Emerson Hough

“ He flung her up to the seat, jerked loose the halters, and climbed in as the team plunged forward. Had any one seen the careening wagon, seen the upflung arm of a woman swaying in the grasp of the man who sat beside her in the seat—had any one heard the laugh of the man, the shrieks of the woman, struggling and calling,—he must have thought that two drunken human beings instead of one were endeavoring to show the astonished sky how bestial life may be even here in America in an undone day. ”

“ Now, as Sim Gage topped the grade, gravel crunching under his feet, a trifle out of breath with his climb, since the incline itself was a thing of magnificent distances, he saw the searchlight of the power dam begin a performance altogether new in his own experience.
The great shaft of light rose up abruptly to a position vertical, a beam of light reaching up into the sky. An instant, and it began to swing from side to side. It swung sharply clear against the bald face of the mountain at the farther end of the dam. It swept down the canyon itself, or to its first great bend. ”

“ Mary Warren, alone in the little cabin, found herself in a new world whose existence she had never dreamed—that subjective and subconscious land which bridges the forgotten genesis of things to the usual and busy world of the senses, in which we pass our daily lives. Indeed, never before had she known what human life really is, how far out of perspective, how selfish, how distorted. ”

“ Horses and men pricked up their ears. The blood of Sim Gage's heart seemed to go to his brain. He was seized with a panic, but, fascinated by some agency he could not resist, he stood uncertainly until the train came in. He began to tremble in the unadulterated agony of a shy man about to meet the woman to whom he has made love only in his heart.
Sim Gage's team of young and wild horses across the street began to plunge now, and to entangle themselves dangerously, but he did not cross the street to care for them. ”

“ I want to go home! I want my mother, that's what I want."
"Where is your mother?" asked Wid Gardner. He had come over near to her when Doctor Barnes was helping Mary into the house.
"Dead—dead long ago," wept Annie. "When I was a little girl. Like her, Mary, there—we didn't neither of us ever have a mother. We done just the best we could, both of us. We've tried and tried to find some sort of place where we belonged, and we couldn't. We haven't got any place to go to. I haven't got a place on earth to call my home. ”

“ The shrilling of the bugle's beautiful salute to the flag was ringing far and near along the canyon walls. The flag began to drop, slowly, into the arms of the waiting man who had given oath of his life to protect it always, and to keep it still full high advanced. It must never touch the earth at all, but remain a creature of the air—that is the tradition of our Army and all the Army's proud color guards.
Sim Gage stopped now, as every man in that encampment, soldier or laborer, had been trained punctiliously to do, at the evening gun. ”

“ Mary Warren began to see, suddenly, the tremendous burden of duty laid on every man and every woman of America—the lasting and enduring and continuous duty of a post-bellum patriotism, that new and terrible thing; that sweet and splendid thing which alone could safeguard the country that had fought for liberty so splendidly, so unselfishly.
"If they ever run across us in here with the goods on us—good-night!" hesitated a voice. "I don't like to carry this here cyanide—we got enough for all the sheep and cattle in Montana." ”

“ I'm a big man."
"You're a big coward," said Mary Warren calmly. "What's a blind woman to you? Why don't you let me go?"
"Well, even a blind woman can tell what she's heard," said he thoughtfully. "And then," his coarse voice undertaking a softness foreign to it, "I'm just as tired as Sim Gage was of keeping house alone. I'm a better man than Sim Gage. I'm making plenty of money."
She made no reply, leaned back upon the blanket roll.
"Now, then, gal, listen. I like you. You're handsome—the handsomest gal ever come in this valley. ”

“ Mary Warren heard the crunch of wheels, heard the thump of her valise as Sim Gage caught it up and threw it into the back of the buckboard. Then he spoke again. She felt him standing close at hand. Once more, trembling as in an ague, she placed a hand upon his arm.
"Now, when I tell you," he said gently, "why, you put your foot up on the hub of the wheel here, and grab the iron on the side, and climb in quick—these horses is sort of uneasy."
"I can't see the wheel," said Mary Warren, groping. ”

“ Men always look at you—it's your figure, part, maybe. And you're so good—and you're a lady, Sis. And if I——"
"Tell him," said Mary Warren suddenly, pulling herself together with the extremest effort of will and in the suddenest and sharpest decision she had ever known in all her life, "tell him I'm square! Tell him I'll be honest all the time—all the time!"
"As though you could be anything else, you poor dear!" said Annie Squires, coming over and throwing a strong arm about Mary Warren's neck, as though they both had done nothing but agree about this after a dozen conversations. ”

“ Sim Gage did not know what to do. A woman seemed to mean a sudden and strangely overwhelming accession of problems. What should he do? Where would he put her? What ought he to say?
"If you'll excuse me," he ventured at last, "I'll go acrosst and git my team. They're all tangled up, like you see."
She spoke, her voice agitated; reached out a hand. "I—I can't see at all, sir!"
"That's too bad, ma'am," said Sim Gage, "but don't you worry none at all. You set right down here on the aidge of the side walk, till I git the horses fixed. They're scared of the cars. Is this your satchel, ma'am?" ”

“ Ragged heaps of native rock lay along the foot of the dam, flanking the edge of the great eddy eastward of the apron. Here often the laborers stood and cast their lines for the leaping trout, which, wearied by their fruitless fight at the apron, that carried them only up to the insurmountable obstacle which reached a hundred feet above them, sometimes were swept back to seek relief in the gentler waters of the deep eddy, that swung inshore from the lower end of the apron. ”

“ Love dareth and endureth all things, magnifies and lessens, softens and hardens, loosens and binds, establishes for itself new worlds, fabricates for itself new values, chastens, humbles, makes weak, makes strong. Sim Gage never before had known how merciless, how cruel all this may be. He was in love. With all his heart and life and soul he loved her, right or wrong. There had been a miracle in Two-Forks Valley.
The two men were astir long before dawn. Wid Gardner first kicked off his blankets. "I'll find me a horse," said he. "You git breakfast, Sim, if you can." ”

“ Nothing came to break the monotony at the big dam. Donkey engines screamed intermittently. Workmen still passed here or there with their barrows. Teams strained at heavy loads of gravel and cement. The general labor in the way of finishing touches on the undertaking still went on under the care of the foremen, monotonously regular. No one knew that Waldhorn, chief engineer, was a prisoner under guard.
Mary Gage was more ignorant than any prisoner of what went on about her. A hard lot, that of waiting at any time, but the waiting of the newly blind—there is no human misery to equal it. ”

“ Wid Gardner knew perfectly well what drove Sim Gage on.
But the car soon came to a sudden halt. A couple of hundred yards on ahead lay an open glade. At the left of the trail stood a great wall tent.
In an instant, every man was out of the car, the three ranchmen, like hounds on the scent, silently trotting off, taking cover from tree to tree. A few moments, and the four of them, rifles at a ready, had surrounded the tent. As they closed in, they all heard a high, clear voice—one they would not have suspected Sim Gage to have owned—calling out: "Throw up your hands, in there!" ”

“ Continually the jolting of the car grew worse and worse. She began to hear the rush of water. Twice she felt the logs of a rude bridge under the wheels as they crossed some stream. They were winding their way up the valley of a stream, into a higher country? Yes. As they climbed now, she could catch the scent of the forest as the wind changed from time to time. The profanity of her captor grew as the difficulty of the trail increased. They were climbing at a gradient as steep as the laboring car could negotiate. ”

“ After a long and perturbed silence Annie spoke again. "That's the real live idea, Sis! That's the dope! You might think of going out there as a housekeeper, just to see how things looked—just so that you could look things over, couldn't you? You wouldn't marry any man in a hurry. You could say you'd only do your best as a sincere, honest woman—why, I have to tell that stenographer what to write, all the time. She's sloppy."
"But look at me, Annie—I wouldn't be worth anything as a housekeeper." Mary Warren was arguing! ”

“ But Sim Gage was hobbling to his half-burnt home. Gasping, he looked in. It was empty!
"Where's she gone, Wid?" said he, when he could speak. "You reckon Big Aleck—? No. No!"
"Nothing's too low down for him," said Wid Gardner.
There were footprints in the path where the neighbors had stood, but Sim's eye caught others not trampled out, in the strip of sand toward the willows—two footprints, large, and beside them two others, small. The two, old big-game hunters as they were, began to puzzle out this double trail. ”

“ Mary Warren pricked up her ears. She had reason; for now the voice went on, mentioning a name which Annie Squires had made familiar—Dorenwald, Charlie Dorenwald, the foreman in the rolling rooms!
"Charlie Dorenwald's the head of that bunch. He's a good man. You know what he pulled in Youngstown."
"Well, I don't know," said one voice, "they lynched a man in Illinois. America's getting lawless! Think about lynching people! It ain't right!"
"There's nothing they won't do," said Big Aleck's voice, virtuously. "They ask us we shall have respect for a Government that lets people lynch folks!" ”

“ Mary Warren looked at her with wrath, humiliation and offended dignity showing in her reddened cheeks.
"You had the audacity to do that, Annie! How dared you? How could you?"
"Well, I was afraid of the lake for you, and I knew that something had to be done, and you wouldn't do it. I've got quite a batch of letters from him. He's got three hundred and twenty acres of land, eight cows, a horse and a mule. He has a house which is all right except it lacks the loving care of a woman! Well, stack that up against this room. ”

“ When he entered Sim Gage's gate, the ancient mule, his head out of the stable window, welcomed him, braying his discontent. Here lay the ragged wood pile, showing the ax work of a winter. At the edge of a gnawed hay stack stood the remnant of Sim's scant cattle herd, not half of which had "wintered through."
No smoke was rising from Sim Gage's chimney. "Feller's hopeless, that's what," complained Wid Gardner to himself. "It gravels me plenty." ”

“ There was no organ peal, nor maids with flowers and serious faces to wait upon the bride; no processional; no aisles fenced off with bride's ribbon; no audience to crane. In the little room stood only a surpliced priest of the Church of England. The witnesses were Nels Jensen and Karen, his wife, back of whom was Wid Gardner, near to him Doctor Barnes. Those made all present, now at high noon. And Sim Gage, trembling very much, stood at the side of a bed where Mary Warren lay propped up in the blankets to speak her wedding words. ”