% / , 112-3 HE MARCH, 1933 FRONTIER v MAGAZINE Of THf NORTHWfST ADAM CARGO A Novel by Upton Terrell
(To be completed in two issues)
MYTHS ABOUT AUTHORS Vardis Fisher
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“ARRIVED: ALL WELL” and “WE HAD A FIGHT” Officers’ reports to the War Department in early western days
/ol. XIII MARCH, 1933 Number 3 *UBLI8HED IN NOVEMBER, JANUARY, MARCH, AND MAY AT THE 8TATE UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA, MI8SOULA. ’ORTY CENTS A COPY—ONE DOLLAR AND A HALF A YEAR WESTERN MONTANA
The Scenic Empire
midY,ay between two great National ^ t ^ ’hTawTf s d-GJ?C1“ ’ 511880,113 HteraUy may be said to be m the heart of the Scenic Empire of the Northwest.
of ni^.-filndlrei?tl0^S °Bw°f the Garden City of Montana are places sfnw r 1 1 Entermg M^sohla from the East, the pas- and° N crth t^ *P 0 fi he tW° P eat transcontinental lines, Milwaukee t h r l f r ™ Paci* e. or the automobile tourist winds for miles HvUP te c .anyon- Westward the way is through the which provide never-ending delights for the eye of the traveler seeking Nature s beauty spots. vacationist's urge be in the direction of Glacier, his f oot®.wl,U^ ak? hu“ through the Flathead Valley fringed by the Range -°f Eockie8- Snow-capp^, glacier- fringed, the Missions are incomparable in their beauty. - As might be expected, this Western Montana country is a place ^ ^,here " ? mile® of Trout fishing streams within a radius of 25 miles of the City of Missoula. During the big game season, hunters of Missoula know where to go.
WeS* yo,u’ve heard about your life. Do the things you’ve never done before and always wanted to. The dude ranches and recreation within a few hours drive from the University ? ^ erS +JeS? of recreation such as bathing, riding, hiking climbing aD,d hu#nting 111 the h*a* of S ' Rocky M iu n ta ii or o f dude ranches thousands of acres in extent Indian life within twentv-five dty and buffalos and other wild life in their native land. Also historical places connected with the first settlement of Montana. All these things and more can be enjoyed in Western Montana’s Scenic Empire.
For Further Information Inquire of T he M issoula C hamber of C ommerce MISSOULA, MONTANA
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CHRISTIAN SCIENCE, a critique ...... by Fred T. Marsh MARX AND BAKUNIN, an essay...... by Max Nomad DIEGO RIVERA, an essay...... by Jean Chariot D. H. LAWRENCE, an essay...... by Francis Fergusson WILLIAM JAMES, an essay...... by Henry Bamford Parkes FREDERIC REMINGTON AND WINSLOW HOMER...... by John Wheelwright LOVE IN CATULLUS, SHAKESPEARE AND BAUDELAIRE...... by Lawrence Leighton T. STURGE MOORE, an essay...... by Yvor Winters PUDOVKIN AND THE REVOLUTIONARY FILM ...... by Harry Alan Potamkin THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, a review...... by Clara Gruening Stillman THE ECONOMICS OF G. D. H. COLE, a review by Lawrence Dennis SAMUEL BUTLER, a review...... by Richard P. Blackmur Archibald MacLeish POEMS and SHORT STORIES. Allen Tate {Clifton Cuthbert CHRONICLES PHOTOGRAPHS BOOK REVIEWS
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Patronize Frontier Advertisers i. T H E FRONTIER Reg. U. S. Pat. Off. 1fu*e Mirror, Seattle, merged with The Frontier, April, 1932 Volume Thirteen MARCH, 1933 Number 3 CONTENTS
Adam Cargo— first instalment of a novel...... IJpton Terrell 165 Second Love a series of lyrics...... Eleanor Hammond.''...... 175 Prairie Stars p o em ...... Minnie Hite Moody...... 176 Myths About Authors------Vardis Fisher...... 177 A Mountain Laughs— poem...... _...... Francis Sell iso Two Stories Up the Hill...... 1------Hal Driggs...... 183 Understanding ...... I ...... Benjamin Appel...... 186 Indian Letter p o em ...... Lilian White Spencer_____ 188 A Day in M a rch -e ssa y ...... _Angust Derieth...... 189 In the Country poem...... Grace Hosier______191 Ski, poem — ...... —*------,------...... Ted Olson______.192 Journey, story ------1...... Fred J. Ward...... 193 Poems Sage ...... -...... -...... -...... Jay E. Ransom...... 200 5 ? r!e ...... - ...... Ruth M. Clayton...... 200 Prairie Death ...... Donne Montana Stevens...... 201 The Coffin Boat, story ...... Howard McKinley Corning...... 202 Sand Hills, p oem ...... Irene Welch Grissom______212 NORTHWEST FOLKLORE Old Man Coyote ...... Glendolin Damon Wagner...... 212 Dream Not Too Much, poem...... i ...... +.— ...... Mary Walter Green...... 214 OPEN RANGE Homestead Days in Montana...... Pearl Price Robertson...... 215 Trails, voern...... - ...... Steve Hogan...... 225 HISTORICAL SECTION— From the Records of the War Department “Arrived: All Well” W e Had a Fight”...... Edited by Lloyd Lehrbas...... 226 Fantasy, poem ...... - ...... -.Catherine Stuart Macleod...... 230 BOOKSHELF—LITERARY NEWS—ABOARD THE COVERED WAGON...... Front and Back Advertising Sections
BOARD OF EDITORS Editor...... H a r o l d G . M e r r ia m G r a c e R a y m o n d H ebar d Assistant Editors. (G r a c e S t o n e C o a t e s Advisory Editors U niversity of Wyoming (B r a s s i l F it z g e r a l d for the Histori- P a u l C . P h il l ip s ical Section. U niversity of Montana 'F r a n k B . L in d e r m a n A r c h e r B . H u l b e r t J a m e s S t e v e n s Colorado College Contributing Editors L e w S a r b t t P h i l i p A s h t o n R o l l in s H . L . D a v is N ew York City .H e l e n M a r in o Advisory Editors for the Folklore SectionlV* L‘ C hittick» College (H a r r y T u r n e y -H i g h , University of Montana Editor of Book Section...... P a t V. M o r r is s e t t e , University of Oregon Ma/rmsoripts should he sent to the Editor; "business communications to Frank Gal lagher, Business Manager; subscriptions to Harvey TMrloway, Circulation Manager— all at the State University of Montana, Missoula, Montana.
Copyright 1933, by H. G. Merriam. Published in November, January, March and May. the A cteSfdMaroShC3n^8C79SS matter M&y 4> 1928’ at the Postoffice at Missoula, Montana, under
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A Selected List of No other paper in CONTRIBUTORS the world can to command such The London Mercury NOW talent 1919-1932 8hane Leslie J. R. Ackerley Vachel Lindsay Conrad Aiken G. Locker-Lampson Richard Aldington E. V. Lucas Sherwood Anderson 30 CENTS K atherine Mansfield Martin Armstrong [Previously 75 cents] Walter de la Mare Kenneth Ashley Alice MeyneU Stacy Aumonler Its appearance and size and nature Hamish Miles Herman Bahr of contents remain unchanged A. A. Milne Max Beerbohm Prince D. S. Mirsky Hilaire Belloc C. K. Scott Moncrleff Arnold Bennett Order the London Mercury for month C. E. Montague Laurence Binyon ly delivery. You will enjoy its George Moore Augustine Birrell poetry, short stories, pictures, ar T. Sturge Moore Edmund Blunden R. H. Mottram Gwendoline Murphy Ernest Bramah ticles, woodcuts, critical studies and Francis Brett-Young reviews. It deals with all phases of Abu Nadaar Robert Bridges literature. It will keep you in touch John Nash Osbert Burdett Sir H. Newbolt Karel Capek with the best work being done to Frederick Niven O. K. Chesterton day and the work of the great Gilbert Norwood Joseph Conrad writers of the past. Its contribu Alfred Noyes A. E. Coppard W. J. Turner W . H. Davies tors include new writers of promise J. B. Priestley Geoffrey Dearmer and the acknowledged masters of G. Raverat Thomas Derrick contemporary literature. E. T. Raymond Austin Dobson Ernest Rhys Lord Alfred Douglas Edgell Rickword John Drinkwater The Leading Review of English Michael Sadlelr John van Druten Literature Geor.’ e Saintsbury Lord Dunsany George Santayana E. M. Forster Siegfried Sassoon Robert Frost SUBSCRIPTION FORM R. G. McNair Scott Eric GUI Edward Shanks Louis Golding To The London Mercury, 229 Strand W.C.2 G. Bernard Shaw Lord GoreU Please send me The London Mercury until Dame Ethel Smyth Sir Edmund Gosse countermanded, commencing with the Oc E. American Agents: The International News Company, 83 Varich Street, New York Patronize Frontier Advertisers ill. ABOARD THE COVERED WAGON HOUSEHOLD a newsPaper man in Chi cago, left school at seventeen to drive a Red HARDWARE Cross ambulance in the World War. For ^ n^ ars afte.r the war he was “successive and ly cowboy, guide, sailor, tramp, reporter, as sociate editor, and correspondent, and knows forty-two of the forty-eight states as well MINING he*.knows his home town. Adam Cargo is his first published novel and the third he has written. His wife is the artist, Irene MACHINERY Spurgeon Terrell. E l e a n o r H a m m o n d , Portland, Oregon, calls herself by profession and necessity a hack writer, but Northwest readers know her as a poet of many fine writings. M i n n i e H it e M o o d y , a nationally recognized poet, lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Montana Hardware V a r d is F i s h e r is the author of three novels Toilers of the Hills, Dark Bridwell, DEPT. OF ANACONDA and the recently published In Tragic Life, the first of a tetralogy. Until recently he COPPER MINING CO. has been professor of English, at the Uni versity of Utah and then at Washington Square College, N. Y. C .; he now makes his West Park home in his native Idaho. Other Idahoans are I r e n e W e l c h G r i s s o m , its poet laureate BETTE and author of Verse of the New West, and G r a c e H o s t e r , who writes, “I am one of the astigmatically hopeful army of English teachers.” H a l D r ig g s’ s (Portland) earlier story in The Frontier was published in the 1932 vol ume of Best Short Short Stories (Putnams). B e n j a m i n A p p e l ’ s earlier Frontier story, From a Feudist Diary, won high praise. He lives in Brooklyn. L i l i a n W h i t e S p e n c e r , Denver, has pub McKenzie-Wallace lished a volume of poems on Indian life. T ed O l s o n , author of A Stranger and Afraid, lives in Laramie, Wyoming. The state of Service Co. Washington claims two poets, R u t h C l a y t o n , whose people were central Nebraska pioneers, and J a y R a n s o m , who is a student in the junior college at Aberdeen. C a t h e r i n e M a c l e o d sends her poem from Alabama. A u g u s t D e r l e t h , though in his twenty- fourth year, has had published 105 stories. His principal delight is in nature. He lives in Sauk City, Wisconsin. F red J. W ar d , DISTRIBUTORS who is a superintendent of schools in Montana, has been a newspaper man and for some’ years an occasional writer. The Coffin Boat is H o w a r d C o r n in g ’ s (Portland) third story SHELL 3 ENERGY to appear in The Frontier this year. He is more widely known as a poet. The New GASOLINE Poetry, recently edited by Harriett Monroe, carries four of his poems. F r a n c is S e l l is also an Oregon writer. He was “born in Riverton in 1902, when it was a thriving town of nine saloons, six coal mines, one SHELL MOTOR OILS church, and a school that taught the three R’s four months a year.” M a r y W . G r e e n lives in Yakima, Washington. P e a r l P r ic e R o b e r t s o n , who lives on a farm in the Flathead Valley, Montana, was Order Magazines from T he Frontier Subscription Agency ‘ ‘ An Exceptional Novel.”—The Bookman. In Tragic Life by Vardis Fisher A uthor of Toilers of the Mills and Mark Mridtrell With its setting in the beautiful Snake River Country of Southeastern Idaho, this story details the life of a boy to his eighteenth year. Born of rugged pioneers and reared in a harsh environment, this lad’s nature was a strangely sensitive one. This life in that setting forms the basis of what is prob ably the greatest novel of its kind ever written. The Bookman, January, 20 column inches. “Mr. Fisher has written strikingly of a great subject, of the appalling and beautiful wilderness, and of the men and women who conquered it . . . An exceptional novel.” Rocky Mountain News (Denver), December 11, 12% column inches. “. . . a classic worthy of the vastness and strength of the great West.” Deseret News, Salt Lake City, January 7, 42 column inches. “. . . Mr. Fisher is blazing a noble trail.” The Portland (Ore.) Journal, January 15, 10 column inches. “Nothing short of genius could conceive a story such as this.” Pasadena (Calif.) Star-News, January 7. 11 column inches. “. . . compels attention by sheer power and originality.” New York Times, December 25, 24 column inches. “. . . achieves success with cumulative power . . . Mr. Fisher demands consideration as a serious and original American novelist who is blazing his own trail.” The Philadelphia Record, December 18, 10% column inches. “. . . harsh and bitter and cruel, but it is also sternly beautiful, exalting. It is literature, not glamor, not sentimentality, not melodrama. And it is one of the great books of the American frontier.” John A. Killick in Evanston (III.) News-Index, December 15, 22 column inches. “. . . in our opinion this is one of the greatest books published in 1932, and one of the finest novels we have read in the English language.” $ 2 . 5 0 at all bookstores or from the publishers T he Ca x t o n P r in te r s, Ltd. CALDWELL, IDAHO Patronize Frontier Advertisers v. a school teacher, married a school teacher and “helped him prove up a homestead and lose it,” and is the mother of twelve children. She has found time to attend summer schools and to serve as a news correspondent for a daily paper. Three other Montana writers contribute to this issue, D o n n e S t e v e n s , Billings, whose writing here appears in print for the first tim e; S t e v e H o g a n , Butte, who has contrib uted to The Frontier before; and G l e n d o l in W a g n e r , author of the recently published M occasins and Indian Blankets. L l o y d L e h r b a s , an Idahoan and a news paper man, has the hobby of “digging up old stuff about early Idaho.” While on duty as a correspondent in the State and War De partments in Washington he made extracts from old records that interested him. LITERARY NEWS 1 I Time, January 9, broadcasts a hot market tip to pulp writers from the American Fic tion Guild, 178 Fifth Ave., N YC: that the Dell Publishing Co.'s three pulps are again in need of material, and that the Clayton group are once more paying on acceptance. The Oregon branch of the Guild met in Port land last December to discuss the market situation and aid in national publicity dis tributed by E. Hofer and Sons' syndicate to 12,000 county dailies and weeklies. CoL Hofer is President Emeritus of the League of Western Writers. Officers of the Port land branch of the Oregon Guild chapter are BETWEEN CHICAGO AND A l b e r t R ic h a r d W e t j e n , E d m u n d D u P er r ie r , and A d a H e d g e s. THE NORTH PACIFIC COAST A l b e r t R . W e t j e n and R o d e r ic k L u l l , with associate editors, J a m e s S t e v e n s and B o r g h il d L e e , have launched The Outlander, W e commend to you the new a quarterly literary review, and experienced est of transcontinental trains, the the intoxicating pleasure of seeing the first issue off the press. Editors, contributors and roller-bearing North Coast friends signalized the event with a dinner at Limited. Luxurious accommoda Woodcock’s, January 23. The editorial vi tions— splendid service— “fa sion is that The Outlander shall deal with life exclusively. “It will publish stories, mously g o o d " meals. essays and verse with genuine vitality. It does not promise to be smart. It does not For information on travel, anywhere expect to be popular. It is interested in — see your nearest Northern Pacific life as it is, and not as people think it ought representative, or write to be, and certainly not as it is represented by the various schools and cliques that today E. E. Nelson infest American letters.” It will be a maga Northern Pacific Railway zine of protest against all formulas, against hypocrisy, against bunk. St. Paul, Minn. R o d e r ic k L u l l ’ s stories are familiar to readers of Clay, The Midland, and Story. Tickets purchased at reduced Stories by A. R. Wetjen will appear fre rates are good on the quently in Collier's this year, in Adventure, and the Tower Publications. Six of his earlier stories are being translated into New North Coast Limited Swedish and Austrian; and For My Lady, Order Magazines from T he Frontier Subscription Agency Be sure to try— MIGNON CLEANSING Dr. V. R. Jones CREAM DENTIST A Liquefying Cleanser LEHSOU BLOCK MIGNON FACE CREAM AND SKIN MASSAGE A Tissue Cream % MIGNON ASTRINGENT CREAM PHONE 5454 A Finishing Cream and Powder Base Open Evenings Large Jars 50 Cents Each IS Peterson Drug Company Appointments made to eliminate A good place to trade conflict with classes. MISSOULA MONTANA A Corsage— John R. Daily, Inc. 115-119 West Front S t Adds the finishing touch PHONES: to every formal party Retail 2181-2182. Wholesale 8416 Wholesale and Retail Dealers in Fresh and Salt Meats, Fish, Send her one from the Poultry and Oysters Packers of Qarden City Da-Co Hams BACON and LARD Floral Co* “Montana Payroll Products” PHONE 3345 BRANCHES Missoula Market, 126 No. Higgins Appropriate flowers for all Phone 2181 occasions Model Market, 309 No. Higgins Phone 2835 Patronize Frontier Advertisers originally in Collier's, will be reprinted in Thomas Uzzell’s (new) annual anthology of short stories. A sea novel on which Mr. Wetjen is working is tentatively entitled Derelict. Youngren , N a r d J o n e s ’ s novel, Wheat Women, w a s issued January 26 by Duffield & Green. R u s s e l l B l a n k e n s h i p , formerly of Whit Shoe Shop man College, now with the University of Washington, author of American Literature, an Expression of the National Mind, is at The College Shoe work on two volumes of a high school series to be published by Scribner's. Re-builder D r. F. L. N u s s b a u m , professor of history, University of Wyoming, is publishing History FREE CALL AND DELIVERY of the Economic Institutions of Europe, in February, under the imprint of F. S. Croft SERVICE' & Co., N . Y . O l g a M oore, Laramie, Wyo., a regular contributor to Delineator, has a PHONE 6168 story, Section Ttoo, Toumship Six, in the February Country Gentleman. Dyeing Heel Plates B e a t r ic e B r a c e , on the staff of the Oakley Herald, Oakley, Idaho, commends the Idaho General Shoe Rebuilding Falls Public Library for compiling, in manu script, a Who's Who in Idaho in literature, New Heels Dance Taps art, and music, for loan to responsible per sons. Constant complaint is made that pub “Thin Soles that Wear a Long Time” lic libraries are buying no books; and as constantly it is noted that hundreds of per RAY P. WOODS sons are using their present enforced leisure Basement of Higgins Blk. in libraries, reading not for anodyne, but for sounder knowledge in the fields of econom ics, history, and philosophy. The Portland Public Library has a collection of original oils and water colors which borrowers may hang in their homes for a period of one month. There need be no water-tight com Pasteurized Milk partments for the several arts. M r s . E v e l y n H i l l of the Laramie, Wyo., Quill Club, brings FROM SELECT HERDS to its meetings original paintings instead of Constant vigilance on the part of manuscript. both the Consolidated Dairies and the Part-Time Puritans, book-length verse dairies supplying us with milk is al manuscript of L u c y M. C. R o b in s o n , Spo ways maintained to safe-guard your kane, is ready for a publisher. M a r y B r i n k - milk. e r P o s t , Spokane, is now a regular contribu tor to Pictorial Review, with material in the Approved methods of sanitation, truest sense regional. proper cooling of milk, regular deliv eries to our plant, where every drop An effort is being made, through the co operation of T ed O l s o n and D r. W . O. is pasteurized, are all important in in C l o u g h of Laramie, Wyo., to gather into a suring the quality of Consolidated Dairies milk. small volume the literary remains of the late Dr. June E. Downey, a writer of depth and DRINK AT LEAST A PINT force, starred in Prominent Men of Service. The only new material from the North A D A Y west in Harriet Monroe’s revised edition You can obtain our milk at the Stu of The New Poetry is four poems of H o w a r d dents' Store, from your neighborhood M cK i n l e y C o r n in g ’ s , among them The grocer, or have it delivered direct to Mountain in the Sky" first published in The your home from the Frontier. I r l M o r s e , editor of Better Verse, St. Paul, is directing a broadside against mutual Consolidated praise-slinging between ninth-rate poets, a practice he considers of disservice to poetry. When minor lyrists swim the stream With double and peculiar motion D a ir ie s Their ultimate successes seem Half elbowing and half devotion. PHONE 2977 A list of fifty poetry journals will take precedence over news from members in the viii. Order Magazines from T he Frontier Subscription Agency ------7 i QUALITY FIRST i We Test and we Prove 100% right! Only such merchandise INTERSTATE qualifies as Penney’s 100% values. It is not enough that a thing looks good; LUMBER COMPANY it must go into the testing rooms and prove its worth. i i Result? When we tell you something Q U A LIT Y is good it is nothing less. People who shop at Penney’s know Building Material they buy MORE than PRICE. and Fuel J. C. PENNEY CO. SERVING 118 Montana Cities and Towns The Montana Power Co. Patronize Frontier Advertisers ix. February bulletin of The Poetry Society of Am erica. One of the society’s annual awards went to Catherine Parmenteb of Colorado Montana Teachers Springs, for her poem, Interim . A member asks for more news from the far west. T he Metropolitan Press is gratified by NEEDED FOR the reception of Genevieve, a Tale of Oregon, a picture of Oregon in the ’80’s. This com 1933 VACANCIES pleted manuscript, with others unfinished, was found among the papers of Frederick Homer Balch, author of The Bridge of the ALASKA T O Gods, who died aged thirty. Other recent books from The Metropolitan Press are M en of Champoeg, by Caroline C. Dobbs, and NEW M EXICO Mid Sunshine cmd Mist by L eslie H. H as k in s . The firm is one of the sponsors of Certification Booklet Free E leanor A llen’s daily radio program, The Gay Parade, over KFJR. Miss Allen says with Enrollment there is accelerated interest in the work of Northwest writers, in Portland. V ivian Cooley, head of the Book Dep’t. of Meier & Frank, officially opened the series of “close- ups” Miss Allen is giving. Miss Allen’s E. L. HUFF Seb, the Bold, which ran for nineteen months as a serial in the Portland Oregonian, has been sold to a syndicate serving Canada, the Teachers Agency United States, and England. She had two other juveniles ready for the publishers, and MISSOULA, MONTANA a book of verse, The Swift Runner. She is working on another juvenile serial, The Shy Member N. A. T. A. D evil, a story of an American air pilot with a background of the pearl fisheries near Aru -4 Islands, on the north coast of Australia. A nthony E uwer, author of The Friendly F irs, has given a series of radio talks on ten Oregon authors over station KOAC, Cor vallis, Ore. The continuity was by A da H astings H edges. BOOKS Mrs. M. T ruesdell Cooper of Denver is including in her gift anthology Ethel R omig T ex tbooks— Correspondence Fuller’ s much anthologized poem, P roof, Textbooks characterized as the most quoted contempor ary poem. Travel has accepted Mrs. Fuller’s Fiction— Classics— Histories illustrated story, Black Hemlocks, an im Poetry— Biographies pressionistic study of the timber-line trees Cook Books of Mt. Baker. Dictionaries— English and Foreign D avid R oss, Columbia Broadcasting Co., 485 Madison Ave., N. Y. C., voted by the Language American Academy of Arts and Science to have the best radio voice of 1932, has re We will fill any book order ceived 2000 letters of inquiry about books he has published in the past two years. He can consider for radio reading only poems University Novelties offered without fee, since his programs are Pillow tops— Banners unsponsored. Station WLAP, Louisville, K y., is running weekly half-hour readings from Pennants— Memory Books living American poets. A nna H empstead Branch, 147 Ave. B, N. Y. C., is chairman of the Woman’s Poetry TENNIS RACKETS— Restrung committee at the coming Chicago World’s Fair. She asks information concerning poet ry prizes to be offered in 1933-34, and sug Associated Students’ Store gestions as to what should be included in the poetry exhibition, July 16-23. She wants on the campus poems on science or scientific subjects. MISSOULA, MONTANA T he Caxton P rinters, Ltd., whose most significant fiction, so far, is Vardis Fisher’s Continued on page 25b x- Order Magazines from T he F rontier Subscription Agency WE PROVE IT EVERY D A Y You can always do better REASONABLE AT McCracken’s QONSIDERING the high grade Stores work we turn out for you you will find our Job Printing work unusually l o w in price* That*s why our K.&W . GROCERS presses are continual -----AND — ly running* Let us MEAT MARKET estimate your jobs. Fancy and Staple Groceries The Best in Fresh Fruits and THE Vegetables We feature only the finest of MISSOULIAN steer beef PUBLISHING COMPANY COMMERCIAL PRINTING DEPT. FREE DELIVERY SERVICE PHONE 2162 Meat Market Grocery Dial 5848 Dial 2164 Patronize Frontier Advertisers xi. A Pearl Above Price T takes more than fine merchan that each of our salespeople shall I dise and fine advertising to know his merchandise— and have make a successful store. The im a working knowledge at least, of portant ingredient in the making related subjects. For example, a of success— an ingredient that can salesperson in our women’s appar not be purchased for all the gold el department must not only be of King Midas— is the friendly at familiar with the styles, prices, and mosphere that makes the customer materials of the clothes that she feel at home. sells— but must be able to give ac curate advice about the blending of This precious thing is obtained colors and fabrics to make a har only when each and every member monious whole. She must know o f the store’s organization has a what accessories are correct, what genuine interest in satisfying each type of shoes are most appropri and every customer. ate. And so it is in every depart W ith this ideal in mind, we insist ment of our large establishment. M i s s o u l a M e r c a n t i i e Co. xii. Order Magazines from, T he Frontier Subscription Agency T H E FRONTIER A MAGAZINE OF THE NORTHWEST ______ “The frontiers are not east or west, north or south, but wherever a man fronts a fact." —T h o b e a u . A D A M CARGO U p to n T errell FOREWORD It took two years to learn the story of It was as if an artist, say a good friend Adam Cargo, and yet, as novels go, it is of mine, had presented me with one of his very short But there were long periods paintings and I had accepted it with obvious when no material was forthcoming, weeks of gratitude, but secretly I found fault with silence reflecting the intense stillness of that i t Certain things about it I did not like. vast empty colorful country of amber deserts One day I took paints and brushes and at and high blue mountains that is New Mexico. tempted to change it, to make it as I wished You as a reader will consume it in a few it, and in so doing ruined it. By all that hours. Men speaking from books speak is sacred, I would have been a transgressor! faster than in real life. The element of time, Then there is here only the story of that of years of living is not present A life old man out In Santa Fe who brought be time passes in an evening. fore my eyes with his mumbled words an Most of the story was told me by an old interrupted pageant of the stirring years man whom I have called Adam Cargo. I from a period shortly before the Civil War don’t know why he told it to me. I must up to the modern day when Santa Fe became have appeared terrifically insignificant to a mecca for artists and tourists who never him. After what he had done and known! knew the Old W est; the story of the old . . . Or perhaps he wanted to talk once, man who talked because he felt like talk to recall certain things and speak of them ing, not because his memories, nearing an before it was too late, and I chanced to be end, were warming to his heart, nor because about, inclined to listen. If this is true, it was his pleasure to dream of the years I feel it was a stroke of fortune, my good gone when he held his place in the world luck. But I do not believe he was reminis of men. No. You will find, I think, that cent because he was romantic. Not at all. in this case I am the romantic one. I would rather say he simply felt like talk UPTON TERRELL. ing. Chicago. The story has been described as incom December, 1932. plete in certain aspects, and in places to be without proper continuity. But you will HE old man said he met Omar see this is not my fault. I have written Palo in a saloon in El Paso. I what I was told. And after all when there T told myself, after I had heard is a good story to be set down continuity is not the most important thing to be con something about this meeting: If he sidered. If the story is complete, then con was wandering on an uncertain course tinuity is hardly of more importance than of life at the time, he stopped that eve using real names for characters in fiction. ning; his direction became definite. We have got used to having our stories dished up in certain forms, and because I He had given me to understand that have been obliged to adhere to these literary as a bartender, by force of necessity, rules, the temptation to embellish the story he was very much dissatisfied. There of Adam Cargo, to bridge the gaps with was beyond the barroom of the adobe stuff of my own invention, was strong. I Eagle House a freedom he sought. If refrained on the ground that it was not my story. It belonged to him. he had told me he wanted adventure 166 The Frontier in the wild southwest, I should have an evening in the previous week, not believed him. He was young. But one which had gone its way across the freedom suggested a hidden motive, calendar sixty years before, for he re for there was no one freer than a man called incidental details with remark alone in West Texas in the reckless able clarity. years following the Civil War. I sus Omar was an immense man. He wore pected he wanted to escape from some deerskin pantaloons and a fringed thing. jacket. Walking up to the bar, he He had been robbed shortly after he quietly requested whiskey, and when had come to El Paso of several thou Adam had set out a bottle he took sand dollars. The work in the Eagle several drinks in rapid succession, as House offered the only immediate so if to wash dust from his throat. Then lution to his problem, and his pleasant he stopped drinking. life as a roamer, a casual gambler, and He had a large handsome head all the charm of romantic and adven crowned with thick golden hair hardly turous days and nights abruptly ended. less brilliant than sunlight. It was long It was then that he began to long for and curled down over his jacket collar, freedom, he became dissatisfied. A waving like a plowed field of bright taste had awakened an appetite. And yellow earth. His eyes seemed to change a man such as he earning a dollar in shade, as if with his thoughts, bright honestly often shudders at the memory as a noon sky and then paler, like of the past. He vows he prefers to washed-out turquoise. Never gentle, labor than to steal, knowing full well never soft, perhaps they should be he would leap at another opportunity likened to two blue stones affected by to acquire means without sweating for playful shadows. His face was broad, them. This twisted circumstance makes very muscular and adobe-brown. him want to run away from everything He left to my imagination the cause he knows—and himself. of their friendship, and I, instantly, So I told myself: What he really could imagine half a dozen reasons. I wanted was to escape from something, should liked to have known where the and freedom was not simply an answer, Swede came from, where in all that a means of avoiding work. Freedom vast country. He, Adam, did not know. meant no walls, no confinement. Free The situation was logical. They talked. dom meant no monotony which gives a Adam must have been fluent, friendly. man time for thinking about himself. If the Swede was not, neither was he That evening Omar Palo, the Texas altogether a silent man, nor unwilling Swede, came to the Eagle House in El to enter a conversation. Paso he never forgot. It was Adam’s memory of his own We, the little old man and I, were observations which interested me at the sitting in the Plaza in Santa Fe the moment. What, I asked myself, of a afternoon he told me about it, sitting casual friendship begun in a saloon? on a bench in the shade of a locust tree The Swede came to the Eagle House looking eastward beyond old buildings at odd times during the next fortnight. to the purple-green mountains. It Always he was alone. If there were no seemed to me that he was talking of more than a few customers present he The Frontier 167 would remain. He was never seen in a When they went out at last, Omar crowd. Adam thought of this then, and came out of his hiding place. He stood he thought about the way the Swede leaning on the end of the bar looking stood at the bar—in a half-turned po in a strange way at Adam. When sition, facing the door. He had not Adam brought him a drink, he spoke been in the war, and he questioned deliberately. Adam at length about it, appearing in 1 ‘ It might have been different if there terested in Adam’s tales of fighting. had been some one else here . . .” He If he spoke of a country, of trails, of turned his lips in a slight smile. “ You girls, cows and horses, it was with an think I was scared.” entirely impersonal manner. Adam “ I ’m not thinking,” said Adam. knew nothing about him, and there The Texas Swede laughed softly, were only his actions to give rise to turned and left the Eagle House by certain presumptions and suspicions. the rear door. Gunfire was more revealing. Gun The man with the defective eye and fire spoke in a plain language, and if his silent companion died that night. history be correct, men in West Texas A blaze of pistol shots streaked the preferred to use it. The results were darkness of the court beside the saloon. more pointed, more satisfactory, more The man who had laughed lay looking demonstrative. at the horizon and at the stars. His The afternoon came upon which a partner’s silence was perfect. They mail laughed just outside the door of were carried into the bar, placed in a the Eagle House. Omar, in the act of corner and covered with blankets, to drinking, set down his glass quickly await burial in the morning. Then and scurried to cover behind the bar. others, speculating calmly on the af He crouched there on one knee with fair, lined the rail, drinking to alleviate drawn pistol. There was in the glance the weight of the normality into which he gave Adam a distinct warning which they had lapsed with the end of the Adam heeded. excitement. Two men entered. One a tall man The ears of one bartender were open, with a defective eye dropped silver on his eyes were watchful. And out of the bar and called for drinks. He con the noise and confusion he heard a man templated Adam in his peculiar way, ask another, ‘ ‘ Where is the Texas one eye seemingly looking off toward Swede?” the horizon and the other bearing down He listened for an answer, and heard coldly upon the object of its gaze. none, but he saw the questioner talking “ Newcomer?” he inquired at last. with two others. The three men sat at Adam, forcing friendliness, nodded. a table, their heads together. “ If three months is not long enough to It was after midnight when he found make me an old timer, then I am.” time to carry an empty cask outside. “ Three months,” the man mused. Abandoning it, he went around the “ Some people never stay that long in building and up open stairs in the one place.” He laughed again, as if court to a balcony. The doors along the words had stirred an amusing mem the balcony were closed, leaving only ory in him. starlight to guide him, but he knew 168 The Frontier well the way, for his own room was She twisted her lips and looked at the far end. Still he searched the thoughtful. “ Perhaps you know who darkness, for always were there eyes killed the men?” in the El Paso night. “ How would I know?” Suddenly a door ahead opened and Ah, you do not. Then you would a man came out of a dark room. He like to know?” stepped aside and stood in the intense darkness against the wall. The man He answered on- guard, suspicious. “ Well, can you tell me?” passed without seeing him, and went “ Perhaps.” | on down the stairs. “ I see. If I pay you.” A Mexican girl was standing in the She shrugged her thin shoulders. “ I door out of which the man had come. do nothing without pay.” She stepped out before him. He turned as if to go. “ You don’t Cargo,” she said in a tone of dis know.” appointment. 4‘Only you.’ ’ “ But I do,” she said quickly. “ Who did you expect?” he asked. He understood she was telling the “ Maybe another customer . . .” truth, and moved close to her. “ Have He pushed her aside to go on, but you told any one?” she took his arm quickly. “ No. He would not pay me.” “ These two Americans who are “ W ho?” killed . . . * ’ she began in a whisper. “ The man who just left. He said “ What about them?” he did not care. See ? It is no business “ Perhaps you would like to know of his. I have seen no one else.” something. ” “ But you will tell.” I want none of you,” he warned “ For money. Yes. You will pay in a suspicious voice. me?” She laughed softly. “ But maybe you “ No, I won’t.” want something I know.” She became angry. “ Then I know “ W hat?” who will give me money.” “ Be quiet,” she said. “ Walls have He took her arm. “ Anyway, how do the ears. You will come inside if you you know?” want to hear.” “ Let go. ” She drew away from him, I want none of you,” he repeated. holding out her hand. “ Money will “ I f you ...” answer that.” “ Be quiet, I say!” He seemed occupied with thought, She preceded him into the room and but suddenly he leaped upon her, his closed the door. He stood in darkness hands closing on her throat, and bore until she had lighted a small lamp. her to the floor. Then she faced him, smiling, her slen “ I’ll kill you ...” der face half in uncertain light, half “ Wait,” she gasped. “ I will tell in flickering shadow. you for nothing.” “ W ell?” he said impatiently. He loosened his grip. * * Quick, then. ’ ’ “ You were looking for some one?” “ The Swede of gold hair. He ran she asked. in here to hide after the fight. Then “ I was going to my room.” he gave me money and left.” 169 The Frontier His hands tightened. “ He paid you as if to signify indifference. “ I felt to keep still and you’d sell him out.” like it.” She struggled, at last growing weak. Palo walked across the room. “ Well, He got up, leaving her lying on the I ’m going. Only a fool would stay floor gasping for breath, and went to where he knows he didn’t have a his own room. There he put on his chance.” hat, and with a pistol in his pocket Adam moved to the door. “ I wish I left the building. could go with you. I want to go on He walked by a circuitous route to a to Santa Fe, to get out of here.” Mexican house near the Rio Grande. “ W hy?” At the patio gate an aged Mexican “ I don’t know.” woman scrutinized him with plain sus “ I never had a partner,” said Omar picion. with finality. “ I want to see Palo,” he said. “ My Adam looked at him steadily. “ I ’m name is Cargo—from the Eagle House.” not asking you.” He opened the door. “ Not here,” she mumbled, and dis appeared in the dark court. He waited. “ I know it. Mebbe I ’ll see you in Returning presently, the old woman Santa Fe some day, if I ever go there opened the gate and led him through again. ’ ’ a narrow passage and up a flight of “ Good luck,” said Adam, and went stairs to a balcony. Then she turned out. abruptly and went down again. The Mexican girl was found dead in “ Come in here,” said Omar. He her bed the next day. Someone had stepped from a shadowed corner. The covered a small pistol with a blanket two men went into a nearby room. A and a pillow and shot her in the head. candle burned in a pottery dish, its • * • frail flame causing shadows to dart This was the beginning, but it wasn’t about the room. Adam sat down. “ You better leave at once,” he said the beginning I wanted. There were without hesitation. “ There are men those years before he went to El Paso, the years of his boyhood, his youth, looking for you.” the war. Why did he go to El Paso? “ W hy?” “ If they don’t know for certain you It was far beyond the line of settle did it, they think you did. Perhaps ment then. West Texas was inhabited by warring Indians, badmen, treacher they have reasons of their own to make them think you did it. I don’t know. ous Mexicans. The country was aban But soon they’ll know for a fact.” doned to savages and adventurers, “ How?” wanted men. ‘ ‘ The girl told me. She ’ll tell them, ’ ’ The cowtowns in Kansas were begin said Adam. “ For a little money.” ning to boom. Herds were creeping up Palo sat on the bed. His cold eyes the new Chisholm Trail from south searched Adam’s face. Texas, floating over prairies of the In “ Why did you come here to tell dian Nation—to markets made possible me?” by a finger of steel pointing from the Adam made a motion with his hand Mississippi Valley to the endless plains 170 The Frontier running into the western horizon. Only came to the ancient city so many years a few cattlemen had ventured farther before. It grew cold quickly after the west. Some herds had gone to New sun had gone down. Mexico, Arizona, even to California. He lived in the town house of Jules But you could count them on one hand. Mason, the cattleman. It was a very Something had carried him on. I old house rambling off into rounded wondered if it was fear, or only that corners and with weathered eaves jut inexplicable force which sends men into ting into the turquoise sky framing it. a wilderness for no reason at all. I did He had lived for a number of years not think so. There was a reason. alone in a room off the patio which had I went to his room one cold, rainy an outside entrance of its own. It was afternoon and found him sitting before as he liked it, for he wanted solitude a small fire, his hands folded in relaxa (and freedom). Days would pass dur tion in his lap. Later, after I had hur ing which he would be seen by no one, ried to my house to set down quickly except the servants in the house. And what he had told me so that I would these humble people, who really seemed forget none of it, I wrote something to understand his moods better than about him as he was then in Santa Fe, their superiors, bothered him not at all. as I had seen him and as I had heard He would go and come in and out of the about him from other people. room at will, in the sunlight or in the He went often in the afternoon to moonlight, in the starlight, as he had sit on a bench in the plaza. Sometimes done almost all of his life. he would sit alone for hours. The He kept in the room a few things he scene must have awakened memories. had saved from the years of action. He had sat in the same plaza when Mementos. There was an old saddle there were no railroads west of Kansas, with a round, flat horn; a horse hair when it was lined with traders ’ wagons, lariat and a quirt of rawhide; two pis trains on their way east or west, and tols and a Winchester saddle rifle. A the people were filled with an expec buffalo head hung over an adobe fire tancy, an intense excitement. It was place; Navajo blankets lay about the the frontier, or it was beyond the fron floor; antelope prongs over the door. tier. There were a thousand miles be But there was nothing in the room to tween it and civilization, east or west. remind him of the gentle moments of The Indians had not given up. And his past, those few times when he must there were some of the same buildings have paused in his recklessness, his to stare at, the governor’s palace vigorous living, to speak soft words, fringed with motor cars, the peaceful to consider the things closest to his ness of the sanctuary of San Miguel heart. Nothing of these moments. disturbed by horns and clatter on pave Only reminders of action and adven ment. At sunset he would leave, when ture. And the necessary modern con long shadows lay across the plaza and veniences he had come to know, that he the sun had fallen behind the blue had done without the greater part of Jemez in the west. He would disap his life. His own bath of tile; his own pear into a narrow street between old soft couch made each morning, turned walls he had known since that day he for rest each evening, by the house 171 The Frontier keeper. And beside it sewed pelts of trapper and fisherman, a great bulk Angora goat for him to step on when of a man with a large head of curly arising, to warm his cold feet. A boy black hair and round blue eyes set wide made a fire at dawn, although there apart in a rugged face. He spent a was a modern heating plant in the great deal of time playing on a banjo house. But he needed direct, intense and singing, and after Adam had come warmth, for his blood was thin. The to live in his house, he got him to sing fire was kept burning on chill days and in duet. His own children, Sam a boy evenings, even when it was not needed. Adam’s age, and Mary, a girl two years He preferred it. A radiator was un younger, would have nothing to do with satisfactory. (One does not wish to singing. It was in their opinion fool sit before a radiator.) And there were ishness, and Ophelia, their mother, felt all these other things we have today, likewise. even in the far places. Electric lights One day Jesse took him to the burial and a radio. I was sure he despised it. ground in which his father and mother I was not sure he did not despise all had been interred. He had not seen these benefits of a scientific age. But the graves before; and he was com there were the old things. And there pletely bewildered by the sudden cold were Jules and Mrs. Mason, eager to understanding of death. Jesse had fulfill his slightest wish, always con brought some wild plants and ferns cerned about him. The fading light and set them about the wooden mark brought comfort. Good Lord, I shud ers. He watched him, sitting under a dered when I thought what it might nearby tree. Presently Jesse came and have brought instead! sat down beside him, looking out across We went back to the beginning of the river. things on this afternoon, but not for “A man should sit awhile and think long. It was as if, having hardly be when he visits a graveyard,” he said, gun to talk about those distant years, but Adam made no reply. The thoughts he changed his mind. It was discour in his mind had overwhelmed him. aging, but not a little surprised at find Words would have destroyed him. ing myself on the Mississippi before They sat there until the river began the Civil War, I waited patiently. He to shimmer under the copper glint of would go back again—some day. the sunset, and the hills of Hlinois, op He spoke of it as the Valley of Sing posite them, were struck with gold, ing and I had a feeling romance was blue shadows marking the little valleys near. But it was the singing of Jesse between them. Lunce he was talking about, and I was In the dusk they walked home along aware that out of all his memories it the river road . . . the man who knew remained one of the most vivid, still well the finality of death, and the boy so effective that in his mind it gave struggling to comprehend it. to the Mississippi Valley another name, One moonlit night they sat on the the Valley of Singing! river bank. Jesse had been drinking He had gone, as a boy, to live with in Carlinville, and had come home in the Lunce family after his mother and a mellow state. The banjo chords father had died. Jesse Lunce was a awakened emotions in him. He swayed 172 The Frontier back and forth. The moonlight, falling Jesse’s face to keep the flies off, and on his face, accentuated its deep lines. went away. His fine voice drifted out across the I waited for more. There was some water, the boy’s tenor blending, now thing more important in his youth than properly rising and falling as he had singing, than fishing and trapping. Nu been taught to harmonize. He must merous questions came to mind. I have been a good singer. He must have asked none of them.' It was his story. enjoyed it, too. I feared he would never take me back They remained beside the river all to the Mississippi. I did not want sing night. Jesse told a story, a long tale ing. Oh, no. I could contrive the touch of early river days, of fighting and of such sort of romance— death and love. Then there were In But as a young man he suddenly left dians on the river. Beyond the right the Lunce family, left their shanty, bank lay the great unknown west. left the singing, left the trap lines he ‘ ‘ How times have changed!” Jesse had inherited from his father, and he said. “ Now men and women leave for never returned. California as if they were going six He told me he never went back, and miles to Carlinville. ” then he stopped talking and began to The old man sitting before me in the fumble with a botttle. We took a nip quiet adobe room had seen a greater from thin glasses. And I went out, the change! He had seen planes curving word “ why” burning my lips more with the sun from ocean to ocean, heard than the whiskey. the motors droning in the night under the desert stars as he had heard the old Still I was glad to get back to El wagon wheels creaking on the prairie. Paso. Something had been left unfin Jesse could remember the Indians, ished there. Omar was gone, no one the last ones to leave or die, dirty and knew where. I wondered if he would ragged in their camps, hope gone from meet him again. When? their eyes, helpless before the white One evening a man named Jones came tide sweeping westward. Thousands of into the Eagle House and left a pouch people all appearing bereft of their of money with him. senses, mad with desire, covetous, driv “ I ’ve got some business hereabouts,” en to frenzy by fabled opportunities! he said, “ and I don’t want to carry so He wondered if Adam understood the much money with me. I ’ll be gone moonlight. about ten days. You take care of it The moonlight was corn dust falling for me.” from the land of eternal harvest. Lis When the ten days had passed and ten to the wind-words and to the words J ones had not returned, he got to think of the river whispered to the grasses ing about the money, wondering if on the bank. Listen to the grasses sigh Jones would come back. He opened ing in answer. the pouch. There were several thou The first faint light of dawn rose in sand dollars in gold in it. the east. The tale ended. They fell If Jones did not come back, he asleep. When the sun fell hot on him, thought! Adam awoke. He laid his shirt over A man’s money was usually safe in 173 The Frontier a saloonkeeper’s pocket in those days. His predicament caused him some con I did not believe he considered stealing cern, for he was in a wild country of it. The country was large, empty, but which he knew nothing. During the it was too small for such work. And day he had seen no sign of a habitation, he was not this type of thief. A thought although he presumed there were Mexi came to him. Gamblers would call it cans in the country, for few sections of a hunch. And he was born to be a New Mexico were totally uninhabited. gambler. I soon found this to be true. If he could find water, it undoubtedly The thought was that there often is would lead him to a rancho. luck in other people’s money. It often The country about him was divided is easy to make money for another when into small grassy valleys lying between one cannot make it for oneself. He high green and red pinon hills. The gambled his own money and consis vegetation was proof of a fair rainfall. tently lost. Something must happen to In the north he could see a great blue change his luck. bank of mountains. In the southwest He acted on the hunch. He took the hills were barren, broken and several gold pieces from the pouch and abrupt, and ran at sharp angles into a entered a game. It was early evening turquoise sky. when he began to play, dawn when When he reached the crest of a hill, the game ended. His money belt was he dismounted and examined the mare’s once more full. He replaced the bor foreleg. It was commencing to swell rowed gold, left the pouch with another above the fetlock. He stood there gaz bartender, and bought himself a trail ing over the colored country through outfit. Then he rode out of El Paso which he had come. Ahead of him he on the trail north to Santa Pe. could see only a short distance, for a I felt we had left El Paso behind ragged black ridge stood like a great forever now, and I suspected my eager wall supporting the sky which the fall ness was apparent, for he seemed to ing sun was turning gold. be reviewing to himself what he had As he started to mount again his told me and considering the question mare whinneyed. Its ears were tilted of ending his tale telling. I repri forward, and it was watching a clump manded myself for disclosing any en of large pinons directly ahead. He thusiasm and promptly became uncon scanned the trees carefully, but seeing cerned. I even put the thought of Omar nothing he presumed the mare had out of my mind, but only after fer scented an animal. He decided to ride vently hoping they would meet. to the base of the black ridge, hoping Then one day he took me (in his there would be water in the wash be story) to ride a trail over the high low it. colored ranges of northern New Mexi He mounted and urged the mare for co. He had been riding aimlessly for ward. To his surprise she went eagerly days, stopping here and there at Mexi at a halting gait. She whinneyed again, can ranchos and at trail stations. more shrilly than before, and an an This afternoon he was south and east swering nicker came from the trees. of Santa Pe. His mare began to limp, He halted her, and called out, and he discovered a foreleg was injured. “ Hello!” 174 The Frontier Omar Palo rode out of the pinons. a sound in the great darkening silence. If they had searched a year for each He heard only the creek water running other in all probability they would around a rock. have failed to meet. But chance, call He unsaddled the mare and turned it fate if you prefer, brought them to her loose, regretfully watching her gether on that lonely trail south of the limp away through the trees. When Sangre de Cristo Mountains. He was she had vanished, he built a fire and going to Santa Fe, but he never knew cooked some meat, washing it down where Omar was going nor where he with cold creek water. The bread he had been since they had parted in El carried, he saved, for he did not know Paso. So I did not know. when he would get more food. After They sat in the shade of a pinon eating, he smoked and sat thinking of talking about the mare. Omar exam Omar. If he felt it strange that they ined the injured foreleg and pro should meet again in the way they nounced it hopelessly strained. had, he felt it more peculiar that the “ It will be quite a spell before she Texas Swede had not elected to spend is any good,” he said, looking at Adam the night in camp with him instead of searchingly. “ You’re afoot.’’ calmly saying farewell once more, per haps forever. And he at last concluded Adam looked about the country. The that Omar did not desire his company. sun had landed on the black ridge and the canyons were lost in purple. Omar But there were other problems and I stood up. questions to consider, mainly the task of securing another horse. He lay com “ There’s water about a half a mile fortably on his blankets. The night south,” he said. “ Y ou’d best camp was warm. The fire fell to a few coals, there tonight.” and went out. The stars were like silver “ And you?” fumes floating above the dark, still “ I ain’t sure,” he answered. “ But trees. A coyote tuned its melancholy I got to go on. I got some business to throat, tried a long chord, and ended attend.” it dismally. Adam took the reins. “ Well, it will When he awoke at dawn and sat up be dark soon. I better get to the wa in his blankets his eyes fell at once on ter.” Omar Palo who was sitting on a log “ Adios, amigo mio.” with a rifle across his knees. “ Adios.” “ Didn’t expect me for breakfast, eh? Omar watched Adam out of sight, Well, I just sat down to have a smoke and Adam understood. Turning once before you woke up.” he found Omar gone. He walked on Several yards down the creek two slowly, leading the mare down a long horses were tied to a pinon tree. slope into a shadowy canyon where “ No,” said Adam. “ I didn’t expect the pines were immense. He heard a you at all. ’ ’ turkey call; the lovely evening song He began to gather twigs for a fire. of doves. When he came to a small Palo got Up and came over to him. creek, he stood very still listening for Continued on page 237 175 The Frontier SECOND LOVE E leanor H ammond FUGITIVE But, oh my dear, my dear, You have fled I know Before distress For you and me And known the fangs It will not be so! Of loneliness. Love is a two-edged Despair has lurked Hiltless blade— Beside my bed I bear old scars And sorrow from my hand And I am afraid. Has fed. BED AND BOARD Softly now, Lest they should hear us A well swept hearth And again Is not for me Nor a garden’s sweet Come creeping near us. Tranquility. Let our small fire Burning bright A road-side fire Drive lurking things Belongs to you, Back to the night. Tin-can coffee And pot-luck stew— Let me forget Old dark alarms But a pine bough bed In the comfort Is as soft as another. Of your arms. Sky’s a good enough roof— Since we have each other. SECOND LOVE You have brought back to me HERITAGE Forgotten things, I think I was begotten Freshness of fields in spring In a dim and airless room And lifting wings. Where four gray walls hemmed in a The joy of a new trail bed Beneath my feet— Respectably with gloom. That comradeship is good And love is sweet. But my sons shall be begotten Beneath wide cloudless skies— I BEAR OLD SCARS Sweet fern in their father’s nostrils, I would bring you happiness Stars before their mother’s eyes. And quiet sleeping. I would take away distress And futile weeping. 176 The Frontier LOVE GIVES US MOMENTS I shall remember this high place Love gives us moments In springtime sun Of clear ecstacy When all this poignancy of grief When walls melt into mist Is done. And we go free— BLACK FROST Then the sharp pain of living ceases A time may come And we know When this hard driving anguish How tides follow the moon Melts like a bitter winter’s snow. And grasses grow Spring may be waiting And how brown leaves lie quiet Under some horizon— Under snow. I do not know. A HILLTOP IN SPRING But this I know, Fields are so sweet in spring That feet grow lame and weary. And clouds so high. Burdens grow heavy and of little worth. I shall remember this green hill Before that spring comes Until I die. To reclaim the meadows I shall remember sorrel red We may be turned to earth. And scent of clover Long after love is dead And sorrow over. PRAIRIE STARS Minnie Hite Moody ♦ How many ages have these silent stars Dotted the darkness of this firmament? How many generations have been blent With the lost blood of desperate border wars And dust that flashed in burnished scimitars Of waving grass, before its hour was spent? The ancient glacier’s frozen malcontent Once rolled this way beneath that same red Mars. Then what am I who pause a moment here, One with the wind and night, yet not of them ? One with the earth, yet strangely separate This breath, this heartbeat, this ephemeral tear? A thousand thousand summers past my fate These stars shall gild this prairie’s diadem! 177 The Frontier MYTHS ABOUT AUTHORS Vardis F isher UTHORS are a strange and in which serve today, in more ways than curable lot. In a cubic inch, you can throw a stick at, not only to A they possess more vanity and make doctors’ theses, but also as shades malice and self-pity, more posturing to a thousand windows of light. Be egoism, and more emotional distortion, cause an author is a most ingenious than can be found in any other group fellow; and when he sets about to lose of persons outside of asylums. They himself among legends, the chances are multiply myths about themselves. They that he will become most thoroughly bring to birth and foster innumerable lost. legends. And they are never so happy I cannot agree with those critics of as when drifting through the literary a few decades ago who declared liter atmosphere as an inscrutable parable. ary creation to be a growth, a physical They are forever talking of sorcery and phenomenon, like a jelly-fish or an oy witchcraft and the tenuous nonsense that they call a rt; but when alone they ster, the secret of whose nerves and stretch out and snore like any animal sinews would some day be the common in possession of its senses. Our poets, property of every craftsman with a who are presumed to be most delicate typewriter and two hands. What we organisms, smoke, as in the case of a choose, perhaps with more pomp than woman, long and deadly cigars; or reason, to call creation is not so simple sneak into a cheap restaurant, as in as that. A poem or a novel is not a the case of a man, and stoke themselves mechanism that grows like a turnip. with huge platters of beans. They of But neither is it an inexplicable flow fer a new philosophy of life; and at ering of sweetness and light, nor an the moment when critics are beginning occult harmony of genius and destiny to take them seriously, they jump off and the eternal verities. What it is a boat and drown themselves. In one and has been and most likely will con moment they declare, with infinite tol tinue to be is a dark and often des erance, that they don’t give a damn perate attempt to make the author what anyone says about them; and in seem sane and reasonable and to ex the next, they work up a fine agony plain to his enemies why he has no of grief and abuse their mistresses or friends. But in this, as in other mat blow their brains out . . . ters, the author cannot write a line And all this, to be sure, is commonly without becoming a myth-maker. Even known. But it is not so well known from his letters, only the most pene that authors—and I don’t mean job trating mind can determine what sort bers who support the paper industry— of freak he is. Because the whole sum more than anyone else, including their of his industry is a disguise of himself parents and old college professors, and a bewilderment of his readers; brood upon and hatch those myths, until, as in the case of Mr. Joyce, he those dynasties that stand like a great throws up such a forest about himself fog upon the literary centuries; and that the reader, in his attempts to find 178 The Frontier him, might as well try to cut his way and, if so, what is it? But of course across Africa with an axe. there isn’t. What^ we call genius is I am going to look at some of these nothing but inteqse^and therefore ab- legends behind which authors entrench gurd, preoccupation with one thing; themselves and peer at the world; and a n d lF T writer is a genius because he to see where they came from and to is everlastingly editing and annotating ask why authors support them. himself, then how much greater as a genius must the lunatic be, who can Take first the matter of genius. Of not separate the world and his fancies. all words, an author takes this one most And as for talent, it is the ability to seriously. Wretched and impatient, do simple taskfl-wpll; and our astonish- he waits until some critic— whose mind ment in this matter ought to be given, was probably on golf—applies it to not to the one who does them but to him; and then he darts to a mirror and the one who cannot. looks in. “ I ’m a genius,” he reflects. We use such words as genius, to be “ Well, I had always suspected it !” sure, only because, knowing we’re not And he strikes an attitude and says, worth a hill of beans, we cry for dis That now is what a genius looks tinction. And nobody more than the like. ’ And forthwith he begins, pos artist himself fosters and perpetuates sibly as one self-deceived, possibly as this intellectual caste system. Being one deliberate, to act like a genius and often an object of charity, and never, look like a genius. He becomes ex if he is honest, earning much more travagant in his moods and intolerable than his bed and board, it is quite in his whims. In time, it may be, some natural for him to try to glorify his feature-writer will come to interview handicap. But that doesn’t mean that him; and then, affecting to be annoyed he is a genius any more than it means by intrusion, he will, nevertheless, dis that a senator is a public servant. The port himself in weird poses and he will word is an empty word in an old tra deliver vast pronouncements on sub dition. It comes to us from that re jects about which he knows nothing : mote time when weaklings were hoping (and yet a bit dubiously) to knocked about and didn’t like it, and behave himself in all these as a genius established, in consequence, a dignity ought. of their own. And it is now as useless Nor is this the worst of it. In time, as the old notions that kings were di indeed, he may write an appalling book vine, that poets were prophets, and about genius and talent, pointing out, that mistresses were bad women. in the manner of the Schoolmen, the But every serious writer, of course, precise differences. If his subject no matter how dull and hopeful he may grows hot, he will discover that there be, regards himself as a genius. He are various kinds of talent, all shooting could not tolerate himself if he did not. out like branches from the trunk of But he doesn’t really believe that he genius, and all neatly terraced like a is a genius or that genius amounts to bunch of cliff-dwellings. anything. If he did, he’d stop writing And what does all this amount to? an^ cultivate sanity and a garden; be What is genius? Is there such a thing, cause an author is driven to write in The Frontier 179 an attempt to prove that he amounts seeking the proper Greenwich Village, to something, and it is his tragedy, and it is because he ought to be selling the sum total of his industry, that he vacuum cleaners or herding sheep. Poe can never prove it. He rests, in con started a lot of this nonsense; and al sequence, rather guiltily under his most everything that he wrote proves label; and he strives, in various ways, that he should never have written at to distinguish himself with something all. more satisfying than an old and dead Nor do authors like to read their concept. And it is because of this that own books. When the thing is done, he becomes our most versatile myth- they hide it in the flour-bin or give maker. In some cases, as in that of it to a newsboy. “ I can never read Bernard Shaw, he is so successful in a book after I have printed it. It spinning legends that he becomes lost bores me to death.” And they don’t to himself and horribly in view to the read their books, it is true, if anybody world. is watching them. But they hide away Most authors, however, in spite of and pore over them with their thoughts themselves and their publishers and fluttering like autumn leaves; and if their enemies, never bury themselves the book is funny, they laugh until into complete visibility. Perhaps they they can be heard for miles; and if it don’t live long enough. But they do is sad, they smudge all its pages with very well with the time and material tears. For if an author didn’t prefer they have. Sherwood Anderson has his own sort of stuff, he’d write some done a splendid job and is now being thing else. He is only a grownup kicked by his own efforts. Eugene child. If a man, he may or may not O’Neill must sometimes stand aghast have a beard, for at least one eminent at the rate with which he is vanishing novelist, whose outbursts shake pub into a parable. And all our expatri lishers out of their chairs, is as whis ates, who leave their shores in an ef kerless as an infant. If a woman, she fort to become homeless and misunder is certain to have notions of sex equal stood enigmas, take on, before they ity. But always beyond the beard or are through, an awful look of weari the notions, you will find a pitiable ness, or take a slap at the world by and haunted and tragic child. revising all their books. And it is said that authors are hard And authors, it is said, and happily to live with; and they are, for the same believed by those who read them, are reason that children are such a bother. irresponsible. This is a pretty myth. They are vain and impulsive, in spite As a matter of fact, I have never seen of all their cunning, and they thresh one who was not a very shrewd per about in lordly fashion, regarding son. But it is true—is it not?—that everything as something to be ex they have to write with their feet in ploited. Having learned, in some a pot of onions or with a spider in fashion, that genius is related to neu their vest pocket or in a room hung rosis, and that many artists of the past with the photographs of imbeciles. An have been adulterers or epileptics or author worth his salt writes when he downright knaves, they turn weird has time to write. If he is forever emotional handsprings and expect the 180 The Frontier world to treat them with charity and course, she has heard a thousand times. tolerance. If men, they violently abuse And if the author-wife reads her stuff, their wives, devastating the poor women or, as has been my experience, talks with reproach and fury, or sneaking in long and hungry sentences about away to spend an interlude with a art, then the husband, slightly more mistress, and then returning to be for dubious in such circumstances than a given and embraced. And all this they wife would be, looks a bit apprehen excuse on the grounds of irresponsibil sively at his guest; and if the guest, ity, coming most earnestly to believe, perjuring himself, declares it all to be after years of .practice, that they are true, the poor man almost chokes with mad inspired creatures, not only with gratitude. out self-control, but in whom self- control would be silly. It is also said—and this myth, of course, authors have dug out of some And if women, the case is more ap where— that the writer is indifferent palling still. I have been in the homes to what is written about him. He is of several women who write poetry or just about as indifferent as a man is fiction and always I have come away, to land when he comes down out of staggering under what I found there. the sky in mid-ocean. With almost in Often the woman is huge and aggres tolerable impatience he waits for re sive and deadly; and the husband, as views; and he reads them wolfishly likely as not, is a small timid shaver and then reads them again and again. who looks at his guest with wide If they flatter him, he turns upon his haunted eyes. And always he is terri wife a warm and caressing smile; and fied if, in a moment alone with him he reads them to her, though they self, he misses what his wife has said. mean to her no more— and possibly They seem to regard their wives as less—than the paper on the wall. And great and themselves as most fortunate if the critics give him a spirited lar Boswells; but beyond this regard, ruping, he sags in a vast melancholy, which has been shoved down their or he seizes his book and reads it; and throats like toys into a Christmas sock, he reflects, with horrible misgivings, is a wistful, a quaking, desire to re- that it may not be quite perfect. In f cover their handful of manhood. Be extreme cases, legend declares, he will cause artists are like sea-creatures that sit down and write a thousand words suck everything into themselves; and of abuse to the critic: ‘ ‘ Believe me, their husbands and wives, save in un Sir, it is my humble opinion that you usual cases, come at last to have no ought to be thinning beets or making personality and no mind. buttons. What you know about art If an author-husband reads his stuff would not fill a small monosyl to amazed guests, the wife beams with lable ...” Or he may twist his hand a huge sunny approval, or glances kerchief and grow so solemn and hag sharply about, now and then, to mark gard that his wife will revise his diet; a scoffer; whereupon, having rebuked or he may, as is infrequently the case, the offender, she settles back to a rock blow his head off or roll down a stair ing-chair full of thin and passionless way and break his neck. And all this, admiration. Because what is read, of you will observe, is quite exactly the The Frontier 181 response of a child to a situation which that alert and worshipful faces release is beyond his understanding. It makes in him what the typewriter and the no difference that authors may, and cloister never could. And this may ex perhaps always do, recognize in a critic plain why some authors, when given the measure of his worth; or that the a chance, leap to the radio like a fish critic, as is sometimes the case, shows to water. But they are not really auth no more intelligence than a flag-pole ors: they are more concerned with sitter. Because critics—recruited often what they can use than they are with from newspaper reporters or discarded leaving unread monuments to their college professors — are the self- death. appointed arbiters of taste; and auth And not only are honest authors ors, showing no more sense than an dull: they are, in appearance, most ostrich with its head in the mud, de unprepossessing. They look more like fer to them, as, in former whiles, they bank clerks or bill collectors. It may deferred to their mothers. be good advertising for a popular auth And it is said—and for this myth or to release his photograph; because which reacts upon them with disas readers of popular fiction are seeking, trous results, authors are in part re after all, only something that sounds sponsible— that they are interesting and looks like themselves. But it is a persons. No one who has seen a half- mistake for the serious author to do dozen of them ever makes this mistake so. Conrad had a splendid and most again. The only interesting author is impressive head; and it was a photo a dishonest author. The honest author graph of it that led me to his books. puts what he is into his books. It is After one look at many authors, how absurd, therefore, to expect upon meet ever, I am convinced that they have ing him to be entertained or amazed. nothing for me. Perhaps I am wrong. When not writing, he is nothing but a But the point remains that a book, or morbid incubator, hatching his next the rumor of a reputation and its qual thoughts; and he looks dull and feels ity, associates itself in our minds with dull, as a hen must that broods too the kind of personality and face that long; and he doesn’t want to talk, be would harmonize with it. I read The cause, until he brings his next monster Old Wives* Tale before I knew what to birth, he has nothing to say. You Bennett looked like; and since then, must stare at him as politely as you his trilogy on my shelves has gathered can and have pity for his inarticulate the dust. Call it prejudice, if you will. and woebegone face. But life is nothing but prejudice; and It is also well to point out that we an author ought to look like his books, have authors and we have talkers. I even if he doesn’t. And he ought to have never known a good author, and realize what myth-makers we are and I expect never to see one, who in his have sense enough to keep out of sight. conversation was worth listening to. But such is his vanity that he rushes When I come upon a brilliant talker, to a photographer and sits in grave I know that his particular sort of van majesty, as if in process of being eter ity demands, for its lustiest exercise, nalized; or, like others, he may show a more personal audience. It may be what a vain and stupid fellow he is 182 The Frontier by sticking a pipe in his mouth or hold that of water and a sponge. And they ing a cigarette at a cocky angle like don’t want to hear them— after one a fraternity boy; or (if a woman) the ordeal, at least—because authors in author may flatten two hands against recitation are too preposterous for her jowl. And in every case, it is rea words. If they are not pompous sonable to suppose, the author strives clowns, as Vachel Lindsay used to be, to look either fascinating or deathless. or a wide-eyed adolescent scared out of I come finally to my last myth. It his wits, then they are likely to preside is supposed that authors, if implored on the rostrum with such an air of with the proper blend of awe and gra amazement for the beauty of their own ciousness, like to read their books and stuff, or with such a dizzy looking that audiences like to hear them. down from Olympus, that the auditor, Neither assumption is true. Authors, if not already hypnotized by rimes and of course, have sense enough to know rhetoric, wants to rise charitably and that in this country they are envied— sneak away. with how little reason!— but neither N o: we authors are a tragic and respected nor loved. And this is as side-splitting lot. We are paraded and it should be. Because, for the most fed sandwiches and tea and stared at, part, authorship in this country de and toward all this emptiness we are serves no more respect, and in some like a little girl toward a new dress. cases a lot less, than banking or radio We read the wonder in faces or hear crooning. And authors have learned it in words and we want to believe that this. Now and then, of course, one it is real. But as we grow older we with brains enough to realize that no perceive that authorship is a circus and body wants to hear him, is drafted to we are the clowns; and some of us, like the ordeal and led like an ox to the Hergesheimer, repudiate the whole of fair; and after the exhibit is over, he it and flee into the Post family; and rushes to a quiet spot and mops his some vanish, like Hart Crane, in a flash brow. of self-illumination; and some take to For those who go to hear an author, gin. Of these retaliatory measures, the and pay good money for the sacrifice, first, it seems to me, leads to golf, the go for the same reason that they would second to eulogy, and the third to a go to a circus or read Robert Ripley; torpid liver. And is there nothing to or they go to absorb a little culture, be done about? Of course. We ought supposing the process to be similar to to be suppressed. A MOUNTAIN LAUGHS F rancis E. Sell I am amused. Reserved the mineral rights Walk lightly over me. And sold a part of me. Here is something epic— “ Old so-and-so/’ they said, A drift of humor pagan gods would love. “ Now owns sections nine and ten.” Yesterday, high-noon, I am amused. Trivial mortals came, Walk lightly while I resolve this joke Marked me off in section lines, More thoroughly. The Frontier 183 UP THE HILL H al D riggs HEY piled off the steps of the “ Sure he is—sure! He’s a damned day-coach on to the station plat good guy!” Tform, lugging their cheap suitcases “ Well, what the hell, then? Le’s and bulging pack-sacks. Weather- hunt a floppin’ place, and then . . . ” seasoned faces, clear eyes, full of re They went, enthusiastically, toward pressed excitement. Pour months, all the Skid-road, toward that place which summer, in the sticks, and now the big is not a road, nor merely one street, but town and another stake to spend. Be may be many streets, many city blocks; yond the station, life roared. There was which is a section where workers fore motion, there was color, after long gather ; where they who prey on, or months of toil, stark and joyless. Their pander to the workers have set their young blood cried aloud for a share of traps and spread their nets. this life, this motion, this color—for a share quickly served. Paul turned sharply away from this section. He walked many blocks. Fin They hurried through the station, ally he found himself back at a certain crossed the street, and for a moment room, a room in a quiet neighborhood, huddled together, bewildered and dazed which he had long maintained as his by the crowds and the traffic. Only one ‘ ‘ headquarters. ’ ’ There were a few pic separated himself from the group. A tures hung about the walls of the place, stuffed pack-sack hung from one broad some of them almost good. There were shoulder, and with apparent unconcern stacks of magazines, and many books, he swung in his left hand a heavy suit good ones, bad ones, trashy ones—blind case. His dress was as rough as any in gropings. And, excepting simple furni the group, but, somehow, he appeared ture, there was little else in the room. better dressed. His features were a tri But Paul sighed with satisfaction as he fle cleaner-cut; his expression, his bear solicitously examined everything. Pure ing, a hint more decisive. “ Well, I ’m luxury! Here was a bed with clean, leaving you here,” he told them, “ So white sheets, and good springs and a long—and be careful!” good mattress. Here was a place where, 1 ‘ So long, Paul! ’ ’ they chorused, and, for a time, he could shut a door against half wistfully, watched him stride off the world of toil, with its strident in down the street. They were aware of sistence, its dust and sweat and dreari a slightly envious feeling. Paul seemed ness. to know just where he was going. And for some days, life was good. It ‘ ‘ What the hell, ’ ’ asked one, ‘ 1 ain’t he was good to feel white linen against skin hittin’ for the Skid-road?” roughened by coarse garments; to give “ Naw, Paul’s funny. He’ll shake the a thought to appearance, to pressed gang sometimes. Sometimes he won’t, trousers and white collars. It was good too. Funny guy.” to stroll leisurely about the city, and “ Well, what the hell, he’s a good guy, partake modestly of its comforts; to ain’t he?” stay up late and lie long abed, with 184 The Frontier no clamoring gong to waken sleepy in mine and camp and mill and con groans and muttered curses. struction job, with the toughest of the But time dragged and days became tough, and held your own? That you long. Tough muscles lost something had helped to tame this great land, of their tone. Sound nerves frayed building its roads, driving its tunnels, slightly. Paul procured more books, felling its forests? That you had been stacks of them. He bought magazines knocked about, bruised, but never com by the dozen. He read and he studied; pletely beaten? Huh! but he was dissatisfied and restless. Or would you mention that you had He walked miles of city streets, and dreamed many dreams; that you had peered into the faces of hurrying stood shivering on winter nights, thousands. He observed the mobs that watching stars gleaming over white- rushed to their work of mornings; he fanged peaks and savage timber-lands, studied them, collectively and individu thinking impossible thoughts, fantasti ally, as great business blocks spewed cally resolving one day to tell the world them forth to jam the streets at eve of the world’s beauty and majesty and ning time; he glimpsed them as they wonder? Would you say that you ridi sallied forth in party array. But, for culously hoped—you, an ignorant toil all his reading and his studying and er—to tell of the lives of toilers in the observing, he remained puzzled. Many world’s lonely outposts, of how they things still eluded him. worked and how they lived and of the These damn, sleek city people, how thoughts which impelled them? Hell! in hell could you approach them, any Why did these damn things torture how? How come to know them? You you? There was the gang you came were kicked out into the world when to town with, why didn’t you stay with you were fourteen, and you learned the them? Y ou’re a working-stiff, a lum world’s ragged edges, its seamy sides. berjack, a common laborer, why not You starved and you froze and you blow in your stake, take in the Skid- labored. And you survived, grew road? Why cut yourself off from the strong even. But what of the world’s only friends you know, and read and softer side, its spruce men, its fragile, think and wonder? Worker you are, incredible women, its softly-modulated and worker you’ll probably stay, and tones, its tinkling laughter? That girl what the hell’s the difference, anyhow? who just passed you, for instance, she For the same wild riot that runs as slim, as pliant, as a willow by a through the veins of all lumberjacks creek’s edge, tapping along the side come to town, runs through your veins walk with her sophisticated feet? also. The world is made up of stark Suppose that by some miracle an op realities. Your crazy hopes are founded portunity was afforded you of speak upon the impalpable stuff of dreams ing to her, what would you say? How . . . damn it all, damn it all . . . interest, how impress her? Tell her There was a dingy back-room, which how logging was done ? Boast that you stank to high heaven. There were back- had wandered by foot and by freight slappings and exuberant oaths, and train over all the vast Northwest ? That raw whiskey that twisted your face you had labored, shoulder to shoulder, as it paused your palate, and burned The Frontier 185 like acid all the way down to your Where is it, and how soon can I get surprised and outraged stomach. there 1’ ’ There were vague noises, and furtive The fall rains had come and gone, shapes moving along the half-lighted and now brilliant October sunshine beat streets. There were opening and clos down upon pine-covered hillsides. There ing doors. There was a feminine voice, was the sharp odor of riven yellow honey-sweet, coaxing: “ Come right in, pine, and the shaper odor of kerosene, with which a cross-cut saw had lately Big Boy . . .” been annointed. Paul became aware of a smothered, Paul pulled one end of the saw, and congested sensation, and of sharp pains Ole Johnson, six feet of rope-muscled in his temples. He rolled to his feet, Swede, manipulated the other. Sawing groaning. He had been lying, fully by the “ bushel” ; so much scale, so dressed, across the bed in his room. many dollars; knock ’em down and Bright sunlight streamed through the slash ’em u p ; hit the ball, or you don’t window. His throat was parched and make wages. Swedes are tough, and leathery. Nausea gripped him an in have single-track minds, so never mind stant and passed, as he turned on water the ache in your back or the sweat in and drank, hugely. He stood before the your eyes, but swing and sway, back mirror of the little dresser, and blood and forth . . . shot eyes stared back at him. His col The big pine was a tough one. They lar choked him, and he tore off coat wanted it to fall up the hill, but it and vest and hurled them on the floor, persisted in pinching back on the saw. then ripped the collar open. An odor They pounded wedges into the cut; of cheap perfume arose from the front they sweated and swore. The tree was of the shirt. He ripped the shirt from dangerously close to being cut through, his body. He doused his head with cold but still it merely trembled, stuck. water, and then, feverishly, threw off Paul flirted sweat from his forehead, the rest of his clothing and kicked it and straightened his body a moment, into a corner. He snatched out his old, to gaze aloft at the tree’s top. He drew battered pack-sack and dumped its con deep breaths. The sunlit air was warm, tents on the floor. A few minutes warm as May, yet greatly differing later he was fully clothed again; but from May’s warmth; for sharp night- clothed now in the garb of a lumber frosts had imparted to it an electric jack. The heavy flannel shirt was tang. Above the top-most boughs of wrinkled and weather-stained, the the tall pine the sky arched, very clear stagged “ tin pants’ ’ were pitch- and very blue— a blue that held within spotted. But this clothing was clean— itself no single hint of bitter storms clean! to come. That sky was probably as He stood before the front of a “ slave- blue today as it was upon the first day market, ’ ’ employment office for woods it was spread over the world. The dark men. Across a blackboard was chalked: green of the pine boughs didn’t look “ Sawyers wanted, short-log camp— one bad, either, against that very blue back dollar per M. ’ ’ “ Yeah, ’ ’ Paul growled ground. The soaring boles of the pines to the clerk inside, “ I ’ll take the job. made an army, and, here and there 186 The Frontier among them, the alders raised up crim will sometimes fall backward, if you son and gold and scarlet banners. And don’t watch ’em, fall down hill, when time itself paused awhile, basking in you want ’em up. Like men. But the sun . . . wedges— and will—can force them an “ V eil!” Ole’s pale eyes were accus inch off balance. Given good steel, an ing. His upper lip bulged with a fresh axe may be made very sharp. And charge of “ snoose.” “ Ve don’t get given a fairly good mind . . . dis tree down, ve don’t get much scale!” The axe described two flashing arcs, and bit out a segment of tough fibres Paul snatched the falling-axe. “ Oh, from the undercut. There was a loud all right, Ve get scale, you damned crack, a slow, majestic motion, a swoop square-head, you damned snoose-eater, ing rush of boughs. “ Timber-r-r,” you damned clod.” He ran a thumb Paul howled, defiantly, “ up th’ over the axe’s razor-like edge. Trees hill-1-1!” UNDERSTANDING Benjamin A ppel ILL seemed to hound the car up the solitude . . . Mulling’s house sug the steep side road where the hill gested a clean supper cloth but frugal B was gashed by the sand contrac victuals. Mulling was fixing a rake. tors. “ Think Mulling’ll rent his cot “ Hello,” said Max. “ I ’ve got a pos tage? Say, this is lonely country.” sible customer for that cottage of “ Just the thing for your family,” yours.” The darkness was a necessary said Max. interpreter between Bill and lank Mul The land was one dip and rise in the ling, leaning against the mudguard. violet shadow, that was twilight at the “ Thank you Mister Vanderman. moment. The between-day-and-night Will you gentlemen come out. My cot colors did “ fairy wonders” to the up tage is more comfortable than my own lands rolling spectral green into rich home.” He was very deferential with woods. One could’ve sworn there’d be out being the less a man. He couldn’t a cowbell. “ It’s sort of lonely,” said help being manly or betray his essen Bill. “ After all—city folk?” He tial pride. For him manliness was not winged the curves like the nighthawk a surface grain but the deep oak. Evi he saw flying. “ What cars can pass dently his life had been strong, strip here?” ping him of grace and all pleasant Max was stoically rustic. “ Parmer foliage like a tree after wind. Bill had flivvers. But you get used to it.” the impression of his own startled eyes Finally, after the long hunting ride opening very wide. After all he had with their voices hallooing in caves of expected tedium. He saw a head, bald quiet air, the car was sleekly silent as except for a monastic fringe behind a preying beast. At the crossroads the ears, built in solid planes except there was a dusty foot-print sense of for the wide wavering Celtic smile, and people. Six or seven mail boxes on tall the something sad in Mulling’s eyes. sticks stood in a circle leagued against “ Very ?lad to know you,” Bill said. The Frontier 187 “ Suppose we look at the cottage before wing, well, you can’t . . . Ma! Will it gets too dark.” you come in.” They followed the farmer’s hurry-up The woman was hushed tragedy in stride. Twilight was lingering, en the parlor just as the twilight was the tranced with its own violet loveliness. hushed delicate suppression of day. Even their quiet movements seemed a This much Bill understood even with hollering in the hush. Max the landlord and exploiter of The whitewashed cottage sat prim Privacy, It’s Value (might be swell for and independent away from everyone, him who was compelled to the country like a retired schoolma’am. “ Very side . . .) Her grey white hair was restful,” said Bill. “ And how many parted in the middle and she appeared rooms?” as if she were a pioneer woman out of Mulling led them a ghostly path an old lithograph. But her strength through strange rooms. “ W e’ve some was youthful, not seasoned, a primitive furniture. Clean as a whistle. Oh, yes, Indian vigor; a bold confronting of danger and not its philosophic accep you’d have to use kerosene lamps. There’s no electricity ...” tance. And this was remarkable for she wasn’t young and acceptance was On the porch Bill looked at the her role. He glanced at Mulling’s clown breasted horizon. “ Pretty view. All smile and sad eyes. Poor Mulling had fields and woods but I don’t think my accepted. wife’d care for outside plumbing or a Whatever had been the tragedy it well.” had not aged her as it had him. Her “ The kids could play all day with flesh was clean and immaculate. Noth out fear of a car,” said Max. ing could wash his pure of labor. Her “ Like the robins and woodchucks.” eyes were deeper than their brown. “ Exactly.” He was fixed on Mul Because she was so strong she could ling’s because he was tired chasing even forget momentarily, laughing as after cottages with Bill. Max laughed. Mulling couldn’t forget, “ Maybe you gentlemen’d care to see smiling as if afraid he’d be interrupted. the wing in my own place. Not so She was another Lady Macbeth but lonely there.” her resolve was towards the good. She Bill took a deep breath in the parlor. held no ambition but a patience as if His grandma had used kerosene lamps of trees. She was so singularly daunt but he for one disliked going back to less, so much away from them, that such daguerrotype ancestor-times. In Bill felt as if the men were a humbler a light warmer than electricity, and breed. There was understanding but ample with thoughts of stouter women not unity so that what she said had than his own slim wife, he sat down undertones they could not grasp, like in a rocker. a pack of dogs listening to a human. “ Milk’s selling two cents a quart,” Bill spoke humorously of some at said Mulling. “ And people aren’t tak tempts at pitching hay but her fibre ing much to cottages though I ’ve some was not to be dodged with witticisms. prospects. I ’m not a salesman and if Mulling was that haggard type of you can’t use it or the rooms in the farmer who love to escape to jokeland. 188 The Frontier A merry fellow in his youth? Max name did you bring me to those poor gossiped about the Town Board. She devils ? ’ ’ rocked up and down, her wondrously “ Mulling was 0. K. before he mar alive face a gauntlet thrown to death ried her. But his first wife was dead and dissolution. He understood now and he began courting. She was thirty- why the husband had faded into a back five when she married. For ten years ground. Her life and her will had ab she’d been tending her father; bed sorbed him, the poor laugher. ridden. And running the farm. Two years before her marriage she was “ I don’t think I’ll bother with the tending her mother in the bargain. wing, Mrs. Mulling. The cottage’s too Such old folk should die. It’d be pleas lonely and I don’t think my wife’d anter. And Stumpy, her brother, is a want to share a house with anybody, moron and must be watched like a even with decent folk.” It was too hound. And the sane ones fighting for bad. They needed the cash. What the acres. A tough life. It was good with no market for crops they prob for her to marry Mulling but bad for ably didn’t see two hundred bucks the him to become one of her family.” year. But his wife wanted to rest. “ You spring it in one grand clip. Never do for her to live with the Mul- Y ou’re the nuts. Didn’t you think it’d lings and their problem. “ Good-night make a difference?” He was appalled and I ’m sorry.” at her life, the years of sickrooms lit with kerosene lamps . . . . And Max Max indicated the turns. “ W e’ll try again tomorrow. I like the Mullings.” hadn’t said a word. Could you beat it ? Not a word. He thought of her face “ What’s happened to those two? and its quiet eternal beauty as of the Why didn’t you tip me off ? My wife’s night . . . It was all casual stuff to a rational woman but summer-time’s a Max. That, too, was appalling. fairyland time when she makes believe “ How’s your damn lung, old-timer?” there’s no suffering. Why in God’s he asked gently. INDIAN LETTER L ilian W hite Spencer I draw my feather pointing up After, I put turkey tracks With the coyote near And a cross For signs that snows are great Meaning we seek the place of food And our hunger. And year-round water. This picture of prairies on fire This heart with an arrow through it Says: we die as grass. I do last: Now, I make an arrow and a star: To show our courage. They tell you we go east. The Frontier 189 A DAY IN MARCH A ugust W. Derleth day in late March, with a wild genial, and she says, “ No, no, only, of warm wind blowing from the course, the fence, and you see, the cows A south, and we are going into the . . . ” The wind whips her voice marshes, Hugh and I. It is mid-morn away; she catches sight of a cow thresh ing, and the sun is swept by swift- ing about in the bushes beyond us, and driven clouds, seen white through the is gone. budding trees against the blue sky. We Presently we leave the enclosure, again have reached the end of the bridge, and stepping over the fence, and cut across descend now into the bottoms, where a sandy glade, where the sunlit silence we come to a fence, across which we is broken by the nervous urr-urr-urr of must go. Hugh knows a high spot, the nuthatches, patches of dark blue where we can easily step across; so pres passing from limb to limb in energetic ently we are within the enclosure, with search for hidden insects, examining cows looking at us, watching us with bark gone over dozens of times before, soft eyes. cocking inquisitive heads at every likely We follow the fence, stalking a pair cranny, and taking a moment to look of crows, that are quick to know we are at us passing below. Thus we come to not carrying guns, and disdain to be the railroad, high upon an embankment greatly disturbed. They sit together leading through the river bottoms. We in a tall tree, ruffled up like turkey- are to follow it. cocks, their harsh caw-caw-caws hurled We top the embankment and look into the wind with spring abandon. beyond, to where a muffled sound from Abruptly they are away, and at the the pond on the other side has caught same moment Hugh sees the owner of our ears. The water is disturbed by a this land, a tall, thin-lipped woman, long swelling line curving far into it hurrying across an open space toward from one bank. “ Muskrat,” whispers us. “ No trespassing,” murmurs Hugh, Hugh. We stand motionless, waiting, and I say, “ No sign up.” “ Tore it hoping it will show itself. Presently it down,” says Hugh, grinning a little, does, a small black nose breaking the and the woman is upon us, having borne calming surface ever so gently, and a down quite swiftly, as if helped along by pair of eyes looking carefully around the wind. “ Well, boys, well, tell me, for sign of danger. It has no difficulty did you crawl through my fence?” She in seeing us. Still we do not move, and looks from one to the other of us, one its head comes out slightly farther, turn hand busy with a long stick looking ing a little to take us fully in. Are we much like a gun, the other adjusting her dangerous? It moves away abruptly, glasses against the wind. “ No, we rolled its sleek head riding the water, going under,” I say, and she admits, “ Well, placidly across the pond again, still that’s all right. But I don’t like to watching. It reaches the other side, have my fence weakened. Cows get out rises partly from the water on a tussock and cause me trouble.” I venture, “ You before an overhanging stump, and re don’t mind our walking along here, do gards us coolly, as much as to suggest you?” We smile, Hugh and I, hopefully that we go on about our business. I 190 The Frontier move, and at once it is gone, with a move!” he warns me. I look upward, scarcely heard splash, vanishing in the moving my head slowly. A golden hawk depths beneath the stump, where it has is drifting slowly down from the blue, its home. floating majestically downward, its We go on, making our way along the wings held stiffly outward, its head bent railroad, noticing a dozen signs of with eyes fixed upon the wind-swept spring—a caterpillar in the sun, and marsh, watching for mice. Another another; a flash of brilliant color cry, and a second hawk hurtles down where a bluebird swept across the em from the sky. It gathers speed, propelled bankment before our eyes; a swarm of from the blue straight for the first. A tiny flies; the faraway call of a killdeer ; hawk fight? I wonder. But no, they a group of waxwings lined up in a cedar are making love. A quick swerve, a limb talking softly to themselves in blow avoided, and with joyous cries sleepy voices, their colors bright against both hawks mount into the sky, soaring the green; the dazzling beauty of a car gracefully upward, flying at each other, dinal, singing sweet, sweet notes into the seeming to tumble about together, far wind. We cross above the Spring Slough, above, two spots of gold in the azure. almost black with minnows. A pickerel And again they come down, gently teas drifts lazily along beneath, is suddenly ing each other, spiralling together down aware of us, and is lost in a swirl of toward the marsh. This time a glade mud. hides them, but presently they are again soaring up. Their attention is suddenly Now we are in the marshes, where distracted. A crow has blundered upon the sharp red of the dogwood bushes them. They turn, driving after the luck is almost lost in the grey-white of pus less bird, whose frightened cries go un sywillows, waving in the wind. On both answered, and presently the three of sides of the embankment, crowding al them are but distant specks in the sky. most upon the rails, they grow, their Before we have gone much farther, the catkin-laden branches pressing close hawks are back, flying side by side, their upon us. They are soft and lovely to wild cries ringing above the marsh. Then touch, and they are most like a living they are lost among the trees. spring-essence, announcing by their presence that the vernal equinox has We come at last to a bridge over a come. It is beauty to see them waving brook, now swollen with the last melted gently in the wind, their soft silent snow, overflowing both banks and brown movement haunted by the sound of the with mud. Last year’s leaves and twigs wind rustling through the long dry are swirled past, showing for brief mo marsh grass beyond the swaying bushes. ments on the surface of the water, and then sucked under. From this bridge The wind has the spring odor, too. we look over a broad open space, fringed It is heavy with some urgent knowledge, to the south and west by a line of dis a scent of growing things, of earth rich tant trees, to the north by the brook and moist, of land ready to put forth above which we are standing, and on young things. the east by the railroad. The meadow A harsh, wild cry sounds from the is hazy with spring in the warm sun sky, and Hugh grips my arm. “ Don’t light, and the wind leaves it strangely 191 The Frontier motionless, save for a group of forlorn to see if things have changed. The som cattails nearby, which are tossed wildly nolent sunlight brings forth a bee that about on their long stalks, with the wind careens crazily past us, flying with the tearing the loose seeds away and flinging wind. them high into the sky. Junco birds We stand for a few moments more, and chickadees fly from reed to reed, and turn reluctantly. There will be twittering and chattering incessantly. time to pick some pussywillows. As we As we stand there, looking south, a flock go along the homeward trail, the honk- of redwings drops from the sky, and honk of north-flying wild geese drifts immediately the air is heavy with song. down to us and is swept away almost They have just come in, apparently, for at once by the wind. But we can see now first one, then another of them the geese—a long straggly line of them goes about examining the haunts of pre far up in the blue, an assurance of vious years, just as human beings do, spring. IN THE COUNTRY Grace Madeline H oster She was a woman grown Before she visited me; She had never known How beautiful dusk might be— We waited out to see. The lark’s ecstatic song Shook the heart in her breast: It lasted only so long As the sun on the mountain’s crest. And the splendor of song and sky Fading die as night drew down Hurt her deep as a cry Shut in by a velvet gown . . . She has gone back to town. 192 The Frontier SKI Ted Olson We need not envy anything Climbing on miraculous wing, Now we too have learned to write Our shining autograph in flight. Here where never falcon lifts His arrogant wings above the drifts That bloom and burgeon, swell on swell, The shape of wind made visible, We take the falcon’s highroad, dare The glittering canyons of the air— Swooping, wheeling, hovering, shod Like the sandalled courier god. What wingless thing could dream to win This world of frost and porcelain? It would splinter under feet A shade less insolent and fleet. And even we sometimes look back Along our carven crystal track, Incredulous it should endure— Beauty’s very signature; As if the hawk should leave his trail Printed on the fluid gale; As if the sky should keep the proud Sculpture of the chiseled cloud. Miraculous beyond belief The way of wings; and fierce, and brief. The ripening year will soon erase Every shining arrowy trace. And none will know again, or guess, The way we went in happiness. None will mark if one should stand Alone where two sped hand in hand, Or paused a little, breast to breast . . April’s wind will take the rest. And that is best. And that is best. The Frontier JOURNEY F red J. W ard O VIS HOLT turned on the light in hood for Jovis, who was now examining the rear of the garage and made his the timer. “ Why don’t you take my J way to the single-seated coupe' that car? It’s a new car, enclosed— ” was parked in the corner. He pushed “ This old car has three inches more it by hand through the big door that clearance. I ’m expecting to run into opened into the repair shop, swung the snow.” jack under the differential and raised Henry turned away. He opened the the hind wheels off the floor. Method side door of the garage halfway. Stray ically he tested the air in all four tires, flakes of snow eddied across the floor. struck the spare with his fist to see if He closed the door and turned back to it was hard. He slung a chain round the man working over the motor. each of the rear wheels and fastened “ If you’re bound to go, Jovis, I ’ll them with cross springs. Letting the go along.” rear down he dragged the jack to the “ The car stands a better chance to front of the car and set a pair of chains get across the ridge road without a load. to the front wheels. I ’ll go alone.” The side door of the garage opened “ Have you got plenty of clothes? I ’ll and Henry Rourke came stumbling get you another overcoat.” Henry through, accompanied by a gust of wind stumbled out through the door. and a spatter of rain. Jovis emptied the contents of a glycer “ Say, Jo vis,” he demanded, “ you ine bottle into the radiator and added are not trying to go to Montana City water until the solution rose to the over tonight?” flow pipe. He examined the gasoline Jovis Holt, now sitting in the seat, in the rear tank, poured a quart of oil had just touched his foot to the starter. into the crank case. He unlatched the He nodded his head in the affirmative. big door and pushed it against the driv The old car gave a roar. Jovis turned ing wind until it was wide open; climbed off the switch, climbed out of the driver’s into the driver’s seat and buttoned the seat and raised the hood. side curtains fast. Before Henry Rourke Henry Rourke touched him on the returned Jovis had driven out into the arm. “ Don’t tell me, man, that you night. are going out in such a storm.” Jovis turned the car westward Jovis did not answer. through the main part of the village, Henry Rourke caught him still more swung south at the bank corner toward urgently by the arm. “ There isn’t a Ash creek. A half-dozen windows at thing you can do. What’s happened is the edge of town glowed dimly in the likely past all mending. Wait until storm. The car splashed heavily through morning.” pools of water that collected in the par Jovis Holt turned lusterless eyes on allel ruts marking the road up Ash his friends. “ By morning there will be creek. Water was running in rivulets two feet of snow on the divide.” in every coulee crossing. Where the Henry directed a flashlight under the highway traverses the bottoms by the 194 The Frontier Crown-W ranch it had gathered in a held fast. The third piece, however, shallow pond, but the ground beneath gave way with a suddenness that almost the wheels was firm. Jovis pressed on tumbled him into the water. the accelerator until the speedometer Jovis Holt climbed back to the edge registered twenty miles an hour, then of the stream and again measured the twenty-five, finally thirty. At this point width of the flow with his eye. He he held it steady. Rain beat against the strapped his shovel onto the back of the side curtains, drove through the crack car, got in and started the motor, then at the bottom of the windshield in tiny threw the clutch into low. The car bubbles. It showed in the twin lights splashed, hesitated, gave a lurch as the of the headlamps like oblique scratches hind wheels caught the mud and gravel against the black prairie ahead. on the bottom, shook itself out on the A flood had gathered on Tussler opposite bank. creek at the point where it crosses the The road leads into higher ground road. Jovis brought the car to a stop. south of Tussler draw. Jovis thought He got out, clutched at his heavy cap, the air was getting colder. Although and braced his body against the gale. the wind still ran high, the rain had He stood at the edge of the stream, mea diminished. The trail was firmer, for suring the width of the water with his there is sandy soil among the buttes. eye. There are no bridges across Tussler Again he accelerated the car to thirty draw, but during the summer an enter miles an hour. prising farmer had hauled three loads At the Emmet Mills corner he was of gravel to the roadbed at this point. brought to a sudden stop. A four-wire Whether the gravel had been washed fence had been strung directly across away the man could not tell. Some the way. Jovis now recalled that there driftwood had lodged under the fence had been trouble between Emmet Mills below the road. Russian thistles, which and the commissioners of the county had rolled into the coulee during the about a right of way, and that to vent dry summer months, had washed against his resentment the owner had fenced in the driftwood, and now formed a dam, this corner of his land. To get past, over which the muddy waters were pour the driver had to detour down into the ing. bottoms and cross Tussler draw in two Jovis unstrapped the shovel from the places. rear of the car and using it as a bal Jovis again unstrapped the shovel ancing staff, climbed perilously out on from the rear of the car. With the the lower wire a third of the way across. point he pried staples loose from several Bracing himself against the wind, which posts on both sides of the road. He laid tore at every loose fold of his clothes a stone on the loosened wires to hold and drove the streaming rain against them to the ground so that he could his face, he jabbed at the thistles until drive over them. The air was now bit he had cut a narrow path for the water ter cold. The rain had ceased. A strip to pour through. He set the blade of of moon gleamed between two flying the shovel under the foremost piece of clouds. drift and pushed, but failed to move it. From this point the road winds among He pried at a second piece, which also the buttes to the higher ground known The Frontier 195 locally as the Sheep Mountain Pines. At chine skidded on an unseen obstruction. the end of a mile the driver had to get He brought the car to a stop and got out out and take down the fence where it to look. He had a feeling that he was shut off the road at the southern boun turned, but whether he was now facing dary of the Mills property. The sky to the right or to the left of his true was completely overcast again. It had direction he could not tell. He exam grown warmer. The odor of storm was ined the land in the light of the lamps. still in the air. Jovis took up his thirty- Two dim marks could be discerned on mile gait along the deserted road, as the left. He started down this trail he approached the last climb to the but stopped again, for the wind, which Yellowstone divide, within twenty miles should have been on his right, was di of Montana City. He looked at his rectly behind him. Again he got out watch under the light of the dash lamp. to examine the way. The trail took a Nine o ’clock. The night was complete turn to the right a few feet in front of ly black. the car. Reassured, Jovis cleared the A gust of rain spattered against the windshield and attempted to follow the windshield. This was followed a moment marks of the road, but he had gone later by a shower of snow pellets which scarcely a dozen rods when he felt the pounded off the hood like soft balls of nose of the machine dip suddenly down hail. The ground halfway up the Sheep ward. There was a violent jolt as the mountain hill was covered with snow. front wheels stopped dead against a The flakes swirled in the light of the bank. car. The wheel tracks of the prairie Jovis again got out of the driver’s road were half filled. Jovis felt the seat. The first glance at the land in car slowing down. He shifted into sec the flood of the headlights told him ond; then into low. As he neared the where he was. He had left the road divide the wind increased in velocity. within a few yards of the turn to the The storm had turned into a whirlwind Cherry creek hill and had followed the of snow, which clung like sticky plaster old trail that led to the gravel pit on to the cowl. Every hundred yards he Sheep mountain, which road builders had to get out and wipe off an area of had opened up the summer before in windshield big enough to see through. repairing the highway below the divide. The Yellowstone ridge, seen by day, He tried to back out, but the wheels is a naked stretch of gumbo hill marked spun on the steep sides. The trap he here and there by a tiny cedar no taller had stumbled into was not more than than a man. From the top of the climb twenty feet below the level surface of on the north, to the point where the road the ridge. The way leading down to it begins to wind its way down into the was not very steep, but it ended in a Cherry Flats, is scarcely more than a two-foot drop where the gravel had been mile. dug away. The car lurched along this narrow Tightening his sheepskin jacket trail like a blind thing. Sticky snow around him Jovis began smoothing formed on the windshield so fast that down the abrupt sides of the depression clear vision was impossible. Jovis felt with his shovel. He worked without a swift wrench at the wheel as the ma pausing for half an hour. By quick 196 The Frontier manipulation of the low gear and the the edge. The car stopped, hung a reverse he got the car into a rocking moment, as if in mid air, and then gave motion, back and forth, gaining mo a sudden plunge headlong down the hill. mentum for the back ward scramble out Jovis caught the brake, but yet the ma- of the gravel hole. But when he opened chine gained momentum as it fell. He the throttle for the final trial he felt could see nothing except the whirlwind the wheels lose their hold. The machine of snow. stopped half-way out. He turned the motor off. But as suddenly as the fall had start ed, the car stopped. It was not the On the side of the gravel pit there sudden stop caused by an obstruction, was a hump which had caught the run but rather as if a brake had been ap ning boards and raised the rear wheels plied quickly. Jovis was thrown against off the ground. It would take three the windshield. The snow had drifted hours to work the frozen earth down under the hill and now lay in a heavy smooth enough to allow the car to make fold, which caught the car and brought its way up, and by that time the place its wild career to a halt. Prom this would be filled with snow. point downward the slope is more gen Jovis now remembered that a tunnel tle. He was able to ease the machine had been dug beneath this gravel pit, to the right along the base of the hill. so that trucks could be backed in and A sudden bump told him that he had then loaded through a trap door. With reached the road again. He knew the his flashlight he examined the ground divide over Sheep mountain hill had at the edge of the hill. To the right been crossed. of the tunnel the hillside fell away al It is ten miles from Sheep mountain most perpendicularly to the old truck to the railroad at Montana City. By a ing road. If he could get down to that freakish whim of the treacherous point he might make his way along the prairie climate, the snow lay deeper trail which the road workers had fol south of the divide. Jovis could hear lowed to the main highway at the foot the grinding sound it made as the of Sheep mountain. chained wheels bit into it. Depressions He dug the gravel and snow from were filling rapidly under the swirling under the running-board and started his storm. The parallel ruts which had motor again. It was easy to get the car once been traced by wandering sheep moving into the pit. He began working wagons and now served these isolated the machine back and forth again, grad settlers as an automobile road to the ually turning it so that it faced west railroad, were drifted level with snow. ward toward the edge of the hill. Guided The car crept ahead in low gear. But only by his sense of direction, for he in the swale across Cherry creek the could not see what lay beyond the rim wheels spun without moving forward. of the gravel pit, he drew the car to Jovis threw the gear into reverse. He the right of the tunnel. The wheels backed the car until he was out of the ground in the loose gravel and the front deepest part of the drift, then swung end of the car plunged over the bank. the wheel to the right and pulled the There was a grinding sound when the car onto the vacant prairie. Out of the running-board and the frame caught on wheel tracks the snow was not so deep. 197 The Frontier He managed to cross the lowland in buried him deeper. Working his free safety. foot until he could reach under the wheel The driver now kept to the prairies, which held him fast he began digging at guiding himself as well as he could in the snow under the wheel with his shoe. the darkness and storm, by the marks How long he kept at this task he did of the road to his left. The prairie is not know, but in time he was able to flat for five miles beyond Cherry creek; twist his leg under the wheel, finally and the wind had kept it fairly well to pull it free. He wormed his way swept of snow. Progress here was more from under the machine. rapid. Jovis held his watch under the His leg was numb and his clothing dash lamp—twenty minutes to two. was soaked with the water squeezed out He had barely put away his watch of the snow. Here under the lee side when he saw a vague nothingness ap of the cutbank there was scarcely any pearing out of the storm. A second later wind. Great fluttering snowflakes were he felt himself falling as though the being swept into the coulee by the gale earth had been pulled out from under which howled above its brim. Jovis him. The front of the car dove down pounded his arms and legs to restore the ward, and then came to rest. In a flash circulation. Jovis knew that he had plunged off the He pulled a knife from his pocket and cutbank by the mouth of Mink creek. managed to open the blade with chatter He got out and waded down into the ing teeth. He cut loose the curtain ditch in front of the car. The wheels behind the driver’s seat. From the tool were entirely buried in snow, which kit he took a heavy wrench, and using came up even with the headlights. There it as a lever tore loose the ball-and- was no use trying to shovel in a storm socket connection between the top and like this, for the wind was piling snow the frame of the windshield. With a faster in the draw than he could shovel pair of pliers he pulled the cotter pins it out. Jovis began to scoop away with which held the two top bolts to the side his mittened hands the snow which ob of the seat. With a jerk on these bolts scured the light of the lamps. Of a the top came free. sudden it gave way. The car was swept He dragged the top to the side of the downward into the bottom of the draw car on the floor of the coulee and with and, standing deep in the snow, Jovis the shovel dug away the snow from could not escape. When the car came under it. He placed the cushion under to rest he was wedged into the snow this improvised shelter, which was now under it. free from snow and almost completely The tsar was lying on its side with a sheltered from the storm. He turned wheel resting across his leg. The snow off the gasoline at the tank and wading was soft and sticky, else the bone would to the front of the machine raised the have been broken. Jovis wriggled his hood and feeling about with numb fin face to the surface and by working his gers located the connecting nut that held body was able to get the one free leg the pipe line to the vacuum tank. When and his two arms applied to the bottom the nut was unscrewed he returned to of the car, but in such a position he the gas tank and pulled the copper pipe could not raise the machine. His efforts until it was completely free. He curved 198 The Frontier this pipe so that it led. to the ground just as a man who has a sudden dream of in front of the car top. falling into a great darkness. The fire He climbed inside his shelter and with had melted the snow about the entrance his knife made a long slit in the seat of his shelter and the water had col cushion, from which he pulled out three lected in a shallow puddle at the base handsful of wadding. He laid them at of the flame. He pulled on his steaming the end of the feed pipe. He was work mittens, rebuckled the high tops of his ing now as he had worked in the garage overshoes and drew the collar of his before starting on this journey, without sheepskin jacket up about his ears. He hesitation but without undue haste. He cut a round piece of celluloid from one climbed outside and gave a quarter turn of the side curtains, rolled it up, and to the spigot on the gasoline flow. stuffed it into his pocket. He returned to his shelter and held Outside, the wind had not abated a the end of the gas pipe over the pile bit of its fury. The coulee was now of waste until by bending over it he drifted from bank to bank. He heaved could catch the odor of gasoline. He himself through the deep snow to the pulled off his water-soaked gloves and opposite side. There he stood in the rubbed his hands on the sheepskin lin full sweep of the gale. By holding the ing of his jacket until they were fairly strip of celluloid in front of his face dry. Reaching again into the slit in to shield his eyes from the flying snow, the cushion he extracted another hand he could look momentarily into the ful of waste. With this he wiped the gloom ahead. With the stoicism of one wrench carefully. From an inner pocket who has discounted the meager chances he brought out a match, and although of his gamble Jovis started afoot across his fingers were stiff and his hand re the empty prairie. If the wind did not fused to stop shaking he managed to change direction, four miles with the strike it on the dry handle of the wrench. snow stinging at his right cheek would He held it to the pile of waste, which take him to Montana City. immediately burst into flame. When There was no trace of a road under his fire was going he pushed it farther foot, no trace of house or light anywhere out from under the car top so that the about him, no sign of moon or star in fumes were carried away. the sky-nothing but a vague whiteness Although the front of his shelter was of whirling snow. Once he detected a open, he was now almost completely rising crescendo in the howl of the screened from wind, and the gasoline storm. Turning slightly to the right he fire warmed the inside of the place. He came suddenly upon a tree. It was a held his stinging hands to the blaze, pine tree scarce taller than a man. This spread his wet mittens on the edge of was the only tree for miles on Cherry the cushion. He pounded his leg, which creek flat. It was called Lone Pine and was still numb. A feeling of warmth it stood out as a landmark for the hon- and comfort came stealing over him. yockers of that region. The trunk was Housed like this, a man could stay out a bent almost double now. The top blizzard two days or more. His head branches were fluttering like the ribs nodded. of an umbrella turned inside out by the Jovis Holt came as abruptly awake wind. The Frontier 199 For a moment Jovis leaned against But Jovis Holt did not die. He woke the swaying trunk and then trudged on. in a strange room of utter whiteness. To his numbed consciousness there came The sun outside now flooded the win the realization that he had been travel dows with the reflected glory of a sea ing too much to the left. He righted his of snow. There was a white bandage course. How long he fought against on each hand. Two women in nurse’s the storm he never knew. For to him habit were standing close to his bedside. all sense of distance had been plumbed There was another bed close to his. into a measureless void and time had On it lay a woman as pale and colorless locked hands with eternity. as the white walls of the room. Jovis The Munyon residence in Montana caught a quick, grateful flicker of rec City is on the east side of the railroads ognition from this woman, but now in in the direction of the Cherry creek flat. the vague unreality of the situation the Mrs. Munyon had risen at six-thirty, recognition did not seem to matter. more through habit than necessity, for He closed his eyes and heard one of the storm which had been raging all the white-clad figures speak to the wom night was still blowing, and little could an on the bed opposite: “ Your husband be done today. She was adding coal is here, and now you’re going to get to the kitchen fire when there came a well.” heavy knocking at the front door. It Jovis Holt knew in his heart that she was not the staccatto tap of the polite would get well. In common with all visitor. It was a dull insistent pounding. humble folk, he had learned the strength of woman when lying in childbirth, just A man fell into the room as she turned as he had known how to gauge his own the knob. He was covered from head to skill against the raging futility of the foot with snow. prairie storm. “ Frank,” she screamed. “ Come The nurse spoke, but Jovis did not quick. There is a man here. H e’s all answer. He turned his head to the wall, white. I think he is going to die.” and tears of complete exhaustion rolled Her husband, startled out of a morn down his cheek. ing nap, helped her drag the limp form “ See there,” the woman whispered into the room. to her companion. “ He’s crying, be “ God have mercy,” he exclaimed, as cause— ” he brushed the snow off the still face. The woman was wrong. Ordinary liv “ It’s Jovis Holt from the north coun ing does not wrench a tear from such try. I heard yesterday they had tele a man as Jovis Holt. He was still en phoned for him.” veloped in a feeling of utter isolation. 200 The Frontier SAGE J ay E llis R ansom I want to see sage . . . desert sage . . Stretching to the horizon; Silver sage in sunrise light, Gray sage under noonday suns, Purple sage in the purple distances Under the sunset skies. I want to see prairies Rolling away to the north, Rolling away to the east, to the south, Prairies extending limitless, Rolling away to the west . . . Prairies of sage. I want to feel winds Sweeping across the plains, From the vast horizon, From the empty skies . . . Sweeping across the prairies, Bearing the breath of sage. PRAIRIE GRAVE R uth M. Clayton Beneath this old and rugged Higgens Pine, As bone and dust sleeps one small pioneer. Cloud-shadows and the moon and sun have passed In silence overhead year after year. No marble slab speaks with a chiseled tongue A name, “ Our darling,” date of birth and death, But winds in grass and through the gnarled tree-bows Sing requiems above with sobbing breath; For once as oxen rested by this tree, A father made a cradle under ground, And with his aching hands replaced the sod To hide from wolves his little new-made mound. Alone beneath the light of quiet stars While all the noisy prairie-creatures slept, A mother with her ear against the grass Kept watch throughout the silent night and wept. 201 The Frontier Following the trail the morning traced Westward with the shadows—looking back, She saw the pine in stalwart silhouette, Grow small beside the narrow wagon track. PRAIRIE DEATH Donne Montana Stevens Heavy oxen Heat, hunger, jogging moving over cactus-cursed slow miles prairie. across the plain. Night shadows soften Black feet bleeding human hearts. prodding •Blue stars comfort gumbo baked by sun. hurt and aching hearts. Dirt-sodden covers Heavy oxen halted— over cayuse. firewood sought. Weather-warped wheels Still child laid cracking, grating in a crude death-box. through the dust. Virgin soil disturbed Black tins clanking for a new life on a crude log-shelf. dead. Sage brush Night shadows thicken. flattened Stars alone beneath the heavy tramp— console a grief. clamp— clamp— tramp— of black oxen feet. Heavy oxen yoked A sturdy father silent— to moving ugly homes. leading oxen on; Prairie mother parting A hot sun scorching from a new-dug grave. his tired set face. Barren plains behind— Covered wagons creeping Lonely space above— over lonely space. Man and woman turning A big-boned woman to wilderness ahead. with a child against her breast— a prairie-born babe Heavy oxen moving dying at her breast. slow miles across the plain. 202 The Frontier THE COFFIN BOAT H oward McK inley Corning I. this further knock occurred, Else Tage, LSE Tage was a nurse and admin in her temporary authority, turned as istrator of potent herbs. The whole sertively about to obtain full command E countryside, when sickness urged, of the situation. Back of her, before called her from her cabin far north in the open fireplace, crouched Aunt Han the Sixes timber. Always she would nah Berger, a small figure in her own respond, bringing her well-worn reti cabin but an expansive soul whenever cule of herbs and magic—a bag made she escaped from it. She too looked of elk skin and endowed with little up, spoon in hand, where she had re short of everlasting life. moved it from the kettle. The minute she entered the presence “ Good heavens!” she exclaimed, of sickness members of the harrowed “ ain’t there a-plenty here now?” Her family stepped aside and, given over words made a small dripping sound, to hope, folded their hands in frheir moist and colorless. laps with pure patience. Meanwhile In the darkened corner, among an Else Tage moved about the room, a assortment of odd boxes and meal mediator between life and death. sacks, crouched two of the younger Surely if she could kill cougars she Newlin children; a tow-headed girl of could quell the spirits of illness. And five who answered to Nance, and a she did. boy, Dant, scarcely seven, square On this occasion she tended Linda bodied and promising a strength of Newlin, sick of a mountain fever in development the rest of the family the cabin of Garce Newlin, midway of lacked. The two were so deeply lost the crooked Sixes valley. Mountain in the darkness behind Aunt Hannah’s fever is not to be fooled with; few bottle-green sateen dress as to be in ever recover, rare though the illness is distinguishable except when the fire in the damp density of the Oregon jumped into enlarged flame under the coast forests. drive of a rainy wind. In the late April twilight, Else Tage, “ Ain’t there a-plenty here now?” her elongated shadow nervously black Aunt Hannah repeated, looking nar ened against the far wall, moved from rowly across the hearth where Garce the glowing fireplace with a bowl of Newlin sat with his customary speech gruel compounded of barley shorts and lessness against the wall. His face deer’s foot jelly, into which she had showed very white. He made no move mixed certain secret herbs. Her move ment, not seeming to hear her query. ment was toward the dark quilted bed Beside him, her great oval eyes fixed whereon, carefully wrapped about, her on the “ Cougar Woman,” his second patient lay. As she crossed the room daughter, June, stood printing her bare a knock was heard upon the outer door. knee against her father’s coarse trouser On this particular evening the New leg. She was nearly nine and the only lin cabin was already too well attended one of the children with dark hair, the by visiting neighbors, so that when chestnut rings of which lay tangled 203 The Frontier about her brow and over her olive the biggest fire will burn itself out.” cheeks. (Henry was her husband who had brok “ Daddy— ” She commenced to speak. en his back). Apparently she was giv ing her patient no credit for hearing But before she could continue she her remarks, but uttered them, in her heard, from the deep-shadowed door, usual throaty manner, for the assembled the repeated sound of rapping knuckles. audience. Her parent heard and, rising, drew the slow movements of booted feet across Presently the woman would have no the floor. Holding to her father’s arm, more of the gruel and sank back among the girl pivoted on one heel to follow the sweaty quilts. “ I don’t see, girl, him. The cabin’s occupants were at where you could of got it. It ain’t attention as he pulled the outer door common. ’ ’ open. “ Ain’t she some better?” the pale A gust of rain-sprinkled wind spat voice asked, where Aunt Hannah stood. into the man’s face as he somberly bade “ Can’t say as she is,” the firm reply the visitor enter; a cumbersomely tall came. “ She ate a little, an’ that’s the man in from the whipping rain and the strongest git-up I ever mixed. She’s night, all but utterly black. He pushed got strength, she can stan’ it. * * * No, the door to behind him. can’t say as how she is. But ef she “ She ain’t no better,” Garce in don’t mend right short now, there’s formed the newcomer. And as he re only one thing more t ’ do. A n’ it’ll turned to the chair he vacated, “ There’s be you, Jed Miller, as does it.” a block; set.” He indicated it with a Authority had spoken; there was at kick of his toe. tention in the room; it was as though Jed Miller, usually orotund of man Jed Miller, out of the stormy night and ner and speech, was somewhat dis the imprecations of a hearsay-clouded pleased with this single-voiced welcome. past, had entered upon judgment. What if his coming was the surprise of There was a stir and a grunt from all surprises, should it render all speech across the room, the speaking of a strong less? voice, somewhat modulated but still evi Before him Else Tage, with a meaning dently harsh: ‘ ‘ Kill a cougar. ’ ’ less “ grumph,” her beaded eyes sight “ The very las’ thing to do, Jed Mil ing down the long crooked nose of her ler. There’s nothin’ can beat the gall back-thrust head, her hair polished like o ’ a cougar fer poison-killen purposes, lighted shadow, bowed to the service like fever.” This was Else Tage’s last, of her prostrate patient. The sick woman most effective remedy, the use of which lay almost in darkness, and although was a serious admission. she ate sparingly of the doctored food Under this declaration Garce Newlin offered by the claw-like hands of the sat motionless. He knew why Jed Mil Cougar Woman she did so obliviously. ler was there: that once loving the “ Ef it wasn’t fer gettin’ her t’ take woman Garce had married he held still the cure-all I ’d not feed her a bite—not a sentimental interest in her—what else a crow’s bite. Fever’s gotta burn it could it be?—An interest that might self out, it has. But it’s the cure-all bear some hidden meaning. He knew what does it. I alius used to tell Henry the talk of the valley. Ordinarily Jed 204 The Frontier would have nothing to do with Garce, Still non-committal, Miller sat on his and the latter never urged his friend block of wood, his gray form pressed ship. But now that Linda was taken hugely back against the chinked logs. a-bed with what was generally an un It was the man's most studious posture. recoverable illness, Miller used it for a The Cougar Woman turned about and reason to enter the Newlin cabin. And left him to arrive at his moment. Garce tolerated him in the way strong From the fireplace Aunt Hannah had souls tolerate the unpleasant; by dis removed the larger of the kettles, and regard. Jed had actually taken to look motioning the girl over to assist her the ing after Garce's chores for him. He two began setting the dishes of food on had a decent streak, though it was hard the slab table that stood back from the to reach. Still, inwardly he hated New center of the room. Presently the wo lin. Not that he could ever have made man brought the smaller of the kettles the husband for Linda that Garce had and centering it among the dishes an been—everybody said that. And there nounced that the men might eat. Jed were other things people said; tales Miller rose first, but thinking better that came up through the years .... waited until Garce had taken his place, An interval of silence followed Else then sat down at the far end. *‘ Set," Tage 's ultimatum. The household waited Garce said, his first word in some time. Miller's reply. A short man, Jack Befell, come forward “ You used a wolf onct, Else," Jed out of the shadows, seating himself be parried. tween Garce and Jed. The children “ Won't d o ." The reply was curt. stood aside, fidgeting until their turn Forward in the room Garce surveyed should come. the fire and presently, as the gusty rain Presently Else Tage, after examina poured like a sudden whipping of dry tion of her silent patient, seated herself needles over the shakes, motioned the beside Garce Newlin. She was perhaps boy Dant to throw a length of wood on the one woman in all the Lower Coast the blaze. Crouching before the blaze country who felt herself superior to any the small figure of Aunt Hannah con man, asserting that belief and gaining tinued to stir from time to time each respect. of two kettles hanging from the black Outside, the rain had become an in ened hooks over the glowing coals. Yet cessant drench, beaten by the wind. A there seemed no eagerness for food in loose shake rattled. Along the west wall any of the cabin's occupants. the rain stain began to creep through “ Can't recall you ever refusin' me where the chinking had loosened. At afore, Jed Miller. What'd yuh come the table the candle flickered faint light fe r ?" Else Tage stepped preemptorily over the faces of the four, who ate with into the center of the floor. There she subdued responses. Aunt Hannah, rested her stringy arms akimbo on her waiting until the second table, watched angular hips, her frame encased in a the woman on her fevered bed. skirt of dark homespun trimmed up Now from across the shadowed room and down the seams with strips of pel- the suffering, scarce-conscious woman trie. Her appearance uttered the wil drew a prolonged and audible sigh that derness. was instantly snatched into the mean- 205 The Frontier ingless wind sucking at the creaking Else Tage affirmed, for the moment cedars without. Else Tage moved relinquishing her dictatorial reserve. swiftly to Linda’s side, bending angu “ Does Jed stan’ t ’ git his animal larly over her patient. At once the afore daybreak?” Aunt Hannah ven room’s listeners heard the woman re tured, with concerned and sympathetic peat an all-but-inaudible incantation of voice. words, supposedly magic. As she did “ There ain’t nothin’ else will pull ’er so she applied her horny hands to the through,” came the laconic reply. delicate fevered brow. Her black eyes Garce sat stoically before the waning peered down a long time. Then with fire. Twice he stared into the shadow a commanding gesture she swept about. against the wall. Presently he rose and “ Jed Miller, when do I git that cou without a word, buttoned his weather gar gall?” garments soundly about him and sloshed The words came sharp and hard. Be forth into the night. Up trail a piece sides, Else Tage had power to place a he would turn off toward Elk Prairie. witch-spell on any person who crossed A cougar gall, he kept thinking, a cou her authority. Even Jed, hardened and gar gall. On a night like this! masterful as he was, felt a cringing II. tremor course down his stiff spine as he contemplated what fate might be his Out in the downpour of the night Jed should he refuse. Yet, what hunter Miller trudged, his mind darkening. could hope for a cougar on a night like Rain dripped from his hat brim and this? his set lips were moist with it. But the Jed Miller rose from his unfinished inclemency could not dampen the meal and lifting his weather-coat from mounting wrath within him, a wrath a peg on the wall turned toward the his striding only increased. door. A cougar gall to save the life of the “ I ’ll have t ’ stop by m ’ place an’ get woman he could never have, so long as m’ 30-30,” he drawled. “ E f I don’t she were Garce Newlin’s wife! Blackly git th’ cougar I ’ll be makin’ a coffin, he thought, it was Garce he would like come daybreak.” to make a coffin for—with Linda living after him. If he should get the gall— The door was jerked open and with a muscular lunge the speaker issued into and she lived . . . He would have to the wind-whipped rain. He cursed at get his gun. his uncertain footing in the slippery But, as he thrust ahead among the dooryard. dripping cedars, his reasoning told him The meal was cleared away and a that if he got the cougar and the po death-like inner hush settled over the tency within it proved effective and the watching household. Crisis was imi- woman lived she would be living for nant in Linda’s illness, so much the Garce. And he hated Garce; hated Cougar Woman averred. If Jed failed Garce because he had Linda, would con to return with the gall of a fresh-killed tinue to have her. But on the other mountain lion, daybreak would bring hand, if he just failed to secure the mourning. The gall of a cougar! animal, failed completely to return, “ Never seed it hang on like of this,” Linda would die—and Garce would be 206 The Frontier without her, too; there would be no strained. He looked up in apprehen Linda for Garce to be loving. sion. Instantly he thought of Else Tage “ I ’ll jes teH Else I couldn’t find and immediately he was divided between none. Hell, it’s stormin’ down ’nough, concern and fury. ain t it ! Can’t jes git a cougar any But he knew well enough it was Else, time yuh want to.” Couldn’t hardly saw suddenly that it was she. Her reso ’spec’ t ’ git one a night like of this.” lute, angular figure thrust forward to His words gritted between his teeth. ward him, her moccasined feet moving Presently, as he thought further of almost silently beneath her picturesque Else Tage and the direful powers she garments, her fur cap surmounting her was known to exert, his mind clouded stringy black hair. Miller could see over with apprehension. He’d have to the dark centers of her eyes. She car do some tall talking to keep Else in the ried an axe. The man suddenly strove dark,—“ Now that I ain’t goin’ t ’ git to appear busied. the cougar,” he finished doggedly. “ I ’ll jes fool ’er, ’ ’ he thought; ‘ ‘ Come Each avoided a greeting; the new daybreak I ’ll fetch out an’ start the comer broke into words, few but crisply uttered. coffin. Jes what I told her I ’d do, come I didn’t git the animal. She won’t “ Ain’t no need of it, Jed. Garce be askin’ me none then.” went out an’ brung in a cougar gall las’ With this final decision of mind he night, after you left. Linda’s took a continued on the trail toward his home turn. She won’t be needin’ no coffin.” clearing along the loud Sixes. As he Jed Miller laid down his axe without trod he kept thinking of Else Tage__ change in his dark expression. “ Yeah!” if Linda should die! He reached his horny hands for adz and maul. “ Yeah!” he repeated hoarsely. III. This was certainly an unexpected turn ; Under the hot morning sun Jed Mil he hadn’t looked for Linda to recover ler hacked away at the inside of a log. without his aid. She would be living It was nearly as long as he and had for Garce, then, after all. Well, he been lopped off flat on four sides. The reasoned, he wasn’t going to be shown underside, where it rested on two sawed up by Else; he was going to keep face. log-butts, was slightly narrower than “ Well, reckon a fella can be usin’ of the top surface. The man’s swarthy it fer a boat, cain’t he ? ’ ’ he bellowed face twitched beneath his unseen eyes forth, swinging the axe and driving the where his hat was pulled over them and blade in deep. a sinister gloom lay over his merciless The Cougar Woman was taking no mouth and his pock-marked face. Pres note of his surly defiance. “ Heered ently he laid down the maul and ap yuh hacking away out her, ever sence plied an axe with vicious strokes, in daybreak.” turn to pause, push back his hat and Jed looked at her, tried to judge the wipe his brow in vengeful meditation, depth of meaning behind her few words. “ Things ’ll be some d iff’rent now,” he He began to feel uneasy. muttered. “ Started kinda early, didn’t yuh?” A crackle in the brush, a snapped she continued, thrusting the accusation twig. The worker’s attention w'as toward him where she stood, hands on The Frontier 207 hips and her narrow arms akimbo. She IV. had dropped the axe she carried; it lay It was a soft, unduly warm morning, at her feet. after all the evil weather that had pre To each statement Jed Miller refused ceded it. Garce Newlin sat on a log- reply. He pulled his hat lower and butt before his squat cabin fitting a new began to take up his tools. helve into an old axe head. His pale, Then complete accusation came. shaven features were whitened by the “ Jed Miller, yuh never hunted fer no morning sun that sprawled in over the cougar las’ night. Yuh said if yuh tree tops. As he worked he glanced didn’t git none yuh was goin’ to make about him from time to time. a coffin. Yuh knew all the time yuh Three noisy and grimy children wasn’t goin’ t ’ git no gall.” charged about the clearing that opened With these words the man turned his out on a muddy, rutted strip of road. scowling face blackly upon her. His A dozen scrawny hens moved about the wrath had mounted to a pitch of de clearing. fensive courage. “ It war stormin’, Shortly Garce was roused from his warn’t it? Well, ain’t that a reason?” leisurely labor by the approach of the Disturbed as he nonetheless was, he Cougar Woman, coming up from the wasn’t going to let Else back him down; river. Every several days she came he was going to be one man who could back to the house of illness where her defy her and hold face. sharp figure and commanding presence Else stood her ground with laconic had become familiar. She came up coolness. “ All same, you’re makin’ a now, her fur cap fitted hugely over coffin, Jed, what yuh knew yuh was her stringy hair. In one hand she car goin’ t ’ do.” The words were smiting ried a coil of rope, the loose end switch and final. ing against her fur-seamed skirt. She But Jed would not be shaken. Re strode up to Garce, busied with the axe. peating his intention of “ usin’ of it fer “ Well, here yuh are, settin’ outside, a boat” he lay to with maul and adz, lookin’ like work again. Linda’s feelin’ the bright chips spinning out into the some better, I reckon. Well, reckon sun slants where they fell among the they ain’t a better prescriber in these dew-drenched ferns and sallal. Here here’bouts than Else Tage. No there and there a large one showed a clear ain’t.” With self-appraisal she paused. surface like a miniature gravestone. The pale Newlin lay aside the axe. After numerous strokes he paused. “ Pretty dost call, I guess, sure ’nough. Into the pause Else Tage intruded: Oh, she’s feelin’ fair again . . . right “ Yuh might need this here axe I brung. smart better.” He nodded his assertion. I sharpened it fer yuh.” Immediately “ Trying t’ get a bit o’ work done.” she turned and was walking into the dark forest, beyond the cleared space. The Cougar Woman saw no reason for “ Hell!” Miller spat. He picked up response. Before her the pale man sat the axe. It was sharp. as if within him there were little urge In a nearby spruce a woodpecker toward industry. Spreading his white rapped like a man nailing down the lid hands out before him he looked from of death. these toward the sheds where his chil 208 The Frontier dren scuffled: “ Sorta lost out a ing water came up to mingle with the piece . . . ’ ’ he repeated. wind-sound of the trees. “ Plenty,” the woman acceded now, V. placing one moccasined foot on the log- Two days passed. butt and leaning forward. “ And Jed Trailing green moss, strung from ce was makin, of the coffin, too.” Her dar boughs overhead, slapped damply thin lips creased. The black deepened into Garce Newlin’s face as he swung in her eyes. down the bank to his tethered boat Garce smiled palely. ■ * Guess he’d like among the leaning alders. The Sixes t ’ a buried her, a ’right ...” And then, river purred in its noisy manner. He “ Lotta spunk in the Newlin tribe.” seated his rangy body in the unsteady A shoat ran wildly through the dis craft. Picking up the idle oars he fitted ordered clearing, two unkempt children them into the locks and waited. at its heels. As they raced they over Twenty minutes passed, during which turned a low rick of wood, the animal he sat motionless save for the boat’s bob squealing in fright. bing. No sun shown through to dapple With this Else Tage came out of her his face, or the water’s. Overhead the piercing study. “ Well, it’s all the same sky rolled like a leaden evil thing, heav to Miller; he’s using the box fer a scow. ing toward some unpredictable cata Sez he ’ll tote his three hawgs down river clysm. A downpour seemed imminent. t’ Shumway’s day after t’morrer . . . At times the passive Garce gazed at the save walking the weight off ’em on the threatening sky. trail. Crusty front that Miller can put Then the tensity of contemplation was up w ’en he’s a mind to. I come through suddenly over. A dark cumbersome ob his clearing jus’ now an’ he bellered it ject shot forth from an upper curve at me.” riding the river’s current; an object bobbing wildly and headlong, thrusting Newlin scrutinized his informant. nearer and nearer. Another instant and “ Figger I ’ll paddle down t’ Shumway’s it clearly evidenced itself; it was Jed in a day ’r two m ’self. Might foller Miller in his converted log scow with its Jed; like t ’ see ’im make the trip; sorta cargo of three squealing hogs. The four celebration like.” And he drew his crowded the craft’s capacity. drawn white face into a cadaverous Garce Newlin grappled the oars of smile. The Cougar Woman joined his his small boat and with vigorous appli mood with a sardonic grin. “ A n’ yuh cations tugged out toward midstream. won’t be knowing how big a celebration Easing into the current he called out as like it ’ll be fer yuh, Garce.” the voyager came on: “ Ho, Jed! How’s “ Ain’t got no grudge agin any one, the new boat behavin’ ? Kind of a have yuh, Else?” speeder, ain’t she?” At this half-query the woman’s thin “ Y ’u ’ll have t ’ tug some t ’ keep up lips set; without further statement she with me,” Jed Miller shouted back over brushed by him into the open cabin. the noise of the water, gesticulating with Soon he heard her pitched voice in con a long spare pole, his sole implement of verse with his wife. navigation. “ I ’m agoin’ t ’ git thar with Beyond the clearing the sound of flow the current.” 209 The Frontier Presently the drops came fast. The The spare Newlin nosed out into the two rested their oars and cumber- driving flood, a full half of his boat s somely donned their weather coats. power lost, cutting as it did across the Then they again settled themselves to precipitation of water that flowed swift vigorous and united pursuit. The gray ly and sillily along the craft’s sleek flailing rain hung a film over the wat sides. He bent his back to the labor of ers and the forested irregular shores. following the fleeing, scowling Jed, who was suddenly and imperceptibly lost They swept past occasional, indented around a green angle of the lower Sixes. clearings, past the landing that trailed But now, upstream, a laggard in the up to the Berger clearing where Walt troubled wake of the coffin boat, an Berger’s great barn loomed among the other rowing craft of slight but gov clustering cedars. Only now and again ernable proportion, came on. The three did they catch a glimpse of the lumber formed a wilderness regatta. At its ing coffin boat, each time farther oars, a large fur cap already pushed ahead, always mid-stream and always back from her hot brow, Else Tage, a outdistancing them. cramped, angular figure, labored and “ It’s sure oncanny the way she don’t watched the river where the strange git piled up on some rock,” Else called craft had preceded and disappeared. out once, as the two trailing crafts She saw, also, Garce Newlin swing into surged through boiling rapids. “ —sure the stream ahead of her. oncanny!” They were far down stream now, The three bobbed on toward Shum where the Sixes opens out into the wide way’s ranch situated a scant mile from bottoms of Shumway’s ranch. Shum surf, the Pacific some three miles way’s landing served as moorage for farther distant. all boats coming down river. From When Newlin saw the heavy scow the ranch itself led the trail that fol was being carried at a pace his light lowed out to the beach sands and thus craft could not equal he eased up on down coast to Port Orford, seven miles his strokes, in this way permitting Else below. At times the river settlers Tage to overtake him. Scarcely had would herd their hogs or cattle to the two united than a sharp curve in gether at Shumway’s and drive them the Sixes spun them into a clear combined on to market. It was for straight-away. Ahead on the racing one of these drives that Miller now waters the coffin boat appeared, hur rying toward another eclipsing angle. brought on his hogs. “ He’s sure headin’ fer trouble in But although the Sixes widens out that contrapshun . . . the way he toward its confluence with the Pacific goes,” the Cougar Woman called to it does not lessen its driving flood. The oarsman, centered in mid-current, tugs the laboring Newlin. vigorously to draw his craft toward “ He don’t seem t ’ have no steer on shore. It is labor enough for a light it . . . ” the answer came back. and governable boat. But for a log The other snorted. “ A in’t surprised none. W hat’s that?” She put out the scow— flat of her hand. “ Blamed ef it ain’t The three crafts were in full inter beginnin’ t’ rain!” changeable view. Now the two could 210 The Frontier see Jed Miller struggling prodigously in from the surf below. Behind him to swing his craft toward the left bank. the current throbbed always astern. He doubled far over as he strove to He was being borne out. thrust his pole down for a purchasing Another man had joined the first at shove. He lunged at each rock as he the small wharf; the two were cutting passed. He beat at the surface to alter loose in a small painter. A hound ran his course. Still the current carried baying along the shore. him. His efforts were meeting with Up-stream the boats of Newlin and small avail. He was a pigmy figure. Else Tage watched and sped nearer. Presently he straightened erect and Prom time to time Newlin, tiring under wildly gesticulated with the poling rod the long strain, belabored himself for swung above his head. He lifted a hail his inability to overtake his imperiled to the shore, some five rods distant. neighbor. “ It was a coffin an’ not a His booming voice spread back to the boat. It wasn’t intended fer the livin’. two followers, hunched under the rain. Jed made a mistake,” he muttered. Hearing it, they doubled to their oars. The other boat came alongside. “ Yuh “ He ain't agoin’ t ’ make it; he’s can’t fool a coffin erbout who b’longs agoin’ t ’ be swept ou t!” the pale in’t.. H e’s sure nuff bein’ took out,” Newlin ejaculated gasping. Else screeched. The Cougar Woman, her boat drawn The craft issuing from the landing, alongside of Newlin’s, labored with a in place of following the vanity of pur set face. “ The fool!” she gritted. suit, now put across to the opposite She jerked off her fur cap and dashed shore. Presently, as it beached, the it into the bottom of the boat. It two who manned it ran up through the rested there beside an axe. Her half- timber. Somewhere up-coast a scant length hair blew unkempt about her mile a long-boat was kept for use in sharp features. just such emergencies. They would On shore a man came running toward rouse the dune ranchers as they sped. the landing; hailing the frantic Jed. To put out to sea offered the one hope His huge figure was swaying in the for rescue— provided Jed Miller weath bobbing scow, the three hogs mingling ered the increasing, oncoming rollers. their frightened squeals with his hoarse calls. As the man reached the landing Par ahead the coffin boat bobbed, a he made for a tied-up craft, at the same spinning blotch in the welter of gray time calling back toward the ranch waters. Over it presently the rain buildings for additional help. hung its gauze curtain. As the Sixes rushes past Shumway’s The Pacific widened out until it was the sea swells begin to reach in. Now the world. / one of these caught the unwieldy box VI. like scow, spinning it so sharply that Garce Newlin stood, a spare anxious the large muscular Jed was thrown figure on the barnacled rocks where sprawling among his clamorous beasts the Sixes river noses its turbid waters and all but overboard. He rose half into the Pacific. A long line of break upright, clinging to the boat’s rough ers broke over the low sandy bar; sides. Presently a second roller swelled breakers which swept on to cascade and 211 The Frontier foam against the shore rocks. The sky, back the narrow figure of Else Tage, evil with stormy clouds, sagged toward in muddy moccasins and a too-tight the limitless sea that was reaching to coonskin cap, clambered out on the take it. rocks that extended to the grim watch Garce muttered to himself: “ He er. In her hands she carried a woods didn't have no steer on the contrap- man’s falling axe. She breathed hard, shun. He oughtta figgered the current advancing cautiously upon the spare was too much fer polin'. A n ' this built man, a black figure against the rain . . . I was afeared." dark sky. It wouldn't do to startle He stroked his hand through his hair him. She kicked a loose stone and and commenced to pace nervously, step listened as it splashed into the sea. ping dangerously from point to point Finally, nearly out of breath for one among the slippery marine growths of so resolute, she reached the man on the the rocks. Leaden-eyed, he gazed out rock point. She stopped beside him, at the sea-charge and the rain-drench, her lean figure a full half-foot taller. and up-coast toward Blacklock Point. Her thin lips worked speechlessly. It was certain the Japan current car Newlin spoke first: “ I reckon we ried that way; would sweep whatever thought it was a celebration, sorta," came seaward toward the north. he muttered huskily. “ A sorta joke Also, up north a dozen or so men on the axe." He saw that the woman from the lower ranches were franti beside him was not gazing at him alone, cally putting out in a longboat to nor at the grim water, but looked as search the roaring waters for a man in well at the steel-bright, two-bladed im a log scow. Newlin could just see their plement clenched in her bony hand. dim figures through the rain-slant and Slowly she switched it over, now on the sand haze plunging at the breakers one side, now the other uppermost. A to make a getaway. He himself had gory splash of sun broke through the started with the crew but had given horizon clouds to gleam on the blade out on the arduous walk. He must like blood. wait here, a solitary sentry. Perhaps even now he would be the one to sight “ Yuh can't fool an a x e," she said. Her face and her manner were calm, the log scow and its occupants: three no trace of malevolence upon it, only fatted hogs and Jed Miller. Garce shivered in the salt-chill an awareness, as though justice had breeze, the rain slapping into his face been served and retribution made ap and coursing down his neck. Upshore parent. the men had got the longboat launched. Upcoast north the longboat was a They were heading for the rocks of bobbing dot in the graying-over dusk Blacklock Point. of the sea. A wild tern fluttered away From the margin of the buttress up beach and a white gull steered into spruce and cedar forest at Newlin's the sun-rift. 212 The Frontier SAND HILLS I r en e W e l c h G rissom When summer days are hot and still Of new hills standing on a field The lazy ripples run Where spring should touch to green Across the crest and down the hill, The waving wheat, whose golden yield To sparkle in the sun. Shall nevermore be seen. The winds of fall and winter lift I fear the hills of shifting sand— The sand in blinding storms In twenty years, or more, That build with huge, fantastic drift Their drifts will blot my hard-won land The slowly rising forms And close my cabin door. NORTHWEST FOLKLORE OLD MAN COYOTE G len d o lin D a m o n W agner HERE came a period in the evolution Many snows ago, before earth was, or of the Absarokee Tribe, commonly animals, or man, there dwelt up in the Blue, T known as “Crow Indians,” when they in a great ball of fire which we call “the began to ponder concerning the phenomena sun,” the god of all the universe— Old Man of the firmament with its sun and moon Coyote. He was quite alone. Around him and stars, and the earth with its living extended the vast Blue with neither moon creatures. And they arrived, finally, at a nor stars. Beneath him an immense stretch solution of the mystery quite satisfactory of water. to them and strikingly similar to the solu And Old Man Coyote said: “There shall tion of the Hindus, the Semitics, the Taos. be an earth.” And so he sent a duck down Though they spoke in terms peculiar to their into the dark waters and the duck kicked environment yet their religion, stripped of up mud. And Old Man Coyote took this superstitions is, in its essence, the religion mud and made the earth. But, without life of all adolescent tribes. of any kind, the earth was very silent. So When there began to stir within them a then Old Man Coyote took of the mud and vague recognition of a higher power came, made animals. He made the buffalo, the also, an urge to worship. They sensed the wild horses, the mountain sheep, the elk, incompleteness of man and need to account the beaver. All things great and small did for his origin. Probing back into the shad- he make of the mud of the earth. And it dows of the past they found chaos, void became beautiful in his sight. of life, presided over by an all-powerful One And yet Old Man Coyote was unhappy for who dwelt in the Blue and whom they those creatures of his down below grazing called: “Old Man Coyote.” through tall grasses or swimming in cool And this is the Crow’s Book of Genesis waters did not know that his work was as Chief Plenty Coups told it to me a few good. So Old Man Coyote took mud and months before his death: fashioned another animal that did not walk 213 The Frontier on four legs nor crawl on its belly nor fly ing stars. On one of the comets his mother through the air. This animal stood upright rode back to earth and she took her son and was the most beautiful of all animals with her. To this day one may see, on a created. Old Man Coyote leaned him against rock in the Big Horn River, two deep in a tree to dry and called him : “Man.” dentations. That is where bride of the Sun with her child, the Moon, lighted upon the But neither the animals roaming the plains earth. nor the man leaning against the tree knew aught of His marvels of creation. And Old And she lived all the days of her life upon Man Coyote, in the midst of all the beauties this rock. And seven children were born to He had fashioned, was lonely still. And so her, seven little girls. One day, while they He took a stick and made two holes in the were playing out on the plains a bear pur head of the man and these holes became sued them. And they were frightened and eyes. Then the man made of mud looked ran to their mother on the rock. But the about at the wonders of earth and sky and bear was big and strong and she could not fell on his knees in worship. save them. And she cried to the rock: “Oh, rock, save us, save us from the bear!” And Old Man Coyote said to the man: “You are a god, like unto me. I make you Then the rock grew higher and higher, ruler of the universe. You shall be lord so high that, though the bear leaped and over the earth and its children.” growled, he could not reach the children. And He was happy for loneliness had gone The rock grew so high that it pushed the from Him and He returned to His home in seven little girls up into the sky and they became the seven stars that we see, nights, the Blue. up in the Blue. Before many snows there were countless people upon the earth, both men and women. Old Man Coyote was a kind god and His Of these women one was so beautiful that heart was troubled for He saw that His the Sun, looking down, desired her for his earthly children were not always happy. When the sun gave of its warmth and light, woman. So the Sun caused her to climb then trees and grass grew and animals waxed a tree after a squirrel. And, while she was fat and the people laughed all day long. in the tree, he sent warmth down upon it and made the rain to water its roots and But when the sun went to sleep then snow covered the earth and people shivered with it grew and grew until it reached the Blue. Then the Sun seized the woman and made cold and cried with hunger. her his woman. Old Man Coyote said: “I have not done well. I have put my children upon the She was not happy up there in the Blue. earth and left them to suffer. During the She longed to return to earth. Day after day time the sun is asleep I will place little suns she gazed down upon it and wept and her all over the earth.” And He made fire. tears watered trees and grass, filled river Now the fire, at first, was guarded by beds, sent mountain streams rushing down a Bad One who would not give of it to the to the plains. Then the Sun, in jealous people. Then Old Man Coyote was very anger, closed all the openings in the sky so angry, and said to His people: “I will pro she could no longer see the earth she loved. cure a brand of fire for you from the Bad And the Sun and the woman had one child One.” and it was the moon. Now the moon loved his earthly mother. So He came down from the Blue and sta When she grieved he grieved also. And he tioned animals all along the way, first an pricked holes in the sky so she could look elk, then a bear, then a deer, a squirrel, a through down upon the earth, and these horse, lastly a frog. And He went to the holes became the stars. But when she gazed cave of the Bad One and snatched a brand through down upon the earth she wept the of fire from her and ran with it. He ran more for it was very beautiful there where until He was exhausted, the Bad One close all her people lived. So Moon took bow and at His heels, and He handed the brand of arrows and shot and made comets and fall fire to the elk. And the elk ran a long 214 The Frontier way and handed the brand to the bear. which I would have perfect is not complete. And the bear ran, its feet pounding the What have I omitted?” grassy plain. And he ran until his heart “Love,” hummed the bees. “Love,” whis burst within him. Then the horse took the pered the wind. “Love,” sang the birds. brand but even the horse could not run as And Old Man Coyote said: “Your hearts fast as the Bad One. So the horse passed have spoken. I have created a world with the brand of fire on to the frog. out love.” In those days the frog was big with a Then Old Man Coyote took from the Blue long tail and furry pelt. The frog ran only star-dust, from the sun a bit of its shine, a few steps when the Bad One was upon and He added thereto music from throats of him. So he gave a leap that landed him birds and fragrance from flowers. All in the midst of the camp and dropped the things that were most beautiful He placed brand at the feet of the cold and hungry in the fire of happiness and stirred them people. But, as the frog leaped, the Bad and brewed them. Soon there arose a light One snatched him and seized his tail and so bright that those who gazed upon it be furry pelt. So, ever since, the frog has been came blinded. without a tail or fur and his eyes have So Old Man Coyote, seeing that His people bulged with fright. But the people love him groaned and covered their eyes, added to the for it was through him they received, from brew of love patience and sorrow and for Old Man Coyote, the gift of fire. giveness and sacrifice and wetted it all with Old Man Coyote looked down upon the His tears. earth He had created and found it beautiful Then, from the blinding light of happiness with its majestic mountains, its silver lakes there arose a vapor, soft and mild, that and streams, its broad, green valleys. spread over all the earth and entered into Soft sounds drifted up to Him—hum of the hearts of His people. And Old Man Coy bees, gentle trickling of falling waters, mur ote said. “This is love.” And His heart mur of wind, joyous song of birds. Over sang for He knew that His work was com all the earth in its tender, new beauty, plete. And He returned to His home in the spread the golden glow from the sun. And Blue, where, to this day, He watches over yet Old Man Coyote sighed and said: “That His children. DREAM NOT TOO MUCH M a r y W a lter G reen Oh my daughter, dream not too much When the sap is running free And the leaf is shining on the bough— Soon lonely stands the tree. Starkly bare the brown limbs shiver Stripped by a frosty touch; Heartbreak is the heritage Of those who dream too much. Let them lie—your shattered dreams— Among the fallen leaves— Daughter, who dreams too much in April In grey November grieves. The Frontier 215 THE OPEN RANGE Each issue will carry accounts of personal outdoor experiences. Only accounts of actual experiences are solicited. HOMESTEAD DAYS IN MONTANA P e a r l P rice R obertson ES, we lived on a homestead once, not faithfully, partly from sheer joy at digging so many years ago. Back in 1910 it in the soil and watching green things grow, Ywas— twenty-three years ago in March and partly for means to provide baby shirts —that we made our grand adventure by and little shoes, and other things so neces coming West to live on one. W e were young sary to the proper bringing up of the cher then, Alec and I, and life was full of promise. ubs. When we learned, somewhat by acci We had been married four years, but some dent, of Uncle Sam’s free homestead land how had never been able to reconcile our in Montana it seemed such a happy solution selves to the bread-and-butter sort of ex to our problem of acquiring a home of our istence led by the people in our native state very own, that we decided to avail ourselves — so smug and safe and comfortable, the of the opportunity at once. But well-mean same yesterday, today, and tomorrow— you ing friends and relatives had heard many know, just being born, growing up, living lurid tales of Indian depredations, of out and dying, all in the same cramped space. lawry, and of a rigorous Montana climate, There must have been an adventurous streak and tried to dissuade us from so rash an in the makeup of both Alec and me. Any undertaking. My own ideas of Montana had way, a restlessness of spirit made us both been gleaned from much that had been writ long to get away, though neither of us ever ten of “the wild and woolly West,” and, I quite admitted that longing. must confess, I myself had thought of it as At the time of our marriage, four years only a barren waste covered with cactus and before, there was nothing we wanted so much sagebrush, inhabited by rattlesnakes and as a home and a baby. W e had no capital bloodthirsty savages. But the more we in other than our love for each other— very vestigated Montana’s homemaking possibil much of that— youth, inexperience, unshaken ities, the more enthusiastic we became, so faith in the future, a willingness to work. that in the end nothing could deter us from The home always came first in our plans our purpose. Hand in hand with Alec, I and was as beautiful as any dream home would have gone to the ends of the earth could be, with wide lawns, gardens and seeking a home! orchards, great barns and fertile fields— a Our coming into touch with a job on a farm built up out of the raw land by the Montana ranch proved the deciding factor, work of our own hands, a place to create for to us the opportunity seemed providen beauty, to build projects, to change visions tial. Just a little apprehensive, perhaps, but to reality; a haven and a refuge never to be prepared for the worst and highly resolved completed throughout the years— we did not to meet unflinchingly whatever befell, we wish ever to come to the place where we came in March, 1910— two “tenderfoot” could sit down with folded hands, saying: strangers from the East and three babies— “It is finished; there is nothing more we to the new little town of Hobson, Montana, can add.” which had sprung into being a year or two But somehow things did not work out the before when the railroad had been built way we had dreamed them; in three and a through the Judith Basin. Any subconscious half years we had three pink-and-white, dread I might have had of lurking danger golden-haired babies, and our only home was was quickly and completely dispelled when a rented one— a little farm which we tended we were met at the station by our employer 216 The Frontier and his four-year-old daughter. It was all Delightful to me was the innate politeness so different from what I was expecting! of the ranch hands; crude and uncultured Everything about the little town was clean though many of them were, their courtesy and new; over it and the grassy benchlands and deference to me, the only woman on stretching away to the foot of the mountains the ranch, could not have been exceeded any on every side, lay the warm spring sunshine, where. Delightful, too, were the stories of and round about us rose the mountains, dark life and adventure, sometimes highly embel and blue, like a great barricade shutting us lished, I suspect, for my especial benefit, in from the outside world. How near the when the men “swapped lies” around the mountains looked, to my wondering eyes, as table, or when we sat around the fire in the if I could walk out and lay my hand upon big kitchen in the evenings. them! And yet I was told they were fifteen In a few weeks Alec went in search of a to twenty miles away. W e were so thrilled homestead; I could scarcely wait for his with our new environment, so charmed with return, so eager was I. Pride of possession the frank, openhearted friendliness of the and joy of ownership seized me when I Western people! The town and vicinity learned that we had claim to three hundred were in the throes of a real estate boom; twenty acres on Lonesome Prairie in north wheat farming on the benchlands had been ern Chouteau County— to us the first step a huge success; everyone seemed optimistic, in the accomplishment of our cherished prosperous, happy. W e found everywhere dream. Long we sat by the fire that night bustle and activity, a growing and prosper of Alec’s return, as he related to me the ous community, peopled by a progressive details of his trip and described the grassy citizenship. Yet there was so much which prairie stretching westward twenty-five miles to us was new and unusual that we were or more from Big Sandy to the Marias River; like two eager children faring forth for ad how three weeks after the land opening venture, delighted with everything we saw. every foot of the land had been taken for W e went to work on the Philbrook Ranch, twenty miles out; how the land locator had where the old deserted town of Philbrook taken him out with a party of others who stood on the banks of the Judith River. would be our neighbors; of the young Nor Straggling along either side of the one street, wegian and his sweetheart but lately arrived in varying stages of dilapidation, were the from Norway who could not speak a word buildings of the old ghost town; the yards of English; of the genial old German who, were choked with dry weeds and littered when he found this broad stretch of fertile with rusty cans, discarded bedsprings and soil so much to his liking, and a whole sec broken bits of furniture; in the corner, where tion to be had for the taking, hurried back the road turned sharply and became the to the telegraph office and sent this telling street, stood the old hotel, containing fifteen message to two grownup sons and a daugh rooms. This building served us for a dwell ter : “Come Henry; come Johnnie; come ing. Across the spring run was the old livery M ary; come quick!” Then Alec made the stable, which became the ranch barn. Close disconcerting disclosure that there were rat on the bank of the crystal Judith stood the tlesnakes on that prairie! Rattlesnakes? Clegg building, once a saloon and roadhouse. Dear me, wouldn't there have to be a catch Across the river a community hall built of in the thing somewhere? I shuddered. Oh, logs, where school was held, and opposite it well,— there was a serpent in the Garden a little frame church where “Brother Van,’’ of Eden! Maybe we could just disregard noted pioneer preacher, held services twice the rattlesnakes, at least until we got there! each month. Joyfully we planned every detail of our Very pleasant were the days we spent in little shack and figured the cost; eagerly this place; the owner of the ranch kept I longed to begin work on my beautiful open house, buyers and traders came and garden, and spent happy hours poring over went every day, and the personnel of the nurserymen’s catalogues selecting trees and ranch hands changed every few weeks, so shrubs and drawing plans. Because of our that we were constantly meeting new people. limited amount of cash there could be but 217 The Frontier a few cherished plants at first, so I felt the smashed! Alec groaned despairingly as he selection of these required much thought. climbed down to investigate. “Now, if that We planned to have a well put down on isn’t hell,” he said when he saw the extent our farm at once to furnish water for our of the damage. “Oh, Alec, we’re in luck!” trees and plants. W e had been accustomed I cried, trying to pass over the incident all our lives to an abundance of water for lightly, “to have it happen here so close to every purpose and I had no cenception of a Utica— maybe we can find a blacksmith locality where there was none. there!” W e did find one, but he was in no In the spring of 1911 we prepared to move particular hurry to help us. W e had to to our new home. Our household goods we wait patiently. Nightfall found us still shipped by local freight to Big Sandy, while waiting, and we spent the night in our wag the family made ready to drive overland in on, which stood in the middle of the road, the wagon, taking the horses and chickens. exactly where the accident had occurred. As a protection against the weather Alec But all night I lay wide-eyed listening to the built up the back part of the wagonbox and chickens as they chattered discontentedly in roofed it over with a little peaked roof like their coops, the horses while they munched the gables of a house. Then to make it their hay and pawed restlessly, and occa waterproof I brought out a strip of white sionally a passing vehicle. oilcloth taken from the kitchen table and By noon the next day the wheel was ready. this he nailed in place over the roof. As W e started out once more, following the neither the boards nor the oilcloth were long road northward toward Windham and Stan enough to cover the space over the driver’s ford. But repairing the broken wheel had seat in front, it had to be left open and taken eight dollars from our scanty savings exposed. W e felt that the whole arrange and delayed us a whole day in our journey. ment would answer our purpose well enough, The weather was still threatening and the so why should we care how it looked? Like wind so raw and cold that, although it was two happy children we stowed blankets, May, I suffered intensely, my hands numb cooking utensils and food supplies inside; and blue, my teeth chattering; when I could two coops filled with chickens were wired no longer endure the cold I crept miserably to the back; a cart used as a trailer was from my seat and snuggled among the blan piled with hay for the horses, and Cap, the kets with the children. The mist had now young stallion, was tied to the rear of the thickened into a driving rain; Alec alone on trailer. As last minute touches, various pails, the wagon-seat drove stoically through the bags, and boxes were fastened on the outside falling rain, occasionally whistling forlornly, because there was no room within. or humming a bit of song to break the dreary On a cold gray morning, we started out silence, while I, crouched down in the crowd from the Philbrook Ranch and followed the ed space beneath the little roof, became rocky winding trail past the old S. S. Hobson deathly sick from the swaying and jolting Ranch toward Utica. The children— Willie, of the wagon, and for relief would climb aged four and but recently shorn of his long out, white and spent, upon the wagon-seat golden curls, carrying his little spool wagon; beside Alec until the rain and cold drove Julia, scarcely three, with a cherished rag me once more to the sheltered wagon-box. doll, and Hazel a scant year and a half, All the pleasure I had anticipated from the were tucked cozily into a nest of blankets journey faded away beneath the strain of in the sheltered part of the wagonbox, and physical weakness and discomfort. When I rode on the seat beside Alec. W e started night overtook us in the vicinity of Stanford, out gayly enough, even in the threatening it was a forlorn little party of travelers who weather, but the wind was so raw and cold drew the wagon up beside the walls of an and the jolting wagon so uncomfortable that unfinished building which sheltered us from traveling gypsy-fashion soon lost its novelty. the wind. There we spent the night. All W e had nearly reached the little inland through it the rain pattered down. As I lay town of Utica when the wagon struck a rock cramped and miserable, listening to the rain heavily, a tire flew off, and the wheel drops above us, I thanked our lucky fate 218 The Frontier for the table oilcloth nailed over our little wagon went over the brink. “But,” he said roof— we had come so near to starting out to Alec’s look of dismay, “we will take my without a shelter of any kind! wagon, down first and then bring the chains Next morning the rain had ceased and by back for yours.” noon the sky had cleared; our spirits rose So I, with the babies, waited anxiously at accordingly. I felt cheerful, even gay, as I the top while they took the first wagon rode again on the seat with Alec and we down. I prayed silently and with bated talked happily together. Both he and I had breath as they took the second wagon con been reared in the level plains country of taining the children and me over that dan the Mississippi Valley and were all unpre gerous trail; but happily for us all, we pared for the rough character of some of landed at the bottom without mishap. It the country through which we were to travel. was a merry little party which camped that Going northward from Stanford, I noticed night under the cottonwoods at the water’s during the afternoon a long, low line of what edge. The bright full moon came up over appeared to be the tops of chalky white the bluffs and smiled down at us as we ate bluffs coming into view in front of us. Won our supper from the top of a bale of hay, dering, I asked, “What can that be, Alec?” which, covered with a laundered flour-sack, Puzzled, he answered, “I, too, am wonder served for a table. The obliging stranger ing what it can be. Whatever it is, we shared our supper and our camp that night, will have to drive either through it or over but in the morning he left us and we never i t ; it is quite evident we cannot drive around saw him again. Always I feel it was the it.” compassionate intervention of an all-wise “ See that moving covered wagon?” I asked, Providence which delayed us at Utica and pointing eastward, “I have been watching so timed our journey as to be coincident with it for some time. It is steadily drawing that of the stranger who helped us, all un nearer to the road which we are following, prepared as we were, over this dangerous and I believe will soon come into this trail.” bit of the trail. So it proved; late in the afternoon the Our way now lay along the valley, through two wagons came together at the point where sagebrush and prairie-dog towns, past the the trails joined on the brink of the bad low rambling house of the Milner Ranch, lands which flank the Arrow River. Never overhung by the shadow of Square Butte had I seen a natural formation resembling and supplied with water from the mountain the badlands, so that, coming upon this side above; then out upon the bench again abruptly and unsuspectingly, I was mutely we followed the trail past the spot where astonished at the spectacle. Looking down the town of Geraldine now stands. A rail into this great gash in the earth’s surface, road has since been built through this sec worn by the erosion of centuries, beyond tion and towns have sprung up, but at the the weird, fantastic forms of butte, bluff time of our journey there were on the site and canyon, I could see the river far below which is now Geraldine only a lone ranch shining through the cottonwoods. It seemed house and sheep corrals known to us as the to me like a picture from an unknown Collins-Brady Ranch. This and the winding world. trail across the prairie were the only signs The stranger who drove the other wagon of human habitation we saw in all that day’s was courteous and friendly, as Alec inquired travel— just sky and earth, the ribbon of about the route through the badlands. “Have road and our solitary wagon— until in the you a roughlock?” asked the stranger; but evening we reached a dilapidated old build Alec, inexperienced, plainsbred man that he ing, once a pretentious structure, known lo was, had not even an ordinary brake on cally as the Halfway House. Here we his wagon. The stranger told him that be camped. The following morning the trail tween us and the river below was a two- led us over Frenchman’s Ridge, down through mile stretch of steep and extremely dan the rocky Shonkin canyon and across the gerous road, built and used by freighters, Missouri River bridge into Fort Benton. so narrow in places that occasionally a It was a Sunday morning and the rain The Frontier 219 had been steadily falling since daybreak. Big Sandy we found it the scene of much Because of the rain I rode in the shelter activity as busy settlers came and went, of the wagon-box. I was very weak and hauling out lumber for new little shacks, ill, and painfully aware of my own and the posts and wire for fences, and machinery to children’s untidiness. Alec parked the break the sod. wagon near the ruins of the historic fort Facing westward from Big Sandy we and went up town to make inquiries about drove twenty miles to the quarter section the road. I crept out upon the wagon-seat which was to be our home on the wide wind and sat there miserably in the falling rain. swept prairie; and just before sundown we The cool drops on my face heartened and stopped on the spot where our shack was to revived me, but I shivered with the damp be. Westward lay the Goosebill, long and ness and chill. Willie, my firstborn, came low ; northward the Sweetgrass hills on the and perched on the seat beside me, and tried Canadian border, crowned with snow; be in his babyish way to cheer me. W e must hind us the Bearpaws made a jagged line have presented a sorry appearance, but I against the sk y ; far to the south in the blue was too sick to care. A man came out of a distance loomed the Highwoods. The sun house across the way, walked past us twice, shone on the grass sparkling with raindrops; looking at us curiously, and then came over the wild sweetpeas nodded their yellow heads to the wagon. Imagine my surprise when in friendly greeting. As I looked across the a hearty voice said, “Hand down that little rolling expanse of prairie, fired with the fellow and come on over to the house; we beauty of a Montana sunset, I sent a little have a fire there and a hot dinner. Come prayer of thanksgiving up from my heart on over and have Sunday dinner with u s !” for this, our very first home! Only a rec “Oh, no,” I protested, “thanks a lot, but tangle of prairie sod, raw and untouched by we’ve been traveling all morning through the hand of man, but to us it was a kingdom. the rain and mud, and really we are too I loved the prairie, even while I feared dirty to go into anyone’s house!” it. God’s country, the old timers called it. “Oh, what’s a little mud? Come right There is something about it which gets a on !” he insisted, and carried the children man— or a woman. I feared its relentless to the house, so that I could do little else ness, its silence, and its sameness, even as but follow. When Alec returned to the I loved the tawny spread of its sundrenched wagon, he was surprised to find us gone, ridges, its shimmering waves of desert air, but he, too, was invited to the house. the terrific sweep of the untrammeled wind, “Do I know you?” Alec asked, astonished. burning stars in a midnight sky. Still in “I don’t know if you do or not,” was the my dreams I can feel the force of that wind, answer, “but it doesn’t make any difference. and hear its mournful wail around my shack Come on over and have dinner!” in the lonely hours of the night! How many How much we appreciated the warmth times I watched the stars at night, fires of and cheer of that hospitable home, none Heaven shining through, as I waited listen but a chilled and weary traveler can ever ing for the rumble of Alec’s wagon. know. Every detail of that dinner will re The rollicking wind promptly bowled our main in my memory while life shall last. tent over, that first night at our new home, As we left Fort Benton we followed the so again we slept in our wagon. The only valley of the Teton until we reached the water we had for any purpose was con point where the Marias empties into the tained in a gallon jug, and we did not know Missouri. Here we camped and again the how soon nor where we could get more. rain fell in a drenching downpour. All night Consequently, we drank sparingly and in long and a part of the next day it beat upon little sips, and bathed our hands and faces us. The next morning our team mired down in the dewy grass of the morning. W e never in the slippery mud of the canyon, and we could keep the tent up— but what matter?— had to pay a man two dollars from our fast our neighbor lent us the use of a little shack diminishing supply of cash to bring his team across the way until our own shack was and pull our wagon out. When we reached built. There we camped the first few weeks. 2 2 0 The Frontier We had no stove nor firewood that first coulee for water the cattlemen were holding day— no, I had not learned to burn cow- their last big roundup on that prairie since chips yet— that was an innovation which the homesteaders had taken their range; came later. Alec went back to town to bring they had established camp by the water-hole out our first load of lumber, and the chil and had just butchered a young steer. Here dren and I put on our wraps and, to keep was a bit of the old West about which I had out the chill, huddled beneath our blankets read— the branding iron on the smoldering in the shack. It took most of the day and fire, the rope corral, the chuck-wagon, the well into the night to make the trip into riders with wide sombreros, hairy “chaps” town and return with a load, so in the eve and jingling spurs! While we were filling ning I hung up a lighted lantern to guide our water-barrel one of the cowboys came Alec on his return to the shack. At first over, and with a grand sweep of his broad we set the kitchen range up out-of-doors, hat, smilingly proffered us a piece of the but rain and disagreeable weather made this freshly butchered beef. Could he have known impractical; then we moved it within, and how much we appreciated his gift, or by any since there was no hole in the roof, stuck chance have guessed how lean was the larder the pipe out through the little hole in the in the little shack at home? side which served for a window. The stove We worked happily at our building during and the folding-bed filled almost the entire every minute of our spare time; I held the space. There was no room for table or boards while Alec sawed and nailed them, chairs, so mostly when mealtime came we and in a few weeks, the new shack, fourteen stood and ate from the plates which we feet by twenty feet, with two windows and held in our hands. The walls were of un a door, was ready to move into. Joyfully matched lumber which let in the wind and I worked with rugs, curtains and other things rain, but at least over us there was a roof. dear to a woman’s heart, making it pretty W e were real Westerners now, and could and livable. not shrink from anything which was to be Alec plowed a small plot for a garden and our portion. I attempted the disheartening task of plant The greatest hardship of all was the scar ing it— disheartening because amid the hard city of water. The first settlers had dug dry chunks of sod I could find no loose soil wells, which eighty to ninety feet down for covering the seeds. Patiently I took up were still dry as dust. At first we were the sods one by one, and with my hands filled with dismay to find no water any pounded and shook soil from the matted where, sometimes we had none even to drink grass roots and carefully patted it over my until Alec bought a barrel which he filled seeds. But disillusionment sat heavy upon with water each day when in town and m e; as I worked the tears fell, and truly I brought home on top of his load of lumber. “watered my furrows with tears.” No more We had to stint ourselves extremely for rains came, the grass shriveled and dried up, water for bathing, and as for our clothing and shimmering heat-waves danced across I washed it a few pieces at a time in the the landscape. The only seeds in my garden wash-basin, because there was no water to which found moisture enough to grow were fill the tub! W e located some water-holes the beans, and then as soon as the seed- and coulees where occasionally we could get leaves appeared above the ground the chick water for our horses, but often we had to ens promptly snapped them off. My first go many miles for it. My throat constricted garden on the homestead became only a sad with pain when I thought of the well we memory. had planned with which I meant to irrigate How much I feared the rattlesnakes, not my lovely dream garden. It now seemed on my own account alone, but for the sake very remote indeed! Later a shallow well of my little children! I warned them re was dug in the coulee a mile away which peatedly as they played about the dooryard yielded us a small amount of water each to look out for “ugly creeping things” and day. to beware of buzzing noises. But we never Once that spring when we went to the saw any— not one! One day as Alec and I 221 The Frontier walked about our so-called garden we no into Alec’s wagon one day at the store; this ticed a great black beetle shambling along I carefully ripped open, washed, bleached among the clods and pointed it out to our in the sun, and pressed. I drew threads little son. Imagine how I felt when the painstakingly and made a drawnwork yoke little fellow shrank back, his face pale and of exquisite pattern, hemstitched ruffles for eyes round with fear as he gasped out, “A the neck and sleeves, and with a deep hem rattlesnake!” at the bottom it became a dainty little dress which with a sense of deepest satisfaction Life on the homestead was becoming a I laid away in readiness for my baby’s com serious problem to us now; our money was all gone and food supplies almost exhausted. ing. There was still a little flour, and a bit of Summer waned, and the frosty mornings lard, I remember. There was no yeast or and the calm sunshiny days of autumn came other leavening; for bread I mixed the flour on. Alec was to come for us soon, as he with water and a little lard, and baked it was making plans to take us to the Judith in small cakes. There was rice, but no Basin where he worked, so that I might sugar, so I put in a few raisins for sweeten have the care of a doctor and a nurse in ing. There was absolutely nothing else, so my hour of need. I wrote to Alec setting far as I can now recall. Alec was faced the date for his coming in early October, with the necessity of leaving his family on since I expected my baby in November, giv the homestead while he went in search of ing myself, or so I thought, ample time to work. I tried to be very brave, but my make the trip and get rested afterward. heart sank at the thought of facing life in Twenty-four hours after mailing that letter that lonely place without Alec. Many of our I was startled by premonitory pains of an neighbors, too, went away looking for work, alarming nature, and as they constantly re so that I was left very much alone except curred at decreasing intervals I became when some distant settler passed by, some more and more uneasy . . . Could I have times bringing my mail and supplies. At been mistaken in the time? . . . Could this times for days I saw no one; and then the be approaching childbirth? . . . Maybe if terrifying loneliness and silence of the great I rested quietly for awhile . . . maybe, o h ! prairie appalled me, and I sobbed aloud to maybe— no, there was no longer any doubt— shut out the eerie sound of the coyote’s wail, my baby would arrive before the letter could or the dreary soughing of the wind beneath reach Alec, before competent help could ever the eaves of my shack. I went to the coulee reach m e! . . . Pains oftener now, and more a mile away each day for water, and occa severe! . . . Heaven help me now, I must sionally the children and I made the trip think what to d o ! afoot to the store and postoffice; but as these Calmly I went about preparations; trying trips always left us all very much exhausted, hard to keep a firm grip upon myself, trying we did not attempt them often. Alec wrote hard not to become panicky. I must be every week, sometimes oftener, and his let brave; I must keep my head. Babies had ters were always a delight— long, and filled been born before like this . . . and every with details of his work and associations. thing was all right— oh, if I were only sure After one of his letters came I could forget what to d o ! If I only had someone— anyone, my loneliness and sing at my work for hours. to look to for help! I watched for a little boy I busied my mind and my hands with who occasionally rode past my shack in homely little tasks, making over garments search of his cows which roamed the prairie, for the children’s wear and preparing a and luckily tonight he came within calling layette for the new baby soon to come. I distance. “Johnnie, take this note to your sighed over the layette, for mostly it was mother!” “What is it, a party?” the boy composed of clothes which my other babies asked eagerly, as he took the note. “I want had worn, and I found myself longing in your mother— I need her help! Oh, please tensely for at least one new little garment hurry!” I gasped. The gray pony bounded for the precious darling. I had a large-sized forward and disappeared into the gathering sugar sack which had been carelessly tossed dusk. As darkness came on I put the chil 2 2 2 The Frontier dren to bed and waited tensely for the help and trundled it across the prairie to bring which must not fail m e! Prayerfully I home my sack of flour and other groceries. waited— and walked the floor listening, lis Always we were handicapped by the scar tening— almost in despair as my need grew city of water. Alec spent many long hours greater. Such a wave of relief surged over hauling water for our livestock and for me as I heard scurrying footsteps in the our domestic uses. W e lived on the home darkness! My sister-in-law arrived, fright stead during the spring and summer months; ened and tearful, and Mrs. Warren, capable, there was never money enough for us to motherly, master of the situation at once. spend a whole year there. The winters we An hour later my wee new daughter was spent in the Judith Basin in various ways born! and places at whatever work came to hand, Call it premonition or otherwise, Alec de but spring always found us returning like cided to surprise me by coming home much homing pigeons to the little shack on the sooner than I was expecting him, and at prairie, each year putting in more crops the same hour that I was waiting for help and adding to the improvements on the farm. to come in my desperate need, he was speed Many times we made the trip across country ing toward home as fast as a train could in our wagon, but later it had a canvas take him. The train pulled into Big Sandy cover in regulation “prairie schooner” style, a few minutes after midnight and Alec and for bad weather a stove. Once we start stepped out into the darkness without a ed out, after a week of balmy weather in moment’s pause and set afoot out to walk the March, only to be overtaken by a howling twenty miles to the shack on the great brown blizzard. For two days we drifted with the prairie, which held his loved ones. He ar wind and flying snow, so that the stove and rived home soon after daybreak, to find me fuel we had in the wagon saved us from in bed, flushed with happiness, a new-born probable freezing. daughter by my side. Two more boys were born to us, and then The children, wakened from their sleep in rapid succession two more daughters. The by Alec’s arrival, climbed upon him as he family prospered, so that at last we could sat on the edge of my bed and began open spend all our time on the homestead. W e ing the parcels he had brought to them; owned a car and the fourteen-by-twenty suddenly they discovered a tiny sister nes shack became a five-room cottage— but never tled in mother’s arms, whereupon they fell was it the home of our youthful dreams. upon Alec with fervent hugs and kisses, call My lovely garden, so soul-satisfying and en ing him “the dearest daddy in the world” chanting, was never aught but a beautiful for bringing them, besides new shoes and dream— the trees we planted pined away and stockings, a brand new baby sister! died for lack of water, while my flowers The settlers of our prairie were of many bent their frail heads and the brazen sun kinds and classes and had hailed from many turned them into nothingness. The war different states, both east and west, but we had come, bringing with it high prices for were all one great brotherhood. I f a man the farmer’s grain, and copious rainfall had had a homestead alongside the others, he blest the settlers’ efforts with bounteous har was accepted by all the others without ques vests. The four elevators of the prairie tion. W e helped one another; what one town were kept filled to overflowing with had, he shared with the next. If one man golden grain, and every day the golden flood owned a team, his neighbor some harness, poured in, hundreds of wagons waiting for and a third one a plow, they managed a freight cars, so that the farmers might take plowed strip for each of the three. Many turns unloading their precious cargoes. With were the makeshifts and privations which wheat at $1.87 a bushel and granaries and made us all kindred souls. One old man bins filled to bursting, the settlers bought bought a boy’s farm wagon which he used more land and high-priced machinery to to take his supplies home, another brought grow more and bigger crops “to help win the his things from town in a wheel-barrow, war.” But the bad years came when we while I, truth to tell, took my baby carriage staked our all on the caprice of the weather 223 The Frontier and a wheat crop which might never be icy mane and sent little eddies of drifting harvested. As drouth, weeds, cutworms, and snow across the frozen body. Two other hail-storms took their toll from the grain horses we lost that winter and each time I fields, the eager illuminating light of hope felt the loss keenly, as that of a valued died out of the settlers’ faces and gave place friend; but when spring came we still had to a look of morbid apathy and despair. nine left of our twelve— gaunt, shaggy crea We looked across the broad acres of stunted, tures, covered with vermin. shriveled crops, dotted with Russian thistles, The feed for my pigs gave out. When a and the mortgages mounted higher and the week had gone by I thought desperately of bankers clamored for their interest. trying to butcher the sorry little creatures. Then came a year when no rains fell and I wept over their plight, but my woman’s no crops grew, and the bewildered settlers nature quailed at the thought of undertak faced a winter with no money, no food, no ing the butchering alone with no help but clothing for their families, no feed of any Willie’s. At last my brother-in-law and two kind for their livestock, no work. Dumb neighbor lads came to help, but the day we with despair, the men set about finding some set for the butchering was bitter cold with means of providing for their families; most freezing blasts of snow-laden wind sweeping of them went away to work while the women out of the north. Scalding and scraping the and little children stayed on in the homes, pigs was a painful task as the water cooled carrying on as best they might. Alec found and changed to ice rapidly; but at last the a job on a ranch near Billings. When he eight of them were cleaned and scraped after went away I was left on the homestead once a fashion and left hanging in the shed more without him, but this time with nine while we ate our dinner. W e ate hurriedly, children instead three, the youngest a baby so as to return to our task before freezing three weeks old. interfered with cutting the meat into pieces Alec sent every dollar of his wages home for curing. But when one of the lads hur as fast as it was earned, yet with me the ried out ahead to examine the pigs he called winter was one long struggle with circum back, “They’re frozer’n hell right now !” stances to keep my family warmed and fed Stiffly swinging from the rafters, they hung and to save our horses from starvation. like graven images carved of stone; no knife Upon the horses depended our ability to put could penetrate the frozen forms. To save in one more crop. With the help of my fuel we moved the kitchen range into the twelve-year-old boy I braved the storms, large living room— here, too, had been placed waded snowdrifts to keep the horses fed, our beds— and here we carried the frozen and stood upon an icy platform in below- pigs and placed them in formidable array zero weather drawing water while the across the dining-table; they stood at vari horses crowded and pushed about the water ous rakish angles, each firmly upon his ing-trough. Topsy, the black mare, had a feet, ears outspread and tails extending stiff young colt running with her and we decided ly straight out behind, to be left until they it was best to wean the colt, so we shut him thawed out. I sat up late that night keeping in the barn, leaving the mare outside. But a brisk fire burning and writing a letter the faithful mother refused to desert her to Alec. It was so cold the timbers of the offspring and took up her post just outside house popped and the frost crept higher the barn door, calling to him in anxious and ever higher up the door. The hands of whinnies or soft nickers of love. All night the clock pointed almost to midnight Sud long she kept the vigil; refusing to seek denly I was startled by footsteps in the shelter for herself, she stood where the keen frozen snow and my name called in a fa blasts of an icy wind struck with fullest miliar voice. “Open the door quick! W e’ve force. When morning came Willie and I a girl out here who’s nearly frozen!” Hastily found her crumpled form in the snow by I opened the door and recognized Dan, a the barn door, frozen dead! Mother and friend of the family, and another man sup son, we wept together over the loss of a porting between them a slender young girl. faithful friend, while the wind ruffled the W e carried her inside, where I removed her 224 The Frontier thin shoes and rubbed her aching hands and all the long way from town behind the slow- feet. When she was warmed and resting moving sled. It was hours after dark be comfortably Dan turned about, glanced at fore I heard the jingling of the harness and my sleeping children in the cots, and then the creaking runners of the returning sleds. at the frozen pigs upon the table. “My The boy reached home shaking with cold and God!” he said. reeling with exhaustion. As I worked over The girl— a homesick child— had been at the wornout child, rubbing with snow his tending school in Big Sandy, and longing to numbed hands and frostbitten feet, my spend the Thanksgiving vacation with home mother’s heart swelled with fierce, hot rebel folks, had attempted a twenty-five mile ride lion over the fate which imposed such hard atop a load of coal, when the thermometer ship upon so young a child; I made a swift, stood at thirty degrees below zero. I took determined resolve not to let my children her into bed with me for the rest of the be crushed by the sordidness of circum night and the men went to a neighbor’s. stances, to secure for them their just mea Thanksgiving morning dawned clear and sure of the beauty and brightness of life, cold; the morning sun shone across a white and to make up to them by every means and frozen world lying crisp and still in the at my command for the privations they now endured. crinkling frosty air. The Russian thistles had caught the drifts and each was a hum December brought a Chinook and the snow mock of glittering snow— no sign of life in disappeared with the warm southwest wind the white expanse except the smoke which like ice beneath a July sun. Water filled curled lazily upward from the housetops the puddles, overflowed the ponds, and dotting the prairie. My little guest of the rushed in torrents down the coulees. No night before continued her journey that day longer need I worry about hauling water, for and reached home in time to partake of the rest of that season at least! Thanksgiving dinner with home folks. Christmas day the neighbors gathered at One of my greatest problems was bringing my home for a community Christmas dinner. supplies from town, especially hay and fuel. None had much, but all brought something, Never having money enough at a time to and assembled, it seemed an abundance. buy any great quantity, I lived in abject Jollity, friendship and good-will radiated terror of exhausting my supply before I from the fun-loving crowd, the day being could get more. Alec wrote: “I f your fuel shadowed for me only by the lack of Alec’s gives out, burn the fence posts, tear boards presence. It was but one of many good from the barn and burn them, burn anything times the community shared together. about the place— don’t take any chances of Alec returned with the coming of spring freezing!” Sometimes when food supplies and together we planned the planting of one ran low I was driven to parcelling out our more crop. During the long winter months meals in bits, and at times the pinched, ill- another plan had been slowly forming in nourished look on the faces of my children my mind, a plan to which I gained Alec’s made me sick with apprehension. Once in reluctant consent. Leaving my nine-months- the coldest weather it was imperative that old baby in the care of a neighbor, I washed we get supplies from town. I hesitated to and pressed my one dress, mended the only send my boy, small and frail as he was, but shoes I possessed, and in a shabby black there seemed no other way. Pridefully, man coat and khaki hat I went to town to write fully, he set out with the team and sled, in the examinations for a Montana teacher’s company with his uncle, to bring hay, coal, certificate. Timidly at first, then glowingly potatoes, flour and sugar— there was little as I warmed to my subjects, I wrote and else we could afford to buy. The roads were wrote; and then feverishly awaited the re piled with frozen drifts so that bringing out turns from Helena. When I was once more a loaded sled was a slow and tedious matter, the happy possessor of a teacher’s certifi and the boy, inadequately clothed and with cate I went to my local board of trustees ragged overshoes many sizes too large, and asked for a position, and they were too walked stumblingly through the snowdrifts surprised to say “no.” Three years I taught. 225 The Frontier my own and my neighbors’ children and hopes and a woman’s dreams . . . We have some of the happiest hours of my life were no regrets; life is fuller and sweeter through spent in that tiny prairie schoolhouse where lessons learned in privation, and around our zealously I tried, out of my own knowledge homestead days some of life’s fondest mem and experience, to bring beauty and joy into ories still cling. W e are of Montana, now the lives of the thirty-three children whose and always; boosters still— and in a fair only experiences had been those of the drab valley of western Montana where the melt life on the bleak prairie. All the love I ing snows of the Mission Range trickle out put into my work there has been returned in clear streams across the thirsty land, our to me a thousand fold. The money I earned dreams of the long ago are slowly taking on helped to feed and clothe my family and life. The grass grows green about my door started my boy to high school. step, the vines clamber about my porch, the flowers bloom, the birds sing, and Alec’s Courageously but hopelessly the settlers much-loved Brown Swiss cattle graze in struggled on, trying vainly with borrowed lush fields. The little children who shared money to battle the elements, to tame thj the privations of homestead life— three sons desert, and to carve home and fortune out and seven daughters— are growing into a of the raw land. Then came the grass splendid family, a pride and a blessing every hoppers, newly hatched, swarming out of the one. In the past six years five of them have unplowed fields and covering the growing graduated from the local high school, one crops with a gray, slimy, creeping cloud is a member of the senior class, and two are which hour by hour steadily advanced, wip freshmen; one is a business college gradu ing out the greenness of the land, leaving ate and two have graduated from a state only dry, bare clods in the fields. Despair normal school. Tonight, as I write, the over the ravaged crops filled the farmer’s mellow glow of our electric lights shines hearts. over our happy home circle, the rooms vi On the billowing, russet prairie stands an brant from the tinkle of a piano, the me empty farmhouse, its windows gone and lodious wail of a violin, and the lilt of happy doors sagging; beneath its eaves the wind youthful voices. I feel that creating a home soughs mournfully, the desert sand drifts and rearing a family in Montana has been around its doorstep, and the Russian thistle a grand success, and my cup seems filled to tumbles past. Desolate, silent it stands— overflowing with the sweetness and joy of grim witness to the frustration of a man’s living. TRAILS S teve H ogan The hills are gaunt As starved cattle after a blizzard; And dark As sagebrush plains powdered with dusk. Dim, dun scars, Trails scuffed in the rock By the boots of prospectors and horses’ hoofs, Are as half-forgotten dreams. Above the timber line The limestone peaks Are ghosts of dreams Of dreamers long since dead. Perhaps their souls passed over the hazy trails Back-tracking. 2 2 6 The Frontier f ------—— ------HISTORICAL SECTION Each issue will carry some authentic account, diary or journal or reminiscence, preferably of early days in this region of the country. WAR DEPARTMENT RECORDS E dited b y L loyd L eh rbas I. “ Arrived: All Well” consequently several hundred miles in ad The Journal of Captain Medorem Crawford, vance of the rear portion of the emigration. U. 8. Army, Assistant Quartermaster, Feeling it to be my duty to protect the rear Overland Wagon Train, 1862 (which is always the weakest), I did not hasten on the first part of the trip, but urged Note: This is a plain, unvarnished story of the long journey by wagon-train from Omaha, upon the emigrants with whom I fell in as Nebraska, then the frontier post of the wilder ness, across the sagebrush plains and prairies I proceeded, the necessity of husbanding the of Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, and Oregon to strength of their teams so as to be able to Portland as told in Captain Crawford’s own simple, matter-of-fact language. It gives a perform the journey over the barren stretches graphic picture of how pioneers settled the great West despite Indians, the hardships of of the Great Snake River Desert, the neces the more than four months’ trek over desert and mountains, and their unpreparedness. This sity for which my last year’s experience had expedition consisted of 125 wagons with 300 taught me. pioneers and made' the trip from June 16 to October 30, 1862. I soon found that a large proportion of IR : The duty of conducting an escort the emigrants had started for the Salmon for the protection of emigrants to the River mines under the very erroneous im S Oregon country having been assigned pression as to the locality of the mines. A me by the Secretary of War, and having guide of the route had been published and performed that service, arriving all well, I extensively circulated on the frontier, repre deem it my duty, as it is certainly my senting those mines as being within 180 miles pleasure, to report to you the principal inci of Fort Hall, but not giving the locality of dents of the trip. the road. They did say: Good grass and plenty of water all the way. After organizing my company, procuring my transportation and provisions, etc., I left Under this false impression many emi Omaha, Nebr. Ter., on the 16th of June, grants had overloaded their wagons and 1862. My company consisted of fifty mount taxed their horses beyond their strength, ed men, armed with rifles and revolvers, who and so positive were they that they could were instructed in the duties of sentinels and reach the mines without making the hard drilled in the simpler evolutions of cavalry and difficult journey down the Snake River, tactics. As you know, because of the Re that many of them disregarded my counsel, bellion, I had small choice of men. which was to dispense with comparatively Our route lay on the north side of and useless articles with which they were en immediately along the River Platte, up the cumbered. Sweetwater, over the Lander road to near The result was that as soon as we left Fort Hall in Idaho Territory, and thence the valley of the Platte and encountered the to the south side of the Snake River to heavy sand and hills their teams and wagons Fort Walla Walla, Washington, Territory. began to fail and break down. They then The movement westward was very large. found it necessary to do what I had earnestly Emigrants to Oregon, Washington Territory, advised long before— dispose of heavy and Great Salt Lake in the country of the Mor useless articles— but unfortunately, it was mons, California, and Denver were on this too late to save many of the horses. They road. Some had started in April, and were dropped, too weak to struggle on, were cut 227 The Frontier from the harness and killed, and left to slain by Indians and that while they were bleach their bones on the sage plains. being massacred by the war-whooping sav From the sand hills to Powder River ages twenty armed men from the same wag article after article of furniture was tossed on-train stood upon a hill nearby and made out on the prairie, and wagon after wagon no attempt to rescue their comrades. had to be left behind as the horses died, and There are strong reasons for believing that scarcely a camping place was left without white men bore a part in this massacre. some evidence of property abandoned. Between Fort Hall and the Raft River The large number of teams and wagons we found the graves of four men supposed ahead of us had cut up the road to such an to have been killed by Indians on the 9th extent that the dust was very deep and the of August. After crossing Raft River we alkaline properties in the clouds of it which found the grave of a Miss Adams who was swept up from the hoofs of the horses was shot on the 9th and died on the 12th. W e fatal to the cattle the emigrants were driving passed here on the 31st of August, twenty- to their new homes. There were over forty two days after the attack. At about the head of dead cattle between the Owyhee same time a Mr. Phillips left his wagon- and Malheur rivers, a distance of sixteen train to go fishing, alone and unarmed, and miles, and we found the proportion, as shown was taken by Indians and is supposed to by bleaching bones, nearly as great all along have been killed. This happened near Goose the Snake River. Creek. The first evidence we saw of Indian dep It will be seen that the number killed, of redations was a grave at the crossing whom we have positive information, is about of the New Fork of Green River. From the fifteen. No emigrants have at any time been inscription placed upon it we learned that troubled by Indians while in the vicinity of Patrick Moran, of Missouri, was killed by my escort, but from the disposition shown Indians on the 18th of July, and two men by the savages toward the advance parties were wounded. W e passed this spot the it is easy to see that the later and weaker 11th of August, about three weeks after, at parties would have been easily cut off had it not been for the protection afforded them which time no Indians were to be seen. The next grave was on LaBarge Creek, by the Government. in the Bear River Mountains, on the head- Near Old Fort Hall, which was a Hudson Bay trading post, a ferry has been estab board of which was the following: “Opened by Kavanaugh’s train on the 27th lished across the Snake River, and many of July, 1862. The body of a man found emigrants, fired by the news of gold dis too badly decayed for removal. One shot coveries, had crossed to search for the mines. Some went to Fort Lemhi, others to the in the temple and an arrow wound. Sup Deer Lodge Prairie, while still others went posed to have been killed by Indians.” On the 25th day of August we passed the along the north side of the Snake and re- graves of several persons. One was that of crossed that stream at Boise. From what was told me I am satisfied an unknown man found by Captain Glenn’s that many were induced to cross at Fort party on August 13. He had been shot in the Hall by the representations of these ferry back of the head with buckshot. Three miles farther there were five graves, men, and their information turned out to be unreliable. About twenty wagons which had side by side, of persons supposed to have crossed and met a returning party, were been killed by Indians. On the little pine- boards that had been placed over their induced to recross and join those who were heads were their names: Rufus C. Mitchell, already under my escort. N. Howie, James Steel, David Whitmer, and At this point I had 125 wagons of emi Frank Sessions. This was in the vicinity of grants under my charge, and I found that Fort Hall, Idaho Territory, and happened many of their teams were so weak that they on the 9th of August, we passing on the could not travel over ten miles a day, while 25th. W e learned from the ferryman on others were able to proceed faster. In order the Snake River that these five men were to give protection to all I divided my com 228 The Frontier pany, placing the advance party in charge cise point at which that river should be of my principal assistant, Mr. LeRoy Craw crossed I am not prepared to decide. I ford, while I remained with the rear and know there is a good road from near Salmon weaker party. Falls to Boise, having traveled down on that On the 8th of September we were greeted route in the year 1842, but as to the char by the welcome sight of the command of acter of the country above that point on the Col. Reuben F. Maury of First Oregon Cav north side, I have no reliable information. alry Volunteers, encamped on the river near The recent gold discoveries on Boise River the falls of the Snake, with the American will doubtless attract large parties from the flag flying from their tents. Their head States next season. Should such be the quarters are at Fort Walla Walla, Wash case, and large numbers of emigrants with ington Territory, five hundred miles hence, their families flock to that country, I fear and they marched to the Falls through the that unless some protection is furnished by Bruneau River and Owyhee River country. the Government the Indians will make an Very few Indians were seen on their march indiscriminate slaughter. and they had no communication with any, I have the honor to report we have arrived, although reports were current on the Owyhee all well, and to be, that eight or nine emigrants had been Very respectfully, your obedient servant, scalped by the savages and gold to the MEDOREM CRAWFORD, Captain amount of $8,000 stolen. and Assistant Quartermaster. At the Falls it was reported that a council of war was being held somewhere in the II. “We Had a Fight” vicinity to decide whether or not the Snakes Note: This is a routine military report from Captain L. L. Williams, First Oregon Infantry, or Bannock should go to war with the of an engagement between Indians and a small detachment of U. S. troops on Selvie’s River Blackfeet. in Oregon Territory on September 23, 1865. From the Falls of the Snake my journey The original report is one of many hundred piled in dusty, unread rows in the archives of was extremely slow. Many of the emigrants the War Department in Washington, contain ing vivid descriptions, although told in the were short of provisions, which deficiency I fighting man’s plain, unembroidered language, had to supply. Others had difficulties among of the innumerable Indian fights on the western frontier which are still unrecorded pages of themselves which I was obliged to settle. American history. The Civil War at the same period detracted attention at the time, and The grass was very scarce, and their stock time itself and the dust of all the years have would scatter during the night, so that fre kept them unknown. quently my men would have to spend hours “To the Commanding Officer. looking for them in the morning. We cured “Sir: I have the honor to report that we their sick, fed their destitute, hunted, and had a fight with Indians (12 men of Com in some instances drove their teams, mended pany H under my command, and 75 or 100 their wagons, hauled their goods, settled Indians of Harney Lake Valley) which com their disputes, and kept them moving on to menced at 12 noon on September 23 and Oregon. ended at 7 p. m. the same day. In the morn Two men died along the route and one was ing of that day I set out with my men from drowned in Snake River. With these excep camp on the Selvie’s River to scout a few tions every man, woman and child that had miles down the valley to locate a permanent traveled under my escort reached the settle camp, and to search for a place to cut wild ments in safety. hay for our horses. We proceeded down From the best information in my posses^ the valley 7 miles, when we discovered the sion I estimate the emigration to Oregon and fresh trail of two Indians on foot going in Washington Territory this year at 10,000 the direction of Harney Lake. Following souls, about 4,000 of whom I think crossed the trail a short distance, the Indians were the Snake River at the Fort Hall ferry. discovered about one mile distant entering From my own observation I am satisfied a sagebrush plain. that a better road for emigrants may be “W e immediately gave chase, not expecting found on the north side of Snake River to overtake them, but soon discovered that than the one on the south side. The pre one appeared to be a young boy of 9 or 10 229 The Frontier years, who impeded their progress, so that and ascended the mountain at the very place we soon found ourselves gaining on them. for which we were striving, and we had the After a pursuit of nearly 7 miles, and when mortification of seeing them take position in within long range of our guns, they were the rocks to cut us down if we advanced. met by two mounted Indians from the oppo At this time I could see but one alternative, site side of the sage plain. The mounted and that was to turn direct to the right and Indians quickly swung them up on their travel parallel to the mountain, and make horses, riding double, and made good their for Selvie’s river some five miles off. escape. “The men were almost exhausted, their “W e had been marching at double quick lips parched with thirst, and the entire dis over the sagebrush plain for seven miles and tance to the river was one level, sandy sage consequently the men were very tired. I plain. As we turned the Indians pursued therefore ordered a rest, placing two sen us, most of them along the foot of the moun tinels to guard the camp. W e rested for an tain to our left. I now placed Corporal hour, and that hour’s delay came near Johnson to guard the left flank and Private proving fatal to the entire scouting party. McPherson to guard the rear, the places “A solitary Indian, mounted on a fine gray from which the most danger came, and the horse, suddenly appeared in sight, and riding men were ordered in single file, fifteen paces at full-speed completely circled, discov apart, and parallel to the mountain. In this ered our number. Galloping off a half-mile manner we marched to Selvie’s River with he fired his gun and sounded the war-whoop. a constant shower of bullets falling among Almost immediately we discovered 13 mount us or whistling over our heads. ed Indians riding toward us rapidly, and as “The sagebrush In many places, being of that was just our number, we had no fears heavy growth, gave the Indians favorable for our own safety. As they came up they opportunities, and some of them sneaked in circled us on every side firing into our to fire at us from 75 to 100 yards, the ranks. W e promptly returned the fire but, Indians immediately fading away again in as we were 16 miles from camp, we now the brush. On approaching the river Private turned toward camp and steered straight Alexander Griffin was severely wounded in for a high mountain point which lay directly the left hip but continued to hobble along between us and camp, and which would make unaided. the distance much nearer than to go around “As we reached the willows on the river the mountain. the Indians struck the river above and be “The Indians kept up their firing and howl low us. My men were so tired they could ing, and were soon reinforced by 20 or 30 scarcely march* and nearly choked with horsemen and 25 or more foot-men, who thirst. My mouth was so parched that I joined in the conflict. W e were in a hornet’s could scarcely give command. I ordered nest with Indians on every side, horse and three men through the stream to protect our foot mixed up promiscuously, and firing be front without a moment’s pause. Three came very brisk front, flank, and rear; but others were faced about to guard the rear. we kept them at a distance of 250 to 500 The remainder took a hasty drink and then yards with our long range rifles. relieved the men on guard. “We were still moving directly for the mountain, believing that we would be safe “Our delay at the stream was not over if we could reach i t ; at least, if it gave one and a half minutes, and at the command us no other advantage it would be the most ‘fall in on the east side’ every man was direct route to our camp where we had re instantly at his post, and we marched at inforcements. The firing was brisk on both double quick for about three hundred yards sides. The bullets were whizzing among us. from the willows along the stream to an We were not sufficient in numbers to protect open, level plain. A few horsemen were in all our sides at one time. front of us but the bulk of the Indians had “When within half a mile of the mountain halted along the stream. W e now turned up some 20 or 25 horsemen fell in ahead of us the valley in the direction of our camp un 230 The Frontier der a brisk fire from the enemy. Private for some distance made it impossible for us Smith was at this time slightly wounded to move toward our camp without placing us in the left foot. directly between the Indians in the willows “It was now about sundown, and our camp along the river and the blazing fires on the still four miles off— so far that we could prairie. I could see no other way of escape not hope that the troops in camp would than to double back on our track, which hear our guns. After sundown a mounted was accordingly done by double-quicking it Indian with a blazing torch struck out from out of our position and placing the Indians the river and fired the grass over a stretch between us and the fire and making them the two miles in length, and since it was in our better targets. line of march, cutting us off from camp. We “We traveled four or five miles in a course continued to push on, however (heavy firing directly away from our camp and then made kept up by both sides all of the time), passed a large circle to the northward and finally through the fire line safely, and maneuvered gained our camp successfully at 2 a. m. on to strike the river two miles and a half be the morning of the 24th, having traveled 45 low our camp. miles afoot without food, with one drink of “The ground was level, no very high grass, water, and having been under fire for over and but little sage brush. Soon we were seven hours by Indians who outnumbered us sure they would hear the firing in our camp six or seven to one. For over 15 miles we and we would receive reinforcements, and trudged through a sandy sagebrush plain we all breathed a good deal easier although with bad going. there was still some danger as they occa “It is certain that we killed fifteen Indians sionally fired whole volleys at us, and the and wounded a number, as well as horsea bullets peppered the grass around us and Our two wounded were brought in safely. went whistling by dangerously close. The men all acquitted themselves creditably. “Just at this time I was stunned by a Not an order or command was given but volley of five or six shots from directly in what it was instantly obeyed. Corporal front of us. I looked around expecting to Johnson and Private McPherson are entitled see one-half of my men fall dead, but none to great credit for their valuable services, were hit, by a miracle. The men were at without which the whole detachment might once ordered into a sink-hole on our left at have been wiped out. Our long range rifles sufficient depth to hide them. From this and superior marksmanship gave us advan position we had several good shots, not over tages that rendered their superior numbers sixty yards distant, at those who fired the far less formidable than if we had been last volley, and we made them pay for it. armed with ordinary rifles. I am very re “In this position, with a living circle of spectfully your obedient srevant, fire around us, I rested the men a half-hour. L. L. WILLIAMS It was now dark but the light from the Captain, prairie fire extending up and down the river Commanding Detachment” FANTASY Catherine Stuart Macleod Over the dark night Blossom-laden Peace has descended: Limbs sway gently Jasmine bells ring softly In a white jade Their fainter perfume; cascade Magnolias are heavy with down fragrance. Their to the silvery tide. 231 The Frontier BOOK SHELF * Under the Editorship of Pat V. Morrissette In Tragic Life. Vardis Fisher. Caxton in its soberness, and its heralded acceptances of “the facts of life,” but in the acceptance Printers. 1932. $2.50. of a method of presentation which brings The evidences of sincerity, fullness, pas the modern novel back to a resemblance of sion and truth are everywhere apparent in an epic in which a central figure lives, grows, Vardis Fisher’s novel In Tragic Life. With and reaches some freedom by coming to grips his willingness to recognize and to express with life. the pain, the futility, the suffering and the Eugene, Oregon Pat V. Morrissette disgusts of life there can be no reasonable quarrel, for these things are patent in the Portulacas in the Wheat Grace Stone facts of existence; blood, death and disap Coates. Caxton Printers. 1932. $1.50. pointments are not startling facts which To go directly and simply to the central catch the mature mind unawares. Certainly significance of this book of poetry is as in his peaceful acceptance of these troubling difficult a thing to do as to slap the back of pains, in his quiet concern for character a porcupine with unaffected friendliness. and locale, this novelist may be compared There are so many sharp and various points, to Thomas Hardy. And even further, in the so many contradictory angles, that each poem lyric suffering of his central character, there must be considered a thing in itself, and is some of the insight and concern and some must not be related to the rest in the hope of the poetry of disillusionment which also of finding some underlying philosophy. In sustains George Meredith. Or possibly one Toward Wisdom we are advised in musical might compare for its fullness of treatment language of the importance of the aware this book to W olf Solent, and find it not ness of sensation in the understanding and unequal for depth. What charge can be the appreciation of life. This theme is car brought against an author who is sincere? ried forward in the contemplation of the Against an author who has obviously tried to beautiful wild blossoms (the Portulacas) stick to the facts, and who has obviously which are found in the wheat. The same adopted and accepted methods of realism, and theme helps us to understand those poems added to them the dignity of a passionate whose inspiration is based upon an aware spirit? To reach a partial evaluation, even, ness of Nature, for instance, April Hills, of such a novel one is thrown upon a con Possess the Day, ConUng. But somewhere sideration of the premises upon which it is as we read we see that Mrs. Coates turns based, and not upon an examination of the away from sensation as the basis of her thing in itself, as the book readily falls into poetry. For the pure feeling of Hills we have the type of the realistic novel as it was an exchanged the imaginative flight of White ciently nurtured by Zola. Is such realism Magic; then from the fancy of this poem we adequate for the portrayal of life? Realism are plunged into a study of character, of a is highly selective, and that realism which poem on the affections. We are lulled into we find in Hardy, Zola and Fisher tends to a sweet contemplation of life, and then rudely select the lyric suffering of life, and tends pierced with an epigram. We are urged to to avoid its lyric happiness. Then what seek the illusion of life in its beauty, and about the thesis? Is life tragic? Must we then we are shocked into an awakening by accept the brutalities, the disgusts, the dis a poem of harsh and bitter disillusionment. appointments of life as tragic? If we do so Sensation, fancy, pure feeling, thought, jostle we must eliminate an opposite view such as for the center of the stage, and one after the George Meredith (who supplies the title of other attain their goal. Irony, bitterness, the book) held when he outlined for us the joy, rebellion, submission, thumb noses at idea of the Comic Spirit. We must also each other. There is the speech of realism dismiss the aloof, intellectual and ironic in Eagles and Catbirds, Country Doctor. laughter of Samuel Butler, who puts the There is the mark of the Latin epigram in difficulties of youth into a more intellectual, Sophistication, short enough to be quoted: harder perspective. We must dismiss the “A very hard green little peach,” he mused, Rabelaisians who laughed, and still laugh, “ Unmelloiced yet by life, and like as not and drink blood and call it good red wine. “Never to ripenbut the place he bruised There is a divine comedy in our pains and Developed from his touch a rotten spot. errors, and tragedy only in our thick stupid ity which keeps us from smiling at ourselves. The result of this variety is not confusion The value of this novel, I believe, lies not but the very spirit of delight. Our sallies 232 The Frontier to get at some consistent philosophy of life Oklahoma reservation of the Osages, who fall short, but every poem calls to be read watched over their interests in the transi again. Indeed, she is like the Caltrop: tion stage from wildness to “civilization”— Bed her as you will, in triple in this case attended by wealth from oil Self-advantage, compliment, fields. The disillusion of the man who be And creature comfort— thrust intent lieved of his wards “that if they were al Her fourth spike waits for a foot to cripple. lowed to develop in their own way and Eugene, Oregon Pat V. Morrissette retain their admirable characteristics, they Wah’kon-Tah. John Joseph Mathews. Uni might add brilliance to the brilliance which versity of Oklahoma Press. 1932. $2.50. he felt sure would some day be America’s” A new approach to a very old problem is implicit in the process, though lightly may be found in the pages of this volume— stated. Long before Chapter Nineteen is provided the reader himself enjoys detach reached, with its quiet, half ironical portrait ment, restraint and an absence of “hokum.” of the improved Indian, made over from the Otherwise the book chosen by the Literary spiritually aware “savage” to the stout and Guild as its offering for December may fall comfortable owner of over-stuffed furniture short, in a time of taut social relations and and machines-that-run-by-themselves (with rasped nerves, as a literary cocktail. For negro chauffeurs), the result of the impact there is neither cheap sentiment nor noisy appears—inevitably, of course. Eagle-That- controversy in its pages; perhaps its greatest Dreams still rises in the still dawn to pray excellence is its apparent absence of problem. to Wah-Tze-Go—the sun, the grandfather— The ease with which this unheated relation “that my feet may go along road that is of the story of the Great Osage nation straight,” even though he rises from a twin avoids both the tiresome wrangling and the bed to do so. One feels certain that his shallow sentimentalism most often present immaculately dressed son, whose “black hair in contributions to racial literature at once was slicked down till it shone like black releases tension, rather than increasing it; leather” will not do so—whatever that may and the fact that it is a member of a “sub mean in loss of spiritual values, if there merged” race who can thus afford to be be loss. The problem is no less poignant magnanimous to the white man makes it all through understatement . . . Still, there is a the more interesting—though not entirely goodly crew of imitation white men to offset surprising to students of racial traits. There any debits. And since “that which the chil is embodied in its pages the dream of a man, dren of Earth do not comprehend as they the large-hearted Major Laban J. Miles, who travel the roads of Earth, and which becomes cherished a belief that the qualities of his clear to them only when they have passed on own race might be tempered acceptably by the Great Mysteries is Wah’Kon-Tah,” it is inclusion of the finest virtues of the native Wah’Kon-Tah, no doubt, who will solve the American—his dignity, sincerity and stoic problems of these children of earth also. endurance of pain—at the same time the red The style and diction of the book are man was shedding some of the cruelties and worth comment. It is possible that the ar crudities of his own ancient practice. Wah’- tistic enfranchisement of the red man may Kon-Tah, sub-titled “The Osage and the follow as naturally as that of the black in White Man’s Road,” presents, quite undra music and poetry, which has taken place so ma tically, an impact between two races. gradually during the last decade. The writer Its quiet pages, proceeding through a series of the present book is a member of the Osage of illuminated sketches rather than by con tribe, with the culture of America and Eng nected narrative, still manages to present land superadded. The fine clear printing with clarity, and without bitterness, the re of the book loses nothing of its interest. sult of this impact There is little detail as Eugene, Oregon Alice Henson Ernst to ritual and ceremonial, and much as to Indian Removal. The Emigration of the the moods and life of the prairie. It is the Five Civilized Tribes of Indians. Grant Indian rooted in his native blackjack hills Foreman. University of Oklahoma Press. that appears, with his uncanny kinship with 1932. creatures of wood and prairie. There is This book is an account of the removal little of the starch of fact: (Notes as to of the five “civilized” tribes of southern history of the removal of the Great Osage Indians to Indian Territory. These tribes nation from its original home in what is were the Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, now Missouri to its present location, with Cherokees, and Seminoles. About 1830, when record of treaties with the United States the government began its policy of removal, government reside in an appendix) ; but these Indians had comfortable homes and there is much about people: character were prosperous farmers. Within ten years sketches of this chief or that— wise or vain, the Whites stripped them of all their prop proud or amiable. Most of all, the character erty, drove them from their country, demor of the key-figure emerges: the Major Laban alized them, and broke their spirit. Miles mentioned, for many years agent on the The material for this book was drawn 233 The Frontier from government documents, published and ters, and that he was platitudinous to an unpublished, from contemporary newspapers, extreme, crude in his tastes, and narrowly from reports of missionaries, and from letters moralistic, it must still be said that in his and journals of spectators and participants. unabashed slouchiness, his continually eyeing The author apparently studied every avail of the main chance, and his almost domestic able source of information. animal delight in easily won attention, he is The plan of the book is to give a detailed thoroughly representative of his period, and and chronological account of the removal of as such merits some study if only that he each of the five tribes. The author expresses may be kept in mind for what he really was no personal feeling and uses few adjectives. and did. For it is partly by contemplation He presents cumulative evidence that forms of the folk-strands of our past, no matter a terrific indictment of the cruelty and fraud how unflattering they may prove, that we by which the white traders and speculators shall design and weave for ourselves a in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi were worthy future. ruining the Indians. These men were steal Mr. Cyril Clemens, president of the Inter ing the land and other property of these In national Mark Twain Society, and a relative dians and were supported in their sordid of our greatest humorist, was obviously the conduct by the state governments. President man to undertake the long overdue memoir Jackson, Lewis Cass, and others high in of of Josh Billings. Though he is no expert fice showed a cynical indifference in fulfill workman in the literary trade, he has per ing the promises of protection and justice formed his self-imposed task with sincerity which they had made. For the homes and and devotion, and with genuine affection farms the Indians were compelled to sur for his subject. Somehow or other the very render they were promised money, clothing, qualities of unskillfulness and rough finish food, and new homes. The evidence shows in his book render it all the more appropriate that the government and the greedy con as the life story of one who made a virtue tractors who removed them exposed them to of being relatively unlettered. Nothing like hunger, nakedness, and disease. The only so much can be said for the Introduction to bright spot is the sympathy of the Army, the volume supplied by Mr. Rupert Hughes. who sought to mitigate their sufferings. That is a piece of inexcusably sloppy writing. The book is not pleasant reading. It is, Portland, Oregon V. L. O. Chittick however, a scholarly contribution to the his Wheat Women. Nard Jones. Duffield and tory of the relations of Whites and Indians, Green. 1933. $2.00. and demands attention from all students of The wheat country of eastern Washington our Indian problem. Mr. Jones is rapidly making his own literary Missoula,, Montana Paul C. Phillips territory. Whenever he writes of it his un Josh Billings, Yankee Humorist. By Cyril derstanding becomes clear, his dramatic Clemens. International Mark Twain Society. sense tense, his satirical power effective, and 1933. $2.00. his imagination lyrical. In this latest story, When the sayings of a man who spoke which is by far the best, in developing nar and wrote under an assumed name have been rative interest and in the comprehending por held in grateful memory by the public for trayal of persons, of his three published nov close to seventy-five years it is perhaps high els, the burning of the wheat, which comes time to dedicate a memorial to him disclosing as a natural crisis in the story, is strongly his actual name. People, pretty generally, imagined and both dramatically presented. have forgotten, if they ever knew, that Henry Its power even carries the melodrama, and Wheeler Shaw was born in Lanceboro, Mass the horror, of the wife-beating that it im achusetts, in 1818, and died in Monterey, mediately leads into. Mr. Jones has likewise California, in 1885, and that in between these made good progress since the writing of dates he lived the typical life of his times, his last novel, in the shaping of a sustained as a Yankee rover in the pioneer west, as an story and the conduct of it convincingly Ohio river steamboat owner, as a real estate sweeping it into action, steadily developing agent and auctioneer, and finally as an itin it to a major crisis, and resolving it into its erant popular lecturer. But nearly every one significance. has heard of Josh Billings, laughter-maker The story is really Todd Lynch’s and not to the post-Civil War nation, retailer of the wheat women’s. It relates the settling homespun wisdom, and near-genius in the of land by Jackson Lynch, the continued art of grotesque spelling; or, at least, on one rooting in it of Todd Lynch, followed by John occasion or another, has heard quoted with Lynch’s irresistible pull back to it. Todd approval his: “It is better to know less than Lynch, inarticulate except when roused to to know so much that ain’t so.” And for great anger, simple in philosophy as in eco such reasons as these he seems deserving of nomics-trusting the earth and its principle a biography. Even if it be pointed out, as of reward for labor as sufficient light for it well might be, that he belongs definitely his life, working prodigiously with his first to the low-brow tradition of American let wife and endeavoring to live as a retired 234 The Frontier country gentleman in a wheat town (Walla of Father Kino, greatest of the Jesuit pio Walla) with his second wife, thirty years neers in western North America, through younger than he and a fleshly lure, and whose achievements Pimeria Alta (northern finding in it only senility until the depression Sonora and southern Arizona) was opened of wheat prices forces him to the harvest to Spanish penetration. Over a decade ago fields, solid, sensible, indulgent, tolerant, Professor Bolton translated and edited Kino's loving—in short, a real person and a person historical memoir of Pimeria Alta (2v., wedded to a real environment—rises to mem Cleveland, 1919), for which the King of Italy orability as a developed character and seizes honored him with a commandership in the upon the affection of the reader. Beside him Order of the Crown of Italy; now he pre the women seem less real, Cora as a drudge, sents a more popular but no less authorita Julie as a villainess, the society women as tive account of Kino’s career, of his explora ideas for satire. Todd lives and breathes tions and missionary activity in the “Ameri and has his being. And yet woman’s story can Southwest,” the basis of subsequent on wheat land marches strongly through the Spanish occupation of the Californias. Thor novel, too. oughly readable, full of that delicious lit Missoula, Montana H. O. Merriam erary flavor so typical of Bolton’s style, Mark Twain’s America. Bernard DeVoto. The padre on horseback is excellent for col Little, Brown. 1932. $4.00. lateral reading in high school and university This new work on Mark Twain deserves courses in Western history, as well as for high praise for its excellent study of our the layman. great humorist’s Western setting. Mr. De An outstanding feature of the book is its Voto, himself a westerner, has attacked a strikingly attractive format. Rarely does a problem too long neglected, that of Mark work of its character and price come to us Twain’s fundamental sympathy and associa with so pleasing an appearance. If the tion with the frontier temperament and cul nicety of its binding and printing, the clear- ture. He shows us that frontier “examining cut drawings and decorative chapter head itself, recording itself, and entertaining it ings, and the excellent cover maps are cri self” by the native folk-art of the oral tale. teria of the caliber of Western printing, it is Twain becomes thus a product of a real, if sincerely to be hoped that we shall see more often violent and crude, native culture. He books on the West published in the West. flourished from the start in a vigorous, mas Berkeley, California Lewis W. Bealer culine mode of expression which he accepted Gold in Them Hills. C. B. Glasscock. as his own, even as later he reflected the Bobbs Merrill. 1932. $3.50. frontiersman’s irreverence in the face of Old The frontispiece of this book epitomizes an World traditions, and later still his disillu era and a type, and sets the tone of the sionment with the product of frontier prog account that follows, for it catches a true ress and his bewilderment before the prob desert prospector in the act of raising his lems of a more complex society. Incidentally, lonely stone pile, his monument to the lure Mr. DeVoto makes short work of the Van that keeps him forever wandering from des Wyck Brooks’ myth of a repressed Shelley ert ledge to desert ledge, a gaunt, wiry, self- tortured by a barren frontier life. contained seeker for gold. To him and his On the other hand, Mr. DeVoto’s very ex burro this book is truly dedicated, even uberance in defence of the frontier (per though it be the story of the mining camps haps an unconscious proof of a part of his of Nevada. thesis) leads him to underestimate the New Mr. Glasscock was apparently the man to England of Mark Twain’s day, and to over record the tale of the Nevada boom of the state the shock of Twain upon the “genteel first decade of the twentieth century. He tradition” of an “aseptic” East with a thin knew and knows the actors in it, he shared culture of pretense—this in the land of the fever and contributed his bit to the files Thoreau, Emerson and Garrison. His foot of short-lived, if lively, newspapers. The notes, too, are too often an academic di setting of the story was in the great desert gression of nose-thumbing at other academi of the United States. The mining camp psy cians. chology was a duplicate of previous booms— If this fine work should achieve a future California, Colorado, Montana, and other revision for greater unity in its central thesis western states. But the desert and the fact and some truer balance, it would take front that this was the last big strike, and the rank as about the best book yet on Mark last before autos took the place of mule Twain and his essential westernness. teams, made the story worth the telling. Laramie, Wyoming Wilson O, Clough Mr. Glasscock records the first grim days, The Padre on Horesback. A sketch of the “Tonopah death,” then the hectic days Eusebio Francisco Kino, S. J., Apostle to the of boom, the secret “high grading” of miners Pimas. Bolton, Herbert Eugene. Sonora with specially devised “corsets” for carrying Press. 1932. $2.00. off their choice bits, the startling rise, the This book is a concise account of the life melancholy fall. The Frontier 235 Tonopah and Goldfield are central in the formed into a desire to go to America. Per’s book, though other towns get their portion Hansen’s tales of America, translated from of record. Some of the men involved were his brother’s letters, picture a land lush with later famous—Charlie Schwab, Tex Rickard, the things the heart desires. Frank Lowden, senators and governors of To Nils Minneapolis is at first an enchanted Nevada. Some still haunt the old scenes, a city; it glitters with happiness; its people dwindling group of hopefuls who have not are youthful and gay and guileless. But as forgotten how to survive desert heat and he moves through a series of experiences cold. Most of the camps have left hardly disjointed and apparently unrelated a name a trace. In a few places lone buildings less pain comes to rest in Nil’s heart. His crumble in the desert, and a few are still wisdom is a vast innocence; his skill is to towns. It is a fantastic story, yet true; and bring music from a fiddle; his wish is to Mr. Glasscock has put it down before it learn the meaning of the life about him. But passed into pure legend. His book deserves his wisdom, his talent and his desire are a place in western history. not enough. He feels the evil around him Laramie, Wyoming W. O. Clough but he has no weapons to use against it. Only Kristin Dahl and the Stril understand The Bo&t of Longing. O. E. Rolvaag. Nils. With the others, especially with Per Harpers. 1933. $2.50. Hansen to whom Nils is bound by an imposed When cold reason and an attempt at ruth obligation to protect, there is no means of less self-analysis have failed to answer the communication. question, “Why are we rooted in a foreign Rolvaag understood the kind of loneliness world when our souls are weary, longing for that gnawed at Nil’s heart and sympathized the world in which they belong?” there is with and comprehended the terrible unity release if not reply to be found in The Boat of his nature that was made of opposing of Longing. This romance by O. E. Rolvaag forces. In brief incidents, by implications is not a tale of defeated desire to experience and suggestions so tenuous as often to be on earth the transcendent joys of super illusive the author awakens in the reader natural existence; it is a narrative composed pity for Nils and comprehension of him. of loosely connected incidents wherein the There are awkward places in the book. world of reality and the world of spirit are The long narrative of the stranger on the fused and become one. train adds little to our understanding of In contrast with G iants in the Earth and Nils. The stranger’s purpose in the book Peder Victorious this book has no plot and is to take Per Hansen away and thus make no full, clear characterizations. For these it impossible for Nils to write home to Nor reasons The Boat of Longing probably will way. The fact that Nils cannot write to not attract a great audience. Jo, his wife his beloved parents because he cannot lie Anna, Nils, the changeling-like girl, Zalma, to Per’s father concerning the disappearance who appears briefly and does not return to of his son taxes one’s credulity as the fan the story, Kristine Dahl, and the mad drunk tasy in the book does not. The last of the poet are people who have seen the Boat. book is concerned with the journey of Jo, Pers Hansen. Otto Hansen, and their cheap, the father of Nils, to America. breezy friends are merely ones who have not Jo never sees his son. But the journey, seen the Boat. a factual defeat and cruel disappointment, The first part of the romance, beautifully is transformed for Jo into a beautiful tri and simply written, tells the myth of the umph by means pitifully natural and inevit vessel that sailing out of the west beckoned able. In Jo as he sails out to meet The Boat with such spell that those who saw followed. all conflicts are reconciled. Rolvaag does not explain the boat; does not This book, obviously written before Rol contrast it with a real boat, nor make any vaag had mastered the technique of his craft, exposition of its moral and spiritual sig nonetheless opens to us more completely nificance. He tells three separate stories to than do the other novels, I think, the strange, verify the reality of the mystic ship and the sensitive depths of the artist’s heart and validity of its strange influence. One ac mind, and more swiftly and simply arouses cepts the stories and draws one’s own con in the responsive reader the humanizing clusions concerning the meaning of the Boat emotions of sympathy and pity. to those who see it. Eugene, Oregon Margaret Clarke It is when the strange girl, Zalma, has been sent away that Jo, Anna and Nils see The Sign of the Buffalo Skull. Peter O. the ship. Nils in an agony of inarticulate Lamb. Stokes. 1932. $2.00. grief rows towards it, but, his fisher Jim Bridger could hike one hundred miles man’s lust betraying him, he casts anchor to In a day. He had stomach enough to marry throw his line among the saithe as the gleam three squaws. He was among the first white ing sails disappear. Unable after that to be men to visit Yellowstone National park. His content at home, Nils visions a wider life tales of this region, his anecdotes of the and seeks to go away. His dream is trans Great Salt lake were never believed, until 236 The Frontier later authenticated by polite officials. He range life. In his preface Will James writes, was the first teller of tall tales, and started “In this story I’m having a boy and a girl more lies about the wonders of the west coming west from a big city. They ask many than any single chamber of commerce. He questions of the kind that’s asked me often was a trapper, guide, scout, trader, and a and I’m putting ’em in the care of Uncle builder of the Far West. So glorious were Bill to answer all their questions . . . He his voice, his gestures, his manners, that coaches ’em in a way where I think the wherever his name crosses the pages of the reader will catch on to things near as well hundreds of memoirs of the west, a new life by reading as the kids did while on the trail and admiration slips into the style. Mr. with the old cowboy.” Lamb has fully recognized the importance Uncle Bill does answer fully many of the and worth of his subject who is the center questions I have wondered about while read of The Sign of the Buffalo Skull. The facts ing other books by Will James. The next about Jim Bridger are simply and plainly time I get a chance to ride a horse I’ll know told, and to one entirely ignorant of the how to saddle and ride him. Uncle Bill is man, the book would be a revelation. Lamb, more nearly like Mr. James’s Coyhoys North however, does not recreate the adventure and and South, which tells about the handling spirit of that life, but retells the story with of cattle and the customs of cowboys, than all the caution of an historian. His narra any of his other books. But Uncle Bill is tive is full of academic asides, such as “none different in that where the other book tells of the published accounts mentions Jim Brid about things in general this story tells about gets name in connection with this incident.” things in detail—the difference between a However, his careful consideration of bio hackamore and a halter, how to get a meal graphical facts does not detract from the in an old tin can, how a lasso is made, the soundness of the book. The many critics importance of putting out a fire. Most of who cannot believe the facts of the average Will James’s books do not go out of the way western thriller should read western history to give such information, but this one is to confound their imagination. The vigorous written for that purpose. drawings in black and white by James I am sure that if you read Uncle Bill you Daugherty are a surprize. It is likewise a will enter into the free spirit of cowboy life, surprize to find this dignified treatment of even if there is no way for you to use the a westerner under such a title, and in a list knowledge you gain. The story is told in of popular boys’ stories. The wonder is cowboy language, and the book is delightfully equal to Bridger’s early escapes. “How did illustrated by the author. you escape?” he was once asked. “I didn’t,” Missoula, Montana Alison W. Merriam he replied. “We were both killed.” Eugene, Oregon Pat V. Morrissette Clover Breath. Arthur Truman Merrill. The Driftwind Press. 1932. Along the Arkansas. Anna Lewis. The The Desperate Years. Arthur Truman Southwest Press. 1932. $2.50. Merrill. Parker, Medford, Mass. 1932. If it were not that its attractive title will “The poems in this volume were inspired appeal to those interested in regional history by my love for the people and scenery of this book is not deserving of even the brief my native new England,” writes Mr. Merrill. est notice. The proofreading is unbelievably The poems are a fond looking-back, in this poor and there are innumerable other errors instance from California, upon crystal morn and inaccuracies which can scarcely be the ings in Vermont hills, mowing hay, Vermont fault of the printer or proofreader. There persons who were neighborhood characters, are also too many places in which the style New England flowers. In this thin volume and composition are open to criticism well the reader will find none of the banalities within the capabilities of the ordinary high common to volumes of such format, but fre school student. Even disregarding these quent bell-like clarity of song and cleanness glaring defects, the book is a disappointment of expression, with occasional phrase of in that it covers only the period down to beauty. Mr. Merrill can be trusted to sing 1800—a limitation in no way indicated on the title page. true. This is his second volume of 1932, the other being “Desperate Years.” Eugene, Oregon Dan E. Clark In this purposeful poem—“a symbolic poem A Child’s Book Appeals to a Twelve-Year- that deals with the spiritual and intellectual Old Reader. chaos of The Desperate Years following the Uncle Bill. Will James. Scribners. 1932. World War”—the idea has submerged the $ 2.00. poet; only in an occasional line or short I wonder who Scootie was, the person to passage does the poet—and there is a real whom Will James dedicates his most recent one in Mr. Merrill—gain the upper hand. book. Certainly she was a lucky girl, to be California Writer’s Club Poems, 1932. Pri able to spend all summer at a real western vately printed. ranch with an old cowboy like Uncle Bill These poems of 1932 as a whole attain a to teach her and her brother Kip all about Continued on page 255 237 The Frontier A D AM CARGO He was not a gambler, but Adam was. After the two men had come to Santa Fe, Continued from page lib Adam could be seen almost any evening in “I wouldn’t build a fire,” he said. “Smoke the Trail House. Under his wide black hat can be seen a long way. We’d best get with its red silk band his thin, dark face going . . . that is, if you want this horse.” was immobile, expressionless. Once more, They rode out of the canyon toward the luck seemed to have become his ally. He west and came to a trail running up the side won heavily, and began to establish a repu of the great black ridge. The trail was so tation among the wagon men, the traders steep in places that they were obliged to and trappers, the hunters, merchants and stop and rest the horses. vacqueros with whom he played. “It’s a hard climb,” said Palo, “but it will These men knew nothing of him, for he save us quite a bit of time between here never spoke about himself, and his cool and Santa Fe.” aloofness discouraged inquisitiveness. He Adam maintained a thoughtful silence as was a subject of conversation, but he was they rode on, wondering at the great golden not one with whom to converse casually. haired man and about the horse he himself Men saw him spend recklessly at times, and was riding. He stroked the animal’s neck they saw him refuse to spend. They lis during a rest period, and looked for a brand tened to the few words he uttered, and on it. “He’s marked on the left hip,” said learned nothing of his affairs, of his origin, Omar. “An O. Z.” of his life . . . at all. “If I owe you anything for him, I’ll pay One man swore he had seen Adam in San now,” said Adam. Francisco, recalling clearly that Adam was Omar smiled. “You owe me only a night’s a dealer in the Golden Gate House. Pos sleep and a good meal. I stole him from a sibly Adam had got into trouble in Califor Mexican outfit on the trail. We better turn nia, probably over a woman. It was not him loose when we get to Santa Fe.” likely he had got into difficulties because * * * of dishonesty . . . he was an honest player. Another man thought Adam had come from They came to Santa Fe together, then. Kansas. He remembered seeing him in Law This was the way they became partners. rence. Still another was sure he had been It was important to me as an audience. a saloon proprietor in San Antonio. Anything could happen now. There was a These opinions, speculations and presump reason for them being together. tions, including many more, reached Adam I tried to picture them there in that early through Omar, and the two men laughed plaza, the one immense, with hair like sun about them. light and eyes like turquoise, the other small One evening Adam stood in the Trail and dark. It was a delightful contrast. House watching the play at a table where | Adam was indeed small. As an old man a game for high stakes was in progress. He I he looked almost frail, but one understood was unaware that a ragged young Mexican I there was the staunchness and vitality of the boy stood beside him gazing up into his dark, \ hills in the little body. His hair was very pointed face. In a moment of stillness, when ) black and thin; his eyes were like two only the sound of money dropping on the / shoe-buttons, sharp and glistening. They table was to be heard, the boy touched \ had not changed by the time I came to know Adam’s leg and spoke to him. * him. But the hair had grown white, and “From where do you come?” it asked with his thin, wrinkled, brown face was framed in a snowy beard just long enough to cover unrestrained curiosity. his collar. He still moved quickly. In those The men sitting and standing around the Idays he must have moved like lightning. table looked at Adam. For the moment play I found some others in the city who could was suspended. Anger showed in his eyes. look back into the years and remember him. The shoe-buttons in their narrow slits flitted No one, however, remembered Palo. and grew cold. But almost at once the 238 The Frontier anger died. He placed a hand on the child’s have to strain his ears to catch them; after head. that there was no more said. “From the Valley of Singing, poco mucha- Mace and Marie, Adam’s mother, often got cho,” he said. a little drunk together. Sometimes they got He turned away, and went out of the room. to fighting. Liquor revealed a strange side And then he took me back there again, to of her nature. She might be cross or irrit my surprise. Suddenly he was telling me able, or as easily sentimental and loving. more about the Valley of Singing. It was She could not be depended upon when she a great evening for me. Perhaps he enjoyed was in her cups; and the liquor seemed to it, too. He talked as if he were eager to affect her differently each time she drank tell me, taking his little nip now and then enough to make her a little tipsy. She would and gazing thoughtfully at the glass each become mysterious, secretive, silent, or she time he drained it. would be loud, talkative, boisterous, rough. He was born in a tiny settlement of fisher She and Mace would make love as if they men and trappers on the right bank of the had only just been married, or as if they Mississippi River near Carlinville, Missouri. hadn’t yet been married; and the next time The shanty in which he lived stood near the they would act like two dogs fighting over end of a bar, a point of land jutting out a bone, howl and push each other. Mace into the river. Behind the bar were great might have been harmless always when he areas of swamp and back-waters. In places was drunk had it not been for her change the bar was wide enough to permit farming, ableness. He seemed to be tied to her with and some of the colony cultivated small an invisible rope, and he went along doing patches of corn and potatoes. as she did, angry if she was angry, kind if Mace Cargo, his father, was a trapper, she was kind. working in the winter months in the frozen In the summer and fall, he would steal swamps. In the spring he took his skins from the farms on the high ground inland to Carlinville, going up the river by boat from the river. He would go off at night and drifting home again with the current. with other men, and return with gunny sacks He was a man who kept to himself a great filled with squash and melons, fruit and deal of the time, a man who had fished and corn, and perhaps a chicken or two. Once trapped and hunted all of his life. It ap he brought back a young dog, which he gave peared that the quietness of these vocations to Adam. Adam named it Ring, because was reflected in his nature. the hair around one of its eyes was black There were few men in the country who and the rest of its body was white. knew more about the river. Other fisher One night when they were drunk and fight men and trappers came to the Cargo shanty ing Marie hit Mace with a poker after he for advice from him. If he had been drink had struck her with his fist and knocked her ing he might talk with them at length, and down. She hit him from behind and he was on rare occasions relate some of his own ex too drunk to know what had struck him. periences. It was very likely, however, that Adam had left the house when the fight had he would stop talking suddenly, and it was started, but he had seen the blow struck from difficult to get another word out of him. It the door. Later, Marie told Mace an iron was as if all at once he had become afraid skillet had fallen from a hook and struck of talking too much, of telling some secret. him. Adam said nothing about what he had He paid little attention to his son; but he seen. was not unkind nor entirely neglectful. When But the horrible thought of the fight lin he had been drinking he seemed not to know gered in his mind. What if his mother be that Adam was on earth. When he was came angry at him and struck him on the sober, and it was necessary to speak, he did head with a poker? so briefly and quietly. He never failed to Marie, at first, thought she had killed advise Adam in matters of importance. The Mace, and summoned the sheriff and the advice would come in a few spoken words, doctor from town. She told them about the and in such a low tone that Adam would skillet falling. But Mace wasn’t dead. The 239 The Frontier doctor took him to his home in Carlinville, made no effort to command her. Adam, for there were no hospitals in the river considering the situation, came to under country. stand his father’s attitude better than that “He’ll need good care and constant atten of his mother. He thought his father some tion,” said the doctor. “He should be where what afraid of Marie. And Marie had a I can get to him quickly.” secret which he, unknown to her, was shar Mace lay in a bed in the doctor’s house ing with her. The fact tended to bring him for three weeks. One day Adam went with closer to Mace in feeling, as two people are his mother to see him. They rowed up the brought closer to each other by mutual under river and left their boat south of the town. standing. Marie did not want to walk through the He came to know Mace, to understand him, streets. for the first time in his life, and with some “They’ll be talk enough,” she said. thing of the manner in which he had learned They set out on a road running through a to understand Ring. Neither of them woodland at the edge of the town. The spoke; and to know them one was simply doctor’s house stood at the end of the road obliged to pay close attention to their ac on a hill. On their way they stopped in the tions, their habits, their methods, their ex woods to rest They sat on a fallen log. pressions. Marie was trembling. Adam took her hand. He acquired, however, little true under It was cold and damp. He wanted to say standing of his mother. After the fight he something, but he seemed to have forgotten had become afraid of her. A gap had been the few words he knew. created between them which he was unable Mace lay in a narrow bed, still and white. to bridge. And she seemed to sense it, but His head was wrapped in bandages. Adam made no effort to fill it. was amazed at the clean appearance of his She was obviously not one to be ordered father and of the room. Both looked as if about. And her moods changed as light they had been thoroughly scrubbed. Even and shadow on a day when there were drift the tan on his father’s face had been washed ing clouds in the sky. Her secret, however, off. served to keep her less talkative than she There was a strange smell in the room had been before the fight The reason was which made Adam feel ilL He stood at the clear, even to Adam. Her drunken tongue doorway fearing to go farther. His mother might give her away, or her conscience cause sat on a chair beside Mace’s bed looking her to reveal the truth of the blow during down at his face. Presently she got up. a spell of liquor-inspired sentimentality. Mace was sleeping, a woman told them. He There was a bit of proudness in her easily must not be awakened. They went out, back discernible. It had often angered Mace. Her down the hill and through the woods. When people at one time had owned a large tract they got out in the boat Marie began to cry- of land in central Illinois. She had been Adam rowed methodically and said nothing. taught to read and write, and for a time had Mace came home and sat about in the attended a school. Perhaps, Mace was a sunshine for several weeks. Finally he be little envious of what he termed her “grand gan to fish, to stir here and there. He manner,” which she had not lost even seemed to have become more silent than though she had lived in poverty since her ever, more lost in thought. He scarcely marriage. She taught Adam the alphabet, made a sound about the shanty. One had to write simple words and sat with him to see him to know he was nearby. while he struggled to read from old news Winter came, and with it a new peace. papers which sometimes found their way The peace lasted through the cold months. into the shanty. Mace and Marie continued to get tipsy to In the spring Mace went to Carlinville gether, but there were no angry words with skins, and did not return for three spoken. She seemed to have forgotten about days. When he came home he was drunk. nagging at him when she wished him to do His skiff was filled with provisions and a something he did not care to do. And he keg of whiskey. Marie scolded him for spend 240 The Frontier ing so much money. In the evening, she truth. And I wondered if he had ever told tapped the keg and got tipsy. She kept on anyone else. scolding him. Mace walked about the shanty I did not want to go back to the Valley with his eyes on the floor. He wavered of Singing again, though I realized that unsteadily back and forth across the kitch undoubtedly he would take me. He would en. Suddenly he turned on her. She threw finish it now. There would be no reason a cup of whiskey at him. for withholding what was left Her anger got the better of her. Mace * * • threatened to leave, to go back to town. Something caused him to build about him Then she laughed, and attempted to strike self a wall of reserve after he had come to him with a broom, to drive him from the Santa Fe, and because he admitted this to shanty. They began to struggle and knocked me I drew the conclusion that he realized over a table. Dishes clattered to the floor. the safety in silence. He was not yet, as Then the shanty was silent. Adam, sitting records go, a full-fledged outlaw, but there outside under a tree, could hear the river were a few matters in his past better dead. ripplets lapping the shore. Not entirely from him, you must under The silence was shattered by the sharp stand, have I constructed my picture of him report of his father’s pistol. Mace screamed. in those early days. He fell against the stove, overturning it. He and Omar lived in a Mexican house Smoke began to roll out of the shanty door. in the Galesteo Road. The house still stands, Marie collapsed, clutching the pistol. little changed by the years. It has a large Jesse Lunce got Marie’s body out of the patio in which bright flowers bloom among fire. When he attempted to re-enter the transplanted cactus. The door leading into house a wall of flame and smoke rose up the two rooms they occupied is visible from before him and he staggered back, his hands the street through a narrow arched passage to his face. The flames lighted up the bar. way. People from other shanties came with buck Adam sat before his door alone a great ets and dipped water from the river, dash deal, appearing to be lost in the contempla ing it against the walls of fire, but their tion of the world about him, more like a efforts were futile. statue than a living man, seeming cold and Mace was cremated. Marie was suffo unfriendly. I could believe this, and that it cated. was the same way in which he walked The neighbors dragged Mace out of the through the narrow streets of the town, for ashes with fish hooks. They poked around he had not lost his attitude entirely when with long poles stirring up live coals and I knew him. He still appeared ready to throwing water on them. It was dawn when withdraw, watchful and suspicious, when they departed. A lone upright stood against approached. the pale light of the eastern sky as if to It was apparent that only Palo could break mark the spot. through the invisible shell And certainly The sun lifted the mists from the river, no woman, for he seemed not to know that rolling them as gold gauze off the water, women were on earth, with the exception revealing thp beauty of the countryside and of Magdalena Chaves, his landlord’s daugh the spring foliage. Adam sat beneath a ter, with whom he sat sometimes in the late tree on the bank looking off across the afternoon before his door. bright water. Magdalena was a pretty girl of fifteen, These were his earliest memories. I left slender, with a pointed olive face. There him with a feeling of profound sadness. was nothing especially significant, however, And on my way home I stopped in a speak in that they were seen sitting together in easy and sat alone drinking wine. It wasn’t the shadow of the patio. It was her home, what I bad wanted. I hadn’t wanted him and she might have sat there with any man to begin like that. God knows, if I had sus who came there to live. I, of course, looked pected that he was inclined to fictionize his for developments when he told me about her. stories, I knew now he was telling me the It would indeed be a strange story if she 241 The Frontier did not play a more important role. But until it was no more than an occasional old hoof print made by some Mexican’s bur he said no more about her then. He would walk some afternoons along the ro. The trees became thick and majestic. The afternoon sun gleamed on the high acequia mad re running from the canyon of the Rio Santa Fe. I imagined him resting eastern peaks, showering gold over the green in the shade of a locust tree, sitting motion forests of pine and the paler patches of less as if he were listening to the water quaking aspen. or a bird song. The realization came to He must have ridden with only the creak me that he must have been a rather mys ing of saddle leather disturbing the intense terious figure, a strange little dark man re stillness. When he had come to a level maining on the circumference of the circle table land between two black walls, he would of life about him and only going within turn sharply to the right and climb a steep occasionally, but always maintaining his trail through a heavy forest, and come out quiet manner, his reserve. And I wondered on a high point Directly below him, Santa what he could have been thinking about. Fe was a tiny patch of colored squares on Wishing? Dreaming? Longing? Scheming? the yellow desert floor. A green spot in the north marked Tesuque, and far beyond were Regretting? In the a ceq u ia Mexican children bathed; the mountains of Taos, a blue backround in naked, copper children splashed and soaped the great panorama. He would see wagons themselves . . . the a ceq u ia was only brief on the trail to Aubuqurque, tiny specks ly disturbed. Children came and went like crawling toward Mesa La Bajada. * * * days. The a ceq u ia had gone on its way for centuries . . . steadily . . . watering the There were days when I would not see fields of the little brown people, the thirsty him, and times when I would look for him red and yellow and purple flowers . . . and could not find him. It was if he had vanished from the city. And these instances singing its way into the desert. The a ceq u ia went on unhampered by the troubled carried me into a state of apprehension. He thoughts of men, singing through the city was not in his room; he was not in the in the sunlight, in the moonlight, born of plaza; he was not in the Palace of the the Blood of Christ Mountains, the Sangre Governors. (Sometimes he would go there de Cristo, seeking its eternal work with un and nose around among the myriad relics.) There were two speakeasies which he occa failing strength and song. Sometimes on these afternoon excursions sionally visited, mostly for the purpose of he would ride a horse, following a trail up playing rummy. He preferred to drink his the canyon of the Rio Santa Fe. The moun own whiskey, it seemed. Where he con tains rose up before him in a great emerald cealed himself at these odd times I never wall with golden tints lighting the high knew. prominent points and blue shadows lying Then one afternoon I found him by the in the canyons. The sun hung above a cloud Rio Santa Fe more than three miles from of purple mist in the west, which was the the plaza. He was sitting under a pine Jemez Range, almost constantly swept by looking off up the canyon. I don’t know great blue brooms which were rain storms. how he got out there. No doubt he rode The Jemez lay beyond the valley of the Rio up in someone’s car. We spent several hours Grande, the river running from the sky there. through a valley changing constantly under The creek was far below us. Behind us moving heat waves like a chameleon its the forest ran up the steep mountain side shades and colors. Southward was a col out of which rangers had cut the roadway. ored patch-work of desert running down to The tips of the high peaks were visible above the distant round blue peaks of the Sandia the end of the canyon, sharp white standing before a pale blue sky. diamonds in the blue sky. It might have Several miles up Santa Fe canyon he been the Mississippi River. We might have would turn to the south into a narrower been sitting on a Missouri bluff. The pines canyon. The trail dwindled as it ascended oaks. The peaks white clouds. (I did not 242 The Frontier know why he chose to tell me of the east his thoughts came jerkily to his mind and today and the west tomorrow.) his words reflecting them were affected by One day he came home from Carlinville their unsteadiness. with a present for Mary. He had gone to He often visioned himself with Mary, liv town with skins, and with some of the money ing together in their own house . . . He he got for them he bought her some dress was leaving the house in the misty dawn goods. But he was too bashful to give it to tend his set lines in the river . . . She to her. He kept it hidden for a week. Then stood in the doorway watching him . . . In one day he laid it on a table in the kitchen both winter and summer pictures in his when no one was about and went out. He mind, he saw her standing in the door of remained away until late in the evening, their home . . . He was setting out in his until he was certain everyone would be furs to follow his trap lines across the sleeping. But when he came in he found frozen swamps . . . She watched him dis her waiting up for him. appear into the woods carrying his rifle. He lost some of his bashfulness after this, When he had gained the trees, he turned and it was not so difficult for him to reveal and looked back. She was still standing in his intentions. He experienced little oppo the door looking toward him . . . Always sition. Jesse and Ophelia sanctioned the she seemed to be watching him from the romance and said nothing. Mary was an doorway . . . enthusiastic participant. She and he had lived in the same house for years, but sud Looking over his story that evening, I denly he had changed in his attitude toward made an attempt to piece together the frag her. They went walking or rowing on sum ments, to find places for the odd ends and mer evenings, now conscious of each other, so to make it complete as far as he had speaking, looking at each other differently. gone. At last I gave up. It was futile. One That winter she trudged by his side as he unfinished end defied me boldly. It was tended his trap lines. He tanned skins for the fact that he had left the Valley of her and she made a coat and cap and mit Singing and had never returned! tens. He put new soles on her shoes, re But he had gone back with me! Was it lieving Jesse of the task. And she made that now, after all these years, he wanted shirts for him, knitted him socks, a woolen to return to those far scenes which held vest and wristlets. There was nothing more little else but tragic memories? Little else? to be done or said. They belonged to each Perhaps there was a great deal more. I other. had reason to suspect there was now. He He had developed a fine voice and he and and Mary had made their plans. Suddenly Jesse continued to sing together. It seemed I thought of the Civil War! The war took to be an unbreakable bond between them, him away, and when it ended he had no withstanding the forces which might have wish to return to the river life. He had caused them to drift apart. They took trips learned something of the world outside. He together, going far into the woods where had forgotten her; or he had found some they heard strange bird songs, saw strange one else. I was disappointed. Was this trees and flowers. Jesse imitated the bird after all going to turn into the story of a calls. Sitting in the still woods, he would man whose life was changed drastically by whistle until an answer came. Then his war? Spare me, I hoped. face would light and his hand would tremble He talked the first time about the war with excitement. In the fall and spring they several days later, saying little about par hunted ducks; in the winter they hunted ticulars, and speaking in a manner which wolves and trapped; in summer they fished. led me to believe he thought me bored. If He told me something about Mary I did I am to be truthful I must admit I was. not understand. But, then, he told me sev War stories interested me not at all, for I eral things I did not understand, for at was not interested in war. But I wanted times he talked incoherently and I only to know why he was in St Louis when the caught a word now and then. It was as if great conflict began; why he enlisted in the 243 The Frontier Confederate cavalry instead of joining the We were sitting in the patio of the Mason house, and without warning he got up and Union forces. He must have been a small, brown-faced left me, going into his room. I remained. The shadows lengthened. soldier, with sharp black eyes, his body hardened to uncomfortable saddles, beaten Gold splashed along the wall opposite me, to hardness by cold and heat, by rain and and purple shadows lurked beneath the bal snow, by hunger and hardship. The river cony. Presently he came out again, and lay far behind him; in his mind much far when he sat down I smelled whiskey. He ther from him than in actual miles, for he had not run away from his memories! He had gone into another world. had only gone to get a drink! He asked himself what life was, a single It was dark when I left the patio. He life or a thousand. Each day before his was still in his chair. I am not sure he eyes they were ended violently, snuffed out had not fallen asleep. I ate my supper and quickly forgotten. The world went on. hurriedly in a “quick” restaurant whose The hordes advanced or retreated, swimming glaring front besmirched nightly the shad in blood. Day by day the men about him owed beauty of the plaza, and I wrote far became more skilful in the practice of killing into the night. and torturing others and more careless of Now he had deserted the cavalry. In the their own lives, more adventurous, more service he had grown older. He had become reckless. They went on crying for victory, an extremely quiet and reserved little man, spurred by loyalty in the beginning, by bit calm and seemingly fearless. In those years terness and determination later. he had seen himself alone at the end of I ic o s bored. All wars were the same. the world, on the brink of time. He knew All soldiers were the same. Consider them life well, knew its eternity and its uncer in any light: the same forces carried men tainty, unscathed himself but only waiting into battle. The reasons were the same for the next moment to die. basically and there was nothing else to He crossed the river one night, hardly looking at it. And then he put it behind them. He was a cavalryman for three years, him forever. Before him was a new coun when he became a lieutenant There were try, another world he had never seen, and few of the original members of his com this meant new and strange adventures. He pany left to serve under him. found himself going forward eagerly, for Then his war story took on a different now his life was made up of searches for aspect. I was no longer weary of it new adventures. There was nothing else. At dusk one day a detachment from an He, too, was filled with the restlessness of other regiment rode into his camp. He soldiers who have known battle, who cannot watched the men pass along the street from quiet themselves with peace, but who want his tent One of them was Jesse Lunce. to go on in the careless, fearless manner The old river man had grown a beard. in which they fought Peace has no charm He was gaunt and looked very weary and for them. Peace is discontentment worn, bent to his saddle. The strain of war Then there was the frontier, and he be gan to find solace in its atmosphere, its was reflected in him. Fires were lighted and when it grew possibilities, its activities. In the small dark the men grouped about them. Then settlements sprouted like ugly warts on the came the singing, old Jesse leading the men windswept plains and burning deserts, he met in a song of the cavalry. men from far countries, quiet, brown-faced Suddenly he told me he deserted. That men who rode better than they walked. He night he rode out of camp alone. Several gambled and was lucky. He drank raw miles away he came to a stream. He dressed liquors and was lifted. He lingered with in civilian clothes, weighting his uniform dancing senoritas, stirred by dark eyes, with rocks and throwing it into the water. graceful bodies, Spanish music, langorous He must have understood that I wanted nights, and he was awakened. to know the reason, for he seemed troubled. And sometimes he forgot to look back. 244 The Frontier Sometimes he was relieved of remembering would often spend an evening in a water — what? The unpleasant memories of his front saloon in New Orleans, Memphis, St. life as a boy in his own home? Jesse Lunce Louis, hanging over a bar, surrounded by the and the singing? Mary and romance? The rough men into whose world he had wan war and his desertion? No. There was dered. Association with loose women was a something else far worse. There was some new experience for him. He had not known thing which had changed his life suddenly the saloon women in Carlinville; and the and sent him out into the world an un fact that he could have any of these girls attached individual apparently incapable of in the river towns for a piece of silver was being attached. at first fascinating and tempting. But the The war was little more than a helper, novelty of this soon wore off. The whiskey continuing the life of the restlessness born was his true friend. It was the whiskey of another cause. But it was the war, he which carried him out of a dreary world told me, which gave him the courage he into a world of delight and fancy. needed to escape a miserable existence. And Now the sun was gone. The gold had I was properly astounded to learn that he vanished from the patio wall, leaving only had left the Lunce home nearly two years the purple shadow. I did not look at him, before the war began. for I was afraid he would think me anxious, It was another gap in a story already eager. And I was, almost to an uncontrol filled with gaps. But gradually he bridged lable degree. It was coming, now, the part it; only, however, after he had made certain which was the basis for all that was to fol I understood that the war had saved his low, for all that I had heard. But he was so life, had brought to him the freedom he most calm, so deliberate, thinking and talking, needed. telling me his story with so many interrup For during those long months directly tions of complete silence. preceding his enlistment he was rather a miserable creature. After leaving the Lunce Sam Lunce was larger than Adam. The two were poor companions. Sam was se house he had gone to work on the river steamers, up-and downstream between New cretly jealous because Adam sang with his Orleans and St. Louis. Once he had got a father. He tried at times to dominate job on a steamer plying between Burlington Adam, to order him about, but Adam only and St. Louis, but he left it a few minutes laughed at him. Sam’s fat face would be come sullen, and a look of hate would creep before it sailed north, and went back south into his eyes. again. At times he would ask himself why he did not leave the river, go off inland to One afternoon they were fishing in the some other state, but he found no answer main river. They had set up their lines in to the question. Only more questions— where a deep channel which swung in against the would he go? What would he do away from west bank north of the bar. the river ? The river held him ; he knew no Presently Adam hooked a large catfish. other life, no other work. It was a monster, weaving around in the A great hate, however, had grown up in water. After he had got it out onf the bank, him for i t He saw no beauty in its shades he struck it on the head with a heavy club. and colors, took no heed of the hills and Sam was angered at Adam’s good for forests through which it flowed. It had be tune. He said nothing, however, sitting on come a drab thing in his eyes, without at the bank, his face clouded, tending his lines traction, without interest, awaking no ad in silence. miration in him as it had done before he When dusk fell they prepared to go home. had run away— when he was singing it, “I ’ll carry the big fish for you,” said crooning its life with Jesse. Sam. “You’ve got enough without i t ” He found solace for his wretchedness, how Adam laughed. He understood the thought ever, in the cities and towns he visited, in in Sam’s mind. When they got home, Sam their liquors and their women. Whiskey would say he had caught the big fish. He caused him to forget his misery; and he would make him out to be a liar. 2 4 5 The Frontier among the trees. Ring came close and put “You carry your fish,” he said. “I'll carry his head in Adam’s lap. the ones I caught.” Sam’s face grew red. “I’ve a good mind A steamer was loading. He could see to whip you and take it away from you . . ” negroes passing back and forth on the gang "I f you can,” Adam retorted. ways in the unsteady glare of torches. The Sam rushed at him, and they began to negroes looked like black ghosts, elongated fight fiercely. At last, Adam knocked Sam and misshapen in the faltering lights. The down. He lay on the ground, his mouth river lapped on the levee. Bits of negro bleeding. Suddenly he jumped up. In one songs, bits of voices drifted down to him hand he held a large fish knife. He ad from the steamer. A negro girl laughed. A vanced slowly, and Adam backed away from derrick block creaked dismally. A pile of him. boxes fell over, and a man cursed— then He walked around Adam, who kept turn stillness, the stillness which had come after ing to face him. There was a glint in Sam’s he had hit Sam on the head with the club eyes which made him think of the eyes of and watched him sink beneath the water. the big catfish. His foot struck against He was out there now . . . some place . . • something hard. It was the club with which rolling downstream like a log . . . over and he had killed the fish. He bent quickly and over. picked it up. Sam sprang at him, and he He walked to the end of the levee, and jumped aside, evading a vicious thrust of stood looking out across the river flickering the knife. He swung the club and brought with the lights of stars. Then he reached it down on Sam’s head. Sam staggered down and touched Ring on the head. backward. The knife fell from his hand, “Go home,” he said. and he toppled from the bank into the water. It was difficult for him to get aboard the The river moved on smoothly. Twigs float steamer without being seen. He concealed ed by. Adam sank down to the ground. A himself in the cargo, stretching full length profound stillness seemed to have settled on the deck. Lying there, weary, his body over the earth and the water, as if the wind, aching, he fell asleep. When he awoke the the leaves, the grasses were waiting breath steamer was moving. He had been so com lessly to see if Sam rose to the surface. pletely exhausted that he had slept through Adam lay full length at the edge of the the noise of the departure. He had not even bank, his eyes fastened on the unrippled heard the whistle blasts. river. He soon fell asleep again. When he awoke Dusk fell. He got up and started to walk the second time, the sun had risen. He crept along the bank toward Carlinville. A dog toward the edge of the deck. The steamer whined, and he was so startled he fell to was less than a quarter of a mile from his knees. Ring had found him. shore. He made his way aft, walking boldly It took him most of the evening to reach past several negroes, climbed a companion Carlinville. He walked along a deserted ladder to the upper deck and walked to the street, keeping in shadow. He could see rail. He stood there for only a minute, then lights ahead, the lights of saloons along the sprang as far from the steamer as he could. levee. Ring kept at his heels, ears dropped, The wake drew him under, released him acting strangely because of the smells of and he felt himself in calm water. He struck town dogs. A man came out of a side street out for the bank. and Ring growled. The man was drunk * * * and paid no attention to them. When he had come to the levee, he sat Progress had been slow, but I felt now we down between two crates. Lights flickered would go ahead rapidly. There could be, I told myself, no more profound secret of his across the river on the Illinois side. He saw than the one he had revealed. And I felt, the red flare of a locomotive fire box shoot not without some pride, that I was the first skyward and vanish as the fire door was opened and closed. The dim coach lights to hear it. Perhaps he had told Magdalena or Palo. I did not think so. He was not flickered as the train passed in and out 2 4 6 The Frontier one to confide even with those who were victor’s reward. But at this moment Manuel close to him. emerged from the house and upon hearing He spoke of Magdalena again, and I was the facts of the case, took her inside and not surprised, for I had expected him to gave her a sound thrashing. Neither of the mention her soon. suitors ever returned. Manuel and Christina, her father and Magdalena’s apparent interest in Adam mother, he knew suspected their daughter of encouraged Manuel and Christina after the having an affair with him. Neither made triangle episode had destroyed the hope that mention of their suspicions, however, for their daughter would do well in life. But each fervently hoped they were true. They they saw also that Adam reacted unfavor prayed that Adam would marry Magdalena, ably to her attentions. So they despaired in for a girl’s position was raised considerably one moment and took heart in the next. when she married an American. Adam chanced to pass their door one eve And Magdalena’s position needed raising. ning and overheard them urging Magdalena She had revealed a strain of impropriety to force her hand. He stood in the dark which threatened her future. Prostitution ness just outside listening. was not an entirely degrading vocation if “An American gambler is not to be sneezed followed only semi-professionally, but one at,” said Christina. which caused trouble and tragedy. Hence, “Even to be the lover of such a man may it was a thing to be avoided if possible. be fortunate,” Manuel told her. Manuel and Christina saw a hope in Adam, “Perhaps I am,” she answered saucily. but his private attitude was to the contrary. “And wouldn’t people like to know!” He liked Magdalena because she was lively, * * • because she was pretty, quick and clever. It was at this time that I found myself But his admiration ended there. He had no lost, at sea, for I had no idea of what to desire to enter into any marital bargains nor expect from him. Still I felt that something assume any domestic responsibilities. tremendous was coming. He had taken me When he arrived, Magdalena was being from the Valley of Singing, from the river courted by two worthy young Mexicans. Se days, from the war, from early west Texas, cretly she had promised herself, and indeed to the aged city in the high country. given herself, to both of them. Neither of Looking backward upon that part of his the young men suspected her of being un life of which he had told me, at the inci faithful and each considered himself vic dents and events he had disclosed, I was torious in his conquest. She had conducted wont to wonder about the philosophy of the affairs with remarkable cleverness, man such a man. There had been only brief aging to see each alone often enough to moments, so to speak, of happiness, few allay any suspicions which might have arisen times when he had been lifted above the in their minds, as well as keeping both in drabness of his existence. Tragedy had terested. She was receiving gifts from each played a major role, and his boyhood had of them, and thoroughly enjoying the game. been filled with terrifying scenes which must The climax came one evening when one of have remained ever horrible in his memory. the young men, disobeying her orders, came It is this fact which led me to conclude that unexpectedly to the house and discovered his restlessness was due to his efforts to her on the portal in a somewhat compro forget! Yet he must have realized the fu mising position with his rival. tility of such a task. He could never forget. The two suitors stood in the patio threat He could never escape. ening each other with death, shouting until How, then, did these things affect his they had aroused every one in the vicinity. mental processes? What did they do to him Magdalena, seeking to save something from beside send him off into the world aimlessly, the wreckage, calmed them temporarily by striving to leave himself behind? It was no suggesting that they fight for her like men wonder to me now that he built a shell and not wrangle like old women. She urged around himself. It was not remarkable that them to violence, offering herself as the he was silent, cold, unfriendly. He must 24 7 The Frontier have been driven on by a bitterness, a re been spying, and it confused him. But pres gret, a longing, which made him a reckless, ently he decided he was only surprised. Omar dangerous man. His memories must have and a nun! It was inconceivable! And he been maddening! And all the time he was sat there troubled, puzzled, wondering at the trying to forget, trying not to look back! man’s motive. If he imperiled his life would it not have The sun fell behind the Jemez, and shad helped him? If he walked into danger would ows deepened in the garden. A bell tolled. not the problem of the moment have dom He heard some one approaching and was inated his thoughts? I think this is true. startled by the appearance of the nun with And this conclusion gave emphasis to the whom he had seen Omar. She passed him expectation in my own mind of something hurriedly, going toward the church, casting tremendous to come. only a furtive glance at him. He saw that Did he seek danger, imperil his life? she was slender. Her features were deli The two men, Adam and Omar, were in cate and pale under her white hood. Santa Fe. The days were slipping away. He continued to sit on the bench after she This in itself is hardly worth mention. The had gone. Soon Omar came along the path, passing of days means nothing to Santa Fe. frowned when he saw him, and asked with They have gone their way unnoticed, rising poorly concealed suspicion: from the mountains east in a blaze of coral “Why are you here?” and golden light, and falling in copper splen He had anticipated the question. “Did dor behind the Jemez in the west, for cen you think I was here to spy?” he replied. turies. Time meant more to the two men. Omar sat down slowly beside him and lit While the old city dreamed and ignored the a cigaro. “No, I don’t think you would.” suns and the moons, they were thinking, “As a matter of fact, I often walk in scheming. here,” he explained. “But I never saw you One afternoon he was walking in the before.” church gardens. He told me they were very beautiful gardens. I told myself they still “It don’t matter,” the Texas Swede said were very beautiful. Then they were a quietly. “I met her in here one day about paradise in the midst of a blooming desert. a month ago.” But, too, all the country about them was He smiled. “You talk as if you were the beautiful. They were merely a concentra sinner.” tion point Outside their walls nature had “Maybe I am. She says it’s wrong. But created in her own way, on a large, loose I don’t look at things that way. I reckon and rugged scale. she’s the bad one.” He followed a path from a gate which “And you are the good one.” ran in a semi-circle through an orchard. The Swede snorted, shook his massive When he came to a group of young poplars shoulders. He looked directly into Adam’s he sat down on the ground. Several yards face. “She hates it. She hates everything beyond the trees was a low adobe wall. The it stands for. She’s broke every vow she slanting rays of the sun tinted the leaves a took. Now she wants to get out, run off. bright lettuce-green, touched their tips with Do you know what that means?” gold. Redbirds and juncoes flitted in the “Yes,” he said, “I do.” How well he knew. Escape? Hate? If fruit trees. He heard a woman laugh, and looking up any one understood their meaning, he did. Omar went on. “ She’s bad. But she he saw Omar and a nun walking on the other side of the wall. They passed from can’t help herself. The church don’t mean anything to her. She don’t belong among sight without seeing him. He went on along the path until he came good people. She knows she ought to get to where it joined another leading directly out and leave them to themselves.” to the church. At the intersection he sat There was a prolonged silence. down on a wooden seat. An ill-founded feel “Well?” said Adam. ing of guilt had risen in him, as if he had “I’m going to take her out of it,” Omar 2 4 8 The Frontier answered with finality. “I know what you’re would make a great change in his life. It thinking.” was to be a drastic step. Now as he recalled “Wouldn’t you expect me to think it?” those hours preceding it, strange thoughts He told me he was thinking about their must have come to his mind. Perhaps he plans and wondering if she would interfere did wander a bit. Perhaps he was somewhat with them. confused. A multitude of memories, minor “ She won’t interfere,” Omar told him. recollections, came with a rush, pursued by Then he sent me away and I had to wait a regiment of ghosts, sturdy, unrelenting to hear the plans. I speculated, of course, ghosts. Bedlam ensued. He mumbled and and with great enthusiasm. Plans meant whispered. adventure, I told myself. And the nun In the evening by the gate to the patio of meant romance, probably a harsh, crude the old house in Galesteo Road Magdalena kind flavored with bitterness and remorse. stopped him, laying a hand gently on his The next time I saw him he was tipsy, so arm. She seemed to be filled with a great I did not talk with him. Once in a while he fear. I wondered if she knew the plans. did drink a little too much. It was some “Do not go to gamble tonight, senor,” she what harrowing to see a man of his age pleaded. “Do not go away. Walk with me under the weather. He would go shouting first.” along the street on his way home. Men would He stared into her midnight eyes, follow him, perhaps a pair of his old cronies, searched her pointed olive face and saw to see that he reached his room safely. There fright there which she was attempting to was danger from automobiles now, a danger conceal. Her voice was as soft as a child's. as bad as killers’ guns, bad horses and offi Then he saw hope in her look. The fright cers of the law, which once he had been vanished. Her voice became musical again, obliged to recognize. and a light as if coming from the stars struck He bothered no one at such a time. He her eyes. would stumble along the street making a They walked slowly out along the dark disturbance with his swearing and growling. road, and beyond the town they climbed a Children scurried for their own doorsteps hill. Once she took his arm but it stif and stood ready to leap inside should he fened and she moved a step away from him approach them. People got out of his way, and did not touch him again. stood aside to let him pass, and did not They sat in the star-shadows of a pinon laugh, but watched with sober faces until tree, looking down upon the walls of the he had gone by. He was not a person to city. Then the moon rose, a great round laugh at. There was something grim and ball rolling over the peaks. The walls be foreboding in his drawn face, the distant came soft and curved. The lines of the earth look in his tiny black eyes framed in the became gentle. The great mountains ap white beard, which kept people from snick peared strangely small, dwarfed by the im ering at him. mensity of the moonlit space above them. He was the old bad man, the old outlaw, Then he seemed to have lost track of his and the legends of the country clung to his story, and he stared at the stone floor of name, the legends of the far lands still mys the patio. I waited, afraid to look at him. terious, still blue beyond the reaches of the I had no illusions about him then or later. Rio Grande. I saw him as he really was, a hardened old A few days later came that weird session desert man, having known much of the worst during which at times I thought his mind of life and little of the best. And upon my had failed him, and at other times I was honor, I felt only very mild sympathy for completely astounded by the poetic beauty him, but I admired him without limit. I of his words. He was aggravatingly inco could not fool myself into thinking he had herent, mumbling and whispering, talking a gentle side. No. He was only sincere as if to his thoughts, as one asleep. . . . and tremendously unfortunate. If there He and Omar were on the verge of launch was poetry, romance in him, I failed to find ing some scheme. There was no doubt it it. I would not say to the satisfaction of 2 4 9 The Frontier sentimentalists, that he was only human. thousand wind instruments he could not hear Better that he was flesh and blood, and madly playing an autumn symphony. that he could reason without emotion, so a I wanted to leave, go away from him now. man of extraordinary ability. He was not It seemed to me something terrible was human as we use the word. He could un happening within him. But I dared not derstand! And if that analysis would not move. I listened again, trying to weave be considered logical, sound, then I would be from his wandering words a semblance of trite and say that even an old desert dog a pattern. And catching up to him again I found them walking in a moonlit road beside had his moments. He did not intend to take me back to the the Mississippi. Then he was alone there Valley of Singing again, I was certain. Yet, beside the water. She had gone into the there he was walking in a cornfield with house, leaving him on the bank, the corn Mary Lunce. But I did not believe he could dust showering down through the dark trees. help himself. He had lost control tem What shall a man say to the urge that porarily . mumbling and whispering bursts his breast and pains his hands, and . . . I only half understood him. sends him forth, he knows not where, nor He and Mary were sitting in the stfadow where the end? . . . he was born of the of a tall shock . . . she began to cry softly valley . . . he knew the valley’s song ...... presently she got up and went behind he knew the touch of valley fingers . . . he the shock and took off her clothes . . . he was a worker of the valley . . . and as he could hear her crying . . . trying to under sat there beside the still moonlit river, his stand her strange actions . . . a full har young muscles strained again to tasks in vest moon tinted the dry stalks golden be burning summer heat, in the blue and green tween rustling shadows . . . the yellow days of spring, in the bitterness of white arm of a beam reached down on every shock winter . . . over valley roads his feet . . . a thousand beams on the dry leaves had trodden eagerly . . . his eyes had seen which whispered a song of a world beyond earthly gestures . . . he had heard the . . . a soundless melody he felt creeping, vegetation in the language of the blade and note after note, over him . . . where she of the leaf . . . the rhythm of the hills danced in a shock row, a shadow image had moved his blood in rhythmic flow . . . danced, mocking her in dark perfection . . . his heart had risen on the wind . . . the the moonlight was corn dust falling from earth and its waters at morn had sighed to the land of eternal harvest, dusting her with his hands, had sighed at dusk . . . toil had moon-fingers to make her golden . . . the awakened him to new life as the soil is moon music lured him off into a vast noth awakened by the spring . . • toil had ingness . . . he felt himself floating be awakened him to new thought . . . he dreamed, he wondered at every song, every yond the edge of the earth, beyond the brink of time, even the stars and the moonlight sound . . . and he heard singing, constant . . . he was among the echoes of the moon voices far from him . . . there was no music, completely detached from all con end . . . toiling he had turned toward the tact with the world of life, suspended in sky, and he had turned back again . . . he fathomless space . . . she stopped dancing had turned back each thought, each hour, and stood close to him, looking up, her breast its strength, its length . . . never gaining rising and falling rapidly . . . he reached . . . Christ! let him go on! . . . on over out toward her, and she touched his hand the hills . . . on and into the sky . . . with trembling fingers, sprang away from What shall a man say? . . . why, he shall him like a moon deer, flitted away like a go on, over the hills, on and into the sky . . . moon bird, and was hidden by the spectral why, he shall listen to his heart, to the moon shocks . . . the music burst upon him with music, the star whisperings . . . why, he shall a noiseless blare of brasses . . . he felt dream . . . until he has come back to his his flesh carressed with the rhythm of a beginning . . . for the years are never turn thousand harmonious measures causing him ing and the road is straight as wind to draw deeply into him the breath of a blows . I 1 2 5 0 The Frontier Then I heard Magdalena’s name. It came “Reach up your hands!” he shouted. from his beard almost as a whisper. It Waving the pistol he sent men and women was she . . . now! I had forgot they were away from the bar and the tables, forcing together on the hill looking down upon the them to the opposite wall. walls of the old city softly curved in the The man with the shotgun addressed an desert moonlight. (If you are sympathetic attendant who stood with his hands above you will understand that I, too, was lost) his head behind the bar. She was standing before him, her arms “The money the traders left here. Quick!” uplifted toward the moon, her slender face The barkeeper, a Mexican, shook his head. upturned to catch the full light . . . and “There is none.” there was music again, the music of a thou The man raised the shotgun. sand wind instruments madly playing their “I’ll get i t ! Don’t shoot!” another at only symphony . . . tendant cried. He sprang forward and from But suddenly he had left her and was beneath the bar produced three leather hurrying down the hill toward the city, pouches. The little man backed to get them leaving her standing on the brink, a dark while the man with the shotgun menaced image carved out of moonlight. the crowd. Step by step the two backed * * * toward the door. The little man, carrying In all the time he had talked to me, a the money, backed out first. The large man period of months now, I had not considered raised the shotgun. When he heard a shrill him in the light of an outlaw. His story whistle he fired at a lamp, sending it crash did not seem to be an outlaw’s story, rather ing to the floor, spreading flame. Then only episodes of a tragic life. he vanished. These were the plans of which he had But now the promise of action his plans spoken to me. They had been carried out gave caused me to look upon him in a dif without a hitch. There was more to them, ferent manner. So I began to expect him to of course, than he told me. I heard only the reverse the direction of his tale, so to speak, results. But Omar had kept his promise. to perform feats of his own creation. He He had taken Nina the nun (I only learned would no longer be the victim. He would her name here) out of the life she despised. be the aggressor. And this feeling gave him I didn’t think it was such a difficult task. a strange aspect, a man capable of shaping She was a willing deserter. The Texas Swede his own destiny to the extent every free was a means of escape. I had a feeling person is able. He was to invite, not only she had used him, and I did not like her. receive. Suddenly she stopped serving God, and The moon out of which Magdalena had served the devil. She might have used more carved herself dwindled until it was no more discretion. But perhaps I was previous in than a curved golden hair. And on this my criticism. I did not know what was night two men and a woman rode through coming, and no doubt I should have consid a narrow street toward the plaza. When ered more the nature of her act. It was they reached it they stopped and looked nothing less than a vital step. I did not about them. The heart of the city was de understand her emotions. The only fact serted. One light was visible, coming from clear in my mind was that she was not suited the door of the Trail House, a place never to service as a nun. She was not given to deserted. God of her own will, and she had no desire The two men dismounted when they came to be given to Him. close to the light and the woman held their I found them again far from Santa Fe. horses. Just outside the door they adjusted Out of a rolling waste of red and yellow handkerchiefs over their faces. The large desert the Jemez Mountains raise a great man carried a shotgun, the smaller man a jumbled mass of blue peaks to an unblem pistol. ished sky. The weathered crags, the scarred As they stepped inside the small man sent walls of box-like mesas, the convex uplifts a ball into the ceiling. and heavily timbered slopes, tormented and 251 The Frontier abrupt, majestic and far-flung, stand in reared in Ohio and had entered the church distinct and with vague features in the coral after a disastrous love affair with a young mist and blue haze of the early dawn. lawyer. A child had been born to her and Westward from their base the sands reach she had been cast from her home in disgrace. to a far horizon. Over them the night with The young lawyer ran off to seek his fortune drawing before the advance of the bright in the new Kansas. Desperate and desti sun retreated swiftly, and the conical juni tute she had abandoned the child and turned pers, the ragged sage and cactus took shape, to the church. Several years later she was seeming to leap from under the veil of paling sent in answer to a call for sisters from shadows into a sea of shimmering gold. Santa Fe. There was no wind, and a faint thin col When she met Omar she was prepared to umn of blue smoke rising from a pocket in desert the church. The west, possibly its an expanse of jumbled black boulders stood distance from her native environment and like a pencil on end, at last becoming a sun- the strangeness of the country, had led her kissed film high above the earth. The smoke to throw off the yoke of shame with which came from a tiny fire over which Nina was she had been burdened and dispel her fear preparing food. Suddenly it became fainter of condemnation by the outside world. She and the base of the column rose skyward. discovered that she really had nothing to The whole thing floated away from the earth fear but herself. And she was no longer in an irregular miniature cloud and was lost afraid of herself. Although desertion with in the nothingness above. Omar was a desperate way out, one which Omar had thrown sand over the fire, cov easily might have placed her in a worse predicament, she had not hesitated. She ering every trace of i t “It should have been put out sooner,” he was not cowardly. And the great golden growled. “There’s a time between daybreak haired outlaw was compelling; he gave her and sunup when a man can’t see smoke. We every confidence she needed. She came back waited too long. Come on. Get going along.” into the world of men a felon, a fugitive Nina frowned at him. “W e have to eat. from both God and justice, the mistress of He made no reply, but looked about for a a bandit, riding into a wild land to escape sign which would disclose the place they apprehension. had camped to possible pursuers. At midday they paused in their monoton They rode at a steady pace over a twist ous journey and ate cold food, washing down ing course, following no trail or track, and meat and bread with tepid water from their giving their horses free rein. The tranquil canteens. ity of the immense land was absolute. As Nina rested in the shade of a juniper. far as the eye could reach there was noth She asked wearily, “Do you still think we ing but an impressive immobility. Nothing are being followed?” She had asked the lived on earth or in the sky, and they moved same question a dozen times. under the great dome which rested its azure “No,” Omar replied emphatically. “I think weight on the irregular horizon as three only a fool would follow a man into such creeping mites. a place.” There was nothing holy about Nina now. “Then we are not fools.” Adam looked at her. “That remains to She was wearing a man’s hat from under which her chestnut hair hung in two braids; be learned.” Her laugh sounded empty, a voice from a loose green blouse, divided skirt and boots. A green handkerchief fluttered at her throat. a hollow box. She looked at the two men He told me something of her personal life with an expression of frank hopelessness. here as he had learned it from Omar. I was “I’ve been a fool all my life. We’re being amazed at his memory of details, but I followed. I feel it. W e’ll be caught at the thought perhaps there was a reason why end of this desert.” such a lasting impression had been made “The end?” Adam muttered. “Well, certainly there’s an end.” on his mind. Omar turned a twig between thumb and She was not a western girl. She had been 2 5 2 The Frontier forefinger and tossed it away. “Who knows? ing the long hours of the day, becoming with If we had knowed what was in this direc the passing of each mile only more empty. tion we wouldn’t have come. W e came this Crossing through one deep wash in which way because we didn’t know what was capricious spring freshets had bared the ahead. And I guess there ain’t very many soil’s crimson veins and left them torn and who do know. There mighten’t be water bleeding on the yellow flesh brought before for two hundred mile. W e might never find them only another wash no less deep, no an end.” less torturous, or a burning flat, a dust- She stood up. “Well, then why go on? swept mesa, a dry plain to be crossed. Do you think I want to die in a desert?” They camped at last on a high red ridge The Swede shrugged his shoulders. “When running away to the north in a great cir you come to die, it don’t make any differ cular swing. The dying sun nicked its edge ence where you do it.” on the farthest western wall. Suddenly it “Oh. Well, it does to me. I’m not inviting was gone, leaving the smouldering ruins of death. I want to live first. I never got its destruction. much pleasure from life.” The darkness creeping swiftly out of the “You’re getting as much as we are now,” east swallowed the mountains, the hills, the the Swede said calmly. mesas. The tiny fire over which they pre She gave way to her anger. “What is pared some food made a yellow cavern in pleasure to you may be hell to me . . . Look the complete blackness under the cold desert here, are you going to take me into this stars. There was no sound, and the chill desert not knowing whether we will come of night descending upon the earth left noth out alive?” ing for contemplation. “If I am,” he replied slowly, “I’m taking At dawn they rode westward again under myself, too. And Adam.” a burning sun and the unbroken lustre of Hatred showed in her eyes. “I don’t know the sky. With the passing of the early what you’d do now. You’ve changed.” She morning hours the country became less rug turned to Adam. “Can’t we camp here a ged and ran away at a gentle slope into a day or two and then go back?” great valley to the northwest as if some He shook his head. “I don’t think so.” mighty subterranean force had tilted the “Then here’s where we separate,” she earth in that direction. cried. “W e’ll divide the money. I go back.” Ahead of them the folds in the hills were Adam got up and walked toward the plainly marked in thin dark lines appearing horses. The Swede followed him. But when as blue threads drawn through a red and her horse was ready she mounted. orange blanket. They knew that the blue During the long afternoon the three rode lines were trees, and trees meant water, the again at the continuous pace which makes liquid life of which their canteens were so possible the traversing of long distances nearly devoid. The horses, sensing the without exhaustion. Westward steadily each oasis they were approaching, increased their horse and rider moved as a machine, and the pace and traveled swiftly over the rocky red sun dropping beyond the earth struck ground. on their faces and on the faces of the sharp The two men were alert, lithe between mesa walls and round red hills with the cantle and horn, scanning the far hills. They same fiery glow, making them with the saw the appearance of animal life about power of its almighty light a part of the them, on the earth and above it. Once more great barren world, melting and blending other things beside themselves were alive. into one impressive colored sea, heaven and Rodents scurried from their path, sounding human, earth and beast alarms. They saw birds, winged insects, As the shadows lengthened they began to and creeping, crawling things beneath the watch for a place to camp, observing closely queer bushy plants which covered the coun the surrounding country. At intervals they try in a pale green blanket. Riding down stopped and gazed into the distance. The into a deep bowl, they came to a grassy land had changed little in topography dur plain. The Frontier 2 5 3 At noon they drank from a clear creek lake he could gaze down upon a jumbled which followed a crooked course through an world, green and yellow with forest and immense pine park. Against the face of a desert. Behind him the peaks tore apart high white wall the stream divided and the sky. formed an island of several hundred yards I do not know how long they remained in length. The island was clear of under in their retreat. Probably a fortnight They brush, and the great trees had laid a soft must have suffered, for after their small and heavy carpet of pine needles over the supply was exhausted their only food was ground. venison and fish which they shot. Nina I went by automobile, reaching the Island continued to complain, to be troublesome. in the Valley in a few hours. I doubted if Once she struck Omar. He only turned away it had been changed a great deal. The build from her as if somewhat disdainful, ignoring ings were there, the corrals, and the fences her fury. She flew into a rage on other about irrigated pastures. I f he, Adam, was occasions, working herself up to a point of not the first white man to explore it, then collapse. And when she saw them bury his predecessor had left no record. The most of the money, preparatory to leaving, Indians had always hunted through it (they she went into such a tantrum that he threw did when I was there), but there was ho cold water on her. Her chief desire was to pueblo for fifty miles. leave the west, return to the east and spend He had known it a good many years when her share of the money on the worldly things I came to talk with him. I wondered how he she had so long dreamed of having once felt that first day, and I decided that the more. When she realized this was not to beauty, the immensity and the emptiness had be her lot, she threatened to end her life. stirred him. For after all he had some of The Texas Swede considered her calmly, the spirit of the true adventurer in him, saying finally, “That’s your right We won’t the man who does not care whether a dis stop you.” covery benefits him privately, but who thrills She ran out of camp obviously determined at the sight of a barren desert useless to to destroy herself, but in the evening she man or beast upon which his eyes are the returned and hungrily partook of roasted first to rest venison. One day he went alone to sit on the high They rode out of the valley toward the brink of a cliff and listen . . . listen in southwest, by a circular course reaching a dreamy stillness to the promising whisper of Mexican town. He did not tell me the name the desert wind blowing in the tall trees, to of the town, and it was apparent he did not sit in dreamy indolence with his back to a care to. I did not feel that it mattered. rock and gaze out over the patchwork of Any town would have served. But from colors as far as his eyes could distinguish what he said I thought of the name of earth from sky. Agua Blanca, and to make the narrative Another day he followed the creek down as complete as possible I used it. stream for several miles, and camped at When they reached it they left Nina in a night where it melted into the earth on an secluded camp just outside, and then rode alkali flat which shimmered in dazzling in along a dusty, crooked street toward the white like a great sheet spread across the small plaza. They rode slowly, their eyes valley. wandering from door to door as if seeking And on another day, while Omar and Nina in the emptiness of the narrow thorough rested idly in the camp on the Island, he fare a face, a living object on which to rest; rode upstream until he had come to a small but so complete was the siesta (it was high canyon deep in the heart of a great forest. noon) of the little village that they were Here was a small lake, green and crystal- unheralded by even so insignificant a thing clear, the headwaters of the creek. Snow as the cry of a child or the bark of a dog. water from the high peaks beyond trickled No Americans lived in Agua Blanca. Few into the canyon and was caught there to form wanderers ever visited it. It lay off the a natural reservoir. From the outlet of the path of any western trail. The Mexicans 2 5 4 The Frontier who for centuries had made up its populace LITERARY NEWS lived from small patches of vegetables and Continued from front advertising section fruits which they irrigated. They herded their goats, ground their flour, threshed In Tragic Life, are bringing out a first book their grain in the methods of their fore by a Montana author, Miss LaVerne H ar riet Fitzgerald of Great Falls. Her story fathers, cut off from the rest of the world Black Feather, deals with the now extinct as if they were on another earth. pygmy tribe of Sheepwater Indians of Yel It was a safe retreat for them. They must lowstone Park. have been aware of its isolation, aware of An exhibit of books by Everett authors the fact that not even soldiers, and only an was held during the last week in January. The list of writers was headed by Max occasional trader, visited it. Miller, whose I Cover the Water Front made Reaching the burning plaza, they rode him famous, and included Nora Burglon, straightway across its center. They dis R oyce Brier, Elsie K nisel, W illiam Shel ton, Florence B arrett W illoughby, A nna appeared from sight through an arched gate Y ule, Lena Trasley, Mrs. John B. Moyer, to the El Centro, and the plaza was once H enry Coburn Allen, Gertrude D. Optimus, more abandoned to its former serenity and R ichard B. H assell, the late Susan W hit dazzling emptiness, the heart of a dead vil comb Hassell, Chart Pitt, and others. lage on a dead earth. Lucie Delarue Mardrus made a tour of the United States two years ago, and pub They remained in the El Centro through lished her impressions in her book, L e Far out the afternoon. At dusk they rode out West d’Aujour dJhui, which gives most de to get Nina, planning to return and quarter lightful mention of Lillian W hite Spen themselves in a Mexican house with whose cer’s Indian poems and her translations from master they had talked in the trading-store. the French. Madame Mardrus includes a sonnet of Mrs. Spencer’s, the only English They crossed a bottom land on the outskirts, in the book. approaching the trees in which they had Son of the Morning: A Portrait of Fried left her from the opposite direction in which rich Nietzsche by Edward J. O’B rien con they had first gone into them. The western tains nine full photographs and a compre sky was copper, low along the horizon, and hensive bibliography. It is published by Robert O. Ballou, 2 West 13 St., N. Y. C., the stillness of the desert evening was broken and is getting an enthusiastic press. In The only by the twitter of a bird in the cotton B est Short Stories o f 19SS Mr. O’Brien re woods ahead of them. prints Jose Garcia Villa’s The Fence from The Prairie Schooner. When they came into the trees they The Windsor Quarterly, multigraphed, stopped and leaned forward listening. They will publish distinctive fiction and poetry of heard only the faint stirring of leaves and any length. The first issue is announced the sound of white water in an acequia for April, Windsor, Vt. From North Mont which skirted the grove. pelier, Vt., comes First Harvest, a Driftwood anthology compiled by W alter John Coates. “Her horse nickers when another comes W arren E. Crane, on the staff of the near,” said Adam quietly. Seattle Post-Intelligencer and member of the Omar nodded. “Wait here.” Northwest Academy of Arts, has a new book He rode on and was lost to sight in the of folklore, Totem Tales, Indian legends for trees. Adam heard a fallen branch crack children. The Seattle Argus seems to take in bad part J ames Stevens’ story of early as his horse stepped on it. Then Omar Seattle, published in the American Mercury, whistled. He rode after him. December. WTien they came into the small clearing A community contest in the seven arts in which they had left Nina they found only (painting, literature, music, dance, drama, a packsack and two of their canteens. Nina architecture, and sculpture) is being spon sored by the Billings Woman’s Club, in a and her horse were gone. National Federation of Women’s Clubs con Omar dismounted slowly. He stood star test, under the chairmanship of Mrs. Ruth ing at the equipment. Suddenly he laughed, A nn Hines, 1115 North 31st street, Billings, and the sounds resounded through the dark Montana. All work submitted must be done within the year, March 1932-1933. The con ening grove. test will conclude with a grand exhibition, Continued in the next issue March 6, 1933. BOOK SHELF Continued from page 236 T h e higher level than those of 1931, although no one poem is so finely fresh, vigorous, and c HAMBURGER :ic accomplished as two or three poems in the earlier volume. The poems are in no sense 5 5 regional. Joseph Auslander, Lew Sarett, and SHOP Clinton Scollard judged the club’s poems for the making of the volume. We Specialize in A Frontier Lady. Sarah Royce. Yale Univ. Press. 1932. $2.00. This account, edited by Ralph Gabriel of CHILI Yale University, of an overland ox-team trip and to California in 1849 and of sojourn in min ing camps and in San Francisco in the 1850’s Home Made Pies, 10c was written by the mother of Josiah Royce, late professor of philosophy at Harvard, at Hamburgers his request when he was himself asked to and write a book on California. It is therefore not a contemporary account but a carefully Hot Dogs 5c written reminiscence of a cultured, religious AND lady. The drama, the difficulties, the rough ness of life, the hardships are all in the book, but are largely left, through the writer’s re Excellent Coffee straint and persistent religious comforting, to the reader’s imagination. On the whole, Proprietor details are avoided for the quiet, and effec C. B. STRAIT tive, recital of generalities. Here is a gentle woman’s response to the hard circumstances at 125 West Front St. of pioneer life. H. G. Merriam “Around the corner from the Wilma” California Poets. Foreword by Helen Hoyt. Henry Harrison. 1932. $3.00. Two hundred and forty-four writers con tribute to this significant state anthology. It contains much interesting information in its foreword by Helen Hoyt, and poems by writers whose names are guarantee of ex cellence. Now this is a book the compiler has a right to be enthusiastic about, were it only on the score of the labor that goes into such a compilation. M or tins dale, Montana Grace Stone Coates BOOKS RECEIVED From Henry Harrison The Second Florida Poets. Foreword by Vivian Yeiser Laramore. 1932. $2.00. Georgia Poets. Foreword by Mary Brent Whiteside. 1932. $2.00. District of Columbia Poets. Foreword by Edith Mirick. 1932. $2.00. American College Verse. Illustrated by Charles Cullen. 1932. $2.50. DRY CLEANERS From Dorrance and Company Prices Right Worn Shoes. Patti C. Broadhurst. 1932. $1.50. Boy for a Blond. Paul Waterman. $1.75. Call us about your The Pot Bellied Gods. Robert D. Abra hams. $1.50. LAUNDRY SERVICE Rain on the Rocks. Dorothy Elizabeth Stroh. $1.25. PHONE 3118 Within My Heart. Alice Hirsh. $1.50. First Harvest. Sabra-Frances Rollins. 1932. $2.00. MISSOULA LAUNDRY CO. Snow-in-Summer. Edith Parker Hinckley. Privately printed. 1932. SWIM R. C. 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