Robert Alexander Wason

“ A man, you know, as a rule, is mighty timid about the things which lie close to his heart, no matter how bold and free he’ll talk about other things; but the Friar was like a little child, an’ he’d speak out as bold and frank as one, about the things he loved and hated, until he finally put a few drops o’ this queer brand o’ courage into our own hearts. ”

“ You can do it in ten minutes, say; but it takes us about a week, and by that time the’ won’t be any need for the law.”
“No,” sez the Friar, “I insist that we rely upon the law. We count ourselves as of the better element; and the most vicious conditions arise when the better element takes the law into its own hands. When a vicious man does illegal violence, it does not establish a precedent; but when the decent man does the same thing, it tears away forms of civilization which have taken centuries to construct.” ”

“ When I see her again, I shall tell her of meetin’ you, and what you have said. I have no desire except to do the best for all of you, and if you love her truly, all you will want will be to do that which is best for her.”
The Friar paused, and I pulled my ear clear to the edge o’ the rock, so as not to miss a word. “Olaf,” he went on in a low, sorrowful voice, “the love of a man for a woman is a wonderful thing, a terrible thing, a soul-testing thing. Don’t let your love become common for men to talk over. ”

“ CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE—JUSTICE UNDELAYED Human emotions are like clocks: some of ’em will run longer ’n others; but they’ll all run down unless they’re wound up again every so often. Even fear will only run so long, as several late-lamented bullies have been forced to learn just before they passed over the Great Divide. After you’ve scared a feller as bad as he can get, it is well enough to let him alone. If you keep on addin’ horror onto horror, his fear is likely to run down; and the chances are ’at he’ll get irritated, and slaughter ya. ”

“ No, I will not do it.”
“Tell me how Badger-face looks to you,” sez Horace.
“Oh, he is bad,” sez Olaf. “He has the hate color, he loves to kill; but he is like the wolf; he does not like the fight, he wants always to kill in secret.”
“I bet my eyes are a little like yours,” sez Horace, noddin’ his head. “I knew ’at Badger-face was this way as soon as I saw him.”
“Oh, here now,” sez the Friar. “You are puttin’ down a special gift to the level of shrewd character-readin’.”
“What sort of a flame does a dead person have, Olaf?” sez Horace. ”

“ As long as one bein’ in the world is cold or hungry or diseased, every other bein’ is liable to become hungry and cold and diseased. What I am fighting for is a world without poverty. Most o’ the ills of life spring from poverty, and poverty is the result of selfishness and greed. The earth is reeking with riches, but its bounty is not divided fairly. ”

“ The greatest charm in the told story comes direct from the teller; and, toil as we will over printed pages, they obstinately refuse to reproduce the twinkle of bright, deep-set eyes, the whimsical twist which gives character to a commonplace word, the subtile modulations of a mellow voice, the discriminating accent which makes a sentence fire when spoken, and only ashes when written ”

“ To find the woman he loved in the hands of the man who hated him, after all the years he had been in suspense about her was enough to tip any one off his balance; and I also knew the Friar. He had trained himself for eternity so long that some of his earthly idees weren’t sound, and the surest way to bring him to himself was to let him bark his knees a time or two. Some imported hosses carry their gaze so high they can’t see their footin’ but after they’ve stepped into a few prairie-dog holes, they learn to take a little more interest in what they’re treadin’ on. ”

“ No matter what else in life may be questioned, no matter how hard and fast a title may stick, it must crumble to dust when one comes and says, ‘The Lord hath need of this.’ It may be your life or it may be your property or it may be the one being you love most in all the world ”

“ You may think ’at you sound as saintly as a white female angel when you whine about duty and forgiveness and such-like rubbish; but the more oil you put on your voice, the more I know you to be a sneak, a hypocrite, and a traitor. ”

“ In believing what men have told you of me you have insulted her, by admitting that such a thing is possible. Go back to your work, kill no man for what he says of her; but keep her pure in your own heart, and this will be the best way to keep her pure before the world. Silence the gossips by living above them ”

“ CHAPTER EIGHTEEN—TESTING THE FRIAR’S NERVE As soon as we had eaten breakfast next mornin’, the Friar sez: “You, bein’ one o’ the earth animals, have never had much chance to see a view. Yesterday your curiosity was itchin’ so ’at I doubt if you could have told a mountain peak from a Mexican hat; but now that you have temporarily suppressed your thirst for gossip, had a good sleep, and a better breakfast, drag yourself out to the front porch and take a bird’s-eye view of the world.” ”

“ When the fever started to leave, he got so weak ’at Horace thought he was goin’ to flicker out, an’ he felt purty bad about it. He didn’t regret havin’ done it, an’ said he would do just the same if he had it to do over; but it calls up some mighty serious thoughts when a fellow reflects that he is the one who has pushed another off into the dark. On the night when it seemed certain that Badger-face would lose his grip, we all went into his room an’ sat around waitin’ for the end, to sort o’ cheer him up a little. Life itself is a strange enough adventure, but death has it beat a mile. ”

“ Let’s hang him, and get rid o’ this foolishness.”
“Flannigan,” sez the Friar in cold, hard tones, “you have gone too far this time. If you had hung Olaf at first, you might have done it from a proverted sense o’ justice; but to do it now would be murder; and your own men wouldn’t help. Do any of you men chew tobacco?”
If he had asked for a can o’ face-paint, we wouldn’t ’a’ been more surprised; but to show the hold the Friar had gained over that crowd, every feller there but Badger-face held out his plug to him. ”

“ The real fathers and mothers are those who put the best part o’ their lives into makin’ the big, gloomy world into a tender home for all the little ones; and after my visit to the graveyard I felt drawn even closer to Dad and Mother than I had before. ”

“ Anyway, we went long enough to get into that numb condition when the earth becomes molten copper, and the sky a sun glass, and a man himself feels like another man’s nightmare. That tender old Promotheus you’re sympathizin’ with, carried me the best part of a day, or a century—time had melted entirely away—and when we came back to our senses we lay beside a pool of water. ”

“ The other animals is willin’ to do what they can do, an’ they take pride in seein’ how well they can do it; but not so a human. He only takes pride in tryin’ to do the things he can’t do. A hog don’t try to fly, nor a butterfly don’t try to play the cornet, nor a cow don’t set an’ fret because she can’t climb trees like a squirrel; but not so with man: he has to try everything ’at anything else ever tried, an’ he don’t care what it costs nor who gets killed in the attempt. Sometimes you hear a wise guy say: “No, no that’s contrary to human nature.” ”

“ Kit had as snappy a pair o’ black eyes as was ever stuck in a face; and now they flashed out full power. “I know it’s goin’ to be hard to hold this place,” sez she, “but I reckon I can help a little. I can ride an’ shoot as well as a man, if I have to, and you know it. I don’t want anything but the quietest sort of a life the’ is; but I’m ready to stand for any sort o’ luck ’at comes along. As for Olaf, he’s the only man in the world for me. I saw something o’ the big cities back east, an’ Billings, an’ the boys on the range here, and out of ’em all, Olaf’s my man. ”

“ Promotheus opened his eyes and his jagged, gnarly teeth showed in a smile, weak and trembly, but still game to the last line of it. “Nope,” he said so low we could hardly hear him, “I’m Promotheus, all right. I hung on as long as I could; but the vultures have finished my liver at last, Horace—they have finally finished it. I hate to leave you; but I’ll have to be goin’ soon. The’s only one thing I ask of ya—don’t send a single one o’ the boys to the pen. They don’t know what the world really is ”

“ She was game, all right, Kit was.
“That is why I say it is all right,” sez Olaf. “She is young, she cannot know how she will change. If ever she no longer love me, I will not bother her. That would be a foolishness; but so long as she love me, no other man will bother her. That would be devilishness!”
“You certainly have a nice, simple scheme of life,” sez Horace. “If ever you change your mind, I’ll put up the money to take you back East, an’ pay you high wages.”
“No,” sez Olaf, “I hate circuses an’ shows, an’ such things. ”

“ Ty’s backbone was all in one piece, and solid—except where Olaf had unjointed it—and it took years to wear him down to friendliness; but when the Friar’s first baby got big enough to creep, the contrary little cuss took more interest in ol’ Ty Jones, than in airy other thing the’ was on the place. I never saw any one yet who didn’t feel flattered at a baby’s endorsement—though why a baby should be supposed to actually have better judgment than grown folks has never been fully explained to me yet. ”

“ Now, ages ago when the childhood o’ the race began, folks were downright primitive; they used stone axes, skins for clothing, and ate raw flesh. They were fierce, impulsive, passionate, just like children are if you watch ’em close enough; but they lived close to nature, just like the children do, and their bodies were vigorous, and their minds were like dry sponges, ready to absorb whatever fell upon ’em. ”

“ I can’t rightly say ’at I ever got religion; but more ’n once religion has got me an’ lifted me up like the Crazy Water in flood, bearin’ me on over rocks an’ through whirlpools, an’ showin’ me what a weak, useless thing I was at the best. The’s somethin’ inside me ’at allus responded to the Friar’s music, an’ made me willin’ to sweep on over the edge o’ the world with him; but when he tried to reason out religion to me, I have to own up ’at the’ was a lot of it I couldn’t see into. ”

“ When a dog signs up, he don’t whisper nothin’ under his breath. He signs up for the full trip, and he don’t ask a lot o’ questions about how long the hours’ll be, or what sort o’ grub and quarters and pay he’ll draw. He just wags his tail, and sez: “This here feller is my idea of exactly what a feller ought to be; and I’m for him in all he does. If he wants me to fight, I’m hungry for it, if he wants me to be polite and swaller a lot o’ insults, I’ll do it, or if the time comes when my death is worth more to him ’n my life, why, I don’t know nothin’ about future rewards or such truck ”

“ I own up ’at a dog has no morality; he’s only a reflection of his master. A decent man has a decent dog, a vicious man has a vicious dog—and this is why it would have hurt me more to watch Horace testin’ his aim on the dogs ’n it would if he had been minded to pot a few Cross-branders themselves, especially Ty Jones. ”

“ This was the most curious part of the whole thing to me.
“How can I tell,” he sez. “Life is so crowded with wonders that I have quit wonderin’ about ’em; but I always feel a thrill when I see the stubborn spirit of a strong man melt and run into the mold the Master has prepared for it.”
“I’ll own it was about the weirdest thing I ever saw,” sez I; “but I’m willin’ to bet that whatever else Olaf’s spirit has molded itself into, it’s not a doormat with ‘welcome’ wrote on it; as the first feller ’at fools with that girl is likely to find out.” ”

“ We’re gettin’ a good many towns on our map nowadays, we’re puttin’ up a lot o’ hay, we’re drinkin’ cow milk, and we’re eatin’ garden truck in the summer. The old West has dried up and blown away before our very eyes, and a few of us old timers are beginnin’ to feel like the last o’ the buffalo. The’s more money nowadays in boardin’ dudes ’n the’ is in herdin’ cattle, an’ that’s the short of a long, long story. ”

“ A feller feeds himself on bitter recollections in order to keep his hate lusty; but all this pilin’ up o’ hate is just one parchin’ hot day after another—like we’ve had this summer. Everything green and pleasant in a feller’s nature is burned down to the roots, and in tryin’ to hate all the world, he ends by hatin’ himself worst of all. Every kindly deed he’s done seems like a soothin’ shower, and counts a lot in keepin’ him from fallin’ down below the level o’ snakes and coyotes. ”

“ It was right after the spring round-up that I first heard the Friar’s name mixed up with a woman. This allus makes me madder ’n about anything else. When a man and a woman sin, why, it’s bad enough, and I’m not upholdin’ it; but still in a way it’s natural, the same as a wolf killin’ a calf. It’s the cow-puncher’s business to kill the wolf if he can, and he ought to do it as prompt as possible. ”

“ Human nature is so blame contrary, itself, that nothin’ else could possibly be contrary to it. To think of Horace knowin’ about the Friar, an’ yet doggin’ me all over the map with that song of his, was enough to make me shake him; but I didn’t. I wanted the story, so I pumped him for it, patient an’ persistent.
“I never was very religious,” began Horace. Most people begin stories about other people, by tellin’ you a lot about themselves, so I had my resignation braced for this. “I allus liked the Greek religion better ’n airy other,” he went on. ”

“ The Christian religion is founded on self-sacrifice and martyrdom, and all those who get it bad enough spend the bulk o’ their time on the lookout to be martyrs and sacrifice theirselves for something—and they don’t care much what for. Look at the crusades—the flower o’ Europe was lured into the desert and dumped there like worn-out junk, even children were offered up in this sacrifice. ”

“ Any healthy woman has all the allurement she can possibly need, if she’ll just take care of it. I like to see a hoss full o’ fire, and I like to see a woman full of enticement; but I like to see both the fire an’ the enticement kept under good control, and not made to show out unnecessary.
Once, when I was in Frisco, I saw a parade of the Friendly Order of Hindu Cats, and the Grand Thomas Cat o’ Creation rode in front on an old gray hoss. ”

“ A queer look came into Olaf’s face, a half-scared look. “A dead person has no flame,” sez he, with a little shudder. “It is a bad sight. I have watched; I have seen the soul leave. When a man is killed, the savage purple color fades into the yellow of fear, then comes the blue, it gets fainter and fainter around the body ”

“ Well, now, boys, the man who doesn’t take the time to put a value on his own life, isn’t likely to make that life very much worth while. He mustn’t overvalue it to such an extent that he becomes a coward, nor he mustn’t undervalue it to such an extent that he becomes reckless—he must take full time to estimate himself as near as he is able. ”

“ The Friar spoke in a low, earnest tone; and Ty Jones stared at him. Ya know how earnest an insane man gets? Well, the’ was something o’ this in the Friar when he was talkin’ business. You felt that he believed that what he was sayin’ was the truth, and you felt that if it was the truth, it was mighty well worth heedin’, and you also felt that in spite of its bein’ so everlastin’ different from the usual view o’ things, it might actually be the truth after all and a risky thing to pass up careless. ”