enjoyed 
 by this genus of ours, the Puncher proper, and 
 black as has been painted the hue of his vocabu- 
 lary, which must fall (so the fairy books teach) as 
 toads, the white spot which enshrineth women is 
 greater, we may infer, as bespoke the crimson 
 face of Mr. Campbell the moment consciousness 
 descended unto him, that hell and its thousand 
 suburbs was no fitter subject for converse with 
 ladies than mention of the saloon at Hope. 
 
 " I ask anybody's pardon," he said. And so 
 all credit to the asking, doggedly humble as 
 it was. 
 
 " I ask anybody's pardon, I say, but when a 
 man's seen one cattle famine, 't ain't boasting to say 
 he seen them all. I ain't seen that darn fool blue 
 sky s'rene as some frilled she-devil for ten years 
 in Arizona athout a-knowing what it means." 
 
 The girl in the rear seat leaned forward. She 
 had on light gloves, and rested her hands on the 
 back of the seat behind these stalwart frontiers- 
 men, and until an angel steps out of heaven and 
 engages in some such trifling intimacy with you, 
 you won't know how Campbell and Shorty felt. 
 
 29 
 
/// the Country God Forgot 
 
 "What is a drou't? " she asked. 
 
 Campbell started heavily at her voice, recover- 
 ing himself aggressively. 
 
 " It is cow trails of bleaching bones," he com- 
 menced, and suddenly burst out laughing 
 "busted," he would have said. Shorty caught 
 up on the chorus, shaking violently with the 
 force of his mirth. 
 
 The girl's fair face and grave eyes were a sort 
 of civilized protest against the sound. She lost 
 the cause altogether : 
 
 " Whose bones ? " she asked. 
 
 Shorty clapped his knees and roared louder 
 than ever. Campbell stopped laughing a second 
 or so, long enough to say this sentence. 
 
 " Cow-bones, calf-bones, steer-bones," he sput- 
 tered. 
 
 Then went off again. 
 
 The girl kept her head well forward, so the 
 man in the back seat could not see her eyes. 
 They had grown dark of a sudden with tears. 
 She did not understand the great crude faults of 
 this bleak frontier land. She was worn out with 
 travelling. She was young and a gu'l. 
 
 There was a miserably sympathetic desolation 
 in Mr. Campbell's "cows'-bones " and "calves'- 
 bones " to her. She did not know what a steer 
 was. Thus, with no better explanation of it, this 
 drying up of a great country became inexorably 
 
 3 
 
On a Stage 
 
 associated with her entrance therein. She never 
 got over the first sickening reality of it. There 
 was no hospitality to her welcome from nature, 
 man, or God. 
 
 Mr. Campbell was unaware of this. He 
 thought he was some one. It is a common 
 mistake. 
 
 " I have seed this same land of ours dry 's it 
 choked you to see it. Them mountains yeller 
 like with a fever ; the cattle dropping thr'out a 
 herd in sixes." He gave another great laugh. 
 It was very funny. 
 
 " The little chap at Weffold's ud probably call 
 it having plenty of milk in Heaven that year. 
 He is a great kid, that un. Bax had him down 
 to the c'ral one day, while they was a-shooting 
 some steers fur market. Suddenly he burst out 
 crying, and Bax quiet'n'd him that way. The 
 fatherhood, no doubt, makes the tricks easy ; 
 but Bax is a fool over that child." 
 
 " 'T ain't neither," contradicted Shorty, huskily ; 
 " the child loves Bax likes he 's God A'mighty." 
 
 " Spare the rod and spoil the child," snapped 
 Campbell, readily. It was the only thing he 
 could think of just then. May be he meant it. 
 He was a Britisher and childless, so he believed 
 the Good Book as yet. 
 
 The girl settled back in her seat. The tear 
 had fallen, so she did not care. 
 
 3' 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 "Who is Bax?" she asked, almost without 
 interest. 
 
 Mr. Campbell gained afresh in importance : 
 
 " Son to old Weffold," he said, while Shorty 
 came in like a glad duet from which shyness was 
 gone by its own high grade of inspiration : 
 
 "He's th' whites' man in Arizona Bax " 
 
 "Bax Weffold 's all ri'," continued Mr. 
 Campbell, speaking belligerently, through feeling 
 he had been outdone. 
 
 " Bax is all ri'," said Shorty again, touching 
 up his horses as he did so. They passed a past- 
 ure line just then. It came to the very road 
 like a sleeping dog which would like to stretch 
 across if it might. It ran off far as human eye 
 could reach. 
 
 "It is old Carl's he is Bax's father." Mr. 
 Campbell went back to his solemn jokes. He pre- 
 faced them by the same loud laughter. " Old Carl 
 Weffold is 's unlike Bax as two peas can be. He 
 is a corker. There is common saying goes 
 around periodical-like 'z whiskey among the 
 mine men, that there 's only one man besides the 
 old Boy prospers all time in Arizony. It is 
 Maj'r Carl hisself. And even this is disputed as 
 proper by a supposition as is common in Hope 
 and there'bouts, that he and the old Boy is 
 
 one." 
 
 At this, without any preparation, the girl clapped 
 32 
 
On a Stage 
 
 her hands, as if she heard a mot in a theatre. 
 During this performance, she chanced to catch 
 the eyes of her new neighbor. She stared back 
 hostilely a second. Then, to her intense anger, 
 she began to turn crimson. 
 
 At this he dropped his eyes. 
 
 Mr. Campbell and Shorty (whose real and 
 long-forgotten name was Jones, Mr. Jones, if 
 you please, and it may have even been Jones 
 Jones) did not see this, so continued their conver- 
 sation innocently. 
 
 " There ain't a man in Hope can tell more 
 of the Weffold household than Shorty here;" 
 this was from Mr. Campbell, justly proud of 
 his friend. 
 
 Shorty switched around in his seat ever so little. 
 It was his only response to this compliment. The 
 girl could now see one entire ear, and that only ; 
 but she knew that she was honorable audience to 
 this narrative. The strange man aboard was 
 ignored, forgotten. He was some mining fellow, 
 no doubt, a transient expert sent by some of 
 those Eastern vultures who hovered from time 
 to time over that big treasure-hole at Hope ; 
 and these foolish fellows were properly despised 
 by the real population, they who had full liter- 
 ally shouldered their rude huts and their empty 
 larders to go to this fabulous find of Dick Gar- 
 net 's when it had become bruited abroad the few 
 3 33 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 years before for the boom had just dropped 
 
 out of T that year. For the great mine and 
 
 its kindly owner were under the protection of this 
 jealousy at last, the certain vague gratitude 
 and possession we all feel toward the oven which 
 bakes our bread. Even now and then, through 
 Shorty's story, he said, " G' up" to his horses 
 breathlessly. The girl leaned back and listened. 
 After a while his involved interruptions became 
 part and parcel of the tale. 
 
 " Thirty 'd years ago I fust stepped my foot in 
 Arizona. It war n't premeditated the step. My 
 brother 'd skipped cross the line here fur sumthin' 
 fur that 's neither here nor there. That was 
 the summer or so before, and then some one got 
 wind of his whereabouts at home. Texas was 
 the place. 1 heard the hue and cry they wuz rais- 
 ing, and blood 's thicker nor water, so I came West. 
 
 I heard news of Joe in T . The sheriff was 
 
 a-hounding him down. There had been a fuss 
 that year over outlaw immigration, so he war n't 
 so much to blame as you think. I wanted pretty 
 hard to find him, for the old woman's sake. She 
 was jes' dead, and lef Joe and me a few hundred 
 dollars, enough to get him out of the country 
 and a-start again. I was more'n willin' to give 
 Joe my share ; but it was hard work tracin' him, 
 and y' can imagine my feelings when I found out 
 this way one night. It was late, and I dropped into 
 
 34 
 
On a Stage 
 
 the telegraph office to have a chat fur a bit, and 
 when I was sitting there, there came a message 
 from next station up the line. They 'd seen him 
 pass, headin' fur Maj'r Weffold's. I was only a 
 young fellar, and when I jumped on a horse soon 
 after and faced a road I know'd nothin' of, with 
 no head-start of a thorough-bred posse, I felt like 
 I wanted to cry the fight was n't beat'n in yet 
 often wonder if soldiers feel the same mor' 'n 
 likely, but never tell. 
 
 " After a mile or so I fell in with the very 
 posse, the fellows who was after Joe's life. We 
 rode together. Oncet they started to lafF, think- 
 ing of the joke they had on the fool of a ten- 
 derfoot murderer I didn't mean to tell what 
 it was self-defence and drinking. He thought 
 to get over the border ; it seems, did n* know old 
 Weffold. He'd shelter no one, and less fur 
 stealing a horse. He might's well faced the 
 music in T 
 
 " Gawd, how a fellar thinks of the time him and 
 his brother 's been little in a time like that. 
 
 " I have nothin' agin the cow-boys. After mid- 
 night, an hour or so, they found out his relation 
 to me I let it fall a-defendin' him, and they 
 was bound'n to do their duty, but offered to give 
 me a head-start on them by a shorter road. 
 
 " But I was afraid to lose my way, and we all 
 came in sight of the ranch house together. It 
 
 35 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 was day-break just. I 've often thought of how 
 we must 'a' looked. Old Maj'r he wer' n't 
 old Maj'r then was on the porch a-waitin' of 
 us. I rec'lect his throwing out his hand, his 
 eyes like steel and his back like a poker. 
 
 " c You might as well go back,' he said, ' the 
 fellar got over the border after all.' And then 
 the old cuss had to put in : c 'T was on Mrs. 
 Weffoltfs mare.' 
 
 " She came out of the house at that. She had on 
 a slimsy white thing like women wears sometimes, 
 and she carried a little fellow clost to her. Bax 
 it was, as I knowed later. The kid was a- 
 laughin' . 
 
 "'Gentlemen,' she said, c can you blame me? 
 I am a mother.' 
 
 " I rec'lect like falling on my knees, blubber- 
 ing like a fool 'n' a woman all to onct, and then 
 one fellow holdin' his flask to me. 
 
 " An' an' Gawd ! 
 
 " After that she told me how it was. Joe had 
 ridden up the prev'us evening, and the Maj'r had 
 d'vined who he was. And she saved Joe. When- 
 ever I look at Bax, I r'member his mother. She 
 run the Maj'r pretty much those days, the 
 only person as ever done it. Seems 's they 'd had 
 a hard tussle, but she won. And for a stranger 
 a fellow not fit in ed'cation or appearance to latch 
 
 36 
 
On a Stase 
 
 o 
 
 her shoestring even, c on account of Bax.' They 
 let me stay on after. I made myself useful, and 
 any man 'd been a dog fur her. 
 
 " Bax uster crawl over my shoulder, a little, 
 flax-headed, lovable son-of-a-gun. Then I fo't 
 with the Maj'r. It came about unexpected one 
 day, 'n' I left Weffold's. Last time I seen her 
 Never knowed but whole thing 'd blo'n over, and 
 I could sneak back fur a look sometimes at her. 
 But when I did, she was dead. 
 
 " It was years later. Bax must a-been in his 
 twenties then, when I wandered into the Talent 
 Ranch one night. I was tired and hungry, and 
 it was stormin' outside. I was working for the 
 Copper Co. then. Them and the Talent fellows 
 got a gredge agin each other, which is natural-like 
 in a way ; but they treated me all right that night, 
 only the gredge was there. Then, in the mornin', 
 twenty dollars was missing from one of them. I 
 did not tumble at first. Then there was growl- 
 ings and lookings around, and I knowed I was 
 suspected. I tried to keep cool. *T war n't so 
 much the twenty dollars, as the gredge, I guess. 
 Still none a 'em knowed anything o' me, and it 
 was nat'ral-like. At last I went out to get my 
 money, and a fellow fell on me with hot words. 
 I felt for my six-shooter, and in a second he 
 clapped out his. But before either fired, some- 
 thin' happened, a fellow jumped off a horse 
 
 37 
 
In the Coitntry God Forgot 
 
 near. He made straight for my 'ponent, and 
 struck the pistol out 'f his hand. 
 
 " ' Dan, don't be a fool/ he said, them was his 
 words, and them only. I was too excited to see 
 who it was ; but soon 's he heard my story, a sort 
 of queer flush came to his face. I liked him for 
 it. 'Twas such a feeling 's a good man kin give 
 his fellows 's well 's hissen. 
 
 " He just said, c Wait a minute/ We followed 
 him into the hall, and from room to room, while 
 he rummaged for something. Presently he 
 turned over each separate blanket, an' dragged 
 at an old ragged quilt, wher' the fellow 'd lost his 
 twenty 'd been sleeping. Presently, during a 
 shaking, it rolled out. 
 
 " None of us 'd thought of rummaging before, 
 and, in the embarrassment afterward, they laffed 
 and called it the c Dutch ' in him. 
 
 cc Even then I never guessed. Only after we 
 ud gone out into the open, and I had a good 
 look inter the fellar's eyes. They was gray and 
 deep as the clear mornings of winter, as if they 
 was a storm in 'em too, an' his hair was heavy 
 and sad like flax with the gold outer'n it. 
 
 " I don't know how I gave myse'f away : 
 
 " c Gawd,' I cried, c Gawd ' 
 
 " He held out his hand and smiled never 
 smiled much, but ek'lled two ord'nary ones 
 when 't happened. 
 
 38 
 
On a Stage 
 
 " c No one could say " Gawd " like you, 'thout 
 'was your own se'f, Shorty/ them or like words, 
 he said. 
 
 "'T war Bax, o' course'n, if you had n't guessed. 
 It seems the old man was off'n somewheres, and 
 Bax was a-running Weffold's them days. We 
 rode over to the Copper Co. together, and I 
 broke with 'em then and there. Bax was used 
 to long rides, and on the way I gleaned he was 
 none too happy from his look and his way ; and 
 when I r'membered 'bout his mother, and how 
 she 'n him been sich inseparable companions, 
 why tumbl'd like t' what 'twas. When he'd 
 been a little chap, sich as most men ud been 
 proud to clap eyes on as own kid of their'n, it 
 was common talk around 'at the Maj'r was jealous 
 of his wife's love for the young un unnat'ral, 
 as it may seem 
 
 " Never touched him or talked to the little 
 chap lovin'-like, as parents will. 
 
 " Bax offered me the job at once. A round-up 
 was on, and they was short-handed too. That 
 had taken him to Talent that day. Fellow so 
 'noc'lated with the Weffold's was darn glad 
 'nough to go. 
 
 " Had n't been there two days when heard all 
 about state of affairs from the boys. Seem's Bax'd 
 been sent to college East, and got a fine sort of 
 ed'cation could tell that to look on him." 
 
 39 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 Shorty stopped his narrative breathlessly. It 
 had become a physical necessity, but he did not 
 see it. 
 
 " Cam'll," he said, " what do you think of 
 Bax WefFold, Arizona bred, agin those darn-fool 
 fashion-patterns of experts from East ? " 
 
 The young fellow in the back seat fell back so 
 the girl could not see him. He had no con- 
 ception of the ideal pictured, but felt almost a 
 criminal shame of his own white hands and trim 
 clothes. 
 
 " Bax 's all ri'," returned Mr. Campbell. 
 That was all. 
 
 " When Bax was East, so the story goes, he 
 met a gu'l. They allus set great stock on that. 
 She was a mere little thing at school, and they 
 fell in love with each other only never knowed 
 it. Don't know much of them things my sen 
 but Mees Bax allus said that. (Mees Bax as she 
 is now.) 
 
 " Then for six or seven years never seen each 
 other. When it come autumn the old Maj'r 
 asked some folks from some Springs wher' he 'd 
 been down fur a month or so. An' Bax's girl 
 was one on them. I r'member the night they 
 come, and how Bax rode up while they was a- 
 gettin' out the cerriage. He was always civil and 
 hospit'ble-like to the MajYs guests from sheer 
 duty a great one on duty Bax. 
 
 40 
 
On a Stage 
 
 " As he cum inter the inner yard from the 
 c'rals, his hat came off, fur he seen it was ladies, 
 and as he fell offer' n his horse to ground I 
 never seen a better puncher fur a city-bred girl 
 to get stuck on. She was a tall, pretty, spick, 
 young thing, 'bout twenty or thereabouts, most 
 likely and spirited as 'n untamed colt. 
 
 " But some way when her hand fust went into 
 hissen, it all went out her sudden-like. She 
 looked hard and sweet a minute full at him, and 
 we all knowed athout the telling, Bax Weffold ud 
 foun' his wife. 
 
 " And they went on that way for 'while. Some- 
 times when we fellows on the hacienda was riding 
 miles away, after some of our brand as 'd strayed 
 away, we 'd see them two, and when Bax's face 
 lost that dark, quiet look like an old man in 
 young image, I don't know who was gladder, 
 him or us. And when he furgot to eat three 
 meals a day, athout seeming to feel it, there was 
 the rollickinest crowd of punchers at Weffold's 
 as ever a ranch held for awhile. But he never 
 minded no innocent josh did n't Bax. 
 
 " Then all of a sudden everything changed. 
 The gu'l went home, and there was n't even let- 
 ters. We thought at first she give him the jilt, 
 and if ever a woman was 'lowed to be hated in 
 Arizona, that slim, slip of an airy thing was. 
 
 "Then some way, athout any actual foundation 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 for it, we knowed it was the Maj'r hissen. He 
 hated his own boy might as well not beat 
 around the bush, and when he saw how things 'd 
 turned, he showed it in a thousand despic'ble 
 ways, an' the gu'l had left Bax, rather 'n be un- 
 welcome. She was always a might too proud. 
 
 " Once, Bax, he said to me : ( Shorty, sep'ra- 
 tions are often give us to learn to know each 
 other better, to think out the differences, as it 
 were.' I don't know if he heard or read it, or 
 how he come to blurt it out to me ; but we all 
 a-knowed he was a-thinking about the gu'l, and 
 Bax was always kind to dumb things and sufferin' 
 creatures, but I seen him do things those times 
 as 'd tax a saint to think of; fur no man ud 
 think 'em worth while, like staying up all night 
 with a sick horse, or travelling twenty miles to 
 save some whimperin' dog, and keepin' some 
 Mexican loafer's family in beef a whole winter 
 or more because the woman had a new brat to 
 nurse. 
 
 " They say two people can't go on so loving 
 each other athout coming together some day, and 
 I guess there 's some truth to it. 
 
 " One day the Maj'r got a letter I tuk it to 
 him mysel'. I seen him break the seal and read 
 it. It was on the closed-in porch. Bax was 
 a-lying on the couch in the corner. He did n't 
 see nothing. His eyes was closed, and I see the 
 
 42 
 
On a Stage 
 
 dark look deeper 'n ever on them, and that cloud 
 like night forever on his brow. 
 
 " I was a-fillin' the ollas while the Maj'r read. 
 I seen it was a woman's handwriting like Sal, 
 my sister, writ, only finer and freer-like ; and 
 when the Maj'r finished that letter, he read it 
 over, and then agin, and then he folded it up 
 prim-like, after his way, each corner fittin'. 
 
 " And then he threw his head back and closed 
 his eyes also, as if a thousand devils was a-s'r- 
 roundin' him, and he never flinchin*. 
 
 " And then I left them two together. I never 
 said a word to the boys, but I knowed some way 
 it 'd decide Bax's future, for the old Boy had a 
 look on his face of his wife and Bax was to 
 win or lose by the tussle. 
 
 "That night when I came home at milkin* 
 time, Bax was standing by the gate with 's 
 mustang alongside him. He was so still as I 
 came near he might have been carv'n, and there 
 was a look on his face quiet, yet glad-like, 
 sam' 's religion. 
 
 " c Shorty,' he said, c I 've been waitin' to say 
 good-bye to you, my friend' them same words. 
 
 " I did n't know what to say to him, so I filled- 
 up-like for some cause. 
 
 " c Shorty, you fool,' he said, I am going to 
 be married at last. The Maj'r has come around.' 
 
 " I blazed up at that some way. It sounded 
 43 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 tyrann'cal-like, and for him of all others to stand 
 it. And he seen the way I felt. 
 
 " You Ve been blamin' me, Shorty/ he says, 
 quiet-like, yet sure-voiced and gentle. 
 
 "< Yes/ says I, yes, Bax, if you will.' " 
 
 " Then I saw he went bareheaded. 
 
 " c I knowed it all along/ said Bax ; c but I did 
 not blame you only there was my mother, 
 you see, and she had died holding his hand and 
 my hand, and asking that we have peace. I am 
 his son, Shorty, remember that. And even before 
 she was cold on that bed, we was a-glaring hate 
 at each other. 
 
 " c It was a miserable pretence afterward.' (He 
 left out the love part altogether, as if we under- 
 stood it.) 
 
 " And to-day/ he said, 'she wrote ' 
 
 He looked quizzical-like down at me. 
 
 " * And you Ve been blaming her, too, Shorty ? ' 
 he said. 
 
 " There was n't nothin' to say to him, as war n't 
 seen on my face. 
 
 " c She had been to a ball that night, you see, 
 and when she went home, she wrote to the 
 Maj'r.' And at that his head went down sudden- 
 like on the top of his saddle, and he cried out 
 like these words, c My true dear girl.' 
 
 " And then I reached out and took his hand 
 friends understand sich things athout long 
 
 44 
 
On a Stage 
 
 explanations. Not saying was the same 's if he'd 
 said to me for his defence, as it were, c I could n't 
 crucify her, Shorty/ or for hers : c The while she 
 was proud, her heart was breaking/ 
 
 " So Bax rode off in the night, and I came 
 's near blubbering at Weffold that evening as I 'd 
 ever done since the day he was little Bax, a-laugh- 
 in' tender-like in his mother's arms. 
 
 " There was a barbecue in the whole country 
 the night Bax brought home his wife, and under 
 the excitement and compliment of it the old 
 Maj'r was Chesterfield himself, as Boston Jim 
 calls it. 
 
 " And he behaved all right for a while, but so 
 condescending-like to their contentment over 
 being together as made my blood bile fur 'em, 
 and tuk all away from his giving in. 
 
 "Then he changed like a flash of a suddent. It 
 was jest four years ago, big drou't time, no 
 one ever knowed what caused the Maj'r's manner, 
 and some laid it to the drou't ; but I seen the in- 
 justice of it, as the poor girl was ailing-like. 
 One's heart ached for her, but she never said no 
 word of complaint, and Bax, he suffered as well, 
 I guess, over the Maj'r's infernal meanness at 
 jes' this time. Then one day the heat came to 
 climax-like itself. Things wilted-like in the sun, 
 and great herds of crazy cattle swept up from the 
 
 45 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 surrounding country to the smell of water in the 
 tanks and troughs. But we all knew our orders, 
 
 no cattle was to be let in the big gates but 
 our own ; so we men went back so 's not to see 
 it. It was a sickenin' sight. Some dropped out- 
 side of Weffold's, and some poor things tried to 
 jump the fence, and got torn and hurt on the 
 wires. 
 
 " Old Maj'r, he walked out once and smiled, 
 looking it all over: 
 
 " ( Ef the dogs want to pay for their meat being 
 saved, we '11 save it for them/ he said ; f ten cents 
 a night for pasture, and proper rates for pumping 
 through a pipe line/ 
 
 "Sal told me this story, she is my sister, 
 who married Joe Dillon know, Joe, Cam'll ? " 
 
 Mr. Campbell enjoyed this. He laughed afar 
 off, somewhere in his heavy shoes. 
 
 " Have good occasion to remember Joe Dillon 
 
 liked to thrash him into a jelly one night at 
 Howell's on a party, for stealing my horse to take 
 Bet Johnson home. Left me rather too much 
 tat-a-ta with that spare-ribbed dorta 'f Foxy 
 McLennan's who 's been trying to marry every 
 Copper puncher for this ten years or more " 
 
 Shorty burst out laughing. Reaction over his 
 late narration aided this. He fairly rolled and 
 ha-haed, then he gathered himself together. 
 
 " I must tell that to Sal/' he said. " Lord, how 
 46 
 
On a Stage 
 
 she '11 josh Joe about it." Then he continued 
 Bax's little tragedy. 
 
 " Sal, she was washing that day at Weffold's." 
 He looked shamefaced, then went on, " Us fel- 
 lars had to let her do it; Joe war n't working to 
 speak of, sprained his knee that summer, 
 and Sal is that headstrong. 
 
 " She describes it pretty c'rect. When the 
 cows was making the bigges* rumpus, she said, 
 young Mees Bax gave a cry, and jumped up from 
 the chair. She was a sick, poor thing, and not 
 used to frontier life like, and she never could 
 endure sufferin'. Her hair was down, and she 'd 
 been crying, and in that way she rushed to the 
 door. Bax stood jus* outside with his father. 
 She run out, and he went to her; but before any 
 one knowed what was to happen, she 'd dropped 
 her baby airs and looked, Sal said, for all the 
 world like a queen in some fancy story. Mean- 
 while, her eyes blazed so, Sal said, the Maj'r 
 stepped back as if struck. 
 
 " ( Bax/ she cried, c throw those gates open ! ' 
 and, as he stood still for a second, she cried : 
 
 " c For me, my husband ! ' 
 
 " And Bax went. " 
 
 47 
 
COALS TO NEWCASTLE 
 
 "A | ^HERE was only one outcome to it all. 
 
 Sal said the girl re'lized it right at 
 
 -*- once, she thought, for she waited for 
 
 him to come back to her after the cattle 'd rushed 
 
 in. Her face was white, and she threw her arms 
 
 around him. 
 
 " c Are you sorry, Bax ? ' she asked . 
 
 " Sal said they was a pretty sight. He had one 
 o' them tender smiles on his face, set-like and 
 queer and dreamy, and then he stooped down and 
 kissed her. 
 
 " c No/ he said ; c no, little woman; I have been 
 very thirsty myself/ 
 
 " I think the MajYs hate got fixed at that 
 moment. 
 
 " c You can go/ he said to Bax ; * and for good 
 both of you, and you can take your mother's 
 share, if you want/ 
 
 " Bax turned sudden-like, as if he 'd been shot, 
 and had n't minded, but that probbing for the 
 bullet hurt. 
 
 " c We '11 leave my mother's name out of this/ 
 he said. 
 
 48 
 
Coals to Newcastle 
 
 " And then they went in and off that evening 
 to San Francisco. Bax wrote she could not 
 bear to see her people, and then two weeks later 
 a kid was born. They called him Johann Carl 
 Felix Weffold." He gave this almost apolo- 
 getically, as if he longed to say, in supplement 
 to it, " Mees Bax was not quite herself at the 
 
 time." 
 
 " The Johann Carl was fer the Maj'r, and the 
 Felix fer sich-like on hern side, I guess." 
 
 Here the girl on the back seat laughed a little. 
 She only knew why. 
 
 " When the Express printed it in full, there was 
 a sort of general cel'bration in this part of the 
 ter'tory. If it 'd been a cheer, Bax 'd heard it 
 in San Francisco. Bill Jennin's got drunk at 
 once, same as 't been his own, and at the round- 
 up next day, a hundred calves were branded for 
 the little stranger, his daddy was so well 
 thought on. 
 
 " Then Dick Garnet struck his mine, and no one 
 had time to think of Bax Weffold, the new 
 people was interested in each other and gettin' 
 settled down old Carl coined money, and when 
 the road opened a station at Short's, he give me 
 the chance of this position stage and all. 
 Sometimes I think it was a-meant towards Bax, 
 knowin' how fond I 'd always a-been of him. 
 
 " But there was lots of travel, and it kept me 
 4 49 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 held, until last year I heard Bax 'd broken down 
 and was sick. I got off for a bit, and went to 
 'Frisco. I Ve never been a father, and I never 
 knowed how it was to feel like one. 
 
 " G' up g' up 
 
 " But I think I knowed kind o' how it might 
 be when I went inter the room where Bax was. 
 He was the wastedest fellar I ever seen. He 'd 
 been sick ; she 'd been sick ; and then work be- 
 tween, and the fogs and the low wages, and then 
 his breaking down under it all and she was a- 
 sewing for them. And the little fellar knowed 
 enough to smile and to kiss me when Bax said, 
 ( It is Shorty, Don,' for that was the best good 
 his big name done him. 
 
 " Then she come in, and I seen the same girl, 
 only with changes on her, for all she tried to be 
 brave and spirky-like 
 
 " ' Well, this ain't so big as the Ranch, is it, 
 Shorty? but I don't know but that it has its 
 advantages fur us. At any rate we can't get lost 
 can we ? ' and she gave Bax a regular old 
 chiricahua 1 look. 
 
 " And she kep' this up for a while, until once, 
 when Bax was talking, I seen she 'd turned her 
 back from him, and I knowed there was tears in 
 her eyes, and as Bax talked I knowed his heart 
 was a sickening after his own land, and his dumb 
 
 1 A mountain range. 
 
 5 
 
Coals to Newcastle 
 
 things, and his place among us once agin, if only 
 to die in it. 
 
 " And the money I gin him that night was his 
 own, every cent should have had Weffold 
 marked on it; and I went back to Hope next 
 week more 'n determined to face the Maj'r down 
 in his devilishness toward his own flesh and blood, 
 but before I got further 'n the intention, it was 
 taken outer'n my hands into better ones. Dick 
 Garnet, who found the mine, and his family were 
 making their yearly visit then, and went out my 
 fust trip with me, and we was riding sober along 
 like this through this very country when, suddenly, 
 afore I knowed it, I found mysel' telling Bax's 
 story to all of them. 
 
 " And the lady, she burst out crying, and she said 
 to him, c Dick, if you don't do something for those 
 poor, unhappy creatures, I '11 leave you sure/ ' 
 
 At this, and for the first time during the narra- 
 tion, the young man (suspected of being a college 
 expert) laughed suddenly himself. It was the 
 full, still boyish merriment of one not easily 
 moved to gladness, and caused the girl next to 
 him to jump suddenly ; at which he became very 
 conscious of his own strangeness, and glared back 
 at her quite as stonily as ever she could wish. 
 
 " Two weeks after then, Billy Simpkins, who 
 runs the Post Office at Hope, told me suthin', 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 a letter had gone out to Bax Weffold in the Maj Ys 
 writing, and then they all come down, and 
 Gawd 's patching from day to day of their rents 
 and their humors since then." 
 
 The old fellow switched full around again. 
 His story was still unfinished, and his heart was 
 sore. 
 
 Mr. Campbell now took up the conversation, 
 prefacing this procedure by a greater fixity of 
 gaze: 
 
 "I, fur one, mistrust Bax's wisdom in having 
 come " 
 
 Shorty could stand no more of it : 
 
 " Shut up," he snapped. 
 
 They rode on a while in silence. 
 
 A cow and a gay little calf ran along across 
 their path. Shorty's false shame had all returned, 
 but he stammered into some words again : 
 
 " 'T ain't in any creature's being to cruc'fy their 
 young," he mumbled. 
 
 And all knew they were Bax's own defeat- 
 stamped words. 
 
 Presently a turn in the road brought some 
 smoke, toward which they had been heading, 
 much nearer, and its source in view. A crowd 
 of unpainted wooden, and red adobe huts semi- 
 circled this sugar-plum like flies. A throbbing 
 crept into the air, and, far up the side of a hill, 
 wooden buildings and flumes were apparent. 
 
 52 
 
Coals to Newcastle 
 
 " It 's the mine/' Shorty announced, with the 
 monotonous pleasure his profession called forth. 
 
 " There 's one thing certain," said Mr. Camp- 
 bell ; " there 's trouble brewing in these parts 
 somewhere." 
 
 "If you want to find it yes," the driver 
 returned with a certain dignity that made his 
 evasion serious. 
 
 " D' you mean to deny old Weffold and Dick 
 Garnet fo' 't ? " asked Campbell. 
 
 "I don't know nothing of 'em," Shorty 
 returned. 
 
 Campbell burst into jeering laughter : 
 
 "You said as much jus' now your own sen," 
 he said. 
 
 " Dick Garnet brought Bax home, ind'rectly 
 that is what I said, an' you know it." 
 
 " And you don't want to say sence then, Mr. 
 Hity Tity, that Dick Garnet's come in on Bax 
 Wefford's gredge with the old Maj'r?" 
 
 Shorty sniffed. 
 
 " Guess Dick Garnet 's rich enough to take care 
 of his sen," he announced. 
 
 "There'll be trouble brewing," Mr. Campbell 
 allowed himself to remark in conclusion, just as 
 if he had not said it before, and with all the 
 enjoyment in his voice of a man who loves 
 trouble and likes to see it prosper indefinitely. 
 They were nearing the town gradually, and on 
 
 53 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 one side, just now, six or seven little oblong picket 
 fences surrounded as many mounds on the waste 
 of barren plain. 
 
 " Cem'tery," announced Shorty, nodding to- 
 ward it with his whip. 
 
 The girl shuddered, as young people will. 
 
 But Shorty had his pride, and he longed to 
 display it. His chivalric regard for female love- 
 liness, though, made him turn toward the strange 
 man as he said this : 
 
 " Only one nat'ral death among 'em, and that 
 was a woman's as was sick when she come along." 
 
 " It is a very creditable record," returned the 
 young man. Shorty caught the twinkle. 
 
 "Ever met the Garnets?" he asked, turning 
 around more fully. 
 
 " Once," returned the stranger. 
 
 " Dick ? " asked Shorty. 
 
 " All of them," was the answer this time. 
 
 Riches have a fascination for us rich people 
 good or bad. 
 
 The young man was looking straight ahead 
 of him. His eyes were fixed on the Garnet 
 mine. He heard an eager voice beside him 
 all at once. It made his heart throb more and 
 more quickly, for it was accelerated a trifle, as 
 it was. 
 
 " And are the Garnets such a very wonderful 
 people as one hears ? " 
 
 54 
 
Coals to Newcastle 
 
 " What does one hear ? " he asked, looking 
 at her. " It all depends ! " 
 
 " That they are so fond of each other, and so 
 aristocratically funny" she returned. And then 
 he shook his head, as if it were beyond him. 
 
 " That is only a point of view, is it not ? " he 
 answered. 
 
 But she was not to be put off so easily. 
 
 " It is no secret about the Garnets; but may 
 be you don't know what people say of them ? 
 It was all in the papers once, when he discovered 
 Hope." 
 
 " Possibly I did n't read it," her companion 
 said. She looked at him out of the corner of 
 her eyes, as if settling his social standing. Then 
 she asked abruptly : 
 
 " Where are you from ? " 
 
 He smiled and promptly answered " New 
 York/' thinking he had the advantage on this 
 occasion ; but she only puckered her brows scorn- 
 fully and replied : 
 
 " There, I knew before you said it. Every 
 one in New York is engrossed simply in his own 
 affairs." 
 
 He went under at this stab, but came up when 
 it was over, encouraged by something he knew. 
 
 " But all over the rest of the United States 
 people have read of the Garnets, time and again. 
 It is in Sunday morning magazines. How the 
 
 55 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 Garnets were supposed to be very rich and lived 
 in New York, and were greatly envied by every 
 one. There were three brothers of them, and 
 one younger son by another wife. That is the 
 noblest part of it, her having loved them even 
 almost better than her own, and teaching that 
 love amongst them. For one time Dick, who 
 was the very oldest, committed some expensive 
 crime " 
 
 At this the young man did not restrain his 
 laughter. It came out almost wildly, and in this 
 God-forsaken country was one note of thanks- 
 giving in his laugh. 
 
 Then, as he offered no explanation for it, she 
 went on : 
 
 " And then there was some terrible trouble, 
 and just when it was all about to be made 
 public, Claude Garnet, that was the step-brother, 
 you know, gave all his fortune to them, he 
 and his mother, so that hushed it up." 
 
 The mine throbbed, and the man listened. 
 
 " I think it was the noblest thing ! " exclaimed 
 the girl. 
 
 The young man still said nothing. 
 
 " And then Dick Garnet left his home and 
 came out here, and you know the rest of it. 
 How the good step-brother went to work in an 
 office and supported Dick's deserted family " 
 
 56 
 
Coals to Newcastle 
 
 She looked dreamily before her. 
 
 " Every girl in our seminary wanted to marry 
 Claude Garnet when we read that," she announced 
 slowly. 
 
 " Did you ? " he asked. 
 
 " Yes," she answered quite as gravely. 
 
 And now they rode on toward the Garnet mine. 
 
 When the stage stopped in town, the girl got 
 off with the others. 
 
 " May I see you home? " the man of the morn- 
 ing asked her. He stood near. He looked as if he 
 would like to, and she thought it a great conquest, 
 girl-like, but no-thanked him and walked away. 
 
 And as Shorty went toward the freight wagon 
 about her trunk, he found himself pursued by 
 this very maiden, and suddenly in her presence 
 he felt at home. 
 
 For a great humility had replaced the youthful 
 self-confidence on her face. In the country God 
 had forgotten, she had heard the best sermon of 
 her life. 
 
 " I am going to Weffold's," she said to this 
 large-hearted rough diamond on this occasion. " I 
 want you to forgive my not having said so sooner 
 to Bax WefFold's. I am his sister-in-law." 
 
 The young man, left alone, hardly knew which 
 way to turn, so he turned to Mr. Campbell, who 
 
 57 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 stood staring at something man could not attempt 
 to place. 
 
 The stranger sought to pierce his manner : 
 
 " I trust your doubts on the general condition 
 of the country will not be realized," he commenced 
 haltingly. 
 
 Mr. Campbell stared at him. 
 
 " Not to doubt nothin' is to be blind/' he said. 
 " There 's been two times to my own knowledge 
 lately the water power 's been shet off from the 
 mine fur no reason whatsoever. They have tried 
 to bore for water themsen and failed. Old Carl 
 Weffold virtelly controls the country, 'pointed, 
 as I afore-mentioned, by the Old Boy hissen." 
 
 He smiled appreciatingly at this, and the young 
 stranger's face changed also. It gained in re- 
 sponsibility. 
 
 " The mine 'as changed sup'rintendents twice 
 athin a year trouble is a- brewing somewhere," 
 announced Mr. Campbell, for the third time. 
 cc Last fellar called old Weffold down on the 
 street in town, an' the men backed him, and there 
 was near a riot. And when Dick Garnet came 
 't war plain to see he was jarred by it till he said 
 one day, in his jolly way, as if he seen a way out 
 of it (it was to Miss Garnet, his wife she 
 seems a great prop to him, as it 's fit in a wife 
 women are useless enough as it is) : 
 
 " c By Jove, there is Claude ! He '11 come for 
 58 
 
Coals to Newcastle 
 
 me.' Hern all this missen, and then he laughed 
 hearty way of his he has'n and said, c A truce to 
 my troubled waters, while there is oil like Claude/ ' 
 
 It is funny, O you rich of the earth, you chil- 
 dren of Fortune, how we can remember and 
 cherish your every word ! 
 
 " So a Garnet is coming to Garnet," remarked 
 Mr. Campbell, almost religiously, and he looked 
 straight before him at Heaven knows what again. 
 
 Then he said to his companion : 
 
 " Ever seed Dick Garnet ? " 
 
 " Yes," said the man. 
 
 cc Him an* his wife an* his chil'ren ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " May be you Ve seen the new sup'rintendent? " 
 
 The young fellow hesitated a moment ; then 
 he raised his head simply. He turned toward the 
 mine and looked at it. 
 
 He felt the great vain mastery of possession. 
 No man (were truth unveiled) had a better right 
 to gaze so on it Dick Garnet notwithstanding. 
 Then a thought seemed to pass over him 
 slowly. He stood back and seemed to grow 
 shorter. A faint flush of shame stained his face, 
 and his gaze fell short of a sudden ; yet, by some 
 quirk of our language, we are to call this his 
 fairer manhood. 
 
 " I am Claude Garnet," he said. 
 59 
 
WHOM GOD HATH JOINED 
 
 MEES BAX'S name was Laurel. It had 
 been Laurel Laurence once, but for 
 that an author is not to blame, so we 
 must pass it over. 
 
 She was the mother of Johann Carl with the 
 supplementary Felix breathed in an undertone. 
 
 But Johann Carl Felix Weffold did not know 
 himself yet by this cognomen. He was simply 
 Don. Sometimes, with the liberality of childhood 
 in disposing of its immortal soul, he would say 
 on awakening of mornings : 
 
 " A day I am not Don ! Am a little boy 'at 
 use a-know Shorty afore him getted bal'." 
 
 " No," Mees Bax would say firmly ; " that little 
 boy had straight hair." 
 
 Johann Carl Felix would get very angry at 
 this: 
 
 " No, him had cals," he persisted, " only him 
 neber taked a bath." 
 
 He knew this clinched the matter indisput- 
 ably ; for she was too proud of his having ar- 
 rived at such an irrefutable conclusion to attempt 
 to defend that straight-haired little bouncer (Bax 
 
 60 
 
God Hath Joined 
 
 proper) who had, in the long ago, gone to sleep 
 so often after pulling Shorty's departed hair. 
 
 She was sitting now on the closed-in porch, 
 feasting her eyes on her younger sister, who had 
 arrived just one-half hour before. (Shorty was 
 dining inside, and chatting with Sal, who was 
 washing dishes. Sal worked there rather steadily 
 those days.) She never took her eyes off Robbie, 
 except once, when Johann Carl Felix called out 
 in shrill, inconsolable dismay. Then she rushed 
 to the door, and looked out at him. He had 
 great shaded eyes and flax glintery hair, and it 
 was worth the rush to see him. 
 
 " Mommie," he cried, " come q'ick and help 
 me. The elfer is a-goin' to run away/* 
 
 The elephant was a cotton-batting beast of 
 irregular proportions, who indulged in this false 
 alarm periodically. He was sitting placidly on 
 the ground and facing the gate to the pasture. 
 
 Mees Bax seemed to see nothing ridiculous 
 in it, but went out and shut the gate, talking 
 sympathetically as she did so. On her backward 
 tramp, she paused just long enough to fling the 
 little lad high enough to kiss him, and then came 
 back to her seat. She looked taller, more whim- 
 sical than ever, and the effect was not lost on the 
 city girl. It is a mistake to think sisters use 
 gloves in handling each other's feelings. After 
 two years' separation, these two told only of their 
 
 61 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 gladness in long, tender looks. There were too 
 many things which belonged to bed-time con- 
 fidences alone. They had been reared singularly. 
 Thus the same sharp dealing with surface im- 
 pressions and a certain consequent, half-unkind 
 candor became a mere family trait. 
 
 Rel was Bax's name for her. After sitting 
 down she detected Robbie's gaze with that very 
 critical summarizing to it, so her lips and eyes 
 took on a certain droll resignation. 
 
 " Miss Roberta Laurence, Dealer in Unvar- 
 nished Truths, what have you to say now ? " 
 
 Robbie looked responsible. 
 
 " Dark, sallow women should never wear 
 black," she answered quite soberly. "You 
 can't stand it. There should be some relief 
 to the deadness. You look as if you had lost 
 your last friend/' 
 
 " Not quite," said Mrs. Bax. Then she added, 
 with a certain feminine little pathos, " I have a 
 lavender ribbon in my room." 
 
 Robbie expressed proper horror now. 
 
 "Don't!" she cried. "You'd look awful. 
 Don't you know any better ? The black is bad 
 enough, but the lavender would be hideous with 
 your complexion." 
 
 Suddenly she seemed to think of something : 
 
 " Does n't Bax know ? " she asked. 
 
 "There is a time/' was Mrs. Bax's sole an- 
 62 
 
IVhom God Hath Joined 
 
 swer, " when a man's tie and a woman's dress are 
 only rudimental supports of marriage." 
 
 Silence ensued. It seemed like a mist in 
 which each was lost, and through which one at 
 least could not see clearly. This was Robbie, 
 and when her voice alone seemed to struggle 
 through at last, it had an odd little note for 
 assistance in it. 
 
 " I don't know why you live in such a God^ 
 forsaken country." 
 
 " Every one calls it that," Mees Bax broke in. 
 " We fall in the habit of talking of God far more 
 familiarly than if He were present. I never 
 realized how that could be till I got here. Still 
 it is n't right." 
 
 cc You need not make any irrelevant digres- 
 sions," was Robbie's return to this. " I simply 
 can't stand it. Life began to change the very 
 moment I crossed the border. It was barely 
 dawn, and suddenly I felt my heart ache, al- 
 most as if I saw it. It was so real ! It seemed 
 as if I were miles away from civilization, and 
 under no protection." 
 
 " You have us," said Mrs. Bax, proudly ; she 
 was thinking of Bax. 
 
 "You ! " the girl cried as if tortured. " I find 
 you the most absolutely acclimatized thing in the 
 whole country. It is a toss-up between you and 
 the hills. They are like you, and your black, 
 
 63 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 and your not wanting to change it. Just fallen 
 out of the habit of looking green." 
 
 The girl sprang up and went to the door in 
 tense, angry rebellion. She looked out. 
 
 It faced the northern sweep of the country, 
 just such ground as she had traversed several 
 hours before, mile after mile of scorched, drying 
 stubble. The barnyard, the half-filled corrals, 
 the great guarded tanks, and the motionless wind- 
 mills mixed hopelessly. 
 
 Mrs. Bax, on looking, suddenly covered her 
 eyes with her hands. She did not care to re-live 
 it. When she looked forth again, it was to meet 
 two great tearful eyes, and to feel the warm clasp 
 of soft city hands around her neck, and to hear 
 the voice not given to many such weaknesses, 
 half-moaning : 
 
 " Can't you see I love you ? " 
 
 " Yes, oh, yes," answered Mrs. Bax, and kissed 
 her. 
 
 Then they fell apart again. 
 
 "You see," the older woman remarked, as they 
 sat at proper angles now, " Bax and I have always 
 loved you since you were a little, little girl, and 
 thought you had a right in the parlor when he 
 really came a-calling on me. It was awfully hard 
 telling you otherwise without hurting your feel- 
 ings, and I don't know what we'd ever have 
 done if Bax and I had n't paid you of evenings to 
 
 64 
 
Whom God Hath Joined 
 
 go to sleep early on the couch, what a merce- 
 nary little thing you Ve been ! still that was a 
 subterfuge, making you think little silly school- 
 girls needed beauty sleep. But I never minded 
 leaving you for him, until one time ; then I felt 
 sorry for it. It was when Don was born. I re- 
 member Bax had imagined I was going to die. 
 May be all men do. And so when it was all over 
 and he sat there holding my hands, I said, c Bax, 
 there is a thought in my head/ 
 
 " And he said, c I know, darling/ And I 
 said, ( I want to tell it to you/ And he 
 answered : 
 
 " < Rel, I was the bigger brute, so let me 
 make the penance/ I thought it was noble of 
 him ! " 
 
 " Perfectly lovely," Robbie broke in. She had 
 held up her hands comically. "You and Bax 
 are in a constant conversational furor like Mr. 
 Hope. I never knew such clever dialoguists. 
 When you are not repeating, word for word, 
 what Bax said, he is illustrating all sorts of 
 womanly virtues by Rel." 
 
 She imitated their several manners truthfully, 
 and Mrs. Bax became a trifle affronted. 
 
 " Well, I won't bore you any more," she an- 
 nounced, setting her lips a little. 
 
 "Oh, yes, you will," answered the girl. " I 
 want to hear about Bax's being noble. Bax's 
 5 6 5 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 nobility is like the Eiffel Tower. It can't be 
 reported too high/* 
 
 Mrs. Bax was silent, whereupon the subject 
 was seized and handled for her with clever, girlish 
 impertinence. 
 
 " Well, I '11 tell it for you : 
 
 " Tableau A happy room, with special em- 
 phasis on the happy, and two foolish people 
 holding each other's hands, and angels singing 
 " Love's Old Sweet Song," with a baby's cry in 
 the chorus. Then Bax said : c We have two 
 children, only we never knew it. Robbie is our 
 eldest, dear ! ' I can't put proper capitals in 
 when I am talking." 
 
 Mrs. Bax rose above the banter: 
 
 " We wrote you that night," she said, " at least 
 Bax did, and I kissed it afterward." 
 
 " You were foolish to have wasted the time," 
 said the girl. " You should have known me 
 better. I did not need a mother's love then, nor 
 a home to make me an old-fashioned Phyllis, 
 I have always been too up-to-date. That was 
 what made me refuse your offer. I love the 
 world." 
 
 " Yes, I know now," returned Mrs. Bax, 
 simply. " Then Bax and I were hurt, I may as 
 well tell you, and we did not have much money ; 
 but he wanted to go East for you, and bring you 
 back to our home, Robbie. We were in San 
 
 66 
 
Whom God Hath Joined 
 
 Francisco then ; but almost on top of this deter- 
 mination came a letter from your chum's mother, 
 saying how she was very wealthy, and had only 
 the one daughter to live for, and she asked if you 
 might visit them indefinitely, telling, in a kind, 
 straightforward way, of the advantages it would be 
 to you, associating with cultivated people and 
 living in such a lovely home. And all Bax and 
 I had in contrast, dear, was a bare room and our 
 love in it. I know we were ashamed that even- 
 ing, imagining how you would have looked had 
 you come, so we let you stay. Only we were 
 so proud, Rob dearie, when you wrote you had 
 gone as her secretary. It was plucky, Bax 
 thought." 
 
 " Leave off the p," Robbie answered. " I am 
 tired of it. They said that there. It was sheer 
 luck all through. Other girls have to work lots 
 harder in an office or a shop, girls every bit as 
 good as I am. I hate points of view. There is 
 only one way to look at it, it was inevitable 
 such a little cad would feather her own nest 
 softly." 
 
 Mrs. Bax commenced to laugh at that. Robbie 
 usually struck her as very funny, except when she 
 made her mad. 
 
 " The only thing I can't get over is your com- 
 ing now," she said. "Ton my word, I '11 never 
 be too sorry Bax was n't here to enjoy my aston- 
 
 67 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 ishment. It was the surprise, Robbie ! It 
 was the only divine thing you ever did." 
 
 Robbie's heart contracted, at least it felt that 
 way. She did not like to say what Mrs. Bax 
 could not now mention : " It was because of 
 Chicky's death I came." Chicky had been a 
 transient roomer, very transient, in the world, and 
 had passed out just one month before this. So, 
 for want of better words, Robbie asked : 
 
 " Did you know me when I rode up the road 
 on the stage ? " 
 
 " So help me," said Mrs. Bax, yes." 
 
 There was no need for the emphasis, and her 
 voice was not appropriate to it ; but it bore the 
 simple straightforward stamp of her acclimation, 
 as Robbie called it, to both people and things. 
 
 " And what was your first thought ? " asked 
 Robbie ; " tell me that." 
 
 " I wished Bax were near, so he could say, ( I 
 told you so/ to me. I deserved it, Robbie. He 
 always said there was good in you." 
 
 Robbie burst out laughing. 
 
 " Go on," she said, " do." 
 
 Mrs. Bax smiled. 
 
 " People in Arizona don't flatter, you see. 
 You won't like us. I saw it in your face as you 
 drove up. You need a glamor or so, my love. 
 But when you stepped off the stage, I was bound 
 not to go out. I was anxious to see the meeting 
 
 68 
 
Whom God Hath Joined 
 
 between you and Don. You said, c Who am 
 I, darling ? ' and he knew you at once, did n't 
 he?" 
 
 " Whatever idiosyncrasies you and Bax claim," 
 remarked Miss Laurence, " Don 's all ri'." She 
 said it with a thick British accent. " I learned 
 that on the stage." 
 
 " Well, I don't like to make a phenomenon of 
 him, for then he might die," returned his mother. 
 " Don is a bright child." She laughed here, as 
 if defying Robbie, " Only remembering you 
 was merely calling on a familiar name. That 
 was Bax and I in him. He could never have 
 helped knowing you, Robbie. You are the only 
 girl he 's ever heard about." 
 
 She rose and held out her hand to the girl. 
 Robbie followed, almost solemnly ; but when they 
 got to the broad screen door, Mrs. Bax just flung 
 it wide, and pointed outside somewhere, in a 
 sweeping, lingering sort of way. 
 
 " We buried our little lad out there. I don't 
 want you to feel badly for me ; but I '11 never, 
 never forget your having come. It is not only 
 having good in you, but putting it to account, my 
 dear." 
 
 The girl's eyes had grown dark again of a 
 sudden, as they had on the stage. She shivered, 
 and edged nearer. 
 
In the Coztntry God Forgot 
 
 <c It is all so sad/' she cried. 
 
 " No," said Mrs. Bax, simply. She had argued 
 it out often before. " No, not sad, my dear. 
 They say God suits the back to the burden. So 
 I have often thought when He went out of the 
 State, He took Hope with him. It is on the 
 same plan, gray may become black, but never 
 white again. 
 
 " Bax and I never thought we could love 
 better than we did Don, but we did not know. 
 This was so very different, such a poor sad 
 little scrap of humanity. Our life was not very 
 long together. On the day he died, I can 
 remember a Mexican woman's hanging over me 
 when I lay half asleep, and saying, in such a sad 
 little fashion, f It is so sorry to have a baby dead/ 
 and I mumbled, ' No, so happy ! ' and they 
 thought I was delirious. Only Bax knew." 
 
 She went in so suddenly it lent loneliness to 
 her reason. 
 
 " Now you are here, Rob, we can be awfully 
 happy together, and you must n't be lonely, 
 darling ; only there 's not much company. Now 
 the men have been away all morning, and 
 were to have coffee and lunch in the fields, and 
 Bax had to go with them. There was some- 
 thing about the boundaries only he knows. 
 But if I wait any longer, he will never forgive 
 me." 
 
 70 
 
Whom God Hath Joined 
 
 She stepped across the narrow hallway, toward 
 the sound of Sal's steady stream of conversation 
 and Shorty's appreciative chuckle every once in a 
 while. 
 
 "Shorty," she said, " thet sweet," as he 'd be apt 
 to call it, " there 's not a man around to send 
 for my husband, and I want him home." 
 
 In nonsensical little moments such as these 
 she gained a great pride of a sudden, and would 
 not call Bax, Bax to the men. 
 
 Shorty rose, flustrated, from where he had been 
 shovelling Mexican beans into his mouth on nice 
 warm tortillas. 
 
 "Yer only have to say the word, Mis' Wef- 
 fold," he answered. By almost mechanical intui- 
 tion he called her Mis' Weffold instead of Mees 
 Bax these times. 
 
 She laughed and said, " Don't hurry, you 're 
 awfully kind to go, Shorty." 
 
 Then a moment later he heard her outside. 
 She had on her cc frilly " voice, to quote Mr. 
 Campbell, and there was a good deal of mischief 
 in it. 
 
 "I think, after all," it was saying, that 
 voice, "I '11 let him come at dusk, Robbie. 
 Go tell Shorty to leave things as they are. And 
 you stand by the gate just so, girlie, as if you 'd 
 stepped off the stage. We don't look unlike 
 each other, and I want to see if if he's known 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 I was dark and sallow and all the rest of it this 
 long." 
 
 Sal went on with her cooking, after a back toss 
 at it. 
 
 " They 're a great team, them two," she said. 
 
MAID AND MAN 
 
 THE tragedy of Robbie's first impressions 
 did not affect her permanently. She 
 was too young, and the change was too 
 immense. It was very vital to her former mode 
 of life, also. 
 
 At first she could not classify her thoughts. 
 Then existence became divided into two great 
 epochs, the time before and after Chicky's 
 death. 
 
 Twenty-two years and these coming days : 
 first one, then two, barely four (I might tell you) 
 before we have to do with her again ; yet one 
 period seemed as long as the other. For she was 
 not separated from her past by distance only; 
 more by the mere fact that it was to be past to her, 
 a sort of background effect forever. And she 
 had been very sincere in her impulse toward Bax 
 and his family, and their great need of her just 
 then. 
 
 In this new phase of life, she confessed to the 
 shallowness of her other views on people and things. 
 And when the chastisement grew too severe, she 
 
 73 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 would turn over on her great, cool pillow in her 
 uittle attic room, in Rel's queer adobe, and say, in 
 that little restless, moaning way which sleep would 
 not seem to soothe very kindly, simply, " I did 
 not know before." 
 
 She did not own any more, because everything 
 was a wonderful and alarming chaos, out of which 
 that hesitating little sentence was all she could 
 deduce. But there were a great many memories 
 of her past life, those days. They came like ghosts 
 in the dim room which this wonderful night time 
 of Arizona lit magnificently. Then the parties, 
 the people, the rich clothes, the march of elabo- 
 rate events in her past, dwarfed considerably. 
 
 And what better form can memory take than 
 of ghosts ? something which has been real, and 
 well-loved, or hated, once, and now but shadowy, 
 tantalizing things we fear to touch, and thus 
 can never meet face to face, environed by the same 
 humanity and circumstances again. 
 
 There were periods, too, toward which the 
 thoughts of this person or that one, the past and 
 the present, turned almost invariably. Problems 
 which she worked out only at night, thoughts 
 of Mrs. Bax, their girlhood, the things she her- 
 self had done and had not done ; a thousand 
 useless regrets and remorses, all still in a 
 hopeless and unsatisfactory whirl when sleep 
 came at last to her. 
 
 74 
 
Maid and Man 
 
 But the young cannot sleep to no purpose. 
 And as if the health of body brought health of 
 mind, she would awaken to spring from her soft, 
 low, little bed, and watch the dawn of the new 
 day in this strange, sand-driven land, with its 
 incomparably beautiful heaven. 
 
 There would come to her the constant chatter 
 kept up by the snowy ducks, the sad, far-off low 
 of some lonely cow for its young, the cheery josh 
 called from hand to hand amongst the many 
 punchers, sometimes the words of a ballad, sung 
 many times in their home parlor by Mrs. Bax, or 
 the whirr of an ax swung by the stern old Maj'r, 
 as he worked mechanically. 
 
 This was his one recreation. " It des old 
 bones no good to settle," he would say, when 
 rallied on it. The South came out in that voice, 
 uncorrupted by forty years of frontiersman lingo, 
 soft, clinging, at almost startling variance with 
 eyes, mouth, and manner, his native tongue. 
 
 All these sounds would rise, I say, and yet 
 standing against the frame of her window those 
 dawns, or kneeling wonderingly in her flimsy 
 night-robes still, nothing save a passionate sense 
 of pity would come, as yet unnecessary and 
 unlocated. 
 
 In time she acknowledged what provoked it 
 Nothing which was near, I say. Even the throb- 
 bing little echoes which answered those love-words 
 
 75 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 in Mrs. Bax's voice, echoes from the heart, if you 
 will, with its store-house of harmony and discord, 
 courtship, wedlock, motherhood, child-giving 
 let us not forget. 
 
 This would be Bax afar off with his little son 
 on one horse, sitting close, as of one body. 
 Sometimes it was a mere silhouette against the 
 sky or mountains, a moving speck on the vast 
 panorama. Nearer again, at times you could see 
 the man's face, dark and yet fair, strong and yet 
 tender, with its physical and spiritual battles at 
 end for the moment ; and looking up, as at a 
 sacred image, the adoring, beautiful eyes of his 
 child. 
 
 "They are very companionable," Mrs. Bax 
 would say proudly. 
 
 " What do they say to each other ? I never 
 realized children talked sense before." 
 
 Mrs. Bax would look superior. She always 
 did on such occasions. Don and Bax were as 
 open books to her, and she wanted them to be so 
 to each other, more and more familiar as time 
 went by. She was never jealous. Often on these 
 occasions she could imagine what the child said 
 to the father, and how that rare smile of the 
 man's would come and linger, as if it were tremb- 
 ling, or his arms tighten a bit around the little 
 form. 
 
 76 
 
Maid and Man 
 
 " Somp day '11 ganpa gib all a me poppie, if 
 me am a good boy ? " 
 
 " Yes, Don, only that is a secret between 
 mommie and us two." 
 
 " When ganpa gib a me poppie, will him 
 throw ? " 
 
 "No ; why, mannikin ? " 
 
 " Him throw a c'gar box yesaday. Elefer 
 look ferry funny. Me teached a elefer not to 
 throw." 
 
 Bax looked over his head a second. 
 
 " When all a mine," continued the little fellow, 
 stumbling in his generous haste into irregular little 
 rises and tender cadences, " me gib all a oo." 
 
 And they 'd put a spur at that to the gay little 
 mustang, and ride like mad, keeping time with 
 their laughter. 
 
 While almost identically, with a naive, tender 
 little intuition, Mrs. Bax would emerge from the 
 hallway or cupboard, or wherever she had chanced 
 to flee to gird herself for an attack on that ever 
 constant thorn in her side. 
 
 This sat in an easy chair and owned changeless 
 relentless eyes under white shaggy eyebrows. 
 When he felt her beside him, he gained the per- 
 fect quiet of listening attention without looking 
 up. 
 
 " May I read to you ? " 
 
 " No, madam, thank you." The thank scalded. 
 77 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 That was all. 
 
 It was of matutinal courage this, conceived of 
 nobler things than her own heart knew literally 
 of as a motive. 
 
 And a failure, oh, sad part ! for the day will 
 come when we stop our acts and call them inten- 
 tions, which cease also after a while. 
 
 Under the wear and tear of these emotions, the 
 ranch as a unit was singularly prosperous, Robbie 
 thought. She caught on to the minutest details 
 whimsically, with a quaint little belief in her own 
 interest in them. The story she had heard on the 
 stage coming in was stripped now to almost a hand- 
 to-hand encounter between the natures of the father 
 and son. She saw the bitter, continual, relentless 
 hate Carl Weffold bore in look and manner. It 
 seemed like fire of the blood to her, which the 
 milk of human kindness was totally unable to 
 quench. In contrast were Bax's lordly or mar- 
 tyred submissions. In such moments the figura- 
 tive bending of his back seemed almost literally 
 due to the clinging arms of that little chap whose 
 right it was to own Weffold some day, just as 
 his sharp speeches seemed ever just checked, but 
 in a dreamy sort of fashion, as if it were a woman's 
 hand which went over his mouth. 
 
 After looking around a bit for lodgings, Claude 
 Garnet discriminately chose Mrs. Fitzsimmons* 
 
 7 3 
 
Maid and Man 
 
 " Mrs. Fitzsimmonses," if I may quote to the 
 letter. He did not know much about her. 
 
 " Can you point me out some decent lodgings ? " 
 he had said to Mr. Campbell, that first afternoon, 
 not knowing any one but Mr. Campbell, and 
 having run across this gentleman on his way from 
 the mine. (The stalwart miner wore a new hat, 
 Mr. Garnet observed, and stood well in the 
 middle of the road, as if he'd gotten there in 
 some innocent fashion, and then received an elec- 
 tric shock, from which he had not recovered.) 
 
 " I kin," this gentleman responded agreeably. 
 
 " You see," young Garnet went on, " it is un- 
 comfortable knowing no one." 
 
 Mr. Campbell looked blanker than ever : 
 
 "There's the superintendent's house?" he 
 suggested innocently. 
 
 " I am a single man," the young fellow replied. 
 " I can't quite see the justice of my occupying the 
 best house in town alone, while our book-keeper 
 crowds his entire family into that cold, miserable 
 little frame-building which barely accommodates 
 two persons. He was home with one of the little 
 girls, who is very delicate, they tell me, so I had a 
 good chance to see how matters were." 
 
 He told it very simply. He had come with 
 the simple hope of letting the men know that he 
 was there to befriend them ; that it was not a 
 question of capital and labor, but man and man. 
 
 79 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 Yet with no medium but this stolid-faced Briton, 
 he realized what a risk his utterances ran. How, 
 with no other interpreter than himself for his acts, 
 they seemed shallow, false, egotistical, a flimsy 
 play toward unearned popularity. 
 
 But Mr. Campbell's next remark showed no 
 foundations for his misgivings. 
 
 " Ruther partial to gu'ls any way, I guess," he 
 remarked, " from fourteen upwards ? " 
 
 After this sly innuendo, he burst into a thun- 
 derous guffaw. There war n't so much josh in 
 this new Garnet, he might have told you, but 
 then a Garnet is a Garnet, the world around. 
 
 Claude tried to smile, but it was rather sickly. 
 He did not envy the reputation, and wondered if 
 his actions on the stage had been productive of it. 
 It was not comforting, that thought. 
 
 At any rate, he continued more briskly, he was 
 looking for lodgings then, just a room to put up 
 for a while in, and a clean table. It was n't so 
 much consequence the food. 
 
 At that Mr. Campbell became very business- 
 like. "Ther* war the Palace Hotel," he began, 
 proud of the name ; " but it war full, some 
 punchers war over from the Chiricahua Co., and 
 ther war no tamperin' with their bunks. Knowed 
 a fellar 's ridden out o' town during the early days 
 in same burg' for using the hands' blankets over- 
 night. S'posed to be off'n four days' drunk, 
 
 80 
 
Maid and Man 
 
 but got back. Money give out, he suspect. 
 Drink more or less on either side, an' nothin' 'd 
 privented bloodshed.' 1 
 
 Mr. Garnet would not go to the Palace Hotel. 
 
 " There was two others places, both wimmin 
 folks. Fust fairly good sort of house, kept by 
 Widder Luster, d'sarvin' sort of female : only 
 fault any one could find with the widder was the 
 s'reptitious existence of Mr. Luster. Fellars 
 kicked a little over that." 
 
 Claude looked over the dry, endless country, 
 and wished he could laugh with some one at 
 that. He wanted to hear of the other widow. 
 
 He wanted to know if Mr. Fitzsimmons were 
 surely dead. 
 
 Mr. Campbell guessed " yes." 
 
 "'D seen his head shot off hissen, V pallbeared 
 him 's well." 
 
 It was very convincing, so Claude went to call 
 on the widder his own se'f, as little Don Weffold 
 often expressed it, when he disintegrated his soul 
 from that bland and omnipresent brute's, the 
 elephant, or his very vivid recollections of 
 Bax's lonely little boyhood. 
 
 After all, we are but the outcome of many gen- 
 erations, many boyhoods, many longing hopes, 
 great joys, and many, many disappointments, 
 little Don, so they should not have laughed at 
 you. With Claude, it was a new self, too, one 
 6 81 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 seemingly very separate from the young New 
 Yorker. He doubted if his success as a son and 
 brother, even as the very successful ruler of that 
 distant household, had much to do with his 
 success or failure now. He did not know much 
 about dealing with men, and had told Dick so on 
 the latter's proposal. 
 
 " I don't know that it is something you can 
 learn in school," Dick had answered, in his char- 
 acteristic fashion. 
 
 Then he ended very seriously : " It is the 
 first principle of life, I think, Claude. Be true." 
 
 He gave a side-look at the serious-faced young 
 fellow : " You won't have to go far out of your 
 way, my boy." 
 
 Claude flushed a trifle sensitively. The sweet- 
 est part of such praise was his own pleasure in it. 
 It made him unworthy in his own judgment. 
 
 " I '11 go, Dick," he said. 
 
 " Bravo," cried this Bohemian, gayly. He 
 felt a pang at parting with the lad, some way 
 Claude had ever been like a third woman about 
 the house, some one to add to his welcome. 
 
 " Bravo, my son," he cried. " I shall trust 
 you to unravel the tangle, subdue our arch 
 enemy, old Weffold, make the men satisfied with 
 their surroundings, and keep me up to this brand 
 of cigars. I am spoiled by them," and he lit 
 one right there as he spoke. 
 
 82 
 
Maid and Man 
 
 Mrs. Fitzsimmons was of Scotch parentage, 
 and prided herself on never appearing overcome 
 by anything of earthly character. To Mr. 
 Campbell's chagrin, it seemed nothing to her that 
 a Garnet was to dine off her humble board. I 
 do not know whether this was the result of a 
 life of continual disappointment, or her noble 
 birth ; as Boston Jim (who seemed the standard 
 authority) was responsible for the rumor that she 
 was the eldest daughter of a Scotch laird. If 
 this be false, it is a stain on Mr. Boston Jim 
 only ; but if it be true, it is to be acknowledged 
 by all her boarders that she reflected much credit 
 on this distinguished parent as a cook. 
 
 Claude found it both clean and wholesome, and 
 did not worry over the prophecy entertained by 
 the remainder of the table, that the kitchen would 
 be insufferable in winter, when she had to 
 move her stove inside the house. 
 
 Without aggravated assistance from either eye 
 or ear, Claude knew his landlady to be the 
 mother of six small Fitzsimmons, who, hand in 
 hand, by daylight swelled the floating population 
 of Hope. He carried candy in his pockets for 
 them, and judged that they went in numbers so 
 as to combine the geographical intelligence of 
 each, being under six or so. 
 
 " The apple does not roll far from the tree," 
 to quote an old saying. The little Fitzsimmons 
 
 83 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 made no pretension to the dissipations some find 
 in the mere thought of living. Their mother 
 worked hard for a living, and their father, 
 unfortunately, had had his head shot off. We 
 are products. 
 
 These little ones were seldom home. They 
 threw no stones in the path of their bread and 
 butter. 
 
 Mrs. Fitzsimmons was rather cold to Claude 
 because he was a Garnet ; but as he was very just 
 himself, he did not hold this erring a bit on the 
 right side against her, so one day he said to her : 
 
 "You have six children, Mrs. Fitzsimmons. 
 I have seen but four." 
 
 Her voice was not unpleasant to one for all a 
 certain acquired resentment mingled surlily with 
 the burr. 
 
 " I ha' no wish to inflict the bairnies on my 
 roomers," she said. 
 
 " I can appreciate your thinking that," an- 
 swered Claude. "Yours is a delicate position. 
 But even among roomers there may be the neces- 
 sary exception, now and again. I like children." 
 
 " The second one," she said at once, " fetched 
 and carried up to Garnet's. Eight was young to 
 rake in the heavy tailings. The older ones were 
 apt to impose on him." 
 
 Claude heard this as if he were not a Garnet, 
 just in the same way that she had told it. He 
 
 84 
 
Maid and Man 
 
 was too new to flaunt his authority, and boom a 
 reformation, before he felt sure of its chance in 
 the place, so he just kept silent, but remembered. 
 
 Her eldest boy worked also, she told him ; and 
 when he would have asked more, something in- 
 stinctively forbade him. Later, Mr. Campbell 
 told Claude this was her " deg gun pride : poor 
 folks hed no right fer to hev it wimmin, least 
 ways of all." Boston Jim might have traced the 
 mist-enveloped Scotch laird in that. 
 
 Claude learned all he wanted to know from 
 the child's own conversation. It crept through 
 the cracks of Mrs. Fitzsimmons' boarding house, 
 and permeated the food one guest at least was 
 eating. 
 
 It seemed he worked for a heathen Chinese, 
 Lon by name, that was all the mystery. Claude 
 was engulfed by the magnitude of the question. 
 He had heard a great deal about Chinese labor 
 in our country ; but until Mrs. Fitzsimmons 
 evaded locating her first bairn's occupation, 
 Claude had never thought of the American side 
 of the question. " It seems there J d been none 
 but imported vegetables around and about for 
 years," Campbell told him, " 'cept amongst a 
 priv't family or so. The miners were too busy 
 mining, and the women-folks feel themse'f above 
 such work. In the old country, a woman was n't 
 afraid to raise vegetables, tend kids work a' 
 
 85 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 what not. 'Mericans got the idea someway as 
 they was made of glass. 
 
 " Then a heathen Chinese come along, him and 
 his brother. All might pass for brothers 's far as 
 he (Mr. Campbell) was consarned, though. Well, 
 the celest'ls was in search of an opportunity, and 
 the old Maj'r was fond of his feeding so they 
 hit it off. Let them a bit of his pastures 
 hundred dollars a year, so 'd heard water extra. 
 
 " Jes' before Fitzsimmons was a-blowed un- 
 ceremon'ous-like into 'tarnity, brother had up and 
 deserted Lon and vegetable patch, for restaurant 
 in town there yet, American Restaurant." 
 
 " That is very good in itself," Claude inter- 
 rupted appreciatively. 
 
 " And the vegetable fellow's trade had growed 
 a trifle this year or more so 's he had to keep a 
 helper, and not a son-of-a-gun in the country was 
 poor enough to go. Second week after Fitz had 
 been lowered down, madam sent little Bob off to the 
 chap. Mothers round have talked a heap on it; 
 but one can say this for Mrs. Fitzsimmons, she 
 don't ask no 'pinion of her neighbors, nor court 
 none, an' what she thinks is right, 's liable to be 
 right as 'pinion of any other woman." 
 
 Claude, seated at his dinner, could not help but 
 hear the little lad's home-coming of evenings. 
 Idle as he was in those first days before the mine 
 
 86 
 
Maid and Man 
 
 was in his active possession, he found himself 
 interested almost mechanically in trivial details 
 and alien people. At last scraps of the conversa- 
 tion became doubly intelligent to him. 
 
 " I cem ! " he 'd hear a high little voice say 
 on these occasions. 
 
 " So, and I see ye," she 'd respond. Claude 
 wondered if the unconscious wrong her stern 
 heart feared she was doing the little laddie made 
 her harsh voice unusually gentle those nights. 
 But, ah, how near are our first-borns to us ! 
 
 "In the bag, beside the vegetables for you, 
 mither," that was as broad as the fictitious 
 laird's ever could have been, that last, neither o 
 nor e nor i, all, and yet none, "is a watermilin 
 for the little folks. An* will ye save a piece for 
 Jamie ? We ate it all up on him las' time." 
 
 "Yes, and how is the fine new lady down at 
 the ranch ? Did she feed the turkeygobble 
 again to-day in her party dress, Bobbie ? " 
 
 Now, in frontier talk, it was this little bread- 
 winner who was the widder's right bower those 
 days. And whatever he did not learn about 
 Chinese gardening, he made up on the great 
 Weffold family, Claude inferred. 
 
 For every day the owner of this illustrious 
 name (when combined) made furtive little trips 
 from Lon's field to real Weffold's to ask hope- 
 less little questions about the time : 
 
 87 
 
In the Country God Porgot 
 
 " Is it five o'clock yet, Mees Bax? " he'd ask 
 at 9.30 or thereabouts. 
 
 " No," she would answer, her big pity con- 
 quering a lesser inclination to laugh. " You 're 
 not going to forget lunch-time, Rob, are you ? " 
 He 'd slink away (mostly with his little hand filled 
 from the Weffold larder), and come back, say in 
 a half-hour again : 
 
 "What o'clock is it now, Mis' Weffold? I 
 thought it might be near night noo," he al- 
 ways ended up very droopy-lipped and Scotch. 
 
 In this manner, Claude heard much of the talk 
 from Weffold's, and, without acknowledging it, this 
 satisfied a certain hunger ; for since a chance suspi- 
 cion had lit his identity of the fair young stranger, 
 Weffold's had become as salt unto bread to him. 
 
 He, superintendent of the Garnet mine and 
 Atlas of the Garnet fortunes, found a keen, fool- 
 ish, filling pleasure in such childish observations 
 as this : 
 
 " Mither, the new young leddy never seed a 
 duck in a storm before. She clapped her hands 
 over her ears to-day, and ran when the thunder 
 came like it do of a sudden. Her feet, I think, 
 are as little as Marj'rie's, if 'twere in a shoe with 
 a point and laced tight-like at the ankles." 
 
 (Marj'rie was four the coming winter !) 
 
 " You must learn more of beans and onions, 
 and less of fine ladies, boy." 
 
 88 
 
Maid and Man 
 
 But he could not. His mouth must have 
 gone open, and his legs ceased to be active dur- 
 ing those wonderful first days of Robbie Laurence 
 at the ranch. She was like no human woman 
 Hope had ever seen before. She had white skin, 
 he told his mother, with no yaller to it, like other 
 women in Arizona ; and yet no great mar of 
 freckles, like Jamie had. And for all her feet 
 were so very little, she went light on them like 
 the very wind ; while only yesterday, as she flew 
 down the road, holding on to the hand of little 
 Don Weffold, her hair went to slip, and, before she 
 caught it, she looked like the picture of Cinder- 
 ella as she ran away from the party, in the story 
 the Sunday-school gave last Christmas off their 
 tree ; only her skirts were longer. 
 
 On Claude's fourth night at Hope, and his 
 first night as official controller of the Garnet 
 mine, the widder, while serving him as usual, said, 
 with unexpected warmth, to him : 
 
 " It 's a great jest the town has on some young 
 gallants this day." 
 
 He looked up smiling. "The men at the 
 mine were having their laugh over something, 
 but my being a stranger lets me out of a great 
 deal, I imagine," he replied. 
 
 For the first time her set sameness of expres- 
 sion showed an inclination to relax. 
 
 " It's a good joke on some one," she said, in 
 89 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 the proudest trips and rolls of her tongue, " and 
 I say it is the men, this once. A band o' them 
 went up last night, serenading the city young 
 lady. And while the young galoots were a play- 
 ing to the moon outside her winder, she slept 
 with never so much as even a clap of her hands 
 for 'em. And a sensible lass, it is ! Give it to 
 young 'Nito, if you see him. They say he has 
 an eye on the girl, and goes four or five times in 
 the day now t' Weffold's, making like it is orders 
 from the store. The girl as is sister, so they tell 
 me, t' young madam there." 
 
 She stepped off, and then came back, as if im- 
 pelled to do it. But her face was half turned 
 away, so keen are Scotch hearts for protecting 
 their secrets. 
 
 " I mind Fitz saying once," she said, with a 
 simple tenderness in her very false shame, "any 
 one who could sleep through Mart Wheeler's 
 fiddling need hev no fear of Gabr'el or Judg- 
 ment Day." 
 
 Claude could not laugh, it was so yearning, 
 yet unexpected a mention. 
 
 So he said, " Good ! " rather awkwardly. 
 
 90 
 
TWO LETTERS 
 
 ON this very evening, Claude wrote Dick 
 some full particulars about the mine. 
 He felt that he should do it, yet his 
 mind was on neither the work nor his brother. 
 
 In conclusion he wrote, " Get the children to 
 kiss the mutter for me one hundred times, if she 
 can stand it, as I think that is the regular dose, 
 and tell her I will write to-morrow. There is 
 nothing much to say to-night," et cetera. 
 
 But on second thoughts he drew the paper to 
 him, and commenced : 
 
 DEAR MOTHER : I am in this wonderful Arizona at 
 last, and yet, for all the proverbial hospitality of the West 
 and this great frontiersland in particular, I find I am 
 much of a stranger still. No one has taken me under 
 his wing, nor hers, for that matter. You can't under- 
 stand such execrable judgment, can you, mother o' 
 mine ? Those rose-colored glasses are dear to a fellow 
 this far away from home. Well, to continue, even 
 Dick's siren of sirens has let me completely alone, 
 she who smiled on the Devil in the midst of his labors, 
 and has kept him flirting desperately ever since; for 
 they have to tell this to enforce it, the good work of 
 destruction is but half performed. 
 
 9 1 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 I want to answer some of those questions I know you 
 are pondering these days. I am going to answer them 
 before you ask them. Is it the love or vanity of my 
 divination, dear ? 
 
 I am not ashamed of having been homesick that first 
 evening on the train of not rebelling against it, but 
 wishing I had some one near me to tell the feeling to. 
 That dear old solitude confession of ours and Cowper's, 
 was it not ? 
 
 I felt you were following my thoughts those days, 
 and both of us were re-living the pros and cons of 
 Dick's proposition about the Garnet mine and me. We 
 imagined I needed you too much ! Dick said one night : 
 We have not forgotten "A man is an individual and 
 not merely a son." 
 
 This brief suggestion, mother, did more than the 
 most eloquent argument could have done for me. I 
 might have lived on forever, a gentle, faithful sort of 
 lad enough; life asks more of us. Ever, as time goes 
 on, the call of Duty must needs get fainter, unless we 
 train our ear to the cry. 
 
 It is not hard to give a son to a cause which is 
 worthy. You shall help me earn my manhood, mother. 
 We shall keep the call of the world in our ears. The 
 giving to the world of one's manhood is the sacrifice 
 asked of our love ; noblesse oblige^ my dear ! 
 
 He did not try to read it over. Battling with 
 a certain wondering distress, he rose and went to 
 his humble window. He tried to pull himself 
 together, without analyzing what caused the com- 
 
 92 
 
Two Letters 
 
 plexness of this letter. It was to his mother, to 
 his best friend, to the sharer of every confidence 
 in his life. His position had been a singularly 
 solitary one. His father had died in his very 
 earliest infancy, and left him and three step- 
 brothers entirely in the mother's care. Claude 
 realized the magnitude of her responsibilities. 
 He had felt the strain of their leaning on her, as 
 his reverence gained the strength of years. It 
 was barely perceptible at first ; when the weight 
 grew more, it was so gradual, one failed to stir 
 now and again in the restlessness of rebellion. 
 
 They were kind, clever, handsome fellows 
 all three. They had fortunes to guard and 
 direct. There was great love and happiness 
 amongst them all ; but Claude knew it had 
 weighed on the stepmother's mind and heart. 
 He remembered a mere lad himself how 
 she had broken down with all the weariness of 
 some felt failure, when Ralph reached twenty- 
 one. She was no longer their guardian, she said, 
 yet she should be still, she was sure ! The relin- 
 quishment was a relief, with many misgivings. 
 She had money of her own for Claude ; but her 
 sensitiveness of duty kept her protection toward 
 her stepsons very keen. 
 
 Then had come Dick's trouble. 
 
 He had called on Ralph and Edward first ; but 
 until they were forced to an investigation, they 
 
 93 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 had never grasped the emptiness of the bubble 
 they called their daily lives. The fortunes had 
 gone, with barely a clew to their flight. 
 
 They had speculated, lived beyond their 
 means, married extravagant wives, been feted 
 society gamblers. " The little girl ! " as they 
 called Claude, was the only one of them all with 
 securities which did not crumble at the mere 
 touch. 
 
 Yet with the justice of such truly generous 
 types, they made no advances toward the young 
 fellow's pity. It would be like robbing a woman, 
 they thought. Claude came up from Harvard 
 himself. He was sick with the ugly whispers 
 papers and men alike had about Dick. Honor 
 was a great thing to him in that tender passion- 
 ateness of his youth, perhaps as a sword is to a 
 soldier. He had gotten home as fast as steam 
 could take him. He found them huddled to- 
 gether fretted brothers and weeping women in 
 the beautiful drawing-room, which was mockery 
 No. i ; and Mrs. Ralph and Mrs. Edward were 
 crying in a heartsick, horrified sort of way which 
 seemed to suggest not so much the agony of the 
 blow, but visions of Sing Sing, and what their 
 swell friends were thinking of it, and if people 
 suffering so intensely should not put on black. 
 
 Dick was jesting off and on. Claude shook 
 hands with him: 
 
 94 
 
Two Letters 
 
 <c I want to hear the worst of all," he said, 
 barely twenty, very plain and dark and youthful 
 beside the great handsome others. 
 
 Dick tried to tell him how it was. He had 
 known there was absolutely nothing, and had used 
 securities which were nothing to him, in a mad 
 hope of winning some goodly competence again. 
 He spoke lightly, not desperately. He avoided 
 looking at his wife and his mother. He made a 
 flippant and irrelevant remark about a colored 
 feather in Mrs. Edward's hat. He said it was 
 from a peacock, and denoted pride. Mr. Edward 
 gazed out the window, his back toward them. 
 Mr. Ralph studied the coals in the grate. 
 
 Suddenly, through the chill and stillness, a 
 voice went like a knife through them. It was 
 the wail of Mr. Dick's three weeks' old little 
 girl. 
 
 Dick started, then he said very lightly : " You 
 see there is one thing left." He drew his hand 
 across his throat, smiling, and avoiding Mrs. 
 Dick's eyes. She covered them all at once with 
 her hands. 
 
 It was then that Claude became a seminary 
 hero. He spoke very simply, in a kind, straight- 
 forward manner in which was the trace of a little 
 smart. He knew more about business than they 
 thought. He was holding the reins of the run- 
 away horse they had driven, and as if he knew 
 
 95 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 what he was about, at that. He spoke for his 
 mother and himself. He said money was nothing 
 except it be a bond ; it was never intended for 
 a crown, this was parenthetical, very old and 
 sad and grave, as if he 'd picked it up from 
 Henry George or some such Capital and Labor 
 Giant, a bond between the rich and the poor, 
 the learned and the unlearned, the fortunate and 
 the suffering. 
 
 It would be worse than unkindness for Dick to 
 refuse his money. Mr. Edward stared harder than 
 ever out the window. Mr. Ralph was leaning 
 over, and making a great clatter about the grate. 
 
 Suddenly, in the midst of his protestations, 
 Dick caught sight of four women, as of one face. 
 He said not a word, but got up and walked around 
 the table, laying his hand on Claude's shoulder. 
 The pathos was now wider than the grotesque- 
 ness. He was warning Claude against himself. 
 He said : 
 
 "You must think twice, laddie, I know noth- 
 ing about you your hopes or your plans. It 
 is not to my credit ; but the key to all paths is 
 money, my boy. You have your own future. 
 This will blow over. You must not, Claude, 
 you must not. It is as much as a brother would 
 do/' 
 
 Dick tried to look some place where there 
 was n't a woman. No light jest rose to his falter- 
 
Two Letters 
 
 ing lips. Suddenly out of the trembling assembly 
 a woman stepped toward Claude. She forgot that 
 he was the benefactor, they the beneficiaries. Her 
 eyes were full of pity. She had seen the bitter- 
 ness of the outsider in his face. She reached out 
 her hand and took his kindly, the sense of 
 debt being lost in that moment forever. She did 
 not look at Dick, or at one of the others. 
 
 " You are teaching us what brotherhood is, dear 
 Claude," she said. 
 
 In the haze and daze of crowding memories, 
 Claude laid the deed at his mother's door. It 
 was her training. Just at that moment, he had felt 
 that the actual money given seemed nothing ever 
 to be regretted. Without speaking a word to 
 her, Claude had known she would have told him 
 to do this. The doing it without the asking was 
 only one of the tender compliments he thought 
 of now and again to surprise her. In her eyes, 
 he thought her own love was better demonstrated 
 by it. 
 
 To-night, for the first time in his life, he felt 
 the force of Dick's kindly little shaft. He did 
 not understand it all. In the same way he could 
 not at once acknowledge that he had slipped his 
 boyhood forever at last. New forces were at work 
 within him. It was his first day as unadvised 
 steward of a vast estate. He thought that it was 
 7 97 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 this which made him write the same words as 
 formerly, and yet not feel suited. 
 
 Meanwhile, unseen, his retarded individuality 
 fought to grasp itself as a conscious and powerful 
 possession. Unsatisfied, the young fellow gazed 
 long out of his window. Without being aware 
 of his thoughts, his eyes took the direction of 
 Weffold's. 
 
 A great loneliness took possession of him. 
 Unable to break old ties, or comprehend new 
 ones, suddenly he commenced writing again. 
 
 He changed the tenor slightly. He became 
 gossipy and jocose. There was a trace of Dick 
 in it. 
 
 He told of the little Fitzsimmons lad, and 
 bade the mother re-tell the joke to the boys, a 
 Robert Fitzsimmons, aged ten with no muscles, 
 many freckles, and anything but a prize-ring look. 
 He wrote of his landlady. He drew a happy 
 sketch of the dining-room, the great, heavy regu- 
 lation cups, and the cracks in the walls, and the 
 stove's summering out in the rough little shed, 
 and how once, like the famous Prince and the 
 hot cakes, he had been called upon to turn chef 
 one evening, and acquitted himself with great 
 credit. 
 
 Then he told of the Weffolds, father and son. 
 He knew how the reader's heart would yearn 
 over the sad, strange, little story, and he wove the 
 
 98 
 
Two Letters 
 
 tender little romances through it which Shorty 
 had narrated on the stage. He portrayed the 
 different men he had met with fresh yet satirical 
 humor. His words grew more unlike him as he 
 went on. 
 
 He wrote comically of his day at the mine. 
 
 There was a vein of kingly solitariness in his 
 quaint observation on his one friend, the imper- 
 turbable Mr. Campbell. 
 
 " Simmons (the book-keeper) introduced me to 
 the men," he wrote. " It was my own idea," 
 this was rather wistful ; " I wanted them to 
 know me as a new hand. There were several 
 hundred of them, yet not one I could gain a 
 responsive look from. Mother, the whole world 
 is more than willing to c hae its doots,' I fear, 
 rather than hope and faith in each other. There 
 will be much to surmount, perhaps, but the end 
 will be worthy the labor. 
 
 " We ran across Campbell presently. I can't 
 tell you how glad I was to see him, but that 
 was my first lesson. He would not see me." 
 
 He knew she would understand his thoughts 
 on the subject, so he simply wrote : 
 
 cc The book-keeper spoke afterwards on the 
 matter. (He seems a worldly, capable, well-placed 
 fellow, tell Dick.) He said these things are 
 better so at least for the present. I know you 
 will be glad to learn that I have a man here 
 
 99 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 whom I care to follow. It is the man of whom 
 Dick told us, and I am constantly hearing so 
 much. I think him the simplest yet grandest 
 fellow since Denton, the professor who died 
 during my freshman year at college. 
 
 "'In Memoriam' might have been written 
 about such men as these, c All subtilizing in- 
 tellect ... all comprehensive tenderness/ it 
 conjures the image ! 
 
 " I lost my opportunity of meeting Bax Wef- 
 fold to-day. He called at the mine during my 
 absence, but to-morrow I shall seek him. I 
 shall try to establish the peace you all long for 
 and expect. There arfe grumblings, but no pro- 
 nounced ill-feeling. You will have faith in the 
 work of my hands, I am sure, and in my turn I 
 shall try to justify it." 
 
 His hand moved mechanically over the sheet, 
 like inarticulate murmurs. He was not making 
 words or sense. Presently the pen stuck and 
 spluttered. 
 
 He pushed his chair back passionately, and 
 once more strode to the window. He did not 
 recognize himself. He looked out once more, 
 and once more, his eyes strayed towards Weffbld's ; 
 only this time he was conscious of the gaze. 
 He forgot his long, tranquil, simple boyhood. 
 
 IOO 
 
Two Letters 
 
 He forgot he had ever livecf 'lA 'frew York. 
 Life seemed to date frorii ( aV-cirtihi 'Irtfityje'ljqus' 
 morning when he had stood outside the Short's 
 Hotel and heard a man snoring as he looked into 
 that little stranger's eyes. 
 
 His heart throbbed as it had never done before 
 in extremestjoy or sorrow. In that manner he may 
 have grown as much older as it seemed afterward. 
 
 So long as lamps glowed in those distant win- 
 dows, he stood. In that strange draining sort of 
 stare he emerged from the shadow-land of youth, 
 with its beautiful enveloping mists and lofty far- 
 off illusions. 
 
 He touched the great substantial prizes men 
 are aiming for constantly. He drifted far away 
 from his mother ; but it was the waters of experi- 
 ence he set sail on, and the currents will bring us 
 back again. 
 
 The loneliness crept over, clung to, sank in 
 him. The world receded. Hope alone was left 
 a little battle-field he stood alone on, with no 
 shield, no sword, save his gentle heart. 
 
 The issues became enormous. Once this is 
 only human nature their height became satiri- 
 cally marred : 
 
 " Yer can't guess the great josh they 're heving 
 on yer, Weffold's way. There 's a form of ill 
 feeling jealousy, as some might call it 'tween 
 them and the Garnet men. They call yer c Jack 
 
 101 
 
In the C-ountry God Forgot 
 
 the. Giant; Killer/ down to there" and then 
 choruses -or' h-;p. mighty laughter. 
 
 It cut, under the circumstances. Claude threw 
 back his head, as if he were suffering. 
 
 When his eyes wandered again to Weffold's, 
 the lights were out. 
 
 Then he re-wrote his mother's letter, leav- 
 ing a waste of charred and smudgy paper for Mrs. 
 Fitzsimmons to clear away the next day. He 
 tried to crowd the debris on to his candle-stick 
 with a certain gentle sensitiveness to his fingers, 
 as if it were something which once had lived. 
 
 His hand moved mechanically rather than 
 was- bid. Eventually he saw that he had written 
 barely half a sheet. There seemed a certain vague 
 significance to the merely accidental fact that it was 
 written on the letter-head of their great syndicate. 
 
 "DEAR MOTHER, I am singularly tired to-night, so 
 I won't try to bore you. The dear old home is as usual, 
 I trust ? For the rest, Dick will read his letter to you 
 yet, on a day like this, I want to add one line or 
 so of my own to prove the gratitude and humble affec- 
 tion of one who owes his past to you." 
 
 He bore down a little on the three letters. 
 Presently he simply added this as if it were part 
 of the whole thought 
 
 " Whatever the future may hold. 
 
 " CLAUDE." 
 102 
 
A BRANDING SCENE 
 
 IT was four o'clock in the afternoon. Great 
 dray horses and heavy wagons toiled up the 
 road warmly. Claude passed these from 
 time to time. The sky was one vast canopy of 
 intense blue with no finely feminine effect in lace. 
 Now that is both poetic and Campbellite, if you 
 knew it. It means clouds were strictly tabooed. 
 
 As for the country where this occurred, much 
 cannot be said about it unless one repeats unto 
 the seventieth time, so I will try to say the little. 
 You should give a child a piece of paper, so, and 
 imagine it to be colored brown and then to have 
 faded yellow ; and on this draw the rude out- 
 lines of barren hills and those immense wastes of 
 old mother earth little children delight in. Then 
 the spear of grass or so is as inevitable as the 
 little house they '11 dot down on the bleakest 
 desert or highest hill the little house we too 
 drew when we were little children the middle 
 door, and the sloping roof, and the little many- 
 paned country windows, the back entrance to 
 this edifice being ever studiously left out. 
 
 103 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 Claude was on his way to WefFold's. He spoke 
 to a teamster or so as he walked along, and they 
 called back something to him which was rather 
 inarticulate, yet pleasant, he judged. He was 
 rather a contrast to them, and, as he passed, they 
 made some such remarks as this, one to another : 
 
 "He ain't much for size funny how sich 
 little men get all the brains." 
 
 " Dunno as it is brains so much as luck 
 though can't, for my part, see what size hes to do 
 with it." 
 
 " Size hes, I say, since I was borned seemed 
 tuk fur hard draft some kind Brother Josh, 
 now he was little fellow, fell right into snap 
 t' once. Jes' has to set all day on stool in 
 elevator holiday whenever a boss dies." 
 
 After a long while he added : " Wholesale 
 building in N' Orleans." 
 
 " Two story building, s'pose ? " 
 
 " Guess, yes ! " 
 
 " S'pose large 's hotel at Tucson ? " 
 
 " Spect 's something like it." 
 
 "Mebbe higher?" 
 
 " 'T ain't ever been my way to swear on word 
 of my relations. Everything relations tell ye 
 more than likely to be a fill. Take ye to 
 practise on. If it's s'cessful, spring it around 
 likewise. So jes' because Josh said it was eight 
 stories, 't ain't my way to spread his yarn." 
 
 104 
 
A Branding Scene 
 
 " That is a good 'un. Great josher, yer brother, 
 I guess ? " 
 
 " 'T ain't I mistrust mebbe there is buildings 
 higher in New York or Lunnon, but no whar 
 else." 
 
 " Guess, maybe, 'Frisco ? " 
 
 Both laughed. It touched their very hearts, 
 that name. It represented ten times more than 
 London or Paris to them. It was a Carcassonne 
 which was not too far off. Some day they in- 
 tended to go there, some year when the red 
 lights had not burned too brightly, and they 
 had resisted the inclination to empty their hard- 
 earned money into the tills of the Palace Saloon. 
 They had great dreams of the long ride on the 
 train the fairy-land they would pass through 
 in Southern California. It was printed on a fence 
 or hut now and again by that wonderful Railroad 
 Company which their 'Frisco paper caricatured 
 so heavily. But the honor of a great Railroad 
 Company is too immense a subject for me to be 
 responsible for. 
 
 They had ideas, too, of going into some of 
 these wonderful high hotels and saying in an off- 
 hand manner : " Guess ground floor will do if y* 
 please," and then sotto voce, to their Self-esteem 
 and Self-protection " ain't got no dam green 
 sucker this time to make no bon-fire of middle 
 of night." 
 
 I0 5 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 But meanwhile they laughed at 'Frisco. She 
 is the little girl who is before the foot-lights out 
 West. They hear great stories of her ; how she 
 can dance and laugh and coquette and kick high 
 
 far above her staider sisters. And the West 
 goes mad about her because she is their very 
 own. They knew her when she was a baby. 
 They forget the possible shame in the joy of her 
 being somebody. Bad, mad, wild little girl ! 
 
 Then we in the flies see the acting done and 
 the folly finished. 
 
 And we see the little player in her humble 
 gown run forth in the night to some humble 
 dwelling where burns a household fire on a 
 virtuous hearth. And we smile and say like 
 good old a Kempis : " What matter if speech be 
 good or ill ? This is real San Francisco 
 courage and love and virtue. We will let such 
 cities and such women guard their own. They 
 are worthy." 
 
 What matter "if speech be good or ill ? 
 
 The driver touched up the team with his light 
 harmless switching about their sides. He snapped 
 the long thong with the quick hand of a master 
 
 heavy a fellow as he was. His companion 
 shied bits of rubbish from his pocket at the 
 horses' ears. Presently he said, not sheepish, 
 but with good, round interest : 
 
 106 
 
A Branding Scene 
 
 " 'Mother thing I hern lots about in a big 
 city, 't ain't up to country in my way of think- 
 ing. Fellow has to be pretty careful of his 
 actions. It 's the cops. Guess they 're pretty 
 b'lligerent." 
 
 They went on arguing it out. Of course they 
 meant policemen. It occurred to one that this 
 body of men lay in wait for strangers as well as 
 evil-doers, for the innocent as well as guilty, and 
 waged war against them according to its own 
 sweet mood. He thought there o' t* be some- 
 thing to forbid 'em, like vigilance committee of 
 citizens. He s'posed if a man looked cross-eyed, 
 whop ! and he'd go in jail ! It was a vague 
 terror, which hovered over that dream of a 
 'Frisco trip. 
 
 The driver did n't know. Had 'n' hern they 
 was a hard crowd altogether. Fur his part, 
 though, guessed if a fellow kept in fair good 
 practice, and hed no reason fur to feel white- 
 livered, guessed his right arm might 'complish 
 wonders ; if needs be, there was his gun. 
 
 Perhaps in the very team behind this another 
 conversation was taking place. 
 
 It said : 
 
 "There is the young superintendent gone a- 
 sparking Weffold's girl, I guess." 
 
 "Who is girl to Weffold?" 
 107 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 " Mees Bax's sister. Got as pretty a look on 
 horse as Mees Bax's self almost." 
 
 "I knowed the time Mees Bax was a-frighted 
 plum to death at mere sight of a bronco. Hern 
 her sister 'd come, but scarce believe it ? So 
 young Garnet 's soft on the Eastern gel, is he 
 where 'd hear that? " 
 
 "Wai, Shorty drove 'em in together. 'N' 
 Boston Jim responsible fur the saying that he 
 surmised 'em to be man and wife, a-keeping it 
 secret. Something about 'em led him to think 
 on it." 
 
 " Guess that 's not straight from present 
 'ndications." 
 
 " No, surmise not. Boston 's a great one to 
 spin a yarn. Done almos' everything for a 
 livin', Boston Jim. Oncet use ter type-set on 
 papers, and hearin' so much 's ain't true, doubt- 
 less disfiggered his brain a trifle ; but should n't 
 wonder if they made a match on it. Kind of 
 coincident'l like, unless they came together on 
 purpose. Then it 's sure pop." 
 
 " Well that may be. Campbell hes' 'spres- 
 sion covers the case, to my mind. ' Them as has 
 ull get.' 'T would n't have hurt him to have set 
 up to some of the girls in town. Dick Garnet 
 made his money here, and it would n't have hurt 
 this fellar to intermingle like with real popula- 
 tion. S'm mighty fine girls in town. Gal to 
 
 1 08 
 
A Branding Scene 
 
 Weffold's stuck up like, I jedge, Mees Bax was 
 afore her." 
 
 " Don't think Mees Bax kind you call stuck- 
 up woman. Never go t' the ranch for my part, 
 but spreads out lunch or dinner with 'r own 
 hands, after unloading or loading is done, and 
 has a kind word to speak for the missus. Don't 
 call Mees Bax zactly stuck up/* 
 
 These were the men Claude passed from time 
 to time. He took the wide path, by and by, 
 along the barbed wire fence which separated the 
 range from the public. 
 
 He came gradually to the inner yards. Busy 
 hens scurried out now and then, to fly back as he 
 approached them. 
 
 A little sickly, useless calf lay amongst some 
 attempt at a garden. It had a bowl of milk 
 placed very near, and nosed at it now and again 
 wearily. A tin soldier of little Don Weffold's 
 was placed under a stunted fruit tree. He was 
 plainly guarding the invalid. The adobe house 
 he then came across was of a better class than the 
 town dwellings even of like nature, though it 
 was not up to the new-fangled mine building 
 which he was to have had. 
 
 It was dull red, as is natural, and a story and a 
 half in height. The door stood wide open, and 
 displayed a cheery yet cramped little hall. Cur- 
 
 109 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 tains (home-made), such as might belong to some 
 pretty flat in a city, completely transfigured the 
 front. 
 
 It told of that anomaly which alone can trans- 
 form such scant accommodations in remote wilds 
 like this, a woman's presence and a lady's 
 taste. 
 
 Dick had once entered the same little gate, a 
 tramp, a man with barely soles to his shoes ; a 
 blot on the prosperity of the country. The gate 
 was still manipulated by the same rusty earth- 
 filled cans. Perhaps the same let us not go 
 into the subject. The path was very pretty, 
 very short ; and yet on it some rose-bushes 
 with a little faint bloom or so, far apart, were 
 fighting desperately for air enough to breathe 
 and live. A great sturdy cactus grew near the 
 stoop. It needed no rain, no toil, no hopes and 
 doubts lavished on it. It was a queer old plant 
 to the little future WefFold of all. " It no is a 
 plant," he had talked it out to Bax one night, 
 " God no could make, poppie ; him prickles stick 
 God's hands." 
 
 And Bax said nought of the infiniteness of that 
 wonderful God which came to his little lad's lips 
 so often. He knew very little himself. And he 
 had only learned it from love, not lessons ; so he 
 drew the little form near, and said with that mock 
 seriousness so dear to children : 
 
 no 
 
A Branding Scene 
 
 " The cactus is a great clock ; so it does not 
 matter much who made it, so long as we do what 
 the clock tells little boys." 
 
 It was a bright way of getting the child to bed, 
 when the great red-winged grasshoppers went to 
 " roosth " at night on each long, pointed leaf. 
 Don grasped such simple facts and made quaint 
 combinations of them. He never doubted the 
 suggested tie. Often his lone little self he would 
 go out toward the pretty twilight, and see these 
 ugly things which were God's, like himself, climb- 
 ing up the leaves. He watched them wonderingly. 
 Then he would go and stand tiredly against his 
 mother. All his friends had gone to bed, she 
 knew. Something lonely in his little leaning 
 form would tell her: His bed time, poor little 
 man ! Ah ! it is sweet to be one of God's very 
 own a little child in the country. 
 
 Sal wandered out from somewhere soon. She 
 told Claude the Maj'r was off, Lawd-knows-where, 
 as if it were a resort of some kind. Mr. Bax had 
 taken the young lady and his own folks down to 
 the tail-end of a round-up just below. Did he 
 want to see Mr. Bax or the ladies ? Well, if he 
 wanted to see them all, they was down a bit, on 
 the road, where he could see the running around 
 and the hollering. 
 
 Claude walked off with apparent calmness in 
 the direction named. 
 
 in 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 She wondered why a young man like him, who 
 could afford it, did not wear a diamond or so on 
 his hand and more in his shirt-front. In his 
 turn, he tried to solve her reason for asking him 
 which member of the family he was particularly 
 in search of, since all were in one place. 
 
 As he neared the scene ahead, he became tossed 
 and torn, figuratively speaking, by the one over- 
 whelming desire, that they like him. 
 
 He, Claude Garnet, hero of Sunday morning 
 magazines and seminaries, a person not afraid of 
 cops, nor sky-splitting edifices, nor that thing 
 with a woman's fair face for men the gam- 
 bling evil. 
 
 He saw a strange and vivid scene. The sun 
 was not so warm as the blue of the sky. It 
 seemed a diffusion. Underneath, on the little 
 plain which lay between the south hills and Wef- 
 fold's, Claude caught sharp moving views of men 
 and cattle. 
 
 There were ten men or so. They seemed to 
 represent the cow-boy proper, but that is a stage 
 name for him. On his own heath he is a cow- 
 puncher. 
 
 When the little scene was nearing its end there 
 were no cows in sight to speak of. In the dis- 
 tance their occasional bellowing was kept up, as 
 if in wondering protest still. 
 
 112 
 
A Branding Scene 
 
 The men had not dispersed. It had not taken 
 more than half an hour or so, and they were still 
 standing rather undecided what to do. One of 
 them started to scatter the dying, branding fire 
 with his foot, casting furtive glances as he did so 
 toward the ladies. Bax Weffold said kindly 
 then : 
 
 " Boys, you have met my wife. I want to 
 introduce my sister-in-law to you." 
 
 He slipped off his horse as he spoke, and stood 
 in the little group amongst them. Some of the 
 lassoers were mounted still. A few figures, fan- 
 tastically shirted and sombrely breeched, stepped 
 off a bit for their horses, which were standing 
 patiently here and there. 
 
 An elderly fellow answered Bax. He had 
 passed the time of women, but not of wine and 
 cards. It was said he had once done tricky work 
 in some Southern Senate and stepped across the 
 border to avoid the consequences. " I became 
 too popular, boys," he was wont to conclude, 
 rubbing his formerly sleek hands and smiling. 
 Down amongst the cows and the cactus, the 
 glory of our birth-right and the mess of pottage 
 become hopelessly involved someway. 
 
 " Thanks to you, Weffold," he said with that 
 suave charm of voice and manner no frontiersland 
 can bear, less breed. cc No, but thanks to you, 
 
 Weffold. It won't be worth while for Mrs, Wef- 
 8 113 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 fold she has a hard enough time enduring the 
 country without mothering us hungry whelps to 
 boot." 
 
 Bax did not try to speak. He was not de- 
 ceived. He knew it was not Mrs. Weffold, nor 
 the thought of supper, nor any flimsy conven- 
 tional excuse such as that. He had lived too 
 long in Arizona. He had been too long her son. 
 He had fought too long with the thing whose 
 strength he now felt, as men can feel in conflict 
 the strength and passion of their foe. There was 
 an almost irresistible brotherhood in the words he 
 next uttered ; yet these were all : 
 
 "Walk over with me, boys ; come, put up your 
 horses. My tall girl won't take no, I am sure." 
 
 He said it simply, as a man might speak of his 
 wife to his friends. The former superintendent 
 had criticised this once. 
 
 " WefFold shows his country training in those 
 little ways," he said. He was an ignorant man, 
 and did not know the wooden fence between rich 
 and poor, haughty and humble, was merely a 
 mythical one. Many people do not know it, 
 though they long since ceased believing in Santa 
 Claus. 
 
 He stood amongst them. He was not belit- 
 tling his position as their master rather aggran- 
 dizing the purpose of all life. His keen eyes 
 swept the crowd. They did not meet his gaze. 
 
 114 
 
A Branding Scene 
 
 They were looking with shifty indecision at the 
 ringleader, who had once become too popular. 
 They would go to Weffold's if he said so. An- 
 other time they might have gone anyway, just 
 because Bax Weffold asked them. 
 
 Bax's gaze rested on the man in question. 
 This latter did not look so complacent as 
 formerly. His cheek-bones had colored a bit, 
 and his eyes gained a sort of glitter, as if the 
 burden of these many minds had hold of his 
 every nerve and impulse. 
 
 " We 'd planned a little time up-town," he 
 commenced, and someway, at the very thought of 
 renunciation, the thirst became too much for him. 
 His tone changed ; it grew tarter. Every man 
 grasped his bridle at it, and the waiting horses 
 responded instantly. 
 
 " We will put on to Hope," he said, " and 
 see what 's doing. Thanks to you, Weffold, 
 no!" 
 
 They made a fine sight as they rode off. 
 They rode in a bunch, upright, well clad, touched 
 by their bits of color. 
 
 As they passed Mrs. Bax and the little lad and 
 the sister, every hat went off as with one accord. 
 City men could not have done it with more 
 respect. Then they put on to town, a straight 
 line and an unswerving purpose in the cause of 
 
 "5 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 evil. Would Right were able to command the 
 same! 
 
 They were soon lost in a cloud of dust. 
 
 Rel turned impetuously : 
 
 " We '11 walk on. Let Bax overtake us. He 
 looks so funny after his temperance efforts fail." 
 
 " Do they always? " asked Robbie. 
 
 " Nearly always," responded his wife. She 
 wrestled a bit with her own humor. Suddenly 
 she cried out feebly : 
 
 " Oh, Robbie, Robbie, it is almost dreadful to 
 love every outcast and scamp in creation through 
 a child." 
 
 Robbie did not make much answer. She did 
 not even seem to be listening. Her color was 
 more uneven. Now and again she turned and 
 cast a look behind her toward her brother-in-law. 
 He stood a while just as they had left him. 
 Then another figure stepped from the plain and 
 joined him. 
 
 After that Robbie ran on with the child. She 
 startled him into shrill, joyous laughter. 
 
 Mrs. Bax smiled as she heard it, half uncon- 
 sciously. 
 
 116 
 
ON WOMAN "IN OUR HOURS OF 
 EASE " 
 
 CLAUDE hesitated as he reached Weffold. 
 " I 'm afraid I cannot accept your kind 
 invitation to supper. My landlady ex- 
 pects me at home." 
 
 Bax smiled. 
 
 " That is what my sister-in-law calls a munici- 
 pal subterfuge," he said, keeping the gate open. 
 " She has dropped hers here." 
 
 Claude passed before him silently. He had no 
 idle words for this great quiet-toned fellow ; and 
 we are apt to speak idly after dwelling in the 
 city the best of us. 
 
 The front of the house lay in a cool, wide 
 shadow. There was no porch ; only a wooden 
 stoop and some great common chairs scattered 
 here and there near it. The two men made for 
 these, and sat down in attitudes characteristic of 
 them. 
 
 Around Bax Weffold was the constant calm of 
 a man who had been dealt his hand and was 
 playing, but against luck, courageously. There 
 was not much hope in it there never had been, 
 
 117 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 for the matter of that. But there is something 
 almost heroic in laying down losing cards 
 steadily. He was a careful player. Some day 
 he would rise from the table and call for help 
 from God, for there are times when less will not 
 suffice us. 
 
 But just now the element of doom was crushed 
 for the time by the good motive he'd had for 
 gambling. Without that motive his play might 
 not have been so steady quite. 
 
 His head, bared, with that soft, thick, unruly 
 hair on his forehead, was that of a scholar. 
 Under such circumstances, his eyes would have 
 been very handsome and intelligent, the very 
 least one said of them ; but in Bax they were 
 simply and soulfully his own. One grew to 
 know a strange man through them. Robbie did 
 not know what they held until after a certain 
 study. Then it was the plains, some books, and 
 a woman, she said. 
 
 He gave but one look at the face before him ; 
 now the opportunity had come. There was 
 something of the young man with much before 
 him in Claude's position just then. He was lean- 
 ing a little forward and studying Bax Weffold 
 eagerly, in the way young people have of forget- 
 ting hypocrisy. 
 
 His face was pale, clean-shaved, very boyish. 
 He had taken off his hat for some wild idea of 
 
 118 
 
On Woman " In our Hours of Ease" 
 
 manners, which Arizona is not up to just yet, 
 and his hair lay black, close, and rather trim 
 above his very ordinary forehead. Speaking 
 ever so kindly, as authors will, it was the clean, 
 kind face of a gentleman ; but, to quote Miss 
 Laurence, there was n't a single feature significant 
 enough to honor his distinction as a millionaire, 
 though she left untold just what sort of a nose 
 might do it. 
 
 To Bax the simplicity was an almost pitiful 
 appeal. We are so directly young and unneces- 
 sarily responsible but once. It was the stamp of 
 an educated soul, however inexperienced its owner. 
 Many of the young experts and speculators from 
 the East had a far greater dash in their manner. 
 They almost rattled their money through their 
 speech. It is not the man who does this who 
 is familiar now, or was in generations past, with 
 riches. 
 
 " I should like Don to grow up into just such 
 a young fellow," he said that night under the 
 heavenly sky (" star-sown," that is also Mr. 
 Lowell) to the woman who was a component 
 part to his eyes. 
 
 She looked up as they walked. 
 
 "You are paying him the greatest compliment 
 you can, Bax, if you only knew it ; only I can't 
 be that liberal, dear stupid. There is another 
 man Don must grow more and more like, until 
 
 119 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 he is just that image. He is my little child, and 
 my hope is not stunted for him ; but sometimes 
 it almost seems he can't. No one can/' 
 
 These last words fell into the darkness softly ; 
 so quietly, we can call it murmured. Bax had 
 commenced to tease her, to say, " What man, my 
 love ? " in his cattle king, not his husband 
 manner, but he stopped at the wealth her voice 
 suggested. He could not bear to destroy the 
 humor. 
 
 More than this, he knew. 
 
 There were many questions and facts Claude 
 wanted to put to Bax Weffold, things he was 
 either unable to discuss with Mr. Campbell, or 
 Mr. Campbell was unable to discuss with him. 
 He wanted Bax to like him, to be his friend ; he 
 wished he could strike a true note right from 
 the start. But the first words he said had the 
 brand of the tenderfoot on them hopelessly. 
 
 " That was a capital round-up I was lucky 
 enough to witness," he said. " You get used to 
 such things, being a native, but it is quite a treat 
 for a foreigner." 
 
 Bax looked beyond him, across to the hills. 
 He felt tired. In a very physical way he pon- 
 dered briefly on "What is a man's duty to his 
 friends in error ? " Then he said gently : 
 
 " I don't think we can be that presumptuous 
 
 120 
 
On Woman " In our Hours of Ease " 
 
 to-day. It was what my wife calls play-acting 
 for the benefit of my sister-in-law. She wanted 
 to see a round-up, the genuine thing, she said. 
 Of course you have never met her ; but she is a 
 young lady with a will of her own. It is not dis- 
 loyal to say that. She is very proud of it, 
 almost as much so as if it were a new bonnet. 
 
 " There is a round-up on Thursday at Skeleton 
 Canon. This is Tuesday. You see the young 
 lady has been doing some good work amongst a 
 few of the cow-punchers round and about, so 
 several of them invited her to it. Until my wife 
 vetoed Robbie's going, that young person had 
 but one worry, that of inventing legitimate 
 excuses to the two whose invitations she did not 
 accept." 
 
 He dragged at his moustache over a quaint 
 little smile. " I don't know whether you Ve 
 ever been in the same delicate position," he said. 
 " One man, two quarrelling women, and one of 
 them his wife it almost makes one resort to 
 feminine measures. A man would have run, I 
 am sure, but I have been married so long now, 
 it is rather easy to borrow a better method. 
 
 " I temporized toward this result. Our men 
 had finished their rounding work, but some of 
 the calves were still unbranded. I asked them to 
 finish it here. So it was not the real thing, you 
 see, only a very small part of it. 
 
 121 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 " She does not know any better, and a round- 
 up is not the place exactly for a girl to spend a 
 day. You see it would mean that before she was 
 finished. 
 
 " I am afraid you will think," he concluded, 
 "we're not above municipal subterfuges after 
 all ? " 
 
 Claude answered, " No," very gravely ; " not 
 if the motive were good." 
 
 Young people are apt to be extreme on a char- 
 acteristic, and soberness was one of Claude's. 
 Then he was overwhelmed in a measure by being 
 thrust so face to face with his divinity's life the 
 commonplace portion of it. Yet presently a wild 
 and unsought joy came to him over the possible 
 expression in her wonderfully straightforward 
 eyes, if this childish deception on her were dis- 
 covered. 
 
 " But I am not going to deceive you," said 
 Bax. " Perhaps the mine won't need you Thurs- 
 day ? Simmons has proved himself a good fel- 
 low there. Our men are going over toward 
 morning to help the fellows out. I am going 
 too." 
 
 "Why are you going ? " asked Claude abruptly. 
 
 " They need me, or I need it," he answered, 
 smiling, not penetrating the mystery. " My tall 
 girl has n't yet concluded just what excuse to take. 
 You see I spent a year or so in the city San 
 
 122 
 
On Woman "In our Hours of Ease" 
 
 Francisco that is always the city here, and 
 the fogs were more than any one raised here 
 could manage." 
 
 In all their conversation, it was the only refer- 
 ence he made to that leaf in his life. 
 
 " So my women folks found something to fill 
 their hearts and heads for life, but I can't see 
 they are very grateful for it. I am pampered 
 unmercifully at times. Don is n't kept home 
 with greater conscience. This has been a bad 
 year, too. A man gets sick for the rain." 
 
 Claude did not feel the real homesickness in 
 this next. 
 
 " I could not give up going Thursday. It 
 will be my first round-up this year. What I Ve 
 been coming to, Mr. Garnet " 
 
 " Just Garnet, if you please," said Claude. 
 That, too, was very boyish, and was accompanied 
 by a bashful flush. 
 
 " Garnet, is an invitation to get up at three 
 o'clock, to come down here by starlight, and ride 
 a Weffbld mustang over to the camp with us ; 
 to get thrown if you don't know how to ride ; 
 but you do, I am sure of that. 
 
 " To rough it all day ; to try some of old 
 Bill's famous hot bread and not get indigestion, 
 you 're working so hard with the herd ; to see 
 the boys master that wild mass of cattle ; to see 
 starlight fade ; and day come and go ; to " 
 
 123 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 He caught himself up with a little funny 
 impatience. 
 
 " To live for a day," ended Bax. 
 
 A flush was well over Claude 's face again, but 
 this time it looked merely grateful. 
 
 " Thank you, and I '11 come," he said. 
 
 They did not speak then for several minutes ; 
 and in this time a child clad in leathern breeches, 
 a miniature undress shirt, such as is affected by 
 cow-boys, a great collar to boot, and a rough 
 steeple-crowned form of straw sombrero, appeared 
 around the corner of the house. The hat 
 slanted away from his face, and showed it with 
 tender grave little curves, all dyed a very tender 
 comical little brown. He watched them with 
 great wide eyes, and then circled solemnly off, still 
 looking. 
 
 " He looks very much like you," Claude 
 remarked with no other preface. 
 
 " Yes, so they say," answered Bax, " except 
 the hair." 
 
 His love was too great and simple to feel such 
 little home distinctions as this might be insignifi- 
 cant to a stranger. He held out his arms, and 
 said, " Come, Don ; " and still watching Claude 
 and making a wide path around him, the child 
 reached his father's embrace. He had a canton 
 flannel elephant in his arms once gray, now 
 very dirty. It was his sole companion. It often 
 
 124 
 
On Woman "In our Hours of Ease " 
 
 (ay near to his heart. At night it snuggled close 
 to him, borrowing much warmth from contact 
 with the little form. It was part of his every play 
 and hope. He wove quaint, inconsistent little 
 stories connected with its mysterious past. 
 
 He did not seem to mind Claude now. He 
 held on to his treasure with one arm and hugged 
 his father. What he said was aloud, but not in- 
 tended for any pair of ears but one. 
 
 " Me luvs oo worser nor any sing," it was. 
 
 " You should not let your mother hear that, 
 little man," said Bax, trying not to look soft by 
 smiling. 
 
 " Would his mother care ? " asked Claude. 
 
 "Oh, no," returned Bax; "you mustn't 
 mind such domestic hostilities at Weffold. It 's 
 only a way we have." 
 
 " I don't want you to ask him to shake hands 
 with me," Claude said next, when Bax made a 
 gesture toward the action. " I want you all to 
 like me for myself." 
 
 He included the child with no effort at it, 
 and those things soften a parent's heart. Bax 
 did not try to answer the honest little hope 
 in words. He was wont to show his best in 
 actions. 
 
 " I don't know where my women ran," he 
 said. "It's a way they have when a stranger's 
 expected. It 's a trace of barbarity you will learn 
 
 I2 S 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 to excuse, especially when they make up for it at 
 dinner." Still he said to the little child : 
 
 " Don, where did mamma go ? " 
 
 He spoke just as if they were little chums or 
 big friends. 
 
 " Mommie go inside," said the child, " to her 
 own room wi' Robbie." 
 
 " Wi ' Aunt Robbie ? " 
 
 " Wi ' Robbie ayer." 
 
 " You see," said Bax at this defeat, " Robbie's 
 dignity won't support my grand principles of 
 discipline in this matter. I can't make her 
 understand it is all her fault." 
 
 "What is mamma doing," he asked, "making 
 us something nice for supper ? " 
 
 The child thought a second. 
 
 " No, mommie fixer her hair," he returned, 
 after his little halt was ended. He had a very 
 queer, ragged, tender-toned little speech, full of 
 lonely little fancies ; a vagrant little voice all 
 told, as if it belonged to Dreamland. He often 
 added er to conventional words, making quaint 
 little outcasts of them, while the one-syllabled 
 words were prim little quakers. 
 
 " This is very interesting," said Bax, not 
 looking at his guest, yet letting the subject take 
 a certain whimsical form of entertainment, iron- 
 ical and yet droll : 
 
 " And is Robbie fixer her hair, also ? " 
 126 
 
On Woman "In our Hours of Ease ' 
 
 One could see it was a climax by Don's face, 
 it warmed up to the subject so. Its expression 
 was tenderly flexible to moods the one trace 
 of his mother in him. He waved his hands 
 as he spoke in quaint, quick, untrained little 
 gestures. 
 
 " Robbie acter bery naughty," he commenced. 
 " Her pull down her hair, then put up, then 
 when mommie say it bery pitty, her pull all 
 down again an' scold mommie bery hard," he 
 ended innocently. 
 
 "Ah," cried Bax, "I deserve that." He 
 looked so sorry, Claude said, though not al- 
 together for that reason : 
 
 " Please let him go on, I enjoy it." 
 
 A little look passed between them, and they 
 came very much nearer understanding. 
 
 " Then what did Robbie do ? " asked Bax. 
 
 " Robbie her put on a pitty dress all white 
 only no shleeves in er guess Robbie's night- 
 dress ayer ? Mommie lap and say you no 
 in city take dat op." Bax stopped him finally 
 at this. 
 
 " I think hospitality need n't go any further," 
 he said to Claude with what Robbie called his 
 married-man expression some humor and much 
 policy. 
 
 " I am going to call your mother," he said, 
 and stepped off, half laughing. 
 
 127 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 When Claude and little Weffold were quite 
 alone, Claude leaned over and looked at the child 
 a second. It was almost as if he were trying to 
 prove how far a little child can be trusted. He 
 saw the leathern breeches, the soft silky curls, 
 the strange little tan, and through it, beautifying 
 it all, those eyes, where innocence puts to shame 
 distrust. 
 
 So he said : " After your mamma said that to 
 Robbie, what did Robbie do, little man ? " 
 
 " Her cryer bery hard," returned the child. 
 
 While they sat looking straight at each other, 
 Bax came and said supper was served. As they 
 entered the low open room where they took their 
 meals in summer, Claude saw the long trailing 
 vines which seemed to embower the interior, as 
 if it were a fairy room. They literally covered 
 the wire. 
 
 Daylight was all but shut out. A lamp burned 
 on the table, and he saw how clean and tempting 
 it was. 
 
 " This is my wife," said his host, and a woman 
 took his hand kindly. 
 
 To him, she was not a very pretty woman, nor 
 wonderfully marvellous, all told. But he felt as 
 if in time he would like her, and he admired her 
 already, as men who have not been in a wreck 
 admire the survivors. This woman had not 
 
 128 
 
On Woman " In our Hours of Ease " 
 
 only suffered, he felt, but saved also. It was 
 food in a measure for his soul. 
 
 " I am very, very happy to meet you, Mr. 
 Garnet," she said. " I bid you welcome amongst 
 us." 
 
 After he had mumbled a grateful reply, she 
 said (much of Shorty's grand air in it) : 
 
 " My sister begs to be excused this evening. 
 The sun must have been too much for her head, 
 Bax." 
 
 Bax tried not to look vexed and failed. Re- 
 membering Don's betrayal, he felt impatient at 
 them all. 
 
 As Claude took hold of his chair, he saw the 
 introductions were not over. A man stood at 
 the head of the table. He had shaggy, shaded 
 eyes, and cold mouth lines, not hid by his long, 
 prim beard. He barely waited for Bax to finish 
 saying : 
 
 "Major Weffold Mr. Garnet." In that 
 voice all sonship was out. 
 
 He did not stir to extend his hand ; but below 
 the beard a laugh echoed. 
 
 " So you 're the biggest man New York could 
 find for Garnet ? " he uttered. 
 
 Then they all sat down. 
 
 129 
 
CAMP AND A GIRL 
 
 THE morning star, cold and bright as a 
 diamond, had just appeared over that 
 big gray peak to the south of Skeleton 
 Canon. Below all this was a waste of land which 
 lay in immense gray silence. I spoke of the 
 Peak. It was the same old one which has looked 
 down on so much of the tragic that has made 
 Skeleton Canon a haunted spot to the punchers. 
 There the last great scene of the Apache drama took 
 place, Geronimo's surrender to General Miles, 
 in sight of the grave of poor Jud White, who had 
 fallen the victim of an Apache bullet only one 
 spring before. Enough cannot be said for the 
 dawn of peace in Arizona. For the Apache war- 
 fare ever seemed like blood, shed too near the 
 feet of civilization, as if a noble robe were being 
 too insolently spattered. 
 
 Having prefaced this with poetic justice, you will 
 come with me for this one day on the prairies. 
 You will see poor Bax's morning star appear and 
 fade out, and over the long, silent ranges day will 
 roll like a team with a fearless driver, and Ari- 
 zona will awaken again. Great herds will be 
 
 130 
 
Camp and a Girl 
 
 mixed up with the vision ; strange, stalwart men 
 move on untamed mustangs ; words fit only for 
 silence, and only for churches, will blend pro- 
 fanely on your ear. There will be great meals 
 and hearty eaters. 
 
 Suddenly as a curtain goes down in a theatre a 
 moment before you are quite ready, the work will 
 be ended, and the devil's play-house still. 
 
 A son of the sand hills says just this is to live. 
 He was raised on the milk of the cows of the 
 desert, so let us not blame him, and here goes : 
 Old Billy the cook is already astir. His fire is 
 blazing high ; the big coffee-pot boiling. Noth- 
 ing so merry as a coffee-pot on a boil in a 
 frontier country, unless it be the natives corre- 
 spondingly active. A savory odor of fried beef- 
 steaks and sour dough biscuits comes from the 
 Dutch ovens old Billy guards. He sniffs now 
 and again himself, as if well pleased with it. 
 
 He is a weather-beaten old fellow, with a twist 
 to his face that may come from a squint in his 
 sight. It is the way people know him ; but I do 
 not remember exactly now. He would look very 
 rough for a city butler, but he looks very, very 
 mighty out here, where men get very hungry and 
 women are scarce. It is rumored (I cannot 
 swear to this, though) that twenty men may slap 
 his back of a morning, but at the twenty-first 
 rousing blow of good-fellowship, lo ! there is 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 a snarl. That is not so bad for Arizona to 
 have one's temper twenty deep. 
 
 This shambling old Billy prides himself very 
 justly on his sour dough biscuit. It is his master- 
 piece. He is famous for it, as men have been 
 famous for great achievements since time began. 
 It is the only bread the genus cow-boy will eat, 
 and it must be red-hot. We groan, we city dys- 
 peptics, at that. The sour dough biscuit would 
 be a poisonous thought to our knowledge before 
 the barbaric morsel ever crossed our lips. And 
 man generally gets the evil thing which he 
 yearns for. 
 
 Old Billy putters around awhile by himself. 
 He chews toothlessly on his wad of tobacco. He 
 seems as if listening. 
 
 Suddenly a distant but rollicking whistle floats 
 rippling in, and Billy knows that the horse-herder 
 is nearing camp with the herd. Some little note 
 in that whistle tells how good he feels that the 
 long night's vigil is ended. 
 
 The old cook moves mechanically. He is a 
 sort of philosopher, I guess. He never seems 
 very glad or sorry, except when the biscuits 
 burn several mornings, or he is slapped 
 twenty-one times on the back. 
 
 Between his conscientious work on the tobacco, 
 he cries, " Chuck away ! " It was a mysterious 
 vocal symbol. At it all those heaps that before 
 
 132 
 
Camp and a Girl 
 
 seemed but a part of the yellow prairie became 
 animated one by one. 
 
 We are not swell dandies dressing under the 
 morning star. The act of pulling on boots and 
 spurs all at one big tug constitutes the wardrobe 
 and ready-for-breakfast feat of these sons of the 
 desert, the cow-punchers, the devil-may-care 
 sons of nature, whose home is on the saddle, and 
 whose roof is where night overtakes them. 
 
 Breakfast is a play of strength, not grace. 
 Each one grabs a tin plate, a knife, a fork (often 
 an unnecessary luxury, but then we '11 grow up to 
 that), a tin cup. There is n't much Chesterfield- 
 ism in it more a certain sturdy motion, as if 
 each one's very life depended on quick despatch 
 of hot bread, black coffee, and great chunks of 
 beef. 
 
 Soon the cry of horses is heard, and a great 
 clatter of hoofs, as the horse-herd approaches. It 
 is a magic sound again. Plates, cups, all are 
 dropped as quickly as the cry of fire would start 
 a city boarder ; for the cow-puncher takes life 
 seriously. He does not dally with time or duty. 
 Yet you never thought it before, I bet ? We 
 must use The Language, we are in boots and 
 spurs ourselves for to-day. 
 
 The cow-puncher must catch his day's mount. 
 No one will do it for him, and the cow-boy who 
 cannot rope the wildest mustang in that bunch and 
 
 133 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 ride him to a finish would be the laughing-stock 
 of the round-up. " Onery " they 'd call him 
 down here. 
 
 But the sun will soon be coming over Skeleton 
 Mountain, following in the wake of the morning 
 star, and we must be off! 
 
 They go in bunches of five or six ; some to the 
 south, down in the big hollow country, some off 
 west toward Indian Creek, some to the north 
 of Squaw Mountain, and some over to the mouth 
 of Skeleton Canon, and all of them a-riding 
 like mad. 
 
 Hurrah for the good blood in us ! 
 
 And Billy the cook is alone (save once when a 
 girl was with him one day, may be not this one, 
 but that is another story rather a later story, 
 as Mr. Kipling says). 
 
 Old Billy the cook is alone, a vast pile of 
 unwashed tin plates and cups before him and the 
 noon-day dinner for forty hungry men. But he 
 is no tenderfoot, this one. He quietly eats his 
 own breakfast, then fills his pipe, and, sitting com- 
 fortably amid the wreck of pots and pans, he 
 evolves from his experienced brain the bill of 
 fare for the dinner hour ho! but one can get 
 hungry thinking and slowly but easily brings 
 order out of chaos. 
 
 All is quiet about camp. Even the rhythmic 
 
Camp and a Girl 
 
 snore of the night-herder peacefully buried in his 
 blankets makes the silence more marked. Nine 
 o'clock ten goes by, and yet all is an Arizona 
 stillness a stillness almost of death. 
 
 But now a faint dust is seen way south, and 
 soon from all directions comes a low murmuring, 
 followed by an occasional pistol shot. The old 
 cook hears it all. He listens munches a bit. 
 Standing so, grotesque and awkward, it is easy to 
 say his thought to himself: 
 
 " The boys are getting hungry, and are shoot- 
 ing them up a bit." 
 
 Soon the air is filled with a bellowing of cows 
 and calves, and on all sides they come. It looks 
 as though one vast wave of cattle were rolling in 
 toward a tiny beach, where one stands. It 
 threatens to well engulf both old Billy and the 
 " chuck wagon." 
 
 But Billy is not alarmed. The old cows know 
 what it all means, and when the round-up ground 
 is reached, they stop ; and though many of the 
 noisy youngsters rush on pell-mell, they are soon 
 chased back by the swift cow ponies. 
 
 And this vast concourse of almost every con- 
 ceivable color is the round-up. Old Billy views 
 the group; he guesses there are four thousand head, 
 which means a hard day's work for the boys. 
 
 Soon the noise of bellowing almost ceases. The 
 cows and calves, the bulls, the steers, all stand 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 huddled together, wondering probably what next 
 will happen. There is a foreman around some- 
 where. There are always foremen. That officer 
 will be an indispensable enemy until the millennium. 
 That gentleman of the outfit details a half-dozen 
 of his men to watch the herd, and with a call, 
 " Come on, boys," puts spurs to his horse, and 
 with wild yells and whipping and spurring, 
 there is a race of cow-boys for the " chuck 
 wagon." But Billy is ready and waiting. He 
 looks serene, fortified, as he is with a great pot 
 of beans, another of beef, another of " spuds," 
 and a pot of coffee which would supply an army. 
 
 Dinner is soon over ; and the horse-herder 
 stands ready with his two hundred head and 
 more of wiry cow ponies, and soon the boys have 
 fresh mounts, and are off to the herd. 
 
 The little play has no intermission between 
 acts. Now the foreman details his picked men 
 to ride in and cut out the cows with their respec- 
 tive calves. Many an unruly beast tries vainly 
 to dash back, but the wiry, watchful pony with 
 his rider checkmates every move. Very soon 
 the cows with unbranded calves are grouped at 
 some distance from the round-up, and then all 
 the stray brands of cattle are put in another 
 herd. The tired punchers drive the two herds 
 to the big corrals, and when the bars are up, 
 the day's work is done. "The round-up" is 
 
 136 
 
Camp and a Girl 
 
 turned loose, and the tired cattle, who have so 
 patiently stood all day, wander wearily back to 
 their ranges. The cow-boy pulls his saddle off 
 his faithful pony, which is now free to rustle a few 
 mouthfuls of that yellow dry grass which is his 
 only fare. 
 
 Supper then, and immediately to bed, for to- 
 morrow there are five hundred calves in that big 
 corral to brand, and that means hard work, 
 harder work than the miner does whose muscles 
 are of steel. 
 
 What I have to tell you after all this is a story 
 still told on those stretching ranges, a cow-boy 
 story on a city girl. So if you have read through 
 my sketch, you can put in the girl as an illustra- 
 tion in those places where she belongs. 
 
 Now riding like mad (in the form of a fascinat- 
 ing maiden) into the camp at daybreak, or, to be 
 more poetic, just as dawn was forcing the flight 
 of night ; one of the love-sick fellows said that 
 (whom she left, yearning and wonder-struck at 
 night). She impersonated Dawn, we suppose. 
 Now peeping into a pot of spuds beside the de- 
 lighted Billy, or learning how to throw a lass', 
 which her gallant instructor would have nearly 
 given his good right hand to have seen fall on a 
 harmless calf to please her. 
 
 But it did n't. 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 Now riding off at night toward sunset, waving 
 at them as she faded away. And they watched, 
 nearly every mother's son of them, until the wave 
 grew so faint in the distance, that even as they 
 still waited it was no more. 
 
 Old Billy had been stirring his coffee when she 
 came. So the cow-punchers tell it this way. 
 How as the old cook was getting the breakfast 
 for them, a lone figure came from the West. It 
 was not the herder. It came nearer. It had on 
 skirts. It wore a light waist with a great tie, 
 knotted man fashion, which swept out in the wind. 
 A man's hat topped this gallant sight. A man's 
 hat is as fair a sight as you 'd wish to clap eyes 
 on at a round-up, if it has a girl's face underneath. 
 
 Do not laugh you men who live in great 
 crowded cities, and are surfeited of the sweets of 
 life. It is told a man was there that day at the 
 round-up, who had ridden over from his own great 
 range for the mere pleasure of a mass of cattle. 
 In rough language, he was often called the whitest 
 man in Arizona. His name was Bax Weffold. 
 
 This girl who rode up was his sister-in-law. 
 She was a tenderfoot good 'cess to the fact. 
 She wanted to learn every fool thing going, look- 
 ing full into your eyes as she learned. The men 
 who taught her were apt to think afterwards, she 
 was the most beautiful creature God ever made, 
 but probably they were mistaken, for very much 
 
 138 
 
Camp and a Girl 
 
 of the judgment lay in this simple statement: 
 there were no other women near. And the 
 ridiculous things which she said that day ! Even 
 Bax himself was quite surprised by them, and one 
 moment, when he got her alone, said, with his 
 steady stare, only this time with a twinkle back 
 of it: 
 
 " You 'd make a capital soubrette, Rob. I '11 
 sell every steer on the place before such talent 
 goes begging; " having in mind her hoodwinking 
 of Sandy Joe on the analysis of Dogies (which are 
 motherless calves open to impromptu adoption 
 by any lucky brander), when (Bax smiled as he 
 thought of it) he had spent several hours on the 
 same exhaustive topic only the evening before. 
 
 Robbie had flushed first and looked a little 
 nasty, then she had said in a very simple and 
 sisterly fashion : 
 
 Just "Hush up," and smiled defiantly there- 
 after at him during her naive little deceptions on 
 these simple folk. 
 
 And there was nothing stuck up in the girl, 
 white as were her hands, and heaven-tilted as was 
 her chin. Why, she treated old Billy and the 
 rough young bronco busters on a par and with far 
 greater warmth of manner than that young strip 
 from New York in the cc make-believe rig," as 
 one puncher expressed it, who owned half the 
 Garnet mine. 
 
 T 39 
 
ON A CALENDAR (SECONDARILY) 
 
 ACROSS a wide endless-seeming plain two 
 young riders were tearing. In this latter 
 day muddle and warp of sex, it may not 
 be unseemly to mention that one of these horse- 
 men was a girl. See! with the un-Arizonian com- 
 plexion, and the suspicion of gold dust in her 
 hair. The sun had left such a trail in the sky, 
 it is impossible to try and describe it. It would 
 be better to go to Arizona at once, and learn that 
 there can be no exaggeration. As if angels had 
 walked through the West with trumpets, and 
 suddenly, it was so triumphant, there had been 
 a metamorphosis to color of sound. Oh ! it was 
 red and golden, marvellous and very blue. 
 
 The earth was but stubble and cow trails, 
 silence, this man, and a girl. When they had 
 ridden well from under the hills and faced the 
 solitude before them, her voice broke the stillness. 
 It was like a pretty whip with smarting lashes. 
 
 " Are n't you afraid to be on the desert alone 
 with a woman ? " 
 
 He set his chin firmly. He had much to forgive 
 her. At dinner when Bax had said : " Robbie, 
 
 140 
 
On a Calendar (Secondarily] 
 
 I am going to stay an hour or so longer, but 
 you must go back to Rel by dusk. Mr. Garnet 
 has offered to see you home," she 'd asked 
 very coolly, with a fetching simplicity to the 
 dishonest little question, " which Mr. Garnet 
 was?" 
 
 Bax knew it was false, but he rather liked it. 
 He could not look, as Claude did, at it ; he was 
 married. To him, in this experience, a woman's 
 humors did not spoil, even affect, her soul. 
 
 He only laughed inwardly, tolerantly ; and 
 when he, too, rode home that evening alone on 
 the lonely plain, another fuller laugh broke from 
 him. It had been steeped in happy memories, 
 and came out quizzically, as he touched uncon- 
 scious spurs to his pony. 
 
 " She is a great girl," he said aloud, still smil- 
 ing. The pony carried him joyously. They 
 were of one mind, brute and man. Two free 
 things of nature with but one tame instinct, that 
 of home. Stirring whimsical memories came to 
 him as he rode on. He said yet again, " There 
 )s but one greater." 
 
 His friendly plains felt the joy of his mirth. 
 They seemed to roll, to grow into echo, and come 
 back to him from the surrounding hills. The 
 stars crept out and seemed to smile. He tried to 
 think, and became mixed thinking. It seemed 
 Stevenson who had once said for him, " This 
 
 141 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 feeling for parts of nature was much one felt for 
 one's wife." Much, not quite it. 
 
 All Claude could say to the girl's mocking 
 taunt, was " No," after all. 
 
 He had meant to answer it sharply, far differ- 
 ently. He had said to himself that he did not 
 understand her. She was shallow, unmannerly, 
 purposeless. He wanted to tell her how shocked 
 he was ; how he had come planning to find the 
 native woman symbolic of all her Western reputa- 
 tion ; how he had found her really very nice, 
 very sweet, and rather too backward ; how he 
 had found strange qualities in this little stranger 
 that he had never found in the East, where she 
 had come from. Perhaps he had even planned 
 a masterly dissertation on the anomalism, but he 
 could not frame all this when the time came. 
 
 " If I had been afraid," he continued, feeling 
 his dignity demanded this, " I should not have 
 come with you." Suddenly he made a flank 
 movement, attacking her vitally. His success 
 ever lay in his simplicity and directness. It was 
 the sympathetic medium of his life, and com- 
 manded vaguely, courteously, but imperiously. 
 He adopted this route gently almost before the 
 full hauteur of his former tone was accomplished. 
 
 " I think we might be helpful to each other. 
 Will you try to be friends ? " 
 
 142 
 
On a Calendar (Secondarily] 
 
 "Do you like our sunsets?" she said, almost 
 simultaneously to his desire, that she answer him 
 in cold unmistakable words. 
 
 She was riding straighter. She was true, too, 
 only he did not know it. In Chicago truth was 
 not fashionable in their set. Responsive to 
 Claude's appeal was nothing defined or satis- 
 factory. She would not answer him until she 
 knew. It was a certain promise of better things, 
 poor child ! 
 
 " Our sunsets ? " repeated Claude. It was a 
 commonplace subject with delicious undertones. 
 
 " May n't I enjoy the pronoun also ? Which 
 of us stepped off the train first ? " 
 
 She cast him a fleeting glance with a repressed 
 inclination to it. 
 
 " I never noticed sunsets before," she said 
 rather impetuously. " They seemed only a part 
 of the shops and lamps in the city. Perhaps 
 houses hid them." 
 
 " Or hills," said Claude. 
 
 They were so intense just then, it took them 
 full a moment or so to know he had been guilt- 
 less of some great effect in that very mediocre 
 little addition. She was upset by it. Then she 
 started in recklessly again. 
 
 <c A man drew a calendar," she said. " He 
 was a friend of my sister. His name was Sidney. 
 Do you know him ? " 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 " No," answered Claude, hardly knowing where 
 she was leading. 
 
 " He made scenes on it of Arizona life. We 
 thought it immense very funny. I think he 
 is a great artist already. Even Bax laughed. 
 Bax, you know, is opposed to liquor. It was of 
 a sunset, the kind we see most of down here, 
 done in flaming red, and a puncher in front of a 
 swing bar door. He was fast asleep, and the 
 flask emptying by his side. It was immense." 
 
 " Things like that " said Claude. 
 
 " Like what ? " she echoed. 
 
 " Are they for women to see ? " 
 
 She gave a laugh like her cool little voice, 
 only far more reckless ; then went on talking. 
 It was barely a pause. 
 
 " Another picture was of a man. He was being 
 chased by a woman, who brandished a poker. It 
 is our ideal of connubial bliss here. It was a 
 round-up. You 're not much for art, perhaps ? " 
 
 He began to understand her better, a for- 
 giveness for their differences of temperament 
 being uppermost. They were not like each 
 other. It was wonderful being different. These 
 were progressive stages. He was earnest ap- 
 pallingly so, too manner-moral, as it were. She 
 was not earnest. It was like a fan, and she was 
 coquetting with him. He was growing clever 
 quickly this solemn household fellow, Claude. 
 
 144 
 
On a Calendar (Secondarily) 
 
 He thought her very fascinating. His mind 
 provided a thousand things in answer all of 
 some sombre color, which it seemed her vivid, 
 unquenchable fancy must despise. So after quite 
 a time, he said : 
 
 " It is not art so much as the subject." 
 
 He could not shake his old self, you see. 
 
 " What subject P " Robbie asked. 
 
 " The relations between man and woman." 
 
 She looked interrogative. 
 
 " I hold old-fashioned opinions," Claude an- 
 nounced (quite a haughtiness in his manner, to 
 be exact). 
 
 " That the man should be brandishing the 
 poker ? It is not original," Robbie returned. 
 
 He stared at her. He did not know what to 
 say ; as they rode farther, he did not mind not 
 being able to speak. She was riding along beside 
 him, breast to breast, and he could see how, if 
 they kept on riding, the gloom would envelop 
 them both as one, and it was sweet to him. 
 Then their horses started on much faster. It 
 stimulated him to speak. 
 
 " I don't think you want to be friends." This 
 time when he got to the think, her tie blew out 
 and flapped into his face and stayed there, and 
 did not seem to want to blow away. 
 
 She tossed her head and replied (there seemed 
 something like surrender in it) : 
 10 H5 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 " You have no sense of humor. People bore 
 me unless after awhile yet I should like 
 to be friends with you." 
 
 She pursed her lips, as if waiting for him to 
 answer. Then she would decide. 
 
 " I only had a conscious sense of humor once 
 in my life," Claude answered; "may be that will 
 do ? It was when you said to me, c Who are 
 you ? ' at Short's. I wondered why unkind fate 
 had left you without a lorgnette ! " 
 
 " That is not a sense of humor, that is mean," 
 answered the girl, blushing. Yet she did not 
 look really vexed, and, as if glad of the opportu- 
 nity offered, said very simply : 
 
 " I did not know who you were that day. I 
 am afraid we were both taken at a disadvantage. 
 I want you to forgive anything personal I said 
 about your family." 
 
 " I think I enjoyed it," Claude answered, " es- 
 pecially what the seminary girls said of me." 
 
 " Oh ! don't that is terrible," she cried, get- 
 ting crimson. " They did not mean a word of 
 it." 
 
 " No, I presume not," he returned, quite 
 gravely. 
 
 Then unable to carry it on any longer, they 
 laughed. 
 
 " We are making wonderful strides," he said, 
 after this outburst. " I think you must not give 
 
 146 
 
On a Calendar (Secondarily) 
 
 me up too soon. A little completer association 
 and I '11 know when to laugh after all." 
 
 She said " All right," quite demurely. Then 
 this came up impulsively : 
 
 "You have changed. You do not seem the 
 same to me." 
 
 " You have not changed," Claude answered. 
 "At least you are always changing. You are 
 not one person, but ten. How can I express it? 
 May be you can help me out." 
 
 " No, I am tired of myself," she returned. " I 
 do not want to ! " She brought the whole tide 
 of her convictions back to him again. 
 
 " It is you I do not know what to make of. 
 You are greatly changed." 
 
 " If you find this humor more simple, why 
 should you care?" asked Claude, rather too 
 intense. 
 
 " I do not like this humor better," returned 
 the girl. 
 
 He gave it up hopelessly. 
 
 " How have I changed ? Tell me." 
 
 " The other day when we drove into Weffold's 
 on the stage had you known I was I, it 
 would have seemed hypocritical." 
 
 " Oh, no," emphatically. 
 
 " Oh, yes," she argued. 
 
 He drew the reins in vexedly. He could not 
 contradict it. He was woefully true, Claude ! 
 
 147 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 " Well, what ofit ? " 
 
 " Nothing," breathed his companion, " only 
 there is a difference ! " 
 
 She scrambled out of the subsequent silence 
 far more readily than he. She was uninten- 
 tionally coquettish this time. 
 
 " To-day, when I clinked cups with that man 
 at the table, it was not the action you disapproved 
 of, but but " 
 
 " The man," Claude ended for her decided 
 enough this time. 
 
 Her heart beat wild, as they flew over the 
 stubble. It was quite convincing. In Chicago 
 there is a supposition that the heart theory is a 
 myth. 
 
 Once he leaned over and touched her bridle 
 in a queer, protective, controlling fashion. 
 
 " There is a question I want to ask you," he said. 
 
 "On what?" she asked. 
 
 " On my having changed," Claude replied. 
 " Which way do you like better ? " 
 
 " I will run you a race," she gasped, against 
 the wind, her voice half gone, but her cheeks 
 all aglow, and her eyes shining. 
 
 They were nearing home Weffold's then, 
 the soul of old Carl's vast estate. They both 
 looked young and very radiant these two. 
 
 "If you catch me before I reach the house, 
 you can learn " 
 
 148 
 
On a Calendar (Secondarily) 
 
 " Surely," called Claude, as if threatening. 
 
 She went off without answering, like the wind. 
 Her little horse tore the ground, riding long 
 and low. A shout went up from some hand in 
 the field at the sight. It was involuntary. 
 
 Then Claude put spurs to his little mustang 
 deliberately. 
 
 149 
 
THE DEED OF A FADED DAGUER- 
 REOTYPE 
 
 BAX WEFFOLD was used to his married 
 life by this time. It had been a change 
 at first. A woman's eyes see the world 
 on such a different side from men's. He had 
 not known how to look at things before, she 
 said. But he asserted that all men enjoyed the 
 same ignorance until they were married, which 
 pleased her very much, as it sounded compli- 
 mentary to the entire sex, and no doubt would 
 have caused her to patronize him if he had not 
 been Bax Weffold, instead of an ordinary man, 
 a Bax whose life had been colorless as a sunless 
 day until his love and marriage. It is a theory 
 with most women that if men do great good it 
 is because of a romance of some kind, however 
 remote. But Bax had been a rude, native pillar 
 long before he met her, save in the Ideal (she 
 always concluded, bound to have some place in 
 his good). 
 
 He used to say " yes, he knew her at once 
 when they met that evening," which may sound 
 very tame to us old fogies long past such non- 
 
The Deed of a Faded Daguerreotype 
 
 sense; but it was the bread of his life to Bax. 
 They never coquetted with each other, as even 
 married people will ; but were very direct and 
 simple. May be a certain amount of shadow, not 
 gloomy, but merely gentle shadow, had much to 
 do with this. 
 
 He loved her so very entirely, yet so very 
 tenderly. 
 
 " Oh," she said once to him, after she had 
 heard some noble little story about him, " how 
 could you have cared to serve and help the world 
 so, Bax, before you met me ! " 
 
 " You see," he said, " there was my mother." 
 
 For a long, long time she had not answered ; 
 then, when a day or so was passed, she came help- 
 lessly to him. 
 
 " Bax," she said, " there is something I want 
 you to teach me, which I can't learn by myself. 
 I struggle, and struggle, and it won't come to me. 
 Why, I should not be jealous of your mother, 
 dear ! " 
 
 In the days after Robbie's ride and that mo- 
 mentous round-up, there were a thousand calls on 
 his moods and advices. He responded to these 
 light-heartedly. Sometimes off to himself, he 
 pulled a long face, perhaps, and indulged in as 
 sober and solitary reflection as any unmarried 
 man; but, when there were pressing questions 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 like this to answer, we are all more or less wont 
 to put more vital ones from us. 
 
 What did he suppose Claude could have said 
 to Robbie, if Don had heard Robbie say to 
 Claude, 
 
 " You have, but I like you either way " ? 
 
 He did not know. If she had not known 
 what Robbie had said to Claude, she would not 
 have been so curious to know what Claude had 
 said to Robbie, would she ? She merely sniffed 
 at this, until she saw Don was involved in it, then 
 she said : 
 
 "They rode up just at twilight. In fact, it 
 was not too dark to see that Robbie seemed to be 
 running a race, and I am my sister's guardian/' 
 (Bax smiled at little stops like this.) " Her tie 
 was untied and was flying, imagine Robbie ! and 
 her hat was not on her head at all." (Now it was 
 just imagine !) " I think when it gets that far, 
 Bax, I had a right to listen ; for just as they 
 reached the gate, he reached over and caught her 
 bridle. She was laughing, but he looked dread- 
 fully in earnest." 
 
 " I think he is rather earnest," Bax inter- 
 rupted. 
 
 "But," she persisted, "that certain expression!" 
 
 " Oh ! don't," said Bax, " this is n't honorable." 
 She simply swept him from head to foot with a 
 look. 
 
The Deed of a Faded Daguerreotype 
 
 " Honorable ! you ought to know other 
 women/ 5 
 
 " Oh ! I 'm glad I don't/' returned Bax. 
 
 " You know," he continued, " you are match- 
 making, and I won't abet you in it." 
 
 " Marriages are made in Heaven," she brought 
 to bear, indignantly. 
 
 " Well, then, I won't abet Heaven," he cried. 
 " I 'm not influential enough to try. Rel, Rel, 
 can't you see we 'd better leave well-enough alone? 
 My father has seemed bitterer than ever against 
 the Garnets since Claude came." 
 
 " You know," she said, a perfect woman, "since 
 he signed our agreement, it is all I can do not to 
 snap my fingers in his face." 
 
 Bax did not smile. He loved her faults best 
 of all, but the depths of his heart were unfathom- 
 able just then. There was an impending quality 
 of desolation to the weight. He had half a mind 
 to talk it out with her, but when she came back 
 even later, he could not bring that old woeful ex- 
 pression to the superficial happiness in her face. 
 
 She had just found out about Robbie's and 
 Claude's first meeting on the stage. She hated 
 Robbie's not having told her. It seemed deceit- 
 ful. Did he think Robbie hypocritical ? 
 
 He could not say for certain. Once he might 
 have thought so ; but, from his latter experience 
 with women, he thought not. 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Once he had been engaged to a woman, and 
 in the over-gush of first betrothal, she had given 
 him her diary to read, and since then he had never 
 tried to understand women. In fact, after a man 
 reads an article like this : c First meeting : I talked 
 all evening to Lieutenant Carsdell, so Mr. Wef- 
 fold would n't know how simply magnificent I 
 think him/ a fellow is only grateful for getting 
 a wife at all ; especially when he remembers how 
 he was feeling that very night." 
 
 Mrs. Bax was very red. 
 
 " Another place she was so very miserable over 
 having flirted deliberately with this same Lieu- 
 tenant that she would have taken carbolic acid if 
 it had not burnt so much." He looked steadily 
 before him. " I remember the other fellow felt 
 pretty much that way himself that night." 
 
 She put her hands to her face. 
 
 " Oh ! stop. Did you have a worse opinion of 
 her after ? " 
 
 " No, only of myself," Bax answered, quizzi- 
 cally a bit, at which she dropped on her knees 
 beside him, and put both arms around his 
 neck. 
 
 " I should have taken carbolic acid if you 
 had n't married me, Bax, I know it." 
 
 He tried to say the word " Coward," but she 
 put her hand across his lips. 
 
 '54 
 
The Deed of a Faded Daguerreotype 
 
 Between these times, Bax remembered how 
 thin the cows had shown at the recent round-up. 
 It was a simple fact with immense issues. 
 
 He never seemed entirely blameless of the 
 great droughts of his own lifetime. The suffer- 
 ing entangled him pitiably. As of old, he sought 
 to face and unravel the problem. For years and 
 years, his father had been a sort of water king 
 in this frontiersland. He remembered in his 
 mother's lifetime having found this out. 
 
 He had been very little, and the country a 
 mere handful to what it was now. She had been 
 a city woman, ignorant of the State or its resources 
 then, and Carl Weffold had not striven to dis- 
 illusion or enlighten her. She believed him to be 
 powerful, but powerless in these crises of abject 
 famine, until one morning at breakfast, she had 
 leant over and laid something before him. It was 
 an editorial from a town paper near them on him- 
 self. It commenced trenchantly, humorously, on 
 those endless fences he had been building lately. 
 " Whether Devil's work in the Devil's land were 
 not territorial improvement after all ? Further- 
 more, what degree of bravery or skill was attained 
 when the shotgun guard, who protected his water 
 rights for him, shot down the only transgressors, 
 some dying, thirst-maddened old cows ? " 
 
 There is only one thing sterner than a cruel 
 man. It is a virtuous woman. 
 
 '55 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 One night, Bax, clinging affrightedly to her 
 skirts, had heard her say these words to his father : 
 
 " I came a beggar to your gates, and I 'm go- 
 ing back. I would rather die than live as your 
 wife has to, a usurer of the holiest stewardship 
 God has given one of his creatures great riches 
 in a time like this/' 
 
 " What are you going to do with the boy ? " 
 old Carl had taunted, before he saw she meant it. 
 
 " I will take him with me," she said fiercely. 
 
 The essence of kindness or cruelty is the capa- 
 bility of childish minds. The long quarrel be- 
 tween his father and his wife, her cold determined 
 Portia face, his taunts, commands, and entreaties 
 were haze soon after to the little child. He 
 supposed, even knew, it had ended as other 
 quarrels had done after. 
 
 " I love you be mistress stay ! " 
 
 The child, the boy, the man, Bax remembered 
 only, clearly, so keenly, it blistered still, his part 
 in that little scene and others. It was a scar at 
 last from the growing knowledge that he son, 
 only child, and heir was unloved. 
 
 It had been sorry and noticeable enough when 
 he was a little, little child, like Don, for instance ; 
 when he had gone to sleep and wakened ; sick 
 or well, glad or lonely, looking into his mother's 
 eyes. It was bad enough now when the earlier 
 friend was gone, and his own fatherhood opened 
 
 156 
 
The Deed of a Faded Daguerreotype 
 
 the old sores a thousand times ; but in no time 
 had it ever been worse than when he was in his 
 realer boyhood in long pants ; in the very 
 dawn of what he was to become. Other fellows 
 at college he was fourteen or so then wrote 
 letters home to their fathers in loving familiarity. 
 They asked as idly for money as he might have 
 asked Shorty, say. In return they got jolly 
 answers, through which pride stalked with a 
 capital " P," and he had never a line save from 
 his mother ! He grew too old to cry. He saw 
 other men slap their sons on the shoulders and 
 walk off with them, arm in arm. He used to 
 brace his little shoulders and to think how good 
 his mother was. When he read or heard about 
 one's best friend being one's mother, he was 
 always the first to feel the truth of it. But, when 
 we are fourteen or fifteen, it is sweet to be loved 
 by a man. 
 
 He felt that she was suffering remotely, too ; so 
 he never said anything to her, save only once. 
 It was when she chanced to surprise him. It was 
 visitors' day at school, and his school just then 
 was in Chicago. He was usually very lonely and 
 whistled all day during these joyous affairs. But 
 this day they had a caller for him. As he rushed 
 into the parlor, mad with joy, he saw a woman 
 come toward him. She spoke to him and held 
 out her arms. She probably was crying, as 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 women will, on all occasions. But his eyes went 
 over her shoulder searching here and there. He 
 was no hypocrite with her. It was only his 
 coming manhood which wanted his father so 
 very, very much. He thought surely his father 
 would have understood and come. 
 
 Big as he was, she held him in her arms, rock- 
 ing to and fro herself, like one in wretched agony, 
 because his suffering was her own tenfold. 
 She chattered, mumbling, heartsick comfort to 
 him, meanwhile. 
 
 " O mother ! why does father hate me ? " 
 (This, you know, is the rod God uses.) 
 " Hush, hush, my darling. There is your 
 Father in Heaven ! " To herself she said, over 
 and over, only, " I think my heart will break." 
 
 But that was ages and ages ago, and since then 
 this lonely boy had grown and been blessed be- 
 yond calculation ; and to one little solemn scrap 
 of a cow-boy, he, a Bax, long man, was giving all 
 the pent and yearning affection he had once asked 
 for himself. 
 
 The country fell into these states of privation 
 periodically. It was a resurrection of all his past 
 to Bax. 
 
 The first drought after his mother's death had 
 demonstrated his new position in the rule very 
 convincingly. His conscience was no longer 
 
 158 
 
The Deed of a Faded Daguerreotype 
 
 salved by her power at the ranch. He had not 
 known how she had fed the dove of peace from 
 her very casement, until shortly after she died. 
 There had been bitter words. After the scene 
 Shorty described on the stage, he had gone 
 forth, his wife, his child, his sense of right, 
 his faith in himself, and his fearlessness of the 
 world. 
 
 He came back two years or more after. He 
 was then at the physical pass, when dying or very 
 old people say this or that thing does n't count. 
 He said this of pride, of independence, to the 
 last trace of his old, strong self. At his final 
 submission to what was really Fate, but which the 
 world called his father, he had sat before a cheer- 
 less hearth, sick unto death almost, resisting, 
 until a woman's arms had gone around his neck, 
 and her face looked into his face, and she had 
 said : 
 
 " You have to go back, Bax Weffold ; if you 
 love me, go ! Let *s go together." She was 
 too heart-broken to say the real cause to him. 
 She could only add irrelevant scraps like this : 
 " Think of the fine air of the mornings and the 
 beautiful landscapes at night." 
 
 He felt as if he were expected to make a de- 
 murrer, one of his old stock, but he reached in 
 vain for the old violence of wrong and hatred. 
 So, not understanding the change, nor yet caring 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 to deceive her as to their being none, he leaned 
 back and said very simply : 
 
 J c After all, it does n't matter, Rel." 
 
 She never expected him to live until they got 
 there. But when they reached the interminable 
 desert, beyond Yuma, at last, she looked up once 
 to say : 
 
 " Are n't you just cooked, Bax ? " to find that 
 he was looking out of the windows, across the 
 sandy plains and the homely cactus, with such a 
 famished gladness of welcome in his eyes that 
 she sank back silent. It turned out that his 
 spirit was soothed by the sight ; for later he lay 
 very quiet, his face and its little care furrows 
 seeming more tranquil than for many months. 
 
 The reason I tell you all this is to get to the 
 Major's agreement. Bax did not know much 
 about his own physical condition just then ; save 
 to feel that he was unable to earn his family a 
 living, and through no fault of his. For the 
 bitterness over losing his power to support them 
 had been very brief and sad. First, he had had 
 to give up his better place because mind and 
 body and soul all went under; and when he got 
 up again, he was cut out by some other fellow. 
 Then, he had taken anything hard work on 
 the very streets, if you will, and they had done 
 fairly well, he and Rel, till one morning, when he 
 
 160 
 
The Deed of a Faded Daguerreotype 
 
 went t,o cross the threshold, he had simply fallen 
 before he had ever passed it. 
 
 He never realized that he was near dying. 
 He was only aware that he did not feel as he 
 used to like his old self, as it were. In fact, 
 Rel's being the same woman did much to keep 
 his own identity clear. 
 
 They came slowly into Weffold's. Nobody 
 met them at Short's or Hope. Nobody stood 
 at the gate in welcome. The doors beyond it 
 were open, it was true, but bare. Carl's son, 
 the wife, and little grandson waited in the team 
 outside, while Shorty unhitched the gate they 
 were to drive through. They rode in, got out, 
 without a word or look ; save when Bax entered 
 the porch with his silent little family, he stooped 
 and kissed each member of it, as if in welcome. 
 But no one spoke to him. 
 
 The Major came out slowly. His glasses 
 were on his nose, but he did not look through 
 them. He still held the latest San Francisco 
 paper in his hand. 
 
 "Wai, Bax'n," he drawled, "so you've come." 
 
 Mrs. Bax and her boy went to the old room 
 at Bax's intimation. Once there, she did not 
 seek to restrain her outraged sense of fitness. 
 
 " He never even noticed Don," she cried 
 again and again, as if it were a little knife 
 made to stab herself with, 
 ii 161 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 Meanwhile, Bax and his father, separated two 
 years and but just met, faced each other outside. 
 Neither seemed to feel an inclination to sit down 
 while continuing the conversation. 
 
 " Wai/' the old man said, " what air you 
 thinking ? " 
 
 " That there are better ways of getting into 
 your grave than stepping into it," answered his 
 son, not smiling. 
 
 Then he continued almost feverishly : 
 
 " What terms shall we strike, father ? " 
 
 The old man's smile broke into a bitter 
 chuckle. 
 
 " Terms ? If I wanted, I could strike 'em with 
 a likelier looking partner than you." 
 
 " Perhaps," said Bax simply. 
 
 He looked at the old man longer than there 
 was any need for. He tried to frame fit strength 
 for the fierce storm of vituperation deep down in 
 his soul, but he could not manage it. He went 
 toward the door with all the hideous hate in his 
 eye of a man whose hands were longing to seize 
 some throat. 
 
 And then he was stopped. 
 
 " Bax 'n," his father called. He turned, the 
 cords still swollen ; the sick, crushed, feeble 
 wrath still in his feverish eyes. 
 
 " What terms do you want to make ? " the 
 Major asked. 
 
 162 
 
The Deed of a Faded Daguerreotype 
 
 (It was moreover asked gently.) 
 
 " I came down to get work," blurted Bax. 
 " No one else would give it to me. I think I 'm 
 dying ; but you are my father. You ought not 
 to bar a man out for that. Thirty dollars a 
 month and our board/* 
 
 The Major said nothing for a minute or so. 
 Then he asked : 
 
 " Do you want it in black and white ? " 
 
 "Yes," Bax answered. 
 
 They turned to the desk together. It was an 
 old-fashioned piece of furniture, always unfas- 
 tened, but very bare, very neat ; as if the property 
 of some one at an age beyond accumulating rub- 
 bish. 
 
 " As father and son ? " asked the Major. 
 
 " As master and man," answered Bax. 
 
 The desk had stood there by the side of the 
 house in this open room (and itself quite open) 
 for as long as Bax could remember. The outer 
 door was never locked. Different papers had 
 lain for years and years in the little pigeon-holes 
 and compartments, yet no one ever thought of 
 disturbing them. On the top of this desk, and 
 for as long as it had stood there, there had lain a 
 daguerreotype of the old-fashioned order, encased. 
 It was of Mrs. Weffold. 
 
 Yet had desk and portrait both been in an iron 
 safe, they could not have been more protected, 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 so austere and exempt were the Major's posses- 
 sions. 
 
 Bax stood silently beside his father. The old 
 man's eyes fell first upon the daguerreotype. As 
 well as if it had sprung wide open of a sudden, 
 he may have seen the hidden face, perhaps, the 
 wide pure strange eyes which had never known 
 fear of him or other man in them ; the sensitive 
 rounded chin, so like her son's, the whole power- 
 ful yet delicate spirituality, of which he had ever 
 been in awe. It may have been influenced by 
 this, or it may not have been, but Johann Carl 
 Weffold felt in a certain pigeon-hole. He 
 extracted a bundle of papers, neatly bound 
 together by a cord. It seemed to Bax his hands 
 trembled. 
 
 " I want you to share these with me. They 
 air your mother's papers," he said. " I should 
 rather you would n't read them all until till 
 after I am dead. Thet is, the majority of 
 them." With his own fingers, he separated one 
 of these. It was the topmost. He spread it 
 wide from its long creases with an oldish me- 
 thodical touch. 
 
 "It won't do any harm fer you to read this," 
 he said to Bax. 
 
 Bax's hand shook as he reached for it. It was 
 in a cramped, Germanic, unfamiliar hand. It 
 read: 
 
 164 
 
The Deed of a Faded Daguerreotype 
 
 u I, Johann Carl Weffold, do hereby deed to my 
 wife, Louise, a one-half interest in the profits and con- 
 trol of the Range known as Weffold, share and share 
 alike, until death." 
 
 It was almost as pitiable to Bax as a tale. He 
 felt a sick longing to see his mother again, to 
 lend his yearning manhood to her support. He 
 had known but the gentlest side of her. In the 
 paper Johann Carl held out to him now was 
 a double story. 
 
 He did not know which was more tragic, 
 the sickening hold of her pride that she had kept 
 at every expense, or the mightiness of his father's 
 love. 
 
 He handed the paper back in silence. 
 
 Old Weffold dipped the pen into some ink. 
 He set his hand firm on the yellowed paper after 
 the fashion of old men. As the letters formed 
 beneath it, Bax found himself under a spell. 
 He thought of Don as he did so of the time 
 when he, grown old, stiff, paralytic of limb, 
 might 
 
 God ! what love at the thought ! what prayers 
 for the time when he would not be near him, dear 
 little young son, to instruct, save, uplift ! 
 
 Something caught in his throat lingered 
 was still there, when he saw that codicil of the 
 Major's. 
 
 165 
 
In the Coztntry God Forgot 
 
 " A nd to our issue, forever in the name of God 
 Amen Johann Carl Weffold," 
 
 and the later date. 
 
 Even to Bax, college-bred, and foster son of 
 soulless cities, there was no legal absurdity to 
 that. It was almost barbaric in its simplicity, 
 its solemn intenseness. He had been used to 
 it. It was a breath from the time before men 
 bound their honor by seals and oaths. He was 
 used to the name of God without believing in 
 it. Detached from any conventional phrasing, 
 it meant " On honor," nothing more or less. 
 In a land like this where the gun is still the 
 blind goddess why, the word of men is good 
 enough. It holds often enough, and if it does 
 not, why, you are a self-elected judge, and often 
 there is no jury. 
 
 He staggered into Rel that day. He re- 
 membered that. She was sitting on the bed 
 and crying, doing her handkerchief up into a 
 damp little ball to mop her face and undoing 
 it during intermissions. He recognized the 
 mood with wonderful humorous yearning in- 
 dulgence. He took her into his arms. He 
 realized her position to him how angelic her 
 former strength, how penetrating this lovable 
 weakness. He said : " I was cold, cold to my 
 
 1 66 
 
The Deed of a Faded Daguerreotype 
 
 father. He has been more than generous to 
 me. Laurel, tell me, have you ever thought 
 it? Have I erred all through?" 
 
 While she, woman-like (though I blush for it), 
 said nothing relevant. She just lay against him 
 and sobbed and sobbed. He used jocosely to 
 say that he had to gain strength from that mo- 
 ment, so philosophic-wise did she look. 
 
 "That last night in the Hyde Street back 
 r-room, Baxie, w-when we pawned my little 1-locket, 
 I k-knew something good would turn up." 
 
 Part of Carl Weffold's issue sat in the empty 
 fireplace while this was going on ; it seemed just 
 made to fit him. The soot had a novel charm. 
 
 While as for old Carl himself, he watched Bax 
 Weffold stagger, miserable, dazed, branded as her 
 own of Heaven, through the door. Then he 
 smiled. It was not the smile of a philanthropist. 
 It told, yet not all nor of entire kindness. 
 His eyes roamed here and there, to the bundle 
 of papers, laid back just as they were before, 
 as if that one little clause were only a freak 
 of fancy. His gaze travelled back back. He 
 could not detain it. Something drew and drew 
 it. His eyes grew fixed and fearful. For one 
 moment, the frantic terror of ghosts seemed in 
 them. 
 
 167 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 Then he walked out into the air and left his 
 conscience. He walked it would soon be over. 
 It could not pursue him. It was no one noth- 
 ing, old-fashioned, unbeautiful, inanimate. 
 
 Merely a little shabby, faded daguerreotype. 
 
 168 
 
PART SECOND 
 
ON UNPRACTISED "SCIENCE" 
 
 A BIG summer tent was constituting ladies' 
 parlor at Weffold's. It lay east of the 
 burning bricks, which cooled a little as 
 the sun slanted westward. But the sun had not 
 slanted readily. It had seemed to mount with 
 the superb insolence of its power and hold the 
 throne of the sky for long ; very long, thought 
 the tired laborers, who mopped their discolored 
 faces, their toil-marked brows. 
 
 Four ladies stood inside this white little build- 
 ing, saying good-bye. 
 
 One was young Mrs. Weffold's sister, the girl 
 who had come there the August before, and who 
 belonged in Chicago. 
 
 " You really should not go so soon," she 
 exclaimed, yet moving toward the door, as she 
 said this. 
 
 Young Mrs. Weffold repeated : " Do spend 
 the afternoon with us," hospitably. But the 
 short, stout one, who was watching Miss Lau- 
 rence, suddenly decided that they had better not. 
 
 171 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 Her name was Blenshaw. She wore ankle skirts, 
 and believed in woman suffrage. 
 
 " You are quite brave to believe in woman 
 suffrage way down here," Robbie had said. "It 
 is so warm, don't you know ? " 
 
 The lady had argued all the morning forcibly 
 with her. She said it was bigotry in Miss 
 Laurence of an unusual, almost unrecognizable 
 order. 
 
 " Like phases of the grippe," Robbie said, 
 helping her out suavely. 
 
 " Yes ! " the woman had answered ; " principle 
 was not a question of zone or temperament 
 would n't Miss Laurence see it ? but of right." 
 
 She did not know what to make of Miss Lau- 
 rence. She liked Mrs. Weffold. She thought 
 Mrs. Weffold would have been a very nice 
 woman if she were not a fool over that very 
 mediocre child. 
 
 Mrs. Weffold, in turn, used to say often, " No 
 one is worth much who does not like children." 
 It was an unalterable decision, so her opinion 
 repelled compromise. 
 
 The little thin, nervous lady, whose husband 
 was merely a trammer in the mine, had no such 
 violence of energy either for or against in her 
 mind. As she said good-bye to the ladies, she 
 remarked : 
 
 " It seems almost improbable we stayed to 
 172 
 
On Unpractised " Science " 
 
 lunch. We only intended spending an hour or 
 so. We enjoyed the strawberries. It is almost 
 impossible to get such luxuries in town. Straw- 
 berries is very pleasant on a warm day, are n't 
 they ? " 
 
 Robbie looked weary. 
 
 " Yes/' she answered, " watermelons is the only 
 thing pleasanter." 
 
 Mrs. Bax flushed a little. Mrs. Blenshaw 
 held out her hand to the girl. 
 
 " Miss Laurence, you will try and like the 
 country better now, won't you ? " she asked. 
 " As I have been trying to tell you, you do not 
 really dislike it. You imagine you do. Now, you 
 must get oblivious to this feeling. That is real 
 Christianity." 
 
 " Yes, thank you, Mrs. Blenshaw. I am 
 quite a willing disciple, I am sure. I shall 
 become oblivious very shortly, I keep telling 
 my sister. I shall die of Arizona. Is death real 
 Christianity, too ? Now that is the new point, is 
 it not ? " 
 
 She went to the gate with them herself, and 
 stood on the path inside it, watching them recede 
 up the road. Their country boots were dust- 
 covered, white, thick ; their skirts, rough material 
 and common ; their shirt waists, pitiable, she said. 
 She called things strong names those days. 
 
 Mrs. Blenshaw carried a parasol, large and 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 uncouth, like an umbrella. She held it over 
 the other little lady as they walked. 
 
 Miss Laurence smiled to herself, as she gazed. 
 Then she flitted about the path a bit, as if 
 temporizing. She examined a stunted fruit-tree 
 near, trying to wonder if its meagre crop were 
 late peaches or almonds. She spent another 
 minute or so trying to open a tightly closed bud 
 of a little rose beside her. 
 
 Then, with something tangible in view, closed 
 the flapping little gate at last, which Mrs. Blen- 
 shaw had left half open. Afterward she went 
 back to the tent. It was decked with some 
 worthless woman's fixings, which yet gave the 
 necessary feminine atmosphere, so to speak. A 
 cloud of summer goods lay around young Mrs. 
 WefFold. She was working on it. 
 
 Robbie stood a second or so above her. 
 
 " I know that they thought that was my trous- 
 seau," she remarked flippantly, to start with. 
 "Everybody thinks of a trousseau first of all." 
 
 Mrs. Bax raised a darkened, stormy face. 
 
 " You sha'n't insult my friends," she cried. 
 "You are unbearable, lately. You have no 
 respect for anything. It is wicked." 
 
 " I don't know any better," the girl returned, 
 listening, but her expression not changing from 
 sheer graceful indifference. 
 
 "You do know better," Mrs. Bax cried. 
 
On Unpractised " Science " 
 
 "You said that on purpose. It is the grossest 
 inhospitality." 
 
 " Once," the girl returned in the same voice, 
 but with unimpeached powers of repartee, as 
 usual, " a lady invited a country woman to call 
 upon her. Seeing the country woman make 
 lemonade out of her finger-bowl water, the lady 
 made lemonade out of hers also, and drank it. 
 I have always wondered if it agreed with her, 
 after dinner." 
 
 " I won't waste words on you," Mrs. Bax said, 
 white with anger. " You are very sinful, I say." 
 
 Robbie sat down in a rocker at this. 
 
 " I think that is bigotry of an unusual, almost an 
 unrecognizable order," she commenced gravely, 
 with such a faint Blenshaw ring it was delicious 
 mimicry. " Morals are not a question of manners. 
 I may be inhospitable, abominable, ill-bred, and 
 yet be perfectly moral." 
 
 She leaned back and covered her face all at 
 once with a Mental Science pamphlet, that Mrs. 
 Blenshaw had insisted on placing in her hand as 
 she left. Mrs. Bax could not see her face after 
 that. Her chin was tilted and perfectly motion- 
 less, so as to keep the paper in position. 
 
 Presently she said, " I wish my name were St. 
 Laurence." 
 
 " Why ? " answering herself. 
 
 " So it would sound better in the Chicago 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 papers, when they pick up the Arizona c Sun- 
 beam* and see the notice of my death, with little 
 additions such as these : c Chicago, San Francisco 
 papers please copy. New York Journal please 
 note/ etc., etc. Are n't you laughing yet ? " 
 
 "I don't think I shall ever laugh at you again," 
 Mrs. Bax returned. 
 
 " Oh ! yes, you will," the girl exclaimed gayly, 
 jumping up her natural self. " I am awfully 
 sorry." 
 
 " How can you ? " Mrs. Bax's voice was for- 
 giving, but she did not countenance it at once. 
 
 The girl looked rueful. " I don't think I am 
 so very bad," she said; "being dull I like to be 
 entertained." 
 
 Then she took up a piece of work. It was 
 cream, like her own skin, and the nimble little 
 hands took hold of it deftly. 
 
 " I presume people will think me stuck up," 
 she said, "having a new dress for the party. 
 Yet the old one was washed into a veritable rag 
 before I abandoned it to Sal's mercy. I don't 
 know what kind of material the town women use, 
 but it 's a regular country idea. Some tawdry, 
 unwashable stuff, that gets dowdy the first time 
 they wear it. Anything to wear a new dress each 
 party. 
 
 " They always hate the people who try art on 
 rags, a la Cinderella's comforting god-mamma." 
 
 176 
 
On Unpractised " Science " 
 
 She sighed. 
 
 As their two heads bent over the sewing, her 
 voice kept going steadily, in a little overflowing 
 way that she had of talking. It was musical only 
 periodically ; at other times, flat and rather weary ; 
 and occasionally, hard. 
 
 " If I had stayed in Chicago last year, I would 
 have seen some of the country also ; where Elsie 
 and her mother most care to go is on a farm 
 in Ohio. We rest there absolutely one whole 
 month. It is flat, fertile. A river runs through 
 it, shaded by cool, drooping trees ; everything 
 is idyllic, like Browning's verses about the country 
 in Saul. I was reading it this morning." She 
 reached over, picked up a book, and let her eyes 
 fall on a page of it, and then, with one sweeping 
 little gesture, threw it far out of the tent. 
 
 Mrs. Bax said nothing. 
 
 " Browning is a fool, you know. Imagine 
 having written this nonsense for us to read 
 here ! " She commenced reciting from 
 
 " And I first played the tune all our sheep know." 
 
 Her voice was singularly sweet then. When 
 she came to 
 
 " Where the long grasses stifle the water within the stream's bed," 
 she said : 
 
 " There is no such place on earth of late," and 
 
 there was such a homesick strain in the little 
 12 I77 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 voice which said it, that Mrs. Bax knew the 
 yearning eyes looking out of her desolate little 
 tent door held simple, solemn, unanalyzed tears. 
 
 " Do you want to go home, Rob ? " she asked. 
 
 " Some time, not just this minute," recover- 
 ing flimsily. 
 
 " I am going on with my narrative. Then we 
 would have come home in October, say. There 
 would be lots of dressmaking, oceans of invita- 
 tions, driving through the rain at night, breathing 
 the perfect clear air of the city after the clamor 
 of the day was ended, and the whole country was 
 having its dear, provokingly steady bath. 
 
 " Christmas loads of gifts to give and receive 
 h-e-re ! " she laughed. 
 
 " No end of parties. May be I should have 
 become engaged to some college boy. I was 
 quite the biggest favorite of us all with the set. 
 They were so callow, they thought my sinfulness 
 [here she curtsied], wit. 
 
 " Then all Chicago would have said, ' How 
 lucky ! that envious little Laurence thing cap- 
 turing So-and-So's millions. But it always takes 
 a smart man to have a fool for a son/ The older 
 men liked Elsie. There was nothing to disap- 
 prove about her." 
 
 " I am sure they liked you, too." 
 
 "They didn't. I can always tell. Well, 
 gayety would have continued until Lent com- 
 
 178 
 
On Unpractised " Science " 
 
 menced. Lent let us out of that, except giving 
 our dearest friends afternoon-tea without cream 
 or sugan For a month each season I used to 
 embroider an altar cloth for a church Elsie 
 patronized a bit. It was tedious slavery. If 
 they had not been sc iiind to me, I should have 
 torn it every season into shreds. 
 
 "Just this time," ended Miss Laurence, spring- 
 ing to her feet and going to the tent door, " we 
 would be making our country gowns again 
 long, easy, flimsy, darling negligees, Laurel. 
 Imagine, pale, Acadian, greenish ! to wear while 
 we watched clean, well-fed Bonheur cows stand- 
 ing in water " She blurted out her mirth 
 this time between the words, as if Mrs. Bax 
 could n't grasp such a pastoral picture " up to 
 their knees, - just think ! " 
 
 The ever-present echoes carried her laughter 
 back, until it seemed that she and the country 
 were mocking each other fiendishly. 
 
 Mrs. Bax ran a seam attentively. She tried to 
 give all her thoughts to it. 
 
 Then the high, thin, taunting little voice had 
 started in again. 
 
 " So this is your spring not a spear of grass 
 on plain or hilltop, a sun gone perfectly mad 
 overhead, playing the wrong role for every season, 
 swelling bricks which are scorching even in May 
 to the touch." 
 
 179 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 She reached one hand out from where she 
 stood. The tips of four white, scornful little 
 fingers showed against the red adobe just one 
 instant or so, then dropped. " Cattle, horses, 
 men, mad for water. Is there never a time when 
 it will cease ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Mrs. Rel, " and grow better." 
 
 She, no one better, knew the limit of such a 
 worked-up passion as this of Robbie's was now, 
 and she decided to stop it, if she could. 
 
 " Grow better ! Oh, what a travesty," cried 
 the girl. " Why why do people live here ? " 
 
 " There are men for all purposes," the older 
 woman replied. " Unless men had founded, others 
 could not have built. Unless men had discov- 
 ered, others later could not have civilized. Un- 
 less blood had been spilt by some for its entrance, 
 peace would not be enthroned in our land ; say 
 what people will of it." 
 
 " Oh ! " the girl answered to all of this, as if 
 the argument were too large to enter. 
 
 " Do men ever succeed here ? " she asked her 
 sister next. 
 
 "You know they do," Mrs. Bax replied. 
 " The whole condition improves year after year, 
 so Bax tells me. These water famines are all 
 we have to fight now. The Apaches menace 
 progress no longer. Some day, when there is 
 enough capital, immense irrigation schemes will 
 
 180 
 
On Unpractised " Science " 
 
 be conceived, consummated ; men will embrace 
 the possibilities time has produced for them ; 
 and our cattle will see their millennium." 
 
 Her own eyes softened almost divinely now, 
 because it was over some lowly things the 
 humaneness was hovering. 
 
 Robbie said nothing this time in answer. She 
 stood against the post at the door, clad in light 
 slim, graceful, dainty. She would say no 
 more about it aloud. Her feelings choked her. 
 " It was not airing an affectation of civilization," 
 she was saying to herself, " to confess to this 
 strangling over the yearly failure of all resur- 
 rection." 
 
 The cattle were too weak for the giant repro- 
 duction which makes stock-raising countries so 
 prosperous from time to time. The little, stum- 
 bling, doomed calves which survived the first 
 throes of existence, lay peacefully enough shortly 
 after, hollow, never-filled-out little shapes, rebuk- 
 ing Mother Nature. 
 
 " Robbie ! " 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " Are you crying ? " 
 
 "No!." 
 
 " Laughing ? " 
 
 " No, I say." 
 
 " What are you doing then ? " 
 
 " Simply being assimilated, as you were." 
 181 
 
MASTER? 
 
 WHEN Mrs. Blenshaw's timid little 
 companion had said to the Weffold 
 ladies, " My husband says Mr. Garnet 
 has set men to digging a well for the mine," there 
 were several things connected with her statement 
 which she did not know. 
 
 Mr. Garnet's attempt was apt to be very futile, 
 merely a hopeful little effort of his own to reach 
 a spring some old countryman had told him 
 ought to be near the foot of the hill, due west 
 of the great yield. 
 
 " Years ago, there had been a natural stream 
 of water, when the Weffold Valley was being 
 settled up. Old Carl's d'minion could not tech 
 on this." The young superintendent stood over 
 the spot one day with the weather-warped old 
 frontiersman in conference. The latter was spit- 
 ting huge, dripping chunks of ungenteel tobacco 
 right and left. After pointing to the spot which 
 he fancied remembrance dictated as a good place 
 to dig, he regarded it as insufficient, so he made 
 a brown discolored circle about it, which the 
 young master tried to look at leniently, as it 
 might come to mean a great deal to him. 
 
 182 
 
Master ? 
 
 It would not only insure immense financial 
 profit, relieving the mine of the exorbitant taxa- 
 tion, which subjection to old Weffbld's rates 
 entailed, but it would make happier conditions 
 for the people. They bought drinking water by 
 the barrel now and, previous to this past year, had 
 done their little washing with the old refuse water 
 from the mine. The Chinaman on Weffold's 
 own place, in fact, had irrigated with this also. 
 
 Now with the country parched, unfed for a 
 year as it was, the dull, red stream from the hill 
 was no longer a useful element to the landscape. 
 
 The ditches had long become dry, rather deeper 
 little paths than usual now, with a thin cake of 
 mud still on them. Water would not remain in 
 them. It either sunk into the thirsty earth, or 
 did not resist evaporation ; so, when Simmons saw 
 this had come to pass, he ordered it turned back 
 time and again into the tanks, that they might 
 re-use it. 
 
 Claude said, " Very well." 
 
 Now he was forced to do it, but previously his 
 ideas of economy had not been subject to Sim- 
 mons, who was bookkeeper and manager of the 
 force. 
 
 Simmons thought Claude would have been well 
 enough winning a boat race at Harvard, but he 
 was not the right man for business. Not at all. 
 Simmons called it being " too damned universal." 
 
 183 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 Mrs. Simmons did not understand the phrase, 
 but imagined he meant not stylish, or select 
 enough, for a rich man. 
 
 He said that if the people wanted water to 
 wash in, let them buy it like civilized human 
 beings, or go dirty. It was not as if there were 
 no alternative. Claude said twenty cents a barrel 
 in this sort of weather meant going dirty ; and, 
 for his part, money they had made in the place 
 was n't going to be padlocked from it, every way 
 one turned. 
 
 He never refused any reasonable petition on 
 his mercy as steward of Dick's money or that of 
 the others. Once or twice, when Simmons turned 
 a man off for drinking, he put him back again, 
 after a brief period of Mrs. Fitzsimmons's reflec- 
 tions and his own. 
 
 " You '11 have to let up," Simmons had cried 
 once, losing his well-guarded temper, and ham- 
 mering the desk a blow that nearly split it into 
 pieces. He was afraid for his own place a 
 moment later, having never gauged the young 
 superintendent's disposition in that line ; but was 
 resolved to see it through : 
 
 " I won't have my authority thwarted, belittled, 
 before that mob of ignorant laborers." 
 
 " I don't think I thought of you at all, Sim- 
 mons," Claude said, when the outburst was over. 
 " I owe you an apology." 
 
 184 
 
Master ? 
 
 " It was not paying you much of a compliment, 
 dear," Mrs. Simmons had said when she heard 
 it, " choosing between you and a common person 
 like that, and considering him. It was certainly 
 not illustrative of his refinement." 
 
 " That is the most confounded part," blurted 
 out her outraged lord and master, " not working 
 for a gentleman." 
 
 He thought it was an obsolete, coarse-grained, 
 close- to-the-earth Dutch ancestor in young Claude 
 cropping out. 
 
 These little incidents, trivial as one may think 
 them, were rifts within the lute ; Simmons's jeal- 
 ousy of Claude's being above him, and the idle- 
 tongued trammer, who had told his wife about 
 the well. 
 
 She did not know that it was a secret. No 
 one of the listening ladies did. Miss Laurence, 
 the young lady, had taken more interest than any 
 one else in it, if the truth be told. 
 
 She had said : " When they are digging a 
 well, would n't you think the poor dear men who 
 did n't die of suffocation, would die of fright ? " 
 
 That was all. 
 
 But, not ten feet from her, the Major had heard 
 every word which was said. The worst of having 
 persons like the Major around, is that we get to 
 disregard them as wholly human after a while. 
 
 185 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 They become more like the great social evils we 
 are cognizant of existing, but powerless to remove, 
 so it is better not to heed them. 
 
 It was the most unforgivable of the commis- 
 sions against him. 
 
 On a day like this, he often sat for hours at a 
 time behind the vines on the porch already 
 mentioned. This was not far from the door of 
 Mrs. Bax's little summer tent. He could hear 
 the noise of her machine constantly, as if he 
 had but to look up and conjure a picture. Other 
 men might have liked it. 
 
 The very hum was damning to his every nerve 
 and impulse after a while ; he hated her so entirely. 
 He had no cause individually, perhaps, for so 
 doing, except she was a part of his son's success, 
 poor as this was in a worldly measure. 
 
 As for Mrs. Bax, she even knew he was there. 
 Passing in and out, she saw him. She imagined 
 that he was not reading all the time, but she 
 never imagined he was listening or that he was 
 interested in them enough to listen. 
 
 When the trammer's little wife let fall her one 
 independent little sentence, he leaned nearer the 
 vine-clad wire which separated them from him. 
 He heard more, the conversation in which 
 Miss Laurence was so wearied a listener. There 
 was no real romantic interest to her in Mr. Gar- 
 net's digging for a well : " boring " was the word 
 
 1 86 
 
Master ? 
 
 the trammer had used, but it had become 
 perverted. 
 
 Yet when old Weffold straightened up again, 
 he was smiling inscrutably. He often smiled so 
 to himself, when he saw some way to prove his 
 power, some one else's powerlessness. It meant 
 " I will teach them," generally. 
 
 He took a greater interest in the conversation 
 from then on. He heard the strangers go. 
 After, when Robbie leaned against the tent-post, 
 becoming " assimilated," he saw her closely, dis- 
 tinctly. He saw the neatly clothed, drooping, 
 girlish form, with its lively personality deadened, 
 drawn from her for the time ; the pretty, speech- 
 less face downcast, as if she were awaiting some 
 summons : he watched her curiously. She be- 
 came like some one to him. He did not try to 
 formulate the resemblance ; but it was like his 
 wife. He was half afraid of Robbie at times. 
 
 Occasions such as this fanned the slumbering 
 fires within him. The progress of the world 
 without him, even this remote effort which 
 might yet defy his position in the country, the 
 usurping of the public interest by these all- 
 powerful New York rivals, was more than he 
 could bear long. Some day they would not 
 need him. They would be independent powers, 
 snapping their loosed fingers in his face. He 
 would " teach them " beforehand, he said. 
 
 187 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 There was no good or loving woman to draw 
 him from these bitternesses. It was his own 
 fault, in a measure. He had blocked every path 
 of human affection between him and the world. 
 He was working out his life for himself, without 
 God, the fear or faith of hope, the nobility of 
 love. He had had one brief season of fierce 
 animal joy, then his wife's body lay without its 
 soul. He had buried the body, and she was no 
 more. If there were a God, he blamed God for it. 
 If there were no God, it was less bitter, easier to 
 bear, merely the way of all flesh. 
 
 Sitting there that afternoon, he reviewed his 
 own life, in a way he had of doing. Nothing 
 vivid, of strong, enduring nature came out, 
 consoling him over the chasm Death lets yearn 
 here and there through our days. Everything 
 was lifeless, a woman he owned but could not 
 understand ; a pile of riches ; a little bit of a 
 fair-haired child staring at him across his own 
 groaning table. The face may have changed from 
 time to time, but the great, solemn, wondering 
 eyes were changeless. Bax Weffold owned them 
 now. 
 
 He stood up, straightening his limbs. There 
 were times when his age lay in them heavy, 
 remindful, numb ; then he went out across the 
 yard slowly. He saw his little grandson playing 
 by the pond. He saw how he broke the very 
 
 188 
 
Master ? 
 
 back of the child's content. He decided to 
 speak to him. He said harshly : 
 
 " Well, young man, what d' you think ? " 
 
 The child had his inseparable friend, the 
 elephant, beside him. His head drooped. He 
 did not answer ; but, as the old man turned off 
 sharply, mumbled terror-stricken little words, 
 tried to reach him. 
 
 He could not love his grandfather ; but, with 
 all the pathos attached to many cases of self- 
 protection, he had made up his mind that the 
 elephant did. It seemed to insure him ; so, after 
 sighing over his return to extreme isolation, the 
 little fellow commenced playing again. 
 
 But the old man walked on, over his pos- 
 sessions. 
 
 The next morning Claude took hold of his 
 correspondence busily. He felt as if he could 
 accomplish something ; he was even humming 
 a favorite air from one of the old operas. 
 Suddenly he stopped short and faced a cramped, 
 quaint, unusual hand adorning a town envelope. 
 Without really saying it was from Carl Weffold, 
 he recognized the handwriting as one he had seen 
 on some original incorporation papers Dick had 
 left in his charge. 
 
 It was almost impossible to mistake it a 
 conservative, contemplative, accruing hand, with 
 
 189 
 
/;/ the Country God Forgot 
 
 plenty of German blood, of however long ago, 
 in it. 
 
 He opened it curiously. 
 
 It imparted the information, that the contract 
 between Hope and Weffolds for water expired 
 the first of the month before them and would 
 not be renewed. 
 
 That was all. 
 
 Claude saw nothing objectionable in it except 
 the ill will. That was barely tangible, but turned 
 it from a polite communication into an almost 
 fiendish plot to make their poor Dick's rich find 
 a paralyzed power. He did not read doom, but 
 endless reductions from it financially. 
 
 During the last months, money, success, and 
 power had become conspicuously dear. This 
 came flashing through him for the first time. 
 
 Then, with a quick, authoritative gesture, he 
 touched a bell above his desk. It was the first 
 time he had ever done so, and it went ringing 
 through the shops beyond him, almost start- 
 lingly. 
 
 A foreman hurried from them to him. He 
 was standing, waiting to give the order. His 
 face was set a trifle, and rather pale. 
 
 " Let more men be put to boring on the 
 well below us, please. Work must be con- 
 stant on it. I am sure they will be successful 
 after a while." 
 
 190 
 
Master ? 
 
 When the man went out, he winked publicly 
 at one of his companions : 
 
 "Want to warm your hands, lightning-like," 
 he joshed drolly, "jus" go put 'em on the Boss 1 
 office. Something must be a-doing, Jack the 
 Giant Killer has awoked at last." 
 
 191 
 
A DREAMER AND SOME DREAMS 
 
 A"TER a little solitary reflection, he re- 
 solved to mention it to no one, not even 
 Simmons, who perhaps had a right to 
 know. He fought desperately with his own con- 
 ception of what was right. He was more than 
 half in love with Robbie. He had no authority 
 or desire to visit her relative's decision on her, to 
 allow an old man like Carl Weffold to destroy what 
 seemed like a fair chance at great joy in his life. 
 
 On the other hand, the repugnance to any 
 friendliness between them was almost intolerable. 
 So he concluded to go at night-time, when the 
 possibility of meeting would be removed, but the 
 whole principle of this grew wrong to him ; so 
 he went down as usual in daylight, and half-way, 
 ran across the Major, in his light little buggy, 
 riding toward the town. 
 
 He touched his hat as usual, and then held 
 up his hand, signifying he would like the old 
 man to stop. 
 
 The light was magnificent about them ; yellow 
 as the gifts of old Mother Earth to her lucky 
 children. 
 
 192 
 
A Dreamer and Some Dreams 
 
 Claude put his hand on the buck-board. 
 
 " Major," he exclaimed boyishly, yet with a 
 simple uncultivated directness, "what was the 
 real meaning of your message this morning ? " 
 
 " Thet I am going to wean the country," the 
 old man returned, smiling. " Hereafter Carl 
 Weffold's interest will more 'n occupy my time/' 
 
 Claude went off down the road to Weffold's. 
 He smothered hot, hasty, unnatural words, such 
 as the miners indulged in freely. He separated 
 his business and social self after a hard little 
 struggle. He tried not to think of the Major. 
 He was going to see the woman he loved. 
 
 Claude resolved two things later. 
 
 One was to work steadily on the well he had 
 located beneath them. The other was to watch 
 Bax Weffold more closely those days. He had 
 reason to believe the men were not so well satis- 
 fied with Bax Weffold as formerly. He had 
 heard one say one day in ear-shot of him : 
 
 " Bax Weffold is a dreamer." 
 
 And the other answer : 
 
 "As well call him by the other name at once." 
 
 " What is it ? " 
 
 "A fool." 
 
 He even imagined Bax was shielding his father 
 behind his own former popularity those days. 
 13 193 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 He wished he, himself, were older, worthier, to 
 be Bax's friend. 
 
 But there was something unintelligible between 
 them that spring. Afterwards, he knew it was 
 sorrow, but then he called it a different tongue, as if 
 he had presumed to interpret voices of the field : 
 
 God's man of the field Bax was. 
 
 But to tell Bax's story, we must go back a bit 
 in his history to the winter before. It was one 
 of the old, unyielding, tormenting seasons, which 
 opened every sore in his life, when the ground 
 lay blistered ; when cattle died ; when day after 
 day, they were to toil and yet receive not. With 
 spring, great sand storms swept the very face of 
 creation, tauntingly. 
 
 Yet, in this very barrenness, in all the unconquer- 
 able desolation of nature, Bax's long dream grew 
 more real to him like a sterile field about to break 
 and bear at last. Against every impulse of physical 
 determination, he toiled early and late in the field. 
 Mornings you could see him riding far off one 
 with no living being his head raised, his chest 
 filled, his whole gaunt, lofty figure gaining a pas- 
 sion from the very needs of the coming day. 
 
 So a lover might woo all nature ; now bending 
 low in coaxing whispers, now calling to her 
 masterfully. 
 
 But it was all of no avail. 
 194 
 
A Dreamer and Some Dreams 
 
 Seeing it was no use hoping, he went to work 
 doggedly. He had never felt so before ; even in 
 his courtship. The labor was glorified for the 
 time. He did not know what it was at first, a 
 sort of spiritual golden dawn by which all life 
 became more lofty. 
 
 In reality, life was approaching its climax, and 
 his Sangreal yet unwon. 
 
 There were moments when even his wife 
 seemed to intrude on some heart-work he 
 cherished. Presently, his health wore beneath it, 
 like a rock worn smooth by the sea. Sometimes 
 a desire possessed him like the little sobbing 
 spirit of a child. He called it weakness, grad- 
 ually a little child's sorry weakness, never cured, 
 because the little thing he had once been was no 
 one different^ only the former little creature lost 
 in him, grown. 
 
 He wanted to make his father love him. He 
 had wanted his father's love all his life, now if 
 only to carry into that camp beyond him, to 
 prove himself before great judges a conqueror on 
 earth. (All men are dreamers, or stalwart 
 punchers ; but this was both dream and folly, 
 save as eternity may judge it.) So the unfriendly 
 faces of men were turned for the first time toward 
 him, yet in vain. Rel said more than once, " You 
 are not listening. Of what are you thinking, 
 Bax ? " but he did not heed her. The love he 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 bore her, received from his child, had made all 
 the stronger a yearning within him to embrace 
 all creation as his friend. 
 
 A good doctor would have said, " Be careful/' 
 When the dream received its first awakening 
 jar, he broke without being able to suffer. It 
 was then springtime, an afternoon when Robbie 
 had heard tentative, rambling rumors from Claude 
 about the country. 
 
 Bax was coming up from the lower fields near 
 nightfall. Not a laborer had slaved through the 
 famine harder than he. Thanks to his unswerv- 
 ing labor, there was no sign about the Major's 
 acres, save of prosperity. He deserved his " well 
 done," poor Bax. 
 
 He walked on, stumbling now and again, as 
 he traversed the irregular mounds and ditches 
 which marked Lon's irrigation scheme. Pres- 
 ently, he saw the Mongolian before him, bending 
 over a row of stunted vegetation. He looked a 
 sullen creature a rebellion of trampled clay to 
 nature. Yet he had been a kind, smiling, civil 
 fellow enough in other days. 
 
 Bax called: " Lon, how 're you a-making it?" 
 He was in a mood to awaken, to understand 
 that night. He observed the Chinaman did not 
 stir. For a second, he could not believe it. Then 
 the cords swelled out, and he was very angry. It 
 swept through him like a storm. He stood until 
 
 196 
 
A Dreamer and Some Dreams 
 
 it was over. Then he felt more able to control 
 the situation through himself. He was still trem- 
 bling, but he did not do much as you or I would 
 have done. He was of different mould. He had 
 much of the hopelessness of his fatherland in him, 
 with great veins of lovable forbearance. Men 
 absorb such qualities from their mother's milk. 
 It is not entirely individual, second nature rather. 
 
 He knew the Chinaman had heard and repelled 
 him, but he was no civilized gentleman, only a 
 country-bred fellow, used to natural equality, so 
 he did not resist a desire to kick the mongrel 
 into submission again. In fact, he had no such 
 desire. 
 
 He had learned in his country training to give 
 all men an equal chance ; so he turned on his heel 
 sharply and crossed that part of the field between 
 them and, by his very presence, made the China- 
 man look up. 
 
 " Lon," he asked, " did you hear me ? " 
 
 The fellow edged off a little, as if he were afraid 
 of something. He still had a stooping, sullen 
 look to his form, but presently said, looking up 
 furtively at his questioner : 
 
 " Yes, Meesa Bax." 
 
 The American walked off. He wore great, 
 rough country shoes, and they dug into the hard 
 dry earth as he walked. He barely noticed. 
 Once, as he neared the inner gate, a dog leaped 
 
 197 
 
/// the Country God Forgot 
 
 from the shadow somewhere and stretched heavy 
 paws the whole length of him, barking joyously 
 the while. 
 
 Then, as Bax went on in silence, the sense of 
 smell brought his farm-yards to him keenly, like 
 a whiff from his boyhood. By it he placed his 
 ducks over here, huddled by the wind-mill drip- 
 pings. They were silent also, unusually so. 
 There stood the hen-houses he had helped to 
 build, the corrals, the little hay-sheds upon 
 which the turkeys went to roost at night, mak- 
 ing grotesque silhouettes at times. He heard the 
 restless movement of his few home horses. He 
 went on beyond them. He tried not to pity 
 himself, rather to feel brave and hopeful. 
 
 Just then, at the fence which he had to pass, a 
 figure seemed to rise before him. It was Robbie, 
 he knew. 
 
 She did not speak but laid her hand on his 
 shoulder, almost affectionately for her. 
 
 " I had something to say to you," she said, 
 " so I came out when I heard Nero bark. I 
 don't think Nero is a considerate name. Fancy 
 calling a child Judas." 
 
 It was one of her own irrepressible side-tracks. 
 
 He said : 
 
 " You know I have never been superstitious." 
 
 " But this does not involve superstition," she 
 replied. " You are absent-minded." 
 
 198 
 
A Dreamer and Some Dreams 
 
 " Moral superstition, then," he returned, with- 
 out much argumentative enthusiasm to it. 
 
 They leaned, both together, almost side by 
 side, on the corral fence. Her words were vital 
 when they were uttered : 
 
 " Do you know some one is making money 
 out of the drought ? " 
 
 " Making money out of the drought ? " he re- 
 peated, word for word, as if they were new things 
 to him. 
 
 "Yes, Lon's rates have been raised enor- 
 mously," she observed. 
 
 She stood up, on her tiptoes he felt, and tried 
 to peek over the fence before her, as if deter- 
 mined not to say any more. 
 
 He felt her unmentioned hate of his father 
 stronger than if it were uttered, may be. A long 
 shuddering motion swept over his body once. 
 He seemed barely conscious of it. His dream 
 was over, but there was nothing left him save to 
 wait the crisis ; for the tide had gotten mighty 
 while he slept. Thus, these many forces ap- 
 proached July with the rest. 
 
 199 
 
AN INTERLUDE ON MATHEMATICS 
 
 BETWEEN whiles Claude's and Robbie's 
 love story progressed prettily. 
 There were days when they found life 
 an intoxicating dream. The mystery itself, rides, 
 meals, men, were a wonderful part of the delu- 
 sion. Again, perhaps, she would sit with a hun- 
 dred worlds between them, deteriorating, as he 
 watched her, from a perfect yet companionable 
 Venus into a stiff, conventional, little girl-woman, 
 situated behind a thousand ridiculous defences. 
 
 Thus Claude was like all heroes. He did not 
 understand a woman's humors all at once, and so 
 proved his one vulnerable spot, like Achilles. 
 On such occasions, he called her in his heart a 
 coquette, and went up-town later, swearing to 
 call on some native belle instead. And great 
 would be his wrath that evening, and cynical 
 the reveries he indulged in, under the far-off, 
 romantic, glorious stars. This is true, and I leave 
 you all to verify it. When a man has never been 
 in love before, there is only one thing more ex- 
 quisite than the torment. It is the joy. 
 
 200 
 
An Interlude on Mathematics 
 
 May be he would call on some native belle 
 (here is an injustice and to the native belle this 
 time), and then go to tell Robbie of it, trying 
 to enjoy the sick, sore-sort of look which came 
 into her face soon after ; resisting, for the sake of 
 his dignity, taking her into his arms, as nature 
 dictated, and ending the whole tremulous little 
 play at once. 
 
 But something instinctively forbade him. At 
 deliberate thoughts of marriage with her, he felt 
 a sickening sense of unrest and disquiet, as one 
 may feel whose house is sand, but not quite so 
 proven. 
 
 He wanted her fullest, noblest, unquestioning 
 love in return. It must be servant to neither 
 time nor place, environment nor condition. 
 When this seemed hard to critical of her, 
 he despised himself, and felt like a brute, and 
 kept away from her presence more hours 
 it was seldom longer than usual. Then be- 
 fore him, strengthening his strength when he went 
 back, was the union of her own sister and brother- 
 in-law. It created the high ideal again. He felt 
 less would be unsatisfactory, but he did not cease 
 loving his little friend for that. He only yearned 
 over the ultimate result he craved, when she 
 would one day stand before him, come to him, 
 saying this : 
 
 " Not because you are a Garnet, for all you 
 
 2OI 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 live in this deserted, godless place, your loving 
 helpful wife, Claude ! " 
 
 He did not understand her all at once, you 
 see. In less deliberate moments, he seemed un- 
 worthy to be to her all he should. The easy 
 wit, the accomplished calm, and the intermittent 
 brilliancies of manner seemed superior, insur- 
 mountably so. He contrasted her with Mrs. 
 Bax then. He saw how she was easily the pro- 
 totype of what Mrs. Bax had become. The 
 elder justified the future. He often loved Mrs. 
 Bax through Robbie, worshipped Robbie through 
 Mrs. Bax. The quaintness of wit which both 
 shared, the same impetuous play of mood, the 
 sudden helpless appealing remorses, were two- 
 fold snares to him. 
 
 It is compensatory to find these things under 
 a scorching sky. 
 
 As for Robbie, she appreciated the phases 
 independent of their quality. She was even one 
 of the few women who enjoy getting angry. 
 The pent wrath would invariably climax into a 
 fierce little storm, she would stamp her feet, 
 weep, forgive, or be forgiven, and feel uncon- 
 scionably refreshed. 
 
 In other language, she would be good-natured, 
 willing, even-tempered, for days afterward. It 
 was in this manner that she spent her courtship. 
 She concealed no mood, cloud or shine, from 
 
 202 
 
An Interlude on Mathematics 
 
 Claude. It was honesty, and of a bewildering 
 sort. 
 
 The confession was indeliberate, elusive, some- 
 thing you could neither grasp nor accuse her of. 
 If she had taken herself to task, she could not 
 have resisted the concentrating force of their 
 having come to this country, met, loved, known; 
 but her escape from such a reasoning was help- 
 less, feminine, characteristic of woman to a degree. 
 Simply, she was not in love with him. We all 
 believe these non-analyses for a time. 
 
 Then the awakening is delight or torture of a 
 positive and unconquerably triumphant kind. 
 
 Then there was Mrs. Bax. She never said, " Be 
 careful. You are ruining your chances, dear," as 
 older, calmer, more mistaken women might have. 
 Her acceptance of the situation was girlish. It had 
 even a gallery enthusiasm to it, Robbie said, using 
 one of her own small caustic speeches. 
 
 Still, however ingenuous her interest, it was of 
 a married sort, strictly speaking. There is a line, 
 you know. She never avoided maidenly words, 
 like intentions, marriage, proposal. It is merely 
 a change of view, as it were, but it seems tre- 
 mendous before it is accomplished. 
 
 She gave a great sigh one day, when Bax and 
 she were left alone by Robbie, Claude having 
 come and gone. 
 
 " To watch people make such blind, obstinate 
 203 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 fools of themselves is like a continued story, 
 exasperating. I don't think I will be able to 
 stand it after a while." 
 
 Bax told her it was wrong to interfere, and she 
 cried : " Who was interfering ? " The only thing 
 she did not really like about him was his timidity 
 about negotiating, accelerating marriages (matches 
 was the word she used), as if he had been so un- 
 happily married himself. 
 
 He said : " No, not necessarily. Rather so 
 happily married. That was it." 
 
 The soul few men saw, only felt, rose in a 
 fashion to his eyes. They impelled, sought, 
 adored, all three. 
 
 She turned her head away swiftly, with a 
 superficial attempt at not giving in to him. 
 
 " I believe you, but it is illogical," she cried 
 weakly. 
 
 Still, since one unfortunate lapse from reserve, 
 she 'd said nothing at all to her sister. 
 
 It had been quite late, more so than usual. 
 Claude and Robbie had sat just out of ear-shot, 
 under their window, the moonlight flooding the 
 space in which they sat. It was picturesque, 
 sentimental, pretty. Now and again, Robbie 
 had touched some little finger-notes for him on 
 Mees Bax's violin. Then a song or so from this, 
 infrequently accompanied. It was quaint, free 
 little music like joyful fairy hosts at play. 
 
 204 
 
An Interlude on Mathematics 
 
 The air was vague with trembling, pervasive 
 sentiment. When they bade each other good- 
 night, Robbie made for her own little staircase. 
 She longed to be alone in her little attic room, 
 not even Rel this evening. Her heart was astir 
 with its little burdens ; little, I should not use 
 the word : out of such burdens and women 
 nations are made and lost. 
 
 Into this tender scene an almost unforgivable 
 element was introduced. It was the head and 
 shoulders of young Mrs. Weffold. Her hair 
 was negligee, and her form en deshabille, to a 
 startling measure. She was in her night-dress, 
 and spoke with unwonted animation. 
 
 " Did he propose ? " she asked. 
 
 Robbie burst into tears. 
 
 She said it was cruel, cruel, cruel ! Mr. Bax, 
 awakened out of his slumbers, tried to assure her 
 it was not. Mrs. Bax, still en deshabille, sat apart 
 and made impenitent remarks on the subject 
 from time to time. Once she said very loudly, 
 yet not above the tone in which ladies quarrel : 
 
 " If you were n't so disappointed yourself, you 
 would n't feel so badly about it." 
 
 Then Robbie said she was going home. She 
 could n't stand it any longer. Right then, too, 
 if you please ; and, choking and sobbing, made 
 toward her own little staircase, presumably to 
 pack her trunk. But someway it was Mrs. Bax's 
 
 205 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 arms she got into, and nothing would do but 
 they must go off together to talk it over in Rob- 
 bie's room, so as not to awaken Don and the 
 elephant. They were only sorry this separated 
 them from Bax. Bax looked very resigned, and 
 felt he could bear this separation. They amused 
 him, save as to time. He was sleepy ; yet hus- 
 bands learn all these things by degrees. He was 
 almost in his room again, when Robbie rushed 
 down the stairs. 
 
 " Bax, dear old Bax ! " she cried, kissing him 
 with sisterly fervor, " you took sides with me 
 against your wife ; I will never forget it." 
 
 " He always does those things," Mrs. Bax 
 said, very simply, hardly realizing how it sounded, 
 " He knows I will understand." 
 
 Bax was nearly asleep when she came back 
 to their room. He watched her as she moved 
 about. 
 
 " Rel, are n't you coming to bed ? " he asked. 
 
 " No, not just yet," she answered, " I want 
 to talk to you." 
 
 "It must be midnight. You girls have been 
 silly enough," he returned. 
 
 " No," she said, " it 's only eleven. See ! I 
 have my slippers on and this double gown. Bax, 
 listen." 
 
 A fairy lamp burned over the great open fire- 
 place, and by this he saw her go to the child's 
 
 206 
 
An Interlude on Mathematics 
 
 little crib, and kneel down, and fold her arms 
 around it and croon-like over the tender form. 
 
 " Rel, Rel ! " he cried. It was the quiet, little 
 tone which brought his presence to her his 
 mateship to her, one should not mince at the 
 word. How it stirred love to speech within her ! 
 
 " Oh, Bax, it is sweet to have had the joy, 
 my boy ! " 
 
 She was moving around in quick, restless 
 fashion, and suddenly threw herself on the floor 
 by his side. He put out his arms and caught 
 her. 
 
 " Oh, Bax," she said, " oh, Bax, barely God 
 can separate us now ! This is eternal. What is 
 death to such love ? Bax, won't you answer ? 
 We belong to one another we and our 
 children." 
 
 "Yes," he answered, forever, I hope." 
 
 She still kept his hand, but sank down in a 
 heap on the floor at his bedside. 
 
 " Come," he said, " you will take cold." 
 
 " No, I want to ask you something. Bax, 
 how do men propose ? " 
 
 His face softened. Above her head, he was 
 privileged to enjoy her whimsicalities. 
 
 " Once," he returned mock gravely, " a poor 
 fellow must have proposed to you. Why not 
 ask him about it ? " 
 
 " But, Bax, men nowadays are so silly. I 
 207 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 am sure Claude likes Robbie, and may be, after a 
 long, long time, we might induce her " 
 
 " Oh, Rel, now ! To me ! " 
 
 " Well, why does n't he ask her ? Listen, 
 c Will you be my wife?' five words, five silly 
 little words, Bax ! Men are such cowards. As 
 well hesitate and go into foolish and tormenting 
 heroics over c please pass the bread ! ' 
 
 " May be we forget," said Bax. 
 
 " Were you ever such a fool, now, Bax ? " 
 
 He gave a low laugh. He could afford it. 
 She felt deep, happy notes struck by it from his 
 very soul. 
 
 " Listen, c Please be my wife ' " 
 
 "No, f lease to the bread, Bax, not to the 
 woman. One learns that even in school. Either 
 a tone of command or entreaty, nothing ever 
 mediocre. You should remember that, lest you 
 marry again." 
 
 " Well, without the please, then c Will you 
 be my wife ? ' The words sound horribly familiar. 
 Rel, I Ve said them myself, brave and all as you 
 think me. Why, I can see myself rehearsing 
 them now. ' Miss Laurence, please pass the 
 butter. Laurel, will you be my wife ? ' That is 
 very life-like. I remember it all, now. I be- 
 lieve it was my first lesson. It had variations 
 afterward." 
 
 " You Ve making fun of me," she cried. Still 
 208 
 
An Interlude on Mathematics 
 
 she reached both hands upward, and he lay in 
 the shadow, holding them both. 
 
 " No, I 'm not. I tell you, it is like a dream, 
 now, but it happened; and though the gentleman 
 in question grew to be a staid enough sort of old 
 fellow afterward, why, nevertheless, he suffered 
 this temporary aberration." 
 
 "Do tell me." 
 
 " What you would have me say, vain woman, 
 is about the cause. It was very tall, and deserv- 
 ing of any flights like this. Are you coming to 
 sleep like a sensible woman now ? " 
 
 " Bax, did I imagine it once, but years ago, 
 when we stood by the well, and I asked for a 
 drink of water, did you nearly say " 
 
 " May we both drink out the same cup for- 
 ever ? I was equal to it then," said Bax. 
 
 " No, oh, no, that is awful, that is horrid, 
 destroying, Bax; but did you really try to mum- 
 ble something about the water of life ? Robbie 
 imagined Claude did something like that, and it was 
 a resurrection. Still I could hardly believe " 
 
 " But men do," urged Bax. He stretched and 
 laughed aloud with enjoyment. It went through 
 her to every nerve. 
 
 " How did you eventually ask me, Bax, dear ? " 
 
 " Eventually, I dropped on my knee, I pre- 
 sume, in the orthodox fashion, and asked you 
 like a knight of old." 
 
 14 209 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 " No, you did n't, now ! " 
 
 " I wrote you? " Bax ventured, much ashamed. 
 He knew these little things hurt women. 
 
 " Eventually, sir," she replied with a fine 
 assumption of anger, "eventually you never 
 asked me. Bax, how could you have been so 
 lacking ? What if Don ever finds out ? " 
 
 " If I never asked you, how were we married, 
 mein frau ? " 
 
 She laughed now. It was like a ripple in 
 music. They were looking deep into the tried 
 true souls of each other. Through that look she 
 said, still smiling : 
 
 " We understood." 
 
 But Claude had never been married. He 
 could not presume to understand. He felt too 
 uncourageous to try, even in impetuous moments. 
 
 Other times he only wandered as far as the 
 imaginary hedge which separates all early lovers 
 for a stage. Once in a great while he had leaned 
 over oblivious of everything for the instant 
 toward her side. 
 
 Then there would be her mood, perhaps, to 
 bring him to himself again, like a little marble 
 statue, wondering, undecided, chilling ; yet, for 
 one little instant, he had thought it human 
 enough to kiss. 
 
 Of course there were all manner of moments. 
 
 210 
 
An Interlude on Mathematics 
 
 One of these brave, because he was going 
 away, and sure, because he had not seen her, 
 lovely with both charm and fault was when he 
 had wandered one afternoon down to Weffold's, 
 only to find the place deserted except by Sal. 
 She let him wander around by himself. The 
 great vine-clad porch was strung with a hammock, 
 its pillow still dented, where a head had lain. A 
 book lay face downward on the floor. It was 
 Carlyle's " Heroes." 
 
 Claude picked it up, skimming sympathetically 
 the forsaken pages, yet he was not even thinking, 
 perhaps, of Robbie, till he saw opposite this sen- 
 tence she had scribbled a remark in pencil: 
 
 " And now, if worship even of a star had some 
 meaning in it, how much more might that of a 
 Hero. . . . It is, to this hour, and at all hours, 
 the vivifying influence in man's life." 
 
 Her words were a little wandering, ill-written : 
 " I don't believe this." 
 
 Suddenly, obeying a sweeping impulse, he wrote 
 positively next to this, just 
 
 " You do ! " 
 
 Then he left. 
 
 Much of the wasted intensity which was after- 
 ward spent in avoiding the understanding in this, 
 was more than counteracted, perhaps, by the mo- 
 ments which were not so intense. As when he 
 
 211 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 had told a lady before her one day that he had 
 five little nephews, and she had replied : " No, 
 four ! Had n't Mrs. Dick told them ? " 
 
 He commenced to count them deliberate, 
 unconscious, deferential, as usual. 
 
 He said : 
 
 " Mr. Ralph's two Edward's three Mr. 
 Dick's four." 
 
 The lady stared politely ; so he commenced 
 again, starting in at the other end on this occa- 
 sion, as if it would work out differently : 
 
 " Mr. Dick's one Mr. Edward's two Mr. 
 Ralph's four." 
 
 As the lady waited, while he turned a dull, 
 torturing, unexplainable red, he heard Robbie 
 laughing. 
 
 She was saying, in her Chicago way, but with a 
 note beneath he interpreted as kindly : 
 
 "Let me do it. Mr. Ralph's two is three 
 Edward's four Dick's five ! " 
 
 When they said "good-bye," he could not 
 look at her, jest over it, only suffer. 
 
 It would be unendurable, seeing the concealed 
 mirth in her eye. Stung by his misconception, 
 she let him go, and then cried because of the un- 
 necessary cruelty of his position. Don had been 
 the fifth one in his mind at the time. 
 
 212 
 
SUMMONS'S ADVICE 
 
 IT was July the second. 
 The great man of Hope sat before his desk 
 in the mine-office. He was busy over some 
 papers apparently ; but when Simmons, the book- 
 keeper, was not looking, he gave a side study to 
 the seminary handwriting on an envelope. It 
 had evidently been addressed to Mr. Garnet first, 
 with so much space between the Mr. and the Gar- 
 net, the writer had been able to slip in the Claude 
 afterward, without much inconvenience attached 
 thereto. Claude wondered why, as he looked. 
 She had really had no reason, but it gave them 
 both something nice to do. As for the book- 
 keeper, he was balancing some columns appar- 
 ently ; but when the great man of Hope looked 
 especially busy, Simmons, in his turn, made a side 
 study of him. This kept up for some time. 
 
 Occasionally, the eyes of both men wandered 
 out toward the town. There were moments 
 when one could not see it. Great gusts of hot, 
 swirling sand enfolded it now and again, as it were 
 the embrace of some elemental giant. Then 
 
 213 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 there 'd be a blue sullen sky, yet deep with suave 
 hellish beauty, an atmosphere between earth and 
 sky, almost visible, it was so disordered ; and 
 lower, the parched sand-swept earth, as if a warm, 
 whitening, feverish breath were blowing over it. 
 
 This continued to grow as an impression, until 
 Simmons did not try to stand it. He was not 
 made to submit exactly. 
 
 He simply said aloud : 
 
 " I '11 be damned ! " and leaned over the 
 table. The whirlwind went high this time. 
 
 Claude did not give any intimation, save to 
 cover the seminary handwriting entirely now, 
 until Simmons pushed his chair back to the wall, 
 and gave up altogether. 
 
 Then Claude said to the other : 
 
 <c I don't think you need worry about hurrying 
 it along. The end seems to be coming pretty 
 nicely without much aid." 
 
 " I don't know about that," returned the 
 book-keeper, belligerently. He was a big fellow, 
 and the heat made him ill-natured. He did not 
 want to force words with one of the Garnets, but 
 his patience was becoming exhausted. Old Wef- 
 fold had ceased their supply the day before. It 
 was pretty generally known now. He felt 
 enraged, the mere strength in him. Imagine 
 several hundred people, an almost endless stock- 
 ing of good American dollars, one's pride and 
 
 214 
 
Simmons s Advice 
 
 independence, at the mercy of one untrammelled 
 old Dutch fool of a miser. When Simmons did 
 not like people, nor approve of some unexpected 
 trait in them, he laid it to the Dutch. He had 
 become especially fond of this location for every 
 human weakness since he had been associated with 
 Claude. Obstinacy was the word he had not 
 searched far enough for. 
 
 He felt Claude's well-scheme to be almost 
 absolutely futile. After two hundred and sixty 
 feet of boring, they had acknowledged it was 
 almost useless to continue. 
 
 But Claude had not countermanded his order. 
 He said it would only be a day or so's difference 
 at most, and he would like to try it. He did 
 not mean to be antagonistic really, but was full 
 of the sheer, direct, power-wasting effort of the 
 young. We do such things at play, when chil- 
 dren ; but it is recuperative triumph in the end. 
 
 For his part, Simmons did not mean unkindly 
 to Claude or to the mine. He took the whole 
 situation more complexly, that was all. He 
 knew a good deal about the workings of the 
 company also, and if Claude had not been sent 
 in charge of it, he would have rather expected the 
 sinecure himself. 
 
 At any rate, he felt privileged to speak his mind 
 to them. He was an old school-mate of Richard's, 
 a shrewd, capable, yet unfortunate fellow who 
 
 2I 5 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 had been impeded by an early family and such 
 mammoth responsibilities, and he had thought 
 this out-of-the-world appointment a very dispensa- 
 tion from Providence. He was entirely scrupu- 
 lous as yet ; but he was very ambitious, and there 
 might come a time when the line between justice and 
 injustice, selflessness and selfishness in commerce, 
 would not be such an insurmountable division 
 as now. Simmons and his wife were ambitious 
 for themselves and for their children ; and am- 
 bition is not so rigid as honor, nor yet affection, 
 nor yet a barbed wire fence, say what you may 
 of it; yet is it greater. We are close to the 
 field of our neighbor, and there is no division. 
 As we love his fruit more, we love our neighbor 
 less ; while honor, too, goes out the back gate 
 from us, and desire is alone. 
 
 He bent his keen eyes on Claude now. They 
 were winning eyes in the long run ; if the 
 right opportunities were accorded, the eyes of a 
 financier. 
 
 " Claude," he said, " I am going to start a pro- 
 hibited subject with you." 
 
 " Well," answered Claude. 
 
 " I do not like to intrude unnecessarily or un- 
 kindly," Simmons commenced shortly, " but it 
 is not possible you still believe in the ultimate 
 honor of Bax Weffold's actions throughout this 
 affair?" 
 
 216 
 
Simmons s Advice 
 
 " The principles of the belief have been undis- 
 turbed/' answered the young employer. " The 
 atmosphere alone is subject to criticism for a 
 while." 
 
 He had kept his eyes fixed on Simmons, and 
 chosen his words slowly, as if they were reassur- 
 ing himself as well. 
 
 " God ! " was Simmons's only answer, explod- 
 ing from him like patience reaching an end at 
 last. 
 
 Claude felt embarrassed, at a disadvantage, 
 somehow, for all he felt the absolute sincerity of 
 his own words. Then Simmons took another 
 route swiftly. He threw one arm out flat, and 
 tried to talk indifferently. He recognized that the 
 man he addressed was a mere boy in years beside 
 himself, yet his superior officer; also that Claude 
 as Claude was exasperating to a degree; yet as 
 the same unassuming young fellow had walked 
 out of his very house months before, on his 
 arrival, that these same Simmonses might walk 
 in, it was a difficult situation. 
 
 Yet, under the weight of such circumstances, 
 his tone was kindly. 
 
 "You are being buncoed all through," he 
 said. 
 
 Claude bit his lips before he answered. He 
 did not know quite how to deal with Simmons, 
 nor did he like that word. 
 
 217 
 
In the Coimtry God Forgot 
 
 " I have no reason to believe so," said the 
 great young man, simply. 
 
 He looked extremely boyish during his defence. 
 
 " Reason you do not listen to reason," 
 the book-keeper perverted, warming indignantly. 
 " You come here utterly inexperienced " 
 
 " Wait," cried Claude, " a minute. What does 
 experience count ? Experience ! to be so jaun- 
 diced by a bad turn or so, that one puts a micro- 
 scope to one's own brother's motives. Experience 
 is merely cynicism half the time, Simmons, only 
 called by a milder name." 
 
 The book-keeper passed this over. 
 
 " I am not wanting you to see with my eyes," 
 he said, " any more than I want to see with 
 yours." 
 
 He paused here, to take breath most likely ; 
 but to Claude it seemed significant beyond a 
 measure. It seemed to mean Robbie, so he 
 flushed. 
 
 "Think several moments," Simmons urged 
 vehemently, "think, Claude! There is a great 
 deal at issue. You are sent to guard interests too 
 great to be estimated by the ordinary method, 
 the figures of a bank account. The yield here 
 has been tremendous. The monthly profits are 
 too vital a piece of good luck to tamper with. 
 Bax Weffold and his father have been cheek by 
 jowl all year. His efforts in the old man's in- 
 
 218 
 
Simmons s Advice 
 
 terests have been unswerving. He has made no 
 attempt none, or we should have heard of it, to 
 check the wholesale usury practised. All over 
 the country there have been immense cattle deals 
 afloat. You I every one has heard of it. 
 You must be blind no longer, my boy. The 
 man back of every devil's scheme is your hero's 
 father. No one else has capital enough. He 
 has starved out all the little ranches, bought 
 in on several of the great crippled companies, 
 these are your friends, the men you are standing 
 with against your own interests ! " 
 
 He saw Claude's face had turned perfectly 
 white, so he followed up his advantage, politicly. 
 
 " Hundreds are injured by Dick's annihila- 
 tion." He leaned over, more and more in 
 earnest. "Old Weffold is the only one who 
 is not," he exclaimed. " Can you conceive a 
 selfishness which is greater ? " 
 
 " One ! " cried Claude, springing to his feet, 
 " if I condemn my friend without a hearing, 
 making him a mere scapegoat of circumstances. 
 You know what a liar circumstances is, Simmons. 
 I am old enough to have found that out for 
 myself. 
 
 "There was my own brother, a blot on the 
 very face of the earth a pariah a by-name 
 of dishonor in every home in New York, and all 
 through this, Simmons, you know you can 
 
 219 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 bear me out we knew him merely as a gentle, 
 noble, mistaken soul." 
 
 The manhood which had supported him clean 
 through departed as his own trembling words 
 touched the very quivering nerve of that old 
 sorrow. He did not care to let Simmons see his 
 face, so he turned quickly and looked out of the 
 window. 
 
 Slirimons was touched for the time, too. 
 
 Then he said : 
 
 " If you keep up a friendly appearance with 
 these people before the world, your hands are 
 tied legally, socially, in every manner. Sentiment 
 is all very well in a measure. It will not run 
 your brother's mine ; it will not put bread into 
 the miners' mouths ; it will not supply the mill 
 with water." 
 
 " What do you want me to do ? " Claude 
 asked. 
 
 " I would establish my disapproval beyond all 
 doubt," Simmons answered. " I would stop all 
 friendly communication with them ; I would 
 persecute old Weffold as he has you and yours ; 
 1 would wrench his authority from him, or leave 
 his old carcass rotting on his own damned soil." 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 " These things are impossible for me to do," 
 Claude replied, after a second. After another, he 
 left the room. It was not as if he were running 
 
 220 
 
Simmons 's Advice 
 
 away from the decision, as there had been a 
 finality of almost a hopeless nature to his words. 
 After he left, Simmons arose slowly and went 
 over to the young superintendents desk. A 
 letter lay uncovered on it. It was brief, bright, 
 and yet tender. It said : 
 
 u I thank you, more than mere words can express for 
 me, for all the pleasure you are constantly putting in our 
 way. It will be so nice to attend the Fourth of July 
 ball with you. It will make me remember America." 
 
 The inference was droll, piquant. 
 
 Simmons threw his hands above his head. He 
 almost screamed in his impotent rage. 
 
 To himself, he said, concentrating a great 
 deal: 
 
 "God!" again, "I suppose all the great 
 crises of the world would have been just such 
 failures, if the actors had all been in love at the 
 time bah!" 
 
 221 
 
THE CAUSE OF A FIGHT 
 
 THE Fourth of July ball at Hope ended 
 between twelve and one of the subse- 
 quent morning, because several fellows 
 who had had too much whiskey, too little dancing, 
 and only one girl between them, commenced 
 shooting at each other. They aimed conscien- 
 tiously at each other's heads, but missing these, 
 they were arrested and packed off by the con- 
 stable. 
 
 Later, Miss Laurence and Mr. Garnet were 
 walking down toward her home. They quarrelled 
 part of the distance, because he had wanted to 
 drive her, and she had cried out impatiently : 
 
 " Don't always tack something rich on to 
 yourself. It is like a constant proof of your 
 identity." 
 
 Claude said : 
 
 If there were n't a hint in that that she enjoyed 
 ahem ! him more than the proof of him, 
 why he thought he ought to be angry. 
 
 Then, in a sweep of contrition, she moved 
 nearer to him. It was dark, unlit, and the road 
 one of sand. 
 
 222 
 
The Cause of a Fight 
 
 At that he said, as if he had not thought be- 
 fore of it, that a buggy was not a sign of 
 miserable richness ; but she would not argue this 
 point at all. Her thin shoes hurt her feet, and 
 after a while, she said, it made them worse, being 
 white! But he merely laughed, and was above 
 the inevitable wrangle this time. 
 
 At last they saw the little home lights burning 
 for her, and she said : 
 
 " To-day my sister told me a funny story. She 
 used to be very beautiful and popular at home, 
 before she married. You would never think it? 
 I would n't myself. People talk yet of her 
 manner. Unless it is a poor girl who has it, do 
 you think any one notices a manner very much ? 
 It is like a gown which is too expensive for one's 
 circumstances. Well, then, every one needed her 
 to fill out, as it were. Of course, after my sister 
 married, there was a stop to all of that. She 
 simply became an article of domestic furniture, 
 like a stove. Men never have stoves or wives 
 before they are married everything else. In 
 fact, she had not been to a ball for four years 
 when they arrived here. Last year, of course, 
 there was a ball, as usual, a masquerade, on the 
 Fourth of July. 
 
 " You can't imagine what a funny thing hap- 
 pened ? She could not stand it. She stole off 
 and went, never even told Bax about it. Of 
 
 223 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 course it would have been immense fun if a girl 
 had done it. But, after all her trouble, she was 
 the sickest person of her pleasure just think ! 
 Then they had that other baby, and she suffered 
 every step she danced. 
 
 " Then she went home early but it is rather 
 sad, is n't it ? " 
 
 " Yes," he answered, " very poor Mrs. Bax." 
 
 " She told how she stumbled back, half scream- 
 ing (she was so afraid for the baby), and how 
 Bax stood, as if he were crazed, by the gate, afraid 
 she had run away from him. Of course there 
 was a reconciliation scene, but she said he did not 
 blame her, only was more tender, more helpful 
 afterward, and she said, for her part, the old folly 
 died forever that night. 
 
 " Don't you see any thing to laugh at in it ? " 
 
 The young face she was peering at through the 
 darkness was still, almost holy in its solemnity. 
 
 " I think it is realizing Heaven to love like 
 that," he said. 
 
 She went in half-frightened, stirred to a throb- 
 bing sort of response to his voice. 
 
 Bax was waiting up for her. She felt grateful 
 for the kindness in it, just as a little child might 
 have for expected warmth and welcome. He 
 was sitting at a table covered with writing and 
 magazines, out on the closed-in porch. It was 
 
 224 
 
The Cause of a Fight 
 
 quite a large sort of room, and was all dark in a 
 sense, save just where he was sitting. There the 
 candle threw a light just around him, sombrely. 
 Robbie went in, across to him, and, sitting on 
 the arm of the chair he was occupying, put her 
 arm around his neck. He pulled her head 
 down and kissed it. Then she went over to 
 the comfortable little lounge, which was getting 
 so wofully shabby lately, and sat there staring 
 at him. She was in the shadow, too, but he 
 grasped the outlines appreciatively, the now 
 rather slim, dainty form, that absolute possession 
 which ennui sometimes held of the really mobile 
 little face, the robes which clung so affectionately 
 to her. 
 
 He said : " Well, little girl, are you glad to 
 be back to the nest again?" 
 
 She answered : " Yes ! " like a little sigh. 
 
 Bax kept staring at her quizzically. He said : 
 
 " I don't know much about parties ; but I 
 don't imagine you enjoyed yourself. I think 
 Rel has told me it is when the men don't dance 
 with girls that they don't have a good time ? " 
 
 She cast him a daintily annihilating look, and, 
 with one desperate little motion, threw the deeper 
 mood off her, as if it had been a cloak. She came, 
 smiling, radiant, mocking, out of it. Her prim 
 hair lent itself to the madness ; a curl or so fell 
 out of place. Her eyes were dazzling. 
 T 5 225 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 She moved around noiselessly on the worn 
 old boards. She dipped, swung, saluted imagi- 
 nary partners, as she went. Her lips kept tune 
 to the wild, rollicking little music. 
 
 Suddenly, toward the end of this performance, 
 the voice broke out low, yet sure, glad, clear, 
 like a merry wind-up : 
 
 " Ladies, left hand to your sonnies ! 
 Alaman ! grand right and left ! 
 Balance all and swing your honeys ! 
 Pick 'em up and feel their heft ! " 
 
 She swept a grand curtsey all at once. 
 
 He applauded softly. 
 
 " I take it back ! I take it back," he called. 
 
 " Oh, such a ball ! " she cried, and fell back 
 laughing and panting. " The American flag here. 
 The American flag there. The American flag as 
 guest of honor ! Thus the fact that the walls 
 were not plastered not even painted, in truth 
 quite boardy was hid. Girls in red, white, and 
 blue ; some in red, cream, and green ; some in 
 white, blue, and pink ; the inevitably accom- 
 plished error. At first bashfulness of almost a 
 painful sort; one never thought they would 
 overcome it. On one side of the floor, nervous, 
 carefully toiletted females, such toilettes ! Mine 
 was the only one that did not wrinkle." 
 
 " Robbie ! " he interrupted reprovingly. 
 226 
 
The Cause of a Fight 
 
 She caught the gleam back of his sternness, and 
 gave him an airy little toss. 
 
 " Don't you like me to be honest ? " 
 
 " No, I like you womanly best of all." 
 
 Then she said : 
 
 " Oh, that is it ! You like us to preserve our 
 individuality by not deviating from storytelling ? " 
 
 It was a labored, lofty little speech, and he 
 appeared quite crushed by it, so she picked up 
 the light thread of her narration again. 
 
 " The row of chairs on the other side of the 
 hall was quite empty. The heroes of the occa- 
 sion were all clinging to the posts around the 
 door, as if they were frightened. Then a few 
 baby buggies appeared. That was quite an in- 
 novation. They were wheeled toward the edge 
 of the floor. Claude and I had a quarrel about 
 it. He said the mothers could not have gone 
 without the babies. I said, then all should have 
 stayed at home. There were also a great many 
 little girls dancing who should have still been in 
 baby buggies. Perhaps it was a maternal error ; 
 perhaps merely an infantile escape. 
 
 " And the music ! Did ever I hear such music 
 before ? You could have felt it, if you had been 
 hidden in a bale of cotton for years and years. 
 And the darlingest part of all was the way the 
 instruments and performers changed from time to 
 time : now it was a thin man and an accordion ; 
 
 227 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 now a fat man with great, swollen cheeks and a 
 flute ; now merely the arms of a man and a 
 fiddle." 
 
 " So every one could dance, I suppose ? " 
 
 She saw how he was enjoying it. The dead 
 gold of his hair; the keen, speaking, scholarly 
 eyes ; the strong mouth, so flexible at times, 
 responsive now to her swift wit and quaint flow- 
 ing humor, all these were swept up in a little 
 glance. 
 
 " Shall I go to bed now ? " 
 
 " No, tell me more," Bax pleaded. 
 
 She looked delighted, matchlessly so. The 
 repressed vanity of other times crept into glad, free 
 existence. 
 
 " The first dance was almost a frost ; but soon 
 a man got to calling out numbers, and every one 
 warmed up. They got mixed, men, women, 
 babies, boys, little girls. No one was a belle; 
 rather, may be, every one was one. No one could 
 have danced more than her neighbor, because 
 every one's numbers were quite full. I think a 
 stout girl attired a la ' Columbia ' made more 
 stir than the rest of us ; but I don't think it was 
 greater popularity more the enthusiasm of 
 patriotism." 
 
 Here Bax's mirth worked into an unchecked, 
 hearty laugh. 
 
 She stared at him a minute. She had not in- 
 228 
 
The Cause of a Fight 
 
 tended that to be funny, and thought his best 
 enjoyment quite misplaced. 
 
 " And did n't I dance, though ? I made my 
 feet quite sore, and such dignitaries ! Who was 
 there ? I can't think of all in a small five min- 
 utes. Now and again a face appeared which was 
 quite familiar. A great many I placed right at 
 once. 
 
 "It was delightful remembering who they were. 
 I felt quite homelike. 
 
 " And they were so muddled. All Rel's dear 
 women friends : the little California artist ; that 
 fat Mexican hidalgo who came searching for his 
 lost cow one day, tearful, you must remember ? 
 because it was the property of his 'poor Madre, 
 senor, who was an angel in heaven ! ' And we 
 wondered if his poor Madre's lamentation over 
 this rambling bovine interfered with the heavenly 
 harps that day ? pshaw ! Bax, you could re- 
 member if you tried 
 
 " Even that antediluvian old woman whom 
 Rel visits because her son is no account. I can't 
 quite grasp the thought-connective, I must say. 
 Then another pet of your dear frau's, Mr. Wef- 
 fold, who, previous to this dissipation, was never 
 known to do anything active, except smoke, rock, 
 and have melancholia; also that pretty boy who 
 worked here last winter, who ate so many onions 
 you could trace him seventeen miles or so. 
 
 229 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 " I wish I had a picture of it all ; but the artist 
 was in no mood to see one, or he would not have 
 participated so vitally himself. In the animation 
 of the hour, he forgot the civilized method so 
 completely that he got to waltzing with Dun- 
 man^ little widow, and, when they got around to 
 her baby buggy, rocked it for her, and then went 
 
 on." 
 
 After both had finished some prolonged mer- 
 riment over the end of her remarks, she went 
 toward the table and stood by it with her hand 
 in his. She felt very loving toward him, and 
 realized, with a sharp pang or so about it, that 
 while her little, foolish, white hand lay in his 
 strong, brotherly clasp, his was horny here and 
 there, like a laborer's, and very hard. When he 
 and Rel were married, there had not been a finer- 
 looking fellow in all the world. 
 
 " I am going now, at last," she said. " You 
 were our good old Baxie to wait up." 
 
 She pulled away and went off a step or so. 
 Then she came back, and stood by the table, 
 leaning on it this time. 
 
 "I didn't enjoy myself, Bax, really. It was 
 not that I did n't have enough partners, only 
 some men shot at each other. I 'm not used 
 to shooting yet." 
 
 " Oh, so that was it ! I am sorry, girlie. What 
 fools these mortals be, to be sure ! What was it ? " 
 
 230 
 
The Cause of a Fight 
 
 "Well, it was this way," the girl returned. 
 "One danced with the other's girl. She wasn't 
 a pretty girl either, and a Mormon at that, I 
 think. But it made the first man very angry, so 
 they got into words. Then they just seemed to 
 think of things to make each other angry. We 
 cleared back. No one seemed to interfere with 
 them. One was a mine fellow ; one works 
 here. They cursed a great deal, too, on the side. 
 Then the quarrel seemed to leave the girl alto- 
 gether fall on to someone else. Some one the 
 first man trusted, was a fool for trusting, was 
 a tenderfoot for trusting, was a baby still at 
 breast for trusting lots of blankety blanks 
 awful bad words thrown in! The owner 
 of these did not feel very glib-tongued, I fancy, 
 so he whipped out his revolver. That was 
 the end." 
 
 She leaned over and kissed him on the fore- 
 head lightly, then picked up her candle, and 
 backed slowly off. At the door, when she 
 paused, he asked : 
 
 "Was it about my father, Robbie ?" 
 
 " No, not your father," the girl returned. 
 
 His face became transfigured, as if relieved 
 from a great weight. 
 
 " Poor fellows, a woman ! " 
 
 She stood holding on to the doorknob. Once 
 her lips parted, as if to speak. Then, still clad 
 
 231 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 in a spirit of hesitation, she stepped out and shut: 
 the door. 
 
 Bax went back to his papers. She took a long 
 time to get still. When he felt that she was in 
 her nest in all gentle earnest, he, too, went to his 
 own rest. 
 
 Above, in her little room, Robbie moved 
 around without undressing. She went to her 
 window once and looked out, saying, even think- 
 ing, nothing. The light she had on her little 
 clumsy country chiffonnier sent a few rays up the 
 road where she was looking. Otherwise the 
 country was an immense blank, all dark. 
 
 She came back softly. She set the candle, so 
 she could best see herself. She liked it where 
 the vision was faint, sweet, imperfect in a color- 
 sense, so to speak. She just liked the rich 
 suggestion of some gay, enjoyable phase of 
 life. 
 
 Her hair was crowned with a pretty ornament 
 like a diadem of pearls. Her dress was low and 
 white and pretty, neck and cloth almost one. 
 She had a long, drooping cloak lying light on her 
 shoulders. It was exquisitely barbaric, a many- 
 toned Persian silk from older days. 
 
 She was satisfied with the vision. The look 
 she sent into the eyes of her own pretty image 
 
 232 
 
The Cause of a Fight 
 
 melted after a second, it was so direct. Her 
 voice sounded distant, too. 
 
 " If you were a very rich woman, like Mrs. 
 Garnet, do you know what you would do ? You 
 would come down to Weffold's with a silly glass 
 raised to your eye and say : c So this is your 
 rural hero, this great quiet fellow with the hob- 
 nail shoes and the Christ-like eyes.' ' 
 
 She kept on looking. Presently, the image 
 seemed to reply to her, in quite a spontaneously 
 natural manner : 
 
 " Poor old darling ! " 
 
 She liked her real self too well then to act any 
 longer, so she commenced to unbutton her 
 garments. 
 
 The last drowsy thoughts before friendly sleep 
 came creeping across her pillow, were for Bax, 
 too. 
 
 Then, sleeping, she dreamed of him. He was 
 in a cathedral and in trouble, and she was fight- 
 ing for him desperately. Following this, was a 
 hopeless disturbing chaos. Then she was in the 
 same cathedral with absolute calm about her, and 
 a conception of the Galilean looking down upon 
 her with those deep, unruffled, wondering eyes. 
 
 The young son of the Garnets had gone up the 
 road from Robbie, exalted in mind and soul. 
 Dark, dust, material happenings, dwindled into 
 233 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 the insignificant. He planned noble uses of his 
 wealth ; he embraced the diviner truths of frater- 
 nal encouragement. He did not know men 
 would have smiled at him, and then turned 
 away to wink. Love was enshrined on such a 
 throne that night, he called it universal good, 
 and nearly prayed. 
 
 If, in the midst of his plans, he said "we" 
 now and again, or " she," or " Robbie," re- 
 member that he was a millionaire, the son and 
 son's son of one. 
 
 And when God had finished fashioning the 
 earth, He wanted a purpose for creation, that it 
 might search and find. So, in the hearts of men 
 He buried a treasure, calling it God or Truth. 
 This was to be their labor: its reward, eternal 
 happiness. And smiling, He laid in the bowels 
 of the earth, an effigy of the All-Powerful, called 
 Gold ; so one was very like the other, save that 
 one was true. 
 
 Then He turned the sons of the earth loose on 
 it, and by that name they lived on it, forgetful 
 that they were His sons also. 
 
 And in time some few found the treasure. And 
 these few, men called fools ; but when any man 
 found the effigy of it lo ! there was great feast- 
 ing and praising ! And the minds of men became 
 so muddled that they shouted : " This this 
 
 234 
 
The Cause of a Fight 
 
 only procures happiness." True, the few real 
 finders smiled, knowing better, but God could 
 only pity, aware how like He had made one 
 to the other. 
 
 So amongst our sins to be first condoned 
 because of their own great temptations, are the 
 little egotisms of the rich. 
 
 It is we who should pity : only God who can 
 smile. 
 
 235 
 
IN THE NAME OF GOD AMEN! 
 
 THIS is on a sermon in Arizona; and 
 from this fact we may wind down to 
 many others ; but that is the funniest 
 of all a sermon in Arizona! Why they have 
 told us here God is not; but that is a lie, for 
 God is close to our hearts in great desolation. 
 Surely no dream of His wisdom this! 
 
 This sermon was preached by a girl. Perhaps 
 she should have known better than this. Men 
 men who are great and wise, just because of 
 their very manhood, men should be preachers, 
 Robbie, girl, and as their rhetoric and their virtue 
 wax ever grander, listening women should weep 
 for the frail souls within them ; while here, at this 
 touching climax, here, the Devil can get in his 
 laugh. 
 
 And in no cramped, choking church was this 
 sermon. Under the sky, which is so far off, so 
 endless, so blue, and so eternal, our souls kneel 
 within us, and we must pray. 
 
 And on no velveted floor was this. It was in a 
 vegetable field, rutted with great water ditches, 
 where the congregation sat on two black, empty 
 
 236 
 
In the Name of God Amen ! 
 
 boxes, and the preacher sat on a mound above 
 them, saving only once, when she stood. 
 
 On the field of a heathen Chinese, do you hear ? 
 
 The great light of Christianity was not his, 
 and were the light to shine with great effulgence, 
 lo ! he was but a mole, and toiled as it played 
 round him. Yet with the very sweat of his brow, 
 poor Lon, he throve, sowing great patches of 
 beets and cabbage, coarse winter food, and sad, 
 sickly rows of crinkly lettuce, which tasted well of 
 mine-tailings, so I have heard. And these grew 
 around Robbie, as she preached. Incense was 
 not there, of course, but tali onion-shoots took 
 the place of this. They were keen and tempting 
 to one's appetite. After a while thought of them 
 stole through her words, or seemed to. (I quote 
 little Weffold.) It is the same thing. 
 
 The congregation was composed of three 
 members. I thought I would refer to the 
 subject as the reporters do at home sometimes : 
 " Such and such a bishop preached at Grace 
 Church on Sunday to a large and fashionable 
 audience." Three members, I say, not people ; 
 in this way I must say of my congregation, as 
 Lowell has beautifully said of Dante's exquisite 
 language, it was bare and perfect. 
 
 My congregation was like that description. It 
 ran the gamut of all that could be desired, 
 critically or financially. There were no poor 
 
 2 37 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 people present. One was a millionaire. A big 
 church often does no better than this. Two 
 did not understand the sermon, so it was very 
 correct, very true, in the altogether. Of these, 
 one was a toy elephant, and the other was a little 
 child. He held the elephant up to hear the 
 speaker. Once the idea occurred to him, that if 
 his mother would sew buttons near the elephant's 
 ears, it would aid his sight on such occasions. 
 
 During Robbie's sermon he thought of this, 
 in the wandering way a little child's mind dips 
 bee-like into such mental honey, only a little 
 baby sip, and then on forever. 
 
 In apologizing for all these things, I come to 
 the text of the sermon. She did not choose it 
 from such a chapter, proclaim it to be such a 
 verse. In fact, she forgot that texts should 
 come from the Bible. Like many another 
 amateur in the matter, sermons represented 
 something vague and necessary to her, like 
 an authorized Chastening Evil, to which the 
 world, the flesh, and the devil within one acted 
 as a resistant force. 
 
 The time, as you may have inferred, was askew 
 also. It was not 11 A. M. of a Sunday, nor 
 7:30 P. M. (145 in summer). 
 
 This was two in the afternoon. 
 
 It was also such a brief sermon that no one 
 went to sleep through it. 
 
 238 
 
In the Name of God Amen ! 
 
 But here heterodoxy seems to have accom- 
 plished its limit, so we will say no more. 
 
 It was the anniversary of her arrival at Hope. 
 
 The text was from Bryant. I think she chose 
 him because he was an American. She would 
 not have chosen a European just then for the 
 world, she was dealing so directly with the 
 very fountain- waters of honesty. The exhorta- 
 tion was for sincerity. It was her interpretation. 
 
 She said : 
 
 " I do not care to give the whole quotation, as 
 it is too long. Besides, I do not remember it 
 all ! " 
 
 (This was flirting with the congregation, but a 
 very forgivable departure, if one stops to analyze 
 it, impregnable dignity one minute, then the 
 whole virtuous barricade demolished by one 
 sweeping little glance from two pretty eyes.) 
 
 " So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
 The innumerable caravan . . . 
 Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, 
 Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed 
 By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
 Like one that wraps the drapery of his couch 
 About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. " 
 
 " I do not believe entirely in heaven," the 
 preacher commenced. "It is beyond the line, 
 and we cannot grasp it; so children should be 
 
 239 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 taught to aim solely for the satisfaction of a good 
 life. Then, before death, if only for a day, a 
 moment, a flash at the parting of soul and body, 
 we know the endeavor has been worth while. 
 
 " I have seen many unsuccessful lives many, 
 many, which were so half-lived that, at the approach 
 of dissolution, there went a prayer to the Decree 
 Inexorable * that such and such a moment might 
 be lived again/ ' 
 
 God had not willed the law so. She thought 
 the secret of all true living lay in simplicity ; that 
 the most successful woman she had ever known 
 was one who had not realized that she should show 
 any difference between her treatment of Queen 
 Victoria and a washer-woman. 
 
 It was told that to have no enemy, a person 
 must have bowed as low to fools and knaves as 
 to the honest dignity of genius and virtue. But 
 Mr. Sheridan had erred in this. She knew 
 differently. For this humble person whom peo- 
 ple called old-fashioned, till she was dead, had 
 bowed as low to fools and knaves, as she had to 
 the honest dignity of genius, but in Christ's name. 
 Christ's name ! It was very funny to speak of 
 Christ and society in one breath. To see a 
 woman kind to all suffering creatures, because she 
 was of such simple faith that she did not know 
 that the Litany, etc., were merely the properly 
 toned ceremonies of a gorgeous church. 
 
 240 
 
In the Name of God Amen / 
 
 A life such as this, Robbie said, was a demon- 
 stration not of those great Shakespearian tides in 
 the lives of a few men, but of the simple gracious 
 dignity of Mr. Bryant's, which was attainable by 
 all. 
 
 The moral was the eternal principle of truth. 
 From simplicity, from sincerity of motive, could 
 come no errors damning to eternal peace. Thus, 
 if temptation were to come, the chain of past 
 things would not allow it. It would be a dose 
 of poison so foreign as to be cast out before the 
 healthy soul absorbed it. 
 
 Then, in simple, unrhetorical contrast, she 
 introduced Carl Weffold's hate. Its evil breath 
 made heavy the very air as she talked. 
 
 She spoke understandingly, intuitively of its 
 birth, a little jealousy of the soul, a weed 
 nourished by life's entire waters, until the good, 
 the endeavor, the better mastery of evil, were 
 drawn into the complex toils. 
 
 It was the first deviation from the fountain 
 principles, she said ; the checked intention, the 
 unacted impulse, the still-born thought, the uncor- 
 rected wrong, these were the great telling 
 things. Our lives went on after, it is true, but 
 the weed was there, and possibilities, beyond all 
 control, were given ground to grow in. 
 16 241 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 This seemed the middle of the sermon, and 
 she should have gone on just so, unnecessarily 
 telling about her simple woman and her complex 
 man, until the listeners lost the force of her moral. 
 But she stopped short just at this juncture. The 
 onions permeated the air, as if they were a little 
 song with which the earth was flouting our dainty 
 manners. The congregation waited. 
 
 "That is all," the preacher said. She was 
 tired. She did not know yet about preachers, 
 that some were to tire people, not to tire them- 
 selves. 
 
 The effect on her listeners was immediate ; 
 would, would it were always so ! 
 
 The child stirred out of his long calm with a 
 little half sigh which was very patient. He 
 mumbled something gently, still dreamily, 
 little words, such as little children utter, which fly 
 here and there like down : 
 
 " The elfer no can tell," he was saying. " The 
 elfer no can tell what a' mean." 
 
 The millionaire rose to his feet. The passion 
 of reformation was on him. His voice struck 
 the very rocks of confession. 
 
 " Prove your words," he urged to the girl 
 before him. " Make sincerity an humble, daily 
 practice. Be my wife." 
 
 242 
 
ONE NIGHT 
 
 CLAUDE observed the outer darkness 
 almost lovingly. It was one with which 
 he had grown familiar ; when the sky 
 far overhead is so studded, it makes all a great 
 uncivilized land dark by very contrast. The 
 distance between earth and sky had increased to 
 him also. Here there were no crude efforts 
 magnificent as men may judge them to reach 
 more than one or two simple adobe stories. 
 
 He sat now in his room in the great silent mill 
 of which he and his brothers were largely master. 
 He was not in communication with any living 
 soul, unless we except Simmons. Simmons had 
 a wire which entered this room ; he, a wire 
 which reached Simmons. If there were to be 
 a riot, a menacing, unlawful disturbance of what- 
 ever nature, he would be acquainted with it be- 
 fore it had barely organized, at least before it 
 occurred. It was the drinking men that he was 
 afraid of, none of the other ones. 
 
 There are many paths to greatness ; but this 
 young man had chosen one quite unfrequented. 
 He did not know much about the role. Perhaps, 
 
 243 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 had a newspaper reporter asked his opinion about 
 the necessary qualities to a great man's greatness, 
 he might have been clever enough to put his 
 simple creed into this simple language, only I 
 doubt it : 
 
 " Just in being great." 
 
 After the closing down of the great mill and 
 the cessation of labor in the mine, Simmons had 
 come to him that evening : 
 
 " I don't want to break down our contract 
 about tale-bearing, nagging, dealing out retail 
 rumors," he said, a really intolerant tone to his 
 voice, yet utterly patient smile in his eyes, " but 
 I think a guard would not be a bad idea at the 
 mill. It would prevent any possible destruction." 
 
 " Not probable ? " said Claude, looking up. 
 
 " I will not go that far," the book-keeper 
 replied. 
 
 Claude hesitated. 
 
 " Would you mind telling me what you might 
 fear ? " he asked Simmons. " I have thought of 
 some such folly myself." 
 
 The book-keeper forgot his intolerance of the 
 young superintendent, and caught at the apt word, 
 eagerly. 
 
 " Folly, that is it," he cried. " I don't think 
 a man in Hope would wilfully harm one inch of 
 Dick's possessions " (he purposely aimed the shaft), 
 " but there is a theosophical idea I Ve read of, 
 
 244 
 
One Night 
 
 that murder-thought of any violent description 
 is contagious, like small-pox or the plague. At 
 least it is to that effect. Old Weffold has never 
 been popular. That is statistical, so you need n't 
 find fault with me for mentioning it. Lately, as 
 you, I all have seen, the unpopularity has 
 grown. May be it is only attacking universal 
 human error, rather than any one individual, to 
 say it has involved innocent parties, instead of 
 keeping to its first victim. That is like small- 
 pox, too." 
 
 " I don't know that we need to go over that," 
 interjected Claude, kindly. 
 
 " But it is only one issue," the book-keeper 
 returned. " You are not experienced enough to 
 see these things." 
 
 Claude tried to be oblivious. 
 
 " What," continued Simmons, " what has 
 justly, or unjustly, befallen Bax Weffold, may 
 befall us, too." 
 
 He often spoke of the syndicate that way. It 
 pleased him. 
 
 " As usual, there is a good percentage of the 
 men about who live in saloons, any way. More 
 will be driven there by idleness, or because they 
 fancy they need buoying during this episode. 
 In fact, concisely speaking, there will be lots of 
 drunken men around." 
 
 The young superintendent smiled. 
 245 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 "That about says it all," he returned, "with 
 apologies to both morality and rhetoric." 
 
 " The devil a bit you seem to care," snapped 
 Simmons. " This might be blown sky-high 
 any night." 
 
 Claude suddenly became earnest. 
 
 " But I don't think it will be," he remarked. 
 "Allowing all you say, that the men would not 
 want to harm Dick, but might do so ; that a 
 grudge can involve innocent parties ; that drunken 
 men don't know quite what they want why, 
 there is another point in our favor " 
 
 Simmons leaned forward. 
 
 " It is their livelihood, you know," answered 
 Claude. "As for the watch-guard, I am going 
 to sleep at the mill myself." 
 
 " Do you think that safe? " asked Simmons. 
 
 " I am not thinking of it at all," answered 
 Claude. " That phase is not worth it." 
 
 " For all that," said Simmons, " you have 
 helped antagonize the situation, and " 
 
 Claude stopped him authoritatively. 
 
 " For that reason, I am the proper choice," he 
 said. " If any one is to enjoy their drunken 
 rowdyism, why, I 'm the man. Only," he ended 
 hotly, boyishly, " I should like it known around, 
 that my life is only a circumstance in the result. 
 But, if harm is done one piece of our fixings, one 
 inch of Dick's ground, not one man in Arizona 
 
 246 
 
One Night 
 
 shall receive employment at our mine. It would 
 be ungrateful. Dick has been the best friend 
 they ever had, kind, cosmopolitan, forgiving. 
 We 'd import men quicker than a wink." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Simmons, as if surprised at the 
 demonstration. 
 
 Then he had gone home. 
 
 On this evening Claude thought over this and 
 other things. He felt vexed at the situation. It 
 was ludicrous with tragic possibilities. Reared 
 as he had been in a lawful city, a life or so 
 was more than the incident should ask of the 
 state of things. He could not become familiar 
 with killing. 
 
 He yawned over his papers, the thoughts 
 edging themselves in between his lengthy accounts 
 to the syndicate home. Just then, beyond the 
 room in which he was working, some noise broke 
 the almost lifeless stillness. He started and 
 sprang to his feet quickly. Almost before he 
 took a step farther, he knew that it was the swish 
 of a woman's skirt. 
 
 Surprised, yet not wanting to be taken at a 
 disadvantage, he opened the door between them 
 very much wider. 
 
 It was a woman. She had evidently been 
 guided by his little light, yet hesitant about de- 
 claring her presence. She stood so in the little 
 
 247 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 hall now. She was smiling a sort of tremulous 
 reassurance. He continued to peer at her. 
 
 He did not realize that it was Mrs. Bax, all at 
 once. In this unusual feminine presence, amongst 
 the great silent stamps, the idle and yet powerful 
 machinery, he felt a sudden ecstasy, half-blind. 
 He thought it was Robbie, the slim, graceful 
 desolation in which the unexpected figure was 
 clothed for the moment ; the delicate indistinct 
 woman's face ; the thought that they were alone, 
 and he loved her. 
 
 His lips were already parted in vague, soothing 
 words, when she stepped a little forward. In the 
 dim light which came from his little office, he saw 
 that it was Mrs. Bax. 
 
 Then a foreboding seized him. 
 
 " I have come because I could not help it," 
 she said. The absolute loneliness of their situa- 
 tion lent a certain unusual dignity to her words, 
 almost appealing in its stately primness. He felt 
 this remotely, the only way in which he could feel 
 any fact other than that message which her words 
 conveyed. Yet the exquisite modesty, uncon- 
 scious as it was, brought infinite consolation to 
 the overwhelming harshness in the case. cc I 
 trust I am not too late for for any plan you 
 may care to make. My sister left to-diy for the 
 East to join her old schoolmate's family, the 
 
 248 
 
One Night 
 
 one with whom she lived before. She left unex- 
 pectedly, as you may imagine." 
 
 In the little pause now, her face showed abso- 
 lutely nothing, yearning as she was about it. 
 No more did his. She held an envelope in her 
 hand. That little scrap of white folded paper 
 seemed the most fateful thing in life to Claude, 
 for those few moments ; it was almost like a death 
 warrant ; the longer she held it, so much longer 
 could he hope, idiotic as the chance was. Then, 
 without reaching it toward him, she said these 
 things of it : 
 
 " Robbie gave this to me for you. I was to 
 send it to-morrow morning " 
 
 She changed, passionately. The negative man- 
 ner disappeared, became obliterated. Few things 
 serve as comparison for it, only greatest of all 
 a still church, may be, responding to deep sudden 
 notes from an organ. 
 
 " See how dishonorable, how unfaithful a 
 steward I am ! It lay innocently after she left on 
 our mantel. I never looked at it ; only all by 
 itself it acquired life, and seemed to torment me. 
 When I kissed her and sent her away, for my- 
 self, I seemed in a manner to lose her. But this 
 part of Robbie seemed not to have left. And it 
 belonged to you almost like her spirit ! I tried 
 to kill the thought by dinner, by putting my little 
 boy to bed ; doing little hum-drum duties after. 
 
 249 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 u There was some business or other to keep 
 Bax from me, our usual hour. He had accounts 
 to make out, I think." 
 
 Abruptly she reached it toward him, smiling 
 tremulously the while : 
 
 " Will you take it ? There are some orders 
 it does no harm to forget." 
 
 " I should like to read it," Claude answered. 
 " When does the train leave, did you say ? " 
 
 " I did not say," returned Mrs. Bax, yet 
 radiantly delighted at his understanding, as 
 women never fail to be over men, under what- 
 ever circumstances. 
 
 He tried to smile, but failed in the doing. 
 
 She reached out her hand, and over it he said, 
 humbly : 
 
 " There are no thanks for such acts as these." 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " she cried, with her variable face 
 quite alight now. "There are such debts that we 
 seem to owe each other, but which are more 
 payable to the world. There are many of them, 
 you '11 find out. It is my pleasure to pay mine 
 to one like you, who won't forget it." 
 
 The earnestness dropped like a mask again. 
 She edged off as though to leave him, and, out 
 of the greater gloom she stood in, said : 
 
 " Mr. Garnet, it is sometimes permitted to the 
 very young, such as you and Robbie, to stumble 
 across the only secret in life worth having. 
 
 250 
 
One Night 
 
 There are no qualifiers to it like real, true, 
 or great ; it is simply the only possible thing 
 of its kind. Generally we can't mistake it. It 
 is domestic happiness." Her voice got deeper. 
 It seemed almost solemn. 
 
 " Many things appear to be satisfactory, 
 fame, gold, vanity, any visible success. But 
 this thing which is invisible to us just at first 
 is the only truth, the only thing steadfast, the 
 only eternal satisfaction in God's great world.'* 
 
 She was thinking of her child and her hus- 
 band, he felt, yet with still deeper passion, she 
 disabused him eloquently: 
 
 " I am thinking of my little boy who died. 
 God cannot take him from me. It is the divinity 
 all share with him dead, living, human, out- 
 cast, divine, the breath once given." 
 
 Unexpectedly she smiled again. These humors 
 were deliciously human, exquisitely profound. 
 
 " I think I invented that idea ; I am so proud 
 of it. At least Bax says so, when he wants to 
 amuse himself. I am going now/ A man 
 would have said this to you lots better more 
 simply ; just c Be sure then hold on/ 
 perhaps " 
 
 They looked into each other's eyes. Many 
 things seemed to balance, all undetermined, when 
 the look was closed. 
 
 " I must see you home," said Claude. 
 
 25 1 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 She cried : " Nonsense ! in my ain countree, 
 and after all my candor ! " 
 
 He took her obediently to the door, she 
 making some flippant little remarks, well like 
 Robbie, on her own bravery in having entered, 
 unaided, such a short time before. Parting, they 
 did not say farewell. She just went off down 
 the narrow, unilluminated path. From a distance 
 her voice came to him : 
 
 " The train leaves at 11:40. It is 10 now." 
 
 In the after silence, he went in toward the 
 office, mechanically. He did not re-seat himself, 
 but, standing, read Robbie's letter. The in- 
 candescent light was hung low, and he had to 
 stoop a little. Now and again, in a way he had 
 in business, he read a phrase, or even a sentence, 
 aloud, so as to grasp it better ; yet without 
 really knowing he did so. 
 
 Otherwise, all was very still. The letter com- 
 menced : 
 
 u Claude, when you read this letter, I will be far, 
 far away where your earnest eyes, your helpful hand, 
 your forgiving spirit will one or the other be un- 
 able to reach or influence my impulses, selfish as they 
 have ever been. 
 
 "... Except, my sister tells me, the one which 
 brought this change into my life. But I do not care to 
 dwell too much on that, lest, I am so superstitious, 
 it might affect my determination. We are under a ro- 
 
 252 
 
One Night 
 
 mantic glamour, so I am going back to the old, vapid life 
 which I never knew was vapid, until I chanced to 
 encounter such earnestness, such truth, and purpose as 
 yours, RePs, Bax's, even this funny, big, uninhabited 
 land's. 
 
 " If you think this step is not worthy of me, stop 
 and think. It is the self you do not know which is real ! 
 the self which prefers superficialities, ball-rooms, 
 parlors, which only awakens to its realer womanhood 
 very occasionally, with a start, perhaps when some 
 baby kisses me. 
 
 " Claude, Claude, Claude, I am writing like a good 
 woman, like Rel now. I am making you feel sorry, 
 love me. 
 
 " I don't deserve it. And, if you won't see how things 
 are, my dear, why, take my word for it. The good is your 
 influence, which I can't shake off just yet ; the desires 
 leading me from you are the lasting ones, I am sure. 
 
 " I can't tell you how I have loved the world, endured 
 the hideous monotony, the boring unintellectuality of 
 riches, because of their environment. It deadens one's 
 heart, and I felt it ; so, when Rel's little baby died, I got 
 to feeling human, and burdened myself with great reso- 
 lutions, and came. 
 
 "You know the endless tug of war since. Such 
 duties as are imposed by a life like this starve every 
 sense of luxury we have. 
 
 " Only a week ago I was making fun of the old life 
 to you, of the young people who spend evening after 
 evening like little thoughtless children at play, laugh- 
 ing over nothing, and for hours at a time ; flirting, de- 
 
 2 53 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 stroying every barrier between the occasional and the 
 continual, the rare personality and the gross one, the 
 irreverent and the sacred, love and ennui. 
 
 " Yet I am going back to this. It may not seem the 
 same for a while, then I will make up my mind to it. 
 
 " Claude, had you come in the older days, had we met 
 in a ball-room, courted in some stupid, gewgaw-decked 
 parlor, been surprised into a tame sort of acknowledg- 
 ment and proposal, why, I should have married you after 
 buying a big trousseau, and every one would have said, 
 4 how lucky ! ' 
 
 " But, Claude, Claude, you have lured me from my 
 old tradition under this great deceptive sky. It is like 
 church; it is not neutral; it is so just, so inexorable, 
 so far away 
 
 " I cannot reach it. You can't turn a butterfly into 
 an ant. 
 
 " Claude, if I asked you to go away, would you ? 
 back to the cities, to comfort, to conventional things. 
 You cannot answer. I could not for you for a long, 
 long time. Then it was, c No.' 
 
 [ " And that is my answer the word you say your- 
 self. If it had been anything else, I should not have 
 respected you, as I do in separation ; for, to be different, 
 not dutiful, however tender, would not be yourself. 
 
 " If I stayed, I should grow tired of the very noble- 
 ness I married ; of all the spiritual scaffolding marriage 
 with you would create " 
 
 It grew miserably tired toward the end, like a 
 little battle lost on the very paper, and because 
 
 254 
 
One Night 
 
 the strength put in the struggle was that of a 
 child. 
 
 Understanding her as he did, all the pity in 
 his nature went out to the failure of her own self- 
 conception. He felt the truth of Mrs. Bax's 
 words, " Be sure then hold on." 
 
 It was a step aside ; the little difference at 
 first between paths ; a difficulty in finding the 
 second opportunity again ; the almost appalling 
 assurance that the vital crisis of his happiness 
 had arrived. 
 
 He pulled out his watch and looked at it. He 
 was going to save her from herself, from the 
 little, false, prim, conventional thing she must have 
 been in Chicago. Between the lines in her letter 
 was a vague trailing something, like the scent of 
 flowers pressed between them, by which he had 
 become strengthened to act. 
 
 Now only time lay between him and a reversal 
 of her decision. He felt his power over Fate, 
 yet with dim, superstitious apologies to Fate in 
 the strong joy of triumph. There became a 
 pleasurable madness in the close race he would 
 have for her surrender. He went out and groped 
 in the little made-up stable. When his hand 
 touched the horse's rope, he felt all the delirium 
 of conquest, before he had even started. 
 
 So hope stands with us, when we are twenty- 
 four. 
 
 2 5S 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 The little horse, which had been one of Wef- 
 fold's, instinctively chose a circuitous path out of 
 town. He gave up to her. Then, almost before 
 he knew it, they struck the great team road out 
 past the cemetery toward Short's. As he looked 
 back on the outskirts of the little settlement, 
 some lights went out, as if by magic. They were 
 the retail stores behind him. By this, he knew 
 that it was ten o'clock. 
 
 At first, he did not doubt his ability to reach 
 her before the train. Then, as ground became 
 heavier beneath him, he got a desperate idea of 
 the odds against him. He was riding against a 
 railroad train. 
 
 The little mare he rode was in good condition. 
 Whenever he got so far as blaming her, he swept 
 the boyishness beneath him, and set his lips more 
 justly, and rode on may be bending a little 
 lower, distressedly. In New York it would have 
 been a magnificent night. Here it was like many 
 others, a dark which made one forget the faults 
 of the day, and love all nature better ; a soft, 
 reaching dark, some quality like a woman's voice 
 in it, capable of finding the human heart and 
 causing it to throb ; a joyous darkness. 
 
 Nothing violent occurred. It was merely a 
 pressing onward, monotonous as a movement, 
 yet enormous as a risk. Sometimes the land 
 was very plain, like a park at night, dotted 
 
 256 
 
One Night 
 
 here and there, as it was, by the sturdy cacti. 
 Now and again, a cow loomed up or ran off. 
 
 The idea of the greatness of his adver- 
 sary increased. He felt weak, incapable of 
 winning. 
 
 Then the necessity of his success became tor- 
 menting as the very fires of hell. Why had he 
 pondered, or wasted this moment? He could 
 have gone without reading her letter, could have 
 guessed. He had never felt so overpowered, so 
 utterly forceless before. 
 
 In stray, less physical, spells, he promised 
 noble things to the world, if Robbie had not 
 already left. She seemed lost to him by that 
 one issue. There was the thought strong within 
 him that once parted, they would never be the 
 same again. Her little fair, cool, sweet self be- 
 came almost visible then ; the little, blase^ worldly 
 glimpses now and again of that old self, irre- 
 sistibly quaint for all they were so disturbing ; 
 then the long times when she was the most 
 natural creature human nature had yet pro- 
 duced. 
 
 If she left him, went back to her old ways 
 now, she would be irreclaimable, he felt. In a 
 year two, if he saw her, she would have a 
 hundred society platitudes when they met, like 
 the women at home with whom he was more or 
 less familiar, Mrs. Ralph was that sort. She 
 17 257 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 was in an armor socially, so to say. She never 
 moved without it. She suffered affliction, met 
 joys, entered every phase of human emotion, 
 with much the same smile and tear. 
 
 He shuddered. The woman he wanted to go 
 through life with him became far off and sacred. 
 He grew worshipful, and was not able to think 
 the long, domestic, tranquil happiness out. They 
 would grow loving, old together. He was to 
 save her heart for a home, for some goodly, 
 noble, inspiring service. 
 
 The other Robbie would marry a Possibility 
 rich, never poor but young or old, he did 
 not care. Years and years after, when the old 
 things were dead to her, she would boast of hav- 
 ing jilted him. He saw her, still cold, still prim, 
 Tennyson's evolutionized woman : 
 
 " With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's 
 heart." 
 
 His throat choked, and he thought no longer. 
 
 One half hour later, a tired horse made for 
 the dark cluster of houses people have designated 
 as Short's. The rider was in no condition to 
 hear or see. It seemed as if a surging were in his 
 ears, so great it blinded, too. The last yards 
 before him were pierced in almost mortal fashion 
 by a locomotive's shrill scream. 
 
 Claude fell on to his feet at the sound, before 
 
 258 
 
One Night 
 
 the faithful beast even halted. He was almost 
 gasping. He did not know which way the train 
 was bent, what that shrill scream signalled ; but, 
 when he finally stepped on to the platform, he 
 saw that it had already departed for the East. 
 
 259 
 
MR. AND MRS. BOSTON JIM 
 
 AFTER Mrs. Jim had made a pile of 
 money, cooking and serving " grub " (as 
 Boston still fondly called it) out at some 
 unearthly railroad station }n Arizona, she went 
 home to sort of " whoop it up " herself, in 
 frontiers' language. 
 
 This was in a little manufacturing town not a 
 thousand miles from Boston. Of course, she did 
 not go with the unimpeachably elite; principally, 
 if I may tell it, because she did not feel quite 
 at home with them, but amongst the dear old 
 class from which Boston Jim had won her years 
 and years before, when he was a sort of steward 
 on one of the great Atlantic ships, and she had 
 been a little fresh-faced hand at the mill. 
 
 " What exquis't' manners Mr. Jim had in them 
 days," the ladies even yet said to her at many an 
 afternoon tea. 
 
 But this is going apart from my story, and 
 throwing in little extras, as it were. 
 
 For it was only of Mrs. Jim's story over the 
 New England teacups that I care to tell. She 
 always wore a great-flowered silk, such as 
 
 160 
 
Mr. and Mrs. Boston Jim 
 
 people used to wear in the fifties ; and I always 
 admired it in her, as it was conservatism of a 
 pronounced sort. She had seen the great city 
 ladies clad just so when she was a wee little girl, 
 and it had been ever the epitome of all joy to 
 her, having wealth enough to live up to the taste. 
 
 So this is the way that she will finish off for 
 me ; as she was indisputable eye-witness to what 
 befell the little romance checked so unceremoni- 
 ously in my last. 
 
 "Yes," she would commence on these occa- 
 sions, " we was allays able to keep our heads 
 above water, Jemmie and me, but afer the kind 
 ax of the young Superintendent Garnet, as you 
 may have heard of him, why, luck went high. 
 Now Jem " 
 
 After the change in their circumstances, she 
 had felt Jim was not adequate enough, as it were, 
 to suit their pocket, so she had commenced to 
 call this nervous, rustling sharer of her joys 
 Jemmie, even J ernes, only he had drawn the 
 line at that, just as he had at other ear-marks of 
 feminine tyranny. 
 
 " Y' kin call me James, if you want," he told 
 her, good-natured as a certain amount of mod- 
 erate success had made him, "but I '11 be blowed, 
 Maria, 'f I don't plum forgit to turn my head jes* 
 like other things w' which I ain't familer. Like 
 
 261 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 when I was a young cuss a-courtin' you, m' dear, 
 I used to enjoy wearing kid gloves of a evening. 
 Whereas now, having founded out the use of my 
 hands, Maria, I 'd a rip 'em wide, first go-to- 
 meeting, same as a squaw would corsets." 
 
 Then Mrs. Boston Jim would half " holler," 
 as if she were shocked completely ; but she let 
 the matter drop after a while. 
 
 What a fool of a historian I am after all ; for, 
 unless I get right down to business, why, it's 
 hard to come around to the point. Well, this 
 is it in a nut-shell. 
 
 Boston Jim and his proud lady were just out 
 for anything " them days" in the way of an hon- 
 est living. (We have often gotten him, good 
 old fellow, off to the side, and learned this.) 
 So they took a little place which seemed open 
 to catch the intermittent travel between Hope 
 (" every one knew Hope mine Dick Garnet 'n 
 'cettery " ) and the outside world. " Landed in 
 Short's, stayed there five or so years afore start 
 was a-given us. Used to cook, and serve, and 
 stew " (which was quite a figurative use of it) 
 themselves. 
 
 " Stage came in from Hope early, say five or 
 five-thirty, to catch the East Bound, which left at 
 eleven-forty, leaving party five or some sich hours 
 to wait around. It meant trade to us. Gener- 
 ally caught a meal or so." 
 
 262 
 
Mr. and Mrs. Boston Jim 
 
 Now the tellable part of it " b'longs " to 
 Mrs. Jim : 
 
 " One day, about the same time as usual, stage 
 drove into town. One gal was in it besides the 
 driver, who was a new driver." 
 
 The manufacturing town learned all these de- 
 tails, and if Mrs. Jim should have chanced to be 
 telling it to some new-flowered silk lady, and 
 omitted such a detail as this, why, ten to one, 
 some one who had heard the story would say : 
 
 "And, Mis' Shepard, wasn't it a new driver, 
 or did I misunderstand you, them days ? " 
 
 And Mrs. Jim would say, " Lor', yes, how 
 forgitful," and tell all about Shorty, the Major's 
 ingratitude to him, and the run-down politician 
 from Phoenix all over again. 
 
 " The gal who got off the stage, Jem and 
 I recognized as a pretty little creature, who had 
 gone through to the mining settlement some 
 months before. Afterwards, we had heard that 
 she was one of the Weffolds by marriage sister 
 to her as had married young Bax Weffold, old 
 Carl's son. 
 
 " She was a funny, clean sort of little thing, and 
 looked as if she had been crying. She seemed 
 homesick-looking, and came up to me and said: 
 
 " c May I go into the kitchen with you ? '" 
 
 (All the Massachusetts middle-class ladies used 
 to shake their heads over this, and say, very 
 
 263 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 seriously, I assure you, " That was queer at the 
 start.") 
 
 " But after going into the kitchen, she just 
 huggled up to the stove and said : 
 
 " f Will you let me stay here and keep warm, 
 so I won't think? for all the day was like sum- 
 mer outside 'em ! Wai, she sat down quiet-like 
 in a corner, and watched me moving here and 
 there. And once she wanted Pr to help me, but 
 I saw how white and silly-like her hands were, 
 and was that uncomfortable. And once, when it 
 was getting a wee bit dark outside, and a freight 
 train whistled by in the darkness, the young thing 
 rose from her corner, as if she had been shot out 
 of a cannon, then smiled, as if she knew that she 
 had been silly, and without another word of warn- 
 ing, fainted, genteel-like, away." 
 
 This was most interesting, for there is only 
 one thing more than a faint which ladies like to 
 hear about under ordinary circumstances, that 
 is, the cause. 
 
 " Boston and me then had a quarrel over 
 a-bringin' her to. Jim, he prescribed a dipper of 
 water, and I, a little whiskey, which pleased the 
 young lady mightily afterward ; as she said that 
 she could never endure water under such cir- 
 cumstances, and so generously administered. It 
 made one so uncomfortable ! " 
 
 After these very sensible, highly commendable 
 264 
 
Mr. and Mrs. Boston Jim 
 
 opinions, she lay over on Mrs. Boston Jim's 
 bosom, and cried as if her heart would break. 
 
 She told Mrs. Jim that she was very unhappy 
 leaving her sister. (Of course, this was very 
 sad.) 
 
 Well, before the time for the train to come, 
 she began to act more natural. She even pre- 
 sented Mrs. Jim with a breastpin (brooch, the 
 honest creature calls it) which was displayed 
 religiously to all the town ladies also. Mrs. 
 Jim did not want to take it, and fought with 
 the poor young lady for full a quarter of an hour 
 about it afterwards. 
 
 The remarks exchanged on this occasion were 
 these : 
 
 Mrs. Jim, winking : "You don 't want to give 
 away now what some fine gentleman may Ve give 
 you." 
 
 The young girl said that it really did n't 
 matter, as he was n't The young gentleman. 
 Indeed, she had four or five brooches in her own 
 little room in Chicago that she could easily give 
 Mrs. Jim now under the same conditions 
 graduation folly. 
 
 At eleven-forty they went out on the platform. 
 Her trunk was there. She had a box or so, and 
 a grip extra. She had her ticket all bought also 
 sleeper-accommodation, and all. She was quite 
 calm now and very silent. 
 
 265 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 Once she said : " Is the train on time ? " and 
 some one pointed it out to her, the baggage- 
 man, no doubt, who was bustling about quite 
 near them, here and there. It was creeping 
 along the track far above them. It was like a 
 huge, noiseless, approaching monster ! 
 
 Then it slid past them, lessening its speed, 
 until it stopped. She was the only passenger to 
 board. The men forward managed their own 
 affairs and her trunk, while, back where they 
 were, a big smiling porter stepped down to assist 
 her in. He took her hand-luggage from her affa- 
 bly ; then he said : " This way, missus, missus ! " 
 
 Still the young lady did not stir. An important 
 man with a cap came out and yelled out in the 
 darkness, then he reached upward and pulled a 
 rope. 
 
 A second later Mrs. Jim was standing alone 
 on the platform with the girl. 
 
 The train had gone on without her. 
 
 Then it was that Mr. Garnet, the young lady's 
 husband-who-was-to-be, appeared. She herself 
 was so wrathy just then at Boston Jim, she was 
 unmindful of what passed around her, so to speak. 
 Boston Jim was a-walking before them both, and 
 a-swearing, quiet-like, to himself. Mrs. Jim sur- 
 mised that it was about the young lady, and was 
 trying to kick him, so she wouldn't hear. 
 
 Just then, a shadow loomed up before them 
 266 
 
Mr. and Mrs. Boston Jim 
 
 all. It was young Mr. Garnet. The girl gave a 
 start, like a little silly girl as had run away from 
 school and been caught. Afore a word could be 
 said, the young superintendent reached out and 
 took hold of her 
 
 Then she and Boston Jim walked on. When 
 she turned around next second, " to see as every- 
 thing was all right, the young couple had stopped 
 staring at each other, and was a-kissing, solemn- 
 like, mind you, afore the Whole Living World ! " 
 
 Mrs. Jim never failed to accomplish this mag- 
 nificent hyperbole on Short's. 
 
 About three weeks later an architect or con- 
 tractor fellow came a-visiting them from the mine. 
 He said he was under orders from one of the 
 brothers there to erect a hotel on the most likely 
 site around. They went in with long faces, which 
 grew more and more so as their rival grew in 
 beauty day by day. It was to be called the " Bos- 
 ton Royal," and no telling what Boston Jim would 
 have done (that " riled " was he) had not a kind, 
 gentlemanly, little note arrived the same day, 
 the name was pencilled in it, asking them to 
 run it for him, rent and findings free ; a little 
 card being tacked on to the official communi- 
 cation bearing these words, " same as if 't was a 
 little silver spoon was presented " : 
 
 Compliments, 
 
 MR. AND MRS. CLAUDE GARNET. 
 267 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 The same name figures in magazine articles, at 
 intervals, under " The Age of Romance not yet 
 over ! " " Millionaire's Wives ; " " The Human 
 Life of our Society Women," etc., etc. Mrs. 
 Jim had her picture, in fact, and all the tea- 
 drinking ladies of that manufacturing town were 
 quite familiar with it, a sort of direct, kind, 
 clean, little face, with an humbler expression 
 on it than Chicago had been able to produce ; 
 a rather stately little coiffure, and little square-cut 
 neck to its dress. 
 
 Hardly great, unless one knew. 
 
 In fact, a part of the illustrious family Mrs. 
 Jim had been known to visit the last time she was 
 in New York. Robbie and Claude had insisted 
 she call and take dinner with them, but, by some 
 miscalculation, the very day Mrs. Jim arrived, 
 they were out of town, so it was Mrs. Dick who 
 entertained them. It was the most marvellous 
 house, and she the most marvellous woman, who 
 seemed perfectly at home in it, yet perfectly at 
 home with them, and very kind to every one 
 around her. 
 
 Then at dinner, Mr. Dick, who had grown so 
 middle-aged in appearance that one never knew 
 whether it was from happiness or from fat, set 
 about talking to Boston Jim. That was the first 
 stage of conquest. The second, when he pro- 
 ceeded to "draw Mr. Jim out," as he explained 
 
 268 
 
Mr. and Mrs. Boston Jim 
 
 to Mrs. Dick later, seeing she was a trifle 
 huffed. 
 
 And when Mr. Jim felt right at home, he told 
 Mr. Dick the women-folks was too much for 
 him, and he could see Maria was a-dying of 
 fright now, lest he do something to disgrace her. 
 Nothing seemed to have pleased Mr. Dick so for 
 years. He laughed so at it, and said they must 
 shake hands on it, as his wife was that way with 
 him. 
 
 Mrs. Dick was looking down at her plate and 
 trying to ignore him, but presently her lips parted 
 in a frosty little smile. 
 
 But, when they went on to say they (neither 
 Boston Jim nor Mr. Dick) could ever quite 
 enjoy the coat atmosphere and its absolute neces- 
 sity in the metropolis ; and Boston Jim confided 
 about his name, and Mrs. Jim's wanting to change 
 it, why, Mrs. Dick got to her feet, old Mrs. 
 Garnet and Mrs. Jim following her, leaving the 
 two jolly men together over their wine and their 
 walnuts ; just as had been the manner, Mrs. Jim 
 remembered, of the fine English ladies in the 
 novels of her youth. 
 
 And the three women were not a bit strange 
 alone. They talked about children and Mexican 
 embroidery, and all manner of interesting things, 
 and old Mrs. Garnet, mother of these famous boys, 
 told little things about them, and what a good 
 
 269 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 baby Mr. Claude had been, just as the village 
 women might have done. 
 
 Then later, when the men did n't come, for- 
 getting all false things like caste, they all tiptoed 
 out together. The table was quite empty now, 
 except for several boxes of cigars scattered here and 
 there on it. Mr. Dick was still shaking all over 
 with laughter, and Mr. Jim was looking rather 
 sheepish, yet very proud. It looked very funny, 
 especially when Mr. Dick's hand went up, as if 
 he were afraid to go any further. 
 
 "You must not say any more," he declared, in 
 his pauses. " You will strangle me." 
 
 Then Mrs. Jim seemed to fathom that Boston 
 had been telling about his kid gloves, and the 
 squaw's ripping open her corsets all over again. 
 
 270 
 
ABOUT A "CLUB" 
 
 ON the same evening all this had occurred 
 to Claude, Simmons wandered in late to 
 the wife of his bosom. She was mend- 
 ing the trousers of their youngest boy. He was 
 rather flushed that night, was Simmons, and 
 looked larger, heavier than ever, as if there were 
 less animal energy to his movements. This was 
 solved by a very simple explanation. He had 
 been dampening his buoyancy, so to speak, with 
 poor whiskey, the kind country keepers make 
 immense profits on. 
 
 Throughout the town there was just such 
 a tendency that August, when the great mill 
 was so long shut down. It was just after 
 the beginning of the month before this, that 
 Claude had acknowledged he was defeated. 
 There was no sign of water on his place. The 
 men had bored until it became ridiculous to do 
 so any longer. Then he had called a halt of 
 all proceedings in simple, manly, terse terms. 
 
 He had gone into the great power-rooms 
 where they were congregated, and said : 
 
 271 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 " You have all seen how the force of un- 
 fortunate circumstances compels us to take the 
 step we do to-day ; so I will not explain it to 
 you. All labor in the mine and mill will be 
 suspended for a time. 
 
 "In turning you adrift this way, I want to say 
 I have tried to do the best I was able, by and for 
 you all " deep gruff murmurs of approval 
 greeted this. 
 
 " Yet, in looking back, I see places where I 
 might have acted even more disinterestedly of 
 my own thoughts. So it will not be entirely 
 wasted such a period of reflection as this." 
 
 There was a blank, undecided result now. 
 
 " Let us trust the second opportunity will 
 come soon. I have telegraphed to my brother, 
 and, if he can suggest any form of negotiation I 
 have not thought of, the difficulty will soon be 
 removed." 
 
 The earnest young voice stimulated them to 
 purer moral courage for the time. They were 
 looking up at him, following, grasping, absorbing 
 his thoughts, as they came. None felt very 
 hard toward any one else just then. They 
 thought he was n't such a bad un for a rich 
 cove, while his following words won them into 
 loud, ringing hurrahs. 
 
 " There is a month's pay awaiting you all in 
 the office. There is only one word more to say ; 
 
 272 
 
About a " Club " 
 
 the moment we cease our relationship as man and 
 employer, I want you to feel that in any need 
 whatsoever, I have supplied a nearer one to you. 
 It is one ever grateful for the faithful part you have 
 played in our family fortunes that of friend." 
 
 He bowed. His dark eyes fell here and there 
 amongst them kind, straightforward, unosten- 
 tatious. 
 
 Then they all filed out. 
 
 Mrs. Simmons was a tall, blonde, lazy woman 
 who had been a tall, blonde, phlegmatic girl. 
 She did not have many worries nor any violent 
 interruptions in her placid affections, but she had 
 had one great fear stare her in the face once, 
 and she frittered a great many days away in 
 hopeless anxiety about it. Her appetite was 
 even impaired during the period. 
 
 She so dreaded growing stout. 
 
 Simmons said this was a fool idea, as every one 
 grew stout after thirty ; but, as he did n't expect 
 any but fool ideas from her, he did not worry 
 much either, after all. 
 
 She set great store by figure, so this had 
 bothered her a great deal until she came to Ari- 
 zona, where she remained reduced and happy. 
 Otherwise, she could not have lived in the place. 
 She was not a particularly brilliant woman, but 
 she used to dream quite imaginative things some- 
 
 18 273 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 times. After hours thinking over these things, 
 she used to say to Simmons, that she would feel 
 like Heaven if she were driving in a carriage up 
 Fifth Avenue with the children, all dressed lovely, 
 going to take dinner at Mrs. Dick Garnet's. 
 (Every one took his or her children when they 
 went to dinner at Mrs. Dick's.) She, Mrs. 
 Simmons, did hope the children would behave, 
 and not crush their clothes (quite as if they were 
 already started !), and she would wear a big hat with 
 plumes. It was too bad poor Mrs. Dick Gar- 
 net had n't more social push, had such poor taste 
 in spending money. She thought from all Sim- 
 mons had told her of his visit to them, that gilt 
 furniture with rich velvet trimmings was more 
 suitable to their income than the furniture with 
 which Mrs. Dick had supplied her mansion. 
 
 In fact, it occurred distantly to Mrs. Simmons 
 that, in time, since Mr. Dick and Simmons had 
 gone to school together, she would meet Mrs. 
 Edward and Mrs. Ralph. This was the dizziest 
 height that she ever attained in her rambles. It 
 was universally reported before a gown was barely 
 out in Paris, that Mrs. Edward had its identical 
 counterpart on her back. Mrs. Simmons thought 
 she and these two ladies would get on capitally. 
 
 It was a cosy-enough little room that Sim- 
 mons intruded upon that evening, rather old- 
 
 274 
 
About a "Club" 
 
 fashioned ; the usual, worn, country carpet ; 
 old-style parlor chairs ; centre-table and lamp 
 on it, with a few awry pictures about the walls. 
 
 They had brought all the furniture with them 
 from her mother's village home East. Simmons 
 sank into an immense grandfather's chair near 
 her, and sat staring at the work she was doing, 
 not as if it fascinated him, but as if it focussed 
 thought better for him than anything else. 
 
 " There 's a damned fellow in town I can't 
 understand," he remarked after a while. 
 
 Mrs. Simmons turned a corner of her patch, 
 while she said, with quite a degree of coquetry 
 to it : 
 
 " My market is made, dear. You can't expect 
 me to take the same interest in fellows I did 
 once." 
 
 They often said things like this to each other, 
 Simmons's star compliment being that she must 
 stop claiming Roland (their eldest son) soon ; he 
 was getting to look too old for her to mother. 
 
 Simmons did not reply to this, but stared at 
 the pants of his offspring. 
 
 " What did he do, dear? " the wife asked. 
 
 " Why, he took a risk," Simmons snapped ; 
 but being a faithful wife to him, she felt the snap 
 was not in her direction, so she simply raised her 
 blonde eyebrows inquisitively. 
 
 Simmons then got up and walked all around 
 275 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 the little room, like a caged giant. His head 
 nearly touched the papered ceiling. 
 
 " When a person takes risks/' he said, putting 
 his thumbs in the sleeves of his vest and expand- 
 ing, " there is always a doubt aroused in one's 
 mind as to whether he 's a fool, or dead sure of 
 his game." 
 
 " May be neither," said Mrs. Simmons, as if 
 she were arguing it attentively. 
 
 " What then ? " inquired her husband. 
 
 " Why, just talking to hear himself, to be sure, 
 as so many men do, dear, as you know," returned 
 his partner. 
 
 He said, " Pshaw ! " and rumpled his great 
 head of curly hair now. 
 
 " How is the club getting on, dear ? " asked 
 Mrs. Simmons, wondering why one knee had 
 worn through before the other. Simmons had 
 told her the citizens of the community had or- 
 ganized a club of defence of their interests, lately. 
 It kept him out, up late and very busy. He said 
 such a thing was necessary, and was of the vigil- 
 ance idea ; though the name was rather extreme, 
 as yet. Only every one was getting very tired of 
 the way the Weffolds were acting, and thought 
 steps ought to be taken in the direction at once. 
 
 She said on these occasions, when he told all 
 this to her : 
 
 " Indeed she did, too ; and the Weffolds were 
 276 
 
About a " Club " 
 
 rather a strange family any way one looked at 
 them, did n't he think ? Mrs. Weffold had 
 such unlady-like, almost heathen ideas on the 
 raising of children. Evidently her husband had 
 been reared like that, too, never sent little 
 Donald to Sunday-school." 
 
 (She did n't know his name was Johann Carl.) 
 
 " Mrs. Weffold even thought it quite clever 
 when her little son described his recollection of 
 one attendance at the Sabbath juvenile meeting 
 by ( he wis* that he never did go to that Sunny 
 cool place singer so long and noisy.' 
 
 "She hoped Simmons was glad his children did 
 not behave like that, and knew the difference 
 between a noise which was so pleasing to God 
 and that child's hermit-like habits." 
 
 (Simmons had laughed in the midst of her story, 
 when she came to poor little Don's heathenism, 
 so she had supplemented the rest.) 
 
 To-night he entered into no long-winded pre- 
 amble with her very feminine view of things. 
 
 He said : " When we were in the saloon this 
 evening, everything was going nicely, when that 
 old hanger-on of a farm-hand who has been old 
 Weffold's man Friday so long, came in and made 
 a mess of it all." 
 
 " Oh, how dreadful ! " she cried, as if it were 
 a nice bonnet given a wrong touch to ; " spoiled 
 your nice meeting ; and what did you do, dear? " 
 
 277 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 "Why, what could we do?" said Simmons. 
 " There is nothing one can do with an old fool 
 like that, whining around one. We had just con- 
 cluded to all start down in a body to-morrow, 
 now, don't get frightened, my love, merely to 
 see the matter through with those rascals, as it 
 were when in trundled this old fellow. We did 
 not mind him at all, like fools ; as since the stage 
 was taken from him, why, it was pretty generally 
 known he and old Weffold had n't been on very 
 lover-like terms. So we had almost forgotten his 
 existence, when he up and flew into a towering 
 rage, and called us all ' snakes,' and other un- 
 friendly epithets of that nature. 
 
 " Well, that would n't have amounted to any- 
 thing ; but some fellow who had had more than 
 was good for him (in fact, Shorty was pretty far 
 gone himself) called him a coward, said he was 
 afraid to join the crowd. Well, we thought 
 there 'd be the devil to pay after that little set-to, 
 but it was here the old drunken fool made an ass 
 of himself. He staggered over and laid his re- 
 volver on the bar, where every man could see it, 
 and said, he 'd go to-morrow with us, and, if we 
 proved Bax Weffold all we claimed, he 'd put him 
 out with one shot of that same weapon." 
 
 Mrs. Simmons said : " Dear me, who would 
 think any one could be so ungrateful ! " 
 
 Then Simmons saw all his rhetoric had been 
 278 
 
About a " Club " 
 
 wasted, so he stretched out and made as if he were 
 going to sleep. He was in no condition to have 
 much activity to his conscience. Mrs. Simmons 
 kept on patching. Presently, without looking 
 up at his huge, indolent form, she said : 
 
 " How did the club happen to meet in a 
 saloon, dear ? Was n't there any other place for 
 them ? " As Simmons did not respond, she 
 imagined he had fallen asleep, poor darling ! so 
 she finished her last stitches, quite tranquilly. 
 
 279 
 
THE DAY 
 
 IT was early morning. Men rode in from 
 here and there. Formerly they had crept 
 out of houses, unwashed, uncouth, almost 
 eternally impotent, if I may use the term. That 
 is, weak without union. 
 
 Some had awakened eager, restless, wondering, 
 alert ; some, quiet, compliant merely ; others, 
 surly, snappish, ready to treat their hearth, their 
 dog, and their women alike, with a kick or 
 oath. 
 
 If was very funny. I wonder if all riots have 
 been the same ; whether this husband and father, 
 sweetheart and brother phase of Arizonian evo- 
 lution was not unconsciously imitative. One 
 fellow jested with his baby. He had married a 
 Mexican, and she had borne a little, fair, sweet 
 girl to him. It crept around the kitchen now. 
 In his coarse wooden chair, environed by mere 
 bare implements for the proper sustenance of 
 human life, this father, young, warm-blooded 
 yesterday against oppression, eager in the support 
 of justice, I say, his desires, his pulses, his fine, 
 just senses all grew cold. 
 
 280 
 
The Day 
 
 There seemed no joy in the fray of the world, 
 yet he did not say it so finely. He simply sat, 
 dull and heavy, and watched his baby. Then he 
 fed it out of his own dish, and, going, he did not 
 kiss it, but pushed back his chair and went out, 
 not daring to think for himself, yet fiercely un- 
 satisfied, did he know it, of man's thought for 
 him. 
 
 And the throne on which justice sits is of this 
 clay not stone at all, my friends. 
 
 On the outskirts of the town, they gathered 
 never one first two or three, so abruptly and 
 in such unaccountable sympathy of motion as to 
 produce the impression that they had watched 
 and waited so as to make no man first. 
 
 One more three two now five seven 
 
 When there were seventy-five, all fell to quar- 
 relling, because one Doe brought word from a 
 Roe that the old gun-wound in his leg was a- 
 hurting and would keep him home. It was like 
 a girl's excuse to a party, and the rage within 
 them was fanned to a sudden blaze. They 
 cursed at each other. And any who had had 
 scruples, doubts about the real state of their 
 feelings, felt powerfully sure of their own delib- 
 eration now. 
 
 The great mill lay across from them, up on 
 the side of the hill. The young master of it all, 
 
 281 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 Jack the Giant Killer, was safe for once. They 
 were safe from his meddling, his infernal interfer- 
 ing with its deadly, persistent Sunday-schoolness. 
 They meant no harm to him. Some day, to- 
 morrow, next day or week, perhaps, he would 
 be Claude Garnet, capitalist, again their employer. 
 Now he was merely an impotent young moralist ; 
 they had Simmons' word for it. It had been 
 accomplished with such ease and finish as only a 
 gentleman like him could furnish the occasion. 
 
 Last night, during Claude Garnet's vigil, Sim- 
 mons, who had the mill key also, was to have 
 turned the key in the lock of the room which held 
 the young superintendent. This had been done. 
 
 You are not to underestimate Simmons in this 
 instance. What he had done was in the manner 
 of mischief, but in the name of ambition. He 
 had risked one good place in life every favor 
 with it for the final outwitting of the Weffolds, 
 father and son. He had false notions of the 
 result of this move. The mine was to become 
 an unlimited power by it. Claude's indisputa- 
 bleness as a millionaire, his inefficacy as mining 
 superintendent ; they were to be demonstrated, 
 too. But his own vague, enormous profit by it, 
 that was paramount. 
 
 As this gathering of men increased near the 
 north of the town, a child sat alongside an adja- 
 
 282 
 
The Day 
 
 cent cactus. He had deep-brown, dusty little 
 feet, half turned underneath him, ragged well- 
 worn overalls, and a freckled, sunburnt little face 
 from which he could pull little dried pieces of 
 pure, thin, Scotch skin without much consequent 
 inconvenience. He did not seem to be noticing 
 anybody, but sat there, half hugging his little 
 legs, and looking down at the ground in a dully 
 negative, more than timid, way. Little children 
 who are not great friends with enjoyment often 
 look like this. Yet, from time to time, he gave 
 a furtive, swift little glance around him. 
 
 Once, when no one seemed to be looking, this 
 child climbed with one swift motion to his feet, 
 and put off toward the town beyond. He lost 
 his small scrap of breath as he ran. A man 
 amongst the crowd happened to see the drab- 
 clad little figure scurrying, as if it were frightened, 
 so, all to himself, he smiled. 
 
 Dirty skinned, with sun-bleached hair and 
 straight little Scotch gaze, the child ran on. The 
 houses were built on the ground, off irregular 
 streets, and it was only a part of his run when it 
 terminated almost in the arms of a dour figure 
 which was ironing that early on an improvised 
 board. 
 
 Mrs. Fitzsimmons laid down her iron, and faced 
 her son. He stood stark-still after his entrance. 
 It was a sort of violent ending to his run. 
 
 283 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 " I think Mester Bax is to be kilt," he said, 
 letting his mouth stay open. 
 
 " Off wi' ye," the mother returned. " What 
 mean ye ? " 
 
 " The men," returned the little fellow, " every 
 man in town near, even Shorty, all a-standing 
 over by the little graves of the men wh' died, a- 
 whooping it up." 
 
 With that term a new life came to him : 
 
 " They are a-whooping it up now," he said. 
 " After they go a-whooping it up, mither, why 
 they are to kill Bax Weffold, not old Maj'r 
 Weffold. Mees Bax was allays good to me, 
 mither, even when I asked her every five minutes, 
 thinking it an hour. Working wi' Mr. Garnet 
 made me unnerstan' that was being a baby, like 
 HI' Marj're." 
 
 She did not know what it would lead to. 
 
 " Mither, is there no one to stop them ? Mees 
 Bax we' gude to me !" 
 
 She caught a sort of quick breath, and her eyes 
 glistened. 
 
 " There are nothing ye can do, my son. God, 
 he have made this quarrel between them, man 
 and men, and the lamb will be asked as sacr'fice, 
 mark me, mark me ! " she returned. 
 
 He did not understand it. 
 
 " Can't nothing be did to stop them ? Mees 
 Bax we' gude to me," he said. 
 
 284 
 
The Day 
 
 "There is the constable could be told," said 
 the woman. 
 
 The little figure gave a sudden turn before the 
 mind got active. There was a gleam of great hope 
 in the motion, then he was looking at her hope- 
 lessly, the heart beating hard and the mouth open. 
 
 " The constable no can help us," he cried ; " he 
 was wi' them, too, y' see ! " 
 
 The face had meant nothing to him then, now 
 he suddenly remembered. 
 
 The woman looked at her little boy. He was 
 choking up bravely, keeping down tears that 
 seemed like Marj're's. 
 
 " There is Mr. Garnet will help 'em," he said 
 at last. 
 
 " Mr. Garnet no is home," she returned with 
 helpless following of her child. 
 
 " But I will find him," said Robert. His little 
 voice broke in places, courageously. " An* he 
 will be glad, mither, and he will take his gun and 
 go down to Weffold and kill the men who are 
 hating Mrs. Bax." 
 
 "Go then, my boy," the poor thing exhorted 
 nobly. He was great blessings to her just then. 
 " Go and find Mr. Claude, and say this to him : 
 c Mither says hurry, for God's sake ! ' They 
 won't dare disobey Mr. Claude." 
 
 Then a thought came to her. 
 
 She caught hold of his arm as he turned, and 
 285 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 faced him, so she saw the freckled, peeling, sun- 
 burnt little face. 
 
 " There be Tommy Knockers up at the 
 mine," she said, in a whisper. It was the only 
 thing in life she was afraid of, these miner 
 ghaists who worked and knocked and whistled, 
 and loaded one car every evening, laughing as it 
 rattled off from their eerie fingers. Since the 
 mine was abandoned, many stories had spread 
 about this, some even saying the ghaists worked 
 so well that Mr. Claude had been able to send a 
 load of ore into the cars already. 
 
 Mother and son, both, were pale. They 
 looked at each other. Suddenly her grasp relaxed. 
 The next moment she and her fear were alone. 
 The child ran swiftly. He was not thinking of 
 anything, end or reward or manner only de- 
 liverance. He went circling around some squatty 
 huts. He passed the great bed of slag, dry, 
 cracked, hard, as it lay with the water evaporated 
 from it. He reached the long circling path to 
 the top of the hill, indeed it was a mountain. 
 He ran up it, bending low, thinking of nothing 
 but the cookies Mees Bax had been so lavish in 
 giving him, covered with white and then with 
 chocolate figures. He could not run as he as- 
 cended, but trotted like a tired colt. It was really 
 a slower process than walking. He seemed to slip 
 back. 
 
 286 
 
The Day 
 
 Then from the crown of the hill, he caught 
 sight of Weffold's. A man and a horse were 
 moving across it, small, like a rabbit on a plain. 
 He almost cried out, because the last path seemed 
 so high ; he was so tired ; and that man was 
 Mester Bax. 
 
 But the little child kept on manfully. He ran 
 through the great empty rooms, until he came to 
 the safe room where he'd often taken Mr. Claude 
 his meals. It was off his office. As the child 
 approached it, he called Claude shrilly : 
 
 " Mr. Claude, Mr. Garnet, Mr. Claude ! " 
 then, Mr. Claude Garnet ! " 
 
 The door was shut, locked. When he found 
 this out, he commenced pounding on it with his 
 little fists. He became strong as a hero, and 
 persistent as Marj're. After utter, prolonged 
 utter silence, he went off and got a stick and 
 propped it against the wall, and climbed and 
 slipped back and climbed, slipping, until he 
 reached the little ridge the transom opened on. 
 Still he was not tall enough ; so he tussled, 
 struggling, panting, to draw himself up to look 
 in. The room was empty ! Poor little maniac, 
 it was the greatest shock of his life. The desk 
 stood there just as Claude had left it, even unto 
 the incandescent light which he had left burning. 
 The books lay about, as if they were waiting to 
 be closed. The chair was half-around, as if he had 
 
 287 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 just turned to get out of it. But there was no 
 sight or sound of life. 
 
 Robert Fitzsimmons dropped heavily to the 
 floor on his feet. It was a long way. They 
 were very sore, and it hurt him. Suddenly, as if 
 he could stand no more unkindness, he crouched 
 down, caught hold of each one of them, and began 
 to cry, all alone except for echo. 
 
 By seven, the men who were to dispense justice 
 had drunk a great deal. The blood ran hot 
 through them A great thirst parched their 
 throats, and some thought it was the drought; 
 some, the cruelty of their oppression ; while the 
 more unconsciously honest, simply wanted another 
 drink. So they bore on to Weffold's. 
 
 The place lay calm in the early day. It was 
 almost golden. Afar off waved the MajYs 
 grain ; the green young trees right around the 
 house were bearing first fruit, and the great pond, 
 with its countless ducks, lay serene before the 
 coveters, 
 
 A madness possessed them at the simple sight. 
 Yet a little child became distinct from the rough 
 attempt at art-rocks as they approached, and 
 sat looking at them, with shaded, wondering, 
 surpassingly angelic eyes. He was used to great 
 herds of cattle, to detaching some little calf or 
 yearling from a great multitude of others, purely 
 
 288 
 
The Day 
 
 in his affections (if I may so speak) ; used to 
 loving this one or that one, and keeping it 
 fixed, separate, well pondered over, in his quaint 
 little mind. 
 
 He detached Shorty now. He saw them all ; 
 but when he really found Shorty, impulsively he 
 clapped his hands. And then he sat with them 
 clasped, as the men came on toward him. 
 
 He was wondering why Shorty did not smile 
 at him. 
 
 On a little knoll by the west side of the dwell- 
 ing the invaders saw a man standing, swinging 
 an ax. As they came nearer, he stopped his 
 chopping, and walked forward a little. The large 
 hat he usually wore, was off. By this, the almost 
 Apache stillness of head, with deep-set, watching 
 eyes, was accentuated more than words can say. 
 It was a silhouette of the hopeless, dry, cruel 
 Territory in person. His lips curved in the 
 endless smile of the sky which had refused water 
 to them. 
 
 Silence was for a moment unbroken. Then 
 his soft, slow, soothing speech dropped into 
 their ears like poison. 
 
 " Gentlemen," it said, " what ken I do for 
 you ? " 
 
 The man who was to have made the speech 
 could not open his mouth to answer ; so dignity 
 was lost from that moment. An old man 
 19 289 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 amongst them began to yell in inarticulate rage, 
 as a little child would have. He dismounted 
 and stepped forward a foot or so. Then one 
 could recognize him. He was an old enemy of 
 the MajYs, poor as dirt; a vagrant half, but 
 they had fought in the Mexican war together. 
 They had hated each other even then ; and years 
 of avarice and affluence on the one side, of 
 constant failure and disappointment and unsatis- 
 fied demands on the other, had made the antago- 
 nism tough as the root of some gnarled old tree. 
 
 He raised his fist and shook it in blind, mad 
 wrath, without a vestige of the dignity of age in 
 it, the action detracting meanwhile from a certain 
 stateliness of rhetoric. 
 
 "John Weffold ! " he shrieked, anglicizing the 
 name unnaturally, "John Weffold, I neither 
 fear ye nor love ye ! Do your worst." 
 
 The old man whom life had blessed with 
 riches controlled himself with a giant effort. 
 One could see the old political suavity die the 
 death as one watched him, hounded, bereft, 
 unmagnetic at last. 
 
 He squared his bent old shoulders. 
 
 " Gentle-men," he commenced, dwelling on the 
 parts of it, "will you allow me to arm myself?" 
 
 The vitality of the grievance swept suddenly 
 into these two old men. 
 
 They stood glaring like couchant tigers, bitter 
 290 
 
The Day 
 
 hate in form, lip, eye. Then, as they stood so, 
 face to face, their quarrel just with cause at last, 
 in this Devil's land without law or order, the 
 old vagrant, still watching, suddenly raised his 
 gun. 
 
 In another second the glistening ax went up 
 over its owner's shoulder. 
 
 Then, piercingly, for the first time in his life, 
 from little lips freed at last of fear or shy eva- 
 sion, there came one word between foe and foe. 
 
 It was protective. 
 
 " Gan-pa ! " was all like a wail. 
 
 In the start it produced among them, the ax 
 was lowered shiveringly. His old eyes changed 
 for one brief second. 
 
 Then he was himself again. 
 
 Before any one well realized what had occurred, 
 a man stepped from the house beyond them, and 
 stood negatively a few feet away. His face 
 expressed little of all he was doubtless striving 
 to control. As for the atmosphere in which 
 he stood, it was a disintegration, yet holding 
 properties of the absolute surface calm of his 
 dwelling. 
 
 He did not seem to see his child. 
 
 In another instant he had also mounted the 
 little incline upon which the Maj'r stood. 
 
 He had on the ordinary cow-boy rig, with 
 291 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 modifications. His deep-set eyes were more un- 
 fathomable than ever. In his right hand, which 
 had once been able to lass' the toughest bull at 
 any round-up, something was clutched white, 
 like a little piece of paper. The other hand was 
 empty. 
 
 Yet as he stood so (unarmed, his environ- 
 ment accidentally pitiable, a child paralyzed 
 with fear close beside him, and twenty feet off or 
 so, his wife), he seemed their master. The con- 
 clusion swept away from the present, from the 
 unuttered accusations on their ineloquent lips, 
 from his child, from that thin, frightened tigress 
 of a woman leaning against his humble door. It 
 went back to when long busy days, great silent 
 plains, slumber under one matchless heaven, had 
 made them brothers of one birth and blood. 
 The revolution of feeling was visible, tremendous, 
 vital, strangling almost. 
 
 They loved him ; he had been their friend. 
 Those who were not so, became sober like half- 
 drowned men who were being worked over, yet 
 the coming-to was hard. Suddenly one wanted to 
 cheer him. It commenced like a little motion 
 never carried, for Shorty had dismounted from his 
 horse. When he went through the gate between 
 them, the only instincts of home in his life were a- 
 tuggin* on to his heart, he 'd have said, like little 
 cords as a baby hands was a-pullin'. He shuffled, 
 
 292 
 
The Day 
 
 looked slouchy, had his hat pulled low ; but 
 between tobacco-stained lips mumbled words 
 crowded sweet, from his very soul, with honey, 
 yet no one heard them : 
 
 " My little boy, my little Bax'n," were these. 
 It is a trick of the memory ; mothers do that 
 with grown sons at times. 
 
 " Las' night," he said, Cf a Mexican woman 
 died of starvation in town. They said she had 
 no food or no water. A poor mis'able greaser, 
 but died of starvation, an* a woman, Bax. They 
 had ten young uns, and her husband was turned 
 off from the mill, when it stopped. They hed 
 no way to look around and no one back on them. 
 
 " The Chinaman as worked in your own fier, 
 my boy, he headed out of town yesaday, driv'n- 
 like wi' the sand of the storm only 'gasted coin 
 to his name, ten-cent piece, as kid of Marpens 
 runned inter his mother fur 
 
 "You and I, boy, have went through this 
 country when 'twar barrener than 'tis now, but 
 there was no one save a calves t' pity. It is a- 
 mixing a women an childer up with the des'lation 
 that counts like. Th' conditions better con- 
 ditions 'n these have ast'd blood of a civilized 
 country, 'r so they tell me. The the men are 
 a-blamin' you, my boy. Thet 's it " 
 
 The man addressed did not stir for a second. 
 When he turned, and was not obscured at all by 
 
 2 93 
 
In the Coimtry God Forgot 
 
 Shorty, one could see massive, sweeping changes, 
 as if a lion had been aroused at last. 
 
 " Tell them," he said to his father. 
 
 " What shall I tell them ? " the old man asked. 
 
 " Tell them what part I Ve played through all 
 this," the younger replied. Every muscle in his 
 body was a command ; his face was death-like as 
 the bronze mask of some tomb ; great swollen 
 cords were on brow, neck, and hands, like whips ; 
 his eyes were a-glitter. " Tell them," he re- 
 peated ; " we are father and son no longer, master 
 and slave no longer, man and man at last." 
 
 He crept nearer unconsciously. As he did, a 
 woman's scream rent the air in protest. He cast 
 a swift look at her, and learning something, stood 
 still. 
 
 She was afraid for him, but he did not mind 
 her interference. She was one of the guards of 
 his eternal soul. 
 
 In the silence, before the Maj'r answered, some 
 men drove off from the crowd like mad. You 
 could hear the echo of their riding. It was muf- 
 fled in the dust this instant, the next like a 
 hammer on clanging nails. They said afterward : 
 " When it got down to a family quarrel why, 
 good-bye." In this country of action, it was 
 more <c like hard work doing nothing " in a crisis 
 that was all. 
 
 Bax and his father now seemed alone. They 
 294 
 
The Day 
 
 did not see the faces of old-time friends, late foes, 
 acquaintances, grouped indiscriminately together. 
 Half had dismounted, and in with the human 
 faces was, now and again, the gaunt, submissive 
 head of a horse. 
 
 " I don't bring you to account for the past, for 
 the wreck you made of life to a child. Let my 
 mother's name be dropped. She is dead as 
 dead to my mercy as you have made her to 
 yours. 
 
 " I came back a year ago to your roof. I was 
 dying ; you could not have saved me. I am 
 dying now ; but you could have been kinder to 
 me, more honorable, more just. You let every- 
 thing go before your hate of me. 
 
 " Yet, when you stood in Wilcox three months 
 ago, covered by the six-shooter of a man you had 
 ruined of all his means, you let me say, c I am his 
 partner ; settle with me, Dick,' and let me go 
 out of a friend's presence, a coward, lying, dis- 
 honorable, a trader on misfortune, a betrayer of 
 trusts ! You were willing to hide behind me, 
 despicable a son as I was. I never had a partner- 
 ship with you. I have worked, been patient for 
 the sake of my wife and my little son. I will be 
 so no longer. To-night I am going to leave 
 Arizona forever ; strangers can see to my burial, 
 other earth hold my paltry clay " 
 
 He gave a great stride forward, but then, re- 
 295 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 membering that scream of a woman, halted with 
 a crippled magnificence of strength. 
 
 " But before I go, there is a debt between us 
 you shall pay to the state, to other sons, in my 
 memory. It shall be given in the name of my 
 child, who is going with me. He is a stranger 
 to you from now on. What the law would give 
 to him, you can give to the country in our 
 
 name." 
 
 He staggered, turned around, and addressed 
 the men before him. 
 
 " I appeal to you as my friends," he said, " to 
 protect my father. He will promise to redress 
 any sorrow, any suffering, any wrong caused 
 through us. He will substantiate now for you 
 all I have promised, all I leave unsaid." 
 
 The old man stepped forward, and faced him. 
 He had a revolver in his hand. He did not 
 raise it. 
 
 " Liar cur," he cried, holding good control 
 of himself. 
 
 Bax opened his hand. It was cramped, and 
 unfastened slowly. 
 
 " I have your word in black and white," he 
 said. "You dare not lie before God and my 
 mother. I am giving away my own." 
 
 A voice like a snake hissed at him. 
 
 " You have no own," it said. 
 
 As Bax looked at him, the pistol rose. No 
 296 
 
The Day 
 
 earthly sound filled the quiet air. The man 
 most likely to break it, stood staring at the 
 mouth of the revolver, for his heart was wounded 
 mortally at last. He tried to raise his hand 
 once in protest, but it would not stir. It was 
 the hand which held the paper. 
 
 Then he watched his father. 
 
 " Drop that," yelled the Maj'r; " you have no 
 right to it, I say." 
 
 The distance between them seemed to have 
 lessened. This accentuated the unyielding fear- 
 lessness of the son, the waiting malevolent hate 
 of the father. 
 
 "You have no right to it. Drop it, I say." 
 Then the pistol dropped for a surer weapon. 
 The old Maj'r remembered nothing, violating 
 the secrecy of a lifetime. 
 
 " Bastard ! " he hissed. 
 
 Almost simultaneously with this climax, a 
 woman sped from the door beyond them. Bax 
 did not seem to see her. So running, reeling, 
 she fell sobbing at his feet. The sound was 
 distressing. 
 
 He felt her mute hands praying to him, plead- 
 ing with him, assuring him of her love and the 
 child's. Still he said nothing. He saw the men 
 who had known him since he was a little boy. 
 He saw the child, the home he had loved, as 
 he had religion and all his thoughts of good. 
 
 297 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 The secret lay bare at last to him. In this 
 moment, ancestry was no blur a release extra- 
 ordinary, a conscious wonder. 
 
 Then all was blank, quite black. 
 
 Out of the entire past, he retained one posses- 
 sion. It could not be wrested from him. It was 
 his mother. He shuddered, and the paper fell to 
 the ground. He did not grudge it to the old 
 man who had been his father this long. He 
 was saying words as it went back to its owner, 
 mumbled words which the Maj'r did not, could 
 not hear : 
 
 " So this is your love your love." 
 
 Then, turning, he went to go in. Not one of 
 the fifty men around tried to delay him. 
 
 Bax Weffold walked off slowly. He went like 
 a man in a daze. If the Maj'r had fired his 
 threatening pistol, there could not have been less 
 life to that still, checked look on his face. 
 
 As he walked from them, one saw the great, 
 haunted, noble form stooping between the shoul- 
 ders. Mockingly, it attacked the watchers that 
 this had been the great point of resemblance 
 before between him and his father. His head 
 was bared. Men who had known him since 
 he was a little fellow could almost see his 
 mother fondling his hair. 
 
 He walked on blindly. Until a woman joined 
 298 
 
The Day 
 
 him near the entrance, the tragic loneliness had 
 been impossible to comprehend as a part im- 
 pression, it was so absolute ; then it became 
 tremendous. He, this woman, and a little boy 
 entered the door-way together. 
 
 When it closed behind them, a sudden cheer 
 swelled and went up toward heaven from strong, 
 yearning throats. 
 
 Angels might have smiled at the echo of great 
 joy in it ; but the legend says it is God, the 
 Omnipotent, who listens. Thus when the cheer 
 reached heaven, its might had slipped into a 
 woman's sob. 
 
 Then all was over. 
 
 299 
 
A LITTLE STORY 
 
 OUTSIDE, to the men who waited, one 
 began to speak. His eyes went from 
 one to the other shiftily. He was sizing 
 up the situation, the eternal principle of good 
 in it, the possibility of a relapse into scepticism 
 regarding Bax Weffold again. 
 
 It was Shorty. 
 
 He saw the figures which the late disclosure 
 had left inert, awkward, motionless, as if senti- 
 ment had slid like an angel amongst them, 
 making these rough, clumsy fellows afraid to 
 speak. 
 
 The sun had gained heat, and was glaring, 
 but no one noticed it. Among the more re- 
 fined of them, hats mostly of the sombrero 
 order had come off when Mrs. Bax joined 
 her husband. The men were holding these 
 awkwardly. 
 
 They were in all manner of grotesque positions. 
 Presently Shorty's mouth opened. Hard work 
 it had been, my friends. As he talked, he looked 
 at no one. This is the reason ; should you 
 who read this care : 
 
 300 
 
A Little Story 
 
 " What has ben sed ter-day, can't be forgotted. 
 Pards, when I think of thet woman, I remember 
 thet, and bitter as 'tis t' say aught of her, 
 why, guess she 'd want me to a defend Bax. At 
 least, them is my reflections of her. What we 
 say of the dead harms no ones r'member 
 that." 
 
 He was speaking of Mrs. Carl WefFold, 
 every one knew that, the woman who had been 
 to his life, dear reader, what your or my 
 mother was to us. 
 
 Campbell stepped forward : 
 
 " 'Nough said, Shorty, we kin guess the rest, 
 ef we want to. There is none of us cares to 
 intrude on a lady." 
 
 " Bax seems like t' be egging me on," Shorty 
 said, quite simply. He looked at the door 
 through which Bax had gone, and so told his 
 story. 
 
 "When I fust struck WefFold Range," he 
 said, " I knowed nothing wh'tever of what I am 
 goin' to tell yer, till one night, when we drove 
 fifty miles inter Tombstone for an after round-up 
 celebration, I hearn what s'prised me. 
 
 " We boys was a-ripping up the town, and one 
 night, at a music hall, we stumbled agin a chap 
 who was down on cel'bration also, been three 
 years off S'nora way, minin*. 
 
 "He got to telling me of an incident as 
 301 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 happened at his last stay in the setTment. Been 
 a pretty young place then, and a hard name to it, 
 when who should enter the camp one night but 
 a woman. Gawd, one can 'magine her, big, 
 soft, sad eyes like Bax Weffold's, and little feet 
 and hands, 'cause I've seed 'em, and reg'lar 
 Queen Victor'a air. She was in the forlornest 
 scrape us damn men drive sich-like weak women 
 inter ; for, may be I did n't mention, she was a- 
 luggin' a child, both half-starved, and she 
 proud as hell for all they was no more an 
 beggars. She 'd come to sing in a music hall, 
 very one we was in that evening. She was 
 a-supporting the child, she told 'em, and there 
 was no sort of talk of a man. 
 
 "He said she did her part gamey, sung, 
 got paid for it, went home, nursed her kid ; 
 but I thet 've seen her a wife after, cud stake 
 every damn fool hope I ever had of a rich 
 find, pardners, thet only the kid kept her 
 a-living, many th' time." 
 
 He drew a deep breath, looking around on them. 
 
 " It. was thet woman as was after Mrs. Carl 
 WefFold, old MajYs wife," he said. "The 
 people got less who knowed it. In a land like 
 this, they come and go, and forget things ; some 
 died. Bax was the baby. I never let on or spoke 
 to a soul. I only corned home and loved him, 
 poor little mite ! Then he got to love me " 
 
 302 
 
A Little Story 
 
 Shorty halted. 
 
 Into every man's soul, filled with bitter hate of 
 the Maj'r, came (for all that) so great it nearly 
 strangled almost a sense of what the Maj'r had 
 had to bear, to love such a woman, sweet as 
 Heaven, sad as night, proud as Hell, think of 
 it, her arm around the neck of a bastard young 
 one, and her barren, limp little hand in his, only 
 an eternal profile. 
 
 Ah, God knows it is hard, hard to judge. 
 
 No one guessed what he was thinking. 
 
 Then one sprang in his saddle passionately ! 
 It made a harsh little stir amongst them. He 
 may have been your son, best friend, before the 
 country absorbed him. Now he was a cow-boy. 
 Once Bax Weffold had tried to save his soul. 
 The horse rode away. As space passed, this man's 
 face softened ; all of its rough negative outline 
 gained gentler, tenderfoot curves once again. He 
 was not aware of it. 
 
 Only deep down in his heart did he feel for 
 what he was riding, riding to find some sort 
 of woman who would pray that Bax Weffold, 
 bastard, should not die, but get well. 
 
 303 
 
THE SACRIFICIAL LAMB 
 
 THE rest of our story can be briefly told, 
 much of it merely repeated. 
 It is still related amongst the residents 
 of Hope, that on the second morning after old Carl 
 Weffbld's great quarrel with his former son, a man 
 stepped out of their house, just at dawn. He 
 chose the back entrance, and saw, as he looked 
 around him, rough men scattered here and there, 
 as if they 'd had a night's vigil of it. One or two 
 young fellows lay, half sleeping, under their hats 
 on the ground. 
 
 The sun was yet very close to the line of the 
 earth, and shed warm, yellow rays on the sur- 
 rounding country, as if some of the golden glory 
 of Heaven had crept through it, and was striving 
 to justify, in a measure, man's yearning nobility 
 just then. 
 
 For the hearts of the watchers were very sad. 
 They saw it was Shorty, who had no other name 
 (or so men told one, from time to time). None 
 tried to guess his message, until he stepped out 
 and closed the door behind him. Then they felt 
 he had made no noise. 
 
 34 
 
The Sacrificial Lamb 
 
 His weather-marked face was as usual. His 
 trousers had slipped below the waist-measure, just 
 as of old ; but the voice was full of a high refine- 
 ment. 
 
 " Bax Weffold is dead/' he said. 
 
 Later, more news came to them, and was whis- 
 pered muffledly around. How, night afore last, 
 he had seemed to rally after the great bad spell 
 caused by the quarrel ; how man and woman 
 and child and the elephant had gone through that 
 first long watch alone. 
 
 Then he had sunk toward morning. Noon- 
 time he had tried to say some words, two of which 
 were " sweet " and " forgiveness." Then a long 
 unreachable stupor had come, through which 
 love, sound, sight, were all powerless to pene- 
 trate. And so, they had thought, he would 
 pass out forever; but the lingering soul willed 
 it otherwise. 
 
 For just as light entered radiantly through 
 their drawn curtains, he had sprung forward, free 
 at last, shouting : 
 
 " The herd ! the herd ! it is coming." Lo ! 
 bend your ear and hear it ! the sweeping, surg- 
 ing roar again, but this time his senses played him 
 false, for it was the great long-silent mill of the 
 Garnets starting up at last. 
 
 Then Mrs. Bax had laid his body over tenderly. 
 20 305 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 She had no hard feelings after he died. She 
 buried him by the side of their little Chicky. 
 She carved the heathen little name herself, because 
 there was no one else so adequate to do it. Two 
 little boards were all ; but when she came to Bax's, 
 she wondered vaguely what the rest should be. 
 
 No one living had ever known. 
 
 She did not know what to do, just at first. 
 The inclination to leave WefFold involved a few 
 days' good-bye to Bax's grave. She had turned 
 from it, when he was covered first, with a queer 
 little ringing in her dead heart, such as takes hold 
 of even healthy ears at times. 
 
 It was a philosophy from the fact of his life 
 having ended, rather than its grief. What does 
 our hate count ? 
 
 What does our hate count ? 
 
 She saw her sister after, her few true friends ; but 
 there was only one person whom she really cared 
 to talk to, although he was too young to under- 
 stand her. 
 
 It was Bax's child. 
 
 She then tried to plan for him ; but the futurity 
 of their life together was something she could not 
 even grasp, so she could only give him food, and 
 bathe and nurse him in a queer diverting sort of 
 manner that wrung Robbie's heart as she watched 
 her. 
 
 She seemed in no haste to leave. When 
 306 
 
The Sacrificial Lamb 
 
 Robbie hinted dimly at the cause for this, she 
 said : 
 
 " It is an unuttered feeling of forgiveness, and 
 I am weak enough to presume on it all. I don't 
 want to see him, but but I could n't leave them 
 just yet ! " 
 
 The supporting words sounded as if Bax had 
 said them to her, so Robbie accepted it all finally, 
 although there was little to do or understand 
 about it. 
 
 She felt, if she had not loved Claude just then, her 
 heart would have been broken. He seemed the 
 one anchor necessary for them all, the one ele- 
 ment not shivered into hopeless little bits. She 
 looked to him and time to bring order out of the 
 ruin again. 
 
 Three days after Bax was buried, a new quality 
 crept into the air. Men smiled and said 
 " Gawd ! " as they felt it, as we have a habit of 
 saying down here. 
 
 It was moisture. 
 
 The sun was nowhere to be seen. A little 
 child sat out by a duck-pond, and watched all 
 this gravely. He did not know what to do with 
 himself. He missed his " poppie," without know- 
 ing the owner of that adored little name was dead, 
 "gone from him forever," as we tell the very 
 young. Sometimes, in the midst of his solemn 
 little play, he said the name over and over. 
 
 37 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 Once the whole love-fraught little phrase escaped 
 him absently : 
 
 " Me love oo worser nor any sing." 
 
 And no one was there to hear it. 
 
 Occasionally he waved at his mother, who stood 
 often in the door. 
 
 He did not know why the sun was not shin- 
 ing, anything about earth or sky ; so after a 
 little it occurred to him, it would be nice to find 
 the sun to-day. May be it was hidden up in the 
 mountains. He and his friend, the elephant, 
 went trudging off sturdily. 
 
 Mrs. Bax came out after a little, and when she 
 saw that he was missing, let her heart beat and 
 beat until it hurt her. Then she ran after him 
 bareheaded ; but she ran the wrong way. 
 
 He had taken the long line on which his pop- 
 pie had often ridden up toward home at nightfall. 
 It stretched far away to the hills. He walked a 
 long, long time. He grew very sober, but not 
 frightened, as he went. 
 
 It was merely being tired. When he got 
 near the foot of the hills, he drew up and looked 
 around him. He did not know which path to 
 choose. The hills lay black ; the ground, which 
 was usually just a dry, white, glaring formation, lay 
 in dark strange shades. He sighed, and went to 
 drop down just where he stood, until he rested; 
 
 308 
 
The Sacrificial Lamb 
 
 when he started} and gave a shrill, smothered 
 little scream. 
 
 A man was sitting at the foot of the mountain 
 nearest, on a rock. He was like the child. He 
 had become very lonely, and had wandered off 
 here to try and find something, only grown-up 
 people call it peace. 
 
 It was old WerTold. 
 
 He sat staring at the little boy. He almost 
 forgot that he was not his living grandson, they 
 had kept up the farce so long. The child was 
 surprised to see his grandfather sitting in this 
 wonderful place ; but, with the rare intuition of 
 the young, he realized a great change had occurred 
 between them. He was not so fearful as 
 formerly. 
 
 The meeting was, in a manner, providential. 
 God had been visiting Carl Weffold heavily. 
 Wronged, cruel, tortured, blasphemous chaos 
 was in his heart until he saw Bax's child that 
 afternoon on the hillside. Then there was a 
 rush as of many waters, and he was a human, 
 erring, conscience-stricken, sad old man, at last. 
 
 They went off up the steep path, side by side. 
 It was a path not new, but well trampled, and 
 gradually Carl realized that it was the road to 
 Sharpens old claim way above them. Yet they 
 saw no sign of it around. He did not believe 
 
 309 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 in the search for the sun, but he wanted to take 
 the little one back to his mother. 
 
 The day grew darker. It was only four o'clock, 
 but as if it were seven. 
 
 Down at the ranch behind them, Mrs. Bax 
 grew wild with fear. She said she could not find 
 her boy. 
 
 Messages were sent to the great Garnet mine, 
 and fifty men were sent out here and there. They 
 went as if their hearts were bursting, the little 
 boy that had once owned the great sweeping 
 country, and now whom the great country owned, 
 "hed allus owned God bless 'im ! 
 
 " Pshaw ! " 
 
 The day grew wet and cold. The hours passed, 
 and it came to be six o'clock. Then stupid, joyous 
 fellows got on the track, where roaming horses or 
 cows had not lost it, and they made off toward 
 the hill. 
 
 They found that lightly covered, abandoned 
 claim of old Sharpe's broken in ; feeble cries were 
 issuing from it. 
 
 It was two o'clock when the child had wan- 
 dered off alone. It was seven past when men 
 with sick, scared faces bore two burdens down 
 the hill. One tried to go along first and break 
 it to the women folks. He stopped when he 
 
 310 
 
The Sacrificial Lamb 
 
 tried to do it, as if he were in a mortal cramp. 
 He said : 
 
 " The old man and the little 'un fell shaft 
 of old Sharpens Abandoned claim. It is all right; 
 
 don't worry. He is only stunned ; but 
 the babby " 
 
 She went out past him to the shivering crowd. 
 She was white, her neck tense, her eyes alone 
 suffering. She did not scream when they showed 
 her the little pale, perfect form and face. 
 
 God knew. It was between them. 
 
 In her arms, through the rude old gate, over 
 the path, she carried her first-born, until they 
 reached his father's grave. Then her strength 
 seemed spent, or her journey ended, for she 
 crouched down, and kissed him once passionately 
 
 the great waxen lids barely together. So he 
 had lain sleeping on her bosom many a day. 
 
 She closed her eyes, raising her face to heaven. 
 
 Then very slowly the sky responded, as it were, 
 to her grief. Great merciful drops came down, 
 one by one ; on her, on her child, on her sight- 
 less, stricken face were they falling, on the thirsty 
 earth, on Bax, on their little, little baby. 
 
 At that she started sobbing. It was raining at 
 last on them all. The men had turned away, in- 
 adequate to console her; but when the heavy 
 drops grew into a shower, Robbie Laurence 
 seemed to awaken passionately. 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 Kind arms, pity beyond words, sought to en- 
 fold Mrs. Weffold ; then a rough hand shot this 
 bolt of joy through her, a coarse hand laid pity- 
 ingly on her shoulder and hoarse words ripped 
 from the big heart of him : 
 
 " He is living Mis' Bax, he is livin' ! " 
 Poor old heart, so perfected! for she thought 
 it was Christ, and ceased weeping, only it was 
 Shorty's voice. 
 
A SWORD LAID BY 
 
 IN the days he lay sick unto death, Carl Wef- 
 fold saw a woman's figure moving here and 
 there, like a shadow. It beautified his lonely 
 room, and one night he dreamed it was an angel 
 come to absolve him from his weight of sin. But 
 in the morning she fed gruel to him, so he closed 
 his eyes and tried to pray to some one more lofty. 
 " Heavenly Father," he sought to say, " let this 
 woman look more kindly on me ! " the woman 
 who fed him the gruel; but God understood it. 
 It was a funny little prayer, but worded, we 
 must remember, by lips long unused to praying. 
 "Heavenly Father," ever thus, "let this 
 woman look more kindly on me ! " 
 
 The woman did all she could. Her pale, calm, 
 kind face, like a mask of patience, was the first 
 thing his eyes saw on waking, the last thing closed 
 to him when he fell asleep, such a pale, calm, 
 kind face, with no glad young glory of emotion. 
 Poor Mrs. Bax ! It was her spirit which served 
 him, so she did not become worn. She cooled 
 his broth, and cooked his gruel, and knew just 
 
 3 T 3 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 when the bright sun fell on his face, for then the 
 blind was lowered. If a pillow under his head 
 grew hot, she was there to punch it, to lay it 
 aside and put in another. Indeed, her hands often 
 touched him, but then he scarce dared to breathe. 
 
 Poor old Johann Carl Weffold ! That other 
 woman of his life came back in swift, consuming 
 memories, just as Bax's gentle spirit may have 
 come to that other heart, and again the woman 
 changed his pillow ; but this time her hand 
 trembled ever so little. And the Galilean may 
 have smiled, we do not know Him of late save 
 by pretty pictures, but they look so kind-hearted 
 must have tenderly and as pityingly smiled, for 
 He was putting His peace between them. 
 
 Now God did not seem to answer his prayer; so, 
 with his old independence of Heaven, it occurred 
 to old Weffold to plead with that calm gaze for 
 himself. A few words would have done it, a few 
 words buried deep with a miser's care ; but the 
 old man was very weak, and weakness makes of 
 us all sorry cowards, so he could not speak to her, 
 but once, in his sleep, he called out something, 
 and she knew. 
 
 It was merely this, " I tried to save him ; " she 
 half fell toward him, holding her heart. 
 
 "You did, you did ! " she answered ; but the 
 voice was so full of pain and pity he thought it was 
 the angels', and never really knew. 
 
 3H 
 
A Sword Laid By 
 
 She did not know how to break the news to 
 him, and spent all one morning seeking to invent 
 ways to tell him that little Don was still living ; 
 but each time the glorious words tried to rush 
 across her lips, she remembered all the young 
 doctor had said about news being worse than a 
 million microbes ; so she just waited, in a dumb, 
 tortured sort of way, full of pity toward him, and 
 an unutterable longing for Bax, for his advice 
 and his presence, and the way he had of stooping 
 lowly, and taking her little feminine burdens from 
 her. They had never been too little or too fem- 
 inine for Bax. 
 
 At last it approached November. It was a cool, 
 calm, pretty November day. There is not much 
 verdure in Arizona, but that day the country 
 looked really green, bright, beautiful, and blessed 
 of Heaven. A woman, clad in black, moved 
 through the lonely Sfftoms of a house, as if she 
 were bidding farewell to it. It was Weffold's, 
 and the woman was Mrs. Bax. She moved 
 around almost ceaselessly, as if che had a motive 
 for so doing. 
 
 After a very little, she heard a door close in 
 the distance, so she picked some gloves up 
 mechanically, and went and stood by the window. 
 There were some little marks of the height of a 
 child near it, cut by a man's proud hand, or it 
 would have been simply a calm, kind face without 
 
 3'S 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 much history to it. The marks lent expression 
 to the eyes that one did not care to intrude on, so 
 one looked away. 
 
 Some one came into the room as she stood 
 there. He brought that nameless atmosphere 
 with him which surrounds physicians speaking 
 professionally ; she felt she could confide in him, 
 listen to him, even take his advice, without losing 
 from that reserve her position demanded of her. 
 It was the young doctor who had attended Carl 
 Weffold. 
 
 "My experiment has failed," he announced 
 simply ; " your father-in-law will be a cripple for 
 life." 
 
 She stood staring at him. She held her gloves 
 in her hand, and they seemed to remind her that 
 she was free, about to leave Weffold's forever, or 
 the old nurse instinct of these last three months 
 would have been too strong, and she would have 
 gone to his assistance. 
 
 "I have shocked you," the young man con- 
 tinued saying ; " I was shocked myself, cruelly 
 disappointed." 
 
 " It was not my nursing," she cried ; cc don't 
 tell me it was my nursing ! " 
 
 He made a swift gesture, negation and reassur- 
 ance mixed. 
 
 " He could not have lived without it, Mrs. 
 Weffold," he said ; " I thought, as I sat in there 
 
 316 
 
A Sword Laid By 
 
 beside him, a good many such things, of the 
 nights we thought he had stopped breathing, and 
 the days when only your rigid and untiring vigil- 
 ance kept that wearying delirium down. He has 
 come out of it with his reason, thanks to you. I 
 have feared sometimes his lower limbs were worse 
 than I imagined ; but until the rest of the body 
 was strong enough to attempt walking, there was 
 no actual proof of the matter." 
 
 " Ah," she cried, after a second, " it was not 
 much to save him for " 
 
 The speech ended like a little moan, and she 
 put her face in her hands with one of the old 
 impulsive movements. When it came out, she 
 said weakly : 
 
 " Sal will take his meals to his bedside, have 
 his lights lit of an evening, every little thing in 
 place." 
 
 When he was gone, she still stood leaning 
 against the window, her face calm and controlling 
 its under-currents, for there were no passionate 
 accompaniments this time. Presently she said, as 
 if talking to no one, " There will be little things 
 Sal may forget." She was bothered by the fancy, 
 and went and stood in the hall a minute, so as to 
 breathe better air. Then from the outside there 
 came to her the shrill music of a happy laugh. 
 Her little boy was playing ; then, almost before 
 the sound was ended, she laid her hand on Carl 
 
 317 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 WefFold's door-knob and entered his lonely room. 
 He was sitting in the centre of it; no one had 
 been there who understood about it, so one of 
 the shades was quite low and cast a gentle 
 gloom about him. 
 
 There were little things Sal could not do for 
 him. There are little things it takes a con- 
 science-expert to do. 
 
 It wrung her heart all at once. She went over 
 and stood nearer to him, nearer than ever before 
 since he had become wholly conscious. He was 
 bent, old, feeble in appearance, his legs covered 
 by a quilt; she could go far away, but that lonely 
 picture would go with her, and he had saved her 
 child's life. 
 
 " I had meant to go away/' she said, " to new 
 fields, to work, to new faces. I thought I could 
 leave you to Sal ; I would you like me to stay 
 with you ? " 
 
 He still found it hard to frame words to her ; 
 so, lest she go before speech came to him, he 
 groped out to hold her gown. 
 
 318 
 
ON A CHILD 
 
 SOME rich men had arrived in Hope from 
 New York. One could tell they were 
 rich by their manner, and by one of them 
 carrying a dress-suit case, which is irrelevant to a 
 novel, but wondrously funny just the same, be- 
 coming more contributive to humor when taken 
 for a case of revolvers, and transported respect- 
 fully by Mr. Campbell, who would not trust 
 any lesser lights with it. 
 
 They were quite fat rich men, as is proper, and 
 thought " a little run down to Arizona " sounded 
 well until they struck the first Texan desert. 
 Then, like the famous monarch, they never smiled 
 again until they were safe at a familiar little table 
 at Sherry's, Fifth Avenue, once more, when the 
 whole thing seemed like a ghastly nightmare. 
 
 To tell the truth, Claude had been strictly 
 honest in his dealings with the syndicate at home, 
 and had sent them stirring little reports of the 
 disturbance, with soothing little addenda of his 
 own tacked on. These were all read before a 
 fine meeting, and produced an unusual furor 
 amongst the wealthy stockholders, for they 
 
 3*9 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 chanced to have an attack ot ennui. In fact, there 
 was an epidemic of it ; so one said, What did 
 Dick think of their taking a little run down south, 
 to brush things up a little ? And Dick told 
 them it was the very thing they needed. He 
 was quite honest about it, and said " they " frankly, 
 which threw the fat persons off their guard. 
 
 He said, putting the mine aside, it would be 
 good for them, for their gout and their indiges- 
 tion, and he thought their wives would be better 
 for it, and gladder to see them when they came 
 home ! 
 
 He had an evil way of saying that, had Mr. 
 Dick, and then of sighing and of winking after ; 
 but Mrs. Dick knew all about him, and did n't 
 care. 
 
 So the plan gained favor with them. 
 
 Home, he told Mrs. Dick the mine was as safe 
 as Morgan's, but if he did n't play jokes, he 
 could n't stand it. So that is how the great stock- 
 holders visited Hope. 
 
 I do not know if there are angels deputized to 
 grant jesters' prayers, but when Dick was not 
 otherwise engaged that fortnight, he used to 
 pray earnestly to the Powers that a number of 
 unpleasant things would happen, so his friends 
 might enjoy their financial outing. And when 
 he thought of their several expressions, if Fate 
 were to assist his good intentions, he would go 
 
 320 
 
On a Child 
 
 off into paroxysms of hearty laughter, and imagine 
 he was a boy again. 
 
 The rich men travelled Hopeward on the Sun- 
 set Limited train, and found many kind pas- 
 sengers who made out whist hands with them, so 
 they had a jolly good time of it for several days. 
 But past New Orleans, their spirits began to 
 waver. Lots of people have been to New 
 Orleans, but not so many beyond it, and the 
 whole excursion began to take a certain form of 
 sombre excitement, like the last mile or so before 
 the jungles of Darkest Africa. 
 
 In due time they were landed at Short's, as 
 Robbie and Claude had been. It was all new, then, 
 to them, so they could not formulate their very 
 natural surprise before they were packed into a 
 little stage like a New York grocery-wagon and 
 sent jogging southwestward toward the jumping- 
 off place, as they honestly believed. It was all 
 an immense, uninhabited plain, and though they 
 were proud of the United States, as we should be, 
 it seemed large all at once to them, unnecessarily 
 large. 
 
 As I have tried delicately to intimate to yoUj 
 they were quite fat rich men, as is eminently 
 proper, and they could not get out of the little 
 stage save in a body, or they would have, half 
 way out. For the dry country they 'd heard so 
 much of got in a hospitable humor, and worked 
 21 321 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 up a little cloud-burst right over their metro- 
 politan heads. 
 
 When they got good and wet, they lost some 
 of the reserve of a big city, and began to swear at 
 circumstances, just as we poorer folks might have 
 done. They did not do so badly for conven- 
 tional religious promoters, and it made the driver 
 more free and easy ; so he handed back his 
 flask. 
 
 They all floated cosily into Hope, as a cloud- 
 burst lends all sorts of romantic interest to heavy 
 country roads, and they called the driver, " dear 
 boy," occasionally, and were otherwise cosmopoli- 
 tan and cheery until they chanced to look around 
 for hotels. There were none visible to the naked 
 eye, even when they were driven up before the 
 Palace. They repeated they wanted a hotel, and 
 the driver said it was one, and they got out, dis- 
 illusioned. Then they stood looking at it 
 through their glasses, with a pensive hauteur 
 which would have wrung the heart of a New 
 York statue. It was having a monetary symptom, 
 where it did n't do the least bit of good, as if one 
 worked up a case of the measles in a community 
 where they were an every-day occurrence. 
 
 Then Dick had prayed that the canned goods 
 they were to eat would be broken suddenly to 
 them, and that some one do a little shooting to 
 stir them up a bit All of which occurred in 
 
 322 
 
On a Child 
 
 a hospitable and not over-done manner. For 
 from their several windows was the sort of 
 scenery which looked as if empty tin cans were 
 Arizona vegetation ; and it is not exactly cheer- 
 ing to feted city appetites. A young fellow 
 from some neighboring ranch put the finishing 
 touches to it. He " shot up the town," as we 
 say down here. He said after, he heard there 
 were strangers present, and so it may have been 
 for their entertainment. 
 
 They said they were going home. Things 
 wore on their nerves, and they could not stand it. 
 In ordinary language, they and their commercial 
 ambitions had collapsed. They would only stay 
 two days more. 
 
 One of these days they drove around the 
 country. They saw the landmarks with which we 
 are all familiar. They passed Weffold's. It was 
 an immense estate full of unlimited resources, and 
 they had a discussion on it. They said it was a 
 pity such a financial affair as that had to pass out of 
 its founder's hands ; it could have no heir. It was 
 like the great city enterprises which invariably 
 failed when transmitted to the care of sons. Even 
 one's reputation was very apt to drift in with the 
 commercial debris to pot. Claude, whom they 
 all remembered as a thin, dark, girlish boy with a 
 fortune, said he thought they were mistaken. He 
 
 323 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 was still rather solemn, Claude, but had acquired a 
 wife and a sense of humor lately, which lent dignity 
 to his self-confidence. The wife was self-evident, 
 and gave glowing emphasis to him, but the sense 
 of humor was a souvenir of their courtship, and 
 only disturbed sentimental moments of his per- 
 sonality. Then through some mocking little 
 laugh, some faintly tantalizing smile, some sharp 
 repartee, all public, she threw a plumb line to 
 him, down into his worshipping, tender heart, 
 and Claude was compensated. 
 
 So far, life was delicious to him, and should 
 there come a day when he seems hen-pecked to us, 
 as is inevitable, let us go out believing, that she is 
 flippant, indifferent, sharp-hearted, and he should 
 not stand it. Let us do all this, my friends, let 
 us go out leaving their secret to them her 
 coquetries, her straight little plumb line, his 
 lordly and contented love. 
 
 The rich men were mistaken in their judg- 
 ment, young Garnet said. He wished he him- 
 self had been identified with some state's early 
 history ; it was an immense and endless honor. 
 He said Arizona had not even begun to creep, 
 less toddle ; but there would come a day when 
 great possessions like Carl WefFold's, rightly 
 guided, would flow back to sustain and pro- 
 tect her. So, were a man forced to leave his own, 
 it were well if he could elect his successor ; well 
 
On a Child 
 
 if he could take a little child with the country,, 
 rather than personal possessorship, in his veins ; 
 if he could guide the little feet toward univer- 
 sality, mould the little reason to its country's 
 needs, and then sow that country in the little heart, 
 so it spring up love, as the love for a brother. 
 
 The rich men listened to him. They thought 
 he had advanced some sound ideas, and suggested 
 he repeat them next day at the big directors' 
 meeting they had called. He excused himself 
 briefly ; whereat one of the visitors asked if 
 Claude had any vital objection to his using some 
 of the remarks as his own. They were certainly 
 very telling, and of course the future owner of 
 Weffold's Carl's choice of an heir, as it were 
 interested them vaguely, in fact, a good deal, 
 if the investment continued laying its golden 
 
 egg- 
 Claude's mind had become abstracted ; as if 
 
 in answer to his vehemence, the horizon had 
 framed a picture for him. 
 
 Down at the old frontiersman's great gate was 
 a little child being helped on to a solemn donkey 
 by a tall young woman, whose expression was 
 rather unsexed by grief. The rich gentlemen 
 were too far off to see, but her eyes seemed to 
 hold life's tragedy in a nut-shell. They were 
 handsome eyes, with a constant smile for the child 
 before her, like light on a pretty lake, and be- 
 
 325 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 neath this was a certain calm, as of an old man 
 asleep under a peaceful paper ; and, invisible, like 
 Robbie's plumb line, was a sentence she said day 
 and night, at little task and noble duty, ever and 
 so forever : 
 
 " I love you, wherever you are ! " 
 
 Eternal as a clock tick, and may be it does not 
 harm the blessedness of God's promise to wish 
 Bax some time heard it, he, as they say down in 
 this country, he who had been " parted out." 
 
 I have wearied you, my readers. The great 
 men met next day in a directors' meeting, as it 
 was planned they should. They had sent rather 
 imperative summons for Carl Weffold to join 
 them, and the crippled financier sent a suave note 
 in response to them, in his cramped Germanic 
 hand, written in his own deliberate manner, and 
 saying the owner of WefFold's would appear. 
 
 They were well content at it ; he was a million- 
 aire and possessed an interest for them. 
 
 Some local celebrities had drifted into the 
 meeting from other camps. There were miners, 
 mine owners, mine superintendents. Mr. Camp- 
 bell was in his element. He had new over-alls, 
 and talked a good deal to no one. He had 
 cracked a joke at the start, and when it seemed 
 fairly successful, it encouraged him to put it to- 
 gether and re-crack it to each new arrival. " Ef 
 the President could only appear inpromptu- 
 
 326 
 
On a Child 
 
 like amongst them, Arizona need have no 
 fears, she'd become a State/' 
 
 It is an interesting joke to us, clamoring for 
 our small star to shine on this great glad country, 
 but I cannot analyze its other attributes. 
 
 Carl Weffold was the last to arrive. Claude 
 told the rich men to have patience. The old 
 man was able to come, or he would not have said 
 so ; but it was rather understood about the country 
 that an accident had left him hopelessly lame. 
 Yet amongst introductions and wearying speeches, 
 he wondered if Carl would keep his word. 
 
 The great owner of all Weffold had not meant 
 to fail of appearance. He had started out deter- 
 mined to do as was said, but, half way up the high 
 mine hill, his legs gave out and he slipped harm- 
 lessly down on the slaggy ground to hold converse 
 with a cotton-batting elephant about it. This 
 knowing brute suggested that Shorty carry them 
 the rest of the way on his shoulders. The intelli- 
 gent solution occurred, and, as they were accom- 
 plishing the journey, the glad sun grew warm, and 
 smiled a handsome blessing on them, on the kind, 
 laboring figure of the rough, old man, on that arch 
 diplomat, the elephant, on the wealthy little sun- 
 burnt owner of old Carl Weffold's mighty range; 
 and when he raised his lips, the sun seemed to 
 kiss them, and so they went on to a directors* 
 meeting. 
 
 327 
 
In the Country God Forgot 
 
 Thus it came to pass when the fat gentle- 
 men were at the proper pitch to discuss the 
 future of Arizona, the possibilities of immense 
 irrigation, and other scholarly ideas, the pine door 
 of the mill house opened, and there entered a little 
 child. He was still on Shorty's faithful shoulders, 
 and from this height he saw grim faces break at 
 Carl Weffold's message to them ; from this height 
 he saw a smile come, love and false shame and big 
 tears, all blended, and he smiled back at them 
 radiantly. Then from this height sweet with 
 love, poor Shorty he too heard the storm of 
 cheers they sent up around him. For one elab- 
 orate little second the great noise startled him 
 with its force him and his faithful elephant. 
 Then, with a glad little cry, he bent to the friend- 
 liness in It, and joined his innocent arms and voice 
 to the mad applause. 
 
 328 
 
By far the best he has yet written " 
 
 A 
 MAKER OF HISTORY 
 
 By E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM 
 
 Illustrated by Fred Pegram. 12mo. Cloth. $1.50. 
 
 A thoroughly exciting and skilfully written romance. 
 Brooklyn Eagle. 
 
 Thoroughly readable and exciting. Carries the reader 
 along breathlessly. New York Sun. 
 
 So entertaining that we read through at a sitting. 
 New Fork Tribune. 
 
 Not since the days of "The Prisoner of Zenda" has 
 a more enjoyable novel come out of the romantic semi- 
 humorous mazes of European border intrigue. The story 
 proceeds with cumulative interest to the end. New York 
 Times. 
 
 The most fascinating novel yet written by this master 
 of the art of story telling. Rochester (N. Y.) Democrat 
 and Chronicle. 
 
 Really remarkable in the ingenuity and consistency with 
 which the complications are managed. Outlook, New 
 York. 
 
 The most daring and the most consistently sustained of 
 his many stories, and is heartily recommended to seekers 
 for exciting reading. Life, New York. 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., PUBLISHERS 
 254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON 
 
A Vigorous Tale of a Nevada Mining Camp 
 
 THE SAGE BRUSH 
 PARSON 
 
 By A. B. WARD 
 
 390 pages. 12mo. Decorated Cloth. $1.50 
 
 Full of vigorous and vivid pictures. An exceptionally 
 readable and effective story. There is more strong and 
 good dramatic substance to it than to any story that we 
 have read in a long while. New York Sun. 
 
 The story is powerfully told, with strong, vigorous 
 touches filled with the atmosphere of the wild, free West, 
 and so alive and vital that it carries conviction. Phila- 
 delphia Telegraph. 
 
 Characteristic Western humor and yet more character- 
 istic Western pathos are plentiful in the tale. The at- 
 mosphere is true to the life and the hero is a sincere 
 portrayal. Chicago Tribune. 
 
 A good, breezy story of Western life. A. B. Ward shows 
 rare familiarity with the prairie regions of Nevada and 
 the people who inhabit them. St. Louis Globe-Democrat. 
 
 Whoever wants a " rattling " good story of mining life, 
 color, and customs, faithful to fact and strenuous action, 
 with strong and forceful character sketching, with a close 
 and appreciative understanding of the phases of life in 
 the gulches twenty-five years ago, will find all these. 
 Brooklyn Standard- Union. 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., PUBLISHERS 
 254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON 
 
A New Novel by the Author of " Quo Vadis " 
 
 ON THE FIELD 
 OF GLORY 
 
 By HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ 
 
 Author of "Knights of the Cross," " With Fire and Sword, 
 " The Deluge," " Quo Vadis" etc. 
 
 Translated from the Polish by Jeremiah Curtin 
 12mo. Decorated Cloth, $1.50 
 
 This important work is the only one written by this 
 renowned author since the year 1900, when he completed 
 "Knights of the Cross." The scenes are laid in Poland, 
 and the period is the reign of the famous King John 
 Sobieski, just before the Turkish invasion in 1682 to 1683. 
 Sienkiewicz has woven a wonderful romance of great 
 brilliancy and strong character drawing, and in no book 
 by the author of " Quo Vadis " has he displayed his great 
 genius more strikingly. 
 
 He tells a charming, tender, and passionate love-story 
 of remarkable intensity, and gives the reader acquaintance 
 with characters not inferior in vigor and interest to those 
 of the great trilogy. The complete work has been trans- 
 lated by Jeremiah Curtin. 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., PUBLISHERS 
 254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON 
 
The work of a genius. A story that will live 
 
 THE BREATH OF 
 THE GODS 
 
 By SIDNEY McCALL 
 Author of "Truth Dexter" 
 
 12mo. Cloth, 431 pages. $1.50 
 
 A great American novel, if not the American novel. 
 New Orleans Times Democrat. 
 
 A novel that has the real Japan in it as has no other 
 novel ever written in the English tongue. Philadelphia 
 Press. 
 
 An absorbing love story that throws unusual light upon 
 the inner life of Japan. Chicago Record-Herald. 
 
 A powerful story with vivid descriptions and a thrilling 
 and unexpected climax. Boston Herald. 
 
 Strikes an unusual note and will live beyond the 
 passing hour. St. Paul Pioneer Press. 
 
 A masterly delineation of men and women caught in 
 the swift current of events. Baltimore Sun. 
 
 Yuki is a charming characterization, dainty, exquisite, 
 flowerlike, and fascinating. Chicago Journal. 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., PUBLISHERS, BOSTON 
 At all Bookseller? 
 
912880 
 
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