_ BOOK III. THE DAY OF THE CATTLE
CHAPTER XXII. EN VOYAGE
"I wish, Sam," said Franklin one morning as he stopped at the door of the livery barn--"I wish that you would get me up a good team. I'm thinking of driving over south a little way to-day."
"All right, Cap," said Sam. "I reckon we can fix you up. How far you goin'?"
"Well, about twenty-five or thirty miles, perhaps."
"Which will bring you," said Sam meditatively, "just about to the Halfway House. Seein' it's about there you'll be stopping I reckon I better give you my new buggy. I sort of keep it, you know, for special 'casions."
Franklin was too much absorbed to really comprehend this delicate attention, even when Sam rolled out the carriage of state, lovingly dusting off the spokes and with ostentation spreading out the new lap robe. But finally he became conscious of Sam, standing with one foot on the hub of a wheel, chewing a straw, and with a certain mental perturbation manifest in his countenance.
"Cap," said he, "I know just how you feel."
"What's that?" said Franklin.
"Well, I mean, I allow me and you is pretty much in the same boat."
"Eh?" said Franklin, puzzled.
"Why, both us fellers is fixed about the same."
"I'm afraid I don't quite understand you."
"Well, now, er--that is, you know, we both got a girl, you know--I mean, we each has a girl--"
Franklin's face was not inviting, which fact Sam noticed, hastening with his apology.
"Oh, no offence, Cap," said he hurriedly, "but I was just a-thinkin'. You know that Nory girl over to the hotel. Well, now, I'm gone on that girl, the worst sort o' way. Honest, Cap, I ain't happy. I used ter eat an' sleep 'thout no sort of trouble, but now I'm all used up. I ain't right. An' it's Nory."
"Why don't you marry her?" asked Franklin calmly.
Sam gasped. "I--I--that's it, that's just it! I--can't ast her!" he said, with despair and conviction in his voice. "I've tried, and I can't say a word to her about it, nothin' more than mebbe to ast her to pass me the butter. She don't seem to understand."
"Well, what do you expect? Do you think she is going to ask you about it herself?"
"My God, Cap, I don't know! I ever she did, I know mighty well what I'd say. But she won't, and I can't. And there we are. I lose my nerve every time I try to speak to her. Now, I say this to you, man to man, you know, and no one the wiser; I can talk to anybody else about this, to anybody but just Nory. Now, you've been goin' down to this here Halfway House a-plenty for a long time, and I don't know as you seem much furder along 'an I am. So I allowed maybe you was hooked up a good deal the way I be. You go down there, an' set down and eat, an' you set around like, but can't seem to make no break--you don't dast to say what you want to say. Is that so?"
Franklin flushed, his first impulse being of distinct displeasure; yet he recognised the perfect good faith of the other's remarks and turned away without reply.
"An' what I was goin' to say," continued Sam, following after him, "is like this. Now, you ain't afraid of Nory, an' I ain't afraid of Miss Beecham. Turn about's fair play. I'll speak to Miss Beecham for you, if you'll just sort o' lay this here before Nory for me. You needn't say much, understand! If I ever onct get started, you know, I'll be all right. I could tell her all about it then, easy enough. Now, say, Cap, six of one and half a dozen of the other. Is it a go?"
Franklin could not keep back a smile. "Well, in regard to my half of it," he said, "I can neither affirm nor deny it. But if what you say were true, don't you think you might find it pretty hard to talk to Miss Beauchamp on this matter?"
"Not in a hundred!" said Sam eagerly. "I'd just as soon talk to Miss Beecham as not. I'd ruther. They ain't no feller around here that I think's any whiter than you be. An' Lord knows, that girl down there is handsome as ever looked through a bridle, and kind as she is handsome. I've seen her now, reg'lar, in my trips down there for quite a while, an' I promise you, she's a thoroughbred, an' high strung, but as even gaited as ever stepped. Yes, sir!"
"She is all that, I think, Sam," said Franklin soberly.
"Then it's a go, Cap?"
"Well, I'll tell you, Sam," said Franklin kindly, "maybe we'd better let it run along a little while as it is. You know, girls have odd notions of their own. Perhaps a girl would rather have a man speak for himself about that sort of thing. And then, the asking sometimes is the easiest part of it."
"Then you'll ast Nory for me?"
"Well, if I could say a word, just a hint, you know--"
"You won't!" exclaimed Sam bitterly, and in tones; of conviction. "You won't! There ain't nobody won't! I've tried, an' there won't nobody! There'll be some d----d cow-puncher blow in there some day and marry that Nory girl, an' I never will git to tell her the way I feel."
"Oh, yes, you will," said Franklin. "It'll come to you some time; and when it does, friend," he added gravely, laying a hand upon Sam's shoulder, "I hope she'll not say no to you forever."
"Forever, Cap?"
"Yes, it sometimes happens that way."
"Forever? Well, if Nory ever said no to me onct, that shore would settle it. I know what I'd do: I'd sell out my barn an' I'd hit the trail mighty quick. Do they ever do that way, Cap?"
"Yes," said Franklin, "they tell me that they sometimes do. They're strange creatures, Sam."
"An' that's no lie!" said Sam. "But here, I'm forgettin' of your span."
He disappeared within the barn, whence presently arose sounds of tumult. The "span" emerged with one half of its constituent parts walking on its hind legs and lashing out viciously in front.
"Well, I don't know about that black," said Franklin critically. "He's a bit bronco, isn't he?"
"What, him?" said Sam. "Naw, he's all right. You don't suppose I'd run in any wild stock on you, do you? He's been hitched up sever'l times, an' he's plumb gentle. May rare up a little at first, but he's all right. Of course, you want to have a little style about you, goin' down there."
Franklin got into the buggy, while Sam held the head of the "plumb gentle" horse. When cast loose the latter reared again and came down with his fore feet over the neck yoke. Nimbly recovering, he made a gallant attempt to kick in the dashboard. This stirred up his mate to a thought of former days, and the two went away pawing and plunging. "So long!" cried Sam, waving his hand. "Good luck!"
Franklin was for a time busy in keeping his team upon the trail, but soon they settled down into a steady, shuffling trot, to which they held for mile after mile over the hard prairie road. The day was bright and clear, the air sweet and bracing. An hour's drive from the town, and the traveller seemed in a virgin world. A curious coyote sat on a hill, regarding intently the spectacle of a man travelling with wheels beneath him, instead of the legs of a horse. A band of antelope lined up on the crest of a ridge and stood staring steadfastly. A gray-winged hawk swept wide and easily along the surface of the earth on its morning hunting trip. Near by the trail hundreds of cheerful prairie dogs barked and jerked their ceaseless salutation. An ancient and untroubled scheme of life lay all around him, appealing in its freshness and its charm. Why should a man, a tall and strong man, with health upon his cheek, sit here with brooding and downcast eye, heedless of the miles slipping behind him like a ribbon spun beneath the wheels?
Franklin was learning how fast bound are all the ways of life to the one old changeless way. This new land, which he and his fellow-men coveted, why was it so desired? Only that over it, as over all the world behind it, there might be builded homes. For, as he reflected, the adventurers of the earth had always been also the home-builders; and there followed for him the bitter personal corollary that all his adventure was come to naught if there could be no home as its ultimate reward. His vague eye swam over the wide, gray sea about him, and to himself he seemed adrift, unanchored and with no chart of life. _