Gilbert Parker

“ La Touche was no exception, and the keener spirits, to whom O’Ryan had ever been “a white man,” and who so rejoiced in his good luck now that they drank his health a hundred times in his own whiskey and cider, were simmering with desire for a public reproval of Constantine Jopp’s conduct. Though it was pointed out to them by the astute Gow Johnson that Fergus and Holden had participated in the colossal joke of the play, they had learned indirectly also the whole truth concerning the past of the two men. They realized that Fergus and Holden had been duped by Jopp into the escapade. ”

“ He was only conscious of the omniscient night and its warm penetrating friendliness; as, in a great trouble, when no words can be spoken, a cool kind hand steals into the trembling hand of misery and stills it, gives it strength and life and an even pulse. ”

“ Terry O’Ryan had really struck oil, and his ranch was a scene of decent revelry, of which Gow Johnson was master. But the master of it all, the man who had, in truth, risen like a star, had become to La Touche all at once its notoriety as well as its favorite, its great man as well as its friend—he was nowhere to be found. He had been seen riding full speed into the prairie towards the Kourmash Wood, and the starlit night had swallowed him. Constantine Jopp had also disappeared ”

“ The audience was breathless. Most now saw the grim reality of the scene before them; and when at last O’Ryan’s powerful right hand got a grip upon the throat of Jopp, and they saw the grip tighten, tighten, and Jopp’s face go from red to purple, a hundred gasped. Excited men made as though to move toward the stage; but the majority still believed that it all belonged to the play, and shouted “Sit down!” ”

“ Their primitive sense of justice exonerated the humorists and arraigned the one malicious man. As the night wore on they decided on the punishment to be meted out by La Touche to the man who had not “acted on the square,” had done “the underground trick.”
Gow Johnson saw, too late that he had roused a spirit as hard to appease as the demon roused in O’Ryan earlier in the evening. He would have enjoyed the battue of punishment under ordinary circumstances; but he knew that Miss Molly Mackinder would be humiliated and indignant at the half-savage penalty they meant to exact. ”

“ Fergus replied. “He kept making hits, he did. Orion was a spoiler. When he took the field there was no room for the rest of the race. Why does he rise? Because it is a habit. They could always get a rise out of Orion. The Athens Eirenicon said that yeast might fail to rise, but touch the button and Orion would rise like a bird.”
At that instant the galaxy jerked up the back curtain again, and when the audience could control itself, Constantine Jopp, grinning meanly, asked:
“Why does he wear the girdle?” ”

“ Terry met the look, and grasped the limp hand lying on the chair-arm.
“I’m sorry, O’Ryan, I’m sorry for all I’ve done to you,” Jopp sobbed. “I was a sneak, but I want to own it. I want to be square now; you can tar and feather me, if you like. I deserve it.” He looked at the others. “I deserve it,” he repeated.
“That’s what the boys had thought would be appropriate,” said Gow Johnson with a dry chuckle, and the crowd looked at each other and winked. The wink was kindly, however. “To own up and take your gruel” was the easiest way to touch the men of the prairie. ”

“ To Gow Johnson the play had instantly become real, and O’Ryan an injured man at bay, the victim of the act—not of the fictitious characters of the play, but of the three men, Fergus, Holden, and Constantine Jopp, who had planned the discomfiture of O’Ryan; and he felt that the victim’s resentment would fall heaviest on Constantine Jopp, the bully, an old schoolmate of Terry’s.
Jopp was older than O’Ryan by three years, which in men is little, but in boys, at a certain time of life, is much. It means, generally, weight and height, an advantage in a scrimmage. ”

“ When the hilarious applause at his entrance had somewhat subsided, the three took up their parable—but it was not the parable of the play. They used dialogue not in the original. It had a significance which the audience were not slow to appreciate, and went far to turn “The Sunburst Trail” at this point into a comedy-farce. When this new dialogue began, O’Ryan could scarcely trust his ears, or realize what was happening.
“Ah, look,” said Dicky Fergus at the fire, “as fine a night as ever I saw in the West! ”

“ Terry now played the part with a naturalness and force which soon lifted the play away from the farcical element introduced into it by those who had interpolated the gibes at himself. They had gone a step too far.
“He’s going large,” said Gow Johnson, as the act drew near its close, and the climax neared, where O’Ryan was to enter upon a physical struggle with his assailants. “His blood’s up. There’ll be hell to pay.” ”

“ It is sure to exhibit itself in forms more objective than are found in great populations where methods of punishment are various, and even when deadly are often refined. But society in new places has only limited resources, and is thrown back on primary ways and means. ”